[BIRTHRIGHT] Is it unreasonable (pbem question)

[greegan]

Is it unreasonable to ask for players that have MS Excel when recruiting
for a pbem game? It does keep record keeping on both sides of the fence
in order. And it would allow the players to exchange a worksheet with
"drawings" of warcards during war turns...

I was hoping for some feedback here.

g

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[Eosin the Red]

Hello,

I have excel, but I think that it is unreasonable to expect others to have
it as well. I have a RTF tablized turn sheet and will be working on a domain
sheet. I would prefer to do it in excel for the auto calc ability but...


If you want to see it - eosin_the_red@cox.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "greegan" <greegan@SHAW.CA>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 9:59 PM
Subject: Is it unreasonable (pbem question)


> Is it unreasonable to ask for players that have MS Excel when recruiting
> for a pbem game? It does keep record keeping on both sides of the fence
> in order. And it would allow the players to exchange a worksheet with
> "drawings" of warcards during war turns...
>
> I was hoping for some feedback here.
>
> g
>
>
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[DanMcSorley]

On Tue, 1 Apr 2003, greegan wrote:
> Is it unreasonable to ask for players that have MS Excel when recruiting
> for a pbem game? It does keep record keeping on both sides of the fence
> in order. And it would allow the players to exchange a worksheet with
> "drawings" of warcards during war turns...

Yes. A spreadsheet doesn`t really provide anything to the game you
wouldn`t get from a plain text sheet. I program for a living, and I
understand the urge to hack on little projects like this, but a
spreadsheet is overkill for something like this.

It`s also a big pain in the ass to refill those damn things out every time
the DM gets antsy and tweaks it again. I`ve been in some pbems where the
domain/character sheet went through a couple revisions before we even
started the game, and you always get that whiney email, "OK, I`ve changed
the domain sheet, you all need to refill it out and send it back to me
within a day or two or I`ll assume you`re unresponsive and drop you from
the game." (I may be exaggerating a bit there. Not much.)
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[Green Knight]

Hi,

I think not. Indeed, I think it would be quite impossible to play my games without excel...

Bjørn
>
> Fra: Eosin the Red <Eosin_the_Red@COX.NET>
> Dato: 2003/04/02 Wed AM 06:22:43 CEST
> Til: BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
> Emne: Re: Is it unreasonable (pbem question)
>
> Hello,
>
> I have excel, but I think that it is unreasonable to expect others to have
> it as well. I have a RTF tablized turn sheet and will be working on a domain
> sheet. I would prefer to do it in excel for the auto calc ability but...
>
>
> If you want to see it - eosin_the_red@cox.net
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "greegan" <greegan@SHAW.CA>
> To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 9:59 PM
> Subject: Is it unreasonable (pbem question)
>
>
> > Is it unreasonable to ask for players that have MS Excel when recruiting
> > for a pbem game? It does keep record keeping on both sides of the fence
> > in order. And it would allow the players to exchange a worksheet with
> > "drawings" of warcards during war turns...
> >
> > I was hoping for some feedback here.
> >
> > g
> >
> >
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Cheers
Bjørn

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[Raesene Andu]

Personally, yes I do think it a little unreasonable to expect everyone to have Excel. You should try to make your pbem as accepting as possible, and allow everyone, even those who don't use office or windows to access your game.

I'd also dispute that it make it makes the game easier to run. If you are using excel then because it can do so much there is a tendency to make your worksheets too complex. The interesting part of a BR pbem game is a plotting and interaction between players not the rules and calculations, they play a very small part.

However, if it is your game, you are free to set any requirements that you desire, and requiring people to have excel is fine if that is what makes your game easier to run and keeps it running longer.

[Peter Lubke]

On Wed, 2003-04-02 at 13:59, greegan wrote:
Is it unreasonable to ask for players that have MS Excel when recruiting
for a pbem game? It does keep record keeping on both sides of the fence
in order. And it would allow the players to exchange a worksheet with
"drawings" of warcards during war turns...

I was hoping for some feedback here.
no it`s not reasonable, but not unreasonable for them to be able to
understand excel - which is not the same thing.

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[Green Knight]

While excel is require to read the Provinces & Holdings file (which lists...province and holding levels ++), they don`t have to KNOW excel at all.

P/H levels are listed much as in the Ruins/Cities etc. books, and reads easily out of the spreadsheet. In addition, each player must be able to read to cells labeled Income and Regnecy and copy the contents over to their domain sheet (which isn`t a spreadsheet).


Cheers
Bjørn

Cheers
Bjørn

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[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Green Knight wrote:

> While excel is require to read the Provinces & Holdings file (which
> lists...province and holding levels ++), they don`t have to KNOW excel
> at all.

Well, if it`s just a matter of *reading*, then why can`t you generate HTML
tables from excel? IMO requiring any specific program, especially one you
have to pay for, is not reasonable -- but requiring any old web browser
should be fine. That said, a note to web designers: a site which requires
graphics and/or javascript to operate properly is a very unfriendly web
site. And as for avoiding having to pay, yes I know about StarOffice and
suchlike -- I could never read excel, rtf, or any other microsoft format
any other way; but the conversion is not perfect, and lots of fancy
formatting gets lost or confused, which occasionally breaks the whole thing.

> P/H levels are listed much as in the Ruins/Cities etc. books, and
> reads easily out of the spreadsheet. In addition, each player must be
> able to read to cells labeled Income and Regnecy and copy the contents
> over to their domain sheet (which isn`t a spreadsheet).

Again, this is just a *table*, not a spreadsheet. You could generate
tab-delimited ASCII which would work just as well, and also be completely
platform-independent.


Ryan Caveney

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[irdeggman]

There are actually "free" viewers for excel, word and powerpoint available from microsoft as downloads. These allow someone to "read" and print files in those formats but not to change anything in the files. Most companies have similar free viewers out there to get people "hooked" on their products.

I agree with Ryan on the sites that "require" additional downloads in order to be viewed properly.:)

[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, irdeggman wrote:

> There are actually "free" viewers for excel, word and powerpoint
> available from microsoft as downloads.

Are they available for Linux? =)

> Most companies have similar free viewers out there to get
> people "hooked" on their products.

Sure -- but at least Adobe gives out acrobat readers for UNIX, too.

> I agree with Ryan on the sites that "require" additional downloads
> in order to be viewed properly. :)

If only more web designers did... sorry Arjan, but I really think you`ve
got to add a text version of that top drop-down bar, so that br.net isn`t
quite so useless in a text browser like lynx -- unlike the massively
unstable and finicky graphical browsers, I`ve never ever had a text
browser crash on me for no apparent reason.


Ryan Caveney

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[Lord Grave]

> Is it unreasonable to ask for players that have MS Excel when recruiting
> for a pbem game? It does keep record keeping on both sides of the fence
> in order. And it would allow the players to exchange a worksheet with
> "drawings" of warcards during war turns...
>

I think it is. I`d use Excel sheets first if I was sure that everyone could view and understand them. I`ve even had people who can`t open DOC files made in Word XP.

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[Lord Grave]

>
> Raesene Andu wrote:
> Personally, yes I do think it a little unreasonable to expect everyone to
> have Excel. You should try to make your pbem as accepting as possible, and
> allow everyone, even those who don`t use office or windows to access your
> game.

If you really wish to use Excel spreadsheets, you can include a link to Microsoft`s free Excel viewer.

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[Lord Grave]

> While excel is require to read the Provinces & Holdings file (which
> lists...province and holding levels ++), they don`t have to KNOW excel at
> all.
>
> P/H levels are listed much as in the Ruins/Cities etc. books, and reads
> easily out of the spreadsheet. In addition, each player must be able to
> read to cells labeled Income and Regnecy and copy the contents over to
> their domain sheet (which isn`t a spreadsheet).
>

Really? I never did that *stupid smile*

I`ll consult you next time I send my turn :-)

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[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Milos Rasic wrote:

> If you really wish to use Excel spreadsheets, you can include a link
> to Microsoft`s free Excel viewer.

Only if it works on old Macs, BeOS, NeXTs, OS/2, VAX/VMS, seventeen
different flavors of UNIX, and every version of Windows back to 3.0.
Universal compatibility is the better goal; Excel is just needless
overkill. Perhaps I am exaggerating slightly for rhetorical effect, but
at the very least you ought to make sure you have, test and advertise a
solution which will run on any operating system currently being sold or
which was popular in the last several years; a Windows-only PBEM is
definitely unreasonable.


Ryan Caveney

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[Peter Lubke]

On Wed, 2003-04-02 at 23:22, Green Knight wrote:
While excel is require to read the Provinces & Holdings file (which lists...
province and holding levels ++), they don`t have to KNOW excel at all.

Sorry - I`ll be more specific (w.r.t. "know") --- their computer has a
program that understands the Excel format and can display it in some
human-readable form. The program need not be Excel (a Microsoft product
bundled within the Office suite, which is horribly over-priced, bloated
and commonly pirated). There are several excellent (and free - in both
senses of the word) alternatives available.

P/H levels are listed much as in the Ruins/Cities etc. books, and reads
easily out of the spreadsheet. In addition, each player must be able to
read to cells labeled Income and Regnecy and copy the contents over to
their domain sheet (which isn`t a spreadsheet).


Cheers
Bjørn

Cheers
Bjørn

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[Birthright-L]

I agree it would be pushing it a bit to expect players to have Excel, for large
ones anyway (and the same version as you do), but I disagree with Daniel that
it`s not worth using spreadsheets in PBEMs. I worked on the False Hopes Campaign
with Christiane and switching to Excel was the decisive factor that allowed her
to go on another year and expand the game from 25 to 40-45 players.

We didn`t ask the players to work with Excel, though. We just input the data and
produced HTML versions of the player`s sheet. Presentation left to be desired,
but it saved us a ton of work. For the PBEM I`m currently working on, even the
holdings will be on the spreadsheet, allowing Excel to generate tax income for
each player and NPC. But I`ll probably export the reports in PDF format rather
than HTML. Much slicker, and the reader`s free anyway.

Robin

----- Original Message -----
From: "daniel mcsorley" <mcsorley@CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 11:24 PM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] Is it unreasonable (pbem question)

|
| Yes. A spreadsheet doesn`t really provide anything to the game you
| wouldn`t get from a plain text sheet. I program for a living, and I
| understand the urge to hack on little projects like this, but a
| spreadsheet is overkill for something like this.
|
| It`s also a big pain in the ass to refill those damn things out every time
| the DM gets antsy and tweaks it again. I`ve been in some pbems where the
| domain/character sheet went through a couple revisions before we even
| started the game, and you always get that whiney email, "OK, I`ve changed
| the domain sheet, you all need to refill it out and send it back to me
| within a day or two or I`ll assume you`re unresponsive and drop you from
| the game." (I may be exaggerating a bit there. Not much.)
| --.

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[ConjurerDragon]

Raesene Andu wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at: http://www.birthright.net/read.php?TID=1521
>Raesene Andu wrote:
> Personally, yes I do think it a little unreasonable to expect everyone to have Excel. You should try to make your pbem as accepting as possible, and allow everyone, even those who don`t use office or windows to access your game.
>I`d also dispute that it make it makes the game easier to run. If you are using excel then because it can do so much there is a tendency to make your worksheets too complex. The interesting part of a BR pbem game is a plotting and interaction between players not the rules and calculations, they play a very small part.
>However, if it is your game, you are free to set any requirements that you desire, and requiring people to have excel is fine if that is what makes your game easier to run and keeps it running longer.
>
To add to this I say that I LOVE the excel character sheet scion/hero
forge from Travis Dooms pages to create my character.
And that while I do not have Excel at home, but only at work where I
might use it privately only outside of business hours...
If requiring excel it should be worth it.
bye
Michael Romes

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[ryancaveney]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, Robin Cantin wrote:

> I disagree with Daniel that it`s not worth using spreadsheets in PBEMs.

I think that spreadsheets can indeed help the *DM*; I just don`t think
they help the players much individually. ISTM the main thrust of Dan`s
complaint can be avoided if the input from the players can be in a
constant, standard, *simple* format (plain text is great!), and only the
DM needs to know how or even whether that data is used to tweak the
invisible (to the players) master spreadsheet that records everything.
I don`t think he`d object much to that.

I`ve occasionally had the urge to work up a nice big CGI program to
dynamically generate domain holding web pages from a giant SQL database,
but I freely admit this is serious overkill and just for personal
amusement unless I were trying to run a PBEM with hundreds of regents. =)

> We didn`t ask the players to work with Excel, though. We just input
> the data and produced HTML versions of the player`s sheet.

And this I think is perfectly fine and sensible.

> allowing Excel to generate tax income for each player and NPC.

Yes, this is where the computer truly shines: rolling buckets of dice in
the blink of an eye. It`s not *really* random, of course, but it`s close
enough for government work.

> But I`ll probably export the reports in PDF format rather
> than HTML. Much slicker, and the reader`s free anyway.

And the free reader is available for lots of OSes! =) Yes, I know I`m a
broken record on this topic, but do I see a real need in this thread for
"there is something other than windows" advocacy.


Ryan Caveney

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[DanMcSorley]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:
> I`ve occasionally had the urge to work up a nice big CGI program to
> dynamically generate domain holding web pages from a giant SQL database,
> but I freely admit this is serious overkill and just for personal
> amusement unless I were trying to run a PBEM with hundreds of regents. =)

You mean like this one?
http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php

It does html tables and plaintext formatting, though not well
http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.ph...alm=Baruk-Azhik (http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php?realm=Baruk-Azhik)
http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.ph...Azhik&mode=text (http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php?realm=Baruk-Azhik&mode=text)

I had all the holdings in a mysql database for my own use, and then I
wrote that while I was playing with PHP, oh, probably a year ago. I get
way more use out of the database than from the webpage, really, but it`s
interesting to play with.
--
Communication is possible only between equals.
Daniel McSorley- mcsorley@cis.ohio-state.edu

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[ryancaveney]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, daniel mcsorley wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Apr 2003, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:
> > I`ve occasionally had the urge to work up a nice big CGI program to
> > dynamically generate domain holding web pages from a giant SQL database,
>
> You mean like this one?
> http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php

Yes, exactly! =)

> I had all the holdings in a mysql database for my own use, and then I
> wrote that while I was playing with PHP, oh, probably a year ago.

My embryonic version of the same is MySQL and Perl. I`d been doing the
same basic task for the company I was working for several years ago, so it
was a natural adaptation; the part I liked best was having every entry in
the table be a link to a different data table.

> I get way more use out of the database than from the webpage, really,
> but it`s interesting to play with.

Oh, definitely! Any chance you`d be willing to mail me your db?
Not having to type it all in again would be a big help.


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@cybercom.net>
To: "Robin Cantin" <rcantin@INTERLOG.COM>
Cc: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 11:19 AM
Subject: Re: Is it unreasonable (pbem question)
| > I disagree with Daniel that it`s not worth using spreadsheets in PBEMs.
|
| I think that spreadsheets can indeed help the *DM*; I just don`t think
| they help the players much individually. ISTM the main thrust of Dan`s
| complaint can be avoided if the input from the players can be in a
| constant, standard, *simple* format (plain text is great!), and only the
| DM needs to know how or even whether that data is used to tweak the
| invisible (to the players) master spreadsheet that records everything.
| I don`t think he`d object much to that.

We agree, then. It may be a time saver for the DM, but not really helps the
players.

| > But I`ll probably export the reports in PDF format rather
| > than HTML. Much slicker, and the reader`s free anyway.
|
| And the free reader is available for lots of OSes! =) Yes, I know I`m a
| broken record on this topic, but do I see a real need in this thread for
| "there is something other than windows" advocacy.

Absolutely. Very practical, especially since I`m probably going to run the PBEM
from a Mac.

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[Birthright-L]

Isn`t there a free program that can read excel? I`m almost positive I had it at
one point. That would solve the problem for most players, but cross-platform
compatibility could continue to be a problem.

Robin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Green Knight" <bjorn.sorgjerd@C2I.NET>
To: <BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] Is it unreasonable (pbem question)


| While excel is require to read the Provinces & Holdings file (which
lists...province and holding levels ++), they don`t have to KNOW excel at all.
|
| P/H levels are listed much as in the Ruins/Cities etc. books, and reads easily
out of the spreadsheet. In addition, each player must be able to read to cells
labeled Income and Regnecy and copy the contents over to their domain sheet
(which isn`t a spreadsheet).
|

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[Lord Grave]

> > I`ve occasionally had the urge to work up a nice big CGI program to
> > dynamically generate domain holding web pages from a giant SQL database,
> > but I freely admit this is serious overkill and just for personal
> > amusement unless I were trying to run a PBEM with hundreds of regents.
> =)
>
> You mean like this one?
> http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php
>
> It does html tables and plaintext formatting, though not well
> http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.ph...alm=Baruk-Azhik (http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php?realm=Baruk-Azhik)
> http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.ph...Azhik&mode=text (http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php?realm=Baruk-Azhik&mode=text)


Those links don`t work, but I`d really like to see your work. I`m doing something similar(see below) and any advice would be useful.

>
> I had all the holdings in a mysql database for my own use, and then I
> wrote that while I was playing with PHP, oh, probably a year ago. I get
> way more use out of the database than from the webpage, really, but it`s
> interesting to play with.

Maybe you were doing wrong things? PHP is the ultimate scripting language for data manipulation, especially when combined with JavaScript interface and powered by Smarty template engine.

Check http://members.lycos.co.uk/itsod2/index.php for preview of what I have done for now. Of course, non-players will not be able to see player-specific output, but there`s nothing I can do about that except offer people to join ItSoD2 ;-)

Anyway, this site will in the future(close future, I hope) feature online domain sheets, online battles and online turn submission. PHP certainly doesn`t have a name as cool as Cold Fusion, and it isn`t as simple to learn as ASP, but it is certainly the best.

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[Lord Grave]

> > > I`ve occasionally had the urge to work up a nice big CGI program to
> > > dynamically generate domain holding web pages from a giant SQL
> database,
> > > but I freely admit this is serious overkill and just for personal
> > > amusement unless I were trying to run a PBEM with hundreds of regents.
> > =)
> >
> > You mean like this one?
> > http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php
> >
> > It does html tables and plaintext formatting, though not well
> > http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.ph...alm=Baruk-Azhik (http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php?realm=Baruk-Azhik)
> > http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.ph...Azhik&mode=text (http://24.26.130.212:81/cgi-bin/cerilia.php?realm=Baruk-Azhik&mode=text)
>
>


Those links don`t work, but I`d really like to see your work. I`m doing
something similar(see below) and any advice would be useful.


>
> >
> > I had all the holdings in a mysql database for my own use, and then I
> > wrote that while I was playing with PHP, oh, probably a year ago. I get
> > way more use out of the database than from the webpage, really, but it`s
> > interesting to play with.
>
Maybe you were doing wrong things? PHP is the ultimate scripting language
for data manipulation, especially when combined with JavaScript interface
and powered by Smarty template engine.

Check http://members.lycos.co.uk/itsod2/index.php for preview of what I
have done for now. Of course, non-players will not be able to see player-
specific output, but there`s nothing I can do about that except offer
people to join ItSoD2 ;-)

Anyway, this site will in the future(close future, I hope) feature online
domain sheets, online battles and online turn submission. PHP certainly
doesn`t have a name as cool as Cold Fusion, and it isn`t as simple to
learn as ASP, but it is certainly the best.

************************************************** **************************
The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
Birthright-l Archives: http://oracle.wizards.com/archives/birthright-l.html
To unsubscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM
with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.