Preloading Questions

[Tambryn]

I plan to get everyone together the night before our game so they can preload my adventure maps. My bandwidth should be just sufficient enough to host a game and preloading the maps should make the game run smoother.

Can anyone tell me exactly how the preload process works? I assume that the preloaded objects will remain on the players' computers until we play, or this would be pointless. I am pretty good at keeping my maps below a few hundred K, so even with a 56K or smiliar speed connection they should load decently fast right? If I need to I can always cut the map into sections and load it as they travel through it. Other steps I am taking to maximise the bandwidth available to FG are; having a player host TS Server, handle chat, whispers, and sidebar concersations on a second laptop with a seperate connection. Any other advice you guys might have for dealing for a slower connection would be greatly appreciated.

Tam

[richvalle]

If you could come back and let us know how it works, that would be great. I keep seeing questions from people about how things would work with a modem, but I've never seen anyone say one way or another.

For the maps, I thought the maps would stay on the players pc's and be there for each game but it may be that they are loaded each time they login and you share the map.

What you may want to do is to have the players log in 5-10 before the game starts. Even if they just log in and walk away to get snacks, books ect. When they are all in you pre-load the map which will start the download process in the back ground. If you are going to use several maps preload each one. Then when you play the maps should be on the clients side and load quickly.

rv

[deckyon]

I would say log in at least 15 minutes early. My small module is 6mb with maps, masks, characters and other images. Include the new ruleset which is another 6m it took 5-10 minutes for all my players to connect with me being on broadband.

You can always upload the maps and ruleset (if you have a custom one) to a website and have them download it on their own, but you run the risk of people peaking at the maps.

[WolfStar76]

If a player knows where to look that's a risk with this software regardless - once a map is loaded onto a client's computer, there's nothing that stops them from going to the right folder and looking at the map image (or any other image that's been sent, for that matter).

The image mask is stored as a separate file and applied as a layer on top of the unaltered map image - same with drawings made over a map. :-/

But again, that all comes back to the usual discussion - if you think a player is cheating, confront them, if things don't improve, don't allow them in your group.

[Cypher]

If a player knows where to look that's a risk with this software regardless - once a map is loaded onto a client's computer, there's nothing that stops them from going to the right folder and looking at the map image (or any other image that's been sent, for that matter).

The image mask is stored as a separate file and applied as a layer on top of the unaltered map image - same with drawings made over a map. :-/


That's another reason I don't do full maps, but rather a battlemap of each area. Each room can be loaded up seperately without worrying about players looking at the unmasked map. Also they load wicked fast, as I can keep each battlemap to less than 100k.