What major features are you interested in? (Patreon)

Long post ahoy!

Now that Fates is out and stable, I wanted to chat with y'all and get feedback. LegendKeeper 0.7, "Fates", offered up plenty of bugs to fix, and rest assured I'm working on those, but in the meantime I wanted to exercise our imaginations. The next few paragraphs are me musing about software and user experience; feel free to skip to the feature list below, but do read the rest if you're inclined. :)

We've left our roadmap ambiguous to give us wiggle room, and it's been a while since we talked about the future. Now that you've played with Fates, you might have new ideas about what you want out of the platform, or maybe it's galvanized your existing thoughts. I want to be clear that the outcome of this poll/discussion isn't a decision or a commitment, but rather one data point in the many things we look at when planning for what's ahead.

I've restricted the options to a few large ideas to keep things focused. While this discussion is about features, I want to emphasize that I don't really like "features" as a measure of quality or functionality of an application. What matters to me most, as a consumer, is a workflow that accomplishes a job. Whenever we add something new to LK, it has to earn its place in the workflow.

Every additional feature is one more piece of mental clutter, one more thing to learn, and it always has to be worth it. So when we talk about relationship graphs or timelines or calendars or fog of war, those things have to feel slick and delightful and help you accomplish a task, preferably in a fun way. For a creative app, moments that feel like a chore are moments where it has let you down--where it has failed to be an extension of your mind. LK has plenty of places to improve in that regard.

Flagship Feature Proposals 

These proposals are incomplete and may not represent what eventually comes to be. They try to capture a concept, more than a set of specific features. We want to get the "feel" right, and let user feedback and data guide the nitty gritty details.

Timeline / Calendar system

A custom timeline/calendar system that would allow you to associate wiki articles with points in a user-defined time system. You might define a fantastical calendar or stardate system. You might seamlessly switch between a timeline and a calendar view. You could link dates in an article, click that link, and be presented with the local area of the timeline around that date. You could associate dates with articles, giving a chronological context for your setting. You could view the timeline on its own, or consume a compact form from the wiki or atlas.

Relations / Connections

A relationship web/visualization of your project. You might create "relations" between articles in your wiki, formalizing the relationships between characters, settings, and props in your campaigns and stories.  (e.g Erik <---SIBLING ---> Sylvia.) You could visualize and navigate these relations as an interactive web of circles and arrows, like an "atlas" of relationships. You could hide these relations like your pins and articles, revealing them to other users as they discover them. You could view the relation web on its own, or view a compact form in the context of the atlas, wiki, or timeline.

Enhanced Atlas

You could add layers to your atlas, allowing for multiple maps to represent floors or other spatial organizations. (For example, adding a second floor to an Inn map.) You could add different types of features to your maps besides pins: labels, tokens, props, geographic boundaries, grids. You could hide parts of your maps and progressively reveal them to other members of your project. You could calibrate your map to create accurate measurements of distance. You could add simple markup, like arrows, doodles, or notes. You could *literally* nest a map in another, creating a seamless zoom experience.

Play Assistance

Various tools to faciliate gameplay. You could "summon" other active users in your project to a location in the atlas, wiki, timeline, or graph. (Perhaps a DM wants everyone to see a particular dungeon map or NPC description.) You could communicate with players via messages or bulletins. You could roll dice to resolve an event, and represent actions with live movement on the atlas screen. You could use a simple widget to manage initiative order. DMs and players could use specialized blocks to manage stats, inventories, abilities, etc. The goal wouldn't be a complete VTT experience, but a lightweight, optional layer on top of the creative tools to help at the game table.

I've forced this poll to be single choice to make things more interesting. ;) I'm currently working on the templating system and getting the actual legendkeeper.com site up and running. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Braden