Update Profile Notification

[tecbuilder]

I have run into this a few times (you would think I would remember after the second or third time), where I would add someone's action file (including my own) to my list to play in a game, but I would forget to look in the profiles to see if anything there needs to be updated. It would be nice during the game setup, that the players would be notified that their profiles need to be updated because of an action file they selected.

[Don]

Hi,

One of our goals when writing this game was to make it configurable enough to satisfy the technically inclined while still making it run with minimal setup for those who don't want to customize the game and just want to play it.

One thing we did to try to acomplish this was to make the profiles unnecessary in most cases. Because each category of actions (custom or standard) has a default passion level, if a player is satisfied with the default levels assigned in the action files they never need to create a profile at all. Even if they have a profile, if they add a new action file, the categories in that action file will be used at their default levels unless they specify otherwise in a profile.

Because of this, a reminder like you describe should not be necessary if everything is working properly. If you add action file, all of it's categories should automatically run at their default levels. Of course if you aren't happy with the default levels in the action file, then you would need a profile, but that is what they are for.

I would be curious to know if you are finding that the default levels from new action files are not working properly, or if you are dissatisfied with the default levels specified and want to change them.

Thnaks,

Don

[tecbuilder]

Let's say I've selected the action files for the game and go through the setup and am having fun playing the game. Now we get part way through it and we start getting actions that we don't like. So now, it puts a hickup in our fun. So for those who are much more computer savy would go through the menu options and find the profile editor and create a profile thinking that perhaps that would resolve the problem. Here is where they now see that the actions that they have been getting can be assigned 'overload' so they won't see them anymore. But now comes the second problem, the game is using the default profile and not their new one. So now they have to start the game over, set it up for how they were in the previous game, select their newly created profile and begin playing.

The second problem could be minimized if they have their own profile already. In this case, they update their profile and are back to playing the game. This is assuming of course, that the current game will use the updated profile.

The assumption you seem to be making is that the person developing categories for their actions will assign appropriate levels. To me that's a big risk to take. Especially since, your game is what will be blamed not the action file. For example, they file could have assigned aggresive S&M a level 3 because that's what they person likes and your default profile will use a 3. Yet if I was given prior notice that new categories were being used I would modify my profile to assign a 10. As you said, "If a player is satisfied...", but my question is how do they know if they will be satisifed with a file's default levels if they have not already used it?

The last thing I want is hiccups, especially when our passion levels are 6+. When less then 4, it's not so much a big deal.

One thought I had to help resolve the problem is to create an actual default profile file. If the game does use an in-game updated profile, then the players can quickly update an existing file and they are on their way with just a small hiccup.