Piazo VTT

[Griogre]

Guess we now know why they didn't want Smiteworks to do licensed stuff:

https://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dy...-Space#discuss

Paizo Game Space

current run through: 7 minutes. previous run-through: 9 minutes

pre-demo checklist

mouse for laptop
mac mini, ethernet cable, plugged in, turned on
https://192.168.132.126:55435
hide browser chrome

sign in, select Gary Teter's Swallowtail Festival
zoom in on ginormous dragon so big as possible

minimize window

have separate blank browser window open in case of accidental switching

--

presentation

We're working on a lot of stuff:
A redesign of the Pathfinder Society website, along with new forums for each faction
Way to upload character sheets and stat blocks to paizo.com, going to be biggest stat block database on the internet
More stuff I can't talk about.

Tonight i'm going to talk about one thing.

Today, Paizo is announcing a new way to play the games you love: Paizo Game Space.

[main screen ON, showing map with dragon]

--

Paizo Game Space is amazing software that lets you play with the people you know... anywhere in the world. All you need is the internet.

It's a virtual tabletop. Now VTTs aren't new. I'm gonna say "VTT" a lot because "virtual tabletop" is kind of a mouthful.

Virtual tabletops aren't new. There have been literally dozens of them before this. Some of them we like. Some of them we like a lot.

But none of them is exactly what we think a virtual tabletop should be.

..

We've talked to a lot of people and they all say the same thing:

We love playing on a VTT. We can keep our group together after people move away.

We love playing on a VTT. As Cosmo told me the other day, it lets him game in his underwear without all the catcalling and wolf whistles.

People love playing on a VTT. But they're kind of annoying!

You have to find the software. And download it. Install it. Will it run on a Mac? That's a big one for us at Paizo.

And then you get the fun part. IP addresses and firewalls and port forwarding and all that. Even network administrators don't want to deal with that stuff. That's work! We're here for fun.

..

So today, Paizo is reinventing the virtual tabletop.

Paizo Game Space runs right in your web browser. There's no software to install! None. Not even a plug-in.
If you can get to paizo.com, you and your friends can play on Paizo Game Space.

We're all about making life better for gamers. We've built Paizo Game Space to do just that. So let's take a quick look.

..

[.... demo ... ]

Here I've got the first combat from Rise of the Runelords, the Swallowtail Festival.

Smooth scrolling, panning, zooming

Drag tokens around. Resize dragon back to huge from "ginormous". Move it off map.

..

So here's the thing. Running a game in a VTT is fun, but the prep work is kind of a pain.

You still have to find a map, prepare it, resize it, load it, align the grid. And then you get to go looking for monster art and tokens and handouts and all the rest.

And for some of us that's fun, but sometimes you just want to play.

..

Paizo Game Space changes all that.

We're going to do the prep work for you.

When you run an adventure like Rise of the Runelords on Paizo Game Space, all the maps and handouts, all the monsters and NPCs, will already be right there for you.

..

Zoom in to FRUIT CART note, we had technical difficulties with the Swallowtail map, so instead we used a different flip-mat, so actually zoomed into carpet details instead of seeing individual fruits in fruit cart

The source for this map is about 200 megabytes. It's higher resolution than what we put in our PDFs. This is the original art we send to the printer. Maximum resolution.

Zoom out.

..

Let's take a quick look at combat. I want to emphasize something here about our approach.

We are not implementing the Pathfinder rules in Paizo Game Space. That would be crazy.

Our approach is, just don't be stupid by default.

..

Show Initiative tab.

So it knows a little about initiative.

Roll initiative. Modify a roll.

Start combat. Next, next. Round separator.

So it knows a little about initiative, it knows players and monsters go in order, and it knows about rolling dice. But if you need to change something you can.

Drag to reorder initiative. Click to delay or ready. Next, next. Take readied action.

...

OK, so that's a brief look at Paizo Game Space. I can't tell you how excited I am about this.

Let me answer a couple questions I know you have: When can I use it. And how much is it gonna cost.

When can I use it.

It's not quite ready yet. Don't worry, we're not going to wait until it's perfect. It turns out, software is never perfect.
So you'll be able to play with Paizo Game Space sometime this summer. And we'll keep making it better as we go.

How much will it cost?

Nothing. We haven't worked out all of the details yet. Or really any of the details.
But you'll be able to play a game on our virtual tabletop and not pay us a dime.

We'll have ways for you to give us money, don't worry about that. We like money.

But the main reason we're working on this is to build our community. Provide a place for you to gather.

A place to meet, talk, hang around, buy stuff. And now, game.

Thank you, and good night!

[Moon Wizard]

Yeah, they were probably just checking out the competition, like Wizards did. I still find it interesting that a lot of these guys use other VTTs internally.

I actually welcome the competition in the space. More marketing means more people interested and aware of VTTs, and I think Fantasy Grounds is in a good position.

Regards,
JPG

[ddavison]

I thought they might be working on that when they volunteered to form a committee to discuss new standards for character storage formats. It seemed very Microsoft-like of them at the time.

I think too many companies (at least two I can think of) underestimate exactly how much is involved in a fully featured VTT. You can't really argue with free, but I think they are both spending a lot of time, effort and focus on something that they don't really have the expertise or even the real "need" to build. IT projects often fail and larger ones seem to be the biggest culprits.

[damned]

hehe... on the back of all the kickstarter talk of android/ipad apps I started investigating what might be involved.
the complexities of actually supporting rulesets and not just having a shared map, dice roller and character sheet - but actually making them all work together and in the framework of a particular ruleset... far out.
i did howver check out several google hangout based frameworks which are really coming along - and the google hangouts provides a number of the base building blocks to speed up development.
on the downside - which was i thought quite ironic - cant get any of them to load on Android 3 or 4!

[Trenloe]

I was at this presentation at PaizoCon last night - the software is very much in its infancy, the demo was very underwhelming. All we saw was a map, a few tokens and a very basic initiative tracker.

Obviously, development will move forwards and the product will become more polished and have more features; and getting access to Paizo adventure maps (and whatever else they package together for a module) will be a major draw, as well as just the draw of "Paizo are doing this, it will be awesome!" - which I heard a lot of times last night.

I think it will be good for the VTT industry and it will get people looking at VTTs where they haven't before. It will be interesting to see what Paizo actually deliver...

[RosenMcStern]

It will be interesting to see what Paizo actually deliver...

Well, they cannot do worse than Wizards. It is technically impossible

[wbcreighton]

Paizo has made it clear that the rules will not be integrated into the VTT. That eliminates lots of headaches, but in comparison shows the real strength of FG.

In the end it will draw attention to VTTs and the serious users will migrate to FG, IMHO.

Of course paizo game space will probably be a huge meeting ground for casual players and Gms. Good place to recruit new users.

[Griogre]

The current iteration sounds very much like the Screen Monkey VTT. They'll just include the map, counters and maybe make it real time.

[khersheyjr]

Speaking of VTTs, WotC just announced they are be coming to an end.


" I wanted to inform you all about an important decision that Wizards has made regarding the D&D Virtual Table and Virtual Table Beta. While we appreciate the enthusiasm and participation in the Beta phase, we were unable to generate enough support for the tool to launch a full version to the public. Effective July 30, 2012 the D&D Virtual Table Beta will be coming to an end and the VT will be closed.


Over the next three weeks, we encourage you to wrap up your existing campaigns and make sure to gather contact information from your online group members so that you can stay in touch if you like. We realize that because all data generated in the tool is in a proprietary format usable only by the Virtual Table, it is not possible to export your campaigns for use in another tool. You can, however, take screenshots of any notes, maps or adventures that you would like to hang on to or use in your home games.


We would like to thank everyone who participated in the VT Beta and look forward to continuing to support D&D game play through our D&D Insider digital tools and D&D Next."

[sturtus]

And this just in from Wizards:

You have a new broadcast on your site at The Wizards Community!

Wotc_Joshfrom the groupD&D Insider Beta has sent you a broadcast.
Subject: D&D VT Community Announcement
I wanted to inform you all about an important decision that Wizards has made regarding the D&D Virtual Table and Virtual Table Beta. While we appreciate the enthusiasm and participation in the Beta phase, we were unable to generate enough support for the tool to launch a full version to the public. Effective July 30, 2012 the D&D Virtual Table Beta will be coming to an end and the VT will be closed.


Over the next three weeks, we encourage you to wrap up your existing campaigns and make sure to gather contact information from your online group members so that you can stay in touch if you like. We realize that because all data generated in the tool is in a proprietary format usable only by the Virtual Table, it is not possible to export your campaigns for use in another tool. You can, however, take screenshots of any notes, maps or adventures that you would like to hang on to or use in your home games.


We would like to thank everyone who participated in the VT Beta and look forward to continuing to support D&D game play through our D&D Insider digital tools and D&D Next.