Re: Odyssey Info Management

From: sjoerd@cs.vu.nl (Sjoerd Schreuder)

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 1996 00:00:00 +0000

John Dent <dman@widomaker.com> writes:

>I got into Odyssey at the start quickly signing up for HQ-1 and HQ-3 but
>I ran into problems keeping up with the piles and piles of info that I
>received in my turn reports.  Eventually, the games were taking up so
>much time I had to drop both.  Since then, I've been thinking of getting
>back into Odyssey but didn't want to get overwhelmed and have to drop
>again.  Anyone have any tips for keeping all of the game info straight?

I use the following, which cost some time the first time one visits New Haven,
all the viewed characters take a long time to sort out,
but has a short look-up time. I make a html version of all data I get,
with href's to all locations/guilds/titles/status/characters.
So let's say your main directory is ~, then I've the following dirs:
~/Army		(Can be omitted)
~/Character
~/Guild
~/Location
~/Marker
~/Players	(with all player owned characters and party numbers)
~/Status
~/Title

[One could add ~/Dens]

Each directory contains two files:
~/XXX/list.html, with all info I've on that topic, with eg
<a name="g101"> <h2>The Academy (g101)</h2> in front of The Academy.
This file also contains links to other files, all of the form:
<a href="../Guild/list.html#g101">The Academy</a> (g101),
or <a href="#g101"> if the info is in the same file.

A second file, ~/XXX/index.html, which contains links to all info in
the list.html file, used to find info quickly.

Lastly, I've a home-page with links to all index files.

One can do this pretty fast: cut-and-paste the info into the list.html file,
put <a name..> <h2>..</h2> <pre> in front, and </pre><HR> after it, and
netscape (or any other browser) will display it correctly. Add links
when you get that info (eg: make a link for NPC characters onces you've
viewed them).

Together with some template lines, to copy and fill in, I update my info
within a few hours, which I would need anyway to carefully read my turn.

I've made my own spell lists (for all spellcasters), class descriptions
(even some multiclasses) to reference to as well. It's easy to sort
the spells by type (mo/c, bd/a, si/l, ...), which makes it easy to find
the best spell.

Hardest part: the map. I've made a postscript file, in which I only have
to add lines like: "10 15 (p) MapShow 10 15 Capital" to show a capital
at the plains province x10/15. Together with a "1 30 11 40 InitMap" command,
it automaticly prints the map for the region between x1/11 and x30/40.
(Translated, rotated, scaled and with numbers at the side).

I'm able to play in two games (hq-2 and hq-6) and still have time to do
other things as well. But I'm a student, I don't have a girlfriend
and nobody yells at me when I come home at 11:00 pm, so I might have some
more time than players with a wife, kids and a full job.

Sjoerd Schreuder

PS: Once I'm sure about copyright and I've some more time, I might turn it
    into a public web-page. Especially the title, status, guilds and major
    locations (+ their owners) don't change from game to game. I might also
    turn the map into a full mapping program, which generates and updates
    the map automaticly from the turn report.

References

Odyssey Info Management
John Dent <dman@widomaker.com>
Wed, 28 Feb 1996 00:00:00 +0000