Wizards VTT (re)announced

[Rumble]

jfraz, Jonathan, plothos - I started a new thread here to discuss the LOS tool explicitly. I think I have it fully functional (as functional as I'd like, at least). The only thing I'm mulling is options for "where to draw lines to" - so if you do 4E LoS checking, it's all four corners. If you want to go center to center, that's trivial, but would it be useful?

Anyway, let's discuss what is, was, and should be!

[plothos]

Erm, if you can't select the token, it should be obvious that you can't see the token with strict vision settings for individual tokens.

False!

Uh no... true. If you can't hover the mouse over any part of the token, than you can't select it, thus you can't see it.

I think we're on about different things. All I mean is there are situations where a token in MT won't be able to see another token and thus you won't be able to select it and yet your token should be able to see it by the rules of D&D. Does that contradict what you're saying? As I read your first post it does, but I'm no longer sure what you mean.

[Natha]

Got my invite to the beta today.
Is anyone else on the european timezone ?

[Rumble]

I got an invite today too. I played with it for about 10 minutes, and in that time, saw everything it can do. That has both good and bad sides: on the upside, that means it was easy enough to navigate and I could tell what buttons did what.

On the downside, there's nothing really to test, far as I can tell - it does what it does and the extent of that can be discovered in 10 minutes. Everything worked right, so...beta testing done.

[Hawke]

Got the invite... do you need other people or can you pop around GM mode only?

[Rumble]

Got the invite... do you need other people or can you pop around GM mode only?

You can launch it in GM mode to play with (that's what I did). My overall impression was that I could certainly use this to run a game. I am not inclined to do so, but it's functional.

[Hawke]

First impressions - this thing is smooth. For a beta, it is pretty solid. I couldn't find any bugs, and I didn't find any annoyances as far as speed. Everything was straightforward... in fact, I think from a stability / obvious usability standpoint this beta is better than any of WotC's other tools.

No automation. I expected probably movement counting or something at the very minimum. I couldn't figure out how to do inline rolls w/o using their little roll tool. I don't see conditions anywhere. That will be key to success as the most difficult part of running the game really is keeping track of when stuff ends, who has what, etc.

I think the kicker will be when you can drop in monsters / characters from their other tools and they work for you. Okay, I can handle no auto damage application, but just saying "I want a level 20 air elemental" and have it show up with everything it needs + powers.

For those that have used it, what do you see as obvious directions MT could go or anything we're lacking?

[Rumble]

For those that have used it, what do you see as obvious directions MT could go or anything we're lacking?

Off the top of my head, things the VT did (or sort of did) that I liked:

* Tokens as visual "pointers" to a single thing. E.g., there's only one Token for a character; but you can drag a token of it (lowercase "t") to any map and acting upon it refers back to the original at all times). This is something the devs have wanted to do forever. Couple this with a cleanup to the token properties interface, and you're good.

* A panel for all elements of a given Token. I realize this is not nearly as easy as it sounds.

* Roll Builder. This is actually a Battlegrounds thing, but an interface to make the basic dice rolls, rather than requiring any typing. I can write one in macro script, sure, but I want it to be a default doodad.

* A dicebox. Dice images that afford clicking to roll or create rolls via a roll-builder.

* Removing any "jargon-y" terminology and changing any terminology to "expected" terms. Sometimes you can't avoid it, and MapTool is generally good about this, but it should be scrubbed and scrubbed again.

* Buttons to open the various windows. Give me a toolbar button that calls up the Library, for instance, or the Selection window.

* Tweaks to the various macro panels to make creating macros easier (like buttons called New, Edit, Delete or something). Hell, have a default option be "roll builder" and then if you choose "Advanced" you get to write script yourself.

* Detection of states and displaying them in the statsheet automatically (without scripting needed) - if the token has the state "Disabled", that should appear on mouseover or hover. I thought that was a nice, tiny little tweak.

One of the things that I though the VT really had an edge over MT on was the fact that everything you did with it was obvious. I needed a character? I clicked "New" on the character tab. I need a monster? Click "New" on the monster tab. I need to change something on the character? I click "Edit" on the character's tab. I give the developers of the VT a lot of credit for that. The tool may be profoundly limited in some respects, but there wasn't a moment where it was hard to use.

On the other hand, MT does a lot of stuff right, so don't take this as a slam. I think the VT could learn from MT in some respects - there's a lot of interface things (rotation of images, double-clicking, group selection, fog/light/vision, etc.) that the VT could learn.

[Lancealittle]

I'm in the beta too.

It's very simple, and in some ways that a plus. There's no rush to stay on top of rule changes and content updates for your group if you don't feel like reading every book or magazine that comes out.

I'm not sure how much automation they will ever do. If they just integrate it into their character generator and give a DM access to all published monsters then it will have its niche.

Since you can import an entire adventure into the tool, I can also see them releasing some content that is easy to set up for a DM. It'd be cool if every Dungeon magazine also had an adventure file to use in the VT.

If anyone has been trying out the 4E essentials you can see how their VT is based on that. They use the token pics from the boxed products. The tiles are also from their boxed set of Essentials: The Dungeon.

[Hawke]

Since you can import an entire adventure into the tool, I can also see them releasing some content that is easy to set up for a DM. It'd be cool if every Dungeon magazine also had an adventure file to use in the VT.

That is a great point. Even if it's only future supplements, being able to read a dungeon adventure, load it up, and play with some friends without having to make tokens or do placement of things would be a plus. Especially if they did a chunk of Dungeon Delve style encounters. While nothing shows me that I'd switch from maptool, I could see how if a player didn't show up it might be quick/easy to do a fun alternate game with little setup in that tool.

[dorpond]

I predict that maptool will keep its existing user base but future users looking to play D&D will look at the vt's (they may not even do that) available and see how much easier/pretty Wotc's tool is compared to Maptool, and not even give Maptool a chance to find out how much more it can do..

I also predict that their vt will be live and working, well before MT1.4 is out and stable...

If we sold Maptool, I would be a lot worried right now, but since MT is free, I am not.

[Rumble]

I think you're probably right, although I do wonder if - based on data integration alone - a lot of people who use MT for D&D 4th Edition will move to the VT instead. I'm not a subscriber to DDI, so I won't, but I myself see how attractive the idea of dropping a fully-built character or monster from one application into the other is. They may never automate much at all, but if it handles the fiddly token/power/monster creation part, that right there might be enough that the lack of other automation is considered very low priority by users.

Not that it means we should attempt to make that doable for MapTool - seamless integration with Wizard's other digital tools is the exclusive province of Wizards of the Coast, and that's just the way it is. It would be silly to worry about that for MapTool. On the other hand, there are (I believe, as I listed) good things to learn from their VT (mostly from the human-computer interaction perspective), even if it can only do a tiny subset of the things MT can do.

Overall, my opinion of the new VT is interesting. I am neither over- nor underwhelmed by it, and I'm not personally inclined to use it, but I give them credit for finding/building/outsourcing it and delivering a really solid beta.

[DrVesuvius]

If we sold Maptool, I would be a lot worried right now, but since MT is free, I am not.

Let's face it, you're going to lose a lot of potential "sales" to the WOTC VT for the simple reason that it's "Official" and Maptool isn't. Crazy, I know, but true.

On the other hand, for all those of us who are playing games other than D&D, the choice is still a no-brainer.

[Azhrei]

If we sold Maptool, I would be a lot worried right now, but since MT is free, I am not.

Let's face it, you're going to lose a lot of potential "sales" to the WOTC VT for the simple reason that it's "Official" and Maptool isn't. Crazy, I know, but true.

On the other hand, for all those of us who are playing games other than D&D, the choice is still a no-brainer.

Or for those playing a version of D&D other than the "official, latest" version. I'm playing PF and won't be moving to 4e any time in the foreseeable future. I'm sure there are players of 1e, 2e, 3.0e, and 3.5e who feel the same way. And as you said, players of other games: GURPS, SR, WoD, and so on.

If WotC's vtt eats into the 4e portion of MT's market share, I don't consider that a big loss. The same way that a fine restaurant isn't worried about McDonald's.

[Guy Dude]

If WotC's vtt eats into the 4e portion of MT's market share, I don't consider that a big loss. The same way that a fine restaurant isn't worried about McDonald's. ;)

harsh, man :P