Skirmish-VT


Product Discussion


Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but here goes.
I have been using the VTT program Skirmish!-VT in Beta for about 6 months now. The open Beta period has ended, and their Kickstarter is now live. It's a European-based endeavor, but it is in English. Hoping to drive some traffic their way. Check it out, I think it has the potential to the best VTT. Plugin options alone make it incredibly adaptable. Have been using it at home with a slave monitor game table, but it can be used over the internet. Check it out, the Kickstarter page is pretty descriptive.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1569088261/skirmish-vt-virtual-tableto p-for-role-playing-game/description

Silver Crusade

It's actually pretty well thought out in terms of it being freemium.

It's mix of FG and Roll20 in that it has the benefits of a server broker so no more port-forwarding, and the power of a modern VTT client for things HTML can't do.

Their FoW really puts others to shame in that it dynamically reveals and remembers past locations as greyed out compared to what your character sees.

EDIT: also the above link is broken, here's the corrected link

>>Skirmish VT Kickstarter<<


Agreed 100%. Additionally, FOW can be a specific foreground, so you can design encounters in which your PCs see the roof of the building until they enter it. Also, only the GM has to be a member for all players to get membership benefits during play. Have also been in enjoying how easy it is to port graphics. One can literally paste any image from the clipboard as a portrait, token, or object.
Thanks for posting a not broken link...


I can't wait to see the finished product with all the plug-ins and content packs.

Silver Crusade

I'm surprised that it's not looked at more given what it is compared to others. I mean:

-epic table which also came out doesn't even have dynamic lighting and requires manual FoW

-Fantasy Grounds relies on an old network model, and has primitive buggy drawing tools. There's a ton of vapor ware regarding Unity as a solve all but having seen the demo... well it's even behind d20pro on it's unity build. It also tends to freeze up a lot. They have great automation when it all falls together. Their extension framework however is very antiquated basing off a combo of XML and lua script.

-d20pro's dynamic lighting is buggy, their controls convoluted; and it's user base has mostly abandoned it. It also relies on an old network model. It does have a good load on demand data transfer though. Their plug in framework is java based and buggy.

-Roll20 is super easy to connect to, but requires a subscription to get dynamic lighting and for even more money you rent the privilege to help yourself or scalp off plug-ins others have developed to access the script features. It's server based so if the server is conjested or down, so is your game, and all the content in it. Their plug in interface is Javascript based and works great until the server is conjested, usually on the days games normally run (sat fri).

- Map tools is free and has been around the longest. It's open source and anyone can mod it or script for it. It also is stagnant in its development as far as new features are concerned. The network model is also dated and I highly doubt they'll be able to move to brokered server model given the costs. But for what it offers on the Java swing backbone It does it well.

-Skirmish VT is a broker based network model among peers where it determines the best host among your connected peers. Remember matchmaking on Xbox/console games where it would find a host among the players? It then distributes the data to only be revealed when the game master reveals it so you could host from a hotel by piggy backing a strong connection of one of your players. No server required. Plug-in extensions are available for free users so you don't need to pay in to get a chance to mod in the features you want. They have a plug in limit for free users though, but the fact you don't have to pay out the gate to see if it's worth it is applaudable.The main drawback here is that it is windows only; but so was Fantasy Grounds initially, and Skirmish is looking foward to the multiplatform space... oh and their FoW implementation which even can illustrate dark vision (see the vids, seeing is believing.. and I've actually used it in their beta) is the only modern implementation on VTTS to date.


Ayanzo...... If there ever was a glowing recommendation, that was it.

:)

Silver Crusade

Sadly it's because I used them all. I've burnt a ton of capital shopping around to finally see something modern.


Started VTT use w/ maptools, and while nice that it is free, found that I would pay for a more user-friendly VTT, and found the whole program a little "buggy" as most freeware is. I found skirmish linked from cartographer's guild and was converted almost immediately. The FOW looks awesome, I found the fact that everything had to snap to grid frustrating. Now that the BETA is closed, I've found myself without a program. Have looked at battlegrounds but my players don't want to pay for Licenses. Roll20 seems alright. I like being able to drop images into the browser to make tokens or object. However, I found skirmish much more adaptable when it came to making tokens, especially on the fly, paste, crop, resize right in the program. The interface that has objects, PC's, Hostile NPC and Neutral NPC was nice, as I could keep the object/character "in the wings" without having to hide it somewhere on the map. Plus it made it easier to find stuff out of view. Additionally, I haven't seen any other product with a mini-map.

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