Solomani666
Mongoose
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking!!!
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=56557
http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=56557
Future Traveller - Suggestions Appreciated
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
ShawnDriscoll said:
A couple weeks ago I was seized with zeal to make a tool such as this OP is about. but after thinking for awhile, I have to agree that a google+ hangout (or some other quality voice/video conference service) is fine. If it allows participants to "share their screen" to throw up pictures/sketches etc that would be even better, and most do. One lesser known such service worth checking out -> http://vyew.com/s/
Some nice mapping assistance could come with the VASSAL board game engine (on sourceforge). deck plans, combat encounters, star maps and system maps should be possible to put together fairly quickly, many could be more or less generic and modified on the fly. Each player could even be connected thru VASSAL and each "move their pieces" when the ref calls their turn.
Now, I could see a web based "game management service" that refs and players would each have an account on. an account creates a "campaign" and players request to join into that 'campaign' - the ref auto-accepts, accepts, rejects or if necessary, blocks.
There'd be a function for collaborative character generation, then it would keep the records there online, in the plasmacloud
plenty of room for notes to be added, etc.People can upload pictures, store them in their personal folders and share to "the table" to make it visible to all logged into their accounts and active in the same campaign.
computerized die-rolling would be optional. If implemented at all, this should be done "well" - hidden rolls, public rolls, etc. Nice if it worked with bluetooth dice. but it might be a little tricky to get a weird bluetooth device to talk with a web app. Would require a browser plugin probably.
All the rulebooks should be accessible through the web app. Particularly supply catalogs and Library Data. Personal, Ref and Party annotations should be tracked.
The app could handle tracking "who's next" for the Ref, by allow the Ref to
maintain up to three or four or more "faction lists" - most encounters would be just two, the Players and the Enemy, but then "the Authorities" might show up, and so on.
The ref could then start a combat encounter off and designate which 'faction lists' are involved, and the app handles Initiative ordering automatically. With the ability of the Ref to drag and reorder the initiative list at will as needed.
The app should track and keep "known" ship information sheets allowing them to be cloned with new names and tweaked.
Should really help with space combat
track Animals too I guess, Contacts, Trade deals, contracts, etc. most of this may just be "notes" no major programming behind it.
The majority of "play" and roleplaying stays with the persons playing, and vocal/video interaction for all OR some OR None of the players. Could be just used by the ref, maybe who has a second monitor to flash things up on. the computer aids are just that, assistance only. Nothing even remotely like a Traveler MMO :wink:
steve98052
Mongoose
The first software development job I would suggest would be a comprehensive index of Traveller books. Any place in any book that refers to another book should be accompanied by a link. Every table of contents should be clickable. The index app should give page numbers for everything, for people who have print books rather than PDFs.
As others mentioned, make PDF versions of the books that are easy to read on small screens. Your core talent as a Traveller publisher is your print content, so the best way you can add value to that is to make your print content more usable. If you make it easier to find
Along those lines, any diagram where details matter (deck plans, planetary maps, etc.) should be converted to vector images that can be zoomed without loss of detail. Even the front and back covers of the main book is an ugly JPEG when it could be a nice sharp vector image. There are lots of jaggies in the Mercenary Cruiser deck plans, even in the text. The legends on most of the deck plans are pretty much unreadable. The hexes in the hex maps have jaggies too, though the world data and hex numbers are vectors. Contrast those with the sharp-at-any-magnification blank character sheet (and the two ad pages that immediately precede it), which is the way all diagrams should be done.
An index app wouldn't have to be limited to Mongoose's own books. If I wanted to know about something that's only mentioned in Fire, Fusion, and Steel or GURPS Traveller Far Trader, and a Mongoose-published app would help me find it, I'd want the app. If Mongoose later covers something previously covered only in a non-Mongoose book, the app could update itself to point to the Mongoose book. Lots of Traveller players have lots of books from assorted older editions, and they'd appreciate knowing where to find things like the Vilani word generation table. (I spent a lot of time looking for that, and eventually discovered that it's only published in the out-of-print Digest Group book Vilani & Vargr. Knowing I wasn't going to find that table without coughing up $60 or so on the second-hand market would have saved me a lot of time.)
You could do two types of indexing apps, a Mongoose-only one and a multi-publisher one. A very inexpensive Mongoose-only index app would make money indirectly, by helping you sell more of your own books. A multi-publisher index app would make money directly, with a higher purchase price.
For example, counting ammunition in a shoot-out is tedious. If it were not tedious, would players use an app to count ammunition? Tracking wounds on NPC "extras" in a shoot-out is tedious. Tracking the passage of time in a Traveller campaign is tedious. Maintaining character sheets for player characters, major NPCs, NPC extras, party-common inventories, etc. is tedious. Tracking money and other inventory is tedious, sometimes painfully tedious. Would players use an app that made those tasks non-tedious?
Next thought: the best apps are those that are small, fill a specific need, and are inter-operable with other apps that fill complementary needs. For example, an ammunition-counting app would need to play nicely with a wound-tracking app -- but neither would really need to communicate with a time-tracking app. But a character sheet app would need to communicate with both the combat apps and a passage-of-time app. The ammunition counter would reduce inventory on the character sheet and wounds would be counted against a character's statistics, while time-tracking would allow wounds to heal, count aging (but not while a character is frozen in low passage), track training of skills, and track money business like salaries and pensions.
One useful app would be a space map that could connect with the ones at The Traveller Map and Interactive Atlas of the Imperium -- and allow players to override data, select different data for different eras (Classic, Mongoose, Rebellion, New Era, Milieu 0, Interstellar Wars, GURPS alternate, etc.), add their own details, etc. I can't imagine how to do that without cooperation from the owners of those sites, but if you're paying for software development it would make sense to pay the owners of those sites to allow you to add hooks to their sites.
One app that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the time tracker. I wouldn't expect it to track time on a tactical scale, such as combat rounds. To me it would be more useful if it tracked time on a calendar scale, including Imperial calendar, Zhodani calendar, modified Gregorian, etc. -- but it might also be nice to convert between standard hours, shipboard shift time, etc. For planets where sufficient details are available, converting local date (season, etc.) and local time would be nice too. What would it do beyond date and time conversions?
Advance the calendar during a jump.
Track characters' aging. (Calendar age always advances. Biological age is frozen in low passage. Characters who use anagathics would also have suspended aging -- which would catch up with them if they miss a dose.)
Track characters' healing and training.
Track use of consumable supplies, such as food and ship fuel.
Track ship maintenance schedule.
Track periodic payments (ship mortgages and paid NPC salaries due, employed character salaries, Travellers' Aid Society high passage benefits, etc.)
Calculate delivery times on xboat-network and other courier messages (so characters can communicate with a distant patron, military campaigns can track delivery of orders, etc.). This would require coordination with a mapping app.
A lot of people have mentioned character sheet managers. One approach to that would be to build a set of Metacreator plug-in modules. That wouldn't play well with other apps, but it would offer a great deal of flexibility in terms of character sheet management.
- - - - -
Platform?
I'm a software developer, and the more an app does, the more difficult it is to make it multi-platform and reliable.
My Samsung Note phone and my wife's Samsung Note table are mostly the same device, other than screen size and the absence of phone functions in the table -- but the PDF reader on the tablet crashes far more often than on the phone.
Java has the slogan, "write once, run anywhere", but Java programmers know that the truth is closer to "write once, test everywhere." The same is true of web-based software; things that work great on one browser look cruddy on another, and don't work at all on a third.
About the only thing one can really count on being reliable is a web-based system that does everything on the server and delivers everything in fairly simple HTML. It would also be possible to make apps portable by minimizing the system-dependent features they use, so that a portability layer would be fairly simple.
It might be useful to build the app with a standard scripting language, possibly even allowing users to tinker with the scripts (if they dare), or build their own extension scripts.
Some of the apps would be able to run without any net connection, except as needed for updates. Index apps would fall into that category.
Some apps should be able to run without a constant net connection, but would need to connect to the net to save data periodically. Most apps that don't need access to space maps would fall into this category.
Some apps would need a net connection any time they were active. Space maps would fall into this category, except that full-fledged computers could probably pre-load an entire sector and not need a live connection except to load new sectors. Any app that was used to share data for a play-by-net game would likely need a net connection.
A key question of how to build such an app -- more important than things like programming language -- would be how to store app data. Ideally, stored data would be synchronized between the device at the gaming table (whether it's a smart phone, tablet, or computer) and server storage, allowing players to use a phone one session, computer another, etc. The server copy could be on a Mongoose server (possibly with some recurring fee), on a specific non-Mongoose server (Google Drive, Amazon Web Services, etc.), on the user's choice of non-Mongoose servers, or even an easy-to-install server program on the user's own computer.
Edit 2015: one-character typo.
As others mentioned, make PDF versions of the books that are easy to read on small screens. Your core talent as a Traveller publisher is your print content, so the best way you can add value to that is to make your print content more usable. If you make it easier to find
Along those lines, any diagram where details matter (deck plans, planetary maps, etc.) should be converted to vector images that can be zoomed without loss of detail. Even the front and back covers of the main book is an ugly JPEG when it could be a nice sharp vector image. There are lots of jaggies in the Mercenary Cruiser deck plans, even in the text. The legends on most of the deck plans are pretty much unreadable. The hexes in the hex maps have jaggies too, though the world data and hex numbers are vectors. Contrast those with the sharp-at-any-magnification blank character sheet (and the two ad pages that immediately precede it), which is the way all diagrams should be done.
An index app wouldn't have to be limited to Mongoose's own books. If I wanted to know about something that's only mentioned in Fire, Fusion, and Steel or GURPS Traveller Far Trader, and a Mongoose-published app would help me find it, I'd want the app. If Mongoose later covers something previously covered only in a non-Mongoose book, the app could update itself to point to the Mongoose book. Lots of Traveller players have lots of books from assorted older editions, and they'd appreciate knowing where to find things like the Vilani word generation table. (I spent a lot of time looking for that, and eventually discovered that it's only published in the out-of-print Digest Group book Vilani & Vargr. Knowing I wasn't going to find that table without coughing up $60 or so on the second-hand market would have saved me a lot of time.)
You could do two types of indexing apps, a Mongoose-only one and a multi-publisher one. A very inexpensive Mongoose-only index app would make money indirectly, by helping you sell more of your own books. A multi-publisher index app would make money directly, with a higher purchase price.
This is exactly the right approach, in my opinion. One addition to it, however, would be to identify tedious parts of the game that the largest number of people would use if they were not tedious.kidfinn said:
For example, counting ammunition in a shoot-out is tedious. If it were not tedious, would players use an app to count ammunition? Tracking wounds on NPC "extras" in a shoot-out is tedious. Tracking the passage of time in a Traveller campaign is tedious. Maintaining character sheets for player characters, major NPCs, NPC extras, party-common inventories, etc. is tedious. Tracking money and other inventory is tedious, sometimes painfully tedious. Would players use an app that made those tasks non-tedious?
Next thought: the best apps are those that are small, fill a specific need, and are inter-operable with other apps that fill complementary needs. For example, an ammunition-counting app would need to play nicely with a wound-tracking app -- but neither would really need to communicate with a time-tracking app. But a character sheet app would need to communicate with both the combat apps and a passage-of-time app. The ammunition counter would reduce inventory on the character sheet and wounds would be counted against a character's statistics, while time-tracking would allow wounds to heal, count aging (but not while a character is frozen in low passage), track training of skills, and track money business like salaries and pensions.
One useful app would be a space map that could connect with the ones at The Traveller Map and Interactive Atlas of the Imperium -- and allow players to override data, select different data for different eras (Classic, Mongoose, Rebellion, New Era, Milieu 0, Interstellar Wars, GURPS alternate, etc.), add their own details, etc. I can't imagine how to do that without cooperation from the owners of those sites, but if you're paying for software development it would make sense to pay the owners of those sites to allow you to add hooks to their sites.
One app that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the time tracker. I wouldn't expect it to track time on a tactical scale, such as combat rounds. To me it would be more useful if it tracked time on a calendar scale, including Imperial calendar, Zhodani calendar, modified Gregorian, etc. -- but it might also be nice to convert between standard hours, shipboard shift time, etc. For planets where sufficient details are available, converting local date (season, etc.) and local time would be nice too. What would it do beyond date and time conversions?
Advance the calendar during a jump.
Track characters' aging. (Calendar age always advances. Biological age is frozen in low passage. Characters who use anagathics would also have suspended aging -- which would catch up with them if they miss a dose.)
Track characters' healing and training.
Track use of consumable supplies, such as food and ship fuel.
Track ship maintenance schedule.
Track periodic payments (ship mortgages and paid NPC salaries due, employed character salaries, Travellers' Aid Society high passage benefits, etc.)
Calculate delivery times on xboat-network and other courier messages (so characters can communicate with a distant patron, military campaigns can track delivery of orders, etc.). This would require coordination with a mapping app.
A lot of people have mentioned character sheet managers. One approach to that would be to build a set of Metacreator plug-in modules. That wouldn't play well with other apps, but it would offer a great deal of flexibility in terms of character sheet management.
- - - - -
Platform?
I'm a software developer, and the more an app does, the more difficult it is to make it multi-platform and reliable.
My Samsung Note phone and my wife's Samsung Note table are mostly the same device, other than screen size and the absence of phone functions in the table -- but the PDF reader on the tablet crashes far more often than on the phone.
Java has the slogan, "write once, run anywhere", but Java programmers know that the truth is closer to "write once, test everywhere." The same is true of web-based software; things that work great on one browser look cruddy on another, and don't work at all on a third.
About the only thing one can really count on being reliable is a web-based system that does everything on the server and delivers everything in fairly simple HTML. It would also be possible to make apps portable by minimizing the system-dependent features they use, so that a portability layer would be fairly simple.
It might be useful to build the app with a standard scripting language, possibly even allowing users to tinker with the scripts (if they dare), or build their own extension scripts.
Some of the apps would be able to run without any net connection, except as needed for updates. Index apps would fall into that category.
Some apps should be able to run without a constant net connection, but would need to connect to the net to save data periodically. Most apps that don't need access to space maps would fall into this category.
Some apps would need a net connection any time they were active. Space maps would fall into this category, except that full-fledged computers could probably pre-load an entire sector and not need a live connection except to load new sectors. Any app that was used to share data for a play-by-net game would likely need a net connection.
A key question of how to build such an app -- more important than things like programming language -- would be how to store app data. Ideally, stored data would be synchronized between the device at the gaming table (whether it's a smart phone, tablet, or computer) and server storage, allowing players to use a phone one session, computer another, etc. The server copy could be on a Mongoose server (possibly with some recurring fee), on a specific non-Mongoose server (Google Drive, Amazon Web Services, etc.), on the user's choice of non-Mongoose servers, or even an easy-to-install server program on the user's own computer.
Edit 2015: one-character typo.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
Trying to use apps at a game table is a great way to slow down role-play to a crawl.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
Which ones exactly?Somebody said:ShawnDriscoll said:
Use a better app and operating system.
ShawnDriscoll said:Which ones exactly?Somebody said:ShawnDriscoll said:
Use a better app and operating system.
None of them. This is a roleplaying game, not a computer game. The only way you need computers for it is if you're doing an online play-by-email or -by-forum.
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
I don't use apps / computers whilst running a game.
I ad lib
I ad lib
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
You passed.Jame Rowe said:ShawnDriscoll said:Which ones exactly?Somebody said:Use a better app and operating system.
None of them. This is a roleplaying game, not a computer game. The only way you need computers for it is if you're doing an online play-by-email or -by-forum.
Bardicheart
Mongoose
I've been pondering what I'd like to see in Traveller, specifically in regards to going more "high-tech", so here's my wish list.msprange said:
Better PDFs. I'll start here because without the books you really don't have a game so getting this part right is central. What I mean by better PDFs includes:
a) -- Better editing, and honestly I think what is really needed is a Line Editor who ensures consistency in what is produced.
b) -- Better indexing and bookmarks (every PDF should be fully bookmarked)
c) -- Hyperlinking. Anytime there is a page reference to a rule elsewhere, that should be a hyperlink within the document.
Anything else that makes the PDFs more accessible, speeds up ease of reference. I have an idea for an app below regarding this. You might also consider in some books using color coding, a colored stripe down the page edge for different sections such as combat, ship design, equipment, etc. Helps give a visual reference so if I'm quickly flipping through the book or PDF I have visual ques to where I am.
Try to bring down the cost of the PDFs. To be blunt honest, $20-30 for a PDF is something I'm iffy about paying in the best of circumstances. I hate to say it, but Mongoose Traveller has not had the best track record with publishing quality and after having been "burned" a couple times I'm even more iffy about shelling out that much. I'm not sure how much of the market I represent, just speaking for myself. Believe me, I hate writing that... but if I'm not being honest I'm not being very helpful.
On to Apps
1st App, a reference catalog. Some sort of app for my desktop or lap top that allows me to create a catalog of my PDFs, lets me index them and creates a quick reference index of links that allows it to automatically open the correct PDF for whatever rule I'm trying to find. Some sort of search feature that will scan all the PDFs I have and give me a list of the references. One of the issues I have with games that reach the point Traveller has (and this is true of Shadowrun, Harn, and other games), there are so many rule books, supplements, etc. that just finding what I'm looking for can be time consuming. I cannot afford to spend 30 min looking for a rule during a game session. An app that finds it for me in under a minute would be a big help to me.
2nd App, World and System generator. Something that randomly generates world and entire star systems for me on the fly. Has the option to allow me to plug in world data I may already have (so maybe I know I want the main world to have a dense atmosphere, be Tech 3, Balkanized, and the planet has rings, also 2 planetary belts; I can plug that in, and it generates the rest). If this app can also generate detailed planetary maps, temperatures (I like the idea of the detail in New Era with planets, temperature ranges, weather, etc. but having to do all the formulas by hand was time consuming, an app could give me all that in seconds; its what computers are good at), that would be great. Even better if it can generate color map of the entire system, planets, etc. in their orbits so I have a visually nice representation of the solar system, that'd be awesome. If you want to go one better, add in a function that animates it, moves the planets in their orbits and has a grid map I can zoom into and place ships on so I can show players exactly where their ship is in relation to all the various planets, belts, etc as well as other ships... that would be amazingly useful. Make all that data editable so I can tweak any planet, moon, map or any other aspect of the system an you'd have what I would consider one of the all time most useful Traveller apps.
3rd App, Ship Design app with all the ship rules in one place (while you're at it, PLEASE do a MgT book version of FFS; its needed at this point)
4th App, Virtual tabletop. There are some already out there so I don't know whether you would want to build your own or plug in to one already out there. But having a virtual table top that I can either use at a physical game table or online that does the following:
a) -- Let's me put together visually appealing maps of cities, starports, building interiors and spacecraft (at minimum).
b) -- Lets me put icons (even better animated 3D icons) of people, creatures, robots, etc on that map.
c) -- Figures out what each person, character, etc can see based on their position and visually represents this.
d) --Takes care of die rolls, modifiers, etc automatically (but what it uses can be edited for house rules), so player simply choose an action and go.
e) -- Tracks the data and can output it in a printer friendly mode (i.e. can give an update at any time on an individual character, any wounds or injuries, ammo, gear, items picked up, etc.
5th App, Gamer Locator. A lot of hobby shops have closed, all the ones near me are gone. That makes finding fellow gamers that much harder. An app that helps me locate and contact other gamers, whether for in person games or online would be helpful. Such an app needs to include some info about the types of games we're looking for (OTU, published ATUs, 2300, Homebrew TUs, other game settings being run with Traveller (like Fading Suns)), maybe some indication of the types of characters we like to play, do we expect to play current characters or are we willing to roll up new ones for a campaign, are we looking for a campaign or one off adventures or a short series? All that should be searchable so we can find each other and match up interests and play styles.
Other Ideas
Do everything you can to encourage 3rd party publishing. I've been gaming a long time (30+ years) and when I think back to the things that built D&D into the phenomenon it became, two things stand out in my memory. One was the publicity that came from all the controversy, I don't think you can create that or would want too, but it did help make D&D a well known game. The other was all the 3rd party publishing going on. Whether it was old Judges Guild stuff on newsprint (which I still have stacks of), to a much slicker City State of the Invincible Overloard boxed sets (which I also still have), there was a TON of stuff constantly coming out. Most of it was adventures and settings. I can't but wonder if there was that same kind of flood of material coming out for Traveller if it wouldn't help improve sales and enlarge the player base. Maybe, maybe not, maybe it takes that magic combination of both the publicity and the production; I don't claim to be an expert, these are just my thoughts.
As for how to encourage that, maybe apps could help here. A submission app, automate the process of becoming a 3rd party publisher. I'll just share my own experience with the current method. I had some ideas for some 3rd party things I wanted to publish online nearly 2 years ago. I printed out the licensing forms, put together my own logo, etc. and sent everything in. No reply. I wrote an email about 3 months later to inquire whether my forms had been received, to confirm that everything was good to go... no reply. I wrote again about 3 months after that, no reply. So I gave up. I wasn't about to put the effort into doing the writing, deckplans and artwork to create a product I could be proud of and put on DriveThru only to risk getting a DMCA letter shortly after because I couldn't be certain if I was really licensed or not. I don't know if anyone ever actually received the physical forms I mailed, or the emails I sent later. How many possible submissions have been lost because of what was probably an oversight? (BTW, I'm not pissed about it, just pointing something out.)
A submission app would automate all that. The forms would be filled out and digitally signed, possibly for each submission. The submission could either be a 3rd party product or it could be something hoping to be published by Mongoose as Official stuff. The app could possibly do some basic spell and grammar checking, and provides other tools to help would be small press publishers. Maybe the app includes a database of writers looking to be part of a project or who have projects they need artwork for; as well as a database of artists who can do artwork, samples of their art, and the kinds of art they can do (page backgrounds, interior art, cover art, B&W, color, 3D digital, oils, etc.). In other words create a clearing house that connects and helps cultivate artists, writers, editors, and other talent... some of which Mongoose may tap for official projects but the rest of the time they can help each other out and hone their skills while producing more content for Traveller. Its cultivating a resource.
I'd even be interested in seeing the possibility of say... I write a project, get artwork done and have a 3rd party item put together. Then I submit it and Mongoose looks it over. If you're impressed you can option publishing it and you pay me for those rights. Otherwise you help me market it, you handle sales and get a reasonable cut... we both make money (hopefully).
The point is to make publishing 3rd party content as easy as possible, to encourage it. I think more content helps keep people talking about and interested in Traveller. Its too much for anyone one game company to do alone, but collectively with enough 3rd party stuff you open the floodgates.
The BIG Idea
I very much doubt this is possible, I've been part of 3D game design projects and I know what a huge undertaking it is... but... A 3D gaming environment that can either be run on a desktop / laptop or online. Doing a full version of Traveller would not be practical, in part because of the enormous expense of such a project. But what might be possible is just space travel. Something that can generate random systems (or accept system data) or load / create entire sectors based on some published material (whether OTU 3I or some other published setting, if you can input the data, it can create the systems and maps). Pre-made ships / variants wouldn't be too hard, but including a custom ship design system would be a challenge (not impossible but it would be difficult to pull off). It could be based on the Unity or UDK engines (both are good and have reasonable licensing fees) but you'd still need programmers for the GUI and modellers/artist for all the 3D content. The finished product would basically allow you to board a ship, walk around inside it, fly around star systems, engage in space combat in real time, land at starports to conduct trade (this part would be fairly scripted since doing complete 3D models of entire worlds or having the ability to randomly generate them would multiply the time, cost and difficulty of the project immensely), and make jumps to other systems. In concept it might be something like an old game called Freelancer (just for point of reference), but a much updated concept and obviously with differences specific to Traveller. Such a product could be a stand alone computer game, but it could also be used as part of table top or online gaming; handling just the space aspects and adding some graphical pizzaz. As a stand alone PC game it may also help introduce more people to the Traveller RPG and help increase the player base (and thus sales) there.
Closing Thoughts
Please don't focus too much on smart phone apps. I know they're popular and I'm sure there is a market for it; but it isn't all of us. I don't even own a smart phone and even if I did probably wouldn't use such apps (with my bad vision its just not possible, there's a reason my desktop has two 32" monitors and it ain't luxury). I'm not against smart phone apps, just don't go exclusively that route. I think laptops and desktops are probably going to have a larger market because more people are using those for gaming. Computers are great at number crunching and bookkeeping, which also happen to be things that slow down play and many gamers hate doing, so apps that focus on doing that for gamers would likely be welcomed. Things that help us play the game we already love are great; things that get in the way of that will, I think, end in failure.
Well, there are my suggestions, hopefully there's something useful in all that.
steve98052
Mongoose
First point is very important. Anything big -- even if it seems small -- is going to be expensive. And trying to do anything on too small a budget is likely to produce something substandard that won't sell. Better to stick with what you know -- game content -- than to spend money outside your core skills.Dracous said:
Cross platform is not just a good idea, it's necessary. The only practical way to do that is web content; exactly how to go about it depends on the specific thing you're making.
An update tracker is a good idea. Even if it requires a somewhat custom version for each significant platform (Windows, Android, Iphone, Mac, Linux), it's probably simple enough that it won't cost too much.
This is a good idea; some players would love this. But this is something that a fan could probably do better (for the joy of developing and sharing it) than a publisher could do by paying for it. The best thing Mongoose could do there would be to create a web page for things that it would endorse (and help redistribute) if players created it. Even better, Mongoose might publish guidelines for fan-created software to make it more likely to inter-operate, such as defining the XML DTD for various types of data that user-created software should use.dna said:
Mongoose licenses Traveller from Marc Miller. My guess is that they can't sub-license it to players. However, a lot of things that players would want in this sort of software don't use licensed material, or they qualify for the fan-created materials license. The only place where Mongoose has the say-so about what players can share is material that's specific to Mongoose (for example, the isometric view starship deck plans in the play-test books).phavoc said:
Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
One thing is computers free us from the limitations of a 2D sheet of paper. What if you had a 3d map with a setting similar to classic Traveller, but otherwise original besides sharing the common elements of classic Traveller. There must be a way to do a 3D map, that users can manipulate, rotate the map along all three axises, zoom in zoom out, click on a star and get some basic UWP information first through a hex window, then click on it again to get the full stats. The hardest part would be a random name generator for the worlds.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
Assuming there are a lot of programmers that will program for free. Those that do program Traveller apps for their own use you can count on a hand. Or two. If more people wrote their own Traveller apps, maybe there'd be more YouTube videos posted about them.phavoc said:
Tom Kalbfus
Mongoose
What about "virtual minatures" gaming? Lets say you have a computer platform for "virtual minatures" that is the players move these minatures around in a virtual space or virtual board? The computer doesn't define the rules of how they move, the players move them however they like. the virtual board can either be two dimensional or three dimensional, it would be two-dimensional you you are moving characters around on the surface of a planet for instance, or three dimensional if you are moving spaceships or starships through space. Each of the standard spaceships, would have virtual minatures, of them, players can move them around and orient them in virtual space, this would make space combat interesting and more informative. if you zoom in on them, you could then slice open a spaceship and get a floor plan of the spaceship in which you can move around your individual character minatures in.ShawnDriscoll said:
How does this idea sound? It isn't exactly computer gaming, but it is computer assisted gaming.
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
There are a few apps like that for G+ Hangouts that I've seen Traveller gamers use. Screen-sharing is the key for a lot of them. I tried Roll20 once.Tom Kalbfus said:
alex_greene
Guest
Are we still talking about this? Why has the topic come back? Is someone planning on computerising Trav 2.0?
I'd say it's come back because an early version of RPGsuite just launched a few weeks ago. Which seems like it's what this topic fed a lot of feature ideas into. The version that is up now is just a character generator and a digital character sheet, neither of which I've been able to get to work.alex_greene said:
