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  1. #11
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    > 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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  2. #12
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    >
    > 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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  3. #13
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    > 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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  4. #14
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    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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  5. #15
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    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

    -------------------------------------------------
    WebMail fra Tele2 http://www.tele2.no
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  6. #16
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    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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  7. #17
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    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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  8. #18
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    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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  9. #19
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    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.ph...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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  10. #20
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    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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