Lone Wolf Development Forums  

Go Back   Lone Wolf Development Forums > Realm Works Forums > Realm Works Discussion

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Dark Lord Galen
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Texas
Posts: 707

Old November 24th, 2014, 04:12 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pollution View Post
Yeah, you all have players that are like, 'oh, I was hoping for more...'
That's great! Your players seem invested.
So, cherish your players, mine suck.
Wow? What does one say to this? I'm personally stunned and not sure (mark it down it down doesn't happen often).
I guess I'm fortunate? in nearly 30yrs of DMing (yea don't like the phrase GM<old school grunard here>) I have never had a shortage of players. At times I have had a shortage of chairs.
Years ago, I floated games in three rooms with 20+ people (not ideal but we were young and had fun then) but through the years, I have maintained an average of about 10.
I'm not sure (lying here. cause I guess, I think, I do know) how my own players would respond if they read a post such as this if I were to post it.

To me (IMO FWIW) 99% of all players have something meaningful to contribute. The more difficult challenge is finding a cohesive mix of personalities (both at the table & in game) that work well together. Surely at the mecca of RPG (indi is still the locale for Gen-con after all) there must be a surplus of players and resources?

Not to be caustic or judgmental (cause I certainly don't know the details) but Pollution, take your own advice, cherish your players. Having a game with no players is as much fun as having players that have no game to play in. Both, in the end don't work.

Just remember, the hardest "role" to Play.. is the DM. It takes a mixture of accountant, bookkeeper, analyst, improv actor, script writer, counselor referee, and multitudes of others blended together and combined with the ability to multitask, compartmentalize and cram all of that into a fun incursion for friends. Often having to do so with less time than you would normally like to have. Not exactly an "easy" job, that is why most don't want, and fewer love it. (I fall into the love it category probably not a surprise to most)

Your other postings within threads are good and insightful my friend, I hope this was just a bad day...

@LWD Liz> My apologies Liz for usurping thread AGAIN, but sometimes it is just not in my nature (my wife would say most times here) to leave some things unresponded.
Dark Lord Galen is offline   #11 Reply With Quote
Dark Lord Galen
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Texas
Posts: 707

Old November 24th, 2014, 04:34 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimmric View Post
I am a player and my understanding was that:
1. Player view was "live". It was used during play.
2. Player edition was instead of mailing out plots, notes and treasure found.
Like a spellbook. Good to get home and log on and read about all the evil wizards spells that now is mine.
Or read up on leads we got the week before. Instead of taking that time when we are att the table to play.
Not to respond "for LWD" but just a DM, product owner perspective....

1> not sure where some were led believe PE was "live". The PE has always been advertised as "off table" access anytime, from anywhere... now the RW DMs (full edition) having player view (and agree with "Supermax" there seems some residual confusion here) is to be used "in game" by the DM. Though admittedly, I don't personally utilize RW in that application. I utilize it more from an internal management tooling.

2> Spot on Grimmric, I can certainly see PCs (players) utilizing it in exactly such a fashion.

And to add, as players become more proficient doing this approach of treasure analysis , it would save what my players call "table time". This is, of course, a burden of the DM to supply that level of detail to the players.

Certainly another possibility for the market place... Vision if you will (hint hint LWD) a repository of misc items the DMs can "cannibalize" in the market place for finding misc magic items already fleshed out that they can drop into any campaign.
Dark Lord Galen is offline   #12 Reply With Quote
Seregil
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 66

Old November 24th, 2014, 05:33 AM
This weekend was the first where my players had access to PE. I wasn't the DM, I just spoke with them.

A few points:
  • RW is primarily a game/campaign planning tool. That means that MOST of the usefulness is for the DM both before and during the actual games. I use it to plan games but also to eep track of complex information and plots that have developed over a 2 years (in RL) campaign
  • PE is useful primarily (for us) to view game logs and to be able to follow any pertinent information contained in them by clicking on the links. THIS is why LWD needs to get the journals up and running asap because it's the MAIN feature that will be used by the players and PE (IMO)
  • During the game, player view will be used for most stuff. While some of my players have laptops at the table most have tablets and thus cannot use PE (Note to LWD, your web client should also be a top priority)

None of this is a surprise because it was my understanding going in. That being said, I didn't follow the kickstarter, so I may have missed someof the marketing promises.

My players reacted well in that they understand the above listed role/use and will roll with it. The installation/registration is clunky but so is all the DRM/Registration for ALL LW products. Happily, all but one pf my players are IT guys, so they can do it.

I'm looking forward to actually running a game using RW, but that won't be until February at least since we alternate campaigns and I'm on my "off time" until then.
Seregil is offline   #13 Reply With Quote
Exmortis
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Ottawa, Canada
Posts: 781

Old November 24th, 2014, 06:39 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grimmric View Post
I am a player and my understanding was that:
1. Player view was "live". It was used during play.
2. Player edition was instead of mailing out plots, notes and treasure found.
Like a spellbook. Good to get home and log on and read about all the evil wizards spells that now is mine.
Or read up on leads we got the week before. Instead of taking that time when we are att the table to play.
Well said! This is exactly what I have envisioned for my use of RW. I have noticed from the feedback there is a huge disconnect between what is expected and what RW is.

For me Player Edition removes the notes, the memory, the review before every damn game. It removes the "Who was that guy we met at the place with the thingie and told us something important?" crap. It removes the need to give out player maps, notes, and the like, with one last feature needed GM to specific Player reveal. For me and my group the single biuggest drain on the game is historical knowledge, havign to look up through endless notes because players keep none, or lost it, or that player had to work OT or kid is sick and did not make it. My idea is they sync at end of session or anytime before next game day.


I am loving to read the feedback of RW in play, but I do think some people were expecting something RW is not. So far, I am seemingly heading in the right direction, that View will be used in the game session , and PE a repository for the players information and historical data. I do not care about sync during play, the information is current in your heads and on the screen in front of them. I guess having everyone in the same room with a spare screen is a bigger advantage then I thought.


Maybe whats happened here is LWD has not done a very good job as setting expectations at what RW is to the gaming table, they have done a great job at setting examples of what RW means to the GM and campaign management.
Exmortis is offline   #14 Reply With Quote
liz
Ex-Staff
Lone Wolf Staff
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 961

Old November 24th, 2014, 08:50 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Exmortis View Post
Maybe whats happened here is LWD has not done a very good job as setting expectations at what RW is to the gaming table, they have done a great job at setting examples of what RW means to the GM and campaign management.
I'm going to have to sit on this a bit. In my mind, we were clear that Player Edition was not live updates, but something with previously revealed info to read in between sessions or reference at the table. However, obviously this was not communicated clearly for everyone.

This is good feedback to keep in mind for the future, but if there's any language on our website/ads that is unclear or could be misinterpreted, please feel free to flag it to me!
liz is offline   #15 Reply With Quote
evildmguy
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Des Moines, IA
Posts: 349

Old November 24th, 2014, 12:45 PM
Okay, that's a good point to me about PE vs PV.

I think the problem is that I used PV early on but some of the guys, good vision or not, couldn't read it on the second monitor from where they sat. I switched to using it for NPC portraits or maps, and again those work great, and didn't go back to anything else.

I think I also tried to put four or five NPC windows in the PV and it ran out of real estate quickly. Certainly no campaign could have all NPCs listed there, so again this might be a case of my style not meshing well with how RW was intended in this instance. Font sizes won't fix this as then it's back to little real estate.

I also realize that I'm going to have to get into the habit of starting a game session and naming it for the PE so the players can see when they learned something. Unless it will show a real date reveal, and then I won't have to do the game session.

I see I'm behind on a few video tutorials, so maybe those would explain a few things to me as well.

We aren't playing this week, as our game night is usually Thursday, but I will report back when we have done more with RW.

Thanks!

edg

Last edited by evildmguy; November 24th, 2014 at 12:46 PM. Reason: thought I had
evildmguy is offline   #16 Reply With Quote
AEIOU
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,147

Old November 24th, 2014, 01:44 PM
I think one of the biggest problems is that none of us outside of LWD knows what Realm Works is really supposed to be when it is "finished" and the feature-set is complete. We keep making suggestions but we have no clue if or when they might be implemented beyond a handful of responses that say something is in the works/planned/a good idea.

What is the official vision for version 1.0? This would be feature complete and ready for general consumption. This would iinclude calendar, marketplace and export IMNSHO and a few updates to existing functionality like journals. It would interface seamlessly with and complement the Player Edition. Market towards this version and get to this version as quickly as possible.

What is then the vision for version 2.0? This could have lots of spiffy new features. This would include a whole slew of the recommendations like granular player reveal. It could include better HL or d20pro integration. It could include real-time synching. Market this momentum and build a cohesive future feature-set that is compelling to new GMs/players to suck them in.

Maybe we need to SEE the vision to better understand it. I'd love to have a start-to-finish video of what LWD envisions. Team up with Zombie Orpheus or some other talented group of gaming oriented film makers and this could be an amazing marketing piece. Input an adventure in fast forward with slow motion cuts to look at what has been entered, tune some mechanics, make a storyboard, folks arrive, session starts, player view is used for various things, session ends, players at home review notes, someone that wasn't there reviews notes, GM updates adventure, folks arrive, session starts with slightly different group of players, rinse repeat, fast forward to arrival, blur, arrival, blur....
AEIOU is offline   #17 Reply With Quote
Acenoid
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Posts: 798

Old November 24th, 2014, 03:21 PM
I think communication is all good and well, but I think that they should spend time coding instead of doing too much PR. Don't get me wrong I really like how the LW guys are handling the forum and it's a big plus that they listen, explain and also are truthful about many issues that are being asked or discussed in here. BUT, it shouldn't go into extremes that's with fancy daily podcasts, videos and what not. :P

In the end I suppose that the sales-figures will show many resources will be invested in the future into this project.

Also the survey will probably give insights on what the people want, who have bought the product already and not so much on the folks who have not.

Last edited by Acenoid; November 24th, 2014 at 03:39 PM. Reason: Added some more explanation :D
Acenoid is offline   #18 Reply With Quote
Seregil
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2014
Posts: 66

Old November 24th, 2014, 04:05 PM
I keep hearing about a survey. Can anyone tell me about that please?
Seregil is offline   #19 Reply With Quote
Viking2054
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: California
Posts: 295

Old November 24th, 2014, 04:09 PM
We're still waiting for the survey. But LWD announced they'd be sending out a survey sometime in the near or not so near future, only LWD knows when. But if I recall correctly LWD was going to put up for vote via the survey what people wanted to see worked on the most. I'm not sure, but I think I remember the survey being broken down into a couple of areas... Major things that would consume most of the developers time and then Simpler things that could be worked on when some of the developers have a spare hour or two while waiting for something or someone.
Viking2054 is offline   #20 Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 01:55 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® - Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
wolflair.com copyright ©1998-2016 Lone Wolf Development, Inc. View our Privacy Policy here.