Issues with the player view tools

[kthomasms]

So wondering if anyone feels the same way, but I find it rather cumbersome to add something tot he player view. The fact that it is so many clicks to get something up there is kind of odd. I was playing with a batch of friends last night and it was my first time using the player view tools. The first thing I tried to share was an image. It took 5 clicks to get the image to appear. First, I had to reveal the topic, then the section, then open the image, then reveal the image, then go into player view to reveal the image again to the table. Just was not a good user experience.

Now please don't take this as a dig against Realm Works. I have found it super useful to plan out my campaign. It was easy to understand and pick up. I would love to see that same ease translate into the game session as well.

Thoughts? Was I doing something dumb?

 

[davidp]

One of the intents behind Realm Works and revealing information is to try and prevent accidentally revealing more than you intended. That is why we have things implemented that by default, things are not revealed and you have to perform an explicit action to reveal it.

Now, assuming you were revealing a smart image, one major purpose of smart images are to support incremental reveal which is why you have to navigate to the smart image to perform that incremental reveal. If you were wanting to show the whole image, then a simple image would be a better choice and would allow you to eliminate revealing the image as you just need to reveal the topic and snippet and then you can right-click and select "Show in Player View".

We can certainly look at streamlining some of this in the future.

 

[gloranphile]

One thing I do is when writing up a new Topic, I pre-reveal the sections the players might encounter when they come across the topic itself, that way I can just reveal the topic as a whole with one click.

I do hear you regarding having to add the section (smart image or simple image) to the player view, then having to click around to get it up on my external monitor during play. One thing I do to get around this is to add a series of items that the players will encounter each session to the Player View, un-revealed, then as they encounter them, reveal them individually. Hope this helps!

 

[kthomasms]

One of the intents behind Realm Works and revealing information is to try and prevent accidentally revealing more than you intended. That is why we have things implemented that by default, things are not revealed and you have to perform an explicit action to reveal it.

Now, assuming you were revealing a smart image, one major purpose of smart images are to support incremental reveal which is why you have to navigate to the smart image to perform that incremental reveal. If you were wanting to show the whole image, then a simple image would be a better choice and would allow you to eliminate revealing the image as you just need to reveal the topic and snippet and then you can right-click and select "Show in Player View".

We can certainly look at streamlining some of this in the future.

I figured that this was the reason you guys built it that way. I would say that a better UX would be to prompt a user with an are you sure message once they choose to reveal something that warns them players will see it immediately. I would then give users the option to disable the message, but this way users would have less clicks to display things but you still achieve the same cautionary step.

In regards to the image example I gave. I was using a simple image. That still required me to perform 6 clicks. I might be able to reduce the clicks if you can confirm something for me. Do I have to reveal the Topic, Section, Snippet, Open the Image, Reveal the Image, Open the player view, and reveal it again in player view or am I missing something?

 

[kthomasms]

One thing I do is when writing up a new Topic, I pre-reveal the sections the players might encounter when they come across the topic itself, that way I can just reveal the topic as a whole with one click.

I do hear you regarding having to add the section (smart image or simple image) to the player view, then having to click around to get it up on my external monitor during play. One thing I do to get around this is to add a series of items that the players will encounter each session to the Player View, un-revealed, then as they encounter them, reveal them individually. Hope this helps!

Thanks gloranphile. Those are some good tips for a work around. I will try that next time until LWD can get to smoothing this out. I will say I am looking forward to player view, and can live with this to get it out the door.

 

[davidp]

I figured that this was the reason you guys built it that way. I would say that a better UX would be to prompt a user with an are you sure message once they choose to reveal something that warns them players will see it immediately. I would then give users the option to disable the message, but this way users would have less clicks to display things but you still achieve the same cautionary step.

I'll point this out to our UX guy for reviewing the work-flow. He may have other ideas in mind, instead.

In regards to the image example I gave. I was using a simple image. That still required me to perform 6 clicks. I might be able to reduce the clicks if you can confirm something for me. Do I have to reveal the Topic, Section, Snippet, Open the Image, Reveal the Image, Open the player view, and reveal it again in player view or am I missing something?

You should only have to reveal the topic (one click), reveal the snippet containing the simple image (second click), right-click on the thumbnail (third click), select "Show in Player View" from menu (fourth click), then click the "Show" button on the player view tab window for the image (fifth click).

If it is a smart image, then you have to go to the smart image and select to reveal the whole image as it has a reveal mask associated with it.

 

[morval]

I'll point this out to our UX guy for reviewing the work-flow. He may have other ideas in mind, instead.



You should only have to reveal the topic (one click), reveal the snippet containing the simple image (second click), right-click on the thumbnail (third click), select "Show in Player View" from menu (fourth click), then click the "Show" button on the player view tab window for the image (fifth click).

If it is a smart image, then you have to go to the smart image and select to reveal the whole image as it has a reveal mask associated with it.

A suggestion might be if you could simply right click the reveal circle in an article and click "Reveal in player view"? Then its just one click to reveal things to the player view.

I kinda found it strange that after revealing an item I then had to go to player view, show more content. But I think I understand the reason, you might not just want everything revealed showing up, too much clutter/info? But if you had the option to automatically add a reveal to the player view without going in there it would save a lot of clicks.

 

[Joe]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. This one has bothered me as well but simply hasn't been as high priority as other things. I've gone and added it to my personal hit-list now though, so hopefully we'll get a breather at some point in the near future to address it.

 

[Ladyofdragons]

A suggestion might be if you could simply right click the reveal circle in an article and click "Reveal in player view"? Then its just one click to reveal things to the player view.

I kinda found it strange that after revealing an item I then had to go to player view, show more content. But I think I understand the reason, you might not just want everything revealed showing up, too much clutter/info? But if you had the option to automatically add a reveal to the player view without going in there it would save a lot of clicks.

+1 for this approach. If RW had to then reveal the topic (and therefore all other revealed items in the topic) for it to display, show me a warning (that I can disable for the future) that everything else green in the topic gets revealed in PV too and I'd be just fine and dandy with that.

 

[kthomasms]

+1 for this approach. If RW had to then reveal the topic (and therefore all other revealed items in the topic) for it to display, show me a warning (that I can disable for the future) that everything else green in the topic gets revealed in PV too and I'd be just fine and dandy with that.

Yeah. I like this setup. Much smoother transition and less fumbling around during a session.