Hiding Shared Image Names

[turelus]

So I have run a few forums searches and Google searches enough to find threads talking about this issue but nothing on if anyone's found a work around or there are planned changes yet.

So is there a way to hide preloaded image names from players other than giving them obscure names and masking all the images? I live in a rural area with horrible internet speeds (0.5 up if I am lucky) so it's generally much easier for me to preload an entire adventure worth of images a week before the session.

The problem is the new campaign I am planning to run will have a lot of hand outs and images I want the players to have the freedom to go back and look at without asking me for them each time, and giving everything an obscure name to hide potential spoilers makes my life harder when searching for images of monsters etc I want.

So yeah, as a long winded way of asking has there been any new work around for this yet, and if not please could it be something taken into consideration for the unity update of Fantasy Grounds.

[Zacchaeus]

I'm not sure I fully understand. If you preload all the images then surely that's going to take a shed load of time if your connection is poor, since the players will need to hang around waiting for everything to download. Would it not be better to just share as you need them? I, too, have a very slow connection but as long as images are kept to a reasonably size (0.5Mb or so) then load times are counted in seconds usually. Exceptionally when starting a new campaign then several minutes to load up the PHB.

To answer your question the only way to obscure a map, if the name gives away too much is to rename it and presumably you'll be masking it anyway. You shouldn't really be needing to search for images since you should have them linked to the story entry that they are relevant too. I don't think I've ever had the need to look into my image folder for anything during a game session. However you may well do things differently.

[Andraax]

When you do a preload, it starts the download when the player connects. Since players don't usually all connect at the same time, this spreads out the uploads over time. Also, most GMs start up the server a while before the players connect, so the players can connect well before the session to have all the downloads completed before play begins.

That said, I usually don't preload more than I expect to use in the next session or two.

[Zacchaeus]

Haha, well that explains things. My players all connect within 3 seconds of one another 10 seconds before the game starts :)

[Trenloe]

v3.2 (in the test channel now) allows you to assign two names to an image - the "identified" image name and the pre-identified name. You'll still have to mask them to hide the image itself, but at least they might not know what the image is based off the initial (non-identified) name and the identified name (once you click the ID button) will make sense later on.

[turelus]

Haha, well that explains things. My players all connect within 3 seconds of one another 10 seconds before the game starts :)
Generally I set it up on week nights or mornings and just send out a ping to my group saying it's up and they can preload ready for the weekends session. For smaller images I can share on the fly but some of the maps (even with low quality) shared two six people at once with my speeds can halt a game for a little. I long for the day of real internet.


v3.2 (in the test channel now) allows you to assign two names to an image - the "identified" image name and the pre-identified name. You'll still have to mask them to hide the image itself, but at least they might not know what the image is based off the initial (non-identified) name and the identified name (once you click the ID button) will make sense later on.
Thanks for the information Trenloe. That sounds perfect and I'll be looking forward to the update.

[Nyghtmare]

v3.2 (in the test channel now) allows you to assign two names to an image - the "identified" image name and the pre-identified name. You'll still have to mask them to hide the image itself, but at least they might not know what the image is based off the initial (non-identified) name and the identified name (once you click the ID button) will make sense later on.
It would be nice if you could add that option with the NPCs somewhere down the road. Right now, unless you rename them, the players can see what the creature is that they have encountered — which spoils some of the fun.

[Trenloe]

It would be nice if you could add that option with the NPCs somewhere down the road. Right now, unless you rename them, the players can see what the creature is that they have encountered — which spoils some of the fun.
Yeah, it would be nice. Some rulesets have it already, but most don't. Please add your request to the FG wishlist here: https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/

[Andraax]

It would be nice if you could add that option with the NPCs somewhere down the road. Right now, unless you rename them, the players can see what the creature is that they have encountered — which spoils some of the fun.

I rename them in the encounter when set that up. And it's always different, so the players can't figure out that "A" is always "X". Actually, being able to add a "pre-identified" creature name gives you the same problem, just one step removed. If you setup a "pre-identified" name of "ugly little green guy" for a goblin, then the players figure out pretty quick when they see "ugly little green guy" that it's a goblin.

[JimSocks]

So, this is a really old thread- but was this implemented!?

Can I truely set a non-ID name for images and NPCs!? That would be amazing. Not every image is a map- and not every NPC is what they seem. The ability to set Non-ID names for theses would be awesome. I don't remember seeing this field anywhere though and I'm nowhere near the computer to snoop around.

[Zacchaeus]

Version 3.2 is not yet released and won't be until after FGCON next weekend. As noted above you can rename NPCs in the encounters. Only the ability to change image names is new in 3.2

[Trenloe]

v3.2 will be at the earliest after FG Con. There is no firm date yet, all we know is that it won't be released before FG Con 9.