Rather than forcing a re-download (or in addition to if you do keep doing that), how about including a last updated date (or even just last uploaded date) on the Adventures list? I imagine most GMs have a folder that they've setup with adventures (I know I do) and will use those - I have no issue redownloading adventures that have been updated. With the current setup, I'm likely to miss exactly the type updates you want people to have as I will just download the module and immediately put it in the trash (rather than renaming each file (that likely hasn't changed) again to match how I setup my files).

Also, it looks like the Release Dates are wrong for most of the modules currently up (a few appear correct but most just have 2013-11-01)...

I was on the old boards a lot (starting about a year ago) and I was unaware of any reporting system except for Critical Event Summary which is implicitly time-limited. If GMs were supposed to file reports outside of CES, I was unaware of it.

I'm fine with collecting player emails. I was just surprised as I don't see anywhere that it says this is necessary (except apparently when you try to go report an event).

Again, I guess it's easy to sum up generally what I'm saying - there needs to be better communication about what is expected for reporting and what needs to be collected (and it needs to be as easy as possible for the GM to do so).

Wait we were supposed to be reporting stuff? (more than what we were doing in order to download mods)

I'm not a huge fan of the system that went up today. I probably wont be until I see an explanation of how things are supposed to work, and what some things mean, and what is intended.

What is the desired work flow for ordering mods?
For creating new events? how far in the future can I order events, can we get some help text on the "event" screen(location defintions, what the event types mean, how long an event is "open")

how do i use the Harvester only check box correctly (it doesn't seem to do anything currently)

what does confirm your seats at an event mean?

do players need to register on the site AND provide me with their username for the site so I can report them at all?

what happens for Events that get canceled or moved

how do I close an event (that might become obvious when the event passes I dont know yet)


To be Clear I support this kind of system, this one seems rather bare bones at the moment regarding instructions.

I apologize that there are few instructions on the site. I tried to make everything as intuitive as possible. (Some places where it is not very intuitive are obvious; like the "confirm your seat" section. But I'll get to that in a moment.) Perhaps I'm just too close to it to properly judge what is and is not intuitive. So here are the answers to your questions...

1. Create an Event where you intend to run the adventure.
2. With that Event as the selected event (on the "Adventures" page) download any/all adventures that you intend to run.
1. Go to the "My Events" page.
2. Select "Create New" in the "Open Events" drop down, then fill in the remaining fields.
3. Click the "Submit" button.
- Events (not Adventures) can be created up to 90 days in advance. (The calendars the pop up when you enter one of the date fields restricts the date selection out to 90 days.) Adventures can be downloaded for an event that is no more than 60 days from the current date. If the Event ends more than 60 days from the current date, it won't show up in the drop down on the Adventures page.
At the moment, it won't do anything, since there are no adventures that would be affected by it. When there are adventures that are only available to Harvesters (One month prior to general release) they will be included in the Adventures grid only if the check box is checked. If the check box is not checked, you (as a Harvester) will see the same list of adventures that everyone else will see.
This, admittedly, is a bit confusing right now. This is part of the potential player rewards system. (i.e. it does not currently exist.) The short answer is that any e-mail address can be reported. Confirming that you were a player at the reported table allows an extra level of validation. Again, the full extent of this feature is not yet realized. And Confirming your seat is not required. But I recommend that players confirm their seats for two reasons. 1. If/When it is implemented, you will have confirmed seats. 2. Confirming your seat is a way to double-check that your table was actually reported and that your e-mail address was correctly entered. Think of it as a safety net for now. Not required, but encouraged.
No. You can report a table using any e-mail address. Your players do not need to be registered users on the site.
If an event is canceled in real life, just leave it. When the date passes, the event will no longer be active and it will drop off of your list of active events. If the event is moved (and I'm assuming that you mean that the date is changed) Simply pull up the event, change the date and click the "process" button. (Note: This feature is not yet implemented. It didn't occur to me that this might be necessary. I'll get it fixed by tomorrow morning.)
It's not necessary to close an event. (If you disagree with that, please let em know why. Maybe you've thought of something that hadn't occurred to me.)
Hopefully this was helpful.


Scott

Tony I have to confess that I have never seen instructions to do this in a mod. Either I just haven't paid attention or its buried somewhere in boiler plate. In the old days there was a questionnaire of 3-8 questions at the end of the module and email addresses of where to send feedback to. There was limited feedback to be sure, but we got at least half a dozen replies for everything the ES did (and sometimes a bit more. Stories of "An Evening of Wealth and Taste" were popular).

Obviously I could find the campaign staff email but without something obvious & in front of me in the mods to solicit & guide feedback I'm already moving on to something else.

Thank you Scott, You've done a bunch of hard work on the website and I appreciate it.

As an aside, my previous email probably came off like a hardass or something similar, I apologize, I'm still working to overcome the way I give criticism to be less harsh ( I personally blame art school )

and Scott, I figured out most of the website just fine, but I put on my Debug/Testing hat and when I do that my skills of intuition (and common sense ) are ignored because it has to be obvious for the least technical person / least intuitive person also.

Follow up questions:

What is the difference between a game day and a convention, is this a use your best judgement scenario? I tend to run events at conventions that are not gaming conventions so they don't get a lot of players, the events I have running at ICON for example, ICON is a sci-fi literature convention, I only expect one table of each mod I'm offering. calling that a convention doesn't seem right.
(in the past a table count was used to determine the difference)

-How long does a venue stick around
-How can I edit or delete venues?
-If i don't need to close an event how long do I have to enter/ confirm table information?
-when are the harvester available events going to be put up, the two intro mods I'm running at ICON for example (walking on eggshells and uhhh the other one that Lindsay is running)
-How about so "Shall ye reap" can we get a placeholder for that so we can report results?

Personally for me the big different between Game Day and Convention is cost. If it's free, I consider it a Game Day. If it's pay to play, it's a Convention. Now there are conventions for which each game is free, but generally you pay to enter the convention.

John

Game Day vs. Convention: To be completely honest, here, I'm kind of borrowing terminology from my RPGA games, years ago. To me, it's pretty much a judgement call whether you've got a large Game Day or a small Convention. Functionally, there's no difference in the system right now. Maybe, at some point, there will need to be a more formal definition in order to utilize some feature or another. But for now, use you best judgement and realize that it's not an important distinction at the moment. (Although I like John's definition, above.)

- venues (Locations) are permanent. If it becomes an issue, I can build in a mechanism to "hide" a location so that it stops showing up on your list. My assumption is that most people will only have 3-4 locations that they use. So I don't expect this to become an issue.

- The duration for event reporting is configured to be 2 weeks from the scheduled End Date of the event. (This is listed on the "Event Reporting" page.) That should be plenty of time to enter the results, I think. Confirming your seat at an event is not time-sensitive. This will list all unconfirmed seats that exist in the system for you.

- I can't speak to when specific events will be available. I'll leave that to campaign staff.

- And I like the idea of a placeholder for So Shall Ye Reap. But again, I'll leave that up to campaign staff.

Scott

OH and a nitpicky thing, can you change the title of the page to some that that starts with "Arcanis" instead of new page, i get confused when looking for it in my browser tabs

Thanks!

Wow, I never noticed that. I'll have that fixed soon.

Scott