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PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 11:26 am
by Pyrrhic
Hey I noticed PC gamer mentioned Maptools in an article on Virtual Tabletops. Thought it was neat. I'm still using Maptools for all my tabletop needs. For those who are contributing in its development keep up the good work!

Link to article:
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-play-dd-o ... tabletops/

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:57 am
by Jagged
Cool, and thanks for linking. A fair summary I think ;)

A moderator should move this to the "Sightings" forum.

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:02 am
by Full Bleed
Jagged wrote:A fair summary I think ;)
I dunno... it says that MT has a "frightful number of disconnects". I find that to be highly inaccurate. In all the years I've been using MT that has *never* been a problem. And in the very rare occurrences of disconnects, it has always been related to a hiccup in a particular player's internet service. So while I can't speak for all of the other VTTs, I bet if you have a crap connection or some ISP problem going on, you're likely to have some connection issues to deal with.

I also wish they'd of mentioned MT's superior VISION system. I find it to be a much more desirable/superior (comparative) feature than "dynamic lighting".


Kind of cool that my "Millennium Falcon" label has caught on though. ;)

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 10:41 am
by Jagged
Full Bleed wrote: I dunno... it says that MT has a "frightful number of disconnects". I find that to be highly inaccurate. In all the years I've been using MT that has *never* been a problem.
That's true. I have one player in my sessions that is always disconnecting BUT his Skype connection is the first to go and his Maptool connection is the last ;)

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:41 pm
by taustinoc
Full Bleed wrote:
Jagged wrote:A fair summary I think ;)
I dunno... it says that MT has a "frightful number of disconnects". I find that to be highly inaccurate. In all the years I've been using MT that has *never* been a problem.
That's been my experience, too. I've tried several different virtual tabletop setups, and MT is the only that that I've found to work reliably. (Mote has some interesting ideas, but it's not ready for prime time yet, at least for me.)

I think that disconnects in Roll20 are less noticeable, and more recoverable, but I laughed out loud when he said that their interface was intuitive.

The one criticism I'd offer on MT is that it does require some technical knowledge, both in network setup and understanding how to not step on any of Java's landmines. But the forums here are the most helpful (and patient) support community I've ever seen on an open source project.

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:33 pm
by Full Bleed
taustinoc wrote:The one criticism I'd offer on MT is that it does require some technical knowledge, both in network setup and understanding how to not step on any of Java's landmines. But the forums here are the most helpful (and patient) support community I've ever seen on an open source project.
No argument there. MT can present some challenges to new users out of the gate.

But, fortunately, there is quite a bit of familiarity with the most common issues and regulars can usually help get new users up and running pretty quickly.

If MT was more aggressive about looking at system data and setting better defaults they could remove the vast majority of client-side issues. Though, server-side would still require a little legwork with incompatible UPnP systems.*



* Though, in all honesty, while it's more challenging to setup, I prefer MT's Client-Server model over cloud server options.

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:34 pm
by taustinoc
Full Bleed wrote:
taustinoc wrote:The one criticism I'd offer on MT is that it does require some technical knowledge, both in network setup and understanding how to not step on any of Java's landmines. But the forums here are the most helpful (and patient) support community I've ever seen on an open source project.
No argument there. MT can present some challenges to new users out of the gate.
Unless, like me, you do that sort of thing for a living. :wink:
Full Bleed wrote:But, fortunately, there is quite a bit of familiarity with the most common issues and regulars can usually help get new users up and running pretty quickly.
And y'all have the patience of saints. I couldn't do it.
Full Bleed wrote: If MT was more aggressive about looking at system data and setting better defaults they could remove the vast majority of client-side issues. Though, server-side would still require a little legwork with incompatible UPnP systems.*
I suspect that the more aggressively it looks at system data, the less cross-compatible it would be, on a practical level. I seem to recall there's very little Mac expertise in the development team, and Linux can be . . . complicated. Apparently, as it is now, though, things run pretty much the same on any OS that's supported, which is a very big plus.
Full Bleed wrote: * Though, in all honesty, while it's more challenging to setup, I prefer MT's Client-Server model over cloud server options.
There is no possible cloud server model that isn't eventually going to require the end users pay for the service. That's not a bad thing, or a good thing, it's simply inherent to the beast. Roll20 is an excellent product for what it does, and their cloud server setup is one of the reasons why. Mote is trying to take the best aspects of that and blend them in with the best of MT, but in the end, it can't be fully functional for free. For some, that's perfectly OK, but that's not a universal solution.

Re: PC Gamer's Article

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 3:18 pm
by RPTroll
I joined this project for the community and I'll stay with this project for the same reason. I greatly appreciate all the folks that spend their time helping others.