Finding Maptool games?

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Full Bleed
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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by Full Bleed »

Jagged wrote:You keep suggesting the core devs were providing resistance to Lee/Mote. I'm saying prove it. You won't be able to because they weren't.
I don't need to build a case. I've got far better things to spend my time on. Mote happened for a reason. The dots are easy to connect. And easier if you followed the last year or so of Lee's contributions and the long discussions about 1.4 and 2.0 and the feature lock and development slow down... leading up to Mote being a thing.

But, like I said, I wasn't out to prove you wrong. Objectively, you entered this fray saying that the core people "supported" mote. Craig already admitted that they didn't. And that's fine he (they) had their reasons... and I wasn't questioning the reasons. I was stating *why* I think Mote failed and I stand by what I've said:

1) Lacked core support.
2) Poor Kickstarter turn out.
3) Didn't deliver on what it promised.

As for the "conspiracy" business you keep mentioning the only "conspiracy" with regard to all of this that I see was Lee's vanishing act. We've heard rumors of an accident, but it is/was all so hush-hush that it invites conspiratorial imagination. I mean, when you run a Kickstarter and then don't deliver on the, seemingly, passionate promises of your lead developer because he gets hurt, why hide the facts? Shoot, it makes more sense to start an IndieGoGo to raise money for their medical bills and get out the news instead of leaving people wondering.
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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Full Bleed
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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by Full Bleed »

Azhrei wrote:Hm. You haven’t visited the Github repo page lately, have you? There are no outstanding pull requests waiting t be merged into the dev branch of MT. In layman’s terms, that means there are no patches available that haven’t already been accepted and applied.
Well, I can only parrot what I've been told. And on at least two occasions when I asked about when MT was going to see some Nerps advancements Jamz indicated that he submitted his changes back to RPtools for consideration. I really don't follow the repo.

One example: http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php ... 94#p268494

Last time I looked at Nerps there were some considerable differences between it and MT...
If you’ll read Jamz’s thread regarding what Nerps is and what it isn’t, you’ll find that he states up front that it’s a testbed for his own ideas and not necessarily a testbed for things that will be merged into MT. (Some things obviously have been, some things likely will never be, and somethings I’d like to see merged but they need to be a little more structured.)
Have you guys talked about the structural things much? Is Jamz just not interested in restructuring? (Sorry for phrasing that like you're not in the room, Jamz!) Or has there been a breakdown in communication? Could someone else be invited to make the necessary changes? I mean, it looks like Phergus is back on the scene... ;)
I will certainly admit my own failings in regard to MT. My first failing is that I’m not running a regular game right now so I’m not using it all the time. When I was running my Pathfinder Curse of the Crimson Throne game or playing in Ted’s Legacy of Fire campaign, using MT was a periodic thing (at least every two weeks, sometimes more) and that was a great driver of innovation for me! I wanted certain features to be implemented for my own use! Alas, I now play only sporadically and only for a couple of hours at a time. :(
No doubt! There always needs to be motivational factors to drive this sort of thing... and since the nature of RP gaming tends to be pretty uneven with active campaigns ebbing and flowing it comes as no surprise to me that we've seen so many intermittent development spurts over the years.
In closing, I’d like to thank FB for stirring things up. When too much sediment gathers at the bottom of a bottle, it’s important to either (a) pour off the clear liquid and leave the sediment behind, or (b) shake the bottle up and try to dissolve the sediment back into the liquid. (In the case of the Kahlua that my mother makes from scratch, I prefer the latter. :mrgreen: ) MT could certainly handle some of the former.
Heh... I think we all know we have a first rate tool here and just want to see it continue to thrive...
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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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by wolph42 »

Have you guys talked about the structural things much? Is Jamz just not interested in restructuring? (Sorry for phrasing that like you're not in the room, Jamz!) Or has there been a breakdown in communication? Could someone else be invited to make the necessary changes? I mean, it looks like Phergus is back on the scene... ;)
The Devs converse on a Slack channel. Jamz is also invited to that channel (as is Phergus). So yes, they are communicating (on a daily basis).

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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by JamzTheMan »

Oryan77 wrote:
JamzTheMan wrote:1. Look up and listen to the Glass Cannon Podcast!
2. If you like it, look for the Glass Cannon Podcast Discord/Reddit channels. There are quite a few that get together to game (and they have channels in Discord just for looking for games. (there seems to be regular PFS games going on). PFS is great way to play some Pathfinder until you find a "Campaign" to join...
Hah! What a coincidence. I just started listening to TGC no more than 2 weeks ago. I'm up to the episode where they begin book 2 of Giantslayer. I recently tried getting into D&D podcasts and tried out 2 other's that, although were fine podcasts, the players styles just weren't my thing. I couldn't get into their games. I saw a random post on Reddit about Glass Cannon and tried it out. The first session had me hooked.

They are the type of people that I prefer playing D&D with and I relate much more to their style of gaming. They have just the right amount of OOC jokes, but do plenty of roleplaying without making a mockery of the game. The DM is hilarious to boot. I love it.

I recently lost 2 great players in my ongoing face-2-face game due to them both moving away. I have not had much luck finding new players since it's harder these days to get people into a 3.5e game when most players are playing 5e. TGC really gives me hope that I can eventually fill seats again with some great new players just as good as those guys. I was just talking about the podcast to my wife last night. So funny that you brought it up.

I'm new to Reddit and didn't realize they had a channel. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yea, same thing here. Tried a few other PodCasts but either it annoyed me that they hand waived too much stuff (Troy is a stickler for the rules! I like it!) or joked too much or boring, etc. I saw them at GenCon (where they announced they were Paizo's Official PodCast now) and at a MeetUp at a bar later that night. Honestly great group of guys. I'm going out on a limb but think if you get into their community (via reddit and discord) you will meet like minded people. I don't delve too deep myself only because I have a gaming group already.
-Jamz
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Full Bleed
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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by Full Bleed »

wolph42 wrote:The Devs converse on a Slack channel. Jamz is also invited to that channel (as is Phergus). So yes, they are communicating (on a daily basis).
Well, while I hate to continue further down this rabbit hole into further derailment accusations (though, given everything that was brought up by the OP--Mote, the state of MT, how it affects finding games/MT usage, and promoting/moving MT forward--I actually think things have been on topic as an extension of those core concerns)...

But some things aren't passing the smell test. Jamz says he submits Nerps stuff. Az says there is nothing submitted and that some things have structural issues (which I take to mean that they don't conform to some established coding guidelines.) So, would you say it's fair to deduce that either Jamz isn't interested in conforming the work or doesn't know what needs to conform? The first would be Jamz choice. He doesn't owe MT anything he does with Nerps (though I'd prefer to be told that certain work probably isn't going to make it to MT in those cases). But the second is a communication issue and could have a constructive path that's not being explored (i.e. what needs to change... is someone else interested in doing it or assisting in migration to MT... is it not intended to ever make it into MT... etc.)

I will, for example, take ONE feature in Nerps that's not in MT to illustrate: The Macro Editor. It's been in Nerps for a long time. What's keeping it from migrating to MT? (And Note: I may not even use that feature very much since I use Notepad++. I picked it as an example because I think it would provide significant improvement for users who don't use external editors and struggle with MT's basic editor... which is probably a large number of casual macro users and new users.)

At any rate, I've exhausted my interest in pressing these issues. But I think the current state of MT development is fairly poor. I think it's reflected in this thread and some others that have popped up recently. Maybe not as bad as it was when Mote "happened", but certainly on the same path. With Nerps being about the most "exciting" thing that's been going on most of this year... and being open source... it looks like it's a resource that's not being exploited. It's great that the devs are communicating every day in slack... but you certainly wouldn't know it around here.
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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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by Phergus »

Full Bleed wrote:But some things aren't passing the smell test. Jamz says he submits Nerps stuff. Az says there is nothing submitted and that some things have structural issues (which I take to mean that they don't conform to some established coding guidelines.)
I think you are reading too much into offhand comments that perhaps aren't necessarily phrased for the best clarity.

There is only one current pull request for MapTool and it has nothing to do with Jamz' Nerps fork. Jamz has submitted pull requests from Nerps in the past and they have been included into the MapTool builds.

You are perfectly capable of going and seeing this for yourself of course.

Closed Pull Requests
Open Pull Requests

Why hasn't the editor made it back to MapTool from Nerps? I have no idea. Could be any number of reasons but to automatically assume some conspiracy, developer riff or anything other than life getting in the way is unfounded.

The current situation with MapTool is far from ideal but it is what we have. The only actual recourse anyone has to changing things is to be supportive of the efforts that are ongoing and support the users that are here.

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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by Jagged »

Full Bleed wrote:Objectively, you entered this fray saying that the core people "supported" mote. Craig already admitted that they didn't. And that's fine he (they) had their reasons... and I wasn't questioning the reasons. I was stating *why* I think Mote failed and I stand by what I've said:

1) Lacked core support.
2) Poor Kickstarter turn out.
3) Didn't deliver on what it promised.
When Craig says he didn't support Mote he is referring to the fact he didn't back it with money. Which as he and Az spend enough running Maptool you would not expect that of them. Lee was offered all manner of different options to contribute or even take over 1.3 entirely! Honestly what more could you expect of them? RPTroll also published announcements about Mote on every channel we have short of paying for adverts on their behalf!

So yes, the core people supported Mote.

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Re: Finding Maptool games?

Post by JamzTheMan »

@Fullbeed, don't sniff to hard...

1. Just because I have code in my Nerps Fork, doesn't mean RPTools is behind in grabbing it. That's not how GitHub/Opensource works. I need to submit a Pull Request and then they merge it in, and build a release if needed.
2. We froze 1.4.1.x development a while back in an attempt to stabilize it for a 1,4.2 release. Over the past year there were a few bugs discovered and fixed. And unfortunately, jWrapper has changed it's policy and building releases using it on ALL 3 OS's is....problematic.
3. If I kept submitting PR's against 1.4.1.x it would never be "stable". But I'm not going to stop coding while that happens. I have a smaller "user" base, mostly windows users, so I feel "OK" in releasing my Nerps build. I leave it up to the users if they feel it's "stable" enough or not.

So, some of the wait is just as much on me as it is on the other devs. I'm not going to go into details in the difficulty on developing/maintaining multiple development branches. If you are a software developer, I'm sure you can sympathize the headache it can be. Couple that with being a "Hobby", it's not 'efficient' to code every few days, sometimes taking 5-30 minutes to remember where you left off.


So, I have to make MY decision every time I load up Eclipse. Do I fix that outstanding bug, look into that forum issue, work on that cool enhancement, investigate Java 9 (or other emerging technologies), work on merging a code fix/patch into a Pull Request, or work on deployment scripting. Take THAT into consideration and maybe you can understand WHY it takes months (or even years) to put out releases.

Now, if you want to support me (or other developers) via Patreon or some such then maybe that my drive my decision on what to work on next. But until then, as a HOBBY, I'm going to work on what makes ME happy today. Sometimes that's new enhancements, sometimes thats getting the code over to the main Repo for inclusion. I'm sorry you feel you have to wait so long to get "enhancements", but I'm not. I'm really not into worrying about what others "feel" about delays to a free product.

PS: I'm not going to entertain "MOTE" discussions, it never has and never will drive what/why/when I code for MapTool and I'm pretty sure the other devs feel the same way. There once was a dev, he decided to go do something else, he left to do it. It had zero impact on MapTool (I feel safe in saying that because we didn't stop coding waiting on MOTE sourcecode and it made zero difference in my Hobby) No matter what you may 'feel' happened, I "know" what affect it had on me, none.

So, anyway, this post just ate up time I could have been coding. Now I have to:

10 Print "Shovel Snow"
20 Goto 10
-Jamz
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