Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Developer discussion regarding MapTool 1.4

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Darquirrin
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Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by Darquirrin »

I've been trying to decide if I should use Mote or Maptool 1.4

Does anyone known if Mote is ACTUALLY faster at processing Vision Layers than Maptool? I can't find Mote's source anywhere (I thought it was based off Maptool which has requirements for that sorta thing) so it's not like I can profile them in a dev environment. Is there ANY advantage to using Mote over Maptool 1.4? Do either of them support 4k resolutions?

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aliasmask
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by aliasmask »

MOTE has some improved performance over MT, but MOTE still has a couple of bugs here and there. They have not released their source code and I think Az is pressing them on this issue. Functionality between the two has diverged but are more or less the same. I keep track of the bug tracker for MOTE but I have yet to actually use MOTE in any of my games. I don't have any issues with MT and if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I think MOTE is addressing the 4k resolution thing, but I don't know when a fix is imminent. There is a workaround for MT (perhaps MOTE as well since it's java related) someone posted on this thread: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php ... 22#p264322

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Jagged
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by Jagged »

The source code thing is a real aggravation, since if they had not promised to release their code I would never have backed their project.

At this stage I feel cheated.

Maptool, still open source, still getting ripped off by VT Start-ups :(

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Full Bleed
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by Full Bleed »

Mote arose from a period in time when MT development was stagnant.

It was clear that the original intention was to fork it into something that would spark development incentives and drive MT into a new era. Many of us were happy to see that happen even if it was going to mean backing a kickstarter once or twice a year.

Then, just as it was getting started, Lee vanished (for reasons never quite explained). The guys that have carried on with it are simply unknown in the MT community and soon determined that they would need a much more commercial angle to make working on it worthwhile (hence their future VTT program and VTT services tie-in).

Having not risen from this community, they simply do not share the same philosophy that all previous (and current) MT developers have.

And it's a shame. There certainly looks to be a number of cool improvements in mote... but the lack of full compatibility, transparency, community participation, and cross-communication have damaged and stunted its adoption. And now that MT has received some nice development of its own in the time since the fork, the programs (and users) continue to diverge.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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aliasmask
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by aliasmask »

I believe Lee was in an a serious accident and was recovering at the start of their development stage and he was the driving force at the time.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by Full Bleed »

aliasmask wrote:I believe Lee was in an a serious accident and was recovering at the start of their development stage and he was the driving force at the time.
The specifics of which were never publicly disclosed... which, frankly, brings it all into some doubt. There was never any communication about it from him or the company that ran the kickstarter and continued the development of mote. All we really know is that almost immediately after the kickstarter was funded, Lee vanished (like that's never happened with a KS before!) I don't know whether he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, was in a coma, broke his leg skiing, had a mental breakdown, or made a really bad life choice and took the kickstarter money to a Vegas roulette table and lost. I never understood the cloak and dagger surrounding what happened and, frankly, don't much care given the way it was handled. I can empathize with something potentially horrible happening to Lee and still acknowledge that I don't know for sure that anything serious happened to him at all.

In the end, the people that backed mote were somewhat fortunate that anything came of it at all given the circumstances of its leader's demise. People completely unconnected to the MT community did choose to deliver something close to what was promised. But there is no question that the vast majority of backers did so because someone who had been a MT contributor and part of the community (Lee) drove the KS and because we believed it would maintain the same level of transparency that MapTool did.

I know that *I* expected the development in Mote would lead to one of two things:

1) It would become *the* defacto replacement of MT.

or

2) Some useful code developed for it would find its way back to the mother-program.

Neither happened.

But I had every reason to believe that because the KS was very heavy-handed with touting that it would not stray far from its roots, and it only came into being after much discussion on these very forums.

Here are some quotes from the Kickstarter:
Mote, in a nutshell, is a free and open software development project centered around a Virtual Tabletop built on top of MapTool, which is, quite possibly, the most widely known, and respected open-sourced VTT project of its kind.
Like its parent, Mote follows the free software ideal, in that, beyond the funds necessary to support development, the resulting product will always remain free, and its source code, openly available to the public. Taken from source code licensed under Apache 2.0, we look to release it under the same or similarly non-restrictive licensing.

We believe that an open, and free application, that is fully controlled and owned by its users, is how things should be when it comes to a Virtual Tabletop application.
Okay, so why Kickstarter?

While we worked independently from the team that made the official MapTool code, our aim was always to gather support in achieving the following goals:

Push the ideal of free and open-sourced software, running in a free and open community.

In the end, I give the mote developers credit for *some* follow-through. From what I understand, the people that moved Mote forward made nothing from the KS. But I also recognize that they utterly failed to deliver on some other promises that were just as, if not more, important to backers and established MT users. They fumbled the opportunity to transition users from MT (a program that had been "feature-locked" and stagnant for years at the time) by failing to actually live up to the development philosophy that continues to drive MT today.

So much unrealized potential.
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

Darquirrin
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by Darquirrin »

Wow, This has really grown into an interesting discussion. I didn't expect to get so many responses from my simple questions. I appreciate everyone's input and discussion, thank you all.

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lmarkus001
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by lmarkus001 »

The Mote vs MapTool 1.4 decision is not trivial.

Mote is WAY faster, has a beautiful coding IDE, has sound support, has some window layout control.

Mote is largely MapTool 1.3b87 compatible, and has a bunch of extensions that increase capability. It does deal with tokens differently so there are some functionality quirks like duplicate token names on different maps still have issues in Mote.

Mote requires 64-bit Java to do significant things and 2GB of memory space (yes it can run well in a light weight map environment, but if you make a framework with code then you will need the memory).

The Mote development team continues to actively enhance and maintain Mote, although they are working on their own VTT.

The mover behind Mote did indeed have a significant accident and that was the major setback to their getting going. But that was ages ago now and the Mote team continues to be VERY interactive to the community that uses Mote.

I believe they delivered what they set out too, and the end result is a fine tool.

The current MapTool 1.4.1.7 is a good start toward an improved MapTool.

If comparing MT1.4 vs Mote, then I would say Mote. If MT1.4.2 vs Mote then I would say MT1.4.2 (which does not exist yet). Although Mote does require beefier computers so that can be a choice factor too.

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Full Bleed
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Re: Maptool 1.4 and Mote

Post by Full Bleed »

lmarkus001 wrote:I believe they delivered what they set out too, and the end result is a fine tool.
Really? I get that you've been the primary framework developer to embrace Mote with your Pathfinder framework (maybe the only notable framework developer who's done it successfully), but you really can't say that after reading the quotes I put out there from their own kickstarter that you think they delivered what they set out to. If that's true, then they never set out to deliver what they said they would... and I'd hate to accuse them of that because it would be unfair and sound petty. But it has to be one or the other.

They've, thus far, failed to deliver what they set out to or they never intended to deliver what they said they would.


They should also remove this from their 5/23/15 blog post, which, btw, is the *last* blog post they've made:
It's FREE. It does everything MapTool can do, and a lot more.
As noted above, the two feature sets are diverging notably now. If they want to say that as it pertains to 1.3b87, then that would be a far more accurate statement.


And, for the record, I'm *not* anti-mote. I just think they need to realize that they've been their own worst enemy. Guys like me wanted them to succeed and live up to the ideals they set out... become important--if not outright *essential*--members of the MAPTOOL community... run multiple kickstarters driving ambitious features... etc. And I was also on the record with being disappointed about the cold shoulder they seemed to get from the, then, mover and shakers of MT (who weren't doing anything with MT at the time Mote was trying to lift off).


Also, while the above posts cover some of what the OP asked, I'll go ahead and take a swing at the specifics now:
Darquirrin wrote:Does anyone known if Mote is ACTUALLY faster at processing Vision Layers than Maptool?
Don't know about their VBL enhancements. They've touted a number of performance enhancements, but I'm not sure that's one of them. I've actually never had a problem with MT's VBL processing and find that people that do tend to be really using it wrong or fail to follow some "best practices" in their implementation.
I can't find Mote's source anywhere (I thought it was based off Maptool which has requirements for that sorta thing) so it's not like I can profile them in a dev environment.
And as noted above, "Don't hold your breath. If this is important to you, then this will trump many other concerns and Mote is not for you."
Is there ANY advantage to using Mote over Maptool 1.4?
Lindsay covered some of the stuff it's supposed to do better. Beyond that you probably need to look at whether or not some of the newer MT features that mote does not have to see if they are of interest to you (ISO map and token support, Draw Explorer, new Table Functions that make tables more database-like, VBL functions, incoming java function access... amoung other things).
Do either of them support 4k resolutions?
Given what I've seen from the thread Alias posted above, MT does a better job with 4k resolutions right now... though, in fairness, it does seem like the mote guys could implement the same "fix" (and I suspect they will, particularly if they are made aware of it).
Maptool is the Millennium Falcon of VTT's -- "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts."

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