Realm Works Progress Update
 

As we reach the end of September, I wanted to give everyone a brief update on the status of my ongoing health battles and how they are still impacting Realm Works. While some progress has been made, the truth is that I seriously over-estimated how quickly my health and efficiency would return once I began to improve.

This past week, I received a more grounded and accurate understanding of the recovery process from a different doctor. It turns out there are two lengthy recovery stages: the first is to get off the nasty meds and the second is for the body to get back to normal again (i.e. flushing the meds out of the system). The previous doctor made it sound like there was only one step, and I definitely began to feel better during the first stage when I posted my estimates for completion. So, I remained hopeful and didn’t question my recovery until the improvement stalled earlier this month. While I’m disappointed in myself and my recovery, I can’t do more than press forward.

That said, I am getting a modicum of work done these days. Progress on Realm Works is being made – just not nearly at the pace any of us were hoping for.

There are three main milestones immediately ahead of us. The first is to finish getting a number of issues and bugs resolved within Realm Works that impact the Content Market launch, which is my current focus and has turned out to be significantly more complicated than I anticipated. The second is to complete the missing content for KS backers and get that delivered – this step relies on the aforementioned issues being fixed. And the third is to get the Content Market itself launched.

In the interest of transparency, I’m going to start providing a brief progress update every week. It will most likely be posted on Mondays, as I usually get a fair chunk of work done over the weekends. This way, everyone will know where things stand as we continue working towards each of the milestones. As I need to dedicate as much time as possible to Realm Works, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to engage in lengthy conversations about these posts. Therefore, I will be posting the weekly updates to a locked thread, which will also make them easier to follow for those tuning in at later points in the process. You are, of course, welcome to start your own threads and converse about what’s being done. I just may not be able to participate in those conversations.

While it’s by no means the improved product you all deserve, the weekly progress updates will provide a clearer sense of what’s being worked on and how it’s progressing, allowing everyone to follow along as I accomplish what I can.

Thank you to everyone who has sent kind words about my health challenges and to those who have continued to support my efforts over the years, despite your understandable frustration.

-Rob

Thanks for this, Rob! That transparency is really what I've been wishing for.

Why aren’t your other developers working on this?

Rob, thanks for the update. It is hard to do meaningful things, and I would hope that reasonable folks who get to see indications of progress will understand and let things evolve as necessary. If they don't... well, there is always the competition (good luck with that because I cannot even say what the competition really is [NBOS The Keep, maybe comes closest but still a universe away]).

Thanks, Rob.

Inspite and because of the setbacks, I wish you a speedy and full recovery!

What indications of progress have we seen exactly? Last I heard the only problem was Piazo and RW was ready and waiting as soon as they delivered. Guess not.

Rob,

Thanks for the update. Appreciate the reality check. Wish you best of luck in your ongoing recovery.

This was answered, read the previous posts. And honestly, it cannot be more open and transparent than this unless you want to see the bills from the doctor, jesus, this makes me really angry, no matter what this company does, every time there is someone posting more questions.

Just accept those weekly updates now, its much more than before and I strongly believe that it is not the best for the company if the ceo / owner has to explain every business decision they are doing within public.

Whatever the reason might be, don't you think they would have thought of it, if it is possible?

Sorry, for sounding grumpy in this post, but it's always the same here :P *hugs*

We don't have the update yet. When we do, you can judge for yourself whether you want to keep waiting. Periodic updates were all I ever wanted all along. If you look up my posts, you will see that I have asked for just a progress report on what has happened, and no dates need to be given.

I had never even heard of that software up until now, but I had a quick peep and it looked just like Realm Works to me! At least from a scattering of screenshots on their website.

I have both. The Keep is not in the same league with Realmworks, even with the latter's well-known foibles and bugs.

@Rob: If you really are interested in honoring your KS commitments, Zach over at Frog God Games assured me he'd be happy to provide the files for The Blight to you. All you need to do is ask.

Nothing much has changed with The Blight as far as content or size from before the KS happened. There are 10 chapters on the city covering 13 areas (12 were advertised in the KS) and the adventure path is 9 episodes (12 were originally intended). It was always going to be a huge adventure setting as it was always advertised as having the city AND the adventures which LWD was aware of as that info is posted on the KS. And of course FGG has a well-earned reputation of creating bookshelf breaking books.

While I do understand your frustration and certainly understand why you would ask that question, the answer is simply that we are not a huge company. Rob is not just our owner but the actual creator of these products and our senior developer. Sometimes only he can solve a problem.

To be clear, the tasks Rob is working on are not simple, they are complex issues only he has the experience to handle that are currently blocking our ability to move forward.

The Keep is ancient software. I honestly have no idea if its been updated in the last decade but v2.0 came out roughly that long ago. RW may have gone a long time since its last patch but not that long.

Stop being ridiculous, Rob. Disappointed in yourself and your recovery why? This is nothing you have control over. All you can control is taking the time you need to get better, and making sure that's your priority. All most of us have been asking for have been some sort of communication, and you've now provided that in spades.

A few months ago, my mom had an issue. She had been recovering rather well. Then, one day, as if someone flipped a switch, she took an unexpected downturn. A couple weeks ago, I sat by her bedside all night and all through the morning as the nurses told us she could go any time. I was holding her hand as she took her last her last breath.

So ----ing take care of your ----ing self. And get better.

Good. Right now, it shouldn't be at the pace we're hoping for. Or to flip that around, the pace we should be hoping for is the pace that allows you to get better.

What we deserve right now is simply communication. Don't be a workaholic. I know that's easier said than done, but still. Get better.

In my last replies to you, I know I got a little heated about a particular incident, and I apologize for that. With your recent explanations, I understand that there were extenuating circumstances, and you weren't your normal self, and I should have known better, because that sort of thing was out of character for you. So I wholeheartedly apologize for that. Get better.

I have to back Daplunk on this one... sound advice Rob and probably exactly what the doctor order (though perhaps without the colorful additives)! :)

Do get better and a weeks progress report will most likely go a long way...

And because I know what you're like Rob. We don't need war and peace. We don't need to understand exactly whats wrong. Most people just want clarification that there is progress and what the priority is.

Thank you all again on your support for my recovery! :)

Here is some additional information in response to a couple of the queries posted above. This information was largely outlined in a separate thread (mentioned by @Acenoid), which it linked below. I'll revisit the topics in this thread to avoid confusion for those who haven't yet seen that thread.
http://forums.wolflair.com/showpost....0&postcount=16

The issues live down in the guts of a few hundred thousand lines of code that I wrote, so I'm the one familiar with that code. The issues aren't localized problems and involve interaction across multiple aspects of what's going on under the covers, so someone will need to be familiar with all of that code to figure out how to solve them. In addition, the bugs don't occur reliably, so fixing them similarly requires piecing together a puzzle across a wide span of the code.

For those unfamiliar with software development, having someone else dive in to solve problems like this would be an immensely time-consuming task and can only be performed by a small percentage of developers. Someone thrown into the deep end on this effort would take many times longer to figure them out due to the need to acquire sufficient understanding of this sizable body of code. In other words, that person would take about as long as it’s now taking me at the slow pace I’m managing. :(

There are two significant components at play here. First, there are some issues with how things work under the covers that need to be resolved before we can complete and release the remaining pieces of KS backer content. These are the RW items that I’ve been working on thus far. Second, we need to get everything integrated with the changes to how the Paizo API now works so that we can launch the Content Market. For KS backers, the Content Market may or may not be of interest, but it’s critical for the publishers that provided that content, as ultimately selling the content is a key component of the agreements we entered with them at the time of the KS.

@Eightbitz: I'm really sorry to hear about what happened with your mother. My heartfelt sympathies for what you must have gone through.

No apologies are necessary. I was really edgy due to the meds. So the fault lies with me for not properly recognizing what was going on within myself. Fortunately, BJ took away my keys before I crashed the family car. :)

Rob, worry less about writing code and more about getting healthy. Let the other developers spend some time learning the codebase. The sooner they are familiar with it the sooner they can lighten your load.

I'm sure you feel like, and it may be literally true, you have to keep LWD open all by yourself but you won't accomplish anything by relapsing or killing yourself. Follow your doctors orders, get some exercise (assuming that's allowed). You'll be amazed what a difference walking a couple of miles every day makes.

Rob, I hope you get to feeling better. I really do.

The Realm Works KS was in early 2013, which ended up being more than two years prior to the Blight KS launch. At the time we agreed to put Razor Coast and Blight into RW, our understanding was that both products would be of a similar size to a standard Paizo AP – roughly 400 pages. That was true for Razor Coast, but Blight is somewhere approaching 1,000 pages of material. That’s quite a difference from what we were expecting.

The above is really a secondary concern, though, and it’s rendered moot by another factor. The crux of the decision with Blight really centers on the behavior of the person who helms Frog God. Allow me to present a hypothetical…

Let’s say that you have a sibling or friend who goes to a work event where they have responsibilities to perform. That sibling is then pursued and subjected to unwanted advances by someone. That sibling politely declines the advances and leaves the area to avoid the individual who’s out of line, but the event itself cannot be left because of the work responsibilities. This process then repeats multiple times, all in front of various independent witnesses. It reaches a point where the independent witnesses are so offended by what they’re seeing that they seek permission from your sibling to call the police and press charges. Your sibling declines to press charges, not wanting to cause a scene, and the stalker is merely banned from the event. How would you feel towards the person that stalked your sibling or friend?

This is the situation that I found myself in regarding Frog God, and I’m sure those of you who’ve met me can guess what my inclinations were at the time. Suffice to say that my views of this individual are extremely negative, and I have no desire to ever interact with that individual. That view extends to the company I own and the company he runs.

A few out there may view this as “taking sides in the feminist movement”, since these events occurred to a female employee. That would be way off base, though, as this is much more fundamental. In fact, the employee wanted to sweep it under the rug and try operating as if nothing had happened. I said no, because the stalker crossed a line with me. For me, this is about simple human decency and respect for others, and even more so in a work environment (where the events took place). I’ve always striven to treat everyone I encounter with respect. While I’m certainly not perfect at it and have my share of other failings, I think those who have met and interacted with me will attest to that behavior. So I seek the same basic decency from others I choose to deal with. As Bill and Ted famously put it: “Be excellent to one another!” If someone can’t manage that at a very basic level – and the actions that took place go way past that threshold for me – then I choose not to do business with them.

So what are the implications? What this means is that all new work on anything to do with Frog God products has ceased from our end. That decision went into effect in mid-2017 (right after the events outlined above). New work would entail interacting with the company and likely the person at the helm. All we do at this point is send a quarterly report on past products, which requires zero interaction.

This begs the question of why we don’t stop selling all past Frog God products. Doing that would require work to take down support for previously sold Frog God add-ons while still making them available to those who’ve already purchased them. That work would need to be done by me, since I’m the one that set that stuff up many years ago, and that would further delay forward work on RW. So it’s not something we’re taking the time to do right now. Making it retroactive would also mean not delivering Razor Coast to KS backers, which would further complicate the KS situation when that product was already essentially done when the events occurred last year (its completion is waiting on one of the bugs to be fixed).

For KS backers, Blight is unfortunately caught up in this decision, as it came out after the events took place and the decision was made. We are therefore not beginning any work on it. What we’re doing instead is letting KS backers choose what they want in place of Blight from the assorted content that we’ll have available. I’m not aware of a more fair way of handling this.

To sum up: Someone close to me was stalked and subjected to repeated unwanted advances at a work event for my company. From a simple place of human decency, that’s not a behavior I can respect, let alone abide by. I’ve therefore chosen not to have any further dealings with the stalker or the company he runs. It’s as simple as that.

Thanks, Rob

FGG are on my “never buy from” list for exactly this reason, and I applaud you for your position, Rob.

She took away both our keys, which was probably for the best. Thank you for your sympathies, and ... you know ... get better.

Rob, I wish you fast and complete recovery. Please ensure your health is your top priority and don't stretch yourself. Health can't be put aside and "deal with it later, in the next sprint".

First and foremost we must be normal human beings and the consumer urges should wait.

Be safe and be well Rob. Thanks for the updates.

I know this is really silly to ask and such a trivial thing too.. but for those of us that were the original beta testers and the KS backers were told that we would get forum badges, is this still going to happen? :)

I more just curious then concerned. I figured it would be easy to do and go a long way to the moral of the people that did back the KS and the Beta testers too. Plus maybe something you wouldn't have to do personally Rob?

This

I know I have made some pointed remarks about the state of realm works in the past, and as a professional programmer I do understand some of the difficulties you have been working through on a technical level.

finally getting some reasoning behind the delays defiantly helps and its much appreciated that you have decided to share the story with us.

However that said, again as a programmer, perhaps its time to learn from these delays and get at least one other dev in the company up to speed on this code, yes it will take time, but something like this should never have the knowledge fully invested in just one person so without them the whole product stops.

In an ideal world, you're absolutely correct. The gotcha is that, when the entire development team is only a handful in size, that's much easier said than done. And when there are this many projects being worked on, that's not easy to accomplish while still making the forward progress that we want - and that users are clamoring for. When we grew the team by two additional people earlier this year, knowledge overlap was definitely a priority and is something that we're progressing on. But there's a TON of stuff to get caught up on, so it's going to be a lengthy process to get there.

Holy smokes, Rob. Yeah, good call concerning FGG. I'll be avoiding that company like the plague from now on.

Fix one bug, check it off, 99 more bugs suddenly appear. LOL

Thank you, BJ!

Rob, when I first met you at Gen Con several years ago I was so impressed that you took the time to look at what I was working on and explain the use of containers and how it would help me out. A couple of years ago you again took some time at Gen Con to discuss a project I was working on. Now you have championed an employee who was harassed by someone at another company and chose not to continue doing business with that company. You could decide not to do the CM and I would still admire you and think you were a great hero.

I too will add them to my "never buy from" list.

Rob, go at the pace your body needs for you to fully recover. You are no good to us if you relapse or worse... We may grumble sometimes, some many times, but we want you to get healthy and will wait. When the CM is finally launched we will have a HUGE party! :D

Not sure how I missed this post during my previous pass. Sorry!

We actually commissioned artwork for the various badges years ago. I'm not sure where that artwork currently resides, but it should be somewhere.

The original plan was to update the forums and add the badges in conjunction with that. We've not updated the forums in any meaningful way since then, and the past heavy use of forums in general is slowly dispersing across a range of platforms. That said, it's also not a task that I would have to do!

I don't know if we'd have to first upgrade the forums or if there's a different plan that BJ has in mind. But I'll bring this up with BJ to assess exactly how much work would be involved and by whom.

Yay! It's the little things in life...

I'd actually wondered about this a few times over the years :D

Thanks Rob. I hadn't known that the incident involved LWD. My sincere apologies for inadvertently reopening it by pushing against what seemed to me an unreasonable excuse. It is I that was unreasonable in doing so.

Good to hear that its being worked on, I know as well as anyone that its not always easy for these things to get done, so I truly appreciate that its not an overnight process.

Thank you sir! This would be so cool to see. :) It might even casue some more people to post more hehe :D

Just want to chime in and say "Thanks" Rob for the updates. As an "OG" Beta user for Realms Works, I happen to be returning to GMing after a hiatus for a couple of years while our group played other things. Now we're kicking off a Modiphius 2D20 Infinity RPG game and I thought it'd be good to get an update on where Realm Works is.

I sort of feel like I'm getting used to the tool all over again, and I had problems customizing the previous versions for Shadowrun (as opposed to D&D / Pathfinder) so I was definitely not a pro at it.

That said, I see a lot of nice improvements with Realm Works and I'm happy that progress is being made on the tool. I'm looking forward to the Content Market launching... I'm hoping maybe I can share my Infinity content or maybe write some Shadowrun content for it, who knows.

I'm very sorry to hear you've been having health problems. Thanks for the communication and status updates. It's very nice to see these updates, coming back to using the tool after a long dormancy.

Special thanks to Josh Plunkett for his Realms Works YouTube tutorials to refresh my memory on how to use the tool after all this time!

Welcome back to the beta fold. It has been a fun ride throughout all of the beta. I am so glad I got to be part of it too. I look forward to hearing from you more about your campaign and the use of RW too. Enjoy and welcome back to it :)

Rob PLEASE listen to your body. If you are tired at this stage PLEASE rest and recover. Pushing yourself could actually make things worse in the long run.

I am pretty sure most of us would rather have you around for the long haul than jump in too quickly and relapse. :D :)