Aprils winding down.....

[Spence]

So, I haven't been able to keep both eyes on the ball, but April is winding down the May 2013 early release is coming on fast.

Everything on schedule? I have a couple games I should be running, but I have been dragging my heels for RW to come out. Just don't have the patience for constant digging through reams of notes anymore.

Soooooooo....any news :D

[Jaynay27]

Oooh, Oooh - me too!!!!

Keen to hear any news on the May roll-out to us Alphas. I *NEED* realm works so bad :)

May I also add a query on the pricing/plans for the could service? Nice to know I have top tier cloud access etc, but what does that actually mean? :confused:

*edit*

Also - will we need to sign NDAs prior to receiving access, given we are getting access prior to the official release? If so, could we not have the NDAs provided now, so that we are all ready to go once access is granted?

So many questions...

[Amaranth]

Alpha checking in! Just read the Developer's Log from the Kickstarter and I'm disappointed in the delay to say the least. I suppose that is the joy of being in the software development world though.

Maybe to pass the time, we could all talk about what we plan on doing with the program once it's out. (Kinda like inmates talking about what they are going to do with their freedom when they get parole.)

I have original campaigns that I would love to get into a RW format, but I love running out-of-the-box modules. Is there interest out there for seeing large campaigns (like RotRL for Pathfinder) converted from book to RW? If there's community demand for it, I think I would really enjoy re-building classic adventures into RealmWorks. Any idea how multiple GM versions of the same campaign will be handled? Will their be a rating system for who's is the best?

-Amaranth

[Jaynay27]

Interesting question Amaranth.

My group has just started RotRL and I have transferred the fist 2 chapters to OneNote (ugh!), but I am really keen to get it in to RW.
The problem might be an issue of copyright as we probably can't share published adventures that we input into RW.

What I am *hoping* for is some announcements/partnerships between publishers and LWD that facilitates 'add on' content in the form of published material, for RW (much like we currently have with Herolab and Paizo/Pathfinder).

I would be more than prepared to pay a flat fee for RotRL content in RW (saves me the time copy-pasting at the very least).

I wonder how big a campaign world can get actually - what happens if I keep entering AP material in to the campaign world...will it eventually too big to handle? (We might keep previous PC's in the world as NPC's once a campaign wraps up, with the chance that new heroes will encounter the former PC's in the world, so it makes sense to have ALL the campaign data in the 1 place).

I like the idea of a rating system and I think this either will happen, or should happen. Will be interesting to see what people come up with and how it all fits in to current campaigns etc.

What are your plans?

[Silveras]

Frog God Games is already planning to do Razor Coast as a Realm Works data package.. it was in the Kickstarter.

I believe I have seen in the public materials about Realm Works that publishers will be participating in the repository of content, but that one of the remaining issues being worked on is/was the copyright protections.

In any event, it will be more work than just copy-and-paste. Because Realm Works exposes details / facts individually, publishers (and people entering home-brew settings and adventures) will need to consider how to organize their material effectively for that. Where now you may get several paragraphs of text on the background and layout of a dungeon, those might need to be re-organized, and some details shifted to a different "block". It might be, for example, that the background has three facts.. two of which the PCs have a chance to learn at separate times, and one they do not (at least in this adventure). To reveal those individually would probably require breaking that block up into more than one revealable element. Alternatively, I suppose you could add separate revealable bits for the pieces they can learn but leave the existing text intact.. however, either way, there's some reorganization going on to suit what is a different means of presenting the content.

[Amaranth]

I honestly have no idea what my plans are at this point. I was hoping on being able to play around with RW a bit early so I could see how it's going to fit into my campaign building in getting prepared for summer and winter conventions. Hopefully the release delay won't be too excruciating.

Conceptually, the potential is incalculable for me, but I see a huge hurdle if I'm not able to benefit from the creative work done by GM and players when running a published campaign. I totally understand that copyright is a factor and RW should never supplant the need to purchase products required to run a game, but I want access to quality GM designed maps, handouts, mp3s used for background music, quotes, stock PCs, recipes, and other community additions to published games that aren't in the original work.

Hopefully works done by the Realm Works community won't be squelched just because it happens to be based around published material.

-Amaranth

[rob]

If someone enters the content from published material, then it would be a copyright violation to share that content without the publisher's approval. It would be no different to enter the material from a PDF into Realm Works and share it than it would to share the original PDF. So that's not something that users will be able to do without publisher approval.

If content is "based upon" published material, but that content is original to its creator, then it can be shared freely. A problem only arises if the material is not just "based upon" but actually duplicated or directly adapted from copyrighted material.

We have been working with various major publishers to get them on board with making their content available through Realm Works. We will continue to do so with further publishers in the weeks and months to come. Thus far, we have more than a half-dozen publishers committed and more are in the offing. Soon after the initial release of Realm Works, it will also be possible to create and share maps, character portraits, audio, video, and a wealth of other material for re-use. We've begun contacting providers of such content to have them make their content through Realm Works as well.

So there will definitely be publisher support, and we're working to make sure there's a lot of it. Publisher support is also something that will steadily grow over time. We've successfully achieved wide publisher support with Hero Lab, and we are confident that we'll be able to achieve the same with Realm Works. Please give us the chance to do that. :)

[rob]

I wonder how big a campaign world can get actually - what happens if I keep entering AP material in to the campaign world...will it eventually too big to handle? (We might keep previous PC's in the world as NPC's once a campaign wraps up, with the chance that new heroes will encounter the former PC's in the world, so it makes sense to have ALL the campaign data in the 1 place).

Your campaign size can get quite huge if you want it to. You can mix content from multiple sources into a single campaign. The only thing you'll run into is having a lot of material to sift through. However, Realm Works provide a variety of tools to do that pretty efficiently. :)