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Marc B
October 8th, 2013, 19:29
Could anybody give me at least a rough estimate in hours it would take an experienced user to enter my campaign into Fantasy ground with the current cumbersome interface?

Lets say I am only entering 6 player characters, add 2 custom races and 2 custom classes, my current adventure with encounters(lets say 10 encounters), and 5 NPC's.

Valarian
October 8th, 2013, 19:43
About an hour. The custom races just enter in as stories. You can tackle XML library modules later.
If you have to prepare them from scratch, rather than copying from source, then it'll take as long as it usually takes you to generate a character.

And the "cumbersome interface" is pretty intuitive once you start using it and RTFM.

JohnD
October 8th, 2013, 21:04
About an hour. The custom races just enter in as stories. You can tackle XML library modules later.
If you have to prepare them from scratch, rather than copying from source, then it'll take as long as it usually takes you to generate a character.

And the "cumbersome interface" is pretty intuitive once you start using it and RTFM.

RTFM is good advice. I would say Valarian has it pretty right for the most part. I would enter one character on your own to get the hang of it and then have all your players connect in groups of one or two to be walked through entering their own character data... after all they will have a learning curve to get through as well.

This learning curve will be less odious for all concerned if you flush you current attitude down the crapper and adopt a more positive one YMMV and all that. There are walkthroughs and offers of demo sessions on the table... much more useful than just complaining. Take someone up on their offer of spending their own free hobby time helping you get up to speed is my suggestion.

dulux-oz
October 9th, 2013, 05:03
I concure with JohnD & Valarian.

Look, you've got three choices:


Continue to bitch about somethng that is not going to change, therefore alienating any potential friends, helpers and mentors on this site.
Write your own VTT Software.
Change your attitude, take up an offer for a 1-on-1 Tutorial Session, RTFM, watch a few of the excellent Tutorial Videos avaliable, and basically just deal with it.

I agree with you, on first look the Interface was "unusual", but after only an hour or two of playing around with it it all "fell into place" and now it just "flys" - in other words, I had to get through the learning curve.

And in all honesty, in over 25 years in the ICT game I've seen some pretty crappy interfaces, even from some main stream companies - FG2 isn't even in the worst 80% for "bad" interfaces.

We all want people to enjoy our hobby, and I'm sure the SmiteWorks guys (& girls?) want people using their excellent software - that's one reason there is so much (free) help around - so please, give things a go - I hope you will.

Cheers


Not a Paid Advertisement of SmiteWorks LLC :p

Trenloe
October 9th, 2013, 05:22
Yeah, complaining constantly is going to quickly lose you any assistance people might be willing to give you.

It really is worth spending the time to get to know Fantasy Grounds and the Rolemaster ruleset. Once you spend that time (which isn't long when you apply yourself to it) you will be able to save that time and more when you actually run a game. All of the tables are there for you within Fantasy Grounds and resolving attacks, criticals, spells, fumbles, maneuvers, etc. are all done very easily without the need to be efficient with your maths calculations. The results of fumbles/criticals are recorded against the characters with this, and other additional book keeping being covered for you as well.

Fantasy Grounds is a fantastic VTT but we all know it has a steep learning curve - hence why a lot of us are willing to help. One of the massive advantages of Fantasy Grounds is the community - work with us and your experience of Fantasy Grounds will be much richer...

AstaSyneri
October 9th, 2013, 08:28
What an unusual thread for this usually so friendly forum. :D

Shouldn't we all take a step back and draw a deep breath?

The only thing mildly offensive Marc B said is highlighted below (we can argue about tone).


Could anybody give me at least a rough estimate in hours it would take an experienced user to enter my campaign into Fantasy ground with the current cumbersome interface?


In his defense (not knowing him): It really can be a bit difficult for a GM just starting out with FG to find the way around, leading to some frustration. And I can relate - I sometimes (apparently) use words that grate people on the internet, without intending to do so.

Why not give Marc the benefit of the doubt, instead of bashing him just yet? He might become a valuable member of the community :D.

Oh - and since you unfortunately didn't link it:

And the "cumbersome interface" is pretty intuitive once you start using it and RTFM.

What GM manual are you referring to? I love manuals and have a bit of a problem finding my way around the "hardcore" stuff myself (the basic D&D User manuals for players and GMs are okay, but after that it gets tougher).

dulux-oz
October 9th, 2013, 09:33
You're right Astra, this has turned into an unusually "unfriendly" thread - for my part I apologise (to Marc B, yourself, and others who are reading this).

Having said that, what you may not be aware of is that there have been several other posts that Marc B has made where he both complains about the Interface and asks for help/guidance, and where others have offered help and support - I think people like JohnD, Trenloe and others (although I can not speak definitively for them) have gotten just a little bit "fed-up" with the situation - I know I did, and I haven't offered any direct help (apart from directing Marc B to the Tutiorial Videos, both mine and others').

Personally (and only speaking personally) one of my pet "peeves" in my Professional Life, my Political Life and my Hobby/Private life is people who whinge about something but who aren't willing or can't offer a practical solution. As someone who has worked as a Software Developer and as a ICT Program/Project Manager its amazing to me how often people want to criticise and complain but not do anything to fix or to contribute to an issue, or to the number of times people expect things to be "handed to them on a platter". My personal philiosophy is "Put up or Shut up" (along with "Personal Responsibility, Personal Freedom"). As such, I may have reacted a little too strongly (as I have been known to do from time to time). :)

Having said all that, I encourage everyone to share this great hobby, which is why I was so glad when I found FG2 and even happier when I found the level of friendship, support and camaraderie that exists in the Forums here. So happy, in fact, that I was willing to persevere and go through the learning curve - for me it was worth the pain of learning a new interface because what I got out of it was way, way more than I had to put into it - but I DID have to "put into it".

I only encourage others to do the same.

Cheers

Valarian
October 9th, 2013, 11:11
The only thing mildly offensive Marc B said is highlighted below (we can argue about tone).
7 posts. Whining about the product not meeting his standards in 6 of them. Seemingly because it doesn't look like a Microsoft product which I, for one, am extremely glad about.


What GM manual are you referring to?
The guides in the library here tell you what you need to know about Fantasy Grounds.

For more generic GM guidance, I can recommend:
- Odyssey and Never Unprepared by Engine Publishing
- Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering by Robin Laws
- Hamlet's Hit Points by Robin Laws
- Gamemastering by Dominic Walsh
- Write Great Fiction - Description & Setting by Ron Rozelle
- Write Great Fiction - Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

AstaSyneri
October 9th, 2013, 14:04
7 posts. Whining about the product not meeting his standards in 6 of them. Seemingly because it doesn't look like a Microsoft product which I, for one, am extremely glad about.

Ah well, I didn't look up all the other posts he wrote ;-). That of course explains it a bit.



The guides in the library here tell you what you need to know about Fantasy Grounds.


On how to run FG as a player and as a GM I agree (I have no real problem with the interface for gaming. It's not perfect, but that's to be expected from a program with such a small audience).

On how to enter your own adventures, or even build modules, extensions or rulesets, I disagree. Of course there is no other VTT that does it better or offers a better foundation to do it, but starting out on such an endeavor does feel (to me) like you need a PHD in Computer Sciences at times. ;-)

But that's okay, I am willing to learn and I am sure it will get better and better. I very much enjoy the willingness to help on this forum!

Trenloe
October 9th, 2013, 14:57
On how to ... or even build ... extensions or rulesets, I disagree.

You have started at the Ruleset modification guide, right? https://www.fantasygrounds.com/modguide/

JohnD
October 9th, 2013, 16:08
Everyone knows the GM dictates the game to a large extent.

What's better (I know which wouldn't get me interested as a player...)?

A.
Hey guys I just found a way for us to keep playing Rolemaster without flipping through books and pages and each round of combat taking 30 minutes. Plus, we can meet on-line so the fact that Bill lives 3 hours away isn't an issue anymore. Even better, because I bought the license I did, none of you are out of pocket for the software! One thing though is the learning curve... we're going to all have to go through it together, which might make things a little painful in the short term, but once we figure out how to do something once, we'll rarely stumble over it again. Let's start by you connecting to me and generating your characters - it's quick and relatively easy because the software does a lot of work for you, except for Bob because he's a Paladin... Bob will have some extra entry work to do. Combat is a breeze compared to pen-and-paper because the software automatically applies all criticals and adjustments to the appropriate rolls - we can just concentrate on the game and not flipping through endless books!

or,

B.
Hey guys sucks none of us live close to each other. I got this piece of **** software that takes some learning to use. Imagine that. It's a huge burden to learn how to use and by God you have to use your mouse and actually enter some information. Worse still, we have to learn how to use the program to manage the game. Lucky for you all, because I was a moron and paid for the top license, you can all play for free, but I can't imagine why you'd want to because it's such a crap program. I could try to mitigate the learning curve by taking up someone on their offer to give me a walkthrough, one of these people is even the person who programmed the most up-to-date version of the rules we'd be using, but I can't imagine that would actually accomplish anything.

-----

Seriously, FG is so very powerful with respect to the Rolemaster rules, especially with the latest iteration programmed by Dakadin. But, I've said all I'm going to here on this particular topic... time is too valuable. Offers of assistance were/are on the table - you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink and all that.

Olodrin
October 10th, 2013, 00:40
Well then, let me the first to say that FG2 is awesome; my college group got back together after 10 years, and has stayed together for 5 years now, despite our membership spanning Portland, DC, Ottawa, Bangkok and Dusseldorf. For the price of a few RPG books, we have built an integrated DMing/playing tool that we all use to run all of our virtual and real tabletop games.

Is it perfect? No, that's why software has version numbers. But it has an active, welcome, tremendously helpful community that loves to play, and has enabled me to spend 100s of hours pursuing my most beloved hobby with people I would otherwise have little chance to spend time with.

Beware of Trolls!

Tiqon
October 10th, 2013, 18:50
Beware of Trolls!

Especially the cave trolls.

Olodrin
October 10th, 2013, 22:34
Ech, they're the worst - fire and acid is the way to go.

Marc B
October 11th, 2013, 21:01
1 hour to do that impossible. I will give you $100 if you can do it in 1 hour. The way the interface currently stands I was thinking over 50 hours to get all that entered.

Trenloe
October 11th, 2013, 21:30
1 hour to do that impossible. I will give you $100 if you can do it in 1 hour. The way the interface currently stands I was thinking over 50 hours to get all that entered.
Depends exactly how big your adventure is.

If you have it already prepared and the data can just be copied and pasted into Fantasy Grounds then it will take between 30 minutes and 4 hours depending on how much information you are entering.

Seriously dude - you are way underestimating the impact of the interface on productivity. You need to take the time to learn it, once you learn it (and that doesn't take long if you want to learn it) it is no more clunky or inefficient than most other interfaces.

Yes, the first time you build an adventure in Fantasy Grounds it will take time - the next time you enter an adventure it will take less time and the next shorter still.

Watch Xorne's excellent "Campaign Entry Basics" video from the "Archived Video Tutorials" section in the download page: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/downloads/

Use normal keyboard shortcuts: Copy: CTRL+C, Paste: CTRL+V, Bold: CTRL+B, Italic: CTRL+I, Underline: CTRL+I for text entries in formatted text control.

For a good example of how to lay out your adventure in Fantasy Grounds have a look at Ardem's cool RMC module Goblin Raiders: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?16978-Free-FRP-Adventure-Goblin-Raiders This is commercial quality, you probably won't need to go to this level of detail when entering your own adventures.

Andraax
October 11th, 2013, 22:17
1 hour to do that impossible. I will give you $100 if you can do it in 1 hour. The way the interface currently stands I was thinking over 50 hours to get all that entered.

Maybe you should learn to type with more than one finger?

Seriously, I just created an adventure module. What took the longest was the drawing the maps in GIMP - that took a couple days. After that, entering the text, the encounters, pre-placing the tokens for the encounters on the maps, for about a dozen encounters with 5 major NPCs and a few dozen minor creatures took me about a half an hour. (Text was written up ahead of time, I just had to copy / paste it in the story editor and do a little bit of formatting.)

Callum
October 11th, 2013, 22:50
Well then, let me the first to say that FG2 is awesome; my college group got back together after 10 years, and has stayed together for 5 years now, despite our membership spanning Portland, DC, Ottawa, Bangkok and Dusseldorf. For the price of a few RPG books, we have built an integrated DMing/playing tool that we all use to run all of our virtual and real tabletop games.

Is it perfect? No, that's why software has version numbers. But it has an active, welcome, tremendously helpful community that loves to play, and has enabled me to spend 100s of hours pursuing my most beloved hobby with people I would otherwise have little chance to spend time with.
This. 100% this.

As for the original question, I'd say 1 hour is an underestimate, while 50 hours is a wild overestimate. My guess would be around 4 hours. It depends a lot on exactly what you're putting in, and how you're doing it.

damned
October 12th, 2013, 03:26
No way I could enter it all in a single hour.
1 hour to do the characters maybe - and you dont have to do it all. Create the characters stick in the core stats and let the players finish uploading their info.
For the campaign - could be another hour could be quite a bit more - certainly not 50 unless you have a lot of data to enter. t will probably take you twice as long as you can type the data - once you get used to it.
BUT - if you are using Voice you only have to upload your maps (1min) and your characters.
If all your material is in hard copy you still read and refer to this as you guide your characters in and out of strife.

Do I know how to use everything in FG? Nope. Do I know how to use everything in Outlook or Word? Not even close.

You are obviously struggling to get past some initial hurdles. Why dont you put the project aside for a week or 3 and join in on a couple of fg-con games - bring your players along too! See how it feels from the other side of the table - see how much some GMs have everything prepared within FG and others use a mix of FG and external material. Just like at the tabletop some GMs have lots of handouts, play music, have tonnes of awesome maps while others use less physical material.

Dont give up yet. There is plenty of goodness in this product.

Marc B
October 14th, 2013, 19:52
Ok so based on what you guys are saying I have 3 choices and included is that I shouldn't say anything about stuff that is never going to be fixed. To me the software is in an unusable state because of a time consuming cumbersome interface. So use the $65 I spent on the software and extras and fix one thing in the UI. It you have the best application in the world and its 10x harder to use you are limiting the number of your end users. Nothing else I can say. I showed the software to one of my players and he says the same thing its way too cumbersome.

and as far as writing my own software I have been using an excel spreadsheet which handles my combats and here is an example of some adventure stuff I have created.
https://postimg.org/image/9qsw4n973/
https://postimg.org/image/oz1l06zc7/
https://postimg.org/image/shiv3kzp9/

Griogre
October 14th, 2013, 20:16
You do know if you have all this stuff already you only need to use FG as a dice roller and battlemap? There's no reason/advantage to adding data twice if you already have to it in note/excel form and use voice, just drop the image in an FG campaign and call it a day - 2 minutes prep. If your players want a character sheet in FG tell them to fill out the character sheet. You are really making this too hard on yourself. If you don't want to take advantage of the RM ruleset table lookup because you have your excel sheet then don't.

Generally, the only thing that takes longer to prep in FG than in a face to face game is creating maps, if you don't have a digital version of the one you want.

damned
October 14th, 2013, 22:32
Hi Marc,
No one likes seeing you unhappy with your purchase. I used quite a few different applications (business) that use lots of interfaces. FG's interface is different but its really not that unlearnable. There are offers around to give you a view from the GMs side, from the players side, and people are more than willing to help ease your learning curve.
Playing a game by text can take a long time and a lot of prep. Playing a game using Voice or Voice and Text need take no more time to prep than your tabletop game.
Sign up to a game at www.fg-con.com with an open mind and see how it goes.
You seem like the kind of GM who would benefit from FG seeing the work you have put into your own resources.
No one says you shouldnt say anything about "stuff that isnt going to be fixed". There is just no need to go on and on about it. It isnt going to be fixed because it isnt broken. Its just different. And its completely usable once you know where to start. You really only have two places to look - menu icons at right and right click the screen or object and explore the options presented.
Microsoft received tonnes of flack when they moved to the ribbon. Millions hated it. It works, they know it and they knew we would get it to after a little while.
Have fun.
regards
Damian

sciencephile
October 15th, 2013, 00:34
I think it is safe to say that no one product will make everyone happy. When it comes to VTT software, they all have their advantages and they all have their disadvantages. Each usually has a demo version to try before buying. Some are even free. They all appeal to different styles of gamers. I myself started one path, only to end up here. I originally worked with MapTools (free). It had a nice fog of war and line of sight tool (one of the best out there). Unfortunately, its character sheet and die rolling was awful. Then I purchased a GM license to d20pro. It had a better character sheet and die rolling but less desirable fog of war/line of sight. I eventually ended up purchasing an ultimate license for FG2. While this has very little in the way of fog of war/line of sight, I found it best in regards to the character sheet and die rolling. In addition, it allowed me to work on story preparation within the tool, rather than having it separately. I'm probably a more adaptable person in that my style has changed and I have tried different tools based on the style change.

When I began using FG2 a few months ago, I was a bit overwhelmed in the UI. I did take the time to watch the videos and it took me about 2-3 game sessions to begin feeling comfortable. My players really like the system better than the other VTTs I have used in the past.

You will ultimately have to choose to embrace FG2 and watch the videos or decide to try something different. The choice is entirely yours and nobody can really change that. I think the overall message is that complaining really doesn't help. You should either take the bull by horns or choose to ride a different animal. Complaining on how bumpy the ride is doesn't help anyone in any way.

Dakadin
October 15th, 2013, 07:05
Ok so based on what you guys are saying I have 3 choices and included is that I shouldn't say anything about stuff that is never going to be fixed. To me the software is in an unusable state because of a time consuming cumbersome interface. So use the $65 I spent on the software and extras and fix one thing in the UI. It you have the best application in the world and its 10x harder to use you are limiting the number of your end users. Nothing else I can say. I showed the software to one of my players and he says the same thing its way too cumbersome.

and as far as writing my own software I have been using an excel spreadsheet which handles my combats and here is an example of some adventure stuff I have created.
https://postimg.org/image/9qsw4n973/
https://postimg.org/image/oz1l06zc7/
https://postimg.org/image/shiv3kzp9/

Sorry I wanted to get into this sooner but work has been crazy.

Great job on the spreadsheet and adventure stuff.

I am definitely open to suggestions and want to make it easier to use the ruleset. I just need more specifics. If you can give me specific details on what you would like to see changed, I will definitely consider changing it. I just need to see if it is something that can be changed and that it will make sense to change it. So please let me know which parts are cumbersome.

Now let me see if I can help with your original questions.

For the 6 PCs, have they already been created or will they be created fresh in FG? If they are already created it should take about 15-20 minutes per PC. I entered in the 10th level ranger from Rolemaster Heroes and Rogues in about 15 minutes. It will take a bit longer at first while you figure out where things are located and the easiest way to enter things. To give you an idea this is what I did:

Enter basic information (Name, height, weight, etc)
Choose the Profession
Choose the Race
Choose the Realm if it is an arms user
Enter the Stats (Temp and Pot)
Add the Skills (Drag from library or use Skill Dev button then update the ranks and level bonuses)
Add the Spell Lists
Add the Inventory (Drag from Library or enter manual. Custom items will take longer)
Add the Combat Tab information (Attacks and AT. Drag Weapons and Shields from inventory.)
Add any notes


For the 2 custom races, you need to do the following:

Enter the race name in the Race field
Enter the stat modifiers in the appropriate stat race column
Enter the RR modifers in the appropriate RR race column

The rest of it is manually handled within the ruleset just like for the other races. It should only take a few more minutes for the custom races.

For the 2 custom professions, you need to do the following:

Enter the profession name in the Profession field
Select or enter the realm in the Realm field
Enter in the skill cost for each skill as they are added to the Skills tab

The rest of it is manually handled within the ruleset just like for the other professions. It take is slower entering in the skill costs if you want them in FG. It isn't a lot of work but it does take time so figure about 5 minutes extra per custom profession.

The NPCs will vary depending on your NPCs. If you are able to use a creature from Creatures & Treasures or one of the NPCs from the Non-Player Character Table in Character Law as a template, then it should be only about 5-10 minutes per NPC. If you need to manually enter a new NPC then give closer to 10-20 minutes per NPC. Be sure to add a token for each of the NPCs. There are modules included that you can load with tokens.

The current adventure will depend on quite a few things but based on your samples, I am guessing you would like it all entered in FG. If you already have the text and pictures in electronic format then you just need to drag the pictures into the campaign images folder and copying the text into your story entries. For the Inhabitants Orcs page you used as a sample, it would take me about 5-10 minutes to enter that in using the copy & paste method.

The maps as someone stated tend to take the most time if you don't already have them in electronic format but if you do it only take a couple minutes to load all of your maps into FG. If you want to place pins on the map for your story entries or encounters that will take an extra couple minutes per map.

Once you have the maps and NPCs, encounters are pretty quick. Do the following:

Create a new encounter
Drag the appropriate creatures or NPCs to the encounter
Change the number of each NPC in the encounter to represent how many there are
Drag the tokens below to each NPC to the appropriate map
Close the encounter

It should take about 5 minutes per encounter.

So based on the above, I would estimate the following assuming you have it in electronic format and the characters are already created:

120 minutes for the 6 PCs
15 minutes for the custom races and professions
100 minutes for the 5 NPCs (estimating on the high side)
50 minutes for the 10 encounters
30 minutes for 10 maps including dragging pins to them if there are only a few pins per map
60 minutes for 10 pages of story entries (I am estimating a bit high here)


So using my wild assumptions, it would take a little over 6 hours. It likely will be a bit slower as you get used to it so I would guess closer to 8 hours at first.

Hopefully that helps a bit and hopefully I remembered everything. Please let me know if you have any questions.

damned
October 15th, 2013, 13:20
i was looking at your screen shots but there was this one image at the bottom that kept distracting me.
5273

Andraax
October 15th, 2013, 14:30
Nice summary, Dakadin. I would add only thing - at the end of creating the encounter and placing the tokens on the map and before closing the encounter, I go ahead and drag the link marker onto the map as well to create a pin near the tokens. This way I can quickly bring up the encounter entry directly from the map, to facilitate adding the tokens to the Combat Tracker.

Dakadin
October 15th, 2013, 21:49
Nice summary, Dakadin. I would add only thing - at the end of creating the encounter and placing the tokens on the map and before closing the encounter, I go ahead and drag the link marker onto the map as well to create a pin near the tokens. This way I can quickly bring up the encounter entry directly from the map, to facilitate adding the tokens to the Combat Tracker.

Great idea. I look being able to get to things using multiple ways so that whichever is closest can be used.