Rules FAQ Updated

[Steve Long]

Howdy, folx! Just wanted to let you know Ben has updated the Rules FAQ.

[Monolith]

You might want to think about reorganizing the FAQ so that it's a little easier to find things. As it is right now it takes forever for a section to load, and pity those of us with slow connections who need to read something about Tunneling.

It would be easier if you could reorganize it into sublinks. Clicking on Powers would show us a list of links covering General Issues, Adjustment Powers, etc, and a link for each separate power. So If I need to get information on Tunneling I just click on Powers, and then click on Tunneling.

As it is now I almost never use the FAQ because it takes too long to load and it's too difficult to find what you're looking for in a 50 page long secion of the FAQ.

[Derek Hiemforth]

So download the PDF once, and use the Find feature in Acrobat Reader.

[buzz]

I'll take this opportunity to repeat my comment that the whole red, blue, and pink on black color scheme is just painful to read.

Also, I still think that the FAQ is better served as a PDF.

If it must be HTML, though, giving each section a question index with links to individual FAQ items would probably be a lot easier for the user.

Or...

What about just having a FAQ forum? Each sub-category could be a FAQ chapter (skills, powers, etc.), and then the list of threads would be the FAQs themselves. Steve & Co. could simply post additions as they came up, and HERO fans could then subscribe to the FAQ forum and automatically be notified when additions were made. Then, maybe every six months, DOJ can release an updated FAQ PDF.

[Blue]

Man, what a group of whiners. (Not you, Derek.)

I *do* recommend using the acrobat version. It's so much easier to just download it and do a search because then you can hit the same word in several different parts of the document, like, say, a rule about Tunneling as a Move Through actually popping up in maybe COMBAT, TUNNELING, and MOVEMENT or something. That's just an example...

...Hmm... tunneling move throughs...

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Blue
Man, what a group of whiners. (Not you, Derek.)

I don't think it's fair to call people whiners just because they want something to be easier to use. What's the point of having an HTML version of the FAQ if no one can find anything in it? Heck, the pdf version is 177 pages long, and I'm sure the online version, due to font size, is 250 pages long. It doesn't seem unreasonable that people might want for it to be easier to use the FAQ. HERO is already one of the most complicated game system around, does the FAQ need to be equally complicated to use?

Just because something has the name HERO System attached to it doesn't mean that it should automatically be complicated or difficult to use.

[Ben Seeman]

The Rules FAQ is not complicated to use. There's nothing complicated about manually searching through hundreds of lines of text to find what you are looking for. That requires basic reading skills

It is, admittedly, laborious and we're looking into a way of making it easier to use with a search engine and categories and what not.

But I'm sure then it'll be too complicated.

[Ben Seeman]

The Rules FAQ PDF has been posted. Thanks Derek!

[Killer Shrike]

Ahem....IE supports the CTRL-F Find and Find Next dialouge box.

As far as simplifying the HTML FAQ, Im all for it. It should be built off of a database IMO, which would be much easier to maintain in the long run, but would take some upfront work to make happen initially.

[BobGreenwade]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Ahem....IE supports the CTRL-F Find and Find Next dialouge box.

As far as simplifying the HTML FAQ, Im all for it. It should be built off of a database IMO, which would be much easier to maintain in the long run, but would take some upfront work to make happen initially.

In another year or so, the question will be moot anyway.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
The Rules FAQ is not complicated to use. There's nothing complicated about manually searching through hundreds of lines of text to find what you are looking for. That requires basic reading skills

It is, admittedly, laborious and we're looking into a way of making it easier to use with a search engine and categories and what not.

But I'm sure then it'll be too complicated.

The search Engine sounds like a great idea. I'll wait until then to complain.

Derek, thanks for doing the PDF again. You rock!

Just read KS' post. Database would be the way to go if it hasn't already since the HTML should be built from there as well.

[Ben Seeman]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
It should be built off of a database IMO, which would be much easier to maintain in the long run, but would take some upfront work to make happen initially.

So, who is willing to enter all of the Rules FAQ questions into a database?

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by Monolith
Heck, the pdf version is 177 pages long

Acrobat's Find feature works just fine, even at 177+ pages.

The problem with your idea, as I see it, is twofold, Monolith. One, you don't want the pages to take a long time to load, and two, you want separate links for each section, power, etc.

The easiest way to accomplish the latter would be to put anchor links in the larger document. So it loads the whole document, but when you click on Tunneling, it jumps you down to Tunneling. But this still leaves the document being large and (for you) slow to load.

To shorten the load times, you'd need to make each section, power, etc. its own web page. That would represent a huge increase in FAQ-fondling for Ben. Rather than updating 15 web pages when he updates the FAQ, it would be more like updating 100-150 web pages. That would be massively time-consuming.

On a final note, it seems rather unappreciative, IMO, to complain that a company's chief game developer has personally given so much of his time in providing free official answers to rules questions, that now the amount of material is inconvenient to read.

All that being said, one thing I do think would be useful (and hopefully not too much trouble) would be to add subheaders (like the headers for individual Skills and Powers) in the Combat section for each Combat Maneuver. I know they're arranged in alphabetical order, but that section is now getting large enough that I think it would be useful to be able to spot Grab, Move By, etc. more easily in the text.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Ben Seeman
So, who is willing to enter all of the Rules FAQ questions into a database?

What type of Database?
I'll have to take another look before sticking my foot in my mouth, but a Perl script could probably parse the FAQ and insert into a database of your choosing.

We just need what fields you'd like.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by BobGreenwade
In another year or so, the question will be moot anyway.

Not for Monolith. He's stated in other threads that he won't be buying 5ER, even though (according to this thread) he finds the FAQ laborious to find stuff in.