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D20 Pro versus RPtools

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Mavrickindigo, Aug 22, 2011.

  1. Mavrickindigo

    Mavrickindigo New Member

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    I've looked at D20 Pro and this stuff looks great, but my friends keep telling me Maptools and RPTools is better because it's free. Anyone here know what both programs offer that the other does not? I'd like to compare
     
  2. Wynter

    Wynter New Member

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    I know that Maptools has macros that you can load, but d20Pro can automate your d20 game right out of the box. That being said, both programs do pretty much the same thing, it's just a question of how they do it.

    Honestly, try the 30 day demo of d20Pro and compare it to Maptools. I did, and I bought d20Pro. :D
     
  3. Golkiwu

    Golkiwu Member

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    Also,

    it is a one time cost with free lifetime updates, as well as a great support staff.
     
  4. Kizan

    Kizan New Member

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    I'm a long time user of Maptools and a newer user of d20pro. As a player you MAY not notice much difference. It depends on the features you use. As a user the things I really liked in d20pro
    - cleaner interface (less little boxes open ALL the time by default).
    - more stable, I had trouble with some versions of Maptools crashing a lot (they never seem to be out of beta mode).
    - neither app has the greatest manual given to man, but I found d20pro's to be a bit better and the video tuts are quite nice

    The primary reason I changed was in authoring of material. While Maptools offered more toys (dynamic FOW AKA Vision, "better" d20/4e support) I really needed a product that was going to be stable while I was creating. There were times when I would create material the Monday build of Maptools and that file wouldn't load into the Wednesday version of Maptools and I was stuck re-creating it if I ever wanted to use my material in the future. And then never knowing if I would be able to use something again after I was done. I began using filenames for my Maptools map files that had the version number of Maptools in them so I could open them again later. And then I was stuck keeping a ton of old versions of Maptools so I could open them if I wanted! While many will say that I was using a beta and they are right! However many of the "cool" feature people talk about are ONLY available in the beta versions.

    I find that the philosophy of d20pro is more my style. Maptools seems to want to be the end all be all and DO all of VTT's. That's not what I'm looking for. d20Pro wants to create a table-top experience (or as close as they can get) in a VTT....without becoming a video game.

    I won't say that there aren't features from Maptools I miss (easy to use player pointers I'm looking at you!) just that in most cases I didn't need the frills and really just wanted to create and most importantly PLAY! If you check I've been posting a TON recently in the feature request forum asking for some of those IMHO basic features that I think d20pro should have.

    My two bits,

    Kizan
     
  5. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    Long time user of MapTools and a short time user of d20Pro. Sorry, but d20Pro crashes just as much as MapTools ever had. You just have to understand that newer builds may break compatibility with older files, so plan for this. i.e. MAKE A COPY!

    MapTools
    Pro
    Does not treat you like a child. From the start the player owns his CS and can do whatever he wants whenever he wants.
    FoW(The best out there right now and probably will continue to be)
    States
    Frameworks for almost all of the big name RPG's(If they don't have one, you can make it yourself)
    Import(Can import a statblock from any character generator or PDF with minor corrections)

    Con
    Learning curve(somewhat mitigated if you watch the video tutorials or read the manual on the WIKI)

    d20Pro
    Pro
    Better UI(not the best by far)
    If you are a DM that enjoys lockdown of CS then this is the VTT for you
    Designed ground up for d20(3E & 3.5E)

    Con
    CS lockdown
    No FoW(sorry, having to remove FoW is just like not having any, because it takes away from playing the game for me to have to remove it and then the players complain because they should have seen further or around the corner...)
    Chat is abyssmal(IRC has been around for decades and it does a better job. I should be able to use "/" commands to talk as whomever I want and not select token, hit "T", type what I want to say, select how I want to say it...)
    --As a DM I should be able to have a window where it provides a drop down of all of the NPC's on the map and a box to type what they say, do or whisper and the buttons to send this to chat
    ZERO way to point on the map what you are talking about(This should be one of the first features a VTT should have. Especially for a online one. As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I do not want to explain the one room with a thousand words, just point to it.
    Designed ground up for d20(3E & 3.5E)Every other system is a hack.
     
  6. Daeruin

    Daeruin New Member

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    From my perspective:

    MapTools: Does not work on a Mac.
    d20pro: Works on a Mac.

    That's all there is to it. :) Also, I have never seen d20pro crash in the 6 months I've been using it. The occasional error, sure, but never a crash.
     
  7. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    The Lead Developer of MapTools uses a Mac. JAVA is pretty common on many platforms. You can even run it on BeOS(Haiku).
     
  8. Daeruin

    Daeruin New Member

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    Oops, now I feel like an idiot. I could have sworn it didn't work on a Mac. I tried out several VTTs before settling on d20pro. There are a few that can't run on Macs without jumping through hoops with Wine or Rosetta. Sorry for the mistake. :D
     
  9. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    No problem! I think that people should use what works best for them. I am just glad that there at least two different versions of VTT's that run on the Big 3. I know my post above sounds like I am beating on d20Pro, but I would rather their to be two strong VTT's than one crappy one.
     
  10. djc664

    djc664 Member

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    I've been using d20 pro as a GM for about two+ years and I've only had it crash once. I was importing a map graphic that was... excessive. :) Thereabouts of 130" wide and 80" tall at 150dpi. And I hadn't adjusted the Java machine to run with more RAM at the time.

    What I found with MapTools is very common in Open Source / Community built software in general - you get a ton of interesting and fun features in various levels of stability. You get spotty and uneven support, at best. You're also always tweaking, adjusting and fixing as you go just to keep the boat afloat. There are no guarantees that what you have today will work tomorrow. You need and are expected to do the heavy lifting to fix most problems, or wait for someone to help patch it after X amount of time... which could be equal any quantity of time from minutes to years.

    That can be the fun of it for some people, or acceptable for the cost. I count myself among those people, many times. Not with this. With a hobby that demands so much time as it is, time equals money. I want to pay someone to do the programming work and provide me with a stable platform to run my games. I want to pay someone to help me within a few days to fix whatever it is that is not working.

    Sure, Maptools is free. It's not nearly as easy to get running out of the box. Also, if I have to spend even an hour redoing anything because the software was updated with no care about my content, then I've already wasted more than what d20 pro costs in the first place. Personally, that time is worth ten times that to me now because that is time taken directly away from my daughter.

    To each their own, of course.
     
  11. Wesley Gorby

    Wesley Gorby Production/Community Manager
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    I have to say I have found d20pro to be fantastic.. As a fellow above pointed out, it does d20 great!, trying to do more than that you end up with something that is actually less stable and doesn't do any of the things really well..

    Yes, there are a few things that d20pro could improve, FOW, Freehand drawing tool and maybe "Wound Point/Vitality Point health system" addition, but I am more than willing to wait as d20pro becomes more mature.

    As to the guy above who complained about the text chat features.. dooood, come on.. IRC text based communication is sooo a decade ago <chuckle> .. use a good voip app like TS and you'll be amazed at how it changes your VTT gaming experience!!
     
  12. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    Actually in all my campaigns we use VoIP and Chat. I think VoIP makes suspension of disbelief harder and history harder as there is no easy way to capture voice and turn it to chat. So we try to IC in chat and OOC in VoIP. This way the chat log can be used a year from now to figure out that NPC that promised to return at a later date to kill PC A. The way d20Pro's chat is a flat text file and I have to now spend like 2 hrs marking up the file so the games WIKI looks semi presentable.
     
  13. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    Remember this when you use your Android or iPhone which run on Open Source kernels, your router, your Cable Set top box, your Windows routing tables, the list goes on.
     
  14. Vision9000

    Vision9000 Member

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    I use 100's of open source OS's, applications, etc.

    I also have purchased/licensed 100's of proprietary apps in diverse areas (math, graphics, networking, business, dev, gaming, utilities, etc.).

    Oh, and I've donated to support "free" programs (most recently, the awesome "Download Them All" Firefox plugin).

    I hope people are not seriously warring about whether open source or proprietary programs are superior, across the board.

    The fact of the matter is that some people will choose a program based upon cost as a matter of principle or according to their current financial situation (or according to a personal prioritization scheme--for me, well I commute a lot and to fill my tank for 3 days driving is $40, so how does the time/function compare to the asking price of a given app).

    Other people will choose primarily based upon features, support, ease-of-use, etc., and cost will only matter if it's very high in relation to the alternatives in absolute cost, or relatively speaking.

    Some people are willing to invest time in open-source alternatives--I do so for Fedora which I run as a server: Web, source control, app server...Neverwinter Nights persistent world!...etc. I appreciate the security and high availability of the Linux offerings, even though is takes more know-how and workarounds sometimes to make things work, especially the community editions.

    But I also pay for Windows and my workstation is Win 7 64-bit because of the ease of use and the number of excellent programs available, both free and pay-for.

    I use Open Office rather than continuing to shell out money for the 800 lb gorilla in that space, because the features are still more than I'll ever need.

    The examples are numerous.

    But back to d20Pro: the ability to drop in clean graphic images (counters) onto scalable, griddable, movable maps, do something/anything immediately, AND have complex combat factors auto-calculated, is what "sold" me on the product. I am quite willing to pay for those features. I even paid for alternatives because the various demos weren't enough to fully evaluate them, but I've kept with d20Pro because it "flows" the way I like to game, both tabletop and CRPG. The alternatives either didn't calculate combat or else required too many actions to do simple things like drop in a monster.

    I choose d20Pro because the feature-set/functional flow-of-control is unique, and fun (for me), and such is worth the price. The fact that there is an active dev group and helpful community behind it is an added bonus.

    But please, let's not hash over whether open source or proprietary is always better, for they each have both flawed and excellent representative works, and some are in niche areas with little or no competition, and others jostle in very crowded spaces.
     
  15. phloog

    phloog Member

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    Yeah, the crashing thing sounds more like machine/software interaction. I don't get ANY crashes in D20Pro, and I've been grabbing the newest version the instant I can. Lately I've been using more and more of the functionality and this hasn't added any crashing behavior. If it helps put things in context, my typical session/campaign has about four maps (around 2k x 2k) in it from the DungeonaDay campaign, and I put all the encounters on the map in advance rather than taking them on the fly from the library. I had four players connected to my game on Saturday from 1pm until 11pm, and there were no crashes, and in fact the only time we lost a player connection was when that player had lunch and was idle so long his computer 'slept'...NO other crashing behavior.

    I have used Klooge, Fantasy Grounds, the free stuff, and D20Pro, and the ONLY thing I liked about the free stuff was dynamic FOW. Klooge handled maps/grids better but did almost everything else the same or worse than D20Pro. Fantasy ground has pretty dice, and...um....well I guess I'm done there.

    For me, the PRO of being free isn't really that big of a deal. I bought a license 'pack' of D20Pro for (can't recall exactly so let's say) sixty bucks. With it, my friends don't have to buy anything, and they don't have to DO anything other than install the player client, which seems nice and lean. With it, I have avoided a TON of headaches and prep work...also for me one benefit is that it has basically ended my addiction to Dwarven Forge, which SAVES me hundreds of dollars per year.

    We have gripes and things we'd change, but in terms of being WORTH the money paid, it is all that and more.

    JT
     
  16. Lord Elderon

    Lord Elderon New Member

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    Hail and Well Met All,

    This is excellent conversation going on here. I want to thank so many of you for your feedback, especially the d20Pro lovers!!! :D I kid, I kid... There are some nice pieces of software available for all different types of gamers. Some are free and some are not. In my opinion, d20Pro is a bargain and quite honestly I think we could charge more.

    d20Pro offers a very nice set of tools for the gamer interested in taking their tabletop experience to the next level.

    A note to any of the d20Pro fans and hardcore users: If you are interested in beta testing future versions of d20Pro, helping us out at conventions (NeonCon, Origins, PaizoCon, GenCon, and / or Dragon*Con), helping creating some monthly games, helping creating a list of fixes, upgrades, etc, or anything else you can think you would like to get off your chest about d20Pro please send me a PM so we can set up a time to chat.

    Best regards and good gaming,

    Nick
     
  17. dontadow

    dontadow New Member

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    Every year, for the last 4 years, I have met with D20pro creators at Gencon. We often have a brief conversation and I try out the product for 30 days after. Still, d20pro lags behind maptools in terms of actual game use for me.

    D20pro looks a lot cleaner and has a lot of polish. But when it comes to functionality, it just doesn't cut it (and now that i have a real license i really want it too).

    Last year, d20pro's biggest problem with me was that I could not import maps from other formats. Grids could not be resized properly. They've fixed that problem, which made me take notice of another problem, the biggest reason why I won't be using d20pro in my next campaign.

    There is no way to import character statblocks. This is about as important to a program like this like wheels on a car. I look at d20pro and see a 2012 mercedes with no wheels.

    The biggest downside to maptools is that you have to have a rudimentary understanding of cut and paste in order to install most of the addons.

    Cost is not important to me. I need ease of prep when Dmining. I need to be able to drag and easily grid maps. I need to have dynamic fog of war. I need to have stat block importing. I need to be able to use every and any pathfinder resource in my collection.

    Sadly, I test these different products, hoping that one daysomeone will develop a polished maptools.
     
  18. kridak

    kridak New Member

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    Herolab
    Makes a dm's life so simple it is not funny. I import all my characters, npcs, monsters.

    That is an understatment, maptools is great, but it is a bloody hassle, i gave up on it after a year and a half. Sure i miss FoW immensly (and god my group whines about it) but i can do a ton of prep work in d20pro that took allot longer in maptools to do. My characters, npcs, monsters, press of button from herolab to d20pro and then select a picture. Way easier. no comparison really.

    Without the pain in the ass of all the setup and adjusting in maptools...that would be a blessing.
     
  19. dontadow

    dontadow New Member

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    Unfortunately i own one of these licenses too and find it just as useless. If I don't feel like recreating every single monster, npc and pc from every pathfinder source in the world. You mention below that maptools is not easy for you? Then herolabs must be an enigma. Making a character in that thing takes 30 minutes to an hour at least. As a working DM, I don't have time to make vcharacter sheets for every character. I'd rather use npcdesigner or grab statblocks from the hundreds of sources out there. D20pro does not facilitate that


    I freshly installed the new version of rptools on my new laptop. Downloaded the pathfinder framework. Found it and clicked on the import button. Voila, I now hve pathfinder on my rptools with all the macro buttons preset. If i want a map, i can click and drag it to the map as abackground. Want an npc, same thing but do it as a person. It's click and drag. D20 forces me to open up 2 to 3 screens to get to the place where i can import a map. Then i get another screen where i have to do the grid. But I better do it right cause I got one shot at that.

    Hit a button to attack, hit a button for skills, clck edit character for editing character info. Most importantly i can cut and paste statblocks to any image or token and it posts it perfectly.
    dontadow wrote:

    I guaranttee you if we start off with the same module, i will have it up and running in maptools before you can get to the first map import screen.
     
  20. lexluthor

    lexluthor Member

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    I tried using maptools and it was just too complicated for a layman. I didn't find it all that intuitive, personally. As for d20pro, it is a bit of a disappointment that there is no FOW yet as we have been waiting for a year now. I would be willing to pay again for new features like that. It doesn't have to have numerous light sources or be too fancy, either, just something better than we have now.
     

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