Okay, Fighty+ looks pretty good and clean, from what little I used it. I need to grab a different map, though, because if that's the one we're using, I'd prefer not to show you everything.

Kinda seeing some pros and cons between the two battlemaps:

Battlemappy:

Pros:

1. Can reveal only what I want you to see.
2. Endless space for drawing more terrain, if the party wants to do something I'm not prepared for.
3. Markers for different sized creatures.
4. Marker colors, so that I can differentiate them.
5. If you're not currently editing, and are looking around the map, you can always click "return to shared view" to get back to where we're all at.

Cons:

1. Doesn't seem to load right away for people. Not sure what's up with that. After you've finally loaded it for the first time, it automatically loads EVERY time, so once you get past that barrier, you're fine, but it is a little infuriating to look at blank space for 5 minutes, thinking it isn't working or doing anything.
2. Blase' terrain- white space, nothing more.
3. Speed- While in some cases, this will be faster than Fighty+, in others, it will not be faster. Namely, drawing the terrain, when the party moves through rooms. Perhaps this is something that would improve with practice.


Fighty+:

Pros:

1. If a map is available for the adventure, I can use it.
2. Can have pretty terrain.
3. Seems to load immediately immediately immediately. Harumph harumph harumph.

Cons:

1. Speed- Gotta copy an image out of the adventure's PDF, if there is even one available, create a gif for it out of GIMP, upload it to MapLib, and then load the map.

2. Revealing - Nothing keeping people from panning around the map, and peeking.

3. Only one color marker, and one size. That sucks.

4. No shared view mode.



At the moment, the lack of markers alone is leaning me toward using Battlemappy. I'd appreciate it if those of you who haven't checked out the Wave, and are interested in trying this, would take a look. At the very least, I'd like to see you all add a marker to the map, and put your name on it.

I should also add that when I play face-to-face, it's almost always markerboard or a drawing mat. I haven't seen someone pull out terrain tiles in years. So, as a player, I'd be totally fine with the whiteboard approach, as opposed to having real terrain. Not sure what you guys think.

As a DM I use both (love to spend that money) so I can go either way. I wouldn't worry too much about having 'the fog of war'. We are all there to have fun so I don't know why we would peek or at least meta-game. We aren't playing against you. At least I hope not.

I'm not worried about Fog of War, so much as that I have no control over what you can see. As in, you could see the whole map, even if you don't want to.

Yeah?

I can suspend disbelief pretty well.

It's really not the biggest point of contention for me. I'm more focused on ease of use, and how fast I can get something going. Battlemappy wins in that regard.

I could still use some more testin' out of people. Thus far, Craig and Dax are the only ones that have edited the whiteboard. So....that's two people that I know will have the foggiest idea what's going on if we decided to get a game going.

.....that's a hint.

Should I make a new thread, so that I can have an OP with links to the stuff you guys should be trying, and stuff?


I was having trouble getting to it at work with Firefox, btw, until I installed Gears. So.....link.

I only got on once so far, sorry been pretty busy these past couple weeks :-/ should be able to check in on things probably by Friday...

BTW, I am not dead-set on DMing. Just in case someone really likes these tools, especially after we run the test adventure, or if they want to do something similar so that we can play online: If you want to DM, speak up. I'd rather play, than DM, if and when we go full-time with something. I'm just reading through stuff on 3.5, and really regretting that I never played a Bard in 3.5, never got very far with a Druid in 3.5.

I think that's what hangs me up with 4th. There's still a lot of stuff in 3.5 I'd like to do as a player, and have never had the chance to do.

Hell, I'd still like to play a straight Fighter, with BoNS stuff thrown in.

sorry with the end of Lost and 24 and School I have been Slammed