Realm Works Web View timeframe?
 

Hi, I have looked over the forums briefly and am unable to find a thread that speaks to this question.

Basically, I need some concrete details on Web View for Realm Works.

I am kicking off two campaigns as GM this month, one for a physical group and one for a virtual group.

Murphy's Law dictates so of course the remote group are all MAC users. The local group use Windows but none of them a) have laptops and b) all use a combination of Android and iOS tablets.

We were planning on using Realm Works in between game times to keep up to date on world lore and journal entries. So at the moment, whilst Realm Works is awesome for me as GM (I have purchased the full version), it is next to useless for the players.

Seeing as we are about to kick off for the year, I have an honest question, when will Web View be ready? With a honest answer, I can decide to spring for a few months or a years subscription to City of Brass instead.

Yours sincerely looking for an honest answer so I can plan my year!

Oops, just found the other thread. I mistakenly thought the user join date was the comment post date.

The most honest answer you will get is the time-frame is unknown.
LW are fully focused on the content market. I would wager a guess that we won't hear anything about other big additional features until that is implemented.

My feedback... for what it's worth. My player's didn't use Obsidian Portal even when I did populate it for my players. And for that reason the tool choice I have made is a selfish one. RW smashes the competition for functionality with the exception of web access.

Thanks. I guess the other thought I had is that City of Brass (and OP) gives me the flexibility to update on any platform rather than being tied to my PC.

Do you know why LW went for content market first over web access?

I would assume...

Everyone benefits from the ability to purchase and import content.
Not everyone benefits from web-access and not all groups care to use it.

LW makes more $$ off the content market which can be used to drive further improvements.

Definitely NOT official, and relying on leaky memory....

A) Web access was never a major thing in RW, especially as it is not envisioned as VTT replacement. The main idea was at the table use (Player view) and Player-Mode.

B) User survey...

C) Revenue stream

D) Content market was part of the KS, web view was not

Does City of Brass support XML import?

Someone's already figured out how to import from Obsidian Portal > Realm Works.
If they supported XML import you could technically use Realm Works and just do uploads into CoB.

Of course, this is advanced stuff and just playing with ideas. No idea if its actually possible.

Having used City of Brass, Obsidian Portal, Scabard, OneNote and Epic Words I will never go back.

Yeah, but there's plenty of stuff that Epic Words had that I wish I still had. Assigning exp and items/inventory, player blogs, etc.

How does that song go, "the waiting is the hardest part?"

Ah see I use Hero Lab for most of that. I did like their XP tracker though I use Google Sheets for that now as a backup XP Journal to cross reference Hero Lab against.

We use a private facebook group for the player blogs. They type up summaries and I paste it into RW and then make that snippet available for them to view.

So workarounds have been found.

The process of getting email verified was broken on Epic Words and enough to turn my back on it.

You're thinking of the wrong song.

I'm a man with a one track mind,
So much to do in one life time (people do you hear me)
Not a man for compromise and where's and why's and living lies
So I'm living it all, yes I'm living it all,
And I'm giving it all, and I'm giving it all,
It ain't much I'm asking, if you want the truth,
Here's to the future, hear the cry of youth,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now,
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now,

There are a whole bunch of session management tools I'd love to see in RW but I'm waiting till they finish the CM push to start asking for them, I'm afraid the calendar guys might burn me in effigy if I distracted Rob.

City of Brass does not currently support importing, unfortunately. Though sedmeister can still utilize Eightbitz's fantastic export tool to HTML and throw that up on a blog or wiki type website in the interim :)

I'm not going to convince my group into using Realm Works if they have to install and only use it on a single PC each. I have five player licenses, but nobody is interested. I am a member of three different games, two of which I take and use notes of in Realm Works.

If my players were able to access these via a web page, even read only, they would have a lot more interest in looking at Realm works.

I am looking at the export program somebody is working on.

Come on, the web preview was back in July 2015, we're approaching two years now!

Maybe I'm misunderstanding - the RW license doesn't work like HL. You buy the license, and you can use it on however many devices you wish.

You understand perfectly well. As many PC's as you want one at a time. The only limit I remember is per PC, only one windows login on each PC.

Actually, on a PC each windows account is limited to a single RealmWorks license.

So multiple users on a single PC can be used to access different RealmWorks licenses.

Either way, selling my friends on a PC license isn't going working. I brought five player licenses for Realm Works, and would be happy to buy mor if I had use for them. But I have only managed to give out one to my players and he doesn't use it.

Most of them have devices (but not PCs) at the game. If web access was available they'd be used more.

Even myself I find that normally when I'm thinking of something cool to add, I'm normally out and about. I have access to the web on the fly but not on a PC.

I wouldn't expect to hear any updates on Web view until the content market is launched.

I feel you pain. Exactly the same with my group.

The Web View was actually my number 2 reason for buying RW (after displaying maps and revaling them). I waited patiently for very long, and RW is a great DM tool without it, but I concur. It's about time they wrap up the Content market and move on.

All I want it the revealed information automatically (well after a sync) displayed on the web for the players to see. Can't be that difficult to do...

I agree on the need for web access - it was one of the promised features that made me kickstart/buy Realmworks. The primary attraction of Realm Works for me was to be able to use it as a place to publish a lot of detail and let my players be able to see what details have been revealed. I run an ongoing, 15 year game with a rotating character base, so being able to make historical story information available to players is a huge draw for me. As it is, the time investment needed for me to be able to put things into realmworks just isn't worth it.

Crossing my fingers that they supply that feature soon. As is, Realmworks has pretty much been gathering dust on my PC while I wait for the primary promised feature I wanted.

So, first off, I don't recall web access being "promised" for the Kickstarter...more like "suggested as a future enhancement". Reviewing the kickstarter page now, I see no mention at all of web-based access to the content.

Second, the web access that has been briefly discussed would begin with read-only player access that would be more limited than the access from the desktop Player Edition.

Some period of time after that, some GM access might come. The discussion in the past indicated that the desktop application would always be "ahead" in terms of features and access; new features would migrate to the web after the desktop.

Naturally, since what has been discussed in the past was all tentative, it is subject to revision as time goes by.

Having said all that, leaving RealmWorks idle because it doesn't have "the one key feature" you want is misguided, I think. You mentioned that the input time isn't worth it. That time investment will not change much if/when web access is available. You're STILL going to need to spend time learning the application, organizing how you want to present your data, and putting it in. As part of this, you may well need one or more attempts before it is "just the way you want it". Your players can have access now to the Player Edition and can have all the features you talked about being what you want.

"a place to publish a lot of detail and let my players be able to see what details have been revealed. I run an ongoing, 15 year game with a rotating character base, so being able to make historical story information available to players is a huge draw for me." That's all in the application now. Just not web-based.

If you're on a non-Windows platform, that's a bit different, but you did not mention that.

So rather than leave RealmWorks idle while waiting for a feature that may be years out (the ones actually promised in the kickstarter are just now nearing fulfillment, 4+ years after the original estimated delivery date), I would say you should be using the time in order to conquer the learning curve and working out your organizational plans.

This!

I think it's not an unreasonable assumption in 2013 for an application featuring "cloud service" to have web-based access to that content. It was definitely a thing early-on, but fell off the radar. LW even had a web developer on staff IIRC, but he/she departed at some point after the initial release was delayed.

But anyway, there was going to be the payed client access (which we eventually got in the player client), and a free web-based view of your content (which has not been released). Both were slated for release sometime after the initial v1.0 release.

I know the ability to share electronic content with players was one of the big draws of the tool for me -- and the reason I went with the Alpha Wolf backer level was the ability to share that content via the web. Still hoping for that, and the remaining backer rewards. ;)

It can't be too hard to write a php script or something like that, that takes your RealmWorks XML-Export and generates web pages from that.

Possible work around for remote users.
Using your DM version I believe you can place the player view on a second monitor, then using conferencing software share that screen with the remote users.

The export tool (http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=59981) supports generating HTML :)

Yes, I've done this when I was running a game with most players at the table and one who was remote. Worked well.

But that is not what the Web version will be for. The Web version will not be for live play, but rather will give players access to revealed content between games (or for lookup during games). The DM will not need to be running Realmworks.

IIRC, they made enough progress to give a sneak peak but the Content Market issues sidelined it. Hopefully Web view will be come out not too long after the Content Market is released.

My big question is, what is their revenue stream from web content/access? Is it going to have ads in it? Are they going to charge a subscription fee for web access to get rid of ads?

I understand the revenue stream from the player edition and the GM edition, but not the web based access. As it has been discussed, anyway.

I would assume there would be ads or a subscription model but its never been discussed.

Tbh from my experience ads are a terrible revenue stream unless you're getting millions of page views per day so I would lean towards some sort of subscription.

Hmmm. My recollection (or maybe my assumption?) was that the web-view was going to be an alternative for those who didn't want to or couldn't buy the Player version. Much more limited functionality than the actual program - just a way to look at the information, with no ability to enter any data, keep a journal, etc.

Using it as a revenue stream was never discussed that I can recall. Not sure why anyone would pay a subscription fee when it would be cheaper in the long run to pay the one time fee for the Player Version.

Remember that Realm Works Cloud Service is already supposed to be a paid subscription, and player access (including via the web) requires Cloud Service. The only stated reason that they're not currently charging anyone for Cloud Service is the long delayed launch of the Content Market.

RW FAQ: My GM does not have Cloud Service. Can I still use Player Edition in his/her game?

RW Cloud FAQ: If I have cloud service, will my players be able to view my realm for free through the web app? (Emphasis mine.)

Plans may change, of course.

THAT'S what I remembered! Thanks, Parody.

So (at least as of the time that FAQ was written) there was free access planned for players to view, as long as the GM has the cloud subscription.

Still no revenue stream through the web based app though. Only the GM's are going to get charged for cloud service kind of sucks. Maybe GM's should consider charging for access to their content to offset the cost of their cloud service then.

I doubt the cloud service sub will be very expensive. cloud storage costs have gone down dramatically in the years since RW launched. I have 4 separate free cloud storage account and none of them are less than 2 Gb, and one is 50. Even if LWD winds up charging some nominal fee per year for the their cloud storage for people with reasonable sized DB's, under 5 Gb for instance, I'm not going to get all worked up over it and I'm going to have a lot of trouble restraining eye rolls and sarcasm if others do.

That all depends on what they are going to charge for cloud service. If it's under $25 a year for that 5 GB of storage or more, then I wouldn't bitch either. But that is still a limited revenue stream for LWD. My experience is that most gaming groups have 1 or 2 GM's out of a group of 5 or 6 people. That's roughly 4.5 people out of 6 that LWD will never see a dime from with web access. Charging them as little as a Quarter a month ($3.00 a year) could significantly increase there revenue stream. Which could help with future development of the product and possibly content. Let's not forget that web only users most likely will not be buying anything from the content market either.

IIRC correctly, the web view will be quite limited but players who buy the player license will have access to all shared content. But I may be remembering it wrong and things may have changed since it was last discussed. Too lazy to dig up the Web view discussion thread where this was all discussed.

There's always been issues with all of the RW continuing business model. That's why they piled all the eggs in the CM basket.

I pay a dollar a month for 50GB for Cloud storage. I would be fine with that paid yearly.

Do you pay the same for web hosting? That is the more direct comparison with the web interface to realm works.

Throwing all their eggs into the baskets of 'Content Market' and 'Cloud Subscriptions' for 1.5 out of 6 potential users is severely limited in my opinion. I don't remember which tycoon of America's early industrial age said it, but they said something along the lines of "I'd rather have one dollar on a continuing business from millions of users then a million dollars from a single user." Don't bother me if the quote isn't quite accurate. Point is that they could be making some money from all potential users even if it isn't much on a monthly basis. They could even offer a discount if you pay for 6 months or a year at a time.

Also, just my opinion, but they'd have to severely limit free web access to the point of being near useless to overcome the "Free" part.