[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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[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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[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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[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
> >
> >
> ************************************************** **************************
> > The Birthright Homepage: http://www.birthright.net
> > Birthright-l Archives:
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> > with UNSUB BIRTHRIGHT-L in the body of the message.
> >
>
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Cheers
Bjørn

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WebMail fra Tele2 http://www.tele2.no
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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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