New Features: Narrative Character Maps (Vol 2)

What is it?

Narrative Character Maps present the Bible’s familiar story arcs with a new visual perspective that makes sense of complex interweaving narratives. Color-coded character lines elegantly present the geographic location of key players through time.

How does it work?

Trace the missionary journey’s of Paul and other early church leaders in the first century. Rediscover the narrative of Ruth, Naomi, Boaz, and Orpah with a vibrant display of God’s faithfulness. Easily keep track of David’s life as it connects with the lives of Saul, Jonathan, Absalom, and other characters. The important events in each narrative link to the Bible Factbook—where you’ll find family trees, maps, and other media drawn from your digital library. Narrative Character Maps revitalize your understanding of familiar Bible stories. Volume 2 adds maps of Abraham, Isaac and the events depicted in 1 Samuel.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

John Kight

Are there any video tutorials that explain how to use/read these Narrative Character Maps? I have yet to spend much time in them do to other study restrictions, but they appear to be very helpful on a macro level.

Graham Criddle

There is some information about how to read them at https://community.logos.com/forums/p/92818/643948.aspx#643948

Tim Bahula

Really disappointed to see that this isn't being rolled out as an update to that Narrative Character Maps in Logos 6! I bought the upgrade in part because of the exciting new features, and found that Narrative Character Maps had a paltry 5 maps for the entire Bible.

John Kight

There is some information about how to read them at https://community.logos.com/forums/p/92818/643948.aspx#643948

Thanks Graham!

Fr Devin Roza

Whenever I use these (both the new ones and the L6 ones), I get the impression that the UI isn't really finished, and maybe is even "broken" - for example, when I hover over the map, grey columns appear. I'm guessing each of those is supposed to represent one event. Occasionally, clicking on those will select an event on the bottom pane and show that to me. More often, clicking does nothing. And, more often still, clicking on one of the grey bars just jumps the map around somewhat randomly, oftentimes even moving the map off the screen, and then bringing it back, but not selecting an event. Very strange.

I would love to see those navigation issues fixed, and then a clearer representation of the events and how they correspond to the map. For example, a simple thing that could help would be to display a popup of the corresponding event name as you hover your mouse over the map, and/or show some sort of a timeline of events on the bottom that corresponds to the map.

The one part of the UI that does work well is the Prev and Next buttons. Using the Maps with those is helpful.

Randy W. Sims

Really disappointed to see that this isn't being rolled out as an update to that Narrative Character Maps in Logos 6!

I am a Logos Now subscriber, but I do agree with this. I think Faithlife is being a little to aggressive in moving features to Logos Now in order to provide value to that product. Most of the content for existing features should go to the general release. Or at least do a staged rollout: release to Logos now and then after a cycle or two roll it out in the general release.

Fr Devin Roza

Really disappointed to see that this isn't being rolled out as an update to that Narrative Character Maps in Logos 6!

I am a Logos Now subscriber, but I do agree with this. I think Faithlife is being a little to aggressive in moving features to Logos Now in order to provide value to that product. Most of the content for existing features should go to the general release. Or at least do a staged rollout: release to Logos now and then after a cycle or two roll it out in the general release.

There's been no official announcement that there will be a Logos/Verbum 7, but they have announced that Logos Now is "early access" to features as they are being developed. So, supposing there will be a v7, these features, resources, etc. would almost all be the new features in v7. As I understand it, Logos Now is just getting early access to v7, as it's developed.

Don Awalt

There's been no official announcement that there will be a Logos/Verbum 7, but they have announced that Logos Now is "early access" to features as they are being developed. So, supposing there will be a v7, these features, resources, etc. would almost all be the new features in v7. As I understand it, Logos Now is just getting early access to v7, as it's developed.

The problem is that doubt has been cast over these remarks, because what is been said is that some but not all features will be included in Logos 7, plus remarks have been made that content based features could stay in subscription mode. The 'may's' and the 'might's' effectively eliminate confidence that any desired feature will be in Logos 7 - one day.

IMHO it's time for Faithlife to be more definitive about this, since features are out and people have real questions that are remaining unanswered. What we have now is not very transparent. If for example updates to the data in Narrative Character Maps was definitely announced as being in the next major release, then this issue goes away - you want it now, get Logos Now, Otherwise, wait until Logos 7. If it was announced they would NOT be in the next major release, than what is there now is a teaser to subscription purchase - if you like it, subscribe. Without more definition, no one knows.

Tim Bahula

There's been no official announcement that there will be a Logos/Verbum 7, but they have announced that Logos Now is "early access" to features as they are being developed. So, supposing there will be a v7, these features, resources, etc. would almost all be the new features in v7. As I understand it, Logos Now is just getting early access to v7, as it's developed.

But should I have to wait until Logos 7... or pay a subscription for a Logos 6 feature that shipped with a bare minimum of content?

Phil Gons (Logos)

Really disappointed to see that this isn't being rolled out as an update to that Narrative Character Maps in Logos 6!

I am a Logos Now subscriber, but I do agree with this. I think Faithlife is being a little to aggressive in moving features to Logos Now in order to provide value to that product. Most of the content for existing features should go to the general release. Or at least do a staged rollout: release to Logos now and then after a cycle or two roll it out in the general release.

The key thing to keep in mind is that we didn't include future updates as part of the Logos 6 product description. We always specify when future updates will be included for free. Without that explicit statement, you shouldn't expect it. Updates to Atlas were included in Logos 6.

Juanita

Phil,

It never occurred to me that Logos had to specifiy to add more content to a feature that was part of an update. I should have looked for that and didn't. My bad. But, my assumption was based on an expectation of Logos putting out content as per a standard of excellence. Again, my own thinking. I no longer expect that standard. Thanks for the explanation.

Tim Bahula

The key thing to keep in mind is that we didn't include future updates as part of the Logos 6 product description. We always specify when future updates will be included for free. Without that explicit statement, you shouldn't expect it. Updates to Atlas were included in Logos 6.

Phil, That is a weak argument, one that seems to be a reversal of the long-standing Logos approach. As recently as May 2015, the Logos Blog proclaimed:

Whenever a resource you own is updated, you’ll get that new content—for free—so your Logos library is always becoming more valuable and staying up to date with the latest improvements. —Resource Updates: May 2015

I guess what you are telling us is that Narrative Character Maps is not a resource and I shouldn't have expected it to be updated. I could accept that more readily if weren't for the paucity of narrative character maps released with Logos 6 or if the description then had said something like, "This is a super-cool way of visualizing the Bible, but it only includes 6 visualizations." Even now, the product description leaves too much to the imagination:

Narrative Character Maps present the Bible’s familiar story arcs with a new visual perspective that makes sense of complex interweaving narratives. Color coded character lines elegantly present the geographic location of key players through time.

From that description, you wouldn't expect that you get just 6 of them!

Further, the product description explicitly states that it includes "the missionary journey’s of Paul". That was not included in the Logos 6 release. Was it not natural to assume that updates would be forthcoming?

The bad taste in my mouth hasn't gone away.

Rick

We always specify when future updates will be included for free. Without that explicit statement, you shouldn't expect it.

When I subscribed to Logos Now, I thought that the reasoning was so I can get early access to new tools, not to maintain or update the ones that I have. Ever since I've owned Logos, we had the promise (sometimes unwritten assurances) that things in the program would be updated when an update was available.

This, to me, is a big change and there should have been an explicit warning when Logos 6 was released saying that things have changed. Hearing Faithlife say "we didn't promise something in Logos 6 that had been standard practice in previous versions, so you shouldn't expect it" saddens me. I will surely read the fine print in the future and make purchases with a lot more caution and apprehension.

Bob Pritchett

Phil has answered this extensively, and I'm not sure what I could add that wouldn't be redundant. But I'll try. :-)

The publishing world is changing, and we're still adapting quickly (and sometimes without perfect vision of the future). To us, each Narrative Character Map is a separate editorial project -- like a tiny book, or a map. There's more work in the Acts narrative map alone than in some of the other Interactives.

In my mind, each of the Narrative Character Maps is a stand-alone project (with custom editorial and code), similar to how the Psalms and Proverbs explorers are separate Interactives. I don't think people are expecting 44 more free '<Book Name> Explorer' Interactives to be delivered as free updates for Logos 6 -- the Psalms Explorer and Proverbs Explorers are what they are, specialized to each book.

I can see how the Narrative Character Maps seem different -- they're all grouped together in 'one Interactive'. We did this because they have such similar user interface, even though each is a unique (and time-consuming = expensive) creation. We included five, and we set the price of the product in to a value of $5.95. In the same way we put a low value on our Before/After images, since there were only a few.

(What if we had merged the similar Psalms/Proverbs explorers into one menu item? Maybe that would make people expect more of them... We didn't do that, though, because we expected there'd only be these two, where with Character Maps there could conceivably be hundreds.)

We didn't then know exactly how we would handle updates, though we had an inkling subscriptions would be part of it. (We've been thinking about that for years, precisely to address this problem, and others -- it's one things to sell access to 14,000 photos; how do you charge for the next 100? And the three you get after that?)

We have toyed with the idea of explicitly labeling everything "Vol. 1" "Vol. 2", etc. But soon the Library browser and/or user interface will be incredibly cluttered with useless licensing distinctions that get in the way of working.

I wish we had been clearer back in October when we designed these pages, but I believe, as Phil points out, that we were clear about what was included, and clear about what things were considered incomplete and would get free updates. (The Atlas, for example, which is continually having additional maps added at no additional cost.)

Tell me what you'd like us to do.

To keep creating new content, we need ongoing revenue. Many of our databases don't perfectly map to the world of paper publishing, and fixed volumes with distinct 'new editions'. For years now we have been doing an increasingly large amount of maintenance and improvement and new data creation for things we can't get compensated for. We simply can't continue to treat every database as an eternal obligation to update, and keep charging 'the price of a book.' When a paper book is sold, it's done and incurs no more production costs. When we sell the Cultural Concepts Tagging, or the Lexham Bible Dictionary, or even the Faithlife Study Bible, (the last two have actually been free!) we keep putting editorial work into them for years.

To me, the Narrative Character Maps aren't pages in an incomplete book, they are laminated posters you hang on a wall. You didn't buy a book missing a bunch of pages, you bought five posters. We've since made more, but each is a new product.

We can:

1) Give in to your argument and give away these new Narrative Character Maps and Before/After pairs. But I imagine we'll never do any more, because every day when we get to the office we'll have to decide to A) create a new Narrative Character Map which can't generate any more revenue, or work on creating a completely new thing that we can sell, because it isn't already part of a perceived promise. Option B will win most days. (Some of these are easy, but some are very hard and expensive -- take another look at Acts!)

(If you choose #1, but feel we are obligated to keep making them, how far does the obligation go? Do we have to make 10? 20? One for every person in the Bible? What does the initial $5.95 package entail in open-ended obligation?)

2) Give a free copy of the recent updates to users who feel cheated or misled, and fix our descriptions to be much more specific moving ahead. Possibly even change our policy to never promise any future deliverable (to avoid future misunderstandings and bad feelings), always being clear that a purchased product includes what it includes right now and no more.

(I do feel that this would be a net loss for users, though -- we've often delivered a lot of nice content down the road at no cost -- but apparently at the price of escalating expectations.)

3) Your suggestion?

I am really asking for your input in earnest, and I don't intend any snarkiness in this. But I am being very open and asking you to see things from our perspective: we're not trying to move you to a subscription to take advantage of you, or milk more money out of you. Our long term goal is to cost you less by getting more people to take a low cost subscription so we can deliver more value to more people.

Some users have emailed me to say things like "I've spent $X,000 with you, and it's outrageous that you're making me subscribe in order to get this new content." I humbly suggest you think of it another way: you've spent $X,000 on our product, and probably purchased a significant upgrade every few years for hundreds, and now we're offering to deliver fresh code and content every six weeks for $9/month. It'll take more than nine years to spend the next $1,000 on Logos Now, and you'll get 54 (!) updates along the way.

Isn't that a fantastic deal? And wouldn't you rather take that deal than win a handful of Character Maps and Before/After photos today, and then never see another, having if not strangled the golden goose of fresh content, at least encouraged it to lay different eggs? :-)

MJ. Smith

Bob, I know my reaction is not typical because I was a beta tester but I was left with the following impressions when Logos 6 was released. Note I say "impressions" not what I though Faithlife promised.

that the Psalms Explorer might be expanded to include deuterocanonical psalms
that it was probable that the Proverb Explorer would be expanded to include other proverb collections
that the Narrative Character Maps were so few as to be hard to learn to use them effectively as if Faithlife had run out of time
no particular thoughts re: Before/After
no particular thoughts re: Propositional Outlines

It was not until Logos Now was announced that it occurred to me to question my impressions. It wasn't until this release that I understood my modified impressions were still off track. I sympathize both with the users who had the expectations unmet and with Faithlife which tried to communicate in ways not encouraging the erroneous expectations.

It seems to me that to avoid this kind of misunderstanding, certain conditions need to be met:

data needs to be complete for features such as psalms and proverbs across all canons, suggestion to extend the data need to be met with a firm "out of scope statement", and obvious extensions need to be explicitly excluded in the product description. It is not a proverb explorer ... it is an explorer for the Book of Proverbs.
open ended products such as narrative character maps or before/after need to have volumes of a reasonable size ... tell me that each volume contains 5 items, for example. There can be volume 1 even if volume 2 is never released.
be consistent in finishing coding for new features in a short period of time - rarely exceeding a year ... think coding for Outlines, Sermons, Journals so that your customers are used to thinking of their resources as complete not "works in progress".

I don't think there is anything that you should do to rectify this particular situation except be certain that you have met the letter of your product descriptions but you can avoid repeat occurrences.

RyanB

Some users have emailed me to say things like "I've spent $X,000 with you, and it's outrageous that you're making me subscribe in order to get this new content." I humbly suggest you think of it another way: you've spent $X,000 on our product, and probably purchased a significant upgrade every few years for hundreds, and now we're offering to deliver fresh code and content every six weeks for $9/month. It'll take more than nine years to spend the next $1,000 on Logos Now, and you'll get 54 (!) updates along the way.

Isn't that a fantastic deal? And wouldn't you rather take that deal than win a handful of Character Maps and Before/After photos today, and then never see another, having if not strangled the golden goose of fresh content, at least encouraged it to lay different eggs? :-)

Hi Bob, I always appreciate it when you take the time out of your day to interact with and provide insight for us in the forums. It means a great deal and I thank you for doing that. In this particular case I don't "have a dog in this fight" so I'm not writing this from any particular side. I found myself agreeing with everything you said in your post above, until I got to the last two paragraphs which I quoted above. While I understand what you are trying to say, I think where I might slightly disagree is that (as I understand it) those who have emailed you saying they spent $X,000 - the money they spent is on resources and data sets they now own. For the user who is getting updates every 6 weeks and will have 54 updates by the time they spend $1,000, the problem is once they cancel that subscription that $1000 worth of data sets/resources is gone. I guess it would be analogous to renting a house vs buying a house - one earns equity the other doesn't. I'm not trying to attack the Logos Now model or FL's need for continuous revenue or rekindle any debates over subscription services, I just wanted to weigh in on why I see it as comparing apples and oranges.

Perhaps an alternative would be every six months or so to release a "bundle" or "package" where non-Logos Now users could purchase (to own) all the content that had been released on Logos Now over the previous six months? This way Logos Now users could have immediate access at a discounted rate, FL would continue to have the incoming revenue (both from the subscription service and these bundles), and non-Logos Now users would have the option to own the new features without having to wait for Logos 7.

Sean

3) Your suggestion?

I am really asking for your input in earnest, and I don't intend any snarkiness in this. But I am being very open and asking you to see things from our perspective: we're not trying to move you to a subscription to take advantage of you, or milk more money out of you. Our long term goal is to cost you less by getting more people to take a low cost subscription so we can deliver more value to more people.

Some users have emailed me to say things like "I've spent $X,000 with you, and it's outrageous that you're making me subscribe in order to get this new content." I humbly suggest you think of it another way: you've spent $X,000 on our product, and probably purchased a significant upgrade every few years for hundreds, and now we're offering to deliver fresh code and content every six weeks for $9/month. It'll take more than nine years to spend the next $1,000 on Logos Now, and you'll get 54 (!) updates along the way.

Isn't that a fantastic deal? And wouldn't you rather take that deal than win a handful of Character Maps and Before/After photos today, and then never see another, having if not strangled the golden goose of fresh content, at least encouraged it to lay different eggs? :-)

I am not closed to the idea of Logos Now. I have not subscribed yet because it does not yet offer enough to be compelling. But I am looking to being sufficiently persuaded, eventually.

After reading this thread, I have a new doubt, which I hope you will quickly dismiss. Let's imagine it's sometime in 2017, and we've all been subscribed to Logos Now for some time and are enjoying a bunch of new tools and content. One day we all get a mail from FaithLife, "We hope you are enjoying all the rich features of Logos Now. At this point the development of this service is now closed; while you can (and should!) continue to enjoy all of Logos Now for $8.95 a month, we are finished adding new content to it. That's because the new thing is Logos Tomorrow! For just a further $12.99 a month, you'll (eventually) be able to enjoy all these great new features such as..."

Forgive me for having such a wicked imagination, but this tangent does not seem too terribly far off from the original subject of this thread.

Mark Barnes

After reading this thread, I have a new doubt, which I hope you will quickly dismiss. Let's imagine it's sometime in 2017, and we've all been subscribed to Logos Now for some time and are enjoying a bunch of new tools and content. One day we all get a mail from FaithLife, "We hope you are enjoying all the rich features of Logos Now. At this point the development of this service is now closed; while you can (and should!) continue to enjoy all of Logos Now for $8.95 a month, we are finished adding new content to it. That's because the new thing is Logos Tomorrow! For just a further $12.99 a month, you'll (eventually) be able to enjoy all these great new features such as..."

I personally don't have that fear.

What is offered by Logos Now will continue to grow, and our $8.95 will get us increasingly more, I believe Faithlife is intending to use that fact to draw more and more people into Now, which will increase revenue without increasing prices, and allow for more content creation which will encourage even more subscribers. That's the virtuous circle they're aiming for, and increasing the price would break that.

That said, I do wonder what will happen when Logos 7 comes out. If some features (like Concordance) are included in Logos 7, will that mean they'll eventually be dropped from Now (so you'll have to pay for an L7 crossgrade to keep them)? I don't think that will be the case, but if it's not then it mean that Logos Now customers who don't buy Logos 7 will be getting a better deal that those that do. That doesn't seem right.

One possible answer to that would be to release some future Logos Now features that depend on datasets only available in Logos 7. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens. In fact, as a Logos Now subscriber that hopes to purchase Logos 7 when it's released, I rather hope it does happen.