[daplunk]

+1 Shadow.

The last year has been really damaging to LWD's reputation. I have also received almost weekly messages questioning the health of LWD. People wanting to know how risky it is to invest in your software with concerns that the company is on the brink of going under.

I know you guys have had a really tough year, don't need to speak to anyone to see that writing on the wall. But it has been handled in a really poor way. Communication dropped off and you went silent. Just need to look at the Newsletter page to really see that.



You hired a 'communication' manager which was the perfect opportunity to start fixing this but then he moved into manning the support mailbox and never communicated anything. At this stage I don't know if Rone knows any more than us as all we see him do is repeated known information and post his attempt to calm the masses with RPG tid bits.

As a company who...

Originally Posted by rob

All of our products have succeeded thanks to word-of-mouth recommendations from gamers.

You have done everything possible this year to ensure that the 'word of mouth' advertising has reduced. You cannot see a conversation on Facebook without someone piping up about how unreliable the company is and the risk that therefore places on a purchase.

While we are on feedback.

• Your website is confusing customers. It's an overly complex web of pages with too much information that is laid our in a fashion that has not been used since the early 90s. It's clear you are working to fix that with the new store, just don't forget it's there. Close down the bits you don't need and push everything as quick as you can to the new store. You can literally takes guesses on the year products came out based on their web sites.
• Your company feels splintered. It's clear that all resources have moved on to HLO leaving the lights off with everyone else. Without your newsletter bringing that all together people people are already thinking they have been forgotten.
• No news can still be news. We all suspect nothing has happening in the LWD office for Realm Works this year but there's some great community tools keeping the pulse beeping. These are things that could create content for your newsletters.
• For the love of god give people visibility on what you are doing. Consumers have higher expectations these days and they want a Road Map to have an idea of what you are working on. People will invest in your tools if they feel like it's moving in a positive direction.
• Monthly Dev Updates are needed. Just have a look at D&DBeyond and the community they are growing. They have suffered their own delays this year and yet the community behind them is stronger than ever. Their monthly Dev Update Videos are creating magic for them.
• Clean up your forums. Some of the sticky posts have not had relevance in years. If you don't have the resources empower some of the key members of the community to help you get on top of them.
• Clean up your YouTube Channel. That Realm Works video showing the Web Version with discussion of it coming out soon is doing you no favours at this point.

And Rob. It's good to hear from you.