Why does the calender have so many D&D 5e ruleset used options?

[GenSmicer]

The biggest reason might be that people not find games since there's so many different ruleset used entries of one thing, and they aren't all even on the same dropmenu before scrolling, and therefor maybe missing a lot of games. Since atm there are like 15 different typed versions of 5th edition to make it known it's a 5e game.

Can't it just be made so that it's a dropdown menu when you pick it? I mean you know it's 5e ruleset right? And if we gonna wait till someone else standardize(well something like that it's typed right?) things, you always will be after the facts . If you use a 5th ruleset then they are all the same right? There isn't 15 different 5th edition rulesets right? Can't we just make a dropdown menu where the GM's pick the rulesets used? We know what fantasy grounds has for rulesets used compatabilities right? And if they made some themselves not there they just do custom, since it likely will be something not that well known. And whatever else they need to type in needs to go in description likely anyway.

[Trenloe]

There are many, many, many more different games than just 5E - I know, shock horror! A drop down could never be made that covers all of the RPGs that people might run. Yes, the calendar could be changed to have an "other" selection and then a freeform field - but that needs time to make the change, testing, etc. to make that work without blanking out existing entries etc.. I'm sure if it was an easy change SmiteWorks would have done it already. And even then, someone might select "Other" and type in "5E Dark Sun" - which wouldn't help much either... :-o

[GenSmicer]

Well it's just that 5e is the one that has that type of issue in a big way, while most of the others don't have it like that . And this forum is for Fantasy Grounds right? So anything Fantasy Grounds officially(or supports or however they do that) has released should be doable in a dropdown menu right? Anything else they can fit in under a custom game then right? And if players request for a certain thing to be added, it should not be that much of a hassle to just add 1 name to a dropdown menu then right?

Or am I missing something .

[Mask_of_winter]

With a two man team (at the moment) the issue is, would you rather have the DMG and bug fixes for 5e products or a rehaul of the calendar? Because these guys work hard but there's only so much two men can do.

[GenSmicer]

Guess I was missing something then ><

[ianmward]

The Calendar needs a complete overhaul. I find it to be quite useless, which is frustrating.

Rant warning!

I agree and have said this before.
It is completely useless for finding games. And only marginally useful for managing campaigns.
I'm sure that every new person on the forums goes through this frustration, some post suggestions or comments, then go on to ignore it.
It is missing critical information: the date and time of proposed sessions, in my Timezone, up front. This is, for most people, the deciding factor in whether we can/want to join in.
It simply is not a calendar, it is a list of campaigns.
I have suggested that there be two sections, a game calendar for finding games, usually one-shots but not necessarily, and another for managing ongoing campaigns. The list may be ok for the latter, though I'm not sure.

For the FG-Cons, I painstakingly create a calendar grid using excel so I can work out what goes when in Timezone. I cannot easily consume dates and times in other timelines and see how they fit into my schedule without some sort of graphical view. The SXG website has a calendar view for it's schedule but it's not perfect either.

[Trenloe]

Or am I missing something .

As mentioned above: "Yes, the calendar could be changed to have an "other" selection and then a freeform field - but that needs time to make the change, testing, etc. to make that work without blanking out existing entries etc.. I'm sure if it was an easy change SmiteWorks would have done it already."

Quite often, looking in from the outside it's easy to think that a change "should not be that much of a hassle" as you put it. As mentioned above, I'm sure if this was easy it would have been done already. Also, any changes have to take into account data that is already there on the game calendar - what would happen to all of the entries that are already there, using the multitude of different ruleset names, if a change was made to enforce a selection from a predefined list? So, then is there a manual process to take a record of each entry and go and manually change them afterwards.

And, remember that CoreRPG allows you to run virtually any RPG system, and there are many community produced rulesets out there, so to do it properly (there's no point in not doing it properly, right?) would need some research to come up with the list of predefined rulesets.

Yes, definitely not a simple change...

[Crymoricus]

Hehe, I just thought of a really simple solution to this. Granted, it's a bandaid solution, but it would be really easy for any amateur web designer:

Create a single web page linking from "Create New Campaign." This new web page would make one simple request of the user: Choose your ruleset. Below that, a list of clickable options (D&D 5e, Savage Worlds, Castles and Crusades, etc, and 'Other'"

If they click one of the listed rulesets, they are taken to the usual "new campaign" page that already exists, but with the "ruleset" section already autofilled. If they choose "other," no autofill.

Fixed.

[Trenloe]

Sounds like a great idea - are you volunteering to do the development?

[Crymoricus]

Hehe, I saw that coming! I SWEAR I did. Hahaha.

Touche, Trenloe!

BTW, if you'd have asked me 3 years ago, I would have asked for access and had it done overnight. Today, you might as well give me a calculus problem. Now, if it could be done in Photoshop... xD.