Why is this place so dead?

[Heruca]

I thought it was a good idea to have a community of virtual tabletop users for story gamers, so I signed up. As a VT developer, I was interested in hearing what features people would want in order to better support story gaming and not be so map-centric. I initially thought I'd pop in at least once a month to mine the forums for ideas and suggestions, but this community seems to be devoid of any recent activity. I was wondering why.

[Brennen Reece]

I'm not sure. Would you like to start a dialogue?

[Heruca]

Sure.

"What features should a VT have to make it more useful to story gamers?"

[Brennen Reece]

What I require is something that isn't "system agnostic" as much as "system versatile."

Being able to do pretty much anything with dice and cards is a must, including pushing the around on a tabletop.

Character sheets are a big deal, and things are usually erased and rewritten several times during the course of play.

I don't want to have to learn some obscure scripting language to have to create a ruleset.

It has to be easy to use, and very functional on machines that aren't always top-of-the line.

[Saint&Sinner]

Integration of voice, markers for time in game or out of game, text chat (for out of character notes), character sheets, the ability to modify character sheets, flexible dice, card and 'fate point' economy, upload maps and images with the ability to tag them to character sheets. Easy to use tops my list. I've friends all over the country that I'd try to play with if we could navigate and use a system like this.

[Heruca]

Very useful info, thanks.

[Brennen Reece]

EpicTable has most of this, and should be released pretty soon. I think you'd still have to use Skype or Ventrilo for voice, but honestly, text only fixes a lot of problems with people talking over each other.

What do you mean by "markers of time in game or out of game?"

[Saint&Sinner]

As a GM I think it'd be harder to keep in character and out of character chatter from conflating each other. Something like the red and green lights backstage might help to keep everyone in character.

[MJ Harnish]

Online gaming is dead.

Ok, it is dominated by only a few specific games (3.5/4E being the 800 lb. gorilla of them) which makes it hard to do a lot with story games online. I've struggled to find even a handful of players willing to learn SGs online, then only to have them evaporate because commitment to VTT run games is really low. That and the fact that no one is yet producing an interface that doesn't emphasize pushing around tokens on a big map (typically to the detriment of other features like robust chat capabilities), has really put me off of the use of VTTs in the past few months. :o(

[Brennen Reece]

Have you been following EpicTable? John is developing this with the indie/story/narrative/hippy gamer in mind.

[MJ Harnish]

I have and not to sound skeptical but EpicTable has been in development now for years.... While I still wait anxiously to see the final result I honestly don't think I could justify paying for it knowing how slow the development has been and what that could mean for bug fixes, etc. I say that with no disrespect intended for John who I am sure is slaving feverishly away at it.

[Brennen Reece]

I think part of the reason development is going so slowly is that John is taking care of the bug fixes prior to release. From what I've seen lately, it's worth the wait.

[John Lammers]

I don't read any disrespect into that. It's a valid concern, especially since the VT market isn't one where we're all quitting our day jobs to work on the VTs full time. However, to your point about the speed of development, consider that EpicTable's 1.0 cannot be a typical 1.0. It has to catch up to the established players, at least in several areas, and then provide something a little different or extra in other areas. That's made the development long, no doubt about it, but I don't think it's necessarily something you should extrapolate onto bug fixes and upgrades.