Well I know what VTT`s are, and how they work, but most (Maptool for instance) is heavy on the resources for that type of thing (its not loading stuff into a database, its loading resources right from the computer.. that combined with the concept of chatting, viewing and such it makes it kinda unrealistic to try... From what I understood Viewingdale would go under the same boat.. its made for use in a person to person game (at which it'd work great) but as for working in big scale, with thousands of entries, it'd bog down to a crawl... thats why a GIS system is usefull, (all be it it doesn't need to be a gis system, its just the only one i could see working at the moment).

So PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, because I would love to spearhead such a project... its something I've dreamed about for years.

As far as ArcGIS's cost.. yeah I'm venturing around 5k for a license.. but I wouldn't be surprized if it was more.. and thats just for THAT software... db's and such would run you more.

wither way. it's exciting to think that it may be possible (even for me)

the way i see it, even if its a very basic map, i'd be happy... if its something we could combine and make a world, then let everyone have their artistic cartographical way with.. it'd be a great project for a community build on fantasy realm design!

I know there have been projects in the past, but an online, realtime sharing WITH (a key point for me) a map involved is a big deal... GIS is great cause it's scalable.. you want to edit the world as a whole.. sure.. you want to edit a city itself? zoom in to the spot... I'll have to talk to you more about ViewingDale Redrobes.. Its definitely an interesting concept.