http://www.trolllord.com/newsite/cnc/DGA045.html
I'm seriously considering this product due to some issues with current online chat programs.
That sayed, has anyone picked this up?
How many players can play at once?
Is the voice chat program reliable/clear?
How about the mapping program?
What about dial-up or 'low bandwith' connections?
Is it worth it overall?
Any honest feedback is certainly appreciated.
Fantasy Grounds II questions...
-
slimykuotoan
- Greater Lore Drake
- Posts: 3669
- Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:00 am
- Location: Nine Hells
Fantasy Grounds II questions...
For crying out loud. Do your best with the rolls the dice have given you. This is what separates the men from the boys... -Kayolan
I use FGII to run a game with all my old high school buddies. We have players in France, Australia and me in Canada, and the program hasn't missed a beat. It's superb.
To answer your questions:
- There's no limit to the number of players. Obviously bandwidth imposes a theoretical limit, but the program doesn't. I think more than six people online at a time becomes unwieldy, but the program allows for much more than that.
- There's no voice chat included in FGII. You need to use a separate stand alone application for that. We use TeamSpeak because it's great for low bandwidth setups. I CK on dial up, so Skype doesn't work, but if everyone has broadband, Skype would work, or Ventrillo etc. My TeamSpeak server costs $3 a month, but if someone has a good computer and bandwidth, they can run TeamSpeak for free.
- Same applies to the mapping program. You need another standalone program. FGII's modus operandi is to provide everything you would need to play at the table, i.e character sheets, dice etc. Dundjinni seems popular as a mapping program. I use Photoshop and PDF's of modules.
That said, once you get the map in FGII, it works great. You can mask the map, slowly unveil it to players, zoom, add tokens to represent characters, use area of effect shapes and arrows etc.
- Re low bandwidth and dial-up connections, like I said, I CK on dial up. Two of my other players are on dial up and two on broadband. FGII doesn't use much bandwidth for basic play. The dice rolls and changes of maps are just coordinates and text data. Bandwidth only becomes an issue when you're transferring graphics (maps and pictures) and large tokens. To get around that, I create modules with all the graphics and email them to the players the night of the game. They drop the modules in the applicable folder (they can't see inside) and then, when I open images, they load locally on each person's machine, rather than being transferred over the Internet.
So to summarize, even on dial up, I CK an FGII game with a low codec TeamSpeak voice setup.
FGI is available as a free trial program if you want to download and test it. You can even connect up with a buddy and both test it out. And if you do want to go the way of creating modules, let me know and I'll give you some links. The FGII community is really helpful in that regard.
So yeah, for the $, considering it has brought all us friends back together again, it's been totally worth it for us.
To answer your questions:
- There's no limit to the number of players. Obviously bandwidth imposes a theoretical limit, but the program doesn't. I think more than six people online at a time becomes unwieldy, but the program allows for much more than that.
- There's no voice chat included in FGII. You need to use a separate stand alone application for that. We use TeamSpeak because it's great for low bandwidth setups. I CK on dial up, so Skype doesn't work, but if everyone has broadband, Skype would work, or Ventrillo etc. My TeamSpeak server costs $3 a month, but if someone has a good computer and bandwidth, they can run TeamSpeak for free.
- Same applies to the mapping program. You need another standalone program. FGII's modus operandi is to provide everything you would need to play at the table, i.e character sheets, dice etc. Dundjinni seems popular as a mapping program. I use Photoshop and PDF's of modules.
That said, once you get the map in FGII, it works great. You can mask the map, slowly unveil it to players, zoom, add tokens to represent characters, use area of effect shapes and arrows etc.
- Re low bandwidth and dial-up connections, like I said, I CK on dial up. Two of my other players are on dial up and two on broadband. FGII doesn't use much bandwidth for basic play. The dice rolls and changes of maps are just coordinates and text data. Bandwidth only becomes an issue when you're transferring graphics (maps and pictures) and large tokens. To get around that, I create modules with all the graphics and email them to the players the night of the game. They drop the modules in the applicable folder (they can't see inside) and then, when I open images, they load locally on each person's machine, rather than being transferred over the Internet.
So to summarize, even on dial up, I CK an FGII game with a low codec TeamSpeak voice setup.
FGI is available as a free trial program if you want to download and test it. You can even connect up with a buddy and both test it out. And if you do want to go the way of creating modules, let me know and I'll give you some links. The FGII community is really helpful in that regard.
So yeah, for the $, considering it has brought all us friends back together again, it's been totally worth it for us.
I should add, if you've got some players on dial up, and you're thinking of using the C&C ruleset in FGII, you should get all your players to buy the "full" license of FGII, not the "lite". Reason being, if you have a lite license, you have to download the C&C ruleset (from the CK) every time you connect.
All my players got lite licenses so we play with the D20 ruleset that ships with the program, and just tinker with it to make it fit C&C.
All my players got lite licenses so we play with the D20 ruleset that ships with the program, and just tinker with it to make it fit C&C.
Obviously I'm a bit baized but I am proud of the work Tim and I did on this ruleset. I haven't been aggressive enough with promoting the ruleset, but I truly want to get a FG II / C&C game up and running soon so I can 'show off' the ruleset.
_________________
Rom Elwell
romelwell@gmail.com
Developer: C&C Ruleset for Fantasy Grounds II
Digital Adventures, LLC
http://www.digitaladventures.net
-----------
The Lost City of Barakus: A C&C campaign using FGII
http://castles-and-crusades.wikispaces.com/
_________________
Rom Elwell
romelwell@gmail.com
Developer: C&C Ruleset for Fantasy Grounds II
Digital Adventures, LLC
http://www.digitaladventures.net
-----------
The Lost City of Barakus: A C&C campaign using FGII
http://castles-and-crusades.wikispaces.com/
Achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is within you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.