Google wave. Why ?

[wormspeaker]

Advantages would include, trust, free to use, no download (or at least hidden or managed downloads of widgets), use from within a browser window, and social networking.

Assuming that the features rival VTTs then it would simply make the technology more accessible (could play it at work for example... not that I'd do that of course... probably. Or you could use it on a Mac or Linux machine) and would add social networking directly integrated into the system allowing games to find players and players to find games easier.

Of course, who knows. There is something to be said for ubiquity though.

[Redrobes]

Been reading a bit and I know a lot more but I am still no more convinced. Its like chat, its like a wiki, you can insert pics but we can do all that with chats and wikis. It sounds like its a very nice chat interface but we can already quote bits of convo.

Google does indeed have deep pockets and is probably stuffed with RPG aficionados hell bent on gaming. But it sounds like all the widgets still need to be programmed and yes if they did, only then would they have a VTT. So lets say they do. All the chat is stored and mastered on their servers so in terms of trust I don't get that. As I see it you devolve the trust to them. In fact from a licensing point of view I don't get that either. Parts of it are Apache which is great but it doesn't seem to mention what the rest is. I expect that will not be an issue but Id like to know.

They say that the authentication is done by TLS and it has encrypted stream to the server. They want it to be an email replacement. Thats good and bad. I mean the whole internet is popular and open only because tcp/ip was not a protocol that needed one monolithic server as a host. We all know email is dire but this is not the right way to replace it - well not right from the user point of view, brilliant for info sucking google naturally. Its like only having google mail to choose from until there are alternative servers.

So here is my starting list of changes that need to be made before I will think this is a good idea. And I put them in order of importance for me to use this as a VTT.

1. You have to be able to set up a server for their Google wave federation protocol and become the wave provider hub. It has to be fantastically easy for any noob to do that. In fact you need to be able to set up a hub for just your own group. Ideally you need to set up this hub from your browser or else its not a browser only system and then becomes just like say ScreenMonkey the VTT. Also all the data only goes to that hub and no further like googles servers in some hidden way even to merely authenticate yourselves.

2. It has to have a map and token interface where adding a map is easy - i.e. not like making one for google maps.

3. The dice widgets and others tools need to be almost as good as any VTTs or better.

Everything else I think they could do easily or already have now.

They could do it brilliantly and wipe out all the VTTs no problem but like GP, I don't like it either (regardless of being a VTT creator). I just don't like one company having the whole cake. We have all been ruing that since Windows 95.

So do you guys pro MapTool agree that you need to host the hub or do you think that by using the google server as the entire chat host is alright. When you hit a checkbox and 'send to the wave' do you necessarily imply 'send to google' ? Would be interesting to hear Trevor & Herucas thoughts on this one actually.

France has just signed up the 3 strikes policy and Britain is heading in that direction. The only way this works is because your usually only signed up to one ISP. If you signed up to hundreds at a time and they all delivered the packets then no one could cut you off. Same rules apply here.

[Notsonoble]

1. You have to be able to set up a server for their Google wave federation protocol and become the wave provider hub. It has to be fantastically easy for any noob to do that. In fact you need to be able to set up a hub for just your own group. Ideally you need to set up this hub from your browser or else its not a browser only system and then becomes just like say ScreenMonkey the VTT. Also all the data only goes to that hub and no further like googles servers in some hidden way even to merely authenticate yourselves.

I don't think we'll get the "so easy a geico agent could do it" type easy... but Google's said from day one that they were going to make it as simple to set up server wise as possible. It's also designed to only send data to another wave server if that data is destined for a user on the other wave server. They've focused on that a lot in order to make it more attractive to security conscious organizations.

2. It has to have a map and token interface where adding a map is easy - i.e. not like making one for google maps.

I haven't recieved an invite yet, but from the looks of everything in the video where they showed off the very early alpha in January... this should be extremely simple.

3. The dice widgets and others tools need to be almost as good as any VTTs or better.

Again, you'd have to find someone who's got an invite to be sure, but Wave is almost entirely XMPP for communications... and there are some dice rollers out there for XMPP servers that hands down stomp anything Trevor or any other VTT (speed, and true-randomness wise) into the dirt. Making a truly good dice roller for Wave (which will add a layer of graphics still not doable with straight XMPP) will be a non-issue.

Everything else I think they could do easily or already have now.

They could do it brilliantly and wipe out all the VTTs no problem but like GP, I don't like it either (regardless of being a VTT creator). I just don't like one company having the whole cake. We have all been ruing that since Windows 95.

Except this isn't what wave was ever intended for. Google's intentions definitely lean towards offering the whole thing, but wave isn't that...

So do you guys pro MapTool agree that you need to host the hub or do you think that by using the google server as the entire chat host is alright. When you hit a checkbox and 'send to the wave' do you necessarily imply 'send to google' ? Would be interesting to hear Trevor & Herucas thoughts on this one actually.

They could write it to send to whatever server they wanted, or better yet, write it to default to wave.rptools.net and leave the option to change the server it reports to very simple as well. Not everyone who's interested in Trevor's Community Tool really wants to use one that's restricted to his server anyway. Personally, I'd want it to report to google... Why re-invent the wheel? Especially if all its going to be reporting is a version #, a link to connect, and # of people connected.

I've never been a big fan of google uber alles either, but this thread has hit some paranoia buttons that come across to me as rather silly. First, wave is not Google VTT, Google didn't start the wave project with that in mind... and even if it crossed their minds that it could be used that way... they really don't expect anybody to use it that way due to the limitations of Google Gears and HTML5 in their current states. As rumble said over at rptools, "[A VTT] is too heavy to write as a wave gadget."

What it is, is eventually, google's replacement for Gmail and Google talk, and Google documents. It's not just a chat protocol, or an email replacement, or a wiki, or a document suite, it's all those things and a subversion alternative, and a shared resource alternative, and a world domination plan organizer... and a whole bunch of other stuff. But it's not "THE whole cake", its more of "a nearly whole, undecorated chocolate cake" while there are still other cakes out there.

Also remember unless something has changed since January... they're dumping the entire code base on the public as open source material, they'd almost have to considering how much of it is XMPP... but only almost. There's a lot of stuff they could have gone proprietary with that they didn't/aren't.

They also know their limits. They know that they can only do so much in side a web browser no matter how many crazy scripts you throw at it.

In the end, I think wave'll be a good thing, there will probably be a extremely basic VTT gaget before its over, but the people getting the most out of it will be people tying existing, or new full on VTT's to it.

[Redrobes]

I think this wave is a good thing. Its gotta be really cos its needed and its being done well. No question that its a good thing. Is it good as a VTT or the best way to play I don't think so. I agree that a VTT is too heavy to make into a single gadget. Maybe they could string a number of gadgets together in time and it could in the future make a great game portal but in its current state I don't think so. In fact I agree with Su-Liams quote too.

I think your right in that I am somewhat paranoid with the net. I don't use googlemail, or their apps, or just about anything that I don't have on my HDD. So I guess I am leaning on that side and I know not everyone does.

I have been reading about the protocol and its XMPP based - seems like short snips of XML over TCP. That's good and a very sensible robust format. I haven't used XMPP but I do know TCP and XML pretty well and I can see why they're using it. Google are pretty good at opening up and maintaining the free open source culture. Its just that I don't know why there's more than one license for it at mo.

So yeah, agreed on all fronts (well maybe all except the dice thing... ) and I am not anti wave but I still think its a square peg into a round hole at this point for RPG play over the net.

[jfrazierjr]

1. You have to be able to set up a server for their Google wave federation protocol and become the wave provider hub. It has to be fantastically easy for any noob to do that. In fact you need to be able to set up a hub for just your own group. Ideally you need to set up this hub from your browser or else its not a browser only system and then becomes just like say ScreenMonkey the VTT. Also all the data only goes to that hub and no further like googles servers in some hidden way even to merely authenticate yourselves.

2. It has to have a map and token interface where adding a map is easy - i.e. not like making one for google maps.

3. The dice widgets and others tools need to be almost as good as any VTTs or better.

I(pro Maptool) never expected or want Wave to replace Maptool as a VTT. I just don't see anyone really truely putting in that kind of time OTHER than as a light weight application. Sure, there will be a few people who do up a plug in for VTT play at some point, but I highly doubt it will have the features I am looking for and have come to expect in Maptool and a few other VTT's on the market.

Also, as Notsonoble mentioned, Google has clearly stated that other entities can host private waves just as companies have total security and control over their existing email services today. That model won't change. Wave truly is the best of email/chat/document sharing into a single application. I would LOVE to see Wave become the default chat client for VTT's though for many reasons.

• Thread subscription and privacy if you want that control
• per post/comment replies with quotation
• per post/comment privacy to only a subset of people
• document sharing
• instantanious notification as someone begins typeing their reply(yes, this can be a bad thing also!!)
• instant translation for languages someone has written a plugin for(this could be huge for RPG play with people who have various native languages, especially in a sanctioned type of event such as RPGA play. It could mean the difference between a game happening or not if you can pick up that extra player)