Time, Timelines and Past Events

[craghammer]

I've been playing around with timeline and calendar too, and I agree on the general issue that the Gregorian Calendar is not very useful.

I'm trying out 2 approaches now (for Forgotten Realms)

1) Use the calendar as is, but use only Year. So if my calendar date is 1491 DR, i just set 1/1/1491 as the date
2) Historical Events - using the eventslist, I create one entry for each Year and add the major events there. It makes it (at least) possible to look at a year (maybe improve it to add months too) and see events related to that year
.

 

[GuernseyMan]

I'm running three campaigns at the moment two of which need custom calendars so I have to use Excel as well.

To have my usual rant about calendars:

"Everything shown is from the current version of Realm Works, which is in the hands of our Beta team right now. Here's a summary of the most important features:"

"Create custom calendars for your world. Link multiple calendars together and see how all the dates translate to your master calendar. Calendars can reflect different in-game cultures, lunar calendars, and worlds. "

Which was two and a half years ago so I'm not holding my breath.

 

[MNBlockHead]

I'm holding my breath until the CM, after which RW has indicated they will release another survey. At THAT time, I'm not holding my breath and will be quite vocal. That said, lot's of use were vocal about calendars during the last survey and the silent majority didn't agree with us.

 

[ArgoForg]

I'm holding my breath until the CM, after which RW has indicated they will release another survey. At THAT time, I'm not holding my breath and will be quite vocal. That said, lot's of use were vocal about calendars during the last survey and the silent majority didn't agree with us.

I'm hopeful this time around the responses are a bit more weighted toward the GM's, or better, have surveys with options for GM's and for Players. I was admittedly disappointed with the responses from the last survey and underwhelmed at something so seemingly ancillary as journals being the major step forward when calendars were adverted in the kickstarter and print/export seemed like such an obvious necessity. But when it comes out, I'll be doing much the same as you and voting (and possibly campaigning).

 

[MNBlockHead]

I'm hopeful this time around the responses are a bit more weighted toward the GM's . . . .

I thought about writing the same thing in my earlier response, but there was a lengthy discussion after the first survey about this and Rob explained the business reasons for taking the survey the way they did. Perhaps once the CM and Journals are released, the business strategy will change to give far more weight to GMs, including GMs who have not bought RW because it doesn't meet their needs (esp. printing).

I know that there are more players than GMs, but no player is going to buy RW if their GM's don't use it.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

I know that there are more players than GMs, but no player is going to buy RW if their GM's don't use it.

This.

 

[Dark Lord Galen]

I know that there are more players than GMs, but no player is going to buy RW if their GM's don't use it.

This.

Couldn't have put it better..... but lets not confuse the issue with the "facts"... *wink* The last "survey logic" seemed to overlook that, and has produced nearly zero todate of those "surveyed items" discussed. We can only wait and hope for "soon" to arrive.... soon.

 

[MNBlockHead]

...has produced nearly zero todate of those "surveyed items" discussed. We can only wait and hope for "soon" to arrive.... soon.

To be fair, some HUGE changes have happened on the back end that needed to happen before the Content Market and Web access could go forward. It is possible that if they developed other features before the very nature of content formatting was updated could have created big development headaches. I'm not a developer, so I don't know.

I am confident, however, in stating that focusing on anything other than the content market at this time would be poor business. It is hard to wait for progress on other features while they work on the CM. The CM presents some major development challenges and is taking longer than anyone would like. But they have to get it right. If they release a CM that everyone pans, they might not easily get a second chance with content creators.

 

[AEIOU]

This thread is for time, timelines and past event management without calendars implemented. It seeks solutions to a known shortcoming. Please create a new thread if you wish to discuss other matters. Thank you for keeping on topic.

 

[Dark Lord Galen]

To be fair, some HUGE changes have happened on the back end that needed to happen before the Content Market and Web access could go forward. ..............I am confident, however, in stating that focusing on anything other than the content market at this time would be poor business. It is hard to wait for progress on other features while they work on the CM. The CM presents some major development challenges and is taking longer than anyone would like. But they have to get it right. If they release a CM that everyone pans, they might not easily get a second chance with content creators.

Quite true and Point Taken

This thread is for time, timelines and past event management without calendars implemented. It seeks solutions to a known shortcoming. Please create a new thread if you wish to discuss other matters. Thank you for keeping on topic.

True AEIOU, Apologies.... Like others I have reconciled to utilizing excel to manage that since I had utilized it long before the advent of RW....
With my campaign, I have 6 calendars running in unison (Several Racial types, one "common" calendar, and a lunar) . With some creative formulas I have it convert from one to the other. Happy to share this methodology thru PM if any are interested...

 

[Teresa]

I also use Excel and deal with a long time span: my calendar starts roughly about 9700BCE on the spring equinox, and from then on I have to relate it to the Gregorian calendar (all the way to about 2500CE). My biggest fear with RW is how to make the transition, as my months depend on the solstices and equinoxes which depend on the Earth's perihelion and aphelion (I have managed some approximated data and created a formula to get my months duration in Excel)

I wonder how well RW calendar will deal with these seemingly random duration variations and if it will never really allow me to let go of the Excel file.

 

[joepacelli]

Does RW have the ability to execute external applications. If so I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to build a standalone calendar app that could be launched from RW.
I know it's not the same as it being integrated into the product itself, but it may work.

I myself started to develop my own Campaign Management software a few years ago when I played 4th edition.
I had a calendar system within my app, allowing you to define everything;
Seasons
Months
Days per month
Hours per day
Minutes

But I got too focused on being able to import character and creature data and then I stopped playing 4th edition and switched to Pathfinder.

My gaming group is not really interested in RW and the only reason I've not purchased it yet is we are finishing up RotRL module now and not sure what we plan to do next.

If we plan to play Pathfinder and they want me to run another campaign, then I will definitely purchase it.
But if someone else wants to GM a different game of even Pathfinder and I become a player, then I will wait until the time comes and I need to purchase it.

 

[MNBlockHead]

Yes, you can launch an external app, but I don't know that you would be able to have it write back to RW. What I looked into a while back was having an app where I could input one date and it would spit out the dates in the other calendar systems, so I could easily cut and past in RW. I ended up just using a spreadsheet instead.