Ultimate Campaign ... any ETA ?

[jacook]

Yes, all good points. I use v(h)lookups quite a bit for almost anything that I can put in a table format. The huge amount of dependencies that the kingdom stuff has is what is creating the IF statement nightmares. Mostly nested IF statements.

[RavenX]

SeeleyOne,

You've gotta remember that kingdoms change via decisions and dice rolls. Each player is ideally in charge of at least one dice roll for their kingdom. I used the kingdom builder when it was in the Kingmaker modules. It would be a pain updating realm works all the time with updates similar to how settlements are done. It would be infinitely simpler to have hero lab manage the kingdom, output the data to a file, and import said file into RW similar to the way characters are done in RW. RW and Hero Lab used together will make things easier on everyone. Also keep in mind that RW is more a GM tool than player tool. It's there to help those running the games, not so much for players to add data to a campaign.

[SeeleyOne]

I had never played it, I only skimmed it. What I looked at seemed to reference different characters, like if you have a character with this attribute in this Public Official slot. It just seemed like a campaign setting thing, which is more of a RW thing. I guess I tend to see the HL stuff as for PCs and for statting the monsters, not for making the setting. Then again, it could be considered a NPC or "monster" in itself, so I guess it is a valid choice, not to mention that it is part of the Ultimate Campaign package for HL.

[RavenX]

The thing about the Kingdom sheet is that it doesn't stay static, kingdoms grow / decline based on player decisions and random events generated throughout the process, many of the modifiers change to reflect this. Because it changes so much, it's better as a hero lab sheet rather than RW. Kingmaker introduced it, and for the most part it was a persistent part of the modules. Players built their kingdom, and dealt with the consequences for better or worse. It's not like generating a town in the game mastery guide, where the stat block isn't likely to undergo significant changes over time. The sheet in question can have very significant changes from one week to the next.

Players are in charge of specific aspects of public office, and contribute their skill mods to the dice pool of a kingdom, but there are a lot of d20 rolls in Kingdom building, some of which can have drastic consequences to the modifiers on the sheet. I wish it was a simple process, but Paizo really put a lot of depth into Kingdom building in this rpg.

[ChrisRevocateur]

Originally Posted by SeeleyOne

I think that the best way would be to have the kingdom be a "character" that is accessible to all of the players involved. Aside from emailing it with the changes to everyone, I do not see a way to do this in a gaming group. At least with Realm Works there is already a sort of cloud service in use, and a particular kingdom would be linked to a specific realm.

One word: Dropbox.

My group has used it for over 6 months now to share our kingdom building and income/expense excel sheets. Once you're done making changes, just save it, and everyone gets the updated version saved to their dropbox as well.

[ChrisRevocateur]

SeelyOne, I don't know how long you've been playing RPG's, but if you've been playing since before the 2000's, the kingdom building rules are extremely similar to the old kingdom rules from the 2nd Edition AD&D campaign setting Birthright.

[jacook]

Still nothing? Was hoping for a quicker release for this.

[Umarian]

Originally Posted by jacook

Still nothing? Was hoping for a quicker release for this.

As has been mentioned several times, this is not a quick fix. The have to rebuild the entire framework of the program to be able to do some of the stuff that needs to be done for this to work.

Plus, it has to be done in a way that is not going to break all the stuff built by people that are not LW (3PP and GMs house rules).

All of this is not easy. It is not just a click of the mouse. It is a LOT of work. So no. It will not be a quick fix.

[RavenX]

Originally Posted by jacook

Still nothing? Was hoping for a quicker release for this.

Jacook,

Normally when Lone Wolf Development has information to announce regarding progress on a project, they do so via the monthly newsletter.

http://wolflair.com/index.php?context=newsletter

When they have something to report, it will likely show up here. You need to keep in mind that this company has a handful of people working on implementing these mechanics, and sometimes it is hard to find a compromise that makes everyone happy when it comes to implementing things. On top of that the hours spent building and compiling code, debugging the code, and quality control testing done can take a while. I know it can be frustrating to wait, but the wait will be worth it in the end.

The Atari corporation once rushed a project in the 1980's known to most of us as E.T. the video game. They pushed the game out to retailers with a six week development time so they could maximize sales for the holiday season. The following year, the game generated negative revenue from all the returns people made (Which inadvertently caused retailers to put an "All Sales Final on open software" clause on receipts later on). This caused the company to go bankrupt. They paid a lot of money for the licensing rights to do the game, released the worst game in the history of video games, and lost everything in the process when it failed to turn a profit. Most companies today understand that failure and won't rush a product out.

[Umarian]

Originally Posted by RavenX

Most companies today understand that failure and won't rush a product out.

I have seen several companies this year rush things out the door, and their company is suffering for it. They do still do it