You left out how LWD blamed Paizo for the delays.

Yes I get the content for what is essentially now a dead product, or at least on life support. Yes I know its just shelved, but I have been around since the VIC20 days, products shelved end up Nuked by Duke Forever.

Opening the market, with the intent of bleeding the customer then shelving the product is bad faith. This may or may not have been intended but it sure feels like it. RW has a sorted history in its short 7ish years, I defended heavily for more than 5, but at some time you sit back and realize your on a raft that is being pushed further and further from shore, when you were told it was tied to the dock.

Very lonely out there in the blue.

They will never sell it, because the code is such a mess that only Rob understands it, they told us more than once that they have nobody else inside LW who is able to fix bugs... imagine how is it sellable to another dev team.

He / They also said that they will not stop developing RW, in the - even recent - past.
So, what he says now has the same value: "the servers will remain up... for now". Furthermore, it seems that LW is not sailing in good water, so we have to consider the possibility that the whole company will sink in a foreseable future. And if it sinks, there will be no more servers.

Most definitely Farling. I'm a big fan of your importer and exporter tools (see this post: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=63267). My problem is not having the skills to necessarily upload the html to a site...

I don't remember seeing that. I remember them (LWD) taking the blame for their own delays and the reasons behind them.. but not putting the blame on Paizo at all.

While it might sound like I am defending LWD.. I am not. I am saddened by them not furthering RW as I have been around since the beginning of the Beta and have many many years of data in my realms. I will miss the potential that RW could have had.

"So you will be able to use said content like you would any data that you enter yourself."

That statement is not true.

If I enter all the data myself, and export it, I get a full export.

If I enter part of the data myself, and import, say, the bestiary, I can't import just the monsters I want. I have to import the whole bestiary. Then if I don't want the whole bestiary, I have to delete what I don't want.

Then if I have a complete adventure, and I want a complete export, I can't get that.

The two prospects are not equivalent. I'm saying no more and no less than that.

And this was true with all content from the RW Content Catalog they released for us to purchase if we wanted to do so. We knew that going in that this was the case. That doesn't mean that you still can't use the data. As you are actually USING it even if it is full or partially doing so. It is in use.

Sad day, however the writing was on the wall when it was clear that the user interface was not a priority for the dev team.

ok, now that realmworks is dead does anyone have a suggestion for a web platform that can easily accept content exported from realmworks?

anyone?

thanks!

I've been reluctant to say it loudly because I like to be supportive, but it's been my thinking for quite awhile that Realm Works is never going to go anywhere with Lone Wolf. They just don't have the resources to keep working on it, obviously. It also seems like they barely have the resources to work on Hero Lab Online and Hero Lab Classic. Hero Lab Online already seems to be floundering.

Honestly I think the only hope for Lone Wolf and its products is a merger with another game company, or doing something like selling Realm Works to another company to make some money that they can put into completing Hero Lab Online.

I'm curious if DriveThruRPG would be open to host user-generated Realm Works content. We're obviously never going to get it into the Content Market itself. I might experiment with that down the road myself.

Thank you for taking the time to write this both to your clients, and to us on the forums here. I know this cannot have been easy.

I cannot say I am surprised by this. Saddened, disappointed, and frustrated, but not surprised.

Realm Works fills a need I definitely have as a Game Master. My campaigns tend to run 3-5 years; having a source that lets me track my world and what is know, etc as well as relationship, connections, plots, etc. This is something I have worked on for myself with wikis and other tools. I had very high hopes for Realm Works.

I bought and found it... close enough to what I need to find real value in it, and had hopes it could evolve into what I really wanted. In the years since, with the minimal development that has happened, I began to suspect the evolution would not happen. I have worked a few decades in IT now; I recognized the patterns.

I will continue to use Realm Works for my current campaign for the next couple of years. I am not sure I will use it for my next one, even though I am ready to start to doing development work on that now. I want to use a tool that will get to where I need, and will support the interactions with players that I think will really add depth to the game at the table.

Having said that, I would be very interested in hear what options the community comes up with to share. I would support an open source effort. I will even watch carefully to see what features creep into HeroLabs -- I don't use that product (primarily because I do not like the output formats) but many of my friends do.

I will continue to (mostly) lurk here. I will continue to use it for several years to come. I have hopes to see something rise phoenix like from the ashes here, but I don't any high expectations. I will also be very, very interested to hear what replacement options the people here discover and pursue as well.

What I think I will miss most (next to the support from the forums for making things work) is not seeing an adventure that was written to make real use of Realm Works -- not just an import of an existing adventure, but one written with the tool in mind and its features.

Thank you Rob for a serious effort to give the Game Master the tool sets to run an in depth and vibrant campaign. I am very glad your heath has improved. I hope Lone Wolf survives the changes you have to go through now and prospers in the future. I'll be around here, with my irregular lurking habits, and hope to read about improved progress in the future.

Which concedes the point that the statement I called out was not a true statement. So we're in agreement.

So I echo all your sentiments. As replacements for Realm Works, I would recommend looking at World Anvil, or checking out the Kickstarter for GM Binder now.

I really hope Lone Wolf comes back to Realm Works, but given the way things seem to be at this time, I'm not holding my breath. It's time to focus on looking for a new tool for this purpose.

Unless it's changed since I last looked World Anvil only does manual linking. As far as I'm concerned that's a deal breaker.

BM binder? I still have no idea what that is supposed to be.

I wouldn't look at a kickstarter... The market for GM products is not that big.

YARPS looks promising, but updates seem far and few between, looking at their facebook page. So if and when it releases... unknown to me.

*Edit*
BTW I'm looking for other alternatives too. Sadly so, as I love RW. But I will continue to use it until something with at least the same features comes around. And preferably an RW-import possibility ;-)
And who knows, maybe HLO will be a huge success and carry RW one day. I only used it briefly for the PF2 playtest, but it worked nicely.

Except that you are STILL using the product you bought from LWD. While you think it was a money grab, I disagree. If you bought something and weren't unable to use it now because of RW being shelved.. then I would be in agreement with you. But that is simply not the case. While yes, you can't export their product to share that particular data with someone else.. they never intended for you to be able to do so. So not sure where you are going with that... but you can manipulate, remove, change and do what ever you want to the product you purchased with the online content that they gave to use to be able to do so.

So, if you think I am in agreement with you.. this is what I agree with.

Where did I say it was a money grab? I called out one comment. When you first questioned me on it, I specified the one comment I was calling out. I pointed out how it was a false statement. And I explicitly said that that was all I was saying.

You're criticizing a statement I never made. And that's fine, except you're quoting me while doing it, which indicates you think I'm the one who made it. I'm not.

The statement I DID make, and clarified, explicitly, was one you conceded.

Guys, this is dragging out for pages - can't you just agree to disagree?

Nikmal and EightBitz, could you take the conversation/argument/disagreement to PMs please. I don't think you're adding anything to the general theme of this thread.

And for the record, I don't believe it was a money grab. I only know Rob from the forums, and from the one time I met him at a meet up. So we're not best buddies, neighbors, or long-standing friends, but the impression I have of him is that he's a stand-up guy.

I think also get the impression that BJ has a high degree of integrity, and that if she ever saw any indication that Rob was acting in bad faith, she would have either stepped in or jumped ship.

So no. I never said it was a money grab, and I don't think it was a money grab. I do think things were very badly managed, but that's not the same as a money grab, and we now know that there were extenuating circumstances for the bad management.

Yeah, sorry. Stopping now.

Well, this really is a bummer. However, I've really integrated RW into my GMing routine. I find the current iteration very useful, so I intend to continue using it for the foreseeable future. I am disappointed that the content market won't be expanding, but since my group is planning on sticking with PF1, there was honestly not much chance we'd be seeing things I'd want to purchase anyway.

My biggest concern is support completely ending, and the servers getting shut down fully. I like the cloud storage, and the lifetime access was one of the reasons I backed at the Alpha Wolf level during the Kickstarter. However, with the export function I can probably manage to back things up myself (I'm only using RW on a single machine anyway).

BUT, if the servers do eventually get turned off we won't be able to create new realms without some sort of update to sever the requirement to call home. Seems like that won't be a problem for the time being, and I hope that Rob and the LWD team wouldn't leave their customers out to dry if it came to that (at least, they've always struck me as a stand up company that way).

Perhaps I need to make a boatload of blank realms to reserve for future use...

What about subscription fees ?
 

Well I knew it was too good to last.

Realm Works is a really good product. It has been immensely helpful for me to manage my campaign.

I have put a ton of work into my Realm, it is about 3GB in size.

I just hope LW will reconsider. I am happy to pay a subscription fee to keep it alive...

In it's current form, it adds to my game.
I'll continue to use it.

If our group does an adventure for which there is a product on the Content Market, I'll purchase that without hesitation.
It would be nice if additional products made it onto the Content Market, but sadly none in the foreseeable future.

Hopefully Realm Works gets some attention in the future.

If the focus is on Hero Lab, I'd love for HLC (with 3pp packages) to find their way onto HLO.

Bolded for emphasis as to when you mentioned it being a money grab. And just as an FYI the above statement is also why I have been so argumentative. (I am also done, but protective of friends too).

But also suddenly realized that is NOT you Eightbitz "(

Not great news for us, but worse for the folks there. Really horrible it had to end this way for you.

However bright side is that - we have a product that works, it does 90% of what I need it for. Obviously there are things I would like it to do better, but I can live with it as part of a toolset now rather than the only tool.... PowerPoint, OneNote and a whole raft of possible VTT tools that can be used.

As long as it continues to be supported in some capacity I am happy to keep paying the subscription - I am not expecting new features, just keep it "working as is" for now.

As for the future, I do hope if you don't open source it, that you can pass on the legacy to someone else. The core concepts are sound, the interface is a little clunky. Using the current software as a base "working model" along with it's design documents perhaps another brave developer can tackle V2 and take it to market, so it continues to live on.

I don't believe there has been any deliberate bad faith on LW's behalf - shit happens! I have seen FAR worse Kickstarters... at least the folks at LW seem to care and have created a tool that more or less works as intended.

So thanks for everything so far, I truly hope this is not the end of the journey.

As a workaround does opening and saving them in the 32 bit app help?

+1 , amen to that! Hoping for the best.

Hey everyone!

My apologies for my delayed "appearance" here on the forums. My position at LWD has been reduced to part-time and I no longer have an assistant to help with communication so please try to keep that in mind when waiting for my attention.

One item I would like to address before going further is the comments claiming Lone Wolf purposely launched the Content Market knowing we'd be ceasing development on Realm Works. I can promise you that is 100% untrue. I was one of those that pushed for the completion of the Realm Works Kickstarter as I believed it was the right thing to do and I believe in the product itself. We fully expected to be adding new content and features as normal in the months that followed and are saddened that this won't be the case.

I can certainly sympathize with everyone's upset over the current situation and I've put together a list of answers to the most commonly asked questions I've seen flying around that will hopefully make the situation at least less dire than some are imagining.

1. Will Realm Works still be available for purchase in the future?

Of course! Realm Works is still an incredibly useful tool that we’ve come to love, and we have no intention of pulling it from the market.

2. Are the servers going to be shut down?

Of course not! We have no reason to shut the servers down and have zero intention of doing so. We’ve suspended work on other products over the years and they have continued to be heavily used long after new coding work was ceased, Realm Works is no different. It’s still a highly useful tool that we expect many users will continue to enjoy for years to come

3. Will Realm Works still provide online sync capability?

Absolutely! Nothing is changing with online synching; Realm Works and all its current features will continue to work in the same manner it has been.

4. Will refunds be granted to users who recently purchased the product?

Many users still consider Realm Works to be quite useful for campaign management, but if you’re within our 60-day guarantee window of purchase we will absolutely issue you a refund. While we might not be adding any new exciting features in the future there are still plenty of things to get excited about in Realm Works and we encourage you to take it for a spin before making a decision.

5. What about the people who just recently renewed access? Will there be an option for refunds for them?

No. The servers are still running, just as before, and Realm Works is still a powerful tool. Access isn’t being lost and the program will still work as it always has, we’re simply not adding any new bells or whistles at this time.

6. Will we continue to provide support to end-users or are users effectively on their own?

We'll do our best to continue providing product support, especially as it relates to individual accounts. Support for technical issues will be limited, but we'll do what we can to answer questions, provide guidance, and solve problems where we can.

7. If something breaks the product entirely in the future, will we address it?

It depends entirely on the nature of the problem, the number of users impacted, and the complexity of identifying and fixing the problem. Realm Works has been running well for quite some time now. There have been occasional issues, but we just fixed the bugs that were being most widely reported by users. Fortunately, the likelihood of there being a bug that seriously impacts numerous users is quite low. Users should continue, as they have been, to be responsible and maintain suitable backups using the mechanisms that are already provided within the product.

8. Have you considered opening the code to the community?

We have discussed it at length but won’t be doing so at this time. Our original vision included evolving Realm Works and Hero Lab both to a point where we could more fully integrate them and blur the lines between the two products. While we don’t currently have the resources to do this, we still absolutely plan to bring some of the key capabilities from Realm Works into Hero Lab. Additionally, the commercial framework used in the Realm Works UI costs thousands of dollars and anyone wanting to work on Realm Works would need to purchase that framework to begin working with the product, making it unlikely that much good would come from it.

9. Any chance of opening up the content market to user submissions of original material?

This is something we originally intended to pursue, but we also wanted to ensure there was consistency and continuity of all the material we released. That entailed significantly more work than just putting a file into the Content Market and while we were excited to make it a reality, we never quite had the resources available to put the plan into place. It’s certainly something we might consider in the future given enough interest, but we’re currently unable to allot the time to pursue it.

10. Can publishers sell their self-made RW content on DTRPG or other marketplace platforms?

Absolutely! However, it’s important they keep in mind that we can't enforce the security aspects of content that is released outside of the Content Market itself. Just like PDFs downloaded through DTRPG and other markets can potentially be shared freely out in the wild, so could Realm Works import files.

Hopefully, that answers some of the lingering questions. I will check back here for others in the days ahead. :)

RW is broken right now. The 64 bit release of HLC completely broke how I use RW/HLC in sessions.

Same issue here. Is there any chance that we might see a fix for that?

I only learned about this issue from this thread. It seems that the various users who were playing with the 64-bit HLC while it was in Beta didn't overlap with RW users, so this bug wasn't on anyone's radar on this end. I'll investigate what's involved sometime this week.

One point: the Kickstarter advertised the use of custom calendars. Without that, the "completion of the Realm Works Kickstarter" is not accomplished.

My first response to the announcement of the release of 64-bit HeroLab was about this. In asking if it had been resolved, I noted that the executable name as different and had not reported it as a bug for that reason.

If you have time Rob, question 11: Is RW in cold storage indefinitely/forever or do you have plans to review the business case in xx months?

question 12: The kickstarter brought in almost 200k $, that sounds like there has been some interest in the tool. What's the reason LWD doesn't believe in RW-paid-updates? It would pay off twice, since every RW feature turns you a profit and create synergies with your HLC, becoming more useful.

Thanks!

Btw Community - If ppl would release some homebrew content on Drive through and what not, it could also increase the market share of RW. Though of course it is a bit late for this idea :) And actually I though the content market would feature somehting like this. But yeah maybe this all requires too much manpower...

Unfortunately, it appears that the HLC team did not relay a Realm Works concern that was reported in the HLC forum. So I don't believe anybody on the Realm Works side was aware of the issue prior to me seeing it in this thread. As I indicated above, I'll be investigating the issue in the next few days.

What I want to know is will they remove the requirement for the servers to create a realm so we can keep using it. If not then it has a time bomb built in and the program will cease to function in a big way when they shut off the server in the future.

And yeah, all hopes of seeing this open source are not going to happen. My only hope is someone reverse engineers the database and gives us a program to create a new realm without the server and then export to html the player revealed only info so we can continue to use it.

I was on the fence for a while because I hated the server requirement, but short of "the keep" this was the only other program that was not an online monthly subscription service.

And I'm not into rent-a-software when I am applying thousands of hours of my time into data entry into it.


It seems the community needs to support the product by figuring out how things work and creating our own tools that can give us the features and keep the program running. I also worry about the authentication servers being shutdown eventually causing the program to fully self destruct.

Thanks Rob!