Advanced Export Import Question

[AEIOU]

Sorry for derailing this important topic, but when you copy files on your computer and there are conflicts, what happens? Does the computer just automatically create multiple copies? Heck no! There is a GUI that resolves the conflict with user input to determine what do to. We use this functionality every single day.

When there are conflicts in RW import, I expect the following: Append? Overwrite? Ignore new content? Do this action for all additional conflicts?

I have no clue whether this is easy to program; but yes, this is absolutely what is expected. It is not too much to ask for the program to function like every other program we use and the base operating system the program was developed for.

[Mystic Lemur]

Right. I'm not saying I want it to overwrite other topics with the same name, but the option to merge them would be lovely. There might be a hundred "Library" topics, but there's only likely to be one "Candlekeep."

If I've got the "Inner Sea World Guide" and I want to import the Osirion sourcebook, then I certainly don't want to overwrite the duplicate topics. There's likely to be more detail in the new ones, but I want the option of what snippets to keep.

[Bidmaron]

Sorry, didn't catch you meant that as an example. I remember being surprised that someone around as long as you were thought that could happen (which you obviously didn't).

[kbs666]

Originally Posted by Mystic Lemur

Right. I'm not saying I want it to overwrite other topics with the same name, but the option to merge them would be lovely. There might be a hundred "Library" topics, but there's only likely to be one "Candlekeep."

If I've got the "Inner Sea World Guide" and I want to import the Osirion sourcebook, then I certainly don't want to overwrite the duplicate topics. There's likely to be more detail in the new ones, but I want the option of what snippets to keep.

Golarion is the worst of all possible cases. Some topics could come from 4 or 5 sources, at least. The Inner Sea World Guide, the regional sourcebooks, AP's and various modules all might contribute slightly different material about Varisia or Sandpoint, for instance.

[Bidmaron]

And there is no effective way to automatically merge these things. It is likely that each GM would want it done differently even if it could be automated.

[Silveras]

Yeah, Golarion is the "poster child" for the case of merging content. Some years ago I suggested (I think I posted it.. I discard a lot of posts these days because they sound like I am complaining) the same kind of "master skeleton" Realm idea that kbs666 mentioned.. one that has ONLY the names of Topics, Category definitions, and Tag domains specific to Pathfinder.

[AEIOU]

I've been inputting Frog God Game's Lost Lands setting for a while now. I'm excited to merge Razor Coast and The Blight. But I'm also hesitant to import them as they reference places that are referenced multiple times throughout FGG's other releases. They interweave breadcrumbs everywhere and each builds on the others so no one entry has everything. If it takes someone nearly as much time to manually merge content as it takes to enter it from scratch, the value of the content market diminishes dramatically.

I can't even imagine managing Golarion with its bazillion moving pieces as downloaded material that has to be manually merged....

[kbs666]

Originally Posted by Silveras

Yeah, Golarion is the "poster child" for the case of merging content. Some years ago I suggested (I think I posted it.. I discard a lot of posts these days because they sound like I am complaining) the same kind of "master skeleton" Realm idea that kbs666 mentioned.. one that has ONLY the names of Topics, Category definitions, and Tag domains specific to Pathfinder.

The thing is someone at Paizo would have to be committed to RW and really be a power user or hire one of the couple of dozen forum regulars who are to do that. And that would be for product lines they don't consider to be all that important, the player companion and the campaign setting lines are apparently not Paizo's bread and butter, AP's are.

Maybe once the material is released, assuming it is released, the community can refactor it into a single cohesive realm. The same goes for the other major published campaign settings. If people want them to fit together it will likely have to be done as community projects.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

I've been inputting Frog God Game's Lost Lands setting for a while now. I'm excited to merge Razor Coast and The Blight. But I'm also hesitant to import them as they reference places that are referenced multiple times throughout FGG's other releases. They interweave breadcrumbs everywhere and each builds on the others so no one entry has everything. If it takes someone nearly as much time to manually merge content as it takes to enter it from scratch, the value of the content market diminishes dramatically.

I can't even imagine managing Golarion with its bazillion moving pieces as downloaded material that has to be manually merged....

Prepare yourselves, mortals, for my Wall of Text spell!

The issue is only likely to happen if you try to merge material you entered yourself with purchased materials. In the long view, people will probably fall in to one of four groups...

1. people who do it ALL on their own
2. people who purchase some publisher content from the Content Market as a base (such as the Campaign Setting itself) and expand it themselves as they need to (with, for example, the adventures)
3. people who buy everything from the content market and only modify as games go on
4. people who start with DIY content and try to merge in published content that overlaps. This will likely be one of the smaller groups. The "price" of the DIY approach is that mixing it with published content later will take some work. If you go the other way, and DIY expansions on published content, it should be much easier.

As a data point, I have entered manually for my own use:

• Pathfinder Core Rulebook, 150% (yes, I did it twice in separate Realms)
• Bestiary, 10% (work in progress)
• Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition Adventure Path, 100%, including HeroLab portfolios
• Second Darkness Adventure Path, 80%, including HeroLab portfolios (work in progress)
• Inner Sea Primer Player Comnpanion, 100%
• Inner Sea World Guide, 75%
• Inner Sea Races, 1%(work in progress, just started)
• Inner Sea Gods, 30% (work in progress)
• Varisia: Birthplace of Legends Player Companion, 100%
• Magnimar: City of Monuments Pathfinder Campaign Setting, 100%
• Faction Guide Pathfinder Campaign Setting, 60%
• bits and pieces from other sources

Both my Rise of the Runelords and Second Darkness Realms had Adventure Path, World, and Mechanics content (two copies of the Pathfinder rules). I then split the mechanics and story content and merged them into two Realms, one with the combined story content and the other with the combined rules content.

Since then, I have completed the de-duplication process for the Story content. That required about two weeks* (as in.. there isn't as much overlap as you might expect). That's much shorter than the months I spent entering the data in the first place. Currently, that merged Realm is at about 5,000 Topics (I have since added 100% of Into the Darklands as well).

The process was fairly easy.

• Examine each Topic in the pair
• Decide which to keep
• Move any necessary snippets from the one to be discarded to the one to be retained
• Mark the one to be discarded as such (I used the Suffix for this), and set the linking priority on all names to "Never"
• Visit each INBOUND link (TO this topic) and use the context menu for a link to "Choose another target for all instances" (note: I reported a bug that this does not work for GM Directions). This was the most tedious part of the process.
• Once all inbound links have been re-directed, make sure any Relationships needed are represented on the Topic being kept.
• Delete the unwanted member of the pair.

In short, it wasn't that bad... and I doubt that merging published content will be all that much worse.

EDIT: * Two weeks for me as someone semi-retired and not balancing it with a job or raising kids. Others should expect the process to take longer.. but it wasn't all that bad in the end.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by kbs666

The thing is someone at Paizo would have to be committed to RW and really be a power user or hire one of the couple of dozen forum regulars who are to do that. And that would be for product lines they don't consider to be all that important, the player companion and the campaign setting lines are apparently not Paizo's bread and butter, AP's are.

Maybe once the material is released, assuming it is released, the community can refactor it into a single cohesive realm. The same goes for the other major published campaign settings. If people want them to fit together it will likely have to be done as community projects.

Oh, sure, post while I'm working on my mighty wall of text.

The thing is, unlike rules content (and stat-blocks) (Mechanics content), material from the APs, Player Companions, and Campaign Setting books (Story content) is not open content. Meaning, the Community CANNOT make its own version. All of that content is Paizo's alone to publish as they see fit.. and the version released by LWD under license from them would be the only legal version. Anything else would be a violation of Paizo's rights as owners of the content, subject to legal action, etc.