[Dark Lord Galen]

My group's feedback was similar. Although I have not, as of yet, finished compiling feedback from all as I have only issued the activation codes and invites to two players to "beta test" it without my input.
One player (wife with 20yrs of gaming experience) the other my newest player (with 1 year of gaming experience). The intent here is merely a generational and skill set perspective.
I purchased the 5 pack with the intents on probably at least 5 more in the near future. I have had RW since its first day release, and Herolab for many years as well.

So utilizing evildmguy's (nice Screenname BTW) response layout as a template, I offer a similar very preliminary response.

Originally Posted by evildmguy

Unfortunately, they were not impressed. Some of that is on me, some of it was what they saw in the program.

My two "guinea pigs" were more disappointed that unimpressed.

Originally Posted by evildmguy

Installation: Installation did not start out well.

Didn't really have any install issues, other than the influx of "updates" that bombarded the "kickoff" as LWD settled out some wrinkles.

Originally Posted by evildmguy

I had to look up how to do the invitation and I missed a bit from his side. If it came into his message area and all he had to do was click accept, that was great! (If not, he didn't like the time it took for emails to arrive and then moving info over but I thought it was by invitation.)

This was a non-issue with my bunch, mainly (I think) is because we were all in the same room where I could walk them through abit. I can certainly see if there was physical separation between the DM and the players (ie different locales) AND the player was unfamiliar with how to set up the program that this may be a bigger challenge for some. Perhaps some ambitious group would make a video to walk thru this?

Originally Posted by evildmguy

And then the real trouble started.
I synched the Realm I had shared and he pushed the synch button.

sync was not a problem in itself, but what was synced was.
We all learned... (will address in more detail below)

Originally Posted by evildmguy

I have talked about how slow the program is to run during the game. After reading a response by rob on another thread, it sounds like RW was never intended to be used in real time to enter information but instead to have entered information be revealed during game play. (That's unfortunate for my style of play but RW still helps me prep for the game and track things a lot better than paper and other options I have found.) However, the two players who were watching it at this time really didn't like what they saw.

I have pondered this for awhile myself. To clarify, on one hand LWD says use the player's view for "live / instant" reveals of information during gaming sessions. Yet on the other hand, there are statements like this one above. This is why (one among several reasons) I have chosen NOT to use RW for an "IN GAME" tool and more of a DM management tool. With so many missing features from RW to support "an in game mechanic" (printing, calendars, custom reveals, etc).

Originally Posted by evildmguy

First, they wanted real time updates. They really didn't like that I had to synch and then that they had to synch, especially with the problems of synching that they had.

Agreed, my players were also disappointed that "RE-syncing" was required to get the latest reveal information. They accepted that this was just how the software works, but were equally disappointed that the things revealed were not separated by their characters (most have 2 in differing areas but the same campaign). Nor was it even separated by player, everything that one could see the other could as well whether they (As characters) knew those events or not. This may be a limitation partly on me as the DM as to how I entered the information. But as other threads have pointed out, short of separating "groups" into realms of their own (And thus doubling if not tripling my work load with duplications of places and people) there is no simple way to have multiple groups within one campaign. To further add, no way to reconcile those two (or more) separate "Realms" into the ONE campaign I have. We currently await the ability to merge the sub-realms (if there is such a thing) at some later time. This shortcoming in RW cascades into the information being conveyed to the players in the PE of RW.

Originally Posted by evildmguy

Second, if this was going to be the mechanism of choice, they didn't like that they had no way of knowing they had to synch. In other words, they wanted a message or something to pop up to say there was more data out there.

My players really didn't convey this but can certainly see that it would be useful .. even in an e-mail bump to the invitees that new data is available. Perhaps when the DMs Sync the Realm, they have a button that sends an email our (group email?) to all the invites on that realm's list?

Originally Posted by evildmguy

The last thing they didn't like was my own fault in terms of knowing my players and presenting the system.

LOL my players vary. Some are better note keepers than I am! Others, as suggested above, shoot more from the hip.

Things I have learned.
I need to be more selective in the smart photos and the simple ones. there were times (mostly since I do not utilize in game so was unaware) that a smart picture was really unneeded when all I was trying to convey was an NPC looks like this, or a harbor view of a new town as the PC arrives, etc. This caused me to have to go back and "remove fog of world" on ALOT of pictures that I could have simply installed differently.

Links to how things are revealed... I had some revealed plot points, but didn't have a primary article they were in revealed. This in turn makes everything down stream NOT revealed. I knew this, but yet there were still some cases. Maybe a means to inform the DM that they have topics revealed in an unrevealed article? Similar to re-indexing maybe? don't know what the good solution here is (other than being smarter on my end) But as all realms progressively get larger, this is unlikely to go away. A report logic tree of what is revealed vs unrevealed might be helpful as well.

Things my players Expected from PERW
They knew that the calendar feature was not currently available. This was still a disappointment for my one character with a "full moon" issue.
They liked that the notes feature auto-linked elements together, but were disappointed that they only seemed to do so based on anything I had revealed. To clarify, if they had notes about "bob" the bartender, yet I treated "bob" as an non-essential NPC and didn't reveal him(not to mention even make a persona for him). He doesn't get linked in their notes, nor (it would seem could they even manually create such a link (ie ctrl-q)).
They were equally disappointed there was no journal feature.
This concerns me as well. It has seemed a trend for awhile that LWD leaves off core things they advertise when there initial release comes out, and then works them in at a later date. This has become a bad practice IMO When you advertise the package contains XYZ, the consumer comes to expect to open the package and see exactly that, not an IOU for later.
IT is a different matter altogether to add things or improve them. This only refines or improves what has been committed to, That approach makes the end product consumer feel like there is long and real support.
The IOU approach leaves those same end users feeling like they got less than what they were promised.

Originally Posted by evildmguy

I'm sharing all of this not only for the tech side but so that other DMs remember to know their players in terms of what to present and how!
edg

Ditto to this, I post this with no malice but to provide a perspective for all. LWD players and DMs.
In closing, I give RWPE a C+ because while its future possibilities are promising, one has to grade on what you can do now. For $6 a license, the possibilities are worth it, for $10 each, I'm nor my players see value since RWPE is so dependent on features that have yet to come to bare fruit from its source.... Realm Works..