Sample reports

[Davin]

Merry Christmas!

For all the long-suffering players out there I thought I'd present you with a little Christmas present today...

We've re-worked the sample Midgard report formats to contain more intelligible data and I thought that you die-hards might be interested in looking them over to see what you think.  We can discuss the formatting here if you like and see if we can come up with a presentation that you like better.  Some of the information in these reports may be unfamiliar to you and may also produce questions about the new system.  Remember that all your reports will be available to you on-line throughout the game (as well as being printable from your browser) so you can refer back to them at any time.

Please feel free to visit Midgard sample reports and check them out at your leisure.

[DreamWeaver]

Merry Christmas Davin,

It is nice to get a look at different things, to start to think about different matters.

[DreamWeaver]

Here are some CVRs and a Map
 

[DreamWeaver]

I must say I like the look and format for the traditional CVR - City Visitor Report very much. The above Map is color and the graphics are also nice as well too. I think if we add color to the maps and keep the same format 26 x 15 hexes per map that will work just nicely as well too.

I would like to see the Maps redone with relocation/renaming of cities and tweeking all of that. It would add a refresh flavor to the game and make players explore again. Maybe add some more NPC factions as well to like the Extremely Nasty Dakarian Empire that was down in Kalmar that makes the Imperials look like little girls in tin hats and dresses .

[Davin]

Ok, let's talk about the CVR a bit. I rather like the cleaner and more-colorful layout over the old style, and it's a consistent style across all the reports. But it seems to have all the same information, and then some, and the size expands and contracts to fit the data needed.

Aside from "it's different", what in particular do you like about the old format and not the new format? Do you have any particular complaints about the new format -- perhaps you don't know how to read the Market format?

[DreamWeaver]

Well the old format CVR, when printed had a front and back page to it. I could print out a copy and place the CVR in a sheet protector  in a 3 ring binder and have all that map's cities under a Map in the another sheet protector.  Thus a sheet protector with C-18 upfront, and to the rear of that some details for the region. The (5)  CVRS for each of the five cities located in the C-18 map region. That is the way this old school gamer did it, now with your new style I need to see how the printing side of things works here.

Now I'm not saying what you have is bad, but I would like to see a much more fuller CVR with more buildings, factional offices and temples, plus a fuller market show up in the details to see what that would look like honestly. It is a lot easier to carry around a 3 ring binder than a laptop(actually I have a desk top with a 32" monitor so my old eyes can see things). I m not against what I see so far, just need to see a more complete CVR with tons more details in it first. Plus need to see how that prints out too.

This is "Paper's and Paychecks"...right...sorry having a gray haired moment here...LMAO!!!

[Davin]

Yeah, all this data is invented and it will typically show a lot more information in a real turn.  This is just to show you how the format looks.  If you're really anxious to see more data, download the XML version of the data and hand-edit it and send it back to me and I'll run the HTML formatter on it for you.

Unfortunately, browsers simply do not have the kind of detail page control that direct-printed reports do.  At best I can say "always start a new page here".  But  everyone's screens and printer configurations will have different margins and page/screen sizes (and font sizes) and the whole report resizes and wraps itself to fit whatever it's being shown on.  You can still use your browser features to print off the report in whatever way it will let you control it.  You should still be able to print most of these on a front-and-back of a page - it's just not easy to tell it where to break.

In addition, we're not leaving space in the sections for every possible feature - we're hiding any information that doesn't apply.  Therefore, if you've only got two offices/temples in town then it only prints two lines.  I think this makes the reports more readable and allows the space used to contract and expand as necessary.  Unfortunately, this means that there's even less of an opportunity to tell when a printed page-break ought to occur.

One nice change is that you no longer have to exchange CVRs by paper mail.  The game allows you to "share" a CVR with another clan directly so that you both have on-line access to it.  If you want to get something in exchange, this can also be arranged as an in-game clan-to-clan "purchase" or taking a formal "contracted task" to obtain one for someone.

[Dark Shadows]

Both formats look fine either way. I take it that your format will only show information that is about that city and not show things that are not there? Like 0 SOA offices when there are none built in the city. Also as more things are in the city then the format will just expand to allow for the extra data within the city. I think that is ok for the CVRs.

What I think everyone wants o knw about is the maps. Will they still be configured the same way, and what will your graphics look like. Will you use color? Also do you plan to 'Remap" the actual continent of Midgard and Kalmar? Changing cities and locations and etc....making it a little more realistic in makeup.?

[Davin]

Both formats look fine either way. I take it that your format will only show information that is about that city and not show things that are not there? Like 0 SOA offices when there are none built in the city. Also as more things are in the city then the format will just expand to allow for the extra data within the city. I think that is ok for the CVRs.

Yes, that's what I meant by "we're hiding any information that doesn't apply" and "allows the space used to contract and expand as necessary".

What I think everyone wants o knw about is the maps. Will they still be configured the same way, and what will your graphics look like. Will you use color? Also do you plan to 'Remap" the actual continent of Midgard and Kalmar? Changing cities and locations and etc....making it a little more realistic in makeup.?

Have you looked at the sample map?  That's basically what one looks like.  We're trying to not reinvent too much of the wheel here so we're going with the base maps and mapping symbols that Jon provided to us.  As you can see on the sample, we're using color for all the mapping.  However, we're going to be moving a few things around, such as cities not being in quite the same spot, and we'll be degrading much of the infrastructure (roads, city operations, defenses, etc.) that we will need clans to help rebuild.  We're trying to start with closer to a "clean slate" game to be filled out in a new way.  Hopefully this will also put everyone on a similar footing to start in regards to needing new maps.

[DreamWeaver]

Returning all the cities to almost ruins again is perfectly fine with me. I would also like to know what are the Imperial Perserv walls/towers at? Ar they 10.0 or are they at 25.0 that is a very important question that needs to be addressed or answered.