Should I convert my legacy realm?

[Merion]

So I've been working on my one and only realm ever since I bought RW back in march 2014. From what I gather here, my realm now apparently is a legacy realm.

I know there have been a lot of updates since then, many of them welcome, even more irrelevant to me. Now I wonder - do I gain anything from converting my realm to a pathfinder one? And if so - how would I go about it?

[AEIOU]

I have a similar question. If I convert my legacy to "Other" while I wait for "5e" will I create problems for myself when I convert it again? Should I wait?

[kbs666]

What I tried was exporting my primary legacy realm as is and importing it into an empty PF realm. That failed. The thread where this is discussed does not indicate that the issues with this are fixed.

To directly convert a realm to another game system go to Manage -> Realm -> Game System you should see current game system and a drop box labeled "change game system to:" choose the one you want and press the button.

Note it makes all the changes and then tells you about any incompatibilities. Your only option if you don't like what it has done is to delete your local data and sync from the cloud so make sure you have synced up to the cloud any recent changes before doing this.

[ShadowChemosh]

Instead of exporting/importing just copy the realm. Then you can test converting it and see what happens. You copy from the main Realm selection screen on the wrench icon.

I made a bunch of Realm Copies for testing this last week.

[MNBlockHead]

Like Merion, I have a single realm that I have been working on for a little over two years. My campain use DnD 5e and will always be so. Since 5e is not ready yet in RW, I"m not going to convert it from legacy to other. I think I would want to convert from legacy to DnD 5e.

My question is if you can only import content from the same realm type, does that mean I'm limited to buy 5e-compatible material on the Content Market? Or could I buy, say Pathfinder material and then I convert the purchased Patherfinder to 5e, then I export that, and then import my export into my 5e realm?

[Silveras]

If you're happy with the way "Legacy" is working for you, you should be fine to just keep on going "as is" .. unless you want to share the content with others. In that case, converting to "Other" is probably the best choice (as Rob noted elsewhere, "Other" is the closest to "Legacy" of the valid choices).

If you want tags and things to be in the "Official" format for another game system, converting to that system makes more sense.

Remember that COPY makes a totally separate copy of the Realm, independent thereafter from the original. Export/Import keeps the Topic IDs so that they can be recognized as updated versions if you move things around through future Imports and Exports. That may come back to bite you in the future if you forgot that was how you did things.

[ShadowChemosh]

Remember that COPY makes a totally separate copy of the Realm, independent thereafter from the original. Export/Import keeps the Topic IDs so that they can be recognized as updated versions if you move things around through future Imports and Exports. That may come back to bite you in the future if you forgot that was how you did things.
Yes but the point is to make a "TEST" realm to see what happens. You don't keep it once you see what "converting" the realm does.

[kbs666]

Like Merion, I have a single realm that I have been working on for a little over two years. My campain use DnD 5e and will always be so. Since 5e is not ready yet in RW, I"m not going to convert it from legacy to other. I think I would want to convert from legacy to DnD 5e.

My question is if you can only import content from the same realm type, does that mean I'm limited to buy 5e-compatible material on the Content Market? Or could I buy, say Pathfinder material and then I convert the purchased Patherfinder to 5e, then I export that, and then import my export into my 5e realm?
Rob said that the import mechanism should convert the content to the same game system as the realm it is being imported to. But right now that conversion is buggy.

[kbs666]

Yes but the point is to make a "TEST" realm to see what happens. You don't keep it once you see what "converting" the realm does.

I just tried this.

I got some rather nonsensical messages about tag domains, it claimed to have merged one of my tag domains with one present in the game system but it didn't and after checking my standalone PF realm there is no tag domain with that name, but the actual conversion seems to have worked without any noticeable hiccups.

It would be nice to get a log of these warnings so as to be able to send them in.

[Silveras]

Yes but the point is to make a "TEST" realm to see what happens. You don't keep it once you see what "converting" the realm does.

Yep. I just wanted to make clear what the difference is since Copy and Import/Export are still new.

[rob]

So I've been working on my one and only realm ever since I bought RW back in march 2014. From what I gather here, my realm now apparently is a legacy realm.

I know there have been a lot of updates since then, many of them welcome, even more irrelevant to me. Now I wonder - do I gain anything from converting my realm to a pathfinder one? And if so - how would I go about it?

NOTE! This is a general answer regarding whether to convert any realm to a particular game system structure. The OP's question was specifically for Pathfinder, but the answer is basically the same for anyone considering conversion to any game system they play.

There is no absolute requirement to convert a realm. There are various reasons why you might find conversion beneficial, and others why you might find it detrimental. Here are some of the factors to weigh...

* If you LIKE the official structure, then you're definitely going to find life easiest by adopting it. We've taken the time to setup the official structure to pretty closely match what the publisher does for that game system (some substantive changes are still pending for D&D5E to more closely match what Wizards does).

* If you plan to bring content from PDFs into Realm Works yourself for personal use, you'll typically find that the official structure streamlines this process substantially. The material from the PDF will map directly to the structure provided, with a high level of correlation.

* All published material from us, and all officially shared material that's delivered through the Content Market, will subscribe to the official structure for any given game system. If your realm is converted to the same structure, everything will import smoothly and be ready to go. This, obviously, presumes that you'll find material offered through the Content Market to be desirable for your purposes.

* We expect the majority of users to convert their realms, and it's pretty safe to assume that all new realms created by users from this point forward will choose the game system matching what they play. If you intend to share material with other users in any way - outside of the official channels here - then you'll find it much smoother to adopt the official structures.

* If you plan to share material between your own realms, adopting an official structure will possibly simplify things in some respects. You'll want to make sure that your structure is consistent between realms. So you'll need to coordinate the propagation of structure changes you make from one realm to another. This will require you to delve into the import/export Advanced Options to a limited extent to perform, although it certainly won't be hard. If you adopt an official structure and apply your own customizations to that structure, you'll still need to do this, so this is admittedly a pretty weak reason unless you simply adopt the official structure with no personalized changes.

* If you DISLIKE the official structure, then you're certainly going to prefer sticking with whatever structure you've developed for yourself already. The whole goal of Realm Works is to let you adapt the product to best suit how YOU operate, and there is no reason why you should abandon that. Even if you dislike the official structure, you may find it useful to convert and blend your own changes in with the official structure, especially if you want to leverage published/shared content that adheres to the official structure. Doing so will simplify the process of weaving content with the official structure into your own material. You can simply hide large portions of the official structure that you don't like so that your creations don't bother with that structure. Doing this will allow published/shared material to be imported smoothly with the proper structure, while all of your material adheres to your personalized structure.

* Our belief is that most users who have customized their structure thus far have done so in two primary ways. First, they have adapted the structure to be closer to the game system they are playing. Second, they've tailored the structure to better suit their personal style of managing their campaign. Anyone who has focused on the former is typically going to be best served by conversion, since their personal refinements will still be preserved after conversion. If you have focused on the latter, then you may still be best served by conversion, as outlined in the previous bullet.

* The only time that you should absolutely NOT consider conversion is when your personal tailoring of the structure substantively conflicts with the official structure. For many users, if they dislike the official structure, they can readily disable the aspects of the official structure they don't want (by hiding it via the Manage Categories and Manage Tags interfaces). This leaves in place a structure that is personalized and still makes it easy to import content that uses the official structure. The real question here is whether you CAN readily disable the aspects of the official structure that you dislike while preserving your pesonalizations. That depends entirely on the nature of your personalizations and how they interplay with the official structure, so it's something that should be experimented with to properly assess for each user. Experimenting like this should be done in a safe place, such as a copied realm.

That's everything I can think of right now. I'm sure that's WAY more than anyone was expecting, but there are obviously lots of factors involved - and this is all stuff we've spent LOTS of time weighing and striving to resolve for users.

Having everyone convert to the official structure AND smoothly integrate their own personalizations is our ultimate goal, since that maximizes everyone's ability to share content and the potential success of the Content Market. It's our hope that we've made it possible to achieve this goal to the greatest extent possible, so that the vast majority of users ultimately convert. Fingers crossed that actually happens. :)

[rob]

NOTE! If you are considering whether to convert to D&D5E, you may want to hold off until we deploy the remaining structure changes for that game system. It's not critical to do so, but you might find that some of our upcoming changes being the official structure more closely in line with the rulebooks. If you wait to convert, all your converted content will automatically inherit these upcoming changes. If you don't wait, some of the upcoming changes will not be automatically retrofitted into your content when they are deployed, although you can manually retrofit individual topics (via the "Synchronize Structure to Match the Category Definition" option). That may not matter in many cases, but it may in others.

My expectation is that the remaining structure changes for D&D5E will be deployed at the start of next week (23rd/24th). Due to our focus on squishing the remaining bugs that have been reported with the import/export/conversion mechanisms right now, coupled with the need to release those changes at the start of a week, I don't foresee them going out until the start of the next week at this point.

[rob]

Note it makes all the changes and then tells you about any incompatibilities. Your only option if you don't like what it has done is to delete your local data and sync from the cloud so make sure you have synced up to the cloud any recent changes before doing this.

Users are also given the option to create a full backup of everything prior to the conversion. However, I personally prefer (and use) the approach you've suggested here. I'm just pointing out that it's not the "only option". :)

[rob]

My question is if you can only import content from the same realm type, does that mean I'm limited to buy 5e-compatible material on the Content Market? Or could I buy, say Pathfinder material and then I convert the purchased Patherfinder to 5e, then I export that, and then import my export into my 5e realm?

Game system structure conversion is automatically performed in conjunction with the import logic. And it sure does make things complicated under the covers. The benefits of this, though, are that you CAN import Pathfinder material into your D&D5E realm, or vice versa. The import process will automatically convert the material across.

Of course, the imported material may or may not have limitations based on the import and conversion. For example, if you bring Pathfinder material into a D&D5E realm, there will be Hero Lab portfolios for Pathfinder that won't be of much use. The NPC statblocks will similarly be for Pathfinder. Various pieces of information about communities, NPCs, and scenes will be Pathfinder-specific values. And importing things like D&D5E rules will serve little useful purpose.

Basically, it will be pretty much the same situation as taking a Pathfinder PDF and adapting it to your D&D5E campaign. The key benefit is that everything will be woven into place, so all you need to do is start making the appropriate revisions to the various topics. And you can start linking the adventure material directly into your existing campaign.

The one key limitation on content adaptation is something you touch on with your second question, and this limitation is tied to the initial use of the export/import mechanism to orchestrate the Content Market. While you can import published content into your realm, you will NOT be able to export it back out. If we allowed that, then users would be freely able to purchase something, export it, and give it to their friends. Publishers wouldn't like that. However, you CAN import published content like a module directly into multiple different realms. The caveat is that you would need to make the necessary modifications each time you imported that module (e.g. convert from Pathfinder to D&D5E) instead of doing it once and re-using those changes repeatedly.

The Copy Realm mechanism also bypasses this restriction, since everything is copied under strict security controls. So you could import multiple pieces of published content into a realm, weave it all together, and customize everything to your heart's content. Then you can copy the realm and run it as a campaign, leaving the original realm in place and untouched for future re-use. When you do the copy, all of the published content is duplicated into the new realm, without restriction.

The "modify and then re-use" limitation is expected to disappear in the relatively near future. You may recall us discussing how using export/import is being done as a stepping stone towards our longer term vision of everything being orchestrated through the server. Once everything runs through the server, you won't need to export the material to a file that can potentially be shared with other users, thereby eliminating the potential security hole. At that point, you would absolutely be able to make the changes once and re-use the modified module repeatedly in different realms. That's prominently on the road map for us, but we're not quite there yet.

[rob]

Yes but the point is to make a "TEST" realm to see what happens. You don't keep it once you see what "converting" the realm does.

This is an EXCELLENT suggestion.

Create a copy as a place to experiment. See what works and what doesn't. Figure out whether conversion is what you want. Assess whether you can weave your personalized structure changes smoothly with the official structure. Determine whether you can reasonably turn off any official structure stuff that you don't like. Play around and find out what's going to be the best approach for you.

THEN go apply whatever changes you decide upon (if any) to your primary realm.

[rob]

I just tried this.

I got some rather nonsensical messages about tag domains, it claimed to have merged one of my tag domains with one present in the game system but it didn't and after checking my standalone PF realm there is no tag domain with that name, but the actual conversion seems to have worked without any noticeable hiccups.

It would be nice to get a log of these warnings so as to be able to send them in.

The messages are not intended to be nonsensical. Please let us know which messages aren't making any sense so that we can figure out WHY they aren't making sense and then determine how to re-phrase them so that they DO make sense. If they don't make sense, then that doesn't help anyone. :)

Your assertion that the conversion claimed to merge a tag domain and didn't is worrying. That sounds like it could be a bug. Please open a support ticket and provide us with more concrete details of the exact steps you're taking, especially whether you're doing conversion only, export/import only, or a combination of export/import and conversion. What is the name of the original tag domain that isn't being properly handled? What game system(s) are involved?

At the conclusion of conversion and import/export, the report is shown. There SHOULD be a button at the bottom of the presented form that allows you to save the report to a text file. Is that not appearing for you?

[Merion]

Thanks everyone, especially for the exhaustive answers.

I think I will just try the conversion with a copy of my realm, as suggested, and see what happens.

[Parody]

The messages are not intended to be nonsensical. Please let us know which messages aren't making any sense so that we can figure out WHY they aren't making sense and then determine how to re-phrase them so that they DO make sense. If they don't make sense, then that doesn't help anyone. :)
Here's a couple off the top of my head, both from using 224 to convert a realm with almost no content from Legacy to Other.


First off:
All game-focused article categories were converted to generic equivalents
My translation, if I were a less technical RW user:
We changed some stuff, but we're not telling you what. Good luck figuring it out.
...but as I have more experience, I might think this:
We changed some of your Category definitions for Articles, but we're not telling you exactly what we did. You should probably go through your Article Category definitions with a fine-toothed comb to figure out what, if anything, happened and see if it affects you. Hope you kept a backup so you can compare them.


The second:
Category 'Scene':
Snippet type 'Challenge': No mapping for tag domain 'Challenge Rating'
OK...so you told me what problem you had. What action, if any, did you take?

The answer is "We deleted the Challenge snippet from the Category definition." I would have expected RW to convert the underlying tag domain and change the snippet to use the new one. Perhaps that happens if there are any Topics/Articles that use that category? (Again, this particular example is from a Realm with almost no content, purely for testing purposes. It'd be much more annoying if you had a couple dozen similar items to investigate showing a variety of issues.)

In any case, if an action was taken you should say so explictly. Something like:
Category 'Scene':
Snippet type 'Challenge': No mapping for tag domain 'Challenge Rating'.
Snippet type 'Challenge' was removed from Category 'Scene'.

[kbs666]

So I gave it another try to see what was happening with the conversion process and get the log file.

This is the warning that makes no sense:
"Domain 'Source':
User-created domain merged into game-specific domain with the same name"
There is no tag domain named "Source" in the empty Pathfinder game system realm and there have been no tags added to the tag domain that I had created.

Second and this is really puzzling. Built in categories like settlements that have noticeable changes from the base categories got the additional snippets. However my custom category of Deity was not merged with the Pathfinder game system specific category of the same name. My category is completely unchanged and the PF category is no where to be found. This could be a problem if I ever try to import PF content that includes a deity.

[Exmortis]

So I finally decided to convert all, and I do say all (for those that have seen it, it is a pretty extensive list) into one of the support system types, Other.

First and foremost is was easy, seamless and for all but one realm essentially error free. Aside form one realm, I had the same error list for each except one minor edition. Some legacy vs other differential, affect my own work: ZERO IMPACT.
/applause

All of my custom categories were untouched, which is what I expected by all information, since I do NOT modify any source, but create my own. I did this to ensure no issues in the future. Looks like that paid off.

One realm had a massive error list, Another a minor list. The minor list was 9 snippets that the new Other did not have a conversion for, not a big deal at all. The major list will require me to go through in-depth to see what was not liked.

After each conversion I did a index and sync. So we will see how it all behaves. I did a full backup just before doing the conversion.

Will report back if the big error list has any issues worthy of reporting. But I have a feeling it has do to with my earliest work, where I had not settled into a standard.

[Silveras]

Second and this is really puzzling. Built in categories like settlements that have noticeable changes from the base categories got the additional snippets. However my custom category of Deity was not merged with the Pathfinder game system specific category of the same name. My category is completely unchanged and the PF category is no where to be found. This could be a problem if I ever try to import PF content that includes a deity.

That's not so puzzling to me. Just as Import/Export does not merge Topics based on name, but rather on a hidden internal Topic ID, the Categories also use hidden Category IDs to be unique. That's what allows you to have both the standard and your own version of a Category with the same names, in the end (such as Entity, and Entity (Local). The "(Local)" isn't part of the name per se.. just something RW shows to differentiate the two.

So... I would not expect Custom categories to merge with anything else. I believe this was one of the reasons that Rob encouraged people to stick to the standard Categories as much as possible.. because they would always be seen as something "custom" when mixing published and custom material.

[ShadowChemosh]

That's not so puzzling to me. Just as Import/Export does not merge Topics based on name, but rather on a hidden internal Topic ID, the Categories also use hidden Category IDs to be unique. That's what allows you to have both the standard and your own version of a Category with the same names, in the end (such as Entity, and Entity (Local). The "(Local)" isn't part of the name per se.. just something RW shows to differentiate the two.

So... I would not expect Custom categories to merge with anything else. I believe this was one of the reasons that Rob encouraged people to stick to the standard Categories as much as possible.. because they would always be seen as something "custom" when mixing published and custom material.
Keep in mind this is not the same for Tags/Domains. If you have Domain.Tag in your realm and you import with the same Domain.Tag it will be overwritten. The database ID is not used the actual tag name will get used to find a match.

This was one of the things I found in the beta that was fixed. Otherwise you could end up with a multiple tags with the same name and then RW would NOT deal with it correctly. Often causing a crash.

But David mentioned that this would not work for Categories because they where too complex.

[kbs666]

That's not so puzzling to me. Just as Import/Export does not merge Topics based on name, but rather on a hidden internal Topic ID, the Categories also use hidden Category IDs to be unique. That's what allows you to have both the standard and your own version of a Category with the same names, in the end (such as Entity, and Entity (Local). The "(Local)" isn't part of the name per se.. just something RW shows to differentiate the two.

So... I would not expect Custom categories to merge with anything else. I believe this was one of the reasons that Rob encouraged people to stick to the standard Categories as much as possible.. because they would always be seen as something "custom" when mixing published and custom material.
Which is why I created my Deity category back before there was a Deity category and the Entity didn't fit my needs.

But I didn't get two versions of the Deity category. I just got the one, mine. The one that should be part of all Pathfinder Realms is missing.

[Silveras]

Go to the "Manage" tab, Categories button. Scroll down... there are *probably* now two sections... Active Categories and Inactive Categories (and perhaps the same for Articles... Active and Inactive).

When I tested importing before, my unused "Local" versions of standard Categories wound up in the Inactive section... your Standard ones may be there as well.

[kbs666]

The only inactive topic categories are
Planetary body
Region: Celestial

I checked very thoroughly for the Pathfinder Deity category and it simply isn't there at all.

[davidp]

The only inactive topic categories are
Planetary body
Region: Celestial

I checked very thoroughly for the Pathfinder Deity category and it simply isn't there at all.

Do you see an Entity category?

[kbs666]

Do you see an Entity category?
Yes. It is in the Active Categories. The conversion had to keep it as I use it for some beings in my campaign.

[Avi]

Where do you read the error reports?
When an import crashes I get the option to send a report to LW, but can't see the report.

[Parody]

If RW crashes before finishing the import, you're not going to get a summary of import issues because you didn't make it to the point where RW shows it to you. (The crash report and the import issues list are two different things.)

[Exmortis]

OK went back over my massive error list for one realm that I converted. Same error for every single entry for my "Keyed Location" custom category in my first realm I worked on from a PDF.

I used a domain for Challenge Rating that was in RW to begin with, but was never able to use it in a subsequent realm. In every newer realm I made my own Domain Tag "Challenge Level". Why only one had the error. Seems it was there but I was unable to add it to a Category.

I had a few crashes trying to fix it, but I created my normal Domain Tag and adjusted my Category to remove the old Tag snippet and added the new one. So far with a small amount of future effort all will be good.

I have a standard set of custom categories and tags I make with every new realm, and that has saved me from any grief in those conversions. Only regret is, that I wish used a much smaller IP then T1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil to learn with.

I have 500+ of these errors HA!

Category 'Keyed Location':
Snippet type 'Challenge Level': No mapping for tag domain 'Challenge Rating'
Topic 'Hall of Triangles (144)':
Unretained tags: Challenge Rating: NA
Topic 'West Room (145 F)':

[kbs666]

What I find inexplicable is why it doesn't just convert the Challenge Rating domain like it does every other domain.