Calendars
I could be doing something wrong, and I'm prepared to be told that I am, but quite often when I need to insert a date my calendar will have reset itself to year 20,000.
It takes a little while to click through to the dates I need (today 1923 but sometimes I have to go back to 1400). Is there any way of programming RW so that it automatically goes to the year specified in some kind of setting? That would be really useful. |
A fully fledged calendar function including custom calendars will soon(TM) be implemented. I.e. we have been waiting for improvements of this feature since the beginning of time. Many things are already prepared in the code, but - as far as I know - the GUI has to be completely overhauled. As we have been told, a programmer will have to work at least a complete month on it. Since RW understandably needs the revenue, the calendar features will have to wait until after the opening of the content market.
:( So, all we can do is wait more or less patiently, remined the good folks at Lone Wolf of our needs regularly, and hope. |
The calendar as it exists now is a mess. I try to avoid using it as much as possible.
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You can make your own quite easily. Not ideal but its a work around.
https://i.imgur.com/LZbOnNH.png |
I did find a calendar tool I can use as workaround.
https://fantasy-calendar.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFvY...ature=youtu.be It does almost all I want. But the tool
:( Hopefully, when the Custom Calendar feature finally arrives, it will work somewhat like this, including the settings for sunrise and sunset (on a variety of worlds) and weather. :D |
I am boarderline given up on the calendar and the content market. *sigh*
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at this point i would rather have the Gregorian calendar removed from realm works entirely and any drop down menus for date or time span to just be text boxes.
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would be a good workaround :)
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Regarding sunrises and sunsets throughout the year, there is one other option I hope RW includes one day: An easy integration of axial tilt, i.e. I enter the axial tilt of a given game world into a field of the Calendar GUI and the tool uses it to calculate the day legnths. |
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:o:) |
To determine the length of a day, you need to know the axial tilt, the latitude of where you want to know the length of a day, and the calendar day you want to know the day length of.
To determine time of sunrise and sunset, you additionally need to know either the absolute longitude, or at least the relative longitude within the band for which the time zone applies (in fantasy world terms, there would have to be a location that is the standard to which regional times are defined). In a world without standards-setting bodies, this could be very chaotic, where a large, powerful realm might have its capital govern the time standard and every other location within the sway of this realm would have its time anchored to that. So, in the very east of such a realm (assuming counterclockwise rotation of the planet relative to the ecliptic), the sun might rise at 3AM (using an earth-like time scale), while it might rise at 12PM in the very west end (for a large realm, e.g.). Remember, even on earth, there are some locations that observe a daylight savings time and some that don't; locations where there are 30 minute time zones and hour time zones; and locations where time zones are widely distorted from a strictly longitudinal basis for the sake of convenience [usually so a small country does not need to have separate time zones]. Another common practice in fantasy cultures would be to reset your chronometer (mechanism would vary depending upon whether the chronometer is a sundial, hourglass, or mechanical device) to some standard reticle value when the sun first touches the horizon (or when the first cock crows, the first cricket chirps, or some other observable phenomenon). And this all assumes there is only one sun in the system. If Realmworks is attempting to capture such aspects within its calendar system, it is no wonder it is taking so long to develop. |
Yes, I know it is a rather complex topic, so I am hoping only for an approximating solution to be integrated someday.
My current work-around tool does do just that (from minute 6:00 onwards): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFvY...ature=youtu.be Quote:
But it is incredibly usefull dealing with spot/observe test modificators, nocturnal creatures, magic cycles, tracking of seasons (e.g. on different worlds) and the like. And, this is the feature request / wish section, after all. |
Nice job on that, by the way. I'd love to see all of this in Realmworks, but I have my doubts....
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I am by no means the author of that very fine tool. Quote:
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https://i.imgur.com/dZyqTCB.png |
Keep in mind every campaign world won't have axial tilt.
The Known World from a Song of Fire and Ice does not have axial tilt in a way that can explain its seasons in any way that can be understood by humans for instance. |
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Or maybe it is just me? |
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@daplunk:
Much better - thank you! |
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The only way the Known World works, beyond a handwave of "its just magic," is if the Known World's orbit is far more complicated than can be easily described. Perhaps it is actually co-orbiting two Jovian class giants which are themselves tidally locked together so that the Known World spins in some wild and extraordinarily complicated dance between the 2 planets as they spin around the parent star. This could result in long periods where the world was closer into the Goldilocks zone, summer, and farther out in the Goldilocks Zone, winter, or even periods where it was mostly occluded by one or the other Jovian resulting not in so much an eclipse but in long periods in the planets penumbra. I'm sure if you give the fellows at JPL a little while they could come up with a model of such a planetary system that might actually be stable. I'm just not sure how human life could survive on such a place. |
Regardless of published works, Axial Tilt can be meaningless to some users anyway... such as my fantasy world where it is a flat "plate" that the gods drive the chariots of the sun and moon over each day and night.
If such a thing were implemented, I would hope it would not be in such a way that it was forced on those who do not care for such details. In other words, Keep It Simple (I won't call anyone Stupid until they earn it, though). |
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EDIT: Never mind, I found your response with the working link. |
I just wanted to say wow on the recommendation for https://fantasy-calendar.com It's extraordinary!
For what people have to pay for Realm Works I'd hope their development team would catch on to an obvious functional need requested several years ago. Devs! Get on this! Even offer to the developers of that site a solid cash amount to port in the functionality and tie it to your timeline. Years, moon phases, calendar events, Then get the timeline function to let people pick custom years and setup eras. There's a need for us world builders! |
For what we pay for RealmWorks we get a very useful and feature-rich campaign manager. We are not owed anything else. Of course, it behooves LWD to continue to improve the product, especially if they want us to pay for cloud subscriptions and to buy content from the content market.
Calendars have long been asked for, a desire fueled by it being a possible feature that was highlighted in the Kickstarter (if I remember correctly). There is a very vocal group of us that have been hounding LWD for this for years. What is painful is that much of the work has already been done, you can even see it in screen shots from early beta versions. But they have not released it as it is not end-user friendly yet. Unfortunately for us world builders who care about custom calendars, for most users this is apparently not a priority. Other features have been voted for over calendars. Also, custom calendars do not seem to be enough of a competitive advantage nor something that is going to draw lots of new users and drive much revenue. No, I don't have any numbers to back this up. Just conjecture on my part based on years of conversation with other users and the devs in this forum. LWD is a small company and they are facing stiff competition from Web-based campaign management systems and from VTT companies that are moving into campaign management. I would guess that get the Web version up and running is a high priority as is taking the Content Market to the next step where content creators can post their own material for sale. Then you have individual player reveal, enhanced and customizable pins, and many more features that have equally vocal users. Over the years, I've come to accept that custom calendars may not be seen for a long time in RealmWorks, if ever. If it happens, it'll be a nice surprise, but don't hold your breath. |
Calendars are a significant feature of the Kickstarter and the feature was not just a possible one.
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I understand that some people are really resigned to this, some have developed work-arounds, and some people really don't care, but it's an important part of serious campaign management. I'm particularly surprised (and somewhat concerned) by users' apparent resignation, given their past posts on the matter.
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Again, just my two cents. ~Ash |
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I've basically ditched using custom calendars in my current campaigns. But it is heartening to see the argument resurface. Now that content market is finally how, there is renewed hope at continued development. Maybe custom calendars with come to be after all. |
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I continue to use it, because it has many useful features, but without the calendars many of them remain somewhat shallow: Quote:
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Here's a summary of the most important features: (emphasis mine)Lone Wolf was pretty clear that Realm Works was essentially done and in beta; the Kickstarter was identified as being mainly for additional $$ to help with the cloud features and the Content Market (which were not included in that list of features). Everything in that long features list is implemented, except for Custom Calendars. I hope now that the Content Market is finally released that LW will return their attention to the calendars. I'm just sayin'. |
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Selective reveals
I'd really like to be able to choose which players get to see what.
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Given the planned development arc for Realm Works, I would like to strongly encourage release of at least a "beta" version of calendaring that supports creation of multiple calendars tied to a common time unit and the ability to link Topics to one (or more) calendars for the creation of a timeline that can be used to plot future events and ensure historical events are kept in the correct order.
Even if the interface is unfinished it would represent a form of completion for one of the outstanding KickStarter goals. While there are other features I would like to have, within the context of Realm Work's current development status I believe this would greatest positive impact for developers - both game masters and authors. |
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The last discussion about it was two months ago: https://forums.wolflair.com/showthre...=calendar+beta |
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