My group is currently playing in WLD (Worlds Largest Dungeon) and to get good detail, I've scanned in all the maps at 300 dpi so that after combining each region, each image file is about 30-35 MB in size (JPG, best quality, least compression). Then, after minor resizing to help the MapTool GRID function to line up right, and compressing the image down to a GIF, the final region-map is about 12 MB in size. Now, at this resolution, each 5' square is 35 pixels across and down and the play area of the map is about 165 by 135 squares each 5' in size. I have provided this information in case the difficulty I am about to describe is because of a 'too large' map size. On the other hand, I do realize that Dorpond (I think) has said that the whole idea of MapTool is to be able to handle a boundless (endless) map of any size if need be.
Some background information first:
In our gaming group, the DM, Player 1, and Player 2 are on a LAN in the same room and PLayer 3 and Player 4 are in another house elsewhere in another state. All are using hi-speed cable to connect to the internet. The first two players mentioned above are using the LAN tab to connect in MapTool and additionally the DM and Player 1 both have 2 GB of RAM and their PC's are running Pentium 4 Dual Core 3.2 Ghz processors. The other players have between from 512 MB to 1024 MB of RAM and they also kept their systems pretty clean (for purposes of this test).
Okay. So here is the major problem:
If you turn 'Vision' on for a character, it really seems to sap the CPU usage. For a real taste of slowness, give a character 150' or more for their 'Vision' range. We found that things came to a crawl for each of us logged in to MapTool. Two of us, the DM and Player 1 do not have much else running other than Ventrilo and a notepad app for taking notes. By the way, we are all using ROUND vision.
Despite that, turning on 'Vision' would cause typically about a one minute delay between the dragging of the mouse to move a pog and seeing the pog appear in the new location. The same delay would happen when you would attempt to right-click to bring up a menu. At one point in the test, we had the DM (Host) turn on 160' Vision for a Medium (5') pog and all the linked computers ground to a halt. CPU usage on some went as high as 90% for the JAVAW.exe app for some players. I'm assuming that MapTool is constantly (second by second?) updating the visible Vision circle for each pog. Can this be cut back? Maybe a user-definable update interval, or perhaps only update the visible Vision circle after you stop moving the map or after you stop (and let go of) an icon?
A few (minor) problems:
- When using the Vision system, all the pogs should be on top of (in front of) the lit circle. If they are behind it (as it currently is), the icons are too washed out and hard to see clearly. Please make the light appear behind the pogs.
- I realize that the Vision system is totally brand new. Still, is any consideration being given to the idea of having different characters Vision 'circle' being different colors like the Light function currently does? Though this may sound strange, it could actually come in handy both for determining which character can see what when partly overlapping, and also for those times for creatures that create darkness. A monster-created black vision circle could almost act like Fog of War, so to speak. In this case, it is conceivable that a character might create an area of light to counteract this. You would then need to either solve that situation by turning off the dark and light Vision circles, or a better solution would be to give different priorities to different Vision circles depending on which one overrode the other. If the light was more powerful then the darkness, the overlap sections would be visible to the players with no hint of the darkness in those areas. If the darkness was more powerful, the light would not be visible at all in those overlap areas. It would be as if the light didn't even exist.
- The chat window doesn't quite display correctly. When someone types in a comment (or runs a macro), the text doesn't always scroll into view in the chat window. If you type in a two-line comment, the first line might be visible, but the second line will be still down below the chat window viewable area and you have to scroll down to see it.
- What happened to the line width tool? Is the intent that players and the DM won't need to draw on the map much anymore? The current line is just too fat for many things. Will that line width selector (in some guise) be added back in the future?
- It used to be that CTRL-P would hide/unhide the panels on the left side of the screen. It doesn't seem to work anymore. Clicking on the menu item does nothing. Thank goodness for the Help -> Restore choices for those times when you X a window closed and you want to bring it back again. On a slightly related note, the CTRL-ENTER no longer toggles the Chat window. I found that very useful for seeing a full map entry and the additional Chat and Macro area. If it weren't for the drawback of losing the toolbar at the top, I suppose I'll have to start getting used to Alt-Enter instead.
- This may or may not be addressable but it seems like MapTool takes up a lot of bandwidth, too. With the players listed above, we had an opportunity to take a dinner break. During that time, one of the players on the internal LAN decided to exit out of MapTool and hop in to Worlds of Warcraft to do a bit of gaming and he noticed his latency went up a whole lot. Typically his latency is about 200 ms but it climbed up to 2500 ms for much of his session. After about a half-hour of the latency problem, we actually shut down MapTool on the DM's machine and his latency (after a minute or two) dropped down to about 220-230. This begs the question: When MapTool is just sitting there and no one is doing anything with it (no moving maps or moving pogs), is it still communicating on the 'net? If so, why? Can some more efficient communication method be used to not use up so much bandwidth?
As I understand it, there has been some talk previously about what the F.O.W. layer should look like. I definitely think being able to have a textured layer instead of plain black would look a lot better and immerse the players in the game more fully. Ideally, the F.O.W. would be a layer in and of itself and the DM would make it match up with the players view layer but without rooms, corridors, or any other identifying features. For example, if the map is of an underground area, the spaces between rooms and other rooms might have a rocky look to them. That rocky-look-texture would then become the entirety of the F.O.W. layer. Then, during the course of the game, the players would see only the rocky-look if they hadn't explored the area, and as they mapped it out they would then see the corridors, rooms, etc. If the map was of an outdoor area, the F.O.W. layer might be just rolling grassland with no trees, dwellings, tunnel/cave-openings, etc.
Richly deserved praise:
The idea (and hopefully, more efficient implementation) of the VISION feature is great! It greatly reduces the DM's effort at 'unfogging' things during gameplay since players can, in effect, un-fog the map themselves as they walk around the adventure. (Admittedly it DOES require more before-game work to properly set up the Topology layer correctly.) And the "Expose last Path menu option" that was talked about in the Topology/Vision Problem thread is going to make things even easier than that.
Plus, the new MACROS window works much better. There were never enough macro buttons before, and allowing only one row of them was too constricting. Now my request would be for a way to add MORE macro buttons.
All in all, MapTool is coming along wonderfully and I eagerly look forward to each new iteration of the program.
Thanks, guys!
FDWojo
