Something Is Amiss with These Forums

[PaxVeritas]

Greetings all,
I am new to the FGII community but I've been playing since 1983. I've recently enjoyed 4 sessions of great vtt gaming here on FGII.

When I use these forums:
>The threads seem very old
>The community seems very small
>Communicaton with GMs running games seems difficult (based on not finding the threads that are asking for players)
>GMs who run games aren't posting clear time/date instructions
>Links to associated threads are not included in the Game Calendar, making it difficult to see what is available and also confirmed versus just speculative proposals to game
>When I sort the Game Calendar based on GMs who were "last on" there seem to be hardly any GMs running games---are GMs running games but not posting on the Game Calendar?
>The Threads as well as the Game Calendar seem to have interesting stuff appearing, but its years old

Please know that I am not criticizing, in fact, I love FGII, and the people I've met are very awesome! I think the tool is great!!! But, there seems to be a disconnect between a) wanting to play and b) finding a group. It should be much, much easier.

For example, if on a Saturday morning, someone has time and wishes to play, they should be able to find a GM with an open spot in their game.

For example, if on a Wednesday evening, a GM wishes to run a game, shouldn't it be possible to quickly post that to the boards and start playing... afterall the ratio of players to GMs should be about 8:1 or better.

Now, perhaps I'm viewing this all wrong... maybe FGII is primarily used by folks who already have RL friends and are using the tool privately, rather than publicly. This might explain why there only seem to be very few users, little activity on the messageboards, and few posts to the Game Calendar.

As a n00b to FGII, I welcome your insight. Again, its a wonderful game tool, and I'm looking to better understand the situation.

Thanks so much!

[GunnarGreybeard]

Well, I can't speak to each of your questions or for any of the other GM's out there but in my case I only actively recruited up until the time I filled my group. After that, it was off to a regular gaming session and I probably won't post any further notices unless a large number of my players drop out over time. Could be weeks, could be a year, just depends. I also think some GM's are using other places to manage their games (Obsidian Portal, Google Hangouts, etc) and not the Game Calendar so you won't see their activity on the boards.

If you look a the SmiteWorks Annual Report (https://www.smiteworks.com/press/AnnualReport2011.htm) then you will see there are a significant number of users out there including over 500 Ultimate License holders. I suspect more than a few are being used by local groups or an existing circle of friends. I originally bought my copy to use with old army buddies, now scattered across the globe and had no intention of recruiting anyone else for any games. Over time though I decided to expand my player base to members here and other forums. FG also got me interested in being a player again (last time I played as player was a long time ago) so my extra free time went to playing and not GM'ing.

[Trenloe]

There are probably all sorts of reasons why people do or don't post on the forums, where they manage games, etc..

From my point of view, I got into Fantasy Grounds to keep going a game with a group of friends who were now scattered all over the world. I still play with these friends and they love Fantasy Grounds, but I'm pretty sure they have never visited these forums - at least they've never posted anythint to my knowledge. They all have full licences.

As Pax mentions, there will always be a higher ratio of players to GMs, and most GMs want to have a long running campaign with regular players (I certainly do) and so they will soon fill their game and have no more need to post looking for players or update the calendar (as they can manage their schedule via email or other gaming sites).

As with any RPG game, GM's need to do preparation. With FG there is probably more minimum prep needed even to be able to wing a game (have a few maps ready, NPC stats loaded, etc.). Just deciding to run a game and advertising with little notice is probably not going to get you a good number of players for the whole period you'd like to play. I'm trying to rekindle some interest in running regular Pathfinder society organised play games - which are great one session (4-5 hour) scenarios that are designed to be ran by different players and different GMs from session to session. However, we are struggling to get more than 1 or 2 GMs - plenty of player interest though. More details here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16302

Your comments are valid, but their underlying cause is basically human nature (i.e. people not posting full details, it being hard to get in touch with GMs running games, links to associated threads not being included, etc.). The forums and game calendar aren't controlled by Smiteworks or anyone specific in the community - they are provided for the community to use as they wish. People have different requirements, different views, different ways/means of organising/joining a game, different reasons for coming to the forum - hence the wide range of differing posts and game calendar entries.

Then, of course, there's the other areas of human nature - people lose interest, real-life takes over, etc.. There have been a few people on the forums who have been very active and then have just disappeared.

So, ultimately, there are no definite answers to your questions/points; each person you speak to will give you their own view - which is sure to differ. People come to (and go from) Fantasy Grounds for different reasons, if they get involved with the community great; if they ask a few questions to get them going with their friends and never post again then that's cool too.

[Ksathra]

Personally I played in a few games and ran one, collected the best players and still have that group of players and GMs in a Skype group. I dont have to come back to the forums that much because we have 4-5 GMs and another 4-5 players and we just make games between eachother

[Leonal]

Now, perhaps I'm viewing this all wrong... maybe FGII is primarily used by folks who already have RL friends and are using the tool privately, rather than publicly. This might explain why there only seem to be very few users, little activity on the messageboards, and few posts to the Game Calendar.

I may not be the correct person to say this considering I have no experience playing with people I didn't already know beforehand. However I believe this could apply for many groups, just like an offline group may be created at the local gaming store, but once they've found a group there's little reason to announce that they're playing unless they need more players.

It would likely be a different story for one-shot pickup games.

[phantomwhale]

Going to concur with comments above - it's a human behaviour / RPG thing, not so much a forums / FGII thing.

Building up committed RPG groups is tough. Over the internet is tougher. People DO use the forums to do this, but a quick "who's up for a game in 2-3 hours" is unlikely to lead to a solid, regular group. Again, just by the nature of social interaction and real life, nothing particular about this forum setup.

I for one do have a "private" group - in that they use the tool, but I'm the only one on the forums participating in the FGII community. Don't know if that's the same for everyone, but it's that for me.

[Litvyak]

I can only speak for myself, but I have an Ultimate License and I don't run jack with it. Not because I don't intend to, but because I've wanting to get more experience on the player side of things. It doesn't help that there's no existing rulesets that really grab me, so I've been working away at creating my own for games I'd actually want to run.

[ddavison]

I've noticed a similar trend in local gaming forums as well. People tend to post until they fill their group and don't normally come back unless they need to recruit a replacement player. Most of the groups I've run or played in were that way as well and didn't typically free up a slot unless someone moved away.

[longarms]

Once difference between a VTT via fantasy grounds and a storefront that sells physical copies of books is that in the later case a purchaser does not need to communicate with the storefront when they want to execute a game using the books they purchased. In contrast, I think that everyone is communicating with a central server operated by smiteworks whenever they play, yes? (is that not how the passphrase works, for example, not to mention check for updates?). So I do not think the analogy to the use of a physical store holds.

Because of this difference, there does seem to be a lot more potential for facilitating a more active community, in the later case.

Think of the difference between the gaming community in 8bit nintendo days vs. the days of online xbox.

I for one put a lot of blame towards the inactive community on the calendar we have. I think its mere existence is worse than having no calendar. I do not mean that to come off as harsh, just trying to not beat around the bush. Maybe I'll follow up in another post and explain why I believe that at another time.

[madman]

I also have to +1 all the other posts. I am one of the exceptions to the rule. I have run many games that welcome unknown players. I have put forth a ton of effort to run games for the NoOb player in the past. But I would have to say most find the group they like and run with it. I also have a group of players that will be there if I start any type of game and most any time. I am a very social person, always looking for people who enjoy the game as much as I do. I can get on skype and find enough players to run a game at little to no notice. If I get board, I just run Monster Hunter. Which can run at a moments notice, with 3-8 players. That being said the game itself does not need Fantasy Grounds Forums to make it happen. I have tried many, many times to post for pickup games and not had the best of luck. So most of the time my games are run with the same players, they show up. They let me know when they will not be there. They don't feed me some line of bull****. So it's somewhat of a comfort zone. They are respectful. They don't use the internet anonymity to feed me a line of S**t. Most GM's do not want to spend hours and hours prepping for a game that nobody shows up for.

Blah....Blah.....

Chris

[ddavison]

Longarms, I see what you are saying. It's a laudable goal, but not one that is easily overcome. XBox Live and console/arcade style games tend to lend themselves to a quick connect and play. They don't have the dependency on a GM who has to either be comfortable "winging it" with little prep or have something already ready to run -- and for the correct genre, play-style and rules system that the players want to play in. You don't have this constraint for an xbox game where you join a game and instantly have your player generated and you can start shooting at your enemies right away.

Maybe we could add a public lobby feature to every ruleset where people could sit and chat with players who also have the same ruleset and if a GM wonders in and wants to run a game, he could kick one off and advertise it right in the lobby. We'd have to do some surveys to see if enough users would use the feature though. Anything we'd develop would pull resources away from other wishlist features and we'd want to prioritize it appropriately with the community.

Some quick numbers that you might find helpful.
(in addition to the stats in the Annual Company Report post)
There were 550 active and unique players playing on April 1st. So out of 23,000+ users, only 1.2 out of 50 of them were playing on this given day. These numbers miscount the unlicensed players connecting to an Ultimate and players who don't use the alias feature, but that is a general gist. Would the lobby bring those other 22.5K users together for impromptu games?

[Trenloe]

Once difference between a VTT via fantasy grounds and a storefront that sells physical copies of books is that in the later case a purchaser does not need to communicate with the storefront when they want to execute a game using the books they purchased. In contrast, I think that everyone is communicating with a central server operated by smiteworks whenever they play, yes? (is that not how the passphrase works, for example, not to mention check for updates?). So I do not think the analogy to the use of a physical store holds.
Updates, yes - Smiteworks provide them (thank you very much Smiteworks). Need to communicate with a Smiteworks server to play - no. The Smiteworks server is a service provided to simply convert the server alias to the current IP address used by the GM's internet connection. When I run my private, friends only game I just give the player's the IP address and we don't connect to Smiteworks at all.

So, people can run games "without needing to connect to the storefront when they want to execute a game...". IMHO the analogy of Fantasy Grounds/Storefront


Because of this difference, there does seem to be a lot more potential for facilitating a more active community, in the later case.
A more active community would be great! A lot of us are trying to help with that. Do you have any ideas?



Think of the difference between the gaming community in 8bit nintendo days vs. the days of online xbox.
A paid subscription?


I for one put a lot of blame towards the inactive community on the calendar we have. I think its mere existence is worse than having no calendar. I do not mean that to come off as harsh, just trying to not beat around the bush. Maybe I'll follow up in another post and explain why I believe that at another time.
I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on this. There may be the odd person who complains about the calendar. But, as mentioned in other posts in this thread here - what is on the calendar is the responsibility of the relevant GM's/gaming groups who have posted there. Is this the cause of an inactive community? You think it would be better without this completely? Really?

As has been sited in many replies above - the majority of GM's/players find a group they're comfortable with and keep playing with that group, they have no need to post in the forums or the calendar anymore and they keep playing. 1 happy GM and a bunch of happy players - mission accomplished by Smiteworks.

Based on this, the forums are mostly be up of FG old-hands/developers who are passionate about FG and the RPG hobby and newbies who want in to a game or who want to start a game of their own. I see a lot of users come onto the forums, post a few questions, comments and then go quiet. Have they left Fantasy Grounds? I'm sure a few have. Have they found a group to play with an they're perfectly happy now and don't need the forums/calendar - I would hope this is the majority case.

Whenever a new release of Fantasy Grounds comes out, a few old accounts come out of the woodwork with "...I have been running a game in Fantasy Grounds for the last XX months and now this is broken..." which seems to uphold the comments of once you have a group then you stick with that and there is no need for the forums unless you have a question.

You may not know, but Smiteworks is run by 2 people in their spare time. IMHO they do a great job of getting commercial agreements with other companies to bring us more rulesets/adventures/expansions and they regularly give us FREE upgrades to functionality and the core rulesets. Personally, I would prefer that they keep on spending their time on doing this rather than making a big effort to create a new fangled calendar that does everything (but still relies on humans for what it contains) or trying to drum up a community where the majority of it's members are happy with what the application and website provide for their online role-playing VTT needs.

Like with most things though, there is always room for improvement so I would be interested to hear your ideas around the above. :) As Doug (one of the 2 people who run Smiteworks) has just pointed out in a post he has been writing the same time as this:
Anything we'd develop would pull resources away from other wishlist features and we'd want to prioritize it appropriately with the community.
Recently, new functionality/development is being voted on - so this does allow the active community to give their feedback and make decisions on what Doug and JPG spend their limited development time on. If enough people want changes to the calendar/forum/how people join games/etc. then I'm sure it will come...

[longarms]

Ddavison - that information about the number of uses on April 1st is very interesting.

Point well taken that a naked lobby, without out more, might not make a big difference (That I think would simply be like a chat, room, yes?). For starters, a lobby+ would help.

What is the +? How about just for starters you schedule events on the lobby. The event gets people to the chat room in the lobby at the same time window (rather than people randomly entering the lobby spread across a week). And you push out event information to your ample user base (whether that be emails to registered users or a banner in the loadup screen in FG, or some other to push out the information to the users, as would be appropriate for the community). This is just off the top of my head - there have to be other better/more ways to do the +.

I saw previous owners of this product vigorously enforce their trade dress and copyright IP. I assume the point was to not let another VTT developer take all of their business! In a similar vein, I think you should try and take steps to shore up, what we like to call, the business "goodwill" - as another way to protect your business (besides the aforementioned IP). A more active user base is a stronger goodwill, which helps protect the business, yes?

[Trenloe]

What is the +? How about just for starters you schedule events on the lobby. The event gets people to the chat room in the lobby at the same time window (rather than people randomly entering the lobby spread across a week). And you push out event information to your ample user base (whether that be emails to registered users or a banner in the loadup screen in FG, or some other to push out the information to the users, as would be appropriate for the community). This is just off the top of my head - there have to be other better/more ways to do the +.
Great idea. But, what you're not taking into account is that to have an "event" a GM is needed. Smiteworks can schedule all the "events" they want, but it needs GMs to sign up and (this is very important) take the responsibility of actually turning up and running the game.

This is the big reason why it is hard to organise anything officially/regularly through a central point. You always need the GM to turn up - load their campaign and make FG available for people to play. FG is not some centralised, server based, computer ran gaming - hence why it is up to individual GMs to advertise games, update the calendar, get new players, etc., etc...

The closest we're getting to anything vaguely organised is the Virtual Con: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=69

But, this will take a lot of organisation and will completely rely on the volunteer GMs to turn up on time and publish connection information (FG alias) and have their game ready to go, etc...

[longarms]

I mentioned that I would elaborate a basis for my opinion that the game calendar is a net negative for the aspects very clearly laid out in the OP's post. Food for thought:
- there was a time when there was no game calendar. All games were organized in a single sub-forum entitled "guild house";
- On December 19, 2005, the former developer added the game calendar. In his own words "The calendar, we hope, should supercede much of what is currently taking place on this board. " The activity to be superseded was the activity mentioned in my previous bullet.
- there was a burst of activity on the game calendar. I cannot give you any citations other than to say I remember it.
- Regrettably, the game calendar, being a beta version, lacked many basic features including the ability to sort games and the ability to delete inactive games. The calendar quickly became a mire - not useful for organizing, running, scheduling games.
- the stated goal of superseding the activity in the guild house was achieved. Or, at least the calendar fractured activity between the guild house thread and the calendar. Unfortunately, per the above bullet, the superseding thing was not itself working!
- it is true that some of the problems with the game calendar were fixed in 2009. For example, in 2009, the ability for a GM to delete an inactive game was added.
- for whatever reason, even with the fixes finally arriving, the game calendar never really ended up being successful. As an example, go there right now and sort the games by most recent GM activity. You will find only six games with GM activity in the last month, and of those six, only four have started. That does not seem to be a success for a product that has a user base of 23,000, and which had over 500 people actively using the product in one day (last Sunday, april 1).
- the calendar remains. It gives new users a bad impression about the possibility of finding a game in this community. Although it probably still supersedes the guild house by acting as a red hearing, discouraging people from even bothering posting / trying to find a game, etc. Read the original post in this thread carefully to see the impression the game calendar gave to a new community member.
- the calendar also leaves community members and developers thinking that we already have a good tool for doing the things clearly laid out in the OP's thread. If we had nothing, at least everyone would be on the same page that we would have nothing, and something that might work would be being worked on. I hope that makes sense. I think what I am referring to here is "opportunity cost"
- the game calendar is clearly evil. If you look very carefully, you will see in the bottom right corner of the logo the number of the beast. Ok, at this point I am just joking! Its not a big deal, its just a project that didn't work out, and in my opinion, is not just not contributing, but is actually just a drag on the items clearly laid out in the original post of this thread.

Anyway, I guess its just my opinion, as there is nothing to conclusively prove without a time machine.

[wbcreighton]

I mentioned that I would elaborate a basis for my opinion that the game calendar is a net negative for the aspects very clearly laid out in the OP's post.

I would say that the GC is certainly confusing. I believe that only campaigns that are open will even show up on the list. If I look at the last GM activity it says mine was in 2011, yet I check the calendar regularly, add comments to the thread and schedule sessions. So what is GM activity exactly ?

I think you really need 1 or 2 people looking after the GC with the ability to delete or hibernate any campaigns that are inactive after a certain period of time.

And as many of the GMs who use FG, I used the forums to help recruit players for a PF campaign. They started at first level and are working towards 6th level after approx 40 weekly sessions. The players show up every session and no one has dropped out. I don't really have time to GM anything else on a regular basis, so I have no need to use the GC to recruit anyone else. If I ever do try to start up another game I will recruit form my original group, and fill the rest of the spots by using these forums, but the listing in the GC would not be my primary tool.

[Griogre]

I agree with longarms in that the Game Calendar is misleading. I normally play in 3 games a week (thank you FG) something I haven't been able to do since college. All of these games have developed into long running opened ended games. Of the 16 people that I play with only two other visit these forums at all. Typically we have an opening or two once a year in those groups.

As far as the game calendar goes I think it would be worth while to turn a game from public to private automatically after a month of inactivity by the GM and after a private game has been inactive for a year, automatically delete it from the calendar. That would clean up all those inactive games in a regular and low effort way.

To the original poster, I think its important to mention that groups using FG still form much like a face to face group. The difference is your area is world wide instead of just your local area. There just aren't that many pick up games because most GM's don't run them. Likewise most GM's don't run many one shots so you don't see many. Just like in a face to face group when you are just starting up you are going to get player drop outs because they don't like the game, they don't jell with the group, they don't like the play style. One problem with the Internet is that people do just drop out with no warning at all.

[ddavison]

This is a good conversation to collect everyone's thoughts and opinions. I know that moon_wizard has some ideas for making the splash page more interactive, and maybe we could expand this to interact with the calendar as well. If you think about it, the game calendar should have nearly all the information it needs when you are operating inside of Fantasy Grounds.

What if Fantasy Grounds could let you do each of these interactions with the game calendar...
1. You could automatically create a Game Calendar campaign from one of your existing campaigns by answering a few simple questions: Number of players, frequency, date, etc. It could automatically fill in the ruleset, Campaign Name, GameMaster, GMT and last activity date.
2. You could schedule your next game for any campaign you run
3. You could create openings for more players
4. You could see the next scheduled run time for each of your campaigns
5. You could see a poll result from every player who committed to your next run date
6. You could automatically record the attendance (historically) for every player in your campaign
7. You could post chat logs since the last time you posted it directly to the calendar
8. Update the GM activity value every time you host a game

This is a somewhat related items Moon_wizard and I have discussed in the past that might fit in well with this.
9. Allow players to buy store credits for the active GM, which can be used to purchase more products. An easier to implement solution would be to simply allow players to buy products *for* the GM they are connected to.

[Ram Tyr]

Making the web game calendar work with the FG software is an incredibly low priority for me. I would so prefer that those precious dev minutes be spent doing stuff that will actually impact gameplay. There are a lot of improvements that folks have been waiting for!

Especially as the web game calendar is of unequal value to the various FG purchasers, and is not utilized by what seems to be a large batch of them.

I believe that the best way to expand the base of FG users is to improve the way FG works. I'm not saying that a better calendar wouldn't be nice, just that I think adding the features that people would actually pay for would have a bigger impact on prospective FG users.

[dr_venture]

We'd have to do some surveys to see if enough users would use the feature though. Anything we'd develop would pull resources away from other wishlist features and we'd want to prioritize it appropriately with the community.

An excellent point, of course, allocating limited resources is always an issue is software dev. I just wanted to chime in with a viewpoint that, frankly, I really don't know if it is common or not. When I see those lists for new features in new releases, there's almost never much there for me, as I don't use the D&D core rulesets. So right off the bat, half of the line items are related to D&D, Pathfinder, and 4e - none of which matter to me at all. Then of the remaining half, many of those items are related to functionality which is ruleset -dependent. Since C&C is not being worked on by anyone, those are all meaningless to me also. So changes to improve resource download speed and such are great, but it's hard for me to get very excited about new releases, as there's not much there that will affect me.

In short, I hope you guys give extra weight to functionality that affects users outside of the core rulesets, especially ones that aren't being revved regularly. Given the amount of feature functionality that is dependent on the ruleset, it's worth weighing those potential enhancements appropriately when prioritizing new feature/enhancement lists.

Please understand that I absolutely don't post this as a criticism - I'm totally unaware of your reasons for your resource allocation decisions and in no position to criticize. I just want to provide feedback from the viewpoint from a happy, loyal user that you might not be very aware of, for your consideration.

So in light of this, the suggestions you made in your most recent post regarding integration with the calendar is at least functionality that potentially affects 100% of your user base. I could personally use such a functionality - I'm currently using Obsidian Portal for this, and it has limitations that I think your proposed functionality would eliminate, or at least streamline. A couple notes:

If you could make each campaign handle multiple parties/groups of players, that would be awesome.
If you could accommodate recurring schedules, such as weekly, monthly, first Friday of the month, etc., that would be awesome too.
If you could put in the hooks for later integration with outside sites such as Obsidian Portal or Google (something I noticed you guys mention as being an area of interest for future enhancements), that could at least be cool down the road.

[dr_venture]

I believe that the best way to expand the base of FG users is to improve the way FG works. I'm not saying that a better calendar wouldn't be nice, just that I think adding the features that people would actually pay for would have a bigger impact on prospective FG users.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it is worth pointing out that we have recently had a slew of new users in the forums considering purchase of the software who have specifically asked about how many games are available, what kind/genre of games are available, and how to sign up with them. I don't know what priority such a feature should have, but I do think there is a demonstrated need for such a feature... or something like it that more easily and conveniently connects players and GMs.

[Winston]

Just to add my two cents. It took me a couple of tries to find a good group to play with, but now I have been playing every Sat since Jan without a hitch. The games are out there you just have to be willing to talk to people and be willing to try new things. Don't give up and you will find a game to play.

[Ram Tyr]

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it is worth pointing out that we have recently had a slew of new users in the forums considering purchase of the software who have specifically asked about how many games are available, what kind/genre of games are available, and how to sign up with them. I don't know what priority such a feature should have, but I do think there is a demonstrated need for such a feature... or something like it that more easily and conveniently connects players and GMs.
Agreed mostly...the "demonstrated need"... I would say there is a demonstrated demand for the service from some posters. I've seen those posts and they've been going on as long as the calendar has been there. Longer, in fact...I'm sure they made the calendar in response to such a call. I am definitely not saying there is no such demand/need...just that there is much more demand/need for number of features and that a number of those features will make FG more attractive as a product to prospective users than the game calendar features.

We probably simply weigh the value of these 'demands'/'needs' differently. We've spoken and it'll be up to them to decide what value to place on them.

[madman]

+1 to Most everything said so far.

The new player that has just bought themselves a copy of Fantasy Grounds and thinks it works like XBOX Live. ("we" all know it does not) Then we see the same questions, LFG new player and or LFG experienced player. They have the software and want to play some games. ("we"were all here at one point) For which they get the same response (You should post your timezone and what days and times you can play). There are just not enough GM's every week to keep up with the demand, and even fewer that run one shots. I would say that some sort of file should be sent with the FG software, a FAQ of sorts that shows up when they start Fantasy Grounds (and can be removed if a checkbox is selected or something.) This would include tons of basic information to get the new user started, links to video tutorials (which should be hosted by Smiteworks, so they are always there.) and such. Explain how the GC works, what areas of the forums are for what and providing links that are right there when they need them. Giving them a place to start, as soon as the program opens. This is something I see as more useful than a revamp of the GC.Though if you do make changes to the GC I would love to see the list of voters sorted by when they voted.

Chris

[GunnarGreybeard]

For the GC I would like to see it default sort by "Last GM Activity".

[damned]

back to the original poster first:
the ability to just pop in on a game is just not how I think rp games are played. they usually take some time to assemble a group of players, some time to train players and gm's on how everyone works, sometimes a little re-eductaion -or- a change of players is even required. then the gm has a stack of work to do - even when running purchased games - to get ready for a session of gaming. most gm's, most of the time, want to play with the same group of people, at the same regular time, for an entended number of sessions. game sessions like path finder society or ronnke's one shots are definitely the exception.
i just dont think that rp gaming works in the way the OP has suggested - well, not for the most part anyway.

as to number of licenses and the number of games in play - i host a game once/fortnight only. currently 7 players. of those 4 are using unregisterred. if i give them my direct ip address they dont even show up on Smiteworks records. these players also then probably never visit the forums and never go looking for additional games. of the other 3 players 1 is a regular forum user and plays several other games and the other 2 are much lighter users... probably a lot like real life role players - some are more involved, some are interested in many genres and some have more time to commit to this hobby than others.

to the calendar - it is pretty ordinary. it is not quite useless for new players looking to find a game - but not far from it :( i second the comments about gm updates - whay does it order by timezone and not by most recently updated, and why does teh gm have to edit the game setup info to register an update (eg change the name, change the description, change the ruleset or setting????). i wonder if it did those two things - and someone manually closed off older games - or at the very least moved them to the bottom of the list (but perhaps retained them for posterity?) - then gm's might use it more actively. i try to update my calendar fortnightly and it gives me the irritz that my games appear somewhere in the bottom 2 inches of the screen - always.

and to DrV's posts about non core rulesets.... id happily rebuy the C&C ruleset (me personally i would pay more the second time round) if it were updated again. id love to pay sorceror directly for all teh work he has done but he is sadly missing... on the other hand - i cannot see there being much other than a labour of love in creating rulesets as the volume of sales would be tiny... none the less - id contribute $50 to bringing c&c up to 2.9 standard :)

about finding players for my campaign... i look *everywhere* for players for my strangely timed game. i post it everywhere here, i hit up meetup.com, penandpapergames.com and enworld.org

about the fg2con - i will run one or two sessions with my ultimate license - i think its a good idea... and im interested to see how it works out... personally id like to try playing for a change too though...

[Andrepartthree]

about finding players for my campaign... i look *everywhere* for players for my strangely timed game. i post it everywhere here, i hit up meetup.com, penandpapergames.com and enworld.org


Damned this is very valuable info thank you for posting it ! :) Mind you it's going to be years before I'm GM'ing again I think, have to wait for my kids to get older first :( ... in my case I have a heck of a time attracting the kind of player I need (highly devoted to the roleplaying aspect of the game, highly mature and willing to fully embrace the "Good" alignment concept in D&D) , so I'm making a note of these websites to visit in the future... thanks again ! :)

[JohnD]

The Game Calendar would see its value increased greatly by having the old games that never got going, or haven't been active in quite some time, removed from the list somehow.

[Dracones]

As "bad" as the game calendar is, it was one of the reasons I picked up FG. Right now I can see 7 games active within the last week all of which are accepting players.

Compare that to my in person LFG experience which took me about half a year to find a group. I might see 1 group every couple months open up looking for a player and even then it might be for a game system I didn't care about. The whole, everyone plays system X in your area syndrome.

[Trenloe]

As "bad" as the game calendar is, it was one of the reasons I picked up FG. Right now I can see 7 games active within the last week all of which are accepting players.
Yeah, it would be nice to have dead games cleaned up and a little bit more functionality added (e.g. last activity more accurately tracked). But, for me, it works well - now that I'm in a few games I get reminders in the community and calendar sections of upcoming games, which I still have to vote for, etc..