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itabletop

Started by Lazybones, May 27, 2009, 09:29:09 PM

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Lazybones

http://itabletop.com/

Looks interesting, I am not sold, but over all it looks kinda slick.

Mr. Analog

It looks very polished, I wonder how it plays?
By Grabthar's Hammer

Thorin

Have you downloaded it yet to see how it runs?  The marketing speak makes it sound great, but I do wonder what happens with five or six webcams going at the same time...

Still, I'm gonna check it out and see what it's like.  I wonder if any of our D&D players would be interested in virtual tabletop games?
Prayin' for a 20!

gcc thorin.c -pedantic -o Thorin
compile successful

Mr. Analog

Something to consider that's for sure!
By Grabthar's Hammer

Tom

Might be neat. The SilverTop version once its done might be more neat as I wont have to run the program in a vm :o
<Zapata Prime> I smell Stanley... And he smells good!!!

Thorin

lolz at linuxer

So, I downloaded and installed iTabletop.  Here's how it works, basically:

I have a new chat program running.  In that chat program, I can have contacts and place them into groups (like any chat program).  I can then make Gatherings, and invite contacts to Gatherings (Video, Audio, and Custom Audio/Video Gatherings).  If I had any friends I could try out the Video Gathering.  Err, if I had any friends with iTabletop installed.

To sign into the chat program I had to create a user account.  That user account also lets me sign into the forums to see the FAQ written by another user: http://www.itabletop.com/Support/iTabletopSupportForums/tabid/133/aff/6/aft/37/afv/topic/Default.aspx.  Too bad it requires a login for an FAQ, that would've been useful info to make publicly accessible.  Oh well.

So the strength of iTabletop is (according to its makers) its simplicity.  You see a shared map and can move things around on it, you can video- or audio-conference (or both), there's a simple dice roller in the chat section, and there's no complicated scripting options.

I've tried the mapper and quickly got frustrated with it, though.  It's completely non-obvious what object I'm grabbing, so I kept moving the grid by mistake, and there's no Undo for any moves.  And I'm not interested in making glossy maps for online play, I just want to be able to sketch out the surroundings and get on with it.  But no, sketching out the map was frustrating.
Prayin' for a 20!

gcc thorin.c -pedantic -o Thorin
compile successful

Thorin

Let me expand on that - it didn't just frustrate me, it pissed me off.  Basically they made this great videoconferencing software for businesses, and are now trying to shoe-horn that into a Virtual Tabletop for roleplaying games.  The videoconferencing part works great, but the shared whiteboard doesn't work very well for maps.
Prayin' for a 20!

gcc thorin.c -pedantic -o Thorin
compile successful

Melbosa

That would be the point wouldn't it?  The shared whiteboard stuff?
Sometimes I Think Before I Type... Sometimes!

Lazybones

So your saying we should host a OCS / Live Meeting server instead ;)

Thorin

iTabletop is sorta like running a Live Meeting server, yes.  A Virtual Tabletop, though, needs to allow easy square and hex grid mapping.  And iTabletop does not allow easy mapping.
Prayin' for a 20!

gcc thorin.c -pedantic -o Thorin
compile successful

Melbosa

Quote from: Lazybones on May 28, 2009, 03:59:10 PM
So your saying we should host a OCS / Live Meeting server instead ;)

Hmmm... seeing as though we are setting one up at work currently... and with our MSDN subscription.... :P
Sometimes I Think Before I Type... Sometimes!