Ran first game - Some things that could be better

[Jingo]

Howdy all.

I ran my first session last night, and it was a LOT of FUN! Of course, there were some (ahem) issues.

* Token/map sharing. One player could not see any custom tokens. Only the letter tokens that came with the game. The same player could not receive any maps, unless I tasked out of the game and sent it to him and he placed it in the necessary folder. THAT was annoying!

* Chatting. There has got to be a way to make this better. It's alright, I guess. I still think I got my money's worth because we had such a good time, but I would love a feature where you could right click on a char window and select private message and it would open up another window to do private chats with them. In the main window it clutters up everything going on. Players have it easy, because they just type /w and it goes to the GM. But the GM has to type /w (char's name) which is a pain if it's something long. A separate window, in my opinion, would be ideal.

* Combat. It's slow... but we found some ways to put /die #d#+mod format into quickslots so that's nice. Some suggested improvements.

-The Combat Tracker could be improved to do more things like roll and sort initiatives for groups of people, automatically bringing in their init mod. We only did 1 small combat this last session with one enemy creature vs the party, but with more, I can definately see it slowing down. The combat tracker should also have a Clear All on its menu so when clearing out a previous combat you don't have to delete all 15 monsters! ;) Also, it would be nice to store what's in the combat tracker if you have to close down and restart. Right now, you have to add everything back into the tracker when re-hosting a game. Again, a pain with the 15 monsters especially if you couldn't remember all their initiative rolls. :)
- A 'Next Turn' button would be nice so it would automtically notify the player if it's a player that it's his / her turn, or if it's a NPCs turn it would pop open the NPCs sheet.
- A 'Target' menu item would be nice. For example, right click on a token and click select target and then click on target on map to have a pointer automatically appear pointing to the recipient of an attack appear for everyone.

That's all I can think of right now. But just wanted to say thanks to the developers and all who made this wonderful program! It's a lot of fun, I just want it to get better and better!

[kalmarjan]

Howdy all.

I ran my first session last night, and it was a LOT of FUN! Of course, there were some (ahem) issues.

* Token/map sharing. One player could not see any custom tokens. Only the letter tokens that came with the game. The same player could not receive any maps, unless I tasked out of the game and sent it to him and he placed it in the necessary folder. THAT was annoying!

Don't know what to say here but... o.O


* Chatting. There has got to be a way to make this better. It's alright, I guess. I still think I got my money's worth because we had such a good time, but I would love a feature where you could right click on a char window and select private message and it would open up another window to do private chats with them. In the main window it clutters up everything going on. Players have it easy, because they just type /w and it goes to the GM. But the GM has to type /w (char's name) which is a pain if it's something long. A separate window, in my opinion, would be ideal.

I see some of your points. A couple of tips:

1) Instead of typing the whole name of the character, you can type the first letter or the first two or whatever, as long as the character name is unique to the group.

2) Did you know that you can drag text to the portrait and have that as a whisper? So what you are asking has already been done via updates and patched. :)


That's all I can think of right now. But just wanted to say thanks to the developers and all who made this wonderful program! It's a lot of fun, I just want it to get better and better!

Welcome to FG. Stay tuned for the elusive 1.06 patch, and things should get better!

Sandeman

[Jingo]

Don't know what to say here but... o.O

I see some of your points. A couple of tips:

1) Instead of typing the whole name of the character, you can type the first letter or the first two or whatever, as long as the character name is unique to the group.

2) Did you know that you can drag text to the portrait and have that as a whisper? So what you are asking has already been done via updates and patched. :

Welcome to FG. Stay tuned for the elusive 1.06 patch, and things should get better!

Sandeman

Thanks Sandeman for the hint of typing just the first few chars to do a whisper and text dragging. I didn't know that.

Text dragging is still way too slow for a on the fly private message though. I still think a windowed approach to private messages would be better so they don't clutter up the main chat window.

One other concern with chatting is simply speed and efficiency. It's slower to type and make edits in that (ever try backspacing at the end of a long sentence in FG? Molasses! ;) ) and it also sometimes can't keep up with us fast typers. If you make mistakes, it would be nice to use standard MS Word conventions CTRL + SHIFT + L or R ARROW key to select words or CTRL + L or R ARROW to navigate backwards and fowards in a phrase. Simple things like that would help.

On and pasting into the chat window from the Clipboard would be a must!

Thanks!

[Spyke]

If you make mistakes, it would be nice to use standard MS Word conventions CTRL + SHIFT + L or R ARROW key to select words or CTRL + L or R ARROW to navigate backwards and fowards in a phrase. Simple things like that would help.

Ctrl+R ARROW and Ctrl+L ARROW do work to navigate back and forth in FG, though the shift selection of words doesn't.

Combat is pretty slow in any online tabletop, I've found. As you and your players get used to the program, though, things do speed up considerably. Each player needs to be setting up their turn in advance using the two tab chat slots and hotkeys if necessary, and stacking the modifiers they expect to use (if playing d20 or similar). It's also possible for the GM to call for several players to take their turns at the same time, depending on the state of the battle.

Have fun,
Spyke

[richvalle]

As Spyke says, you can use two buffers when typing. If you are typing something and need to answer a quick question or type something else, hit the tab key. This calls up a 2nd buffer to type stuff into. When you are done hit tab again and you will be back at the first message.

Consider using voice software (Skype, Team Speak, Ventrillo). The are free and speed things up amazingly. Or consider a mix and have out of character talk though voice and in character chatter though typing.

Sounds like that 1 player was having issues. I've not seen that behavior in any of my games.

It sounds like the combat tracker is getting a major facelift in FG 2.0. We are all waiting expectedly for it.

rv

[Jingo]

Thanks both of you. Very handy tips. CTRL + arrows indeed does work and that TAB thing is going to be very helpful!

[Kalan]

Thanks both of you. Very handy tips. CTRL + arrows indeed does work and that TAB thing is going to be very helpful!

I _think_ too, if you use multiple personalities - SHIFT + left and right arrows will switch between them...at least I'm pretty sure that's the key combination...

[Snikle]

I wholeheartedly agree on the chatting, I wish it was more like IRC, and would tab the PMs to players in seperate windows. A single click on a portrait would bring up a window inside the original chat window (ie like another layer sort of), while a double click on a portrait would bring up the character sheet. That way you are not adding anything to the screen space or yet another menu item.

[Spyke]

I _think_ too, if you use multiple personalities - SHIFT + left and right arrows will switch between them...at least I'm pretty sure that's the key combination...

You're right: SHIFT+LEFT and RIGHT ARROWS switches between GM chat and the NPCs!

I never knew that. Thanks!

Spyke

[Snikle]

Sweet! Great tip! Will use that one allot.

[Kalan]

Yah...I use that one a LOT :S I sometimes have four or five personalities going in a single convo - not counting the PC's...and since I'm a keyboard kinda person it's tonne's easier for me :D

[FlatNineSharpFive]

I'd like a couple of things as well...but I realize that some of them aren't so realistic.

1) Better drawing tools (perhaps support for pen tablets!). Include snap to grid and I'll comp ya a free action point.

2) A larger text-input window. The single line kinda sucks when you're improvising a paragraph of NPC text.

3) A very simple spell-checker. They can get them to work on Palm OS...why not FG?

4) As cool as the token box looks, it's really an absolute mess. Some kind of visual hierarchy-based browser would work much better.

5) A loading progress bar for images that are being sent. Something that would let the players know the size (in KB) of the images and the percent that has loaded on their machines.

6) A lockable, snappable tile layer would absolutely rock...it would be great for building dungeons on the fly using tiles that are organized in the spiffy new token viewer!

I realize these aren't fix-em today issues, but I think these would make playing go a little (a lot) more smoothly.

[Jingo]

Excellent suggestions! I agree whole-heartedly with each of these.

[richvalle]

I'd like a couple of things as well...but I realize that some of them aren't so realistic.

1) Better drawing tools (perhaps support for pen tablets!). Include snap to grid and I'll comp ya a free action point.

2) A larger text-input window. The single line kinda sucks when you're improvising a paragraph of NPC text.

3) A very simple spell-checker. They can get them to work on Palm OS...why not FG?

4) As cool as the token box looks, it's really an absolute mess. Some kind of visual hierarchy-based browser would work much better.

5) A loading progress bar for images that are being sent. Something that would let the players know the size (in KB) of the images and the percent that has loaded on their machines.

6) A lockable, snappable tile layer would absolutely rock...it would be great for building dungeons on the fly using tiles that are organized in the spiffy new token viewer!

I realize these aren't fix-em today issues, but I think these would make playing go a little (a lot) more smoothly.


1. Better drawing tools should be in 2.0. There are screen shots somewhere. More colors ect.

2. I think the chat window was being looked at for improvments. Nothing definate was ever said though.

4. I think this was being looked at as well but again, nothing was ever said about what changes are being made (if any).

[Snikle]

Would be nice to get an update from the devs, I realize it is taking allot longer, but if we knew what changes were coming (set in concrete) would be a nice upate from the powers that be.