PDA

View Full Version : Map size question



Captcorajus
January 19th, 2009, 16:11
Is 225kb a decent size for a map? I'm new to FG and making my first dungeon, (although I've been a DM for 29 years).

It seems to load pretty fast when I open a second player instance (as opposed to the 5mb size i started off with). Just wondering what the "normal size" is for decent load speed.

I have made a bunch of "placeable object" tokens: Dungeon doors, Sarcophagus, Wizards Desk, Treasure chests etc. These are all about the same size as character and monster tokens (memory wise), and I saved them all as PNG files.

I ask, because it seems like I can go ahead and put all that on the map and leave it, rather that place them "in game". Is this what others are doing?

I have all the World Works 3d kits, and was able to cut and paste some really nice looking stuff. Using perspective skews in photoshop I made some chairs that look really cool, etc.

I'm using the method Xorn described for making monster tokens to make the "placeable objects". I can open doors, and move stuff around during the game doing it this way, and seems like it loads ok when I open a second instance on my laptop.

Tenian
January 19th, 2009, 16:31
I've never played in a game that used tokens for doors, chests, etc. I don't see any reason why you couldn't, but I think it might be a bit of overkill.

In a typical 4E encounter there are usually 4-6pcs, and at least that many NPCs (sometimes a lot more if the encounter is minion heavy...like 1 kobold wyrmpriest and 16 minions!). As a GM you'll need to manage all the NPC tokens and these new door/chest/whatever tokens. You might find yourself overwhelmed.

In the games I've played the GMs just make use of the in game drawing tools to "scribble" over doors that have been locked/closed/blocked or other changes to scenery. It conveys the same message but is probably a lot faster.

As for map size, a lot of it depends on the number of players you have, how they connect, and your connection. I'd say for 4-6 players with everyone using broadband, that size should be okay. Remember each time you add a player that's another copy of the map you need to send.

The only way to know for sure is to test it under realistic conditions. I recommend making a few versions of the map (i.e. save it at different resolution/quality/color depth/what have you) and having your players (or at least most of them) connect. Try sending them the various versions until you settle on a size that everyone finds acceptable (in terms of download time/quality). This usually works well during the "character making" session that many campaigns begin with.

There are ways to distribute larger high quality maps in a client module, but players can easily open them offline. I wouldn't recommend sending your players anything you wouldn't want them to see. It does work nicely for a detailed/world city map. Client modules can be transferred outside of FGII (ftp, email, etc)

Griogre
January 19th, 2009, 18:43
I usually have 5-6 players in my games. I try to keep my maps around or below 300K. I think your map will be fine. Don't overlook the map/image preload feature. This causes the map to cache on the player's computers so when you open the map for them they get it from their cache instead of needing the host to transfer the map. You right click on the map and selet "Preload Image" (the web icon at 7 o'clock). Once the map is preloaded you will see the same web icon at the top right of the map.

If I can, I will preload the first map at the start of a session when people are still connecting and saying hello. Even if you don't preload the map for everyone, getting it to a few of them speeds it up for the rest. When the party starts exploring the first map if you have others then start preloading them. If you usually take a break during your game, you can also preload the maps then too.