Tigon
November 17th, 2016, 23:22
Greetings adventurers!!
So i do believe ive made the decision to go with Fantasy Grounds for my VTT needs and it may not be for the reason one would think.
I had done some extensive research on various VTT products and was really initially inclined to go with Roll20 mostly because of the Android/iOS app they have since my primary use for a VTT will be running an in person game with friends at my house. I'm a successful semi-pro DJ as well as a Service Engineer in the Xbox Live Network Operations Center so I'm a busy guy and really need software that is going to make planning, prepping and running a campaign less time consuming and labor intensive than it has been in the past when I attempted to run games. I also liked that all that was needed to use it was a web browser, and was very fond of their 'jukebox' feature, until I learned it was nerfed by the Soundcloud APIs. The big hesitation for me was the fact that they announced their license agreement with WOTC back in July but still don't have the PHB & DMG available. So I made a post on their forums saying Id been weighing their product against yours (FG) and asked their community to sell me on why I should use their product over yours and why they didnt have license content up yet. Not only did I not get a response, but they deleted my post stating I violated their TOS. When I looked at the TOS they linked to, I couldnt find a section that I violated. It appears as though if you mention their competition on their forums, they delete the post. This to me was a huge red flag. If they are SO afraid of you that they wont even let people mention your product name on their forums, you must be the better solution, hands down. But, beyond that, I just really dont appreciate being censored and treated like that, and Ive already been treated very awesomely by the folks here at FG and that means more to me than virtually anything else.
So since then i've done even more in depth reserching of Fantasy Grounds and ive found even more reasons why this AWESOME software is the right choice for me. Ive watched 5 or 6 episodes of Dulux Ox's Tutorial series which, while insanely helpful and thourough, they're quite dull, slow, and a bit monotone. I understand the need to be so, not everyone can be as computer savvy as others of us and Dulux Ox does a FANTASTIC job covering all of the basics for new users. But for someone who works on massive amounts of servers across the world, I dont need the step by step of "Double click on In the window, right click. Select New. Then Select Folder. Type Fantasy_Ground_Data. Double click on the new folder. Right Click. Select New then Select Folder. Type "Characters". Right Click, select new. Then Select Folder. Type "Rulesets". etc. Again, i understand why its needed, and i did learn a lot from it, i just wish there were suscinct options for more computer centric users that was like (Create 2 folders in this directory called "Characters" and "Rulesets". Really, im kinda splitting hairs here though.
I do have 1 suggestion and 1 question.
Suggestion:
You should really have a whole forum/board/section that is dedicated to new commers. An introduce yourself thread would be cool, as well as pinned posts to new player resources much like Moon Wizard's reply to this 'New-Lost-and-Afraid' thread: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34904-New-Lost-and-Afraid I mean, this must be my 10th visit or so to the forums here and this is the first I heard mention of the Sample Campaign, UserManual or Wiki. It could also be a valuable place for finding common obstacles in the initial learning curve that could make initial introduction to the software easier to assimilate.
Question:
If I am using FG for a local in person game, can I set it up to run on local area network only? I really like the feature of being able to put something out in say, Dwarven, only the players who's characters speak that language could read it; players able to whisper the GM/each other for... reasons; and a few other features that would need each player-client connected to the gm-host, however, Id like to avoid giving the players full internet access to things like Facebook, etc.
What would be really cool, would be to have the map on a TV or a projector (been looking at tons of solutions for making my own table, havnet decided which direction to go yet) but then to have each player with something like a tablet or small laptop or perhaps even a custom built raspberry pi 3 touchscreen "Player terminal", but id hope to limit functionality on the terminal to just like the chat window/dice and player sheets/reference docs. Id want all the maps, movement etc to be on the main screen. Not sure if this functionality is possible, but I'm down to tackle the task of seeing if i can make it work.
Anyway
TL;DR: Roll20 lost me due to them censoring my post and being kinda rude. And after doing more research into FG i've found so much more that has me excited to dig into this software. | Would love to see a Newcommers Board for people to introduce themselves/have a resource for n00b stuff. | Can I use FG on a Local Area Network with no Internet Access for my players? | Have some really pretty ambitious projects to try out with this, stay tuned.
Cheers,
Scott/Tigon
So i do believe ive made the decision to go with Fantasy Grounds for my VTT needs and it may not be for the reason one would think.
I had done some extensive research on various VTT products and was really initially inclined to go with Roll20 mostly because of the Android/iOS app they have since my primary use for a VTT will be running an in person game with friends at my house. I'm a successful semi-pro DJ as well as a Service Engineer in the Xbox Live Network Operations Center so I'm a busy guy and really need software that is going to make planning, prepping and running a campaign less time consuming and labor intensive than it has been in the past when I attempted to run games. I also liked that all that was needed to use it was a web browser, and was very fond of their 'jukebox' feature, until I learned it was nerfed by the Soundcloud APIs. The big hesitation for me was the fact that they announced their license agreement with WOTC back in July but still don't have the PHB & DMG available. So I made a post on their forums saying Id been weighing their product against yours (FG) and asked their community to sell me on why I should use their product over yours and why they didnt have license content up yet. Not only did I not get a response, but they deleted my post stating I violated their TOS. When I looked at the TOS they linked to, I couldnt find a section that I violated. It appears as though if you mention their competition on their forums, they delete the post. This to me was a huge red flag. If they are SO afraid of you that they wont even let people mention your product name on their forums, you must be the better solution, hands down. But, beyond that, I just really dont appreciate being censored and treated like that, and Ive already been treated very awesomely by the folks here at FG and that means more to me than virtually anything else.
So since then i've done even more in depth reserching of Fantasy Grounds and ive found even more reasons why this AWESOME software is the right choice for me. Ive watched 5 or 6 episodes of Dulux Ox's Tutorial series which, while insanely helpful and thourough, they're quite dull, slow, and a bit monotone. I understand the need to be so, not everyone can be as computer savvy as others of us and Dulux Ox does a FANTASTIC job covering all of the basics for new users. But for someone who works on massive amounts of servers across the world, I dont need the step by step of "Double click on In the window, right click. Select New. Then Select Folder. Type Fantasy_Ground_Data. Double click on the new folder. Right Click. Select New then Select Folder. Type "Characters". Right Click, select new. Then Select Folder. Type "Rulesets". etc. Again, i understand why its needed, and i did learn a lot from it, i just wish there were suscinct options for more computer centric users that was like (Create 2 folders in this directory called "Characters" and "Rulesets". Really, im kinda splitting hairs here though.
I do have 1 suggestion and 1 question.
Suggestion:
You should really have a whole forum/board/section that is dedicated to new commers. An introduce yourself thread would be cool, as well as pinned posts to new player resources much like Moon Wizard's reply to this 'New-Lost-and-Afraid' thread: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34904-New-Lost-and-Afraid I mean, this must be my 10th visit or so to the forums here and this is the first I heard mention of the Sample Campaign, UserManual or Wiki. It could also be a valuable place for finding common obstacles in the initial learning curve that could make initial introduction to the software easier to assimilate.
Question:
If I am using FG for a local in person game, can I set it up to run on local area network only? I really like the feature of being able to put something out in say, Dwarven, only the players who's characters speak that language could read it; players able to whisper the GM/each other for... reasons; and a few other features that would need each player-client connected to the gm-host, however, Id like to avoid giving the players full internet access to things like Facebook, etc.
What would be really cool, would be to have the map on a TV or a projector (been looking at tons of solutions for making my own table, havnet decided which direction to go yet) but then to have each player with something like a tablet or small laptop or perhaps even a custom built raspberry pi 3 touchscreen "Player terminal", but id hope to limit functionality on the terminal to just like the chat window/dice and player sheets/reference docs. Id want all the maps, movement etc to be on the main screen. Not sure if this functionality is possible, but I'm down to tackle the task of seeing if i can make it work.
Anyway
TL;DR: Roll20 lost me due to them censoring my post and being kinda rude. And after doing more research into FG i've found so much more that has me excited to dig into this software. | Would love to see a Newcommers Board for people to introduce themselves/have a resource for n00b stuff. | Can I use FG on a Local Area Network with no Internet Access for my players? | Have some really pretty ambitious projects to try out with this, stay tuned.
Cheers,
Scott/Tigon