Review: World Anvil (Free Tier)

So as some folks may know, I've been playing around on World Anvil for about a month now. I initially wasn't interested in something like World Anvil, as I wanted to keep my world details quiet in case I decided to publish it in the future. This had sort-of been my plan all along, and as I am quite protective of the things that I create I only wanted my players to be able to access my stuff. However, it soon became clear that my Google Drive document wasn't going to cut it. Google Docs struggles with anything over 50,000 words. It becomes sluggish and difficult to edit, especially on mobile or tablet, and if I'm on the move, I really need that stuff working! Then of courses there were several bouts of funny business over at DNDBeyond and Hasbro/WotC. I began to realise that storing my things over on those kinds of sites wasn't going to cut it long term, and I had to find a replacement as soon as possible.

Initially, I thought about using a Wiki-type site, but the initial outlay and complexity of the setup/editing process really put me off. I don't have the time, money nor skills to manage my own server to handle all of it, and I simply don't know enough about coding to make things look good. Additionally, running everything through my own website was a no-go. There would be too much work involved in building each separate function, and again, I cannot code. It is so far beyond me I'm certain I'll never understand it! World Anvil was initially suggested to me as an alternative to DNDBeyond for character sheets, though I WAS warned that the process was a little more involved, so I decided to take a look.

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Getting Started on World Anvil

Signing up for World Anvil was incredibly straightforward; you literally type in your email, create a username and password, and then answer a few questions to set up. At first, you're only allowed to choose one thing to "be", from Worldbuilder DM, Novellist, Player, etc, but that's ok because you can add more of those features later in your settings (which it even tells you during sign-up!). It also gives you a choice of editor, Plato/Simple or Euclid/Advanced. The main difference is that Euclid is predominantly an editor where you code everything yourself (using html code, I believe?), while Plato is advertised as a WYSIWYG editor. I chose to go with Plato, because I frankly can't code for toffee so there would be no point in even trying!

I chose to assign myself as a Worldbuilder DM. This is mainly because at the time, I was also trying out Novlr (review coming soon) as a novel-writing tool, so the DM channel was most appropriate in the moment. As it turns out, most of the novel-centric stuff is tucked behind a paywall anyway, so it probably wouldn't have been an option for me! Also, worldbuilding for my novels falls in line with the worldbuilding I do for my games, so I figured it would just transfer over easily enough later on. It asked me to set up my world with a few details, though also gave the option of continuing set-up for it later, and then asked the same for any games I was playing. For the sake of simplicity, I went with my Sunday group as the Guinea Pigs (sorry folks!) as it would be easy to add canon lore that then wouldn't be considered spoilers for them (Monday group is set ten years after the Sunday one).

Then, you are delivered to the dashboard.

That's it.

PLONK!

Off you go...

Now, I admit, the Dashboard is quite fun to look at, but there were no pop-ups or tutorials offered the moment I opened things up. I honestly looked at it for a few minutes completely daunted. I then sat and poked at a few buttons, wondering what they did, accidentally finding myself jumping between the main section and the A'arde page, which obviously had no content. I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what I was doing.

In hindsight, I should have used the "Learn" button (you can literally see it at the top right of the upper nav-bar in the screenshot above), but at the time I was so overwhelmed with the sheer amount of tabs available that I just completely froze up. Eventually, I made my way to the A'arde Dashboard for editing (rather than the main Dashboard) and found a bunch of article templates.

Finally! And so, I started writing. My first article was an expansion of some details I had for one of my favourite Gods. My second was an expansion of my Fuldair details for the city my Sunday group are in. And it only went on from there! Very quickly I found myself taking part in the competitions, and suddenly, worldbuilding/writing was no longer as daunting!

At time of writing, the interface for World Anvil has changed. On the 8th of October a new visual editor was released, though I literally only saw these changes today (14th October), so I guess I'm going to have to get used to that. For that reason, I'm going to note down what I have liked and disliked about my experience so far and talk about them in past tense, as I will likely write an addendum later!

Things I Liked

Prompts

The article templates offered a series of prompts that helped me to think about my lore in different ways. These prompts went in pretty deep, in some cases, and you were able to create "stand in" articles to link to certain bits of information that perhaps you had not already prepared. These prompts were NOT available on the standard article format, meaning that you don't have to work with prompts at all if you don't want to.

Timeline

The timeline feature is brilliant, though I admit it was a little bit fiddly for someone like me who has multiple "Ages" within A'arde, with each restarting the calendar. The aesthetic of it is very neat and tidy, and it can be quite a fun way to explore historical events within the world.

Maps

The clickable maps feature is another fun one, despite a lot of the customisation options being held behind the paywall. The fact that you can link articles to points of interest on the map itself is really useful, and it keeps things clean and tidy with the use of layers.

Professional Appearance with Minimal Effort

I didn't really have to do much editing to make something look professional. The prompt boxes did a lot of the work for me, and because everything is auto-formatted to compatible templates, there's no risk of aesthetic mishaps. There are a few things that annoy me about editing, but I'll go into those below.

Accessibility

So far, I've had no issues with accessing my tools on PC, tablet and mobile. It does of course depend on your connection (the site loads slower on my phone using Data, for example) but the fact that it can be accessed at all is pretty cool. There are some things I wouldn't want to do on my phone (such as adding pictures) but that's pretty minor for me, as I can always come back to it later.

Auto-Save

Auto-Save is on by default, so it's very difficult to lose your work. I am terrible for remembering to save as I go along, so having that as an option is super beneficial for me!

Competitions and Events

These really encourage you to go deeper into worldbuilding, although it can become something of a deep hole that you end up digging yourself! These are free to take part in, as you only need the free account to do so.

Things I Didn't Like

It Wasn't Actually WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG stands for "What You See Is What You Get", and World Anvil did NOT work like that with the old editor. It provided boxes with text prompts and questions, but the actual layout could be fiddly, especially if you wanted pictures in with your text. It once took me three hours to align three pictures with three pieces of text. Starting a new line required hitting the Return key twice instead of once, altering formatting often required extra steps to remove the original formatting first, and you couldn't drag and drop things into place. And even when you'd finished formatting everything, there was no guarantee that it was going to line up properly on the live page because the editing boxes are a different size to the live boxes.

Hopefully, the new editor should fix these problems, but I will report back once I have given it a go.

Inserting Pictures was Awkward

On the subject of pictures, adding them to your article ANYWHERE other than the provided upload boxes was finicky. There was no way to access a traditional Insert screen (as in there was no library that opened up when you click Insert) so instead you have to manually find the picture in your library, copy the upload ID (yes, you have to upload the pictures first) and then go back to your article to paste it into the Insert box. If you try copying and pasting directly into the article, you run the risk of it appearing in the wrong place, and once it's in, it's very difficult to move the image without causing the text to start jumping around the page. It's a pain, but I suffer it because I like having pictures in my work.

Again, I'm hoping the new editor fixes these issues.

Limited Number of Categories and Articles

Of course, I understand why this is. The more space you use, the more expensive it becomes. However, as space is constrained by the number of articles and not the actual physical space you're using, I find that rather annoying. I'd rather be able to write a hundred smaller articles than just forty undefined length ones, and the limit on the number of categories isn't even clearly advertised in the first place. That was my first hard hitting wall, as I was trying to arrange my thoughts using the Categories and then suddenly... Nope. You can't make any more, even though there had been no mention of a hard limit in free mode. Number of articles is more clearly labelled, but it's still a frustrating thing to contend with.

Advertising Pop-Ups

The pop-ups advertising subscription upgrades are so annoying I have almost punched the screen multiple times. The one that only covers the top of the screen is mostly fine to deal with, but when you have a full-screen one popping up every twenty minutes or so WHILE YOU ARE WRITING, AND you have to wait a full six seconds before you can close it, it's incredibly frustrating. I get it, you have a Flash Sale... but for the love of all that is holy... JUST STOP IT! I'm trying to actually USE your site, and the pop-ups are distracting me/getting in the way.

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Is It Worth It?

Overall, World Anvil is a great tool that I quite enjoy using. The introduction of the new editor should improve things greatly, and once I've had some time to play around with it (probably another month, as I want to give it a fair shot and time to work out bugs) I'll write another post about my updated experiences.

There are a few things I'm a little iffy about. For example, there were some things about the way the shortlisting for the competition I entered was communicated (or not, in this case) that I didn't like. I have also been put off entering future competitions by the fact that NONE of the selected finalists had Free accounts, they were all Premium subscribers of some level or another. Considering one of the prizes was a subscription, it seemed to me that it would actually benefit them more to ensure that someone with a Free account got onto the list, and taking a look at some of those shortlisted... I wasn't that impressed with some of them. That is, of course, nothing to do with the site and how it works, but more a personal and moral opinion on the way certain things are run, AND it's based on a single experience. It's something I will probably keep an eye on in future.

Additionally the limits on articles and categories are really going to stifle me. Limited space I can deal with, but hard limits on the number of articles and such honestly just stresses me out, as I KNOW I have more than that to write up. The issue with pop-ups is probably not something I can fix without upgrading.

But the real question for today is, would I pay for the upgraded features?

At this point in time, there is no real answer to that other than "No", but that's only because I don't have the money to do so right now, and nothing to do with World Anvil itself.

If I could afford it, I would LOVE to try out their family tree and organisation features, as well as give the novel writing side a go. I think that having those limits released would benefit me greatly, and I honestly have a lot of fun just coming up with new articles to add because the prompts are so helpful. I also REALLY want to try out the expanded features in the maps, and perhaps switch up the styling a little bit to keep it more in line with the usual aesthetic I have for A'arde-related creations. I would also, not to be too frank, be thrilled to get rid of those damn pop-ups.

But right now it just isn't going to happen.

£3.45 ($4.50 current conversion rate) a month may not seem like a lot, but the fact is I just can't afford it at the moment. It's also not worth rejuggling my finances JUST for the subscription; it's not something that I need to improve my quality of life, nor is it going to improve my financial situation, mainly because I don't have enough of a following to warrant pushing it. If I'm offered a subscription as a gift, I wouldn't say no, but until finances are more stable, I'll just have to make do and continue to consider my options.

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For those with an interest, head to the links below to see what World Anvil holds:

World Anvil Main Site

A'arde on World Anvil