Mote Kickstarter: We are going LIVE!

[Full Bleed]

Glad to see that you guys hit your mark.


PS: I don't think the Kickstarter page is clear at all about what the $ targets are for the successive phases.

[RedDog]

Congrats Lee.

[Nin]

Cool, you made it.

[Lee]

Thank you guys. We're just getting started

@Full Bleed: Yeah, we were advised to roll it out as funding drove up since we were relatively unknown working on an application that most people already know is free. Perhaps on the next run, we can be more upfront.

[Jshock]

Looks like you ended funding with 8k! Congrats!

[aliasmask]

Congratulations. That's a good place to start. Multi-chat channels a pretty interface and help tools will draw a lot of attention to Mote. Will the chat channels be multi-tabbed, framed or either (like most MMOs)? I can imagine creating a channel for In-Character, OOC and combat details. I'm not one for in game chat rooms because that excludes players from story elements, but if done sparingly, it definitely has its benefits. Perhaps when sending a whisper, it automatically creates a chat room? Anyway, looking forward to your first official release and your next kickstarter.

[JML]

Congratulations Lee. I'm now waiting to see what you and your team are coming up with. This summer ?

Thanks for the hard work.

[Full Bleed]

Congratulations. That's a good place to start. Multi-chat channels a pretty interface and help tools will draw a lot of attention to Mote.

It should certainly separate itself from 1.3b89/b90 substantially enough to fully replace and put those versions to rest. I, frankly, won't care if b90 even comes out now. I think the "core" guys (who have been mysteriously absent throughout this event) now have little reason to spend any more time on 1.3. I'm not too hopeful that a 2.0 is anywhere on the radar at this point... But I'll leave that for them to determine.

More overt support from the RPTools forums (an announcement, email/newsletter, banner or notice in the header, more public support from core guys, etc.) would have probably put this thing well over 10k, but I believe that 8k is a very solid place to start. Idle Ideas now gets an opportunity to prove itself worthy of carrying the torch and we get to see how the community responds and transitions.

Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out... and looking forward to seeing the spirit of MT live on!

[wolph42]

8k round, funny figure. Congrats gents!! It appears you got the most important stretch goals covered. It would be nice if Full Bleeds signature finally gets obsolete (in a good way!).

[aliasmask]

There are a lot of user creations here that I doubt MOTE will be fully compatible with and really they shouldn't try to make it so. People will hang on to MT for a little bit longer. But once there are some user frameworks for MOTE then I suspect MT will die a slow death if it has no further development, that or splinter in to the several personal versions people are already running. Those versions will rely on those individuals to provide support which can be a big commitment for a free application and we'll be right where we are now.

I think the next big step for MOTE after release is to have their own forums and not just a G+ or facebook page to drive user created content. It would also be an opportunity to create a marketplace, perhaps similar to the Roll20 model. Then again maybe they don't want to hassle with the commercial aspect and copyright management.

[CoveredInFish]

Gratulations again.

Other than wolph I have the feeling that some very important stretch goals werent met (HTML5 just to name one). I hope that MOTE will develop further than the kickstarter, but I know that this is to early to whine about

Hmm ... not sure about the other forum. On one hand a g+ community is IMHO a good replacement for a forum.

But mostly I'd be happy if MOTE would get a subforum here. Its a sibling of MT so its of interest to the community here. It has to be seen as a different thing - for sure - but it has also lots in common.

But probably most important to me is my very personal argument: I doubt I'll visit another forum as often as I come here. I backed MOTE, but my current interest is more like curiosity. Not necessarily enough to add another forum on my daily chores list. I totally would skim daily news if it happened here.

On the other I hand I can totally understand the urge to keep things separated (and without a life sign from Az there is no way to create a subforum anyway)

[Full Bleed]

8k round, funny figure.

Well, if it was my project, and it was close to the next tier I'd probably round it up near closing with my own backing. Not saying that's what happened... but there would be nothing wrong with doing it if it did.

Congrats gents!! It appears you got the most important stretch goals covered. It would be nice if Full Bleeds signature finally gets obsolete (in a good way!).

Maybe my new signature will be a link to a Millennium Falcon themed skin for Mote.

[wolph42]

Other than wolph I have the feeling that some very important stretch goals werent met (HTML5 just to name one). I hope that MOTE will develop further than the kickstarter, but I know that this is to early to whine about ;

I should have been a bit more verbose. I meant the most important stretch goals to get new users on board. And with that Im aiming on:
- Stability. Both network and internal workings.
- GUI. Quite a bit of feedback is that MT still looks like its from the middle ages.
- wizards. Even though initially its really simple to use MT, just drag o token onto map and start playing, somehow a steep learning curve is associated with its use and lets be frank, [spoiler=this]

Screenshot 2014-03-17 11.04.26.png (28.87 KiB) Viewed 789 times

[/spoiler]is not helping as well. So wizards are really welcome!

Obviously is HTML 5 most welcome but given what *really* must be done, I don't see it as a high priority. If Mote is able to draw new users to MT with their changes, then they should create enough ground for follow-up funding.

[Lee]

Thanks everyone, we're seriously pumped for April to start

@JML: Yes, summer is where we want things to pick-up, when we deliver Mote to supporters expecting it in June. The interface changes promised in the 2nd stretch goal will come a little later, however, as there are a lot of areas that need a re-write.

@aliasMask: Yes, it will be multi-tabbed. There are currently very few docking frameworks available for JavaFX, so we will be looking for alternate methods of making components accessible, while keeping as much of the screen area available for the map. We do want the same thing with regard to separating IIC, OOC, macro output, and error details, in their own separate windows. And yes, inter-player / player <-> GM PMs will create another room on the "dock".

On the subject of backward compatibility, we're pretty sure that anything that runs on b86+ will run on Mote. Though there will likely be problems, initially, with frameworks that have a lot of escapes for Unicode, and in-macro workarounds for the previous JSON library's "quirky" methods.

As for forums, we'd like to keep everyone together here, as much as possible, and, barring a sub-forum, keep threads active for bug reports, discussions specific to Mote, etc. We will put one up, however, if Mote activity becomes too "noisy" here. We do find the notion of users having lesser posts to sift through for help appealing, however. Personally, I still believe MT 2.0 will become a reality, moreso that the "pressure" of releasing it, has become more relaxed in the advent of Mote for the interim.

You're right about the marketplace. We'd prefer something community driven in that regard, though it's not out totally of the question. Aside from a straight-up implementation, we could probably create an aggregation of resource locations on the back-end, so content providers can host wherever they want, and provide a front-end for users to interact with. We'll be slowly writing a cloud server for people to use/deploy, and add capabilities to it over time. Either implementations stated above could eventually be run from this.

@CoveredInFish: Hopefully we'll get to there eventually We will have some primitive implementations in the GUI revamp, however, that might allow users to refer to external resources and display them in-app. So, theoretically, people can use a WYSIWYG editor somewhere out there, add components, content, and script behavior on the page itself, and host it externally, to be displayed in Mote when it is fed with a resource location. However, there will still be no bridge between the page's data, and Mote, for the meantime, much less a connection to MT script, and, even less, leveraging the bridge between Java <-> Javascript that JavaFX provides.

@Full Bleed: Nah, it was a miracle shot from someone named Luke (wow, all these Star Wars' references ) After I made a jest on the G+ commmunity, a few seconds after he came in with $9 (and then some) to round things out, and in the final minute upped it to reach the 2nd stretch goal. I can't put my finger on it, but I already like the guy

As for skinning, it will be a collaborative process between our team and interested theme makers, on what should be there, and where, not to mention that most will probably need to read up on FXML to go alongside with their CSS knowhow, to make this real. So, I'll say upfront that it will be slow getting there for a while. But I have not doubt that things will pick up once those particulars are all set

@wolph: We agree. Since we cannot prepare for every eventuality for every framework out there, Phase 1 Mote will likely introduce a lot of upheavals in how people normally do things, and expect with regard to performance and memory management. While we have long road map to get to a more efficient state (with all the added baggage of the new features), it is too optimistic on our part (Idle Ideas) to expect pain-free backward compatibility from the onset.

It will take some time to roll out the new GUI, but I'm certain the current one for Mote will hold stead well enough in the interim. As for the wizards, now that we know what GUI they will be built under, work can finally commence on them in earnest (we didn't want to write for Swing, and re-write for JavaFX, you see).

Thanks again everyone. There's a lot of work to be done prior to April, specifically working with our top-level supporters and their campaigns/frameworks so that Mote will be ready for the closed beta. With that being said, I'm sorry to just post this and go. I might not always be around here in the forums during this period, but you can always reach us through Mote portals on G+, FB, or e-mail.

See you all soon!

[Full Bleed]

Gratulations again.

Other than wolph I have the feeling that some very important stretch goals werent met (HTML5 just to name one). I hope that MOTE will develop further than the kickstarter, but I know that this is to early to whine about

If they can deliver a solid product on this kickstarter another could be run to hit some of the sexier features they didn't get to this time around. They'll have more street cred to sell as well. I was purposefully modest in my backing this time around for exactly that reason. It's better to under-promise and over-perform than the other way around.

Hmm ... not sure about the other forum. On one hand a g+ community is IMHO a good replacement for a forum.

But mostly I'd be happy if MOTE would get a subforum here. Its a sibling of MT so its of interest to the community here. It has to be seen as a different thing - for sure - but it has also lots in common.

But probably most important to me is my very personal argument: I doubt I'll visit another forum as often as I come here. I backed MOTE, but my current interest is more like curiosity. Not necessarily enough to add another forum on my daily chores list. I totally would skim daily news if it happened here.

On the other I hand I can totally understand the urge to keep things separated (and without a life sign from Az there is no way to create a subforum anyway)

I *hope* there is not a separate forum because that will likely force me to choose which forum I'm really going to visit regularly. And if I start using Mote (and there is no reason for me to believe at this point that it won't replace 1.3b89 completely) then it will probably be Motes'. I think it would result in a lot less activity here and a lot of redirection... ultimately, benefiting neither.