Hi,
We’ve been using VASSAL as our table for the RPG/Indie type games which
we play over VoIP with a big success. I promised to prepare a list of
things that could be improved to make the gaming experience better and
more pleasant. I am focusing on getting the main ideas highlighted,
instead of going into details, on our website there is a dedicated topic
with a very detailed spec for each of the features, containing a
description of the behaviour we would like to see. In our RPG/Indie
work-flow we exclusively use an excellent `Bucket of Dice’ VASSAL module by
Filip Łuszczyk (who is the founder of our website).
So: (in order of urgency/size/relevance):
-
Notes currently are a bit clumsy and there is no formatting, we will
elaborate about it in a separate thread. Ideally we would want a Wiki
like markup but with WYSIWYG & GUI + key-bindings for emphasising,
making text bold or italic etc. I would be a fan (danmey) of a Wiki like
markup, but we think that WYSIWYG behaviour would be more useful. -
There is no `pointing device’. Showing other players a point on the
canvas using the mouse would be a very useful feature. -
No facility to draw anything, I know the development team is looking
at this issue. -
Only the player can delete her/him/self from the game, in case of the
boardgames it is irrelevant, but in case of regular campaigns it is a
bit annoying. Deleting players would be very useful. -
Very clumsy selection of objects with traits, they basically don’t
stack. A very little thing, but makes things a bit difficult in case of
using tactic grid in the D&D style games. -
There is no way of adding graphics in the middle of the gaming session,
you have to prepare the extension before the game, and after that
everybody needs to download the package again. Probably this function
does not fit conceptually into VASSAL engine but we are happy to live
with it. -
We’ve never managed to connect peer to peer. (danmey: from my
perspective it is a limitation of TCP/IP protocol [both sides behind a
nat] not VASSAL when we have a support for XAMPP based session it should
go away). It is not important. -
Now, we can’t play MP3, which is not a big deal, just a nice feature
to be integrated into VASSAL. -
When the object is hidden, assigned rapports don’t work. Ideally it’d
be more convenient if the player who hides the object would see the
reports in the chatter window. (preferably highlighted as hidden).
Hope it is not too much for you, question and feedback very warmly
welcomed.
Thanks!
Wojciech