Thanks for the support!

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2006-10-26 15:10.

Hey everyone - just wanted to say a quick thank you for everyone who's signed up so far and an especially big one for people who have been posting!

RPG Laboratory is still in beta, so please share whatever feedback you have so we can make this thing even more rockin.

Post comments here, or get in touch with me directly.

» 's blog | 2376 reads

Categories and Book Navigation

Submitted by rpglaboratory (not verified) on Wed, 2006-11-01 10:47.

Hi everyone!

Here's the latest on the requested category feature and book navigation.

Thanks,

Keeton

http://www.rpglaboratory.com/rpglaboratory/categories_and_book_navigation

Control and organization

Submitted by gauntlet on Mon, 2006-10-30 08:09.

First of all, thank you for having this idea and having the patience to implement it. This is wonderful: a space for professional and casual game designers and game masters. Weee! I really hope it will become a reference site for those who have RPG projects and I will at least try to contribute.

Now I will carry the bad news. If it's going to be a success (it already is), you will inevitably get spam and really off-topic blogs. What's your plan wrt keeping the site on tracks?

That was the easy part and I won't insist because it would be boring (for me and you), let's get on what bothers me a bit. There are a lot of blogs going on and there is no way each user browse all of them. There are entries that are of more interest to me than others, and I am sure it is the case for most users. So I think it would be a good idea to have some kind of organization amongst the entries.
I can see two levels:

1) There are short blogs, with few content, just throwing an idea or a link. And there are more structured, longer ones that could even be qualified as articles. I am certainly not ill speaking of short blogs since I think they can be useful, funny and all. However I think it would be neat to have authoritative entries highlighted, for instance by being on the front page.

2) We're already seing different general topics raising: game mechanics, settings, plots, full RPG projects, opinions, etc. By asking users to provide such information, blog entries could be appropriatedly tagged with little effort (depending on the CMS you're using). You can catch inspiration from entry tagging (deli.cio.us) or plain old topic dispatching.

Okay, by re-reading that I may look like the OCD guy... But please, oh please, consider those remarks because I'm pretty sure that, if even more users are willing to contribute, the continuous stream of blog entries could be next to useless to game designers. Think of the guy who comes occasionally and wonders what kind of game mechanics have been thought of on this site. He may either hit the search button, either scroll all blogs from now to the beginning of RPG Laboratory: not an enticing perpective, imho.

SOGLASNO

Submitted by Nick Dice on Mon, 2006-10-30 08:55.

I agree. The search option makes it easier to find exactly what you are looking for, but a tagged directory would make it oh-so-much easier to us 'non-tech' geeks. (Namely, me.) I, for one, can see a huge advantage in placing the very large blogs in their own seperate "articles" or "discussions" link. My blog right now is getting bigger, and I am sure all those users who are NOT interested in what my blog says are finding it difficult to read their blogs when the eight entries that came in on mine overnight pushed their favorite blog comments to the bottom of the main screen. (Or beyond, if too many bad things were said about my blog...) I see that you also have a favorite blog setting under the user profile, and I think this could be the first step in making it easier. (Ex: Put a link to a users favorite blogs on the main screen.) This may seem like a weak suggestion, but I hate pointing out (or, helping point out, in this case) a problem and offering no solution.

As for control, general courtesy is in rule that most of us use. I don't think any of use is going to drop F-bombs on a public blog, or openly verbal assault someone else. I'd like to think that we are all mature adults and can handle ourselves. I say this because of the spam issue that gauntlet spoke of. (Not because I think that a strict set of rules should be enforced with an iron mouse... but I could go for it.) It's simple: Don't spam, it's impolite and very unprofessional.

If this entry made no sense, I am sorry. Daylight savings time and a baby kept me from sleeping.

-Nick

"Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you're a jackass."

I think we could definetley

Submitted by morat on Sun, 2006-10-29 03:38.

I think we could definetley do with some kind of libraray feature to access book pages, partly because I don't quite understand how this works yet.

I also think an area for actual play would be a good idea and maybe some links to places where people can get books printed etc. Basically allow people to use this site as a hub for getting their game published, which I believe is the intention.

Cheers
Iain

Book Pages.

Submitted by Cowboy on Sat, 2006-10-28 10:20.

I think it would be useful if there were some way of getting an overview of all book pages posted by everyone listed alphabetically. That'll make it easier to find, read and comment on the book pages that one finds interesting.

The whole thing's a great idea BTW. Kudos.

RPG Laboratory: I need your feedback

Submitted by rpglaboratory (not verified) on Fri, 2006-10-27 11:53.

RPG Laboratory has been open for about 48 hours now and we've had 43 members sign up! I was expecting to open this thing up for beta testing and to get maybe three people signed on, so 43 is a huge surprise to me! Thank you for joining, and if you've been posting, thank you doubly for that.

So what now? I think Kuma said it best in his review at kumapageworks: The site is a good idea, but it needs more. So here's where I beg for stuff:

We need feedback. What features would help with game design? What's working on the site and what needs to be fixed? What ideas do you have to improve things? Email your suggestions to me directly or post comments on our feedback page.

We need some community buzz to get going. If you like to digg stuff or have a del.icio.us account, please add us to your favorites. If you have a blog or website, we would love a review or even just an incoming link to the site (http://www.rpglaboratory.com/ or any other page you want to link to).

That's all for now. Thanks again to everyone for your support and encouragement on this project.

Keeton

I like it - it's simple,

Submitted by pfischer on Fri, 2006-10-27 17:13.

I like it - it's simple, accessible, quick. The only thing I immediately thought was missing, is to be able to use the img tag in entries.

Per

Front Page

Submitted by Chainsaw Aardvark on Thu, 2006-10-26 15:23.

The front page does not show up correctly on my computer. The links that are supposed to be on the bottom appear in the middle and overlap the other text making access and reading difficult. I don't know why this is, and nor do I know enough html to offer a suggestion about it.

Poor design on my part

Submitted by danifer (not verified) on Thu, 2006-10-26 16:08.

I built this site to work with the newest version of Internet Explorer which can be buggy. I think I've addressed the issue now.