Feedback from Another Forum

[Jagged]

Didn't know where to put this, but thought it worth posting. This is a response I received when asking why people don't use MapTool:

I know you didn't ask me specifically, but one of the issue I ran into was having to downgrade java to get it to work at all. The other issue I had was for whatever reason even though it prompted for how much memory to use it still only used the minimum setting and would constantly throw errors. Once I have to ask a player to edit a batchfile I simply have to give up, because many players I have had refuse to try to understand how to open and edit a batch file.

Edit: most of my players would rather use the horribly buggy rpgtableonline because they can go to a link, enter a game and import/reimport their sheet with little effort. Pretty much no feature/buggy can replace that

[wolph42]

thanks for the feedback.

The first part is outdated though, no downgrade is required. The batch file edit on the other hand... yup that is an issue. Petty thing is that its loooong resolved with the great launcher that was build...but not officially released.

I would like to ask them an additional question though: IF those issues are resolved (so no downgrade, no launching and! no network port forwarding hassle) would they start using it?
Point is, if 'yes' then you could point them to the beta release of b90.

[Jagged]

Is there a simple location to get build 90 or is it only available through subversion? If there is a simple url, is it Azhrei's Drop Box? And is it okay to point people at that?

I'm am happy to point people at build 90, but clearly people that won't edit a batch file, won't jump through hoops to install a Beta.

[wolph42]

I have created a seperate zip of beta 90 with the launcher inside and added it to BoT 2 topic: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=24473
here's the direct link:
http://bit.ly/1ahWBnD

[Jagged]

More feedback. An impression I seem to be getting is that people like Maptool but eventually get frustrated:

Roll20 is the one we use now, from Hero System, Pathfinder, DCC, Savage Worlds, to our current D&D 3.5 it works fine as a battlefield, dungeon crawl and dice roller. Several years ago we used RPTools exclusively, but as the group (7 of us) migrated to Window 7 from XP, it became very unstable and we rarely could get it to connect everyone's laptop on a reliable basis and the constant Java updates frustrated several players constantly. We tried Fantasy Grounds, one of the other DMs and a couple of players bought it, but they didn't like it compared to RPTools or Roll20.

[Jagged]

Some more:

I used maptools for a bit but honestly found the learning curve to do anything cool with it a little steep.

Roll20 just sort of works fine right out of the box I guess, and as you learn more about macros and things it just gets better.

I do love tokentool, so if you have anything to do with that thank you very much. I recommend it to anyone who uses any kind of VTT.

[wolph42]

the last one is a bit...lame... roll20 has roughly the same learn curve as MT for what it can do!. It is as the user says the 'cool' stuff which MT provides and roll20 does not, that has the learning curve.

I think the most general critics at MT is about the connection and setup issues. There is no competition with roll20 in that regard. So people who are sensitive to that... there's little you can do to ease them in.

For one, I spend a LOT of time to make it easy for people to use the bag of tricks, with two manuals, tooltips and tutorials and still I scare half of the potential user off due to its sheet dauntiness...
Maptool is lacking quite a bit in documentation, it does however has some pretty good tutorials. But the fact remains setting up a game with 8 players in roll20 vs MT will remain a challenge.

Additonally there's the issue of Java constantly changing, thats another factor that as someone noted is annoying AND it can also break MT in its entirety as we had for a long time with J7.

Anyway, there already have been quite some discussions about this topic, but its always good to get external review input!

[Jagged]

the last one is a bit...lame... roll20 has roughly the same learn curve as MT for what it can do!. It is as the user says the 'cool' stuff which MT provides and roll20 does not, that has the learning curve.

Agreed, I made a polite reply along the same lines

[Full Bleed]

the last one is a bit...lame... roll20 has roughly the same learn curve as MT for what it can do!. It is as the user says the 'cool' stuff which MT provides and roll20 does not, that has the learning curve.

I agree... but with one caveat: Roll20 is prettier when doing the very basic things that both do out of the box withe ease.

So, if cosmetics and simple connections are a tie-breaker, Roll20 wins.

Honestly, if all anyone wants is the basics that Roll20 does, then I say more power to them. Use Roll20.

Thing is, most just don't know what they are missing. MT can do sooooooooooooooooooo much more if you're willing to spend a little time on the forums, learn how to use existing frameworks and user tools, or step up and start dabbling with macros.

Frankly, the amount of stuff that MT allows you to do is staggering. So much so that, like a hard drug, I've become dependent on it. It lets me focus more on the things I like about running games as opposed to the things I don't.

For example...

Things I like: Spending time between player attacks adding flavor to the game and talking about the organics of the attack based on a more quickly determined result.

Thing I don't like: Having to ask questions like, "So, you attacked with both your primary and off hand last round? So that triggers your Defensive Flurry and your armor class is one higher now, right? Oh, wait, since you're 7th level now it adds two to your level? Right, got it." Even if I put it on the player to remind me every round when something like that triggers that doesn't make the game better. It mires us in the mechanics instead of the game itself.

I like dumping the boring, crunchy minutia on MT while keeping everything else as organic and "table-top" like as possible.

[CoveredInFish]

That is one cool description why to use the "advanced features" of MT. Agreed 100%.

Also we have to admit that there are more accessible (and that is all of eye-candy, ease of use and ease of setup (incl. network)) tools. I hope future versions of MT will improve here.

[aliasmask]

Right now, MT is lacking and has been lacking in basic out of the box functionality. Most programs you install and go, but the last couple of releases have required additional troubleshooting steps to get it to work properly. b87 lost UPnP support and later developed java issues. b88 was a complete mess and b89 works much better but the java changes messed up the launch capabilities. If you can't start it after download, then people are not going to use it. As is, I wouldn't recommend MT to a stranger without having to give them additional instructions on how to implement and use. I just hope b90 is released soon with the critical fixes, namely the launcher. There are some other basic issues that need to be fixed in regards to some functions that once worked but no longer work, like json interpolation. I don't know if the change was due to java changes or code changes.

[Bone White]

Right now, MT is lacking and has been lacking in basic out of the box functionality. Most programs you install and go, but the last couple of releases have required additional troubleshooting steps to get it to work properly. b87 lost UPnP support and later developed java issues. b88 was a complete mess and b89 works much better but the java changes messed up the launch capabilities. If you can't start it after download, then people are not going to use it. As is, I wouldn't recommend MT to a stranger without having to give them additional instructions on how to implement and use. I just hope b90 with the critical fixes, namely the launcher comes out soon. There are some other basic issues that need to be fixed in regards to some functions that once worked but no longer work, like json interpolation. I don't know if the change was due to java changes or code changes.

We'll sort that out for the next iteration. Lee has some ideas for helping new users get into the program and to shallow out the learning curve. Providing a simply coded and "supported" framework with the application would allow people to see things in action and what it's capable of.

[wolph42]

well, currently im inclined to point new users directly to the b90 beta. I have it linked with my new bag of tricks and added the new launcher. Ive been using b90-beta for months now and it runs smoothly (AND THE UPNP WORKS!). So once again its easy to start, easy to setup a server as it should be. I know it contains some bugs, but these are nothing compared to the vast overall improvement.

[Lee]

@Jagged what forum is this?

@AM Until which version was this working? Can you provide a use case,data, and expected results for testing? If you recall, I've done some rewriting of the MT's JSON "engine", perhaps what you've mentioned will work now.

@BW Yes, I do. Also, achieving a repository for existing frameworks that users can browse and load from the tool will go a long way to ease people in. A help messaging system that framework builders can leverage to easily indicate/point-out functionality, or do tutorials with, can help level the steep adoption incline.

[aliasmask]

@AM Until which version was this working? Can you provide a use case,data, and expected results for testing? If you recall, I've done some rewriting of the MT's JSON "engine", perhaps what you've mentioned will work now.

I talk about it here: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php ... 35#p243110

Worked fine with b87. I don't recall, but I think Az took a look at this as well, so I don't know if the problem has been resolved. The main difficulty was recognizing non jsons as jsons, then figuring them out as non jsons and truncating data. Basically in string with [...] which includes strings like:

Code: Select all

[R: a = '["line1"]<br>
["line2"]']
<br>
[R: a]

The string is cut off.

@Wolph42 - Does RPEdit work with the linked examples in b90 test build?