Player Character Limited Control
 

Ok. I'll admit that this might be in there and I just haven't seen it because I have only been a DM with RW so far.

Anyway I think that it would be good to have a way for the DM to mark characters to allow the players to be able to access the character and add snippets. Then when they sync it highlights for the DM to approve, reject, or modify. This would allow the PCs to be added and then the players to make notes on them. Maybe even allow the visibility button to indicate to the DM if they want the rest of the party to see it.

Player journals and such have been requested and are being worked on. They are just ahead of calendars on the to do list and may be introduced about the same time or shortly after the Content Market.

* The term "shortly" has not been defined but is intended to imply a reasonable timeframe.

** The term "reasonable" has not been defined.

Aeiou:

:-)

Player journals are very different than allowing someone else to edit your realm data. I guess a player could create a journal entry and put their character sheet in it, but it's definitely not the same as a general topic.

Multiple editors for a realm, even just multiple editors for limited topics with DM approval, did not make the planned features list. I would have liked this one too, not a fan of the planned implementation of player journals. But I do have to say that implementing multiple editors and what they can edit would be a HUGE undertaking so I'm not surprised it's been tabled.

Allowing a player to add their own snippet to an existing topic would be nice (for them to add their own notes about the topic).

Perhaps with a flag to say if the note is visible to other players or only to the GM.

If only the creating player is able to edit the snippet then it will simplify management of ownership and tracking modifications to that snippet.

It would probably be sensible to only allow text snippets to be added (for players to add notes), rather than adding any type of snippet (which would seem to then support multiple GMs in a single realm).

That was what I was thinking. Abs have it to where when the DM syncs they flag for his/her approval and then once he/her syncs it is visible to all or not depending on if it is flagged. Also allow the DM to modify the snippet.

Also maybe allow players to send notes to other PCs and NPCs that only they can see.

Let's see what player journals are before we ask for more. I really need some sort of player interaction with RW and I also what is on the schedule for right after Journals.

We have had two different feature requests along these lines...

http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=50414
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=48917

Feel free to peruse them at your leisure.

The issue Ladyofdragons is referring to is called "concurrent updates".

If two persons are changing the same data "object" in the database at the same time, ONE of them is going to lose his/her work.

All of the means of allowing this kind of thing would require constant on-line access to the shared data.. in order to coordinate who is making changes at any given time, only one user can have "write" access, and all others must wait for that user to finish, commit his/her changes, and release "write" access to others.

The alternatives are things like lost updates. The Player makes a note on the Topic, and syncs to the server. Then the GM makes a change to the same Topic using the version the player started with (before the player's changes), then syncs. The GM's changes replace those of the player, and the change the player made is lost. The player, and anyone else who sync'd after the player but before the GM, would see the player's changed version.. until they sync after the GM's changes are sync'd, and then everyone sees the GM's data.

Otherwise, if the GM's data doesn't "rule the roost", the varying saves of the data by various players could each replace the GM's and each others... especially bad if multiple players made changes building on each other while the GM was preparing changes ... then a series, almost a conversation, of changes, get wiped out.

So the way to prevent that kind of crazy confusion is to allow NO ONE other than the GM to make changes to Realm Content.

The Player Journals should wind up being something excluded from this.. each Player owns his/her Journal, instead of the GM... but the end result may or may not be something the Players can share with others in the Realm... revealing content is very much the GM's role, so the Journals may not enter that area (who knows at this point.. that's just a guess).

So Players adding content to Topics is problematic, and would (as I said) require LoneWolf to reverse the commitment that access to the server is only *required* at Realm creation, and make it required at all times.

I am not speaking for LoneWolf in any way. I am speaking as someone who has designed, built, and operated a database application managing multiple users making changes concurrently. As soon as you start allowing more than one person to edit a piece of data, you guarantee that some of them will be getting a message "your changes could not be saved because another change has already been made", or that some changes get wiped out in favor of others. Since neither of those is good for the product , LoneWolf has (has far) chosen the safer course of allowing ONLY the GM to make changes.

I can understand the problems with each syncing at different times and it sounds kind of like the player journal is kind of what I was thinking of. I place for players to make notes on their PC that then transmit to the DM and then the DM works with.