Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

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aliasmask
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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by aliasmask »

Yep, it's going live today. Here's the announcement.

http://mote-project.weebly.com/blog/set ... pectations

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by KaylaKaze »

Well, Mote was released. I would say it was total garbage, but it still seems to function as Maptool so it's at least as good as MT. It has a couple of shinies that some people may find useful, which anyone familiar with the MT sourcecode could probably have done in a month of weekends. Oh, and also they've announced they're not going to release any more versions but instead are going to be selling Mote-X, which seems to be little more than hosted MapTool.

I'm currently trying to find a broad features list as to what they changed because, apart from adding a sound board, macro editor, and integrated IRC, and removing the server browser, I don't see anything new.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by wolph42 »

actually... I've been testing it and save a couple of bugs still present they did quite some changes under the hood. The json operations are way faster and so is the VBL. I did the one line VBL test (which is killing in MT) and it ran smoothly. Also tested my vbl forest and again (although some drag over large distances) it was waaay faster than maptool.
They also added facing events which i haven't checked out yet but im curious to those as well. And don't underestimate the macro editor. Either you just want to use maptool for running battles on a map (in which case the vbl is great) or you want to make full use and create a framework in which case a macro editor is great.

So overall they did a great job...but they're not finished.

but since you seem to imply that mt is total garbage... I guess your point on this forum is a bit moot.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by aliasmask »

KaylaKaze wrote: Oh, and also they've announced they're not going to release any more versions but instead are going to be selling Mote-X, which seems to be little more than hosted MapTool.
Here's what he's talking about: http://idle-ideas.weebly.com/blog/the-p ... comes-next

This is kind of disappointing to hear so early in their development. I was hoping they continue with the kickstarter model for additional features. Yeah their first KS was kind of soft, but that's probably because we've seen other VTTs and have been burned. Once they have a product people can play with I would think follow-ups would be received with great enthusiasm.

Based on this announcement I don't really see a reason to put any effort in to this stage of MOTE framework development when MapTool works just fine. I'll still give it a looksee and I may change my mind, but I just lost all my enthusiasm. I guess it really depends on the difference between Mote-x and regular Mote. What if the GM has Mote-X and the players have regular Mote. Will they be able to run together? What won't the players see or have access to?

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by booga »

I agree with Wolph42, there are definitely some pretty impressive improvements under the hood with Mote 1.0. I addition to what he mentioned, I can think of:

-- FOW is refreshed when you change a token's facing
-- Tokens to not have to be snapped to grid for FOW to refresh on movement
-- full Unicode support within MTScript functions. Not a big deal for many, but for non-english FW makers it's going to increase comfort of scripting manyfold. No more crazy workarounds to be able to manipulate strings with a "ű" or a "à" ! '
-- the macro editor is quite useful, combining elements from the Notepad++ module for Maptool, and some of the RPEdit library.
-- the token editor is also much improved, especially if you use JSONs. It's now actually possible to manually edit JSONs directly thanks to the parsing interface.
-- The chat fucntion also enables one on one dialogs between GM and players in individual tabs, a great addition for text only games.
-- The dice toolbar works well and can probably handle most needs for people not willing to create full frameworks, or wanting to make one-off rolls
-- Compatibility with legacy frameworks is currently excellent, with a couple caveats, and is bound to improve as more testers report their experience. That in itself is priceless.

So globally, Mote 1.0 is above the expectations I had when I backed the Kickstarter, and it's a very solid base for further improvements.
KaylaKaze wrote: It has a couple of shinies that some people may find useful, which anyone familiar with the MT sourcecode could probably have done in a month of weekends.
Oh dear. Where were you all that time, when Maptool seemed to be stuck in development limbo? Please oh please join the dev. team and whip up a new version in a month! Hallelujah, we are saved!

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by RPTroll »

Well, MapTool does need a few more Devs so feel free to sign up.

I'm glad to hear they finally released Mote. It's been a long time coming with more that a little tragedy concerning Lee.

Their G+ page says they're open source. I haven't investigated as to whether that's actually the case. If it is it would be nice to pull some of the new Mote functionality into the MapTool base.

Congrats to the Mote team. I wish them well.
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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by idle_ideas »

Sorry to come in a bit late. We always intended to drop by to let everyone here know we've gone public, though we didn't want to disrespect RPTools by using their forums to "market" our work.

But thank you for providing information ahead of us, and this is meant for everyone, not just booga and wolph.

I feel we have to head off wild speculation by clarifying some points. I think it's a bit unfair to judge anything without waiting for more developments to happen, but it might be because of the verbiage we used on that post aliasMask linked to; though we've gone over it many times so as to be clear as possible.

We are not surprised by some of the negative comments made here. What does surprise is that it is a bit knee-jerky seeing we haven't posted any figures, dates, or details about the next KS campaign. For all we know, this might takes many months to get there since we are not working on this full time, for reasons obvious to those who have been following us.
aliasmask wrote: This is kind of disappointing to hear so early in their development. I was hoping they continue with the kickstarter model for additional features.

...Once they have a product people can play with I would think follow-ups would be received with great enthusiasm.
But this is essentially the meat and bones of what we said in the post you linked to. We're doing a 2nd KS for the web services, and launching Mote-X at the same time the services go live. The KS will only be constrained to this goal, to gauge interest, and get the word out there. Experience taught us that the KS model is terrible for projects like this, and we thought we explained it adequately in the post. Apparently not. A degree of maturity in both projects needs to be achieved before we're thick-skinned enough to seek support, and it would be nice if we could be given the benefit of the doubt, since we only expressed our intent, and know we have to deliver proof first. Again, all of which could take months to get there.

So, I don't really see how this is disappointing when you factor in that we also said there that Mote-X will eventually be completely different from its roots in Mote, and that it will only be "sold" (IDK, how this became such a dirty word), when we, with input from those who get early access, deem it fit to be put out there, by virtue of the ever-growing feature set. Obviously, everyone here wants to see the final product, but there is disagreement on how to sustain everything to get it done. Last time we checked, PaaS, SaaS, SSL certs / services, other security measures, etc etc., not to mention, developer hours for non-"weekend" work, don't come free, and, to be blunt, we never claimed we were made of money. This is where platforms like KS is advantageous, and we're sure we're preaching to the choir when we say that.
aliasmask wrote: Based on this announcement I don't really see a reason to put any effort in to this stage of MOTE framework development when MapTool works just fine. I'll still give it a looksee and I may change my mind, but I just lost all my enthusiasm. I guess it really depends on the difference between Mote-x and regular Mote. What if the GM has Mote-X and the players have regular Mote. Will they be able to run together? What won't the players see or have access to?
Sorry we deflated your enthusiasm. We see everything we're putting on the table as giving a nod to the different niches within the VTT niche. Mote would be as MapTool is for people who support what it stands for, Mote-X and the services cater to people who ran away from MapTool into the arms of Fantasy Grounds and Roll20. Last time we checked, the figures were boasted at 600k+ strong. Of course only a portion of this are consistent users, but the vast majority of these users are exclusive of the MapTool user base, so, again, where's the conflict of interest there? If anything, we are providing choice, and an easy means to transition between these choices. So, to answer your question, these niches will be exclusive to each other.
KaylaKaze wrote:Well, Mote was released. I would say it was total garbage, but it still seems to function as Maptool so it's at least as good as MT. It has a couple of shinies that some people may find useful, which anyone familiar with the MT sourcecode could probably have done in a month of weekends. Oh, and also they've announced they're not going to release any more versions but instead are going to be selling Mote-X, which seems to be little more than hosted MapTool.
Of all the things you said here, what I found in need of addressing is the statement about us not releasing anymore versions of Mote. That is pure misinformation, Kayla.

1.0.1 is halfway done, and will be out in time for our weekly release. We detailed on our posts that Mote will be maintained to get it to full stability, and that features will still be added, when it makes sense to do so.

While you may disdain our plans to eliminate the primary reason why thousands never picked up MapTool by saying it's only "hosted MapTool", others will see it as Roll20 with the power of MapTool that will eventually be powered by Mote-X. It would be interesting to hear how you plan to just use MapTool's current client-server scheme and scale it to challenge Roll20 and service (potentially) thousands, espeically without spending a dime. Constant debate about the latter part through the months has yielded no viable alternatives, other than the path we're about to take.

Again, it makes us doubt that you actually read our post, as we've stated in our reply to your comments on the linked post. Sorry to point this out, but apart from that one admission in G+, you've shown nothing but animosity for what we're doing.
KaylaKaze wrote:I'm currently trying to find a broad features list as to what they changed because, apart from adding a sound board, macro editor, and integrated IRC, and removing the server browser, I don't see anything new.
Sorry for that. We only have our change logs, and issue trackers to go by in letting people know what we're doing. If you followed all the posts and discussions during the closed beta, you'd be more aware of the circumstances which you are criticizing. A part of the reason for the "sparsity" you find in Mote is that we've written and reserved aspects of the project, for Mote-X, both because we never got support for these to be put in Mote, and because releasing these be the best way to gain support and sustain interest in the project. These have no direct tie-in to MapTool, will exist as unique features of Mote-X, and were completely written by our team, so I really don't see how or why this offends you so much.

Granted we are not the most skilled at what we do, or boast a large team to get things done to your obviously high standards, but this is what we've done with what we had, and will persist in seeing the project done, by whatever means that will help us get there.

You may be right that it only takes a month of weekends for people of your skill level to do what we've done. The only way to find out is to get the b87 source, and find out yourself. But better yet, why not join the RPTools team to get 1.4/2.0 out, if only to satisfy your urge in shooting us down? RPTools success is something we welcome, because, believe it or not, we are thankful for what they've done and admire the skill by which they wrote MapTool. We are definitely committed to giving back once we can.

We already said elsewhere that we have reason to believe RPTools is working hard to get their new project out there, and a new site is already up and running from what we've seen. Going over the latest posts, you will be joining Azhrei, Craig, username, and about 3 to 4 newcomers. That's already twice as large a team than we consistently have on our end. Your combined efforts are sure to grind ours into the dust, if that is what you desire. But we'll still be pushing through with our plans because, for us, this is something worth doing. Middling in skill we may be, we are fully capable in delivering on all the developmental goals, and that is to deliver on Mote, defeat the connectivity issues the plagued MapTool, and make Mote-X a reality.

Like we said in our reply to you, don't hate us forever for something we haven't even done yet, or something that you haven't even seen in action. Most importantly, we aren't forcing anything on anyone. On contrary, we are giving people choices, and abundant ones at that, not snake oil. Check on us from time to time to see if we ever let our supporters down. If we do, then we'll take your advice and go **** ourselves.
RPTroll wrote: Their G+ page says they're open source. I haven't investigated as to whether that's actually the case. If it is it would be nice to pull some of the new Mote functionality into the MapTool base.
I guess this is a good place as any to say this, Mote will be open sourced, but at a time when it is right to do so. Anyone who has bothered to crack open the jars could see how dynamic the movement, deletion, and addition of stuff has been. There's a ton more cleanup to be done, so we'll open it under these primary conditions:
  • - When we've sufficiently cleaned the source, and no changes need be made to the structure any longer.
    - When we've written out any coded values pointing to our services which can be used for malicious attacks, which is always a possibility.
    - When we've polished out all the hacks, embarrassing code segments, and lame comments.
    - When we've come around to do the right thing and document our changes.
    - When our future projects gain traction, and recognition that it is indeed different from its MapTool roots. This will help with the "fragmentation" issues some people here are concerned about as we'll have something out there where people won't be distracted by forks of an unfinished base.
    - When we can finally hire more people, or at least feed more interns to do the bulk of what we stated above XD
RPTroll wrote: Congrats to the Mote team. I wish them well.
Thank you RPTroll, you and the RPTools team have always been gracious to us. We hope we haven't made anyone feel (too) bad about everything we've done so far, and plan to do.

Sorry for such a post being our first here, and for disturbing the peace of these forums.

To everyone else: Yes, the results of work on Phase 1 is now open to the public. We do advise, however, to wait for 1.0.1 for a better experience. Thank you.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by aliasmask »

idle_ideas wrote:
aliasmask wrote: This is kind of disappointing to hear so early in their development. I was hoping they continue with the kickstarter model for additional features.

...Once they have a product people can play with I would think follow-ups would be received with great enthusiasm.
But this is essentially the meat and bones of what we said in the post you linked to. We're doing a 2nd KS for the web services, and launching Mote-X at the same time the services go live. The KS will only be constrained to this goal, to gauge interest, and get the word out there. Experience taught us that the KS model is terrible for projects like this, and we thought we explained it adequately in the post. Apparently not. A degree of maturity in both projects needs to be achieved before we're thick-skinned enough to seek support, and it would be nice if we could be given the benefit of the doubt, since we only expressed our intent, and know we have to deliver proof first. Again, all of which could take months to get there.

So, I don't really see how this is disappointing when you factor in that we also said there that Mote-X will eventually be completely different from its roots in Mote, and that it will only be "sold" (IDK, how this became such a dirty word), when we, with input from those who get early access, deem it fit to be put out there, by virtue of the ever-growing feature set. Obviously, everyone here wants to see the final product, but there is disagreement on how to sustain everything to get it done. Last time we checked, PaaS, SaaS, SSL certs / services, other security measures, etc etc., not to mention, developer hours for non-"weekend" work, don't come free, and, to be blunt, we never claimed we were made of money. This is where platforms like KS is advantageous, and we're sure we're preaching to the choir when we say that.
I was under the impression future kickstarters will be for Mote-X, your pay model and Mote will be left as is. I am giving you guys a fair shot though and going through Mote to see what's different and what I like or may not like. I would take what KaylaKaze says with a grain of salt and say his opinion is not representative of the community as a whole.

I plan to thoroughly go through the Mote features and differences and share my thoughts with the community. Wolph's assessment of more speed could be enough for me to change over given that everything else works fine. Yes, my disappoint was a knee-jerk reaction to a subscription model. Mostly because if no other code is written for MapTool again it still serves all my gaming needs with room to grow. I rather pay in to a project with my coding contributions rather than with a monthly fee.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by smaudet2 »

Ok, just putting this out there, logically, one of several things WILL happen:

A) The world ends. None of this matters :P (gotta keep things light)
B) MOTE gives a shot in the arm to RPTools. Health competition emerges between the community product and the non community product. (Personally, I'd never pay for something like MOTE when I know there's a healthy free community version laying around. Especially not when I have the chance to help and do real good with one, and the other is basically a entire Job Interview away - so count me out of MOTE in this scenario).
C) roll20.net eats both programs for lunch. We have, what, maybe 1k active users? Maybe a lot more if you account for old users, but I'd say 1k is pushing it. Roll20 has 800k. Mote has 200, by their own estimate.
D) MOTE does amazingly well and becomes an active community project...rptools is a thing of the past.
E) MOTE tries and fails, as everyone continues just using the 'good enough' product, rptools.
F) MOTE becomes a money hog. RPTools dies because nobody can support it, sad day. I actively boycott MOTE in this scenario.

I pretty much don't see any other possible scenarios.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by KaylaKaze »

wolph42 wrote: but since you seem to imply that mt is total garbage... I guess your point on this forum is a bit moot.
Where did I even remotely imply MT was total garbage? I said that the fact the Mote was little more than minor enhancements to MT was what prevented it from being total garbage. Had someone added these enhancements to MT, it would have been great, but this has been a year of hype, thousands of dollars in kickstarter and other donations, and yes, they announced on their page that with the exception of bug fixes, they are done so that they can sell MapTool with some enhancements.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by KaylaKaze »

booga wrote:
KaylaKaze wrote: It has a couple of shinies that some people may find useful, which anyone familiar with the MT sourcecode could probably have done in a month of weekends.
Oh dear. Where were you all that time, when Maptool seemed to be stuck in development limbo? Please oh please join the dev. team and whip up a new version in a month! Hallelujah, we are saved!
I'm not very familiar with the layout of the MapTool source code (I worked on it several years ago and it's quite a web), nor am I a Java dev, however I am familiar enough with it to know that these minor changes you all are talking about are nowhere near a year of work and thousands in donations worth, if you're already familiar with the source. It's also nowhere near what was shown off in the kickstarter videos as already being done (database support) or on its way (JavaScript macro engine).

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by KaylaKaze »

idle_ideas wrote:
KaylaKaze wrote:Well, Mote was released. I would say it was total garbage, but it still seems to function as Maptool so it's at least as good as MT. It has a couple of shinies that some people may find useful, which anyone familiar with the MT sourcecode could probably have done in a month of weekends. Oh, and also they've announced they're not going to release any more versions but instead are going to be selling Mote-X, which seems to be little more than hosted MapTool.
Of all the things you said here, what I found in need of addressing is the statement about us not releasing anymore versions of Mote. That is pure misinformation, Kayla.

1.0.1 is halfway done, and will be out in time for our weekly release. We detailed on our posts that Mote will be maintained to get it to full stability, and that features will still be added, when it makes sense to do so.

While you may disdain our plans to eliminate the primary reason why thousands never picked up MapTool by saying it's only "hosted MapTool", others will see it as Roll20 with the power of MapTool that will eventually be powered by Mote-X. It would be interesting to hear how you plan to just use MapTool's current client-server scheme and scale it to challenge Roll20 and service (potentially) thousands, espeically without spending a dime. Constant debate about the latter part through the months has yielded no viable alternatives, other than the path we're about to take.

Again, it makes us doubt that you actually read our post, as we've stated in our reply to your comments on the linked post. Sorry to point this out, but apart from that one admission in G+, you've shown nothing but animosity for what we're doing.
KaylaKaze wrote:I'm currently trying to find a broad features list as to what they changed because, apart from adding a sound board, macro editor, and integrated IRC, and removing the server browser, I don't see anything new.
Sorry for that. We only have our change logs, and issue trackers to go by in letting people know what we're doing. If you followed all the posts and discussions during the closed beta, you'd be more aware of the circumstances which you are criticizing. A part of the reason for the "sparsity" you find in Mote is that we've written and reserved aspects of the project, for Mote-X, both because we never got support for these to be put in Mote, and because releasing these be the best way to gain support and sustain interest in the project. These have no direct tie-in to MapTool, will exist as unique features of Mote-X, and were completely written by our team, so I really don't see how or why this offends you so much.

Granted we are not the most skilled at what we do, or boast a large team to get things done to your obviously high standards, but this is what we've done with what we had, and will persist in seeing the project done, by whatever means that will help us get there.

You may be right that it only takes a month of weekends for people of your skill level to do what we've done. The only way to find out is to get the b87 source, and find out yourself. But better yet, why not join the RPTools team to get 1.4/2.0 out, if only to satisfy your urge in shooting us down? RPTools success is something we welcome, because, believe it or not, we are thankful for what they've done and admire the skill by which they wrote MapTool. We are definitely committed to giving back once we can.

We already said elsewhere that we have reason to believe RPTools is working hard to get their new project out there, and a new site is already up and running from what we've seen. Going over the latest posts, you will be joining Azhrei, Craig, username, and about 3 to 4 newcomers. That's already twice as large a team than we consistently have on our end. Your combined efforts are sure to grind ours into the dust, if that is what you desire. But we'll still be pushing through with our plans because, for us, this is something worth doing. Middling in skill we may be, we are fully capable in delivering on all the developmental goals, and that is to deliver on Mote, defeat the connectivity issues the plagued MapTool, and make Mote-X a reality.

Like we said in our reply to you, don't hate us forever for something we haven't even done yet, or something that you haven't even seen in action. Most importantly, we aren't forcing anything on anyone. On contrary, we are giving people choices, and abundant ones at that, not snake oil. Check on us from time to time to see if we ever let our supporters down. If we do, then we'll take your advice and go **** ourselves.
RPTroll wrote: Their G+ page says they're open source. I haven't investigated as to whether that's actually the case. If it is it would be nice to pull some of the new Mote functionality into the MapTool base.
I guess this is a good place as any to say this, Mote will be open sourced, but at a time when it is right to do so. Anyone who has bothered to crack open the jars could see how dynamic the movement, deletion, and addition of stuff has been. There's a ton more cleanup to be done, so we'll open it under these primary conditions:
  • - When we've sufficiently cleaned the source, and no changes need be made to the structure any longer.
    - When we've written out any coded values pointing to our services which can be used for malicious attacks, which is always a possibility.
    - When we've polished out all the hacks, embarrassing code segments, and lame comments.
    - When we've come around to do the right thing and document our changes.
    - When our future projects gain traction, and recognition that it is indeed different from its MapTool roots. This will help with the "fragmentation" issues some people here are concerned about as we'll have something out there where people won't be distracted by forks of an unfinished base.
    - When we can finally hire more people, or at least feed more interns to do the bulk of what we stated above XD
RPTroll wrote: Congrats to the Mote team. I wish them well.
Thank you RPTroll, you and the RPTools team have always been gracious to us. We hope we haven't made anyone feel (too) bad about everything we've done so far, and plan to do.

Sorry for such a post being our first here, and for disturbing the peace of these forums.

To everyone else: Yes, the results of work on Phase 1 is now open to the public. We do advise, however, to wait for 1.0.1 for a better experience. Thank you.

You said right on that page announcing Mote-X, right at the very top "The free version of Mote will now enter maintenance mode, shepherding it, with the community of users' help, in getting it to an ever more stable state. This is not to say nothing new will be added to the free version, because we will do so when needed, but the primary objective is to offer a stable application to grow our community with." Anyone familiar with software knows what "maintenance mode" means. It's what MapTool has been in for the last several years.

As far as trying to challenge Roll20 with Mote-X, the problem is more than just ease of use. You need a non-download, full web-based solution if you want a piece of that action. You seem to agree that it really is just hosted MapTool but want to wrap it in marketing speak to make it sound like more and then want to chastise me for saying what it really is. And I have no problem with you charging for a product. What I have a problem with is breaking dozens of KS promises and then trying to sell other people's work (ie MapTool) as your own by adding a few bells and whistles.

And then, you've just admitted that there are parts of the features that were promised as part of the KS that you're intentionally holding back so that you can sell. And you're wondering why I have a problem with this?

The reason I don't join the MT dev team is because MT is dead technology. It is not the future of VTT. Trying to keep it on life support is not the way to go. It needs a complete rebuild, from the ground up, as a no-download-needed solution for players (web interface). It needs SQL (or noSQL) database integration. It needs sound and sprite animation capabilities. It needs an industry standard macro language (JavaScript preferably). It needs to be able to be fully customizable by the GM without the players having to even be aware that changes were made (as in not having to download a modified version of the system, like you currently would if you modified MT for your game). This is what I had started building before Mote was announced; not for profit, but so that there would be a good VTT out there that had these features. When Lee announced Mote and showed (some of) these features, I said "Great! Someone competent is working on it already and I can go do something else."

However, if there really is a new push for 1.4/2.0 (since I've been around long enough to have been hearing "it's coming soon" since 2007, I'm a little dubious), maybe I should check it out.

You've already let your supporters down. You did that back in September when there was radio silence for over a month... a month when you were supposed to have been putting out your product. While we understand the circumstances surrounding that situation, it was still a let down. If you look back at the conversations from then, you'd see I was the one standing up for you guys, though. And then the constant release promises and delays started coming, and I started getting cynical that you'd ever actually release anything. And then, when you finally do release, it's so overwhelmingly disappointing that the only thing I could even think of as being remotely close (from a hype vs payoff standpoint) was the original ending of Mass Effect 3 or anything Peter Molyneux has been involved with in the past several years.

And for those that don't read dev speak, that up there means "Yeah, we're not releasing the source code."

And I may have been overly harsh as to the quality of what HAS been done. They sound like decent additions (and the macro editor does seem especially solid) but when compared to the foundation of promises/lies that Mote was originally supposedly launched from, they're extremely underwhelming.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by wolph42 »

thank you for the more elaborate post. It at least shows that your intent was more than just trolling mote, which was what ignited my initial reaction. To answer your question though. To quote you:
Well, Mote was released. I would say it was total garbage, but it still seems to function as Maptool so it's at least as good as MT.
Its a matter of reasoning. If you take Maptool out of the mix then you think MOTE it total garbage.
Putting it back in you make the comparison that MOTE is at least as good as MT, which makes makes MT total garbage.

Its an arguable point that can be as easily dismantled as that it was though up, so don't bother. I mainly made the remark cause your initial post came across as (a soft form of) trolling. Your latter made it clear that you have arguments (whether agreeable or not is another matter) supporting your initial stand. Which in turn makes my supposition and that remark void.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by Jade »

KaylaKaze wrote:The reason I don't join the MT dev team is because MT is dead technology. It is not the future of VTT. Trying to keep it on life support is not the way to go. It needs a complete rebuild, from the ground up, as a no-download-needed solution for players (web interface). It needs SQL (or noSQL) database integration. It needs sound and sprite animation capabilities. It needs an industry standard macro language (JavaScript preferably). It needs to be able to be fully customizable by the GM without the players having to even be aware that changes were made (as in not having to download a modified version of the system, like you currently would if you modified MT for your game). This is what I had started building before Mote was announced; not for profit, but so that there would be a good VTT out there that had these features. When Lee announced Mote and showed (some of) these features, I said "Great! Someone competent is working on it already and I can go do something else."
I don't need any of those things in a VTT, and prefer a downloadable solution to a hosted web interface.

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Re: Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

Post by RPTroll »

<pontificate>
Well, if we do things right you can have both. The hope is to set things up so web, mobile, whatever-comes-next can access the functionality without a major redesign for each iteration. Getting it there will be a redesign, however. We hope to attract new developers by putting an architecture together which allows folks to enhance their skill set vs. working in shelved-ware (i.e. swing).

That doesn't mean giving up on a thick client. It does mean exposing functionality that easily integrates with other stuff and allowing each platform to work as well as it can with the backend functionality. It's a cool problem and one I hope others will want to help solve. From my point of view the goal is not just to provide some cool gaming software but to improve and expand on people's skills.

It was always the community that made MapTool and the other tools great. It was their feedback to Trevor, Jay, Lee, Ryss, Az, Craig, and a bunch of others that shaped the functionality and content. I hope we regain that but only time will tell. Whatever happens it will be the community that to supports and determines what happens next not crowdfunding.

While I don't know what will happen next I do know that RPTools will always be free and open. If folks like Mote want to monetize that, more power to them. It might be the superior model. The RPTools founders believed otherwise. I'm going to try and honor that.
</pontificate>
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