Website/booking system feedback

[Trenloe]

We are using a community built website for this convention (thanks and massive rep go primarily to damned, and a few others, for getting this website up and running). We know it is not perfect, the main issue we strived to fix is displaying dates/times in the local user's timezone - which we couldn't do. We have put off delaying the convention and want to go ahead with the website in it's current form - it should allow most of what we want to do; but we know there will still be some minor issues and areas for improvement.

Please bear with us and list any issues, comments, feedback, recommendations, etc. here in this thread. We'll try and address them if we can...

[JohnD]

Should look at using this at all times throughout the year. IMO.

[Trenloe]

Should look at using this at all times throughout the year. IMO.
I think you'd better reserve judgement until you've given the system a good go... ;)

There are a number of things we are still trying to find good solutions to that we really need, so it is definitely not a well polished system at the moment.

[damned]

You go John!
Get back in your box Trenloe.

[avro5731]

nice site Trenloe.... 1 suggestion from an idiot - please make the link and line about the event chart / schedule / spreadsheet easier to fine. maybe a button or bold colored text or something.

Thanks

[Valarian]

Seems fine to me, it was fairly easy to set up a game session as a GM. Not had the experience of the bookings from the other side, but approving the places is again pretty simple. With the link to timeanddate.com, the time zone issue is sorted. I must admit, I posted using British Summer Time first rather than UTC/GMT/Zulu time.

[Trenloe]

nice site Trenloe.... 1 suggestion from an idiot - please make the link and line about the event chart / schedule / spreadsheet easier to fine. maybe a button or bold colored text or something.

Thanks
Thanks for the feedback - we're always looking for ways to improve the site.

[phantomwhale]

nice site Trenloe.... 1 suggestion from an idiot - please make the link and line about the event chart / schedule / spreadsheet easier to fine. maybe a button or bold colored text or something.

Thanks

Actually, +1 on that. I knew those links where there, but they are "hidden in plain sight" amongst the text.

Rather than saying "something awesome for you to see click here", perhaps we'd be better saying "something awesome for you to see" - e.g. make the link the thing it goes to, rather than just the word "here" ?

[Trenloe]

Thanks for the feedback. I've made some changes to the events page, have a look a let me know what you think.

[bennis1980]

I found it a tad confusing when it came to changing my event time. I changed the custom field: TIME AND DATE (which contained the old URL) but the old UTC time came up when I tested it. I realised then that there was another TIME AND DATE field further down.

Also I found that the layout for creating an event was not the same as the walkthrough, which caused some confusion, and probably would stump a meer mortal who was not quite as gifted with a large brain ... ahem... that came out all wrong, I was trying to be humble :p

[JohnD]

I think you'd better reserve judgement until you've given the system a good go... ;)

There are a number of things we are still trying to find good solutions to that we really need, so it is definitely not a well polished system at the moment.
It's taken a bit of time for me to be able to respond further.

This booking system, even though it may still be a work-in-progress, is what FG in general lacks all other times of the year.

New people only have the GameCalendar link to look at when they try to figure out how much game activity there is with FG. We all know, conservatively speaking, that 80%+ of what is seen on the GameCalendar are dead/abandoned/inactive games where the DM didn't have the courtesy to delete the listing. I've offered to clean that up, but nothing has come from that... maybe it can't be done.

Players and DMs, established and new to FG alike need a place where they can essentially look at a calendar that converts to their time zone and shows all throughout the year scheduled games (campaign name, DM name, system, level range, # of players, maximum # of players, whether the game is continuing, open to new players, full/closed/private/whatever, etc...).

With the Con, we're essentially establishing a set of one-shot games... in my experience it would be easier to do this all year with a calendar/scheduling scheme, and I know this system would encourage more ad-hoc games which would be particularily enabling for the various PFS DMs and players. Even more benefit can be realized if the "Ultimate weekend" upgrade testing comes through.

Sure, a portion of the community's DMs wouldn't use it, but there are those, I think, who would.

At least that's my opinion.

[Trenloe]

It's taken a bit of time for me to be able to respond further.

This booking system, even though it may still be a work-in-progress, is what FG in general lacks all other times of the year.

New people only have the GameCalendar link to look at when they try to figure out how much game activity there is with FG. We all know, conservatively speaking, that 80%+ of what is seen on the GameCalendar are dead/abandoned/inactive games where the DM didn't have the courtesy to delete the listing. I've offered to clean that up, but nothing has come from that... maybe it can't be done.

Players and DMs, established and new to FG alike need a place where they can essentially look at a calendar that converts to their time zone and shows all throughout the year scheduled games (campaign name, DM name, system, level range, # of players, maximum # of players, whether the game is continuing, open to new players, full/closed/private/whatever, etc...).

With the Con, we're essentially establishing a set of one-shot games... in my experience it would be easier to do this all year with a calendar/scheduling scheme, and I know this system would encourage more ad-hoc games which would be particularily enabling for the various PFS DMs and players. Even more benefit can be realized if the "Ultimate weekend" upgrade testing comes through.

Sure, a portion of the community's DMs wouldn't use it, but there are those, I think, who would.

At least that's my opinion.
Thanks for the feedback John, glad you like what we're doing with the website.

We're not looking to provide a day-to-day booking system for playing games on Fantasy Grounds, we're just trying to get a workable system that allows regular(ish) FG conventions to be organised and administered.

To be honest, any system such as this needs a lot of administration (anyone involved at the back end to this con will attest to that) - the main reason for the FG GameCalendar being old/stale is the lack of administration. Any such day-to-day FG event system should lie in the realms of Smiteworks, so that it has longevity and they can assign admins as necessary and control access rights. As an example of doing a community based system: the PFS group used to organise their games on a Yahoo Groups page - the admin user for that page disappeared and so no changes could be made.

Anyway, I think this discussion is really for a completely different thread and sub-forum - I'd suggest you start a new thread in "The Tavern" if you want to discuss further... :)

[sirchet]

Is it me or is it difficult to find any 3.5E games during this event?

Well, non-Path Finder games that is.

A push in the right direction would be nice.

[Trenloe]

Is it me or is it difficult to find any 3.5E games during this event?

Well, non-Path Finder games that is.

A push in the right direction would be nice.
No GMs are running 3.5e games in this FG Con. It's up to the GMs what they want to run and no one is running any purely 3.5e games.

[sirchet]

Wow ... Just, wow!

Thanks, guess I'll turn my attention elsewhere.

[Trenloe]

Thanks, guess I'll turn my attention elsewhere.
Take note - this lack of 3.5e games seems to be just for this convention, which is a weekend of online gaming the community is organising. It's a convention - try some game systems you wouldn't normally play!

There are quite a few 3.5e regular games/campaigns being ran in Fantasy Grounds. In fact, this was just posted today by a GM looking to get a 3.5e game going: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18829

[damned]

Hi Sirchet. This Con was organised at short notice. All the GMS are running games of their choosing. There are (surprisingly) no 3.5E or 4E games running. Im sure that next time there will be - all GMs are invited to run a game. There are however still several games - mostly Basic Role Playing and Call Of Cthulu with room for inquisitive players.
Have fun.

[JohnD]

Wow ... Just, wow!

Thanks, guess I'll turn my attention elsewhere.
Hey... it might not be an official part of FG Con but you've got the chance to die in any number of horrible ways on Saturday night! ;)

[sirchet]

And I am looking forward to my demise at the hands of an overly skilled and dangerously creative GM with great anticipation. ;)