I’m leaving the world of mapping for a bit and concentrating on character sheets and rulesets.
Getting the screenshots associated with mapping has been interesting in that I’ve actually used EpicTable more like a user than a developer. …continue reading Dev Direction – On to Characters

The EpicTable forum and development blog went live March 24th, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your participation. I’m really pleased with the amount and quality of the feedback I’ve been getting, and the discussions in the forum have been helpful and constructive.

It’s really great to be a part of a community–and I mean the larger community of FUM, Battlegrounds, MapTool, Dundjinni, and others–in which the tone is cooperation and support between gamers of different stripes, and even between alternative/competing VT vendors.

In this post, I’m going to introduce you to EpicTable’s TrueVision. TrueVision allows you to show your players only what their characters would see. It takes into account lighting, line-of-sight, and visual acuity (e.g., low-light vision, darkvision) or equipment (e.g., nightvision goggles). …continue reading Tavern in Virtual Tabletop TrueVision

This screenshot shows the main EpicTable screen. For map-based games, this is what you’ll often be looking at. The player characters, as well as an ettin they’re about to encounter, occupy the character bar near the top of the screen. The GM can drag these around into initiative order, or turn order, or whatever’s appropriate for your game. He can also drag them onto the map.

Center screen, you see the player tokens on the map. Naturally, these can be dragged around as well. The entire map is illuminated because we’re looking through the GM’s point of view. In a later screenshot, I’ll show you TrueVision in action— where each player only sees what his character would see.

Notice that you have your chat window at the right. (That’s dockable in case you don’t want it on the right.) Notice also the user-defined dice cups at the top. Often, you’ll roll dice right from your character sheet, but you have the option to use these ad-hoc dice cups.

Finally, it’s worth noting that because this is the GM’s view, there are some things available that wouldn’t be there for players; for instance, the ability to add images to the handout gallery and the buttons allowing him to create more maps. We’ll get deeper into some of these features in later posts.

Credits:
Map made using Dundjinni with textures and objects from the user art forum; notably, Cistacola’s cavern textures, Greytale’s arches (which became bridge rails), and Dragonwolf’s tile (north of the bridge). The tokens are courtesy of Fiery Dragon Productions. You can find links to all these on my Links page.

Over the last few months, several people have asked for more insight into EpicTable’s development. Tonight’s EpicTable.com site rollout is my response to that. I’ve added a forum, a developer’s blog and updated screenshots. This is just the beginning, though. Look forward to more screenshots, some screencasts, and hopefully, a fair bit of discussion in the forums.
Hope to see you out there.
– John

Popular demand. Really. I was surprised and pleased by how many of you asked for more information about the progress of EpicTable. So, here goes: screenshots, a development blog, and screencasts to come. A new forum for discussion of all this, and my commitment to keep the information flowing.

EpicTable’s QuickStart page is the first thing that greets you when you launch EpicTable. As you can see in this screenshot, you’re shown a list of the games in which you’re participating. Icons to the left of each game name indicate whether you’re the GM or a player . …continue reading EpicTable QuickStart