Why purchase a license for a VTT other than FG?

[Qai]

https://www.epictable.com/forums/showthread.php?t=765

Very recent purchase. May be of interest to SW and the rest of the FG community. Nothing against ET (TBH, I have a license for it as well), but perhaps some needed info for why someone would choose it over FG.

I don't mean to create a thread of which VTT is better, etc. Just a friendly FYI.

[ddavison]

Thanks Qai.

It looks like the OP listed his favorite features as Fog of War and Dice Cups and that the player is not charged at all. Another poster asked for pre-built themes because they didn't want to create their own -- something they listed as the reason they don't like FG.

Fog of War - implemented in a more manual way for FG
Dice Cups - implemented by macros. Just drag whatever dice you want to the same hotkey and it makes a dice cup
Themes - these are already pre-built and selectable. Very few of our users actually create their own themes
Price - Free player version (this might be the biggest factor even though it was listed last)

The post makes me wonder if they just picked up FG and were preparing to use it and then were convinced to move to a free-to-play version for the players resulting from a player's request to move.

[Surge]

I love Fantasy Grounds, but you absolutely need to improve the drawing layer. Having never heard of Epic Table before, seeing that it has a good drawing layer (https://www.epictable.com/images/screenshots/2012/DrawingTools.jpg) has instantly made me want to look into it some more.


A more powerful Fog of War capability would also be a huge plus, but I expect that is a much bigger ask of Fantasy Grounds.

[Trenloe]

Having never heard of Epic Table before, seeing that it has a good drawing layer (https://www.epictable.com/images/screenshots/2012/DrawingTools.jpg) has instantly made me want to look into it some more.
This is what ET list for the drawing layer:

Freehand drawing on the map with pens of different thickness and color. Unlike your physical battlemat, though, you can erase whole strokes at once or even move and resize strokes.
The only difference between this and the FG drawing is: different colours, different thicknesses, move/resize strokes. I'd still class this as pretty basic - which the developer of ET admits, with the following taken from the FAQ:

EpicTable has some basic features for drawing ad-hoc maps. However, it’s not attempting to replace a dedicated mapping program like Dundjinni. EpicTable is built around the notion of GM’s leveraging the many excellent sources of maps already at their disposal.

[Surge]

This is what ET list for the drawing layer:

The only difference between this and the FG drawing is: different colours, different thicknesses, move/resize strokes. I'd still class this as pretty basic - which the developer of ET admits, with the following taken from the FAQ:

You say the only difference, yet those are some pretty damn fundamental things for drawing.

Yes it's pretty basic, but it is significantly more than what FG offers, which makes it clear how poor FG has it.

[Trenloe]

What Qai's post highlights is that people get attracted to different products for different things. Epic Table (ET) looks interesting from a VTT point of view - but have people actually looked at what you get? Here is the feature list: https://www.epictable.com/features/ Basically: image/screen sharing, the whiteboard/tabletop feature looks nice, very basic fog of war (not really much different from the FG mask - the only addition being you can define areas to reveal in advance; there is no lighting/auto reveal - plus this isn't available yet), dice rolling (it looks like there isn't an ad hoc modifier box - you need to create a dice cup to include modifiers), maps, tokens and drawings... Yep - that looks like it. There are no character sheets that I can see, there is no automation built in (you need to do that yourself), I can't see story entries (except putting freeform notes on the GM tabletop or are these covered by index cards? Probably), items lists? Encounter lists? NPC records? I can't even see a combat tracker - how is initiative/order of actions kept track of?

Only one person in the session has to own a license, and they don't have to be the GM - which is nice, I suppose from some aspects - until that player can't make it and someone else has to fork out $60 for a license. That's right - $60 for a license for software that once you start to look past 5 nice looking screenshots is a very basic VTT.

In the post linked by Qai, the player says their GM went to FG when they stopped using Maptools, but then was convinced by that player to move to ET - I wonder how long it will take for the GM to want to switch back to FG as there are really very few features in ET that help a GM run a game.

In the end, it is really up to individuals what they want from a VTT and how they use it. If the GM doesn't want to put NPCs, story entries, items, etc. in the VTT in advance and run the game from paper in front of the GM then cool - I'm sure they'll have a great game whichever VTT they use.

More VTT gaming is good for this niche of the hobby. :)

[Doswelk]

I have to say the Epic Table Fog of War looks no better or easier than the FG version to be honest...

[hawkwind]

There doesn't seem to be an active community of players or games going on judging by the forums

[Trenloe]

You say the only difference, yet those are some pretty damn fundamental things for drawing.

Yes it's pretty basic, but it is significantly more than what FG offers, which makes it clear how poor FG has it.
Have you voted and/or added what you'd like to see to the FG wish list? https://fg2app.idea.informer.com

[ddavison]

Drawing is something we definitely have never focused on. I've seen some really nice looking drawing features out there that we would want to emulate instead of a basic paint style interface. Whenever I demo the product at conventions, I am very upfront that while there are basic (and I mean very basic) drawing features, the true power in the FG maps is the ease with which you can use output from other sources or tools and lay our grid over top of it to get up and playing quickly. If you run adventure modules from most publishers, they will come with very nice maps you can just import and lay a grid over.

[Blacky]

When they are usable (I can't remember the number of ill conceived buildings or settlements, or just plain wrong from the text description aside it, I've seen along the years) or when the GM actually uses a published adventure as is.

[damned]

What would be needed to make the drawings better?

1. Straight Lines by holding down a button while drawing
2. Basic geometric shapes - square, rectangle, circle, oval
3. Polygon - using straight lines and snapping for last line to join first line
4. Undo last drawing
5. Typed text/labels

I dont know hard any of that would be - but being able to do that much would really make a huge difference... Im sure much more could be added but most people dont use drawing as their primary tool.

Is it a major selling point? No.
Is the current drawing feature a negative/distraction? Yes.

[Blacky]

If you dig into that, it also needs better lines, a limited but good palette, eraser, filling, and selection. Could also go the all vector path. But the most important thing, it needs to be very fast, easy, yet powerful. It should be as easy and fast and intuitive as using a pen and a sheet of paper (or a whiteboard, more appropriately).

Meaning some serious UI work, or more realistically a good library.

And in my opinion, it's not the most pressing issue (from the top of my head serious documentations including ruleset building & token stacking for example seems more important).

[Griogre]

What would be needed to make the drawings better?

1. Straight Lines by holding down a button while drawing

If you hold down shift when you draw a line horizontally or vertically it will be straight. This was added a while ago and my group in Undermoutain that is mapping it by hand uses it heavily.

[Trenloe]

...eraser...
That's available now.

I know that the drawing mode is basic and it would be nice, at some point, to have more features. Just letting you know that an eraser functionality is there now... :)

[damned]

If you hold down shift when you draw a line horizontally or vertically it will be straight. This was added a while ago and my group in Undermoutain that is mapping it by hand uses it heavily.

Thanks Griogre - I have seen the maps your players are creating and I would like to try that at some point instead of giving it to them on a platter.

[Ardem]

Price was not an real consideration when I chose FG so long ago. I don't think price is really a consideration if you 'really' want to play VTT and not pick it up once and play it a couple of times. I think if you purchase something you more likely going to invest time in it to make it succeed. I have got more hours of enjoyment out of this then a lot of computer games I buy over steam. I really see people crying over price but when it gets to it people will buy if the product is the best on the market for them, if people are umming or arrghing over price then either they do not see the value in the product, which means the demo did not tick the boxes, or there is another product with more exciting features.

The biggest draw card for me was

- Dice that look like dice and not numbers

- A easy to understand Story and NPC creation side as well as a good graphic interface to pick out the details easily.

- Ease for GM to see well layout out character sheets

FG has all these things down pat and more when some of the more fleshed out rulesets.

The only thinks I feel FG can improve on is around the drawing area, things like thicker lines should be included, and other draw tools but not a must.

For a huge gimmick or to put it over the other VTT is some multimedia aspects like able to push sounds, music atmospheric. As a gimmick this should be a draw card over the other VTTs, would it be used perhaps I would use it for lighting strikes, storms, airy passages. I think if implemented easily this could really enhance story telling.