Game Calendar Tweaks

[ddavison]

The Game Calendar now shows more info on the main page. Please make sure your descriptions are conveying what you want them to convey -- especially if you are trying to attract players. If your avatar is blank, you may also want to update that by adjusting your Profile on the forums.

[VenomousFiligree]

Nice

[Jwguy]

Good job~ =D

[Blacky]

Just looked around that for the first time.

Doesn't seem much usable to me:

• No formating of the presentation. Maybe all GM typed their text that way, I doubt it. Most of all are way way too short, and the somewhat less short are quite hard to read because there no paragraphs.
• Player name aren't link. I want to be able to check people out (spelling, manners, brain) before playing with them.
• Ruleset column doesn't show it all.
• No easy way to contact people to ask for more information.
• No data on when the game is played (day, frequency).
• No predefined data about table rules and type of play. For example if I'm looking for a serious non-narrativist vocal (with headphone) long campaign of game X, Y or Z, well can't find it.
• Levels!!! None of the game I play have levels, why is there this thing there?
• No indication if a FG license is needed or not (I don't care, but some other people might).
• No mention of language used, but… yeah… ok.

And that's just at first glance.

Frankly, the communities I use to find vtt players are simply forums. There's a forum where GM present a campaign to recruit player. One thread per campaign. And one subforum per campaign to allow players to talk things out, organize themselves, etc. Easy peasy. No extra coding necessary. And it's much more user-friendly than this one.

So, again, I have no personal need for it right now, and haven't for the past 5 years. Just my quick 2 cents an a half.

[ddavison]

Thanks for the feedback. See below.

Just looked around that for the first time.
No formating of the presentation. Maybe all GM typed their text that way, I doubt it. Most of all are way way too short, and the somewhat less short are quite hard to read because there no paragraphs.

For security reasons, we stripped out any HTML characters. I could probably allow in specific tags with a rewrite of the function. A paragraph would be best here I think and maybe a link to a blog page on the forums??

Just looked around that for the first time.
Player name aren't link. I want to be able to check people out (spelling, manners, brain) before playing with them.

Fixed.

Just looked around that for the first time.
Ruleset column doesn't show it all.

Fixed.

Just looked around that for the first time.
No easy way to contact people to ask for more information.

Fixed now that they are linked to the view profile page?

Just looked around that for the first time.
No data on when the game is played (day, frequency).

In description or announcements?? Does it warrant a new field. If so, what options would be the most common/useful and does that need to show on the Active Campaigns listing or just on the detail page?

[QUOTE=Blacky;186143]Just looked around that for the first time.
No predefined data about table rules and type of play. For example if I'm looking for a serious non-narrativist vocal (with headphone) long campaign of game X, Y or Z, well can't find it.
Levels!!! None of the game I play have levels, why is there this thing there?
No indication if a FG license is needed or not (I don't care, but some other people might).
No mention of language used, but… yeah… ok.
[QUOTE]

Free-form for these in the comments, or does it warrant a new field for each? Again, does it need to show on the main page too?

There really isn't an excessive amount of campaigns listed now, so I'm not sure what makes the most sense to add.

[Blackfoot]

What about a 'collapse' option for the descriptions?
Like a button at the top that would collapse all the descriptions so that one can do some 'at a glance' searching and then toggle the specific descriptions that you want to check out.
It might be nice if the ruleset was a dropdown window with a bunch of selections plus 'other' and 'other' maybe allowed for a fill in the blank somehow. That would make the text for the ruleset much more consistent and more readily sortable.
Since the description box has been rather difficult to manage (no formatting/returns) it seems like a lot of these have been left blank. Ideally once this new format comes into play people will be putting 'short descriptions' into that box that describe their game in a quick and easy to read way. It might be nice if there was a full description box available once inside the actual game listing.
When we were using the calendar for FG Con I to schedule games ... we ran into a few issues that we handled by formatting the description of the game.. but they could be additional fields on this screen:
Game Date (useful for one shots .. or the first game of a new campaign)
Game Time (Making use of the GMT adjustments to show the correct international time)
Language (A nice option for non-english speaking users... as Blacky said.. but kinda a waste if it takes up screen space since most games on FG seem to be in english)
Obviously the columns at the right are somewhat oversized for the information they display. It would be nice if there were actual lines delineating the columns and making the screen easier to read.
Level (Many games don't use this but for some it can be very useful the ability to set this to 'off' might be cool)

[ianmward]

Wow where did this thread appear from. I should have looked before posting my huge message in another post.

This is looking much better. A few suggestions from my other post...

1. One of the most important things is the proposed game time in my timezone.
2. Separate section for one-offs or short series, rather than ongoing campaigns.

[Trenloe]

1. One of the most important things is the proposed game time in my timezone.

This already happens, but you need to give the calendar a hint by adding your timezone to your profile. In the a campaign entry in the game calendar the if there are any scheduled play time entries below these it will say "All times are XXX" (where XXX is a timezone code) and there is a change link after that which takes you to the general settings page of your profile, scroll down to Date and Time Options and set your time zone.

Or, click on Profile in the top right corner of this page, then General Settings and scroll down to the Date & Time Options section and set your time zone.

[ianmward]

Hmmm... Now I am confused. I already have my profile set up with my AEST timezone but I don't see the proposed game time properly...

For example, the info shown for the 5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen session is:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen Tuesday Nights 8-11 pm EST
5E
idjester No Yes
5 + 3
4 to 6 2014-09-01 -5

5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen Tuesday Nights 8-11 pm EST
Setting: Forgotten Realms
Ruleset: 5E
Genre: Dungeon and Dragons
5E Campaign of Hoard of the Dragon Queen on Tuesday nights from 8-11 pm EST
-------------------------------------------------------------------
(I would post an image but I don't know how...)

[Trenloe]

Hmmm... Now I am confused. I already have my profile set up with my AEST timezone but I don't see the proposed game time properly...

For example, the info shown for the 5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen session is:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen Tuesday Nights 8-11 pm EST
5E
idjester No Yes
5 + 3
4 to 6 2014-09-01 -5

5E Hoard of the Dragon Queen Tuesday Nights 8-11 pm EST
Setting: Forgotten Realms
Ruleset: 5E
Genre: Dungeon and Dragons
5E Campaign of Hoard of the Dragon Queen on Tuesday nights from 8-11 pm EST
-------------------------------------------------------------------
(I would post an image but I don't know how...)

That is because people are putting the time in the title. Very few, if any, calendar applications are going to parse the title, attempt to determine if someone has put a time in the title and then adjust any times in the title based on your time zone (I'm not aware of any that do this). The Game Calendar has the "Scheduled Play Times" section in the top right once you click on the campaign to view more details. Scheduled play times will show in the time zone from your profile.