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Exit
2010-09-14, 08:14 AM
How do you guys feel about Maptools? Do you think it's worth doing a player recruitment post if you want to use that as your platform? I see a lot of people seem to favour just doing PbP on the boards.

Esser-Z
2010-09-14, 09:20 AM
I'm very fond of realtime playing, though it can be harder to get going due to the need to schedule. I tend to use a combination of IRC and Maptool in my games., Main chat/rp/etc happens in IRC, which allows easier logging, with Maptool used primarily as a tabletop.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-14, 10:31 AM
Maptool games, in my experience, last longer than PbP ones do, and they move a lot faster.

Draz74
2010-09-14, 10:33 AM
MapTool is awesome. Potentially. I haven't gotten it to actually reach that potential yet.

I've only gotten one group together to try to play using MapTool (and we were playing face-to-face, just using it as a battlemap/die roller). It was ok for that, but really slow and laggy. I don't know if that was my netbook's fault, my Windows' or Java's fault, or if I was doing something wrong with MapTool (like trying to use maps that were much bigger than intended).

I sadly have no actual experience with using it as an online play medium.

kyoryu
2010-09-14, 11:40 AM
MapTool is awesome. Potentially. I haven't gotten it to actually reach that potential yet.

I've only gotten one group together to try to play using MapTool (and we were playing face-to-face, just using it as a battlemap/die roller). It was ok for that, but really slow and laggy. I don't know if that was my netbook's fault, my Windows' or Java's fault, or if I was doing something wrong with MapTool (like trying to use maps that were much bigger than intended).

I sadly have no actual experience with using it as an online play medium.

Something about your setup. I haven't found it to be that slow and laggy when I've used it (also locally as a battlemap).

Fallbot
2010-09-14, 11:47 AM
Maptool is super useful, and I think our online game would have died long ago if we didn't have a specific time to meet up and play. But, on the other hand, since we have a fairly limited amount of gametime due to time zone incompatibility, we tend to rush to play out combats when we're together, meaning RP gets pushed to the side a lot. When possible we do RP conversations via email or through IM, but it's very rare that the entire party will do anything besides combat together. I guess it comes down to individual preference as to what you want in a game (doesn't everything?:smalltongue:).

Also, depending on how stable your internet connection is, it can crash a frustrating amount.

Draz74
2010-09-14, 12:18 PM
Something about your setup. I haven't found it to be that slow and laggy when I've used it (also locally as a battlemap).

Were you using it with really big maps (with dozens of images on the Object layer)?

Cogidubnus
2010-09-14, 12:24 PM
I started a campaign in MapTools recently. As the experienced IRC player pointed out, all such campaigns start off slow, as people aren't used to it, but get better. Another problem is scheduling. Currently one of my players can never play when I can, so we may need to do something. But when it works, it's fun. I just love building the maps.

Doomboy911
2010-09-16, 09:38 PM
I've got to say drawing out maps on graph paper is more fun than the computer.

kyoryu
2010-09-16, 10:11 PM
Were you using it with really big maps (with dozens of images on the Object layer)?

Nope.

If you're doing that, look at the resolution of the images. MapTool isn't particularly smart about bandwidth conservation.