1. What is a Virtual Tabletop
2. System requirements
3. Java Installation
4. How many files are there?
5. Running Mote
6. Information on changes
7. Potential issues migrating from MapTool
8. Deviation from Kickstarter plans
9. Project Sandstorm
10. Mote-X
11. Price of adoption
12. Help and support
13. Questions post-1.0.1
2. System requirements
3. Java Installation
4. How many files are there?
5. Running Mote
6. Information on changes
7. Potential issues migrating from MapTool
8. Deviation from Kickstarter plans
9. Project Sandstorm
10. Mote-X
11. Price of adoption
12. Help and support
13. Questions post-1.0.1
What is a Virtual Tabletop?
A Virtual Tabletop, or VTT, is basically a tool that helps users simulate game settings from traditional tabletop games. These range from board games, card games, and pen and paper role-playing games.
While the joys of real tabletop gaming are second to none, real life makes it hard for most people to get friends together for a night of fun. A VTT can help a lot toward making things work, by allowing people to network and come together, regardless of geographical location. It comes with a lot of handy tools that provide a great degree of immersion, and allows game moderators to do stuff they wouldn't be able to do with more mundane tools e.g. pencils and paper.
There are a lot of actual Virtual Tabletop projects in the market today, with a wide range of price, and capabilities. Some, like Mote, utilize what is called a client and server setup, where several users connect to a single host that usually is the one that determines the game state. Others VTTs are based solely on the cloud as a service, while others exclusively have their application on mobile devices. Mote aims to be the complete solution for all these settings.
A Virtual Tabletop, or VTT, is basically a tool that helps users simulate game settings from traditional tabletop games. These range from board games, card games, and pen and paper role-playing games.
While the joys of real tabletop gaming are second to none, real life makes it hard for most people to get friends together for a night of fun. A VTT can help a lot toward making things work, by allowing people to network and come together, regardless of geographical location. It comes with a lot of handy tools that provide a great degree of immersion, and allows game moderators to do stuff they wouldn't be able to do with more mundane tools e.g. pencils and paper.
There are a lot of actual Virtual Tabletop projects in the market today, with a wide range of price, and capabilities. Some, like Mote, utilize what is called a client and server setup, where several users connect to a single host that usually is the one that determines the game state. Others VTTs are based solely on the cloud as a service, while others exclusively have their application on mobile devices. Mote aims to be the complete solution for all these settings.
What are the requirements for Mote to run?
Apart from adequate computer memory in a fairly modern, even low-end PC setup, and your profile having appropriate user rights to run programs, Mote has within it all that it needs to work, on all the major operating systems that Java supports. This version of Mote runs exclusively on Java 7, but that's not something a user needs to worry about (see below).
Apart from adequate computer memory in a fairly modern, even low-end PC setup, and your profile having appropriate user rights to run programs, Mote has within it all that it needs to work, on all the major operating systems that Java supports. This version of Mote runs exclusively on Java 7, but that's not something a user needs to worry about (see below).
I've used MapTool before, and had issues with Java in my system, will I have similar issues with Mote?
We are glad to say, no, you won't have this problem with Mote. The application comes bundled with its own copy of Java 7 that it uses to run, taking the need to install and manage Java, out of a user's hands. So, even if your system has Java 6, or Java 8, or a mess of Java installations from 4 to 8, Mote ignores all these in favor of what comes with it.
We are glad to say, no, you won't have this problem with Mote. The application comes bundled with its own copy of Java 7 that it uses to run, taking the need to install and manage Java, out of a user's hands. So, even if your system has Java 6, or Java 8, or a mess of Java installations from 4 to 8, Mote ignores all these in favor of what comes with it.
Okay, I have downloaded the file for my operating system, but I only see one file, MapTool had a lot more than this, am I missing anything?
Mote, unlike MapTool, and other Virtual Tabletops, is a one-file solution, keeping it simple for people who want to use it. When it is first used, it sets up everything it needs to run by itself, without needing any assistance from the user.
Mote, unlike MapTool, and other Virtual Tabletops, is a one-file solution, keeping it simple for people who want to use it. When it is first used, it sets up everything it needs to run by itself, without needing any assistance from the user.
I used to need a batch file, and some people I know used scripts, while others used a launcher, in order to get MapTool to run with the right memory settings, I see nothing of the sort with Mote.
As mentioned above, Mote does everything with one file. It has a self-contained launch process that asks the user for preferred settings at the start. This prompt is optional, you can skip the setup if you want. Mote will then run on modest, pre-defined defaults of 1024M for max memory, 512M for minimum memory, and a stack size of 2.
These 3 settings mostly govern the use of the macros or scripts within the application itself. If you just plan to use Mote for visual presentation, and as a means to chat with your players, then you need not concern yourself with these.
In any case, any settings can be easily changed by using the Relaunch / Rocket button within the application.
As mentioned above, Mote does everything with one file. It has a self-contained launch process that asks the user for preferred settings at the start. This prompt is optional, you can skip the setup if you want. Mote will then run on modest, pre-defined defaults of 1024M for max memory, 512M for minimum memory, and a stack size of 2.
These 3 settings mostly govern the use of the macros or scripts within the application itself. If you just plan to use Mote for visual presentation, and as a means to chat with your players, then you need not concern yourself with these.
In any case, any settings can be easily changed by using the Relaunch / Rocket button within the application.
There are a lot of things that are different from MapTool, and I don't know where to start. Any suggestions?
Good question. We try to do our best to make the Mote experience as easy and pleasant as possible, especially in comparison to other Virtual Tabletops. We're still far from where we want things to be, especially when taking into account that we'll be scrapping the current user interface in the future, but we've put effort into making the current interface as accessible and intuitive as we can.
All of the changes to Mote are detailed in the change logs found on our Closed Beta blog. While it has become quite a wall of text, it's still the place to find out more of what we have been doing over the past months.
A video describes it better than thousands of words can, so check out the videos on our YouTube channel. Some are outdated, but we will be updating and creating more content for this channel very soon.
Good question. We try to do our best to make the Mote experience as easy and pleasant as possible, especially in comparison to other Virtual Tabletops. We're still far from where we want things to be, especially when taking into account that we'll be scrapping the current user interface in the future, but we've put effort into making the current interface as accessible and intuitive as we can.
All of the changes to Mote are detailed in the change logs found on our Closed Beta blog. While it has become quite a wall of text, it's still the place to find out more of what we have been doing over the past months.
A video describes it better than thousands of words can, so check out the videos on our YouTube channel. Some are outdated, but we will be updating and creating more content for this channel very soon.
What changes, in particular, should we look out for?
A lot of changes were made to the code in order to make it future-ready, with the future being our next plans for the project. Of these changes, the ones that will likely impact your MapTool campaign / framework are the Unicode fix, and our upgrade of the JSON library.
As a side-effect of the Unicode fix, users with regular expressions in their macros should note that only single escapes i.e. '\' are used now, not double i.e. '\\'. As for JSON, the new library (GSON) strictly adheres to the JSON standard, so some JSON strings that do not conform to this standard will generate errors. Let us know right away, so we can take a look at it.
Most other changes are positive. You will see what we mean when you launch the application for the first time.
A lot of changes were made to the code in order to make it future-ready, with the future being our next plans for the project. Of these changes, the ones that will likely impact your MapTool campaign / framework are the Unicode fix, and our upgrade of the JSON library.
As a side-effect of the Unicode fix, users with regular expressions in their macros should note that only single escapes i.e. '\' are used now, not double i.e. '\\'. As for JSON, the new library (GSON) strictly adheres to the JSON standard, so some JSON strings that do not conform to this standard will generate errors. Let us know right away, so we can take a look at it.
Most other changes are positive. You will see what we mean when you launch the application for the first time.
Your Kickstarter page listed a lot of ambitious project goals, what happened to these?
We're glad you asked. The Idle Ideas team is just getting started, and has retooled the overall strategy to meeting all of what we want this project to be.
It starts with our Sandstorm service project, which is basically our cluster of servers in the cloud that hosts and maintains game sessions, while providing other services for Mote users around the world. It is loosely similar to services like Roll20, though, apart from being hosted on the cloud, the similarities end there.
Running in parallel to Sandstorm, we will be writing, building, and introducing our vision of the next-gen engines for map rendering and macro writing / scripting within a Virtual Tabletop. The foundations for these can be seen in Mote, but the fruits of our efforts will be found in Mote's younger sibling, Mote-X.
We discuss this more in detail on a dedicated topic in our blog.
We're glad you asked. The Idle Ideas team is just getting started, and has retooled the overall strategy to meeting all of what we want this project to be.
It starts with our Sandstorm service project, which is basically our cluster of servers in the cloud that hosts and maintains game sessions, while providing other services for Mote users around the world. It is loosely similar to services like Roll20, though, apart from being hosted on the cloud, the similarities end there.
Running in parallel to Sandstorm, we will be writing, building, and introducing our vision of the next-gen engines for map rendering and macro writing / scripting within a Virtual Tabletop. The foundations for these can be seen in Mote, but the fruits of our efforts will be found in Mote's younger sibling, Mote-X.
We discuss this more in detail on a dedicated topic in our blog.
Let's backtrack a bit. You mentioned a "Sandstorm" service, and said it is going to be like Roll20, but not. What do you mean?
Roll20 resides solely on the web as a cloud service. While there are several client types (i.e. desktop PCs and mobile devices) that can access the service, it is mainly due to browser technology that the service is able to deliver ubiquitously. It does everything and keeps everything, (in developer terms) "server-side".
The beauty of their setup is that it simplifies things a lot for the end-user, as opposed to the usual issues faced by people using applications like MapTool, Fantasy Grounds, and other such VTTs. Subscribers just have to open a browser, log-in and are good to go. They don't have to worry about installing a virtual-machine, port forwarding, UPnP, firewalls ad nauseam. I mean "what are those things?", is what most potential users would say.
Mote, being the upstart child of MapTool, faces the same dilemma for adoption. Our team, in the way we do things, believes in eliminating obstacles, and Sandstorm is the answer. Sandstorm helps users bypass the issues mentioned above by managing game session needs in a secure, and publicly accessible location.
This is the only similarity to Roll20, because, unlike Roll20, the power to create, and ownership of creations, is tipped heavily the other way around, on the user, or in developer terms, the "client side". This is done through Mote, of course. With it, a user need not rely on a central service to get things done, or even make a connection to start doing cool stuff. The full capabilities of a Virtual Tabletop is found in one (arguably) small file, stored and running on your personal computer. The entire Internet could go down, and you'll still be able to work on building your campaigns and frameworks. This is a key weakness of centralized services, they have to manage game states, and compute views to serve to the browsers of connected users, which forces them to set limits, such as asset size and the like, else things become hard to maintain, unpredictable, and expensive on their end. Our project architecture will not be held down with such constraints, owing to all the heavy lifting being done on the user end. This is where our work will set itself apart.
As can be seen, the Mote project will do it's best to deliver the best of both worlds: The power of a full-featured client-side application, and the conveniences of a secure, and reliable web service to circumvent the connection hassles described above.
Roll20 resides solely on the web as a cloud service. While there are several client types (i.e. desktop PCs and mobile devices) that can access the service, it is mainly due to browser technology that the service is able to deliver ubiquitously. It does everything and keeps everything, (in developer terms) "server-side".
The beauty of their setup is that it simplifies things a lot for the end-user, as opposed to the usual issues faced by people using applications like MapTool, Fantasy Grounds, and other such VTTs. Subscribers just have to open a browser, log-in and are good to go. They don't have to worry about installing a virtual-machine, port forwarding, UPnP, firewalls ad nauseam. I mean "what are those things?", is what most potential users would say.
Mote, being the upstart child of MapTool, faces the same dilemma for adoption. Our team, in the way we do things, believes in eliminating obstacles, and Sandstorm is the answer. Sandstorm helps users bypass the issues mentioned above by managing game session needs in a secure, and publicly accessible location.
This is the only similarity to Roll20, because, unlike Roll20, the power to create, and ownership of creations, is tipped heavily the other way around, on the user, or in developer terms, the "client side". This is done through Mote, of course. With it, a user need not rely on a central service to get things done, or even make a connection to start doing cool stuff. The full capabilities of a Virtual Tabletop is found in one (arguably) small file, stored and running on your personal computer. The entire Internet could go down, and you'll still be able to work on building your campaigns and frameworks. This is a key weakness of centralized services, they have to manage game states, and compute views to serve to the browsers of connected users, which forces them to set limits, such as asset size and the like, else things become hard to maintain, unpredictable, and expensive on their end. Our project architecture will not be held down with such constraints, owing to all the heavy lifting being done on the user end. This is where our work will set itself apart.
As can be seen, the Mote project will do it's best to deliver the best of both worlds: The power of a full-featured client-side application, and the conveniences of a secure, and reliable web service to circumvent the connection hassles described above.
So, how much of an arm and leg will all this cost me?
Good news, you won't lose an appendage. At most, maybe some nail clippings, but that's it. Jesting aside, we do want to shake things up by offering everything at a competitively lower price.
We can't put any actual figures here at this time, especially since Sandstorm and Mote-X are works in progress, but here's what we commit to:
Last, but not least, our supporters from the 1st Kickstarter campaign will get significant cuts to getting access to Mote-X, ranging from completely free, to suitable deductions based on their contributions.
Good news, you won't lose an appendage. At most, maybe some nail clippings, but that's it. Jesting aside, we do want to shake things up by offering everything at a competitively lower price.
We can't put any actual figures here at this time, especially since Sandstorm and Mote-X are works in progress, but here's what we commit to:
- We will always try to maintain low, if not the lowest, prices for adoption, within reason. We do need sufficient support to maintain our web services, grow the team, and drive project development, at all times.
- No licensing. You only buy Mote-X once, and it will receive automatic updates for its entire lifetime. There will, understandably, have some fair use conditions in place.
Last, but not least, our supporters from the 1st Kickstarter campaign will get significant cuts to getting access to Mote-X, ranging from completely free, to suitable deductions based on their contributions.
Where do we go for help?
We are will be running 2 issue trackers, one for Free Mote, and another for Mote-X. Aside from this, we have our G+ community, and temporary forums. The permanent forums will be up once we launch the Sandstorm service. You can also use the mailing form found under the Contact page.
We are will be running 2 issue trackers, one for Free Mote, and another for Mote-X. Aside from this, we have our G+ community, and temporary forums. The permanent forums will be up once we launch the Sandstorm service. You can also use the mailing form found under the Contact page.
I noticed the dice bar uses different expressions from what I'm used to in MapTool....
Yes, we wrote an entirely new expression and interpreter scheme. This not meant to supplant what's already there, but rather, we want to give people something easy to use, especially those who choose a VTT just to have a map and dice to use. Writing macros would be overkill for them.
How does sound work? How do I get clients to play audio? Can this be done just by browsing and playing sounds from the Sound Manager?
Audio played from the Sound Manager is only for the machine playing it. To broadcast audio, and manipulate it and other aspects pertaining to it, you must use the sound functions provided i.e. playSound, and playStream. Documentation via the Mote tiddler, will be made available over time. For now you can use the Macro Editor for more information.
Yes, we wrote an entirely new expression and interpreter scheme. This not meant to supplant what's already there, but rather, we want to give people something easy to use, especially those who choose a VTT just to have a map and dice to use. Writing macros would be overkill for them.
How does sound work? How do I get clients to play audio? Can this be done just by browsing and playing sounds from the Sound Manager?
Audio played from the Sound Manager is only for the machine playing it. To broadcast audio, and manipulate it and other aspects pertaining to it, you must use the sound functions provided i.e. playSound, and playStream. Documentation via the Mote tiddler, will be made available over time. For now you can use the Macro Editor for more information.