Questions and wanted features thread!
 

I'm very interested in a product of this type and haven't seen one made available yet that has been worth purchasing... Hero Lab has certainly met nearly every expectation and desire I've had in character generation software, so I have high hopes for Realm Works.

While I understand official announcements are forthcoming, I thought I'd drop a few questions about Realm Works in the hopes that little bit of info will be revealed... and perhaps get a bit of discussion going about what others want in a product of this type. So...

#Will it have a built in document editor for compiling notes, images, PDFs, and other files?

#Will it support extensive hyper linking and searching?

#Will you be able to organize gaming material via a tree like folder structure? Ie, similar to outlining software.

#Will it have a flowchart view that can track a group's progress along a plot/adventure? Possibly have it correspond to a tile map ala Masterplan.

#A blurb on a blog mentioned the product will keep certain information from players. Does this mean that it is a multi-user and/or networked product?

#Will it license certain systems and be able to display various stats, tables and whatnot, similar to a GM screen, or even say SRD type data?

#Will it feature a scripting engine to handle text objects in order to pull randomly generated data from tables?

#Will you be able to import character data and keep track of player and npc stats, abilities, and inventories... and update them dynamically?

Anyway, those are just a FEW of the features I'd love to see in a product of this type.

A few questions?

Got plenty more. Not really expecting them all to get answered. Mostly just listing suggested features that would make a solid product.

Hopefully it will link in with HeroLab to be able to edit / show characters in-game.

Yeah, I second that!

Very definitely in agreement with DMG; being able to pull NPCs and PCs directly from your HeroLab files would be a great feature.
An integrated document editor with the ability to export to various standardized formats [PDF, et al] would be a great boon, too.

im new to herolab and LOVING it! finally getting great "e-tools" so I have high hopes forrealm works to help on the GM/DM side of things!

My answers below may be vague in some cases. That's because we're staying mum on various aspects for the time being. More details will be forthcoming as we get closer to release late this year. A lot of details are likely to be be revealed at GenCon.

Essentially yes, but not in a traditional manner you're likely thinking of.

Realm Works will be significant step above PDFs in terms of capabilities.

Again, essentially yes, but not in a traditional manner you're likely thinking of.

Sort of. Masterplan is a nifty tool. We're doing something very different with Realm Works, but there will definitely some overlap in terms of general functionality.

Not in a traditional sense.

Sort of. Again, not in a traditional way.

I don't understand this one. Please give me a concrete example so I have a better idea of what you're seeking.

That sounds like Hero Lab to me. Realm Works will be distinct from HL, but the two will work in concert.

If that's just a FEW, I guess I should strap on a harness and brace myself before you really start to unload on us. :)

Absolutely. The two will work in concert with one another.

FWIW, what I am looking for in this sort of product is not particularly system-specific, but something I can use to track events and people.

The key items for me:
-Fully customizable calendaring: The ability to set up customized weeks & months, as well as times that fall outside of those periods (festival weeks that are not part of any month, for example)
-Tracking of Lunar phases for several moons of varying periods
-Routing of NPCs ("In Early June, Grog the Mad can be found in Scarfhaven, Mid-June he takes the two-week Journey to his summer residence in Blicksburg, staying there until late September, etc, etc"). In the ideal, I could set a 'schedule for various NPCs, daily/weekly/monthly/yearly, so that at a given calendar date/time, I know who (of my tracked NPCs) is in the city of Nod's landing , and what they are doing.
-General Event Handling (with reminders) so that I can schedule important events and remain aware of them.
-General hyperlinked databasing, so if I can (for example) select a city, and choose from the list of NPCs (or Buildings, etc), and bring up the entry for that NPC.

Things I'd *like*, but can live without:
-Weather handling that is reasonably consistent (weather gets colder as seasons change, rain is preceded by overcast, that sort of thing) for perhaps 5 'Regions' (in a world spanning campaign they might be latitude bands, while in a smaller campaign I'd use 'Desert', 'Mountains', etc)
-Full interconnected linking of Data. (Grog was born in City A *link*, lives in City B *link*, and is currently in City C *link*. He is a member of The Brotherhood of Soap Merchants *link*...and if I Select City A, I see all of the people/orgs assoicated with it, and if I click on an Organization, I see all of the members of that organization) - the perfect example of this is an abandoned Corel Product, InfoCentral. I used to use this until I changed to Windows7, which won't run it :(