Content Market and the Staging Ground
 

I assume we've all had a chance to look at and work with the free content released through LWD.

Originally, back before imports were going to be by way of XML, imports were to be segregated into a special area of each realm called, IIRC, the Staging Area so that you could examine the content and decide what to keep and where to put it.

As anyone who has imported the Isle of Kandril into an existing realm can probably attest such is certainly desirable.

Rather than coding such a feature, why should Rob have to do all the work?, I suggest the content guidelines be changed. All the content should be contained by the Source topics. The purchasers could then clear the containing topic or assign appropriate containers inside their existing realms as they saw fit once they got a look at the material. All the material they chose not to use would remain segregated under the source(s) for easy reference/access/disposal later.

Personally I wouldn't want this. You want the content to go into the tool is the most user friendly way in the majority of cases. There's some stuff that people havn't seen yet that should make this a null issue in the future.

I personally think it's a very good idea. If I ever include external stuff at all I want to have full control over what is going into my realm, and what is thrown away.

Agreed. We need to be able to select what transfers somehow before it gets imported. Especially if the content is for a different system. I don't need to import PF creatures or classes into 5e. I may only want the maps or the NPCs which I can use or quickly convert. I'm betting that pretty frequently I won't even want the adventure or whatever content the import is purportedly giving me - just some of the bits and pieces.

Maybe Rob and the beta testers have come up with a better way, we should be told pretty quick if so, but I cannot think of a more user friendly method than using the topic containment system we all use already rather than having stuff all over the place after an import.

Can you imagine the mess a casual users realm would be in if he imported Isle of Kandril into his main realm? How much worse is it going to be when Razor Coast finally comes out? People are certainly going to buy that with the intention of only taking pieces of it. But if it isn't contained? I know I can find all the pieces by searching for the tag but less experienced users won't.

Something I just tested -
a) I imported both "We Be goblins!" and Kandril into the same realm
b) Created one view "Not Goblins" in which the search tag was well - Not Goblins tag.
c) created a second view with only "goblins" stuff
d) showed the Goblins view right clicked on what I wanted to "add" and added it to the "Not goblins" view.

@LWD - maybe add to the GUI of the view creation a quick way to add Global import tags? (both as include and as exclude)

It is really easy to do if you understand tags. You can filter content by the export tag.

For instance the We Be Goblins module is all tagged with the export tag "We Be Goblins" So filtering it out is easy in a search is easy enough.

My concern is that most users won't know that and that filtering isn't the same as actually controlling where the material goes.

I was thinking about a long post regarding "Organizing for Re-Use and Re-Organizing for Use" ... because there are three user "constituencies" involved here.

First is the person inputting data and preparing the export. The organization scheme that works best for that person is one which facilitates input and export.

kbs666's suggestion makes a lot of sense from this perspective.



Second is the person importing the data. That person, the GM, needs to be able to easily see what content is there so as to decide what to use and what to ignore/delete.

kbs666's suggestion also makes sense from this point of view. Ideally, you would want the content to integrate smoothly with the realm, as daplunk asserts.. but before that, you might want to have it self-contained while reviewing it.



The third constituency is the Players in the importing GM's campaign. They will interact with the data in an entirely different way from the exporter/preparer and the importer/GM.

As an example, it may have made perfect sense to both the preparer and the importer/GM that a rumor about NPC1 doing things at Location1 should be a snippet on Base Area 1's Rumors list... but the PLAYERS may relate to it more as a snippet they'd expect to find on NPC1 or Location1.. and even among players they may view it differently. So, in the end, the GM could decide that it needs to be on all 3 and copies the snippet from the one it is on to the other two.

If the Player version is ever to have a viable future, the GM needs to be able to make sure the information is where the players can find it.. not just where it suits his/her own preferences.

Similarly, the location of NPC1 may make sense to be "under" the spot where he is encountered, but that may be too meta for some groups.. and the GM may decide to move him to his "Residence".

The importing GM needs to be aware that the content is not carved in stone and is available to modify. This is the main strength of Realm Works vs PDFs.. a PDF is fixed content.. Realm Works can be modified ... both to suit the standards of the game it is used in, and to reflect changes in that game as it goes on.

I have to agree - there should be a way to link a snippet to more than one container - not by creating copies but having a link to each container. I'd like to see the player 'view' also get the ability for the players to have a small section of their own where they can drag and drop links to stuff - it would really let them customize a spot where they can organize their own notes.

No two people take notes the same way, or organize their thoughts the same way.

If the above could happen it would be *huge*.

But some of that already exists, or is planned to.

The snippets will link to each Topic automatically. What you're proposing is not "linking" in the sense that Realm Works uses the word but making Snippets independent of Topics and only loosely connected to them so as to allow more than one "home" or "site" per Snippet.

Player View is a GM-version tool that allows the GM to show something to the Players "live at the table". The Player version of Realm Works is the same software as the GM version; it is the Players' accounts that limit their functionality. The Player version of the software allows for the creation of User Notes... which should link to revealed Topics just as the GM's does.

I wish I could speak with more certainty on that point, but my players refused to use it, so I don't know for sure what state that's in.