Course Reports - Structure

[polarnomad]

Black Box Log might be kind of catchy, but then it abbreviates to BBL which isn't particuarly interesting.

Otherwise, there could be Progressive Action Log which would abbreviate down to PAL , as in "Remember to keep your PAL by your side while you play folks!"

[Arrian]

You don't think we have enough funky abbreviations in the world of Civ, guys?

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with DAR.

-Arrian

[polarnomad]

You don't think we have enough funky abbreviations in the world of Civ, guys?

*points at nbarclay*

[nbarclay]

Actually, Dominae raised the issue of finding the name DAR "not that great" in the first message in this thread. Since I've also been less than thrilled with it, I decided to raise the issue of whether we can come up with a name we like better. If we can't come up with something that people tend to like better, we can stick with DAR, but it seems worth exploring the possibility of alternatives.

[nbarclay]

By the way, I came up with another PAL, although I didn't realize what the acronym would be until I came up with the longer version: "Period Activity Log."

[duckilama]

Friends, Apolytonians, fellow civvers, lend me your EARs(Era Activity Reports).
Clever, but probably not much better than DAR, although it is one (letter) more.

[polarnomad]

I can hear it already...

polarnomad: "Wow! I learned sooo much from you Period Activity Log nbarclay! Thx for taking the time to compile it."

nbarclay: "Well that's what PALs are for!"

[Dominae]

[V3nom]

Originally posted by duckilama
I liked the DAR format we used to use.

What'd be handy is if there was some magical way to have the DARs such that you could say "give me all the DARs for Aeson for AU4 101" and be able to read his whole game, or to be able to say "give me all my DARs and all Dominae's DARs, by period" so you could have a stage-by-stage comparison of any two(or more) games, or if you just want to read what everyone did during the Military Tradition stage, you could just read the DAR that contained that.

That would be choice.

hmmm, something that might accompish a similar (but not exactly the same) effect would be one thread with links to all the DARs. I figure it'd look something like this:

duckilama posted:

AU141: [DAR1][DAR2][DAR3]
AU142: [DAR1][DAR2][DAR3]

V3nom posted:

AU141: [DAR1][DAR2]

Dominae posted:

AU141: [DAR1][DAR2][DAR3]
AU142: [DAR1][DAR2]

where each [] indicates that its linked. The system is nice and simple, you can easily scroll down and open up the DARs of each person for a particular game or open up all DARs of a particular person.

Whenever someone writes a new DAR they simply go back and edit their post

edit: oh and another idea, if you guys want to make it easier to write DAR reports, perhaps someone could mod in a simple text editor to the game. I'm not 100% sure this is possible but from what little I've read into civ4 customization it might be.

Basically it'd be nice and simple, you hit a key and the game automatically takes a screenshot before opening up the notepad type thing, it auto-adds the current date and you can easily jot in notes on whats going on.

That way later on if you want to review your game and remember things you've got this text file and the accompanying screenshots to help.

[Konquest02]

This idea is quite nice V3nom, but to make it work, we need a really clean thread where everyone has one post for their DARs and nothing else goes on in there. I suspect this will grow significantly, so se need to keep the thread as tidy as possible.

Or we have one post at the top of the thread which one person edits, but it's really a chore to proceed that way.

Otherwise, I think it's a good way to organize the DARs...

[Fried-Psitalon]

Originally posted by polarnomad
I can hear it already...

polarnomad: "Wow! I learned sooo much from you Period Activity Log nbarclay! Thx for taking the time to compile it."

nbarclay: "Well that's what PALs are for!"

:: points to the mob of ravenous C3P Ladder demogamers::

PAL is already spoken for.

[Cort Haus]

Some thoughts ....

One diadvantage of the DAR is that it can get too detailed at times - especially turn-by-turn reports, and tenses can be confusing too, especially if a mix of present and past.

The AAR often reads better from a 'strategic sweep' point-of-view, even if some crucial detail isn't there.

In-game editors and screenie-dumpers have been mentioned and would help, as alt-tabbing the game to a notepad, with all the associated resolution-switches, audio mutes, disk-whirring etc doesn't do much for the gaming experience. It was the pressure of doing highly detailed DARs which stopped me playing more of the Civ 3 AU courses. Someone mentioned above about note-taking getting in the way of 'one-more'turn-ing'.

Finally, some DAR's can go overboard on screenies - huge and multiple pictures every few turns can make a thread very 'heavy' to browse.

[Arrian]

Someone mentioned above about note-taking getting in the way of 'one-more'turn-ing'.

Which is why my DARs aren't nearly as good as some others. I forget to save the game at crucial junctures, I forget to take notes, or keep taking notes (they will start out detailed and informative and trail off to nothingness as I become absorbed by the game). I rely on memory for the most part. For some reason I can often remember small details about a game I played two days ago better than I can remember what my wife wants for Christmas... (a new wallet and something... she told me yesterday, I know she did. But I was posting on 'poly while she was talking...)

-Arrian

[padillah]

I think I have a work around but it is not for everyone.

First off I vote DAR. (and no, the name doesn't particularly bug me one way or another.)

Second, I plan to have my MiniDisc player standing by (I think I can even set it on VOX). Then when I take a screenshot I mention the year and what I'm thinking and transcribe later (or use a speech recog like ViaVoice and clean it up.)

So, "It sucks to be him but I was alright."

Tom P.

[Skanky Burns]

As pirates are fond of saying, "AAR".