by DaVinci's Cat » Wed Jun 17, 2020 9:32 am
An interesting test session last night. Clearly some more work needs to be done regarding the hosting aspects. Microsoft Teams works well and the advantage is that it free - users can either just download the app (which you'd be prompted to do when first clicking on the meeting request) or join via your browser.
I think we've identified that we need to capture the video and the be able to stream or show it separately (potentially as a screen share within teams rather than having to stream to something like YouTube) so that it remains 'full screen', so time for a bit more research and testing at home over the following week. Given I've got a Logitech camera, I'll probably start with their free software (logitech capture) and see how that works. That said, if anybody has any experience in this area, please feel free to give me some pointers!
From a gaming perspective, the concept seems to work well with Co-Op or Semi Co-Op type games and would probably work well with anything that doesn't have anything hidden from a 'central' pool/deck. With practice, you could possibly do things like TWD, Malifaux, X-wing and anything else on a relatively small board, but would need a movable camera to help show details/positioning to the player at the end of the stream.
Without stating the obvious, I think everybody needs to roll their own dice. We sorted out a conversion table as Mike was missing a set of appropriate dice and that seemed to work reasonably well. Having someone roll for you would be pretty boring!
My intention is to certainly continue to try and make this work, as even if things try to edge towards a return in July, there will probably still be caveats and not everyone will be able to fully return due to personal/family shielding concerns and the like.