The Road Ahead: Join Our Journey to Improve the Maps VTT

All that hype I felt for reveals... Crushed by its own weight. Please let us upload content... Or at least include the actual handouts from the Borderlands kit, for example the menus from the bar... That are an appendix...

Need a better character token method when changing maps. Instead of having to readd all player tokens, there should be a transmission method that automatically moves the players to new map. Would be a time saver.

Quote from Raequon >>

Please stop tying EVERY tool in to maps. Make them available in maps, and out of maps. many of us need an encounter builder without the entire maps shell, for example. We would like a rules consultant, but don't need maps. Stop trying to funnel everything through maps. Funnel it through DDB, and make it work with maps for those who need maps, but work without for those of us who don't need maps. 

I play in person with a digital tabletop. Maps will never be my choice of VTT for that as it's online only and I don't want to deal with loading, wifi is down, etc. But I do need a great encounter builder. Which we had before you moved it all into maps. 

Make me a tool similar to https://obsidian.md/, but designed for DND from the ground up and use THAT as a hub for maps, encounter builder, etc. Stop making Maps the hub. 

 I agree. I play in person with physical maps and minis, and I would really appreciate an update to the encounter builder to allow for 2024 CR calculations. Also, an overhauling of the homebrew creator to make it easier to use would be wonderful.

Here is what I would need from Maps VTT in order to get me to switch from Foundary.

- Dynamic Lighting
- Campaign Notes

I project the maps onto a TV, then place minis on it.  I'd like some sort of setting that would assist.  Like a DM mode.  There is promise here, and I'd love to have one central system for both myself AND my players, instead of having them switch between DND Beyond and Foundary.  So please keep working at it

I would love to have a dm layer so I can write notes on the map so the players can’t see. 

Basically, I'd place an icon on specific rooms so that when I click it, I can write a description of what is in the room.

Also - an area where I can write my session notes.

Please implement an emanation tool! Auras, spells (example: spirit guardians), etc. need this for ease of use. Having to draw the aura to size then group it to a character is not ideal.

Please give us a sound system tool in Maps. Just a little music player that we can upload music to please. I’d love to have it playing in the background in a tavern or during a dragon fight. 

+1 dinamic lighting plz.  Thanks

I would like to suggest that you make Maps open source and protect your business interests with the combination of an appropriate license (i.e. AGPL) and trademark enforcement.  You would get a ton of bug fixes and features for free.  Build a great following and vibrant community.  Open source is also a great way to hire new employees as you already know their work!  I've been in professional open source for decades and it is possible to make a ton of money and be open at the same time.  Just look at Red Hat!

BG3 for instance, while not open source, pretty much has everything defined in text that we can hack with add on development.  From what I've read they've had 380 million mod downloads!  

Great to see DnD beyond talking about the VTT!

I filled out the survey so you are welcome to contact me, but everything I could possibly suggest would just boil down into taking a look at aboveVTT.

The ease of access of having everyone joining directly from the campaign link as well as how everything works on above vtt is basically exactly what I would want to see supported officially from D&D beyond. If there's any way that you can just buy them out or copy their functionality that would be what I would suggest for fleshing out your current VTT offering. And once you have something stable then give us the option to launch the 3D environments in the same way. Ease of use and ease of access are king!

The encounter builder is still available

I play Solo alot and the Maps VTT helps so much with keeping track and building encounters on the fly. The main thing I want is virtual dice rolling in Maps and a more intuitive design. 

It would also be great to be able to utilize the game's language, like in Fantasy Grounds, where I could write text in Orcish and those who don't know the language could just see the Orcish characters and similar ones from other languages, without having to use external tools like WhatsApp or Discord to send private messages to that specific person and having to leave the game map. It would be great to use the characters' language, not just as an add-on for the DM, but as something useful within the game.

I would love to see an option to hide all UI elements from the Player screen so it can be used for in person gaming with Mini's on a TV. 

Quote from BenMitchell1979 >>

I would love to see an option to hide all UI elements from the Player screen so it can be used for in person gaming with Mini's on a TV. 

 Whilst I second that idea, you could archive a similar effect with ublock, or similar browser extensions, removing those elements manually as a workaround for now

Anyway to give some free space for uploading your own maps for the free version. 

The Biggest request I can think of, and for this to be my go to VTT its required.
i need all named NPC's that have art - to have tokens 
and i need an easy way to add tokens with art, so a token creator - i don't need full stat blocks often but to fill out a tavern or any NPC encounter i need it.
also how many things have art but in dnd beyond tokens its a shadow or an outline - this in my opinion is a hugs miss,m you have the art...upload it 

other than that i like the direction its going, the quickplay maps are great, you should have an intern go in and populate every module, it wouldn't take that long honestly if you had someone do it and nothing else.

Quote from gmenjay >>

The Biggest request I can think of, and for this to be my go to VTT its required.
i need all named NPC's that have art - to have tokens 
and i need an easy way to add tokens with art, so a token creator - i don't need full stat blocks often but to fill out a tavern or any NPC encounter i need it.
also how many things have art but in dnd beyond tokens its a shadow or an outline - this in my opinion is a hugs miss,m you have the art...upload it 

other than that i like the direction its going, the quickplay maps are great, you should have an intern go in and populate every module, it wouldn't take that long honestly if you had someone do it and nothing else.

 

 An actual issue here is that in a lot of the official modules, particularly the older ones, the NPC`s use standard statblocks from the player`s or monster manuals though often with suggested modifications. They probably now just expect us to do the work ourselves by homebrewing rather than pay somebody to do it.