Just chipping in after a Google Hangouts game of Runequest last night.

We had a standard hangout, a dice roller for those who wanted it. Some used real dice and pointed the camera at what they rolled. Character sheets were PDfs, and maps (for reference) were jpgs. Things went swimmingly. Nice atmosphere, no major problems.

One thing that did help was using multiple desktops in OSX (Linux users also have access to this, I am not sure about Windows users). A quick swipe left and right took me across to my data. Simples. No need for overly complicated mapping, tracking or bean counting tools.

A bit like a normal tabletop.

Quote from: lcalbas;732463First, the latest official Maptool 1.3 build (90) is Java 7 compliant. It's been out there for months, though the devs understand that people are averse to the word "beta", which is odd, since even roll20 is in constant beta with regard to new features.

Do you happen to have a link to build 90?  I looked on RPTools.net and cannot see one readily available.

Quote from: Grymbok;732494OK... Except the MapTooks homepage still links only to b89, and has the Java 7 is unsupported warning. B89 isn't linked on the downloads page, and there's no thread for it that I can see in the announcements forum.

So it's not exactly easy to find for casual MT users. I'm assuming the download link is somewhere in the b89 thread?

Oh, on the "beta" question - MT releases other than public releases have been notoriously buggy over the years, so it's a flag that means more to that community than sum I'd expect.


Is anyone active on MT outside of Mote now? To me it looks like MT is dead and your Mote fork is all that is being actively developed.

Don't get me wrong - I think MT is a good product that deserves to live on, and I'm happy that someone is still supporting it. At this point given the lack if interest from the original developers, a fork is probably the best option.

On the kickstarter - if it was for core MapTool and being run by Trevor or dorpond (or even RPTroll), then I'd understand it. Getting some funding in would allow them to drop the day job for a while and work on the tool, I get it. But for you as a new developer (who has not, unless I've misunderstood you, shipped any useable builds yet) there is that question of "why should I trust you?". Hopefully your videos will help build that trust with your potential backers. As I've moved on from MT to other tools myself I've not taken the time to watch them through.

Thanks for the honest opinions. They're invaluable to us because these are things we definitely have to overcome in order to get more support.

Frank (Azhrei), Craig, JFJ, and username (I don't know his real name lol), can still be considered active. My guess as to their silence over the past 2 months is due to Mote. It's not that they're hostile or anything, it's more like their way of staying on their side of the line.

Which brings the discussion on why the Mote project began: Philosophical differences on how to get to the next version MapTool. The MapTool ideal is admirable, and I certainly adhere to most of it in Mote, but the problems you point out about beta releases being buggy, release schedules being arbitrary, etc. all stem from this great app being run on a context that is volunteer-based, and freezing new feature submissions. This basically dried up willing testers and developers, because new features will always be more appealing than doing regression tests on each build. If not for the hardcore followers, no one would be reporting bugs, and tracking fixes.

In light of the surge of other VTTs (i.e. roll20) I (we) proposed getting to 2.0 in a different way, else we lose even more of the user base to these. This KS is the result of our planning. The plan is to have something now as a viable alternative for VTT enthusiasts. As Mote's feature set grows larger, and the goals of user-friendliness and reliability are met, we believe it will turn (at least some of) the tide in the conversation of free and fully featured VTTs vs. exclusive and "freemium" VTT business models.

With supported development, as what Mote is asking for, things will be markedly different. In the big picture, this is the implementation of most, if not all, of the Agile type of software development. Devs will be sustained full time while writing the project, and there will be more involvement from the community since they've made an actual investment, financially or through active "evangelizing".

There will be a schedule to follow, and if some aspect doesn't get noticed, it is because the community did not bring it up to be attended to. But there will always be correspondence, and community driven feature request is balanced by sane bounds set by software engineering rules.

(Sorry to ramble like that. It's for the other readers)

Trevor, gilliath, and dorpond support any kind of project that pushes MapTool forward. The code is open-sourced after all, and Mote will be no different. It will always attribute back to its parent project, and a lot of parts in Mote will be contributed toward 2.0. We've gone so far as to have informal discussions with RPTools for Mote to become 1.4. Without seeing how Mote will end up like (maturity wise), we've put this aside as a bridge to cross when we get there.

I'm glad you've chimed in, Grymbok. Personally, it is my hope to see you making your way back to the MapTool/Mote community if and when you get to try out Mote

Edit:
Sorry, Drohem, we posted almost at the same time. Here's Azhrei's Dropbox link for b90. It includes a link to our new launcher which we remade from the old one so it can be cross-platform. Here's the forums link for the testing discussions. There are several reported bugs because some of the latest patches have not been applied yet, but these mostly concern advanced users who do a lot of script. Check this link for the list, and see if these affect you in any way.

Quote from: lcalbas;732476Cool np. All our videos have annotations, you just have to turn them on (unless you did already of course). We had a deal for voice-overs but something happened with the coordination and it didn't make it on launch day.

I watched your videos again.

For some reason I wasn't able to get the annotations working on the SQL one. But, as long as I kept my mouse over the pause button, I was able to stop things where I needed, and look carefully at what was going on---so it was much easier to understand this time around.

Quote from: BarefootGaijin;732499One thing that did help was using multiple desktops in OSX (Linux users also have access to this, I am not sure about Windows users). A quick swipe left and right took me across to my data. Simples. No need for overly complicated mapping, tracking or bean counting tools.

A bit like a normal tabletop.

". . . like a normal tabletop."

This seems to be a common theme---the idea of replicating the experience of a normal tabletop. I guess where I differ is that, rather than replicating the tabletop, I'd like to do things you can't do on a normal table top.

That was one of the points that really stood out for me with Storyscape. In an interview about Storyscape, Robin Laws (who designed the game system that Storyscape is based on) makes it pretty clear that his intent was not just to replicate the table-top experience, but to go beyond it:

QuoteTags are new for Storyscape. It's something you could never implement in a straight-up tabletop environment, and that's why I really wanted to be involved with this. I think that the person who succeeds in making this happen will not just be replicating tabletop rules, which are designed for ease of handling, but instead take advantage of the innate properties of this new medium.

While I'm not sure I agree with all the methodology they use, for example I have some questions about how they intend to implement their tag concept, in general terms, the idea of going in new directions (that you couldn't manage with the old game systems), is pretty close to what I was thinking.

Is this concept controversial?

Quote from: lcalbas;732638I'm glad you've chimed in, Grymbok. Personally, it is my hope to see you making your way back to the MapTool/Mote community if and when you get to try out Mote

Thanks for the detailed response. I see that a GUI revamp is on your roadmap - will this include support for skinning?

@warp9 Good to hear. I'll re-check the annotations on the SQL vid, thanks.

And no, I don't think it's controversial. As long as the end result is positive toward a more immersive experiences, people will always support that.

@Grymbok Ideally, we'd want to reach our HTML5 goal so we can redo the interface in JavaFX, where skinning is ridiculously easy (for those who know lol).

Barring that, there are still some tricks available to provide CSS skinning on top of Swing components, but it's really better to have HTML5 support since we can involve a larger community of creators savvy with web design, for in-game stuff.

Quote from: lcalbas;732834And no, I don't think it's controversial. As long as the end result is positive toward a more immersive experiences, people will always support that.

Regarding the "people will always support that" sentiment---I hope so.

Although I still sense that (at least with some gamers) there is a tension between giving people the experience that they are used to having with a normal table top (playing the same systems, using dice the same way, etc) VS going off in new directions.