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Question regarding content market and AP structures.

E

EightBitz

Well-known member
I bought some content from the content market mainly to see LWD's vision of how things should be structured. When I look at Isle of Kandril, I see detail in the structure. I see individual characters and individual places. When I look at Streets of Zobeck, I see the same thing. Things seem pretty well laid out.

We Be Goblins is basically a collection of scenes, but that's a very small adventure, so no big deal.

Rise of the Rune Lords was a huge disappointment. It's been updated with detail added for locations in Sandpoint, and that's great! But there's still no cast of characters, and I still find that disappointing. Other people may disagree with me on that, and that's to be expected. The point of this isn't to say "MY WAY IS THE BEST WAY!!!"

The point of this is to ask if a feature can be added to the content market where we can see the structure of an adventure. Just the hierarchy. I'm not asking for the content of a topic to be visible, just how the topics are laid out.

I think this request is especially relevant since there's no refund policy. Right now, there's no way for us to see what we're buying, and there's no recourse if we're not happy with it. That makes me wary about buying anything.
 
I suppose alternatively, you could set a consistent expectation. Either all APs will have topics for individual characters and locations, or all APs will not.

Right now, I have no idea if future APs will be more like RotRL or more like Isle and Streets. So, I'd like to ask either for consistency or for a preview of each title.
 
It sounds to me like RotRL doesn't conform to LWD's own content creation guidelines which does call for cast lists amongst other things.

Isle of Kandril was my baseline of expectations of what an LWD produced realm would be. If they're not at least maintaining that standard I have some real issues with ever buying anything.
 
Razor Coast follows the setup of Streets of Zobeck and Isle of Kandril. It looks to me like the common denominator is that those items catalogued as a combination of setting and adventure have all the "bells and whistles" attached, while those items categorized as straight up adventures are being set up as a straight up list of scenes.

While the RotRL realm will be a great help in running the AP - and I'm still glad I bought it for that reason - I do agree with EightBitz that it won't really be much use if one is trying to integrate the AP into any sort of overarching campaign. The lack of character lists, group lists, location details, etc. seems to make it lackluster. It doesn't take advantage at all of RW best tool, the ability to follow links between locations, people, groups, etc down all those rabbit holes when the players go off the rails of the written adventure and just explore.

I think the same will likely be true of other adventure modules if LWD follows the same publication pattern.

I'm with EightBitz - I've already bought the PDF of these adventures, at least, and typically the HeroLab encounter library for them as well if I intend to run them. For the extra $10 to $35 I'm spending for a RW realm, I'd really like to see more than a linear regurgitation of the PDF I've already bought.

And if I'm not going to get that, I'd like to know in advance what I'm getting for my money, since I can't get a refund if I don't like it.
 
RotR will be the last AP I buy for RW if they don't start taking advantage of the program's strengths. I have it hard copy, Fantasy Grounds, PDF, and now RW, and the RW version is actually less useful by far than the FG version. The more wikipedia-like products, I will buy as many as I can afford, but yeah, don't waste my time and money with a snippetized PDF that is borderline harder to use than the PDF.
 
I think LWD, or at least whoever was doing their data entry, forgot that one of the selling points of content in RW is that you are supposed to be able to easily take pieces you want and discard pieces you don't.

RotRL, and other Paizo AP's, should be the poster children for this. They each include a host of NPC's, at least one home base community, groups of various kinds etc. Presented exactly as the AP presents the flow of the adventure loses all, or at least most of that. The AP has to be examined in depth and the data entry has to be planned so that a GM can easily find that "funny dwarf who knew that rumor" as well as slice the thing up to extract the parts people want if they aren't actually running the AP.
 
This past Tuesday, I emailed support requesting an official response to this thread. It's been three business days.
 
Thanks, EightBitz - I was considering starting another thread with a summary of the discussion and a shout out to the devs, but your idea is way better :).

Hopefully they'll attend to some of the "suggestions" here.
 
Yeah, no one has mentioned it, but since the launch of the CM the weekly updates stopped. They didn't dwindle or become monthly. They simply stopped with no explanation. I know they are a small company, but the regular updates go along way in terms of customer relations and now they just have another promise broken instead.
 
meek75 said:
Yeah, no one has mentioned it, but since the launch of the CM the weekly updates stopped. They didn't dwindle or become monthly. They simply stopped with no explanation. I know they are a small company, but the regular updates go along way in terms of customer relations and now they just have another promise broken instead.
Click to expand...

I think the goal of the weekly updates was to keep use posted on the state of the content market. Now that it's out, I was under the impression that it served it's purpose. What sort of status updates are you still expecting?
 
EightBitz said:
I think the goal of the weekly updates was to keep use posted on the state of the content market. Now that it's out, I was under the impression that it served it's purpose. What sort of status updates are you still expecting?
Click to expand...
I'd like a roadmap of what they are doing next. I don't want dates just an idea of what plans they have for the future. Will there be another survey? When will the CM open up to community contributions and/or publishers of non PF and 5e material? Is the web version the next major thing or are they going to give us any of the much desired features we've been waiting years for first?
 
Between now and Gen Con I wouldn't expect much that isn't about Hero Lab Online. They'll want Pathfinder 2 (1.0) working, Starfinder polished up and (preferably) ready with new content, new features to show off, and (perhaps) Pathfinder 1 in HLO (even if just as a demo.)
 
Parody said:
Between now and Gen Con I wouldn't expect much that isn't about Hero Lab Online.
Click to expand...

I don't expect much. I just want some regular communication. Honestly there should be a blog or something linked to the website. It's not just forum members that deserve some communication. If they had a regular newsletter each month that would be ok, but they have not had a regular newsletter in forever. Personally, I like the Roll20 model of regular info linked to the main webpage. I know they are a small company, but an hour a week spent on customer communication would be well worth it in my opinion. This is especially true for a company that has a very poor reputation in this area.
 
Hey everyone!

My apologies it took me so long to get to this thread, I was indeed at Paizo Con and am also without an assistant/communications director again, so I sort of live under an avalanche right now. I've had to get a lot of other items squared away before I could wade over to once again take over communications until the time in which a replacement can be found.

There really isn't a whole lot to report for the Content Market itself. As most know from the last newsletter the ability to purchase server time has been made live. And there will be another Newsletter out soon.

Rise of the Runelords received an update recently, you should download if you own the realm and be sure the issues you're having aren't already repaired. I'll take the notes from this thread and see what we can do for future improvements and to provide a better idea of what things can be expected to look like.

Also, we should have a new content release this month with a few Kobold books and some PFS scenarios.

I do have a plan for how I would like to see future communications work including Q&As and the like, it's just slow going with all the other items I handle. I would expect things to be back on track and new interactions going live after Gen Con.

Hope that helps!
 
Thanks for the update, BJ!

It's great to see Realm Works taking some steps forward with the Content Market and the subscriptions, which I know are super important to Lone Wolf so that you can get some revenue generating from this wonderful tool we are using.

I'd love to see a roadmap of where Lone Wolf is going with Realm Works in the near future. Can we expect any more Realm Works updates this year? Is the focus going to be on bugfixes / quality of life improvements, or big ticket items like a web-based Player View? Is Lone Wolf working with more companies to bring their rule systems and adventures to Realm Works?

...and what about custom calendars? ;p
 
BJ said:
Hey everyone!

My apologies it took me so long to get to this thread, I was indeed at Paizo Con and am also without an assistant/communications director again, so I sort of live under an avalanche right now. I've had to get a lot of other items squared away before I could wade over to once again take over communications until the time in which a replacement can be found.

There really isn't a whole lot to report for the Content Market itself. As most know from the last newsletter the ability to purchase server time has been made live. And there will be another Newsletter out soon.

Rise of the Runelords received an update recently, you should download if you own the realm and be sure the issues you're having aren't already repaired. I'll take the notes from this thread and see what we can do for future improvements and to provide a better idea of what things can be expected to look like.

Also, we should have a new content release this month with a few Kobold books and some PFS scenarios.

I do have a plan for how I would like to see future communications work including Q&As and the like, it's just slow going with all the other items I handle. I would expect things to be back on track and new interactions going live after Gen Con.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Thanks, BJ! I appreciate the comment.
 
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