Anyone see this? Thoughts?

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mrobviousjosh
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Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by mrobviousjosh »

Been a while since I've messed with MT or been around the boards. Anyone else see this? Thoughts? Lots of similarities to our tools.... *shrugs*

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/610 ... me_popular

P.S. Any ideas about things we could incorporate to make our tool set stronger?

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wolph42
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by wolph42 »

mrobviousjosh wrote:Been a while since I've messed with MT or been around the boards. Anyone else see this? Thoughts? Lots of similarities to our tools.... *shrugs*

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/610 ... me_popular

P.S. Any ideas about things we could incorporate to make our tool set stronger?
ok thats just eerie. in case one is wondering, its not me.

edit: after seeing the vid: I do not see many similarities between MT and Realm Works. RW looks very thorough and is emphasized for gm's to build and keep track of their campaign. While maptool is much more focussed on map interaction and much less on overall campaign progress. I would sooner say that the tools are quite complementary.

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mrobviousjosh
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by mrobviousjosh »

Well, I saw some similarities (mostly in interface and some of the functionality), but I agree that it seems more as a tracking tool and less as a tabletop. That being said, I thought some of the features (like the ability to search text and keep track of what the players do/don't know, was nifty). *shrugs* Just figured I'd share and see what others had to say. :)

Lee
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by Lee »

It lacks the ultimate MT trump card, a scripting system. But you are right, this has far more powerful management tools and, scripting aside, can match MT on the VTT aspect (I imagine the map view to be fully expandable to full screen). It highlights the advantages of disengaging from the token-centric approach MT employs with regard to its structures; case in point being with a comparison of MT's Map Explorer to the explorer RW has. Pretty cool and definitely a source for some good ideas for 1.4.

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Azhrei
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by Azhrei »

Very cool.

They mention that their "Fog or World" system is "patent-pending". Really? I think I have some prior art they might want to see... ;)

It sounds like a neat tool... if you're running Windows. They only plan to support WinXP and later for the initial release with no commitment for the future, which means Linux and OSX folks are going to be left out. Not surprising though, as the group is Lone Wolf and they're not known for being "other OS" friendly.

Definitely something to keep an eye on as it progresses. They're currently at about 25% of the funding they're looking for and they opened it just yesterday. My guess is that their main site is pushing a lot of traffic to this kickstarter page but it will be interesting to see how far they get.

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jfrazierjr
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by jfrazierjr »

Azhrei wrote:Very cool.

They mention that their "Fog or World" system is "patent-pending". Really? I think I have some prior art they might want to see... ;)
Doesn't really matter given the fact that most country IP law(including the US now) goes by first to file. It does not matter if you have a fully implemented solution, if someone else files first, it's theirs.
I save all my Campaign Files to DropBox. Not only can I access a campaign file from pretty much any OS that will run Maptool(Win,OSX, linux), but each file is versioned, so if something goes crazy wild, I can always roll back to a previous version of the same file.

Get your Dropbox 2GB via my referral link, and as a bonus, I get an extra 250 MB of space. Even if you don't don't use my link, I still enthusiastically recommend Dropbox..

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Azhrei
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by Azhrei »

jfrazierjr wrote:Doesn't really matter given the fact that most country IP law(including the US now) goes by first to file. It does not matter if you have a fully implemented solution, if someone else files first, it's theirs.
Not so fast... Prior art has been used to overturn patents that have already been granted. Case in point: USPTO overturns Apple patents because of prior art.

The big issue with software patents in the U.S. right now is that you can't contest a patent until after it's granted! The USPTO is putting into place a new system for allowing prior art claims against patents that haven't been granted yet so that they are never registered in the first place.

See wikipedia for info on prior art (see the "Duty of disclosure" section). The USPTO also has a FAQ for public peer review of patents.

Note that patent law varies significantly from country to country. This is a prime reason why the GPL is based on copyright law instead (all signers of the Berne Convention must adhere to the copyright laws of other member countries; and in the U.S. treaties override sovereign/federal law, which is one reason why the Senate is reluctant to enter into new treaties and why NAFTA was so ground-breaking).

And no, I'm not a lawyer. But I play one on tv. :mrgreen: The OP is a lawyer though. Maybe he knows. ;)

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mrobviousjosh
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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by mrobviousjosh »

Azhrei wrote:
jfrazierjr wrote:Doesn't really matter given the fact that most country IP law(including the US now) goes by first to file. It does not matter if you have a fully implemented solution, if someone else files first, it's theirs.
Not so fast... Prior art has been used to overturn patents that have already been granted. Case in point: USPTO overturns Apple patents because of prior art.

The big issue with software patents in the U.S. right now is that you can't contest a patent until after it's granted! The USPTO is putting into place a new system for allowing prior art claims against patents that haven't been granted yet so that they are never registered in the first place.

See wikipedia for info on prior art (see the "Duty of disclosure" section). The USPTO also has a FAQ for public peer review of patents.

Note that patent law varies significantly from country to country. This is a prime reason why the GPL is based on copyright law instead (all signers of the Berne Convention must adhere to the copyright laws of other member countries; and in the U.S. treaties override sovereign/federal law, which is one reason why the Senate is reluctant to enter into new treaties and why NAFTA was so ground-breaking).

And no, I'm not a lawyer. But I play one on tv. :mrgreen: The OP is a lawyer though. Maybe he knows. ;)
Lol, thanks man. I am a lawyer in RL, but this is a bit out of my field. Lol. I handle mostly divorces, criminal law, and some assorted other stuff (like contract disputes). Intellectual Property is definitely not my field, lol. Anyway, I figured others over here may be interested because some of the functions seemed worthwhile and, hopefully, easy to incorporate into MT. =D I doubt they'll make their $100,000 goal, but we'll just have to see. Some things on Kickstarter have surprised me (for succeeding and for failing).

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Re: Anyone see this? Thoughts?

Post by Full Bleed »

Looks like it might be pretty nice, in theory.

But it seems like it's going to rely heavily on a monthly cloud access fee (given that the higher tiers com with some free months.)

Would prefer that they use a home server type setup (like maptool) for real-time updates or something free like skydrive/dropbox.
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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