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Comments: 118 +- Games: D&D On Google Wave on Friday October 30, @02:53AM
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Jon Stokes at the Opposable Thumbs blog relates his experience using Google Wave as a platform for Dungeons and Dragons — the true test of success for any new communications technology. A post at Spirits of Eden lists some of Wave's strengths for gaming. Quoting:
"The few games I'm following typically have at least three waves: one for recruiting and general discussion, another for out-of-character interactions ('table talk'), and the main wave where the actual in-character gaming takes place. Individual players are also encouraged to start waves between themselves for any conversations that the GM shouldn't be privy to. Character sheets can be posted in a private wave between a player and the GM, and character biographies can go anywhere where the other players can get access to them. The waves are persistent, accessible to anyone who's added to them, and include the ability to track changes, so they ultimately work quite well as a medium for the non-tactical parts of an RPG. A newcomer can jump right in and get up-to-speed on past interactions, and a GM or industrious player can constantly maintain the official record of play by going back and fixing errors, formatting text, adding and deleting material, and reorganizing posts."
It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion.
-- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
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Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
IRC (sans logging)
"The few games I'm following typically have at least three channels: one for recruiting and general discussion, another for out-of-character interactions ('table talk'), and the main channel where the actual in-character gaming takes place. Individual players are also encouraged to private message between themselves for any conversations that the GM shouldn't be privy to. Character sheets can be posted in a private message between a player and the GM, and character biographies can go anywhere where the other players can get access to them."
I'm sorry but I still dont get all the hype, to me it's just a bastard child of IRC and a Wiki.
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes! That's exactly what it is. You say that like this development of new technology is a bad thing. Do you need to hand in your geek card?
Parent
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
it's not really the development of a new technology, it's the hybridisation of everything that's come before - IRC, IM, Wiki's, Email - into one flexible platform. It's certainly an interesting idea, but what it needs is the ability to forcibly narrow down the parameters so you can *if you want* lock it into a pure Wiki, or IRC clone or whatever.
It might, however, be one of those kid in a candy shop style affairs where the kid can have as much candy as he wants, but doesn't know where to start, eats everything, pukes and makes a mess.
Parent
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:4, Funny)
It might, however, be one of those kid in a candy shop style affairs where the kid can have as much candy as he wants, but doesn't know where to start, eats everything, pukes and makes a mess.
That is a great analogy for the internet itself. The next time my mother asks why web pages are so cluttered, I am going to have to remember that.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's a fairly pointless thing to say. One could argue that there's been no new technology since the wheel... everything since is just a derivative. Why does it even matter if it's a new technology or not? Something doesn't have to be new or completely original to be useful. In fact, the best technologies tend not to be the first iteration of a new concept, but a much later one.
Well, if Google wave does *nothing* that IRC couldn't, then the first question that comes to mind for me is "why is slashdot wasting my time with all these articles about redundant technology?" The GP isn't saying there's anything wrong with Google Wave, he's just wondering what all the fuss is about. I'm sort of wondering about that myself.
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:4, Interesting)
It's threaded IRC, with search, but without any admin controls (once a person is there it's impossible to silence or kick them, and indeed impossible for them to leave [f/x: hums the tune to hotel california]).
It's fairly limited right now - I bet part of the reason that these RP events use multiple waves is because you have to - once you go over about 350 posts the wave slows down to the point of unusability and you have to start a new one.
Wave is so beta it's difficult to know what it will be when it's finished (at the moment stuff breaks regularly.. which is OK because it's most populated by geeks who are used to stuff breaking). What I would say is don't believe the hype otherwise you'll be disappointed.
Parent
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, a backhoe does nothing that a shovel couldn't... It's just a lot better at some things (moving lots of dirt). I use wave on a regular basis for project collaboration. One of the best things about wave is that you don't have to respond in a linear fashion. So, this is a conversation that could happen in IRC:
Sally: When I [description of what she did] I get the error message [some random error message]
Sally: Also, if I [description of what she did] the program [description of how the program fails]
Jack: Well, on that first issue, what happens if you [some thing to try]
Jack: And for that second issue.....
With wave, jack can respond directly to each of sally's messages (or even a particular part of a message) so Sally knows exactly what Jack is talking about without Jack having to clarify. As Jack finish up things from his to-do list, he just deletes the threads from the wave, as they are always accessible via Replay (which lets you see all previous states of the wave), keeping the wave nice and clean. And if Sally isn't online when jack deletes something, it will be obvious to her what Jack deleted (it's marked with strikeout, and is removed after the next time she views the wave) when she comes back online so she knows what he's finished.
Not to mention that there are gadgets and robots and waves are embeddable (though the apis are in early stages at the moment).
Does IRC do all that?
Parent
More like forums, really (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty much all of the described things (three separate threads. Private messages. Logs.) are exactly as they would be in PbP (play by post, usually on a forum) game. In addition, RPG oriented forums (Myth-Weavers, GiantITP...) often have dicerollers, character sheet managers, etc... Those could be added as gadgets here too, I guess. But nothing there seems revolutionary as in offering anything new.
I think that the point is easiness of use compared to other options and stuff like that. Rather than letting you do something new, wave lets you do all the old stuff in one program instead of having multiple ones. One useful scenario for this could be: A PbP game that is played normally on forums, but on wave you see "Ah, those two guys are online now", send them a message "Want to do some playing in real time?" and begin chatting with them. Much easier than telling them to fire up IRC, connect to a server, etc. (especially if they aren't "computer people").
So I could see wave potentially being useful for this (like many other things). There just has been too much hype about it so people first act more among the lines of "This will cure cancer and HIV and everything!" and then go "Uh, this isn't THAT awesome. We'll need to desperately look for things in which this is superior to other mediums!" instead of going "Oh, a new alternative for forums and chats. Neat. I'm sure we'll come up with some interesting uses for this over time."
I have been designing a program to play DnD over the internet lately. One with battlemaps, chats, dicerollers, stuff like that. I am aware of OpenRPG and similar products but I'm not completely happy with them (the UI, the functionality, a lot of things) so I've decided to write my own one. I think that writing a wave plugin for the missing stuff instead might be worth giving some thought.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:More like forums, really (Score:4, Informative)
Try Fantasy Grounds [fantasygrounds.com] first though. It's got realistic dice, tools, maps the works for pretty much any major pen & paper RPG since there are quite a few rulesets available.
Why try proprietary software when there's an excellent Free Software option [rptools.net] that you can customize to your needs?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Most of RPTool users, including myself, are not programmers
Give it a try
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
The hype works like this,
1. Replace IRC with IM(msn,yahoo etc.) in the user population which is more about one-to-one conversations and terrible at group conversations. These users are now completely unaware of IRC and are stuck with email for one-to-many communication.
2. Next you sell them various ways they can get back the one-to-many communication method(facebook,myspace,google wave)
3.???
4. PROFIT!
It's really that simple, everything old is new again...oh and now it's in your web browser so you can use those CPU cycles you're missing out on when your CPU would otherwise be sleeping.
Parent
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
Persistent wikified irc with integrated permissions management?
That, right there, is a killer app.
Parent
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
With version control, play-back capability, distributed storage, and a well documented pluggin API.
Wave blows me away.
The fact that so many people chime in with "I don't get it" is probably an indication of how revolutionary it is.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that so many people chime in with "I don't get it" is probably an indication of how revolutionary it is.
...or of it just being poorly articulated.
.com bubble, it seems a lot of people are willing to make the assumption that vague vibes of goodness and a lack of details makes for something revolutionary - if it can't be explained well, then it must be cool.
I'm not a Wave hater, but a lot of the coverage I read initially was really vague about what it actually is. Even after the
In this case though it turns out Wave actually is cool. It just needs to be explained better, and we're beginning to see some of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Synergy. User-friendly integration of components allows for delivery in a single package.
Hmm. Tolkien and the concept of the Ring come to mind, too.
Regards,
Ruemere
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:4, Interesting)
Swap character sheets for "business plans," and you can see the potential, here.
There's also the convenience factor. It does everything for you. Unlike IRC, you can edit within the Wave itself. Logs don't have to be outputted to a .txt file before you can edit them. You just do it right there.
What'll be interesting is if/when Skype can be added to it in a gadget. VoIP with audio/video chat, the ability to display documents to an entire group, and to collaboratively write something with real-time editing.
If you want to say it's just a repackaging of IRC and a Wiki, sure, go right ahead. It's just shaping up to be a very well done and potentially ubiquitous repackaging.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
how do you get more real-time than IRC?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you could have people's letters appear as they type.. or go around to their house and talk face to face.
Re: (Score:2)
Like the old Unix Command Talk
Bah. Back the old days we had chat and it was better too. Full split screen chat. You typed on top the person you were chatting with was on the bottom. Real time you saw what they typed there misspellings and there typing speed.
There was also versions of this for BBS's it was great because you can see how computer literate the people were by their typing
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The hype is because it has no technical jargon words. The media gets a headache when it encounters technical jargon. The hype is because it has marketing jargon. The media falls head-over-heels when it encounters marketing jargon.
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Funny)
So it's really IRC++?
Parent
Re:Kinda sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
I still don't get it. Cell phones are just regular phone but without the wires.
I still don't get it. The web is just like gopher/ftp but you with pictures.
I still don't get it. The iPhone is just a bastard child of a cell phone and a pda.
What you don't get is that almost all new products that really take off are amalgamations of pre-existing technologies. Yeah, Google Wave is just a really neat way to put together IRC, Wiki, and Email. Its impact will be huge. A couple of years from now, even your mom will be talking about sending you a Wave. Numerous imitators and Wave server implementations will be around. Waves and wave-like concepts will be omnipresent.
Parent
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:4, Informative)
http://bash.org/?104383 [bash.org]
Parent
If the grues don't get you, the gazebos will! (Score:2, Funny)
Watch out for killer gazebos!
Re:The killer gazebo, FYI, no, not you, them. (Score:5, Funny)
ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.
Parent
Not going to catch on (Score:3, Informative)
Those of us with beta accounts are familiar with the fact that its slow, clumsy and unexciting.
Sort of sad how everyone is shitting themselves because they found ONE decent use for Wave. A dedicated program for D&D, which dedicated players would rather use than a general tool shoehorned into D&D and stuck in the damn browser, would be much better.
I used to like Google's products because they were simple and responsive. This is what I would expect out of a startup, not a company with resources and experience like Google.
They've probably already realized this is a failed experiment, and they'd be better off shoving it under the rug now than pushing forward as if this is the next Google Search or Mail.
Re:Not going to catch on (Score:5, Funny)
"Those of us with beta accounts are familiar with the fact that its slow, clumsy and unexciting. "
can this be rephrased as:
"Too slow. Steeper learning curve than email. Lame."
?
Parent
In my humble opinion. (Score:4, Interesting)
The google web Wave client is tryiing too much things, and give the feel of a alfa client, with the speed a bloated "v14.0"-ish app.
1) It will be better if it try less things. FIRST. Using waves to configure things, is like using emails to store emails settings. Is just a bad idea. It could be cool, and good for devs (eat your own dog food), but is bad for users. Since the use of waves is slow, changing settings is slow. A normal interface, like the one that Gmail have for his setup details, will be much faster and easy to use, also more "normal". Future versions of Wave could have something different, but for the current version is just too much. This wave client is trying too strong to be a 2020 client, and need to be a 2009 client.
2). Again, is 2009. For most people Wave is slow, It just do too much things automatically. Opening and closing waves sould be much faster. It feel like everything is automatically autoupdating all the time. Thats sould stop, and only the active wave be this active. Maybe broadcast the "modified" flag. A future 2020 version could get that feature back, once our computers and the whole internet is much faster.
3). Too much!!!.. Is too much!!. Wave is complex beyond needing a manual, It almost need special training. It seems some features are unwanted, but present everywhere. ..more about this soon..
Who created a wave?. It seems a wave lack the "headers" of a email. It sould have a way to know the name of the wave creator (the OP in forum parlance), the date of such creating, and other stuff. The subject/title of a room, sould probably be "manual" and not "automagical".
Why I can't download it to a file? say a PDF.
Why I can't open a wave in areal fullscreen way, withouth the web MDI interface?.
Its need more control over a wave. Like... force part of it read-only, or stop more people to join.
How its now.. what If I say something sensitive, and some guy invited the wrong person? ok, you can do that with email, but here seems something that can be like more casual. It just don't trusth a wave, because It feels public, without a way to stop that. It would be "easy" to block that.
What are the limits of a bot? can a bot that inject a SWF steal my account details? Facebook seems a bit more "safer" than this. Bots are like too "misterious". Bots sould have a special way to be identified from humans, and a dedicated page with (maybe) commands. Hell... PEOPLE need a simple profile page.
LOTS OF STUFF...
I think Wave has been released too early. Its still a technological preview of a future technology, but is not usable today for what I have commented. I love to have it available, has a toy, but I have not found a real use, nor my friends seems inclined to use it.
A faster client (desktop based?) will be giganteous step.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Wave has been released too early. Its still a technological preview of a future technology, but is not usable today for what I have commented. I love to have it available, has a toy, but I have not found a real use, nor my friends seems inclined to use it.
They released it early so they could get feedback on it to see what needs to be improved for the final release. Your post is probably exactly the kind of feedback they're looking for; have you submitted it to them as well as us?
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>what If I say something sensitive, and some guy invited the wrong person?
Even if you had control on Wave itself, what could prevent the same guy taking screenshots and putting them on the web?
That said having control on the one who can reply to a wave is a good idea, to prevent trolls.
>Bots sould have a special way to be identified from humans,
It's probably a good default but those who want 'anonymous bots' will find a way to make them (not too hard: script the client) so I don't think it's a big iss
Re:Not going to catch on (Score:4, Informative)
Those of us with beta accounts are familiar with the fact that its slow, clumsy and unexciting.
Well, it's an alpha (preview, in Google terms) account first off.
Second, I do agree that it feels slow and a bit clumsy. Of course, I'm willing to forgive that because it's alpha. I realize not everybody will be.
As for its uses, however, well, I don't want to speak to that until more people join it. Right now, it's kind of pointless just to chat back and forth between two people. However, I can see huge advantages in project planning and management, developer discussion, etc. Nothing is worse than having to wade through conversations in e-mails that are scattered across multiple threads and I can't figure out what the heck is going on. And that's just one use that I can think of. I know there are plenty more (especially as you start bringing in gadgets).
Yeah, Wave was sold pretty well, but realize that not that many people are using it yet. It still has a long way to go before it is considered "complete" by anybody's standards, much less Google's.
Parent
Colossal Cave Adventure (Score:3, Interesting)
In a related note, over the past couple of weeks I have been porting Colossal Cave Adventure [wikimedia.org] to Google Wave. Send a ping to colossal-wave@appspot.com to play :-)
Re: (Score:2)
You know what would be awesome? Using Wave for multiplayer, real-time Nethack... I pray to god someone will start that project.
Legal Eagles (Score:2)
Did somebody say "Lawsuit"?
Privacy and the real-time web (Score:5, Informative)
Lots of us get along fine with email, for 1:1 and 1:n communication, mailing lists, the works. So OK email misses the "wall" or "real time web" effect were everybody can see what everyone else is posting. But email works.
And the really big deal about email is the standards - I can use outlook yesterday, gmail today, and yahoo mail tomorrow. I can move my stuff among vendors and keep my stuff from years back. Because everyone must stick to standards.
Trouble is there is an insidious conspiracy to make email uncool. Its led by the hordes of Facebook-ers and lately Tweet-ers. Like, I mean, do you really want to spend your life tweet-ing your latest embarrasing whatever to the world at large? But lets face it - the pressure is on bigtime. If you're not there you don't exist. Talk about peer pressure - the most obvious success of the social realtime web is the use of peer pressure to force everyone on board.:-(
Now along comes wave. Google Wave is basically email on steroids, with a "wall / real time web" capability thrown in. You can be totally private or you can be totally public or any combo in between. Nice. And oh yes you also get media richness.
And the Facebook-ers and Tweet-ers can't claim its uncool; actually you can one-up 'em - they're old hat.
Finally. Privacy is back (at least when you want it).
Now they just need to reintroduce standards. Is anyone listening?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Before it was even released, Wave had already done far more for standardization than Facebook and Twitter combined over the entirety of their existence. The protocols [waveprotocol.org] are all there for anyone to implement (with the explicit exception of patent trolls [waveprotocol.org]).
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Now along comes wave. Google Wave is basically email on steroids, with a "wall / real time web" capability thrown in. You can be totally private or you can be totally public or any combo in between. Nice. And oh yes you also get media richness.
1. XML-based protocol? Check.
2. Obfuscated? Check.
3. Needlessly complex? Check.
4. Proprietary/commercially based? Check. (The better to "de-commoditise protocols," my dear)
5. Replaces a perfectly good, pre-existing protocol [irc.org], when there's absolutely no sane reason (other than the aforementioned commercialism, of course) to do so? Check.
6. (The icing on the cake; this one ALWAYS shows up) Uses the brainless, meaningless, totally subjective, rage-inducing, corporate-suit-spawned "richness," argume
Re:Privacy and the real-time web (Score:4, Insightful)
5. Replaces a perfectly good, pre-existing protocol [irc.org], when there's absolutely no sane reason (other than the aforementioned commercialism, of course) to do so? Check.
It's actually XMPP under the hood, which has been around for a few years before Google started getting excited about it. XMPP's jabber application has a number of advantages over IRC (notably the encoding of metadata is nowhere near as horrific) but that's hardly the only use for it.
Doesn't make any sense as a replacement for email though. Maybe as a way to replace POP or IMAP, but SMTP? The advantage of SMTP is its universality (yeah, even Exchange and Notes allegedly...) which means it is great when you need to communicate with someone who is using a different software stack to you.
Parent
Re:Privacy and the real-time web (Score:4, Insightful)
You do know that the wave protocol is open and designed to run on multiple servers, same as email/irc? Apparently you are unaware that there already exist other non-google wave servers.
If you're not a troll, then you are just ignorant.
Parent
Is it 8-bit? (Score:2, Funny)
DM: Why are you casting Magic Missile? There's nothing to attack here.
Golstaff: I...I'm attacking the darkness!
[...]
Golstaff: Hello.
Elf: Hello.
Golstaff: I am Golstaff, Sorcerer of Light.
Elf: Then how come you had to cast Magic Missile?
Would love to play D&D again... (Score:2)
Who'd have thought that with all the technology and MMO-type games there still isn't a way to play D&D online with a group? As someone who enjoyed D&D back in the day and now a mature gamer with a life and family, I would still love to play but don't have time for bi/tri-weekly meetings in someones basement for hours on end. A night or two a week, online, for a few hours and I'd be a happy nerd.
(or if anyone knows of a solid group with a more relaxed campaign in the Pittsburgh, PA area, I'm down)
Diplomacy (Score:2)
I think Wave might be ideal for playing Diplomacy. In Dip, you want to be having numerous conversations, some public, some private, in various combinations of players.
Even without a board widget or an automated adjudicator, it would be a great way for the designers to test out various approaches to Wave privacy (fork this wave privately; attach a confidential comment to this part of a wave; etc.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"a platform for Dungeons and Dragons -- the true test of success for any new communications technology" d00d! grab your manuals and head for Hat Creek, CA. The Allen Telescope Array needs to be tested so it can tell when it's picking up alien transmissions. We're going to need to know whether to consider them monsters or non-player characters.
Or players. Thousands of years ago, Xenu the Galactic Overlord broadcast his D&D games that he played with a group of precognitive servants. If you tune in with the right equipment, maybe you'll be the mind(s) the precogs touched, so you can "play" D&D with Xenu.