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First off, let me say that I picked up FM expecting a fairly simple alternative to the larger competition from Profantasy-- which I've used before and liked, but would require me to buy a lot of expansion sets to be able to create everything I required as a GM-- and in this single package, I was pleasantly surprised by Fractal Mapper's power, customizability and ease of use.
Fractal Mapper is a very easy product to learn. Without even accessing the help or reading through, you can create a viable, realistic landmass in a single button click, and with a very simple readthrough of the tutorials you can make a variety of map types, including caverns, cities and dungeons. FM now utilizes JPG, BMP and PNG import and export, so you can bring in a scanned drawing as a background and draw over it to make a functional FM map. It has all the essential industry standards of mapping software for Windows, including the ability to use installed True Type fonts (rather than a selection of packaged postscripts or the like), a huge amount of layers to separate, freeze and hide-- useful for GM or other information you don't want displayed on an exported map, rotation and scaling of essentially anything you put on the map, and other fairly standard vector drawing tools. Mapping icons require pre-loading into a 15-slot area on the left-hand side for easiest access, which can be a little of a pain if you're doing an overland map where you know you'll be using a variety of different icons... but that's a small and not even really noticeable problem and doesn't largely interrupt your workflow.
FM has three areas I can see where it really shines. The first is its namesake. Creating fractal coastlines, roads, or land masses (especially useful for islands) is a simple process, and the fractal factor allows you to tell the program how much randomness you'd like in almost any object you place, even after you've placed it. The second is FM's scripting support. NBOS has included a scripting language that can allow you to customize FM's abilities to simplify what would ordinarily be tedious workloads on a large map. The best examples of such are in their expansion set for FM, which includes things like building and forest fills. Although I'm by no means a scripter, I can see the usefulness and power available in including a scripting language. I'd highly suggest picking up the Campaign Expansion for Fractal Mapper at the same time, however, since it gives FM some extra scripts and icons that I've found to be indispensible.
The third area is the Scenario Builder that is packaged up in the FM program. BY right clicking on any icon, text, or shape you place, you can include information on it. In the case of cities for overland maps, FM has a city custom tool that automatically (using the scripting language) includes basic random information that you can modify, including town rulers, city rumors, adventure hooks and the like. The help files also give suggestions on how to modify the scripts to include your own information quickly and easily. The end result is that once you've put all your information together, the Scenario Builder will compile all the information for your map in a simple, easy to read and illustrated HTML file, which can have all the information detailed, or just what you want to show your players. This is what really sold me on the product. It turned the drudgery of opening up Word and cross-checking back and forth to detail my dungeon into a simple case of packaging everything up with my map.
LIKED: The ease of use, first and foremost. FM didn't require a huge learning curve for me to be able to be creative, and while I still have to think some things out ("let's see, do I need to put this on the population layer or the cities layer if I'm going to want to see it with the player's map?") I can put the focus back where it belongs... on my campaign, not on the degree in science I'd need to create maps for my players. Most people with mapping experience will probably learn the basics of FM with one walkthrough of the included tutorial PDF.
The help system (from what I gathered, this was a problem in earlier builds of the program) is fairly complete this time around. Most often, I've found what help I've needed quickly and easily, without the need for checking around the web for 3rd party support.
The Scenario Builder and Scripting make Fractal Mapper a lot more useful and customizable than most mapping programs I've used. NBOS also packages up links to their home site, where you can upload and download maps other FM creators have made, and see how they've done things.
DISLIKED: The lack of expansion products is a pretty serious drawback, in my opinion. You CAN make your own symbols, save them and use them in future maps, and if you're technically inclined, you can almost certainly create your own scripts. But the one thing that makes FM lacking at the moment is the fact that there are very few expansion symbol sets in native Fractal Mapper format, nor are there any current packages of scripts besides what is available in the Campaign Expansion set. That particular one that NBOS software puts out fills a huge gap, but prospective buyers should know right off they may need to learn to create/import to have a huge selection of mapping icons.
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Satisfied
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It's awesome! The worlds you can create are unbelievable! And (in the bitmap format) you can download maps you've created with other mapping programs! A dream come true! And you can view your maps as a globe. Ten out of ten for this product!
LIKED: Everything!
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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OK, I'm happy to clear my previous comments. NBOS fixed the problem and e-mailed the link to the new .exe so now my former files load well.
It's good to see them take their customers seriously and fix it like this. I'm finding the new features to work quite well
LIKED: I like the new options for visuals and extra data for realism
DISLIKED: One minor quibble... the surface maps don't transfer over from 1.1... you need to manually "browse" and find them. But for me this is nothing serious
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Very Satisfied
[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]
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I purchased Astrosynthesis 1.0 for my son's Battlefleet Gothic/War Hammer 40K campaign we are creating. I wanted an accurate, realistic, SIMPLE interface that wouldn't have my Astrophysics professor shaking his head in disgust. I had numerous problems that I wanted to have fixed such as off-axis planets and moons with retrograde orbits. I was in the process of writing a program that would add all of this info I wanted into the notes section of each object (think thousands of objects and add different things based on the object type). Fleets and ships weren't even thought of. So for a "Realtime" battlemap it wasn't very flexible. In spite of all those problems, it was and is still THE BEST software package on the market period.
NBOS listened to some of my requests though. They fixed these problems and added flags (Picture the US flag over a system) to identify what systems belonged to what politcal group. They made the system diagrams realistic with eccentric orbits AND an animation feature so you can watch the planets zoom around the star. Open up some of their sample maps to see what I mean. They even improved the samples by adding all of the planets to the Sol system INCLUDING the ISS and the moon as well as the newly discovered planetiods Xena and two others!
They also made things customizable and extensible so I can add fields for multiple weapon systems (which I will need to do) and they allow you to decide what fields are available and their acceptable data types to associate with each one. In short, I don't think I will need to write that program any more. As stated by the previous post, you need to download a new executable. I couldn't open anything and crashed with an out of memory error. After the switch, everything worked and I imported my old V1 sector file.
If this is what they can do in a year, I can't wait for version 3!
LIKED: They made a lot of changes I asked for and they made a lot of changes I didn't ask for, but REALLY like (the flag idea is awesome!) As a fellow programmer, I am very impressed by what they have been able to accomplish in such a short time.
DISLIKED: This software doesn't work straight out of the box (download). Go to here to get the correct executable: http://www.nbos.com/support/support.htm
I haven't had any other problems and I haven't found anything I don't like so far.
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Very Satisfied
[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]
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Fractal mapper 7.0 is a good solid mapping program. While I would actually like to see a mapping program that is more like the mapper in the Warcraft 2 campaign editor (but able to make maps on a larger scale) Fractal Mapper is quite good.
LIKED: I liked the fractalization, it made it easier to make coast lines look natural.
DISLIKED: The map symbols included with Fractal mapper are lacking somewhat, CC2 symbols blow Fractal mapper symbols out of the water. Shoot for the quality of symbols that CC2 has and Fractal Mapper may actually be a much more user friendly and likeable mapper.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Satisfied
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Good product, basically much cheaper and simpler version of campaign cartographer and fractal terrain.If you wanted more for your world look at terragen, or world builder, or for the ultimate.... mojoworld .org, bloody dear though!
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Satisfied
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This is a lighter product than Campaign Cartographer, and easy to learn & use. I use this, CC-Pro & Dunjinni. I like the value of this product, and hope they come out with more art packs. This can make nice modern/sci-fi maps too.
LIKED: Ease of use & price.
DISLIKED: Want more art for modern urban settings.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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Nice art for making pretty maps. This allows you make some very nice "campaign level" maps with a great ease.
LIKED: The trees & buildings look cool.
DISLIKED: Not enough fantasy buildings for varied "evil" or "ruined" sites.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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Fractal Mapper 7 is a good mapper for games. It has plenty of features and was (when I purchased it) more than $10 less than Campaign Cartographer. I use both programs and I can say without hesitation that either one will get the job done as a gaming mapper. Although the interface for Fractal Mapper can be a bit clicky, the features over shadow any interface short comings. The program is solid and well worth the $25.20 I paid. The discount was a big reason I purchased. I will NOT pay package price for a download. No matter what the sellers say it IS cheaper for them to sell downloads and they should pass on the savings.
LIKED: The features delivered what I needed. I was creating in no time. I used the well written help file when I got stuck. Buy with confidence(if it was bad I would say). Fractal Mapper 7 is a good mapping tool for gaming.
DISLIKED: Nothing really. The interface needs some hot keys and context menus. This product is pretty solid.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Satisfied
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Screen Monkey delivers. It's simple to use and the only person who needs the software is the host of the game. Players can use any browser. Some features require IE and I use IE, but it is NOT needed to make this program work. I like it. I use it. I recommend it if you want to have a map, players and chat in an online game.
Yes it IS usable with a two monitor set. If you want to use the GM screen feature to send a different view to the players at a table top game, make sure that your setup has the capability to send a DIFFERENT view than what YOU see to the second monitor. This is especially important to check if you are using a laptop. Many laptops have what is called CLONED output which means the second (external) monitor is a clone (the same view) of the laptop screen.
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Satisfied
[THIS REVIEW WAS EDITED]
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This is a wonderful product! For what Screen Monkey accomplishes I'm suprised at how low the price is. I love it. Very easy to use.
LIKED: Price for the product is terrific considering the features.
Extremely easy to setup and use.
Getting your PCs connected to the server is as easy as it could possibly be with no extra client software to install.
DISLIKED: not much
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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I have no drawing skills and this product allows me to create the maps I have in my head.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Satisfied
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An excellent mapping utility. Very intuitive and straight forward. You don't need a CAD background to use it either!
LIKED: Intuitive, and easy to use.
DISLIKED: Nothing
QUALITY: Excellent
VALUE: Very Satisfied
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A very interesting program, although I have not had much of a chance to fully use it yet
QUALITY: Acceptable
VALUE: Satisfied
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I'm quite happy with this update. Hopefully it won't have the sticky points the older version had.
QUALITY: Very Good
VALUE: Satisfied
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