DualQuad
September 5th, 2010, 17:12
After a week's delay my group and I finally got together to give the Ulitmate software a try as a "Dm's helper".
The hoped for setup, 1 laptop running as server, 1 laptop driving the TV in the room that players would share as single resource. Some characters were fully fleshed out, other were place holder types. Players were to provide rolls and feedback to DM who would manually update the adventure.
What was running:
Dm laptop on Xp running FG2 ultimate 2.7.1
Player Laptop on Vista running FG2 as ultimate client
What happened (Issues):
1) With client connected to server, DM tried to update player token in player sheet while client was connected. Result: crash of client (unresponsive) window indicating upload going on found after client went away
2) After crash (1), client would attempt to reconnect. Available player list would not populate upon restart of software. Hitting "X" on character selection would cause client to "go black" and not recover.
3) Connecting with client running on same machine as server - client would not immediately populate available characters but hitting "X" and then selecting character button would work as expected.
4) Running in Client/Server combination, software would become non-responsive after an erratic amount of time, sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 15
5) Running in client server mode, player tokens not always visible. This was weird, I would open combat tracker, drag characters into tracker, drag shown icon from tracker onto map. There were times where only the "green box" where a character would be was visible on the client map, no token. All visibility settings were on. This was fixed once by shutting down both server and client and restarting both client and server, but then things became unresponsive (4)
My hobbled together solution:
1) Run just DM client and span window across both laptop and TV. On the TV side put the map and whatever players should be able to view. On the laptop keep the combat tracker and DM-only stuff
What could work better:
1) Initial Client startup -- I don't get this, it seems like network performance is really poor. Players were wondering if software was working, we were sitting on a LAN. We had folks ask, "Is the bar moving?"
2) Moving data between machines. I developed the DM stuff on my desktop and moved it to the laptop for the gameday. Being a newbie, I asked for suggestions and probably screwed this up. I copied the campaign directory, and tokens, but forgot about the "modules/scraped/parsed" stuff. Perhaps a real module export gets around that?
What was awesome:
1) As a DM, I finally felt somewhat organized and ready. I was able to put in good data, descriptions, and easily track 15 combatants. I have been DMing for years and really hadn't moved out of the 80's, lots of books, lots of notes. I really didnt want to drag a laptop in addition to 80 lbs of books. With FG2, and the scrapes, I went an entire session without consulting a single hard cover book. I had finally collected all the data I required in one easy to navigate spot.
2) Players liked the ability to share pictures. I had scanned several pics from monster manuals, etc and provided them as "here's the description, here's the picture"
3) The maps worked very, very well. Even running on just a single machine and having display across two monitors, we had no issues seeing terrain issues and describing movements
4) Treasure drops, really nice to provide everything in one easy to see spot without having to figure out where it is in the book, pass it around to the player who inevitably forgot their book for this session.
5) Using just DM client, client was rock solid for 8 hours of continuous use.
6) Maps are easy to produce with campaign cartographer for import. Yeah, things like dynamic fog of war and auto visibility stuff may be real cool, but I can whip out a functional(though ugly) map in just a few minutes and my group had a much fun as they always have using a vinyl battlemap.
7) Xorn - The videos made by Xorn were absolutely terrific in getting us moving in the right direction. Thanks so much Xorn.
8) Tenian - The scrapers and parsers really, really reduce setup time as a DM. Thanks Tenian
I am hoping that the client-server issues we encountered were dopey newbie scewups, using an out of date (beta) load or just something that can be worked around. If we can actually get this working smoother, this will be the perfect product for my needs.
Any help is appreciated.
DQ
The hoped for setup, 1 laptop running as server, 1 laptop driving the TV in the room that players would share as single resource. Some characters were fully fleshed out, other were place holder types. Players were to provide rolls and feedback to DM who would manually update the adventure.
What was running:
Dm laptop on Xp running FG2 ultimate 2.7.1
Player Laptop on Vista running FG2 as ultimate client
What happened (Issues):
1) With client connected to server, DM tried to update player token in player sheet while client was connected. Result: crash of client (unresponsive) window indicating upload going on found after client went away
2) After crash (1), client would attempt to reconnect. Available player list would not populate upon restart of software. Hitting "X" on character selection would cause client to "go black" and not recover.
3) Connecting with client running on same machine as server - client would not immediately populate available characters but hitting "X" and then selecting character button would work as expected.
4) Running in Client/Server combination, software would become non-responsive after an erratic amount of time, sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 15
5) Running in client server mode, player tokens not always visible. This was weird, I would open combat tracker, drag characters into tracker, drag shown icon from tracker onto map. There were times where only the "green box" where a character would be was visible on the client map, no token. All visibility settings were on. This was fixed once by shutting down both server and client and restarting both client and server, but then things became unresponsive (4)
My hobbled together solution:
1) Run just DM client and span window across both laptop and TV. On the TV side put the map and whatever players should be able to view. On the laptop keep the combat tracker and DM-only stuff
What could work better:
1) Initial Client startup -- I don't get this, it seems like network performance is really poor. Players were wondering if software was working, we were sitting on a LAN. We had folks ask, "Is the bar moving?"
2) Moving data between machines. I developed the DM stuff on my desktop and moved it to the laptop for the gameday. Being a newbie, I asked for suggestions and probably screwed this up. I copied the campaign directory, and tokens, but forgot about the "modules/scraped/parsed" stuff. Perhaps a real module export gets around that?
What was awesome:
1) As a DM, I finally felt somewhat organized and ready. I was able to put in good data, descriptions, and easily track 15 combatants. I have been DMing for years and really hadn't moved out of the 80's, lots of books, lots of notes. I really didnt want to drag a laptop in addition to 80 lbs of books. With FG2, and the scrapes, I went an entire session without consulting a single hard cover book. I had finally collected all the data I required in one easy to navigate spot.
2) Players liked the ability to share pictures. I had scanned several pics from monster manuals, etc and provided them as "here's the description, here's the picture"
3) The maps worked very, very well. Even running on just a single machine and having display across two monitors, we had no issues seeing terrain issues and describing movements
4) Treasure drops, really nice to provide everything in one easy to see spot without having to figure out where it is in the book, pass it around to the player who inevitably forgot their book for this session.
5) Using just DM client, client was rock solid for 8 hours of continuous use.
6) Maps are easy to produce with campaign cartographer for import. Yeah, things like dynamic fog of war and auto visibility stuff may be real cool, but I can whip out a functional(though ugly) map in just a few minutes and my group had a much fun as they always have using a vinyl battlemap.
7) Xorn - The videos made by Xorn were absolutely terrific in getting us moving in the right direction. Thanks so much Xorn.
8) Tenian - The scrapers and parsers really, really reduce setup time as a DM. Thanks Tenian
I am hoping that the client-server issues we encountered were dopey newbie scewups, using an out of date (beta) load or just something that can be worked around. If we can actually get this working smoother, this will be the perfect product for my needs.
Any help is appreciated.
DQ