Virtual Table beta

[ERJHolton]

I was recently invited to this myself, and have played with it a little (although I haven't played a game yet).

I know from his Twitter feed that Matt James doesn't have an invite yet (surely that's an oversight though and he'll be getting one soon), so I was wondering - who else here has been invited?

[Matt James]

I just spoke with someone at Wizards. I should be getting an invite soon. I should also mention that being a freelancer for WotC really doesn't grant me any special attention to these kinds of things. I am honestly a huge fan of the game (re: Fanboi) and just think it would be cool do partake of the VTT.

I hope to be playing around with it soon!

[ERJHolton]

Well, I was thinking more that you would be in line for an invite due to your community status (ie, proprietor of a D&D website) and blogging proclivities than because you freelance for Wizard's.

The lack of NDA on the beta, and the positive encouragement that people are getting from Wizard's to blog and post about positive experiences with the table, suggests to me that they're being canny and wanting to use the beta period for promotional purposes as well as for obtaining feedback. Clever move, in my opinion, and one I'm happy to go along with as - from the little I've used it so far - it is a good product, even if it needs integration with the other digital tools.

[bargle0]

I'm in on the beta, but I haven't had much time to do anything with it.

[Nai_Calus]

I'm in it too, mostly just been futzing around with things, but I'm planning on running the Red Box game day adventure tommorow night with it. If I can get this map to stop screwing up. >< It's a complicated map and I keep getting the 'adventure has gotten too big' thing. Derf. Trying to scale it down. There's a lot of black space, gonna try to get it just outlines and see if that helps.

Clearly we need to get a Loremaster session going at some point.

[ERJHolton]

Clearly we need to get a Loremaster session going at some point.I heartily agree!

[Nai_Calus]

I may end up having some room for today's game, incidentally, if any of y'all are in the beta and want to join. 8PM EST, today(Saturday), it'll be L2 characters.

[Matt James]

Well, I was thinking more that you would be in line for an invite due to your community status (ie, proprietor of a D&D website) and blogging proclivities than because you freelance for Wizard's.

Nah, I'm just a regular dude. I don't even consider myself a blogger. This site is just my sandbox. I am honestly just a big D&D geek that loves the hobby. It's icing on the cake that I get to do game design work for it as well. :)

[Nai_Calus]

Yeah, looks like we'll definitely have at least one open spot, probably two, so if any of y'all want to join in, just search for Nai_Calus for the DM name.

[Nai_Calus]

VT thoughts/review:
http://community.wizards.com/nai_calus/blog/2010/12/05/virtual_table_beta_thoughts.

[Nai_Calus]

So now that you're finally on it, Matt, what are your thoughts?

[Steelfiredragon]

Not interested in it.

I only order a drag.dungeon subscrpition once every 6 or 7 motnhs... so....

[ERJHolton]

Any particular reason why you're not interested in it, Steelfiredragon?

I've had a lack of time the last few days to do more with it, but I'll be showing it to my D&D friends this weekend.

[D'karr]

I've been looking at the VT for the last couple of days. It has some nifty features but the fact that it currently does not import characters or monsters is a major pain in preparing adventures. It would also be real nice if the dice roller didn't require a selection mode before rolling. Hit Point tracking is clunky. Rolling powers should be integrated with the Dice Roller.

[D'karr]

Anyone running any games with this?

[Matt James]

I've only messed around with it. I'm busy lately and haven't had time to give it a more thorough look.

[D'karr]

I've only messed around with it. I'm busy lately and haven't had time to give it a more thorough look.

Yeah, I did pretty much the same, now we need to get some games going on. Though my lack of time usually robs me of the joy of screwing around on a virtual table.

[ERJHolton]

http://community.wizards.com/dungeonsanddragons/blog/2011/01/21/dd_virtual_table_and_adventure_tools

Thought I'd stick this here as well as in a comment to SarahDarkMagic's article on the virtual table.

The integration features so necessary for WotC to make this a compelling product, will be available to testers soon!

[Matt James]

Looks quite exciting.

[bargle0]

For what it's worth, non-beta testers are not missing much in the latest Monster Builder. It's little more than a Silverlight interface over the Compendium. Hopefully they can get it up to the functionality of the offline Monster Builder, except without all of the crippling bugs.

[Matt James]

The demo from this past weekend showed how amazing this project is going to end up being. Once the other tools are integrated, it's going to be simply awesome.

[ERJHolton]

So what was shown?

[Matt James]

They gave a mock event with staff back at WotC in Seattle. They went through some encounters and it looks awesome.