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Post by gatocello on Mar 12, 2010 8:35:56 GMT -5
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Post by Zguy on Mar 12, 2010 11:02:39 GMT -5
What they showed was very interesting except for the error in programing about the AoO the Wolf should have taken.
What bugs me is what they DIDN'T show. D&D is the most expansive game every created (based on how many rules, situations, and exceptions that can come into play over the course of a game). I really don't think a setup like this could ever account for every situation a player or DM is going to think up over the course of a game. At which point you'll have to turn off the table, grab a battle mat, redraw everything that was on the table, and pick up where you left off.
That issue combined with the fact that this thing is probably Stupidly expensive makes me think it's not worth getting. Cool concept, but I doubt it will get beyond that.
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Post by Jenling on Mar 12, 2010 17:33:33 GMT -5
Think of how brilliant this could be for a long-distance game. Add internet, some kind of teamspeak (net meeting would work for this), and give the DM some special overrides to enforce houseruled situations, and your DM group just went global. Absolutely worth development, and a brilliant application of technology.
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Post by Zguy on Mar 13, 2010 13:33:49 GMT -5
Well, the internet option can be accomplished with Office 2010, though the map obviously aren't anywhere near as interactive. You lose the intriguing map designs, but you gain complete autonomy of control of the game.
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Post by gatocello on Mar 14, 2010 15:54:09 GMT -5
Well, this was a student project at Carnegie Mellon U., so I don't know how likely this is to ever be honestly followed through upon, but it's a fantastic concept and if a program like this ever becomes
a) available to the public
and
b) relatively usable and customizable
It might be worth obtaining...especially if the program can be used for online type settings as Jenling said.
I think it's an incredibly nifty idea and a great application of technology that is even now incredibly new and underdeveloped.
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Post by treewiggle on Mar 17, 2010 17:02:19 GMT -5
I just thought of something. teamspeak and everyonelogged on a google doc could work long distance realistically. this may merit trying.
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Post by Zguy on Mar 18, 2010 17:09:39 GMT -5
There's already a system available for that. Office 2010 + AIM, or if you wanted a voice option you can go with TS or Vent. That gives you full manipulation and view of the game map by all players. DM can control the terrain and reveal as needed, and the chat or voice options allow for interaction between players. Other than the TS or Vent server - it's all free.
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Post by treewiggle on Mar 18, 2010 20:31:56 GMT -5
office 2010? I'm not familiar with it. if you want to offset the cost of vent or TS you can use skype. its free all around
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Post by Zguy on Mar 21, 2010 13:14:48 GMT -5
Microsoft Office 2010 is currently a free beta available to everyone. I don't remember the link but I'm sure if you search for it you'll find it. It has the new software for integrated editing of word and excel documents directly in browsers (I know IE, Firefox, and whatever the Mac primary browser are supported) by you and multiple people at the same time through the skydrives.
So basically all you have to do is setup a gamemap in an excel document, upload it to skydrive, allow login access to the players and poof you have a map where players can place tokens, move tokens, and the DM can add or remove terrain as the situation/combat progresses. I ripped images out of Wizards map editer which covers all the standard current dungeon tile packs for sale. If people found other images that worked and were to the correct scale they could be added in also.
So that combined with the skype program or even just a voice connection over Live Messenger or AIM = full interaction between DM and players for an online game with game map
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Post by Jenling on Mar 23, 2010 14:52:22 GMT -5
Microsoft Live Meeting is also free, includes the voice abilities, and the abilities for everyone to look at and manipulate a single document, or several, or an entire desktop. Also it is not a beta, and is therefore fully functional.
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Post by Zguy on Mar 24, 2010 12:09:18 GMT -5
Never heard of that one before. I wonder what the functionality difference is when they're pushing this new feature for 2010?
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Post by Jenling on Mar 25, 2010 10:19:20 GMT -5
Live Meeting is more of a business application, and it works together with 2010. The sharing functionality in 2010 isn't as all-encompassing as that in Live Meeting, which includes separate chat and video functions. 2010's functionality is really designed more to allow for shared documents that update themselves than dynamic documents like would be required for D&D
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Post by Zguy on Mar 26, 2010 3:10:41 GMT -5
You sure? What I've been doing with 2010 was simultaneous editing of an excel document. Using the cells in the document as the squares on a dungeon map combined with pictures at a set scale made it completely viable for multiple people moving icons around on a set map surface at the same time.
2010 definitely doesn't have the chat or video options, but that's where Live messenger or some other free program comes in.
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Post by Jenling on Mar 29, 2010 8:47:28 GMT -5
Download the program, get a friend to do it too, and play with it a little. See what you think.
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