Realm Works: Player Edition and Beyond

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Pollution

huh?

This is in already. I have been linking portolio's from HL into RW consistantly. If you click the view, it shows the HTML printout (very nice btw).

If you click another button, it goes and load's the portfolio. Another will load it into an already open portfolio (import).

How is this not in the GM edition? it works fine for me.

Yes HL portfolio capabilities exist within GM edition. My answer was unclear. The original question was "Can players access their characters in HL via RW?" So what I meant to say was not "GM edition doesn't have HL portfolio features", but "The current HL portfolio features in GM edition are not sufficient for what you're asking."

With just the current features of Realm Works, the best a player could do with player edition is:

- Give their GM a portfolio, and ask for it to be added to a topic
- The GM must reveal the topic and the portfolio snippet

The player would then be able to view their HL portfolio within RW:PE (see that? Coined an acronym ). However, if they ever want to update it, say if they level up:

- Give their GM a new portfolio
- GM must add a new snippet with the new portfolio and reveal it, or swap out the old one.

Multiply this process times the number of player, and the number of level-ups (or even non-level up portfolio changes) that might occur, and we can see that it's not a very good solution.

In order to have a good solution, we will need to make a new feature to allow players to contribute files. This will either mean allowing players to access and modify a topic to put the portfolios, or coming up with a separate place (maybe a "player characters" screen of some kind) for them to go.

Hopefully this clarifies what I intended.

[Wolf_McCon]

The question then becomes is Hero Lab the basis for your player version of Realm Works? You can put a nominal fee for the integration capability but you already have much of what people are looking for in Hero Lab that they would want in a player version of Realm Works. Once a particular por file is associated with the players would get the information associated with the realm they have played in and it could be updated with maps and all the other information required. It does become a two way street but with solid rules governed by a GM I could see this being an interesting solution. As both a player and GM what I have done most is try to see what would most help the group I am playing with to advance. Sometimes it is not the most combat effective solution because the players are not discovering the information and it can be beneficial to tweak the character to work better within the realm. Thats what many players I know do with their time between games. If they look at the character, they are looking for a way to tweak it to be more effective within the campaign.

[galford13x]

I'm curious as to why the version number of my realm works installation says 1.0.1006.163. This does not seem to match the posted update version number 1.0.3 or 1.0.4.

I must say I was quite excited with Realm Works and what it looked to offer. But given the time and results I've seen thus far, I'm quite disappointed. I'm having a hard time justifying time spent using Realm Works when a major part of the sell is not yet available and looks to be delayed even longer (Player Edition).

I had convinced my players that buying this would enhance our experience, however, I'm not confident this will happen in any foreseeable time. I truly am disappointed, but I wish you and your team the best of luck and hope one day it all comes together.

[Pollution]

Originally Posted by Joe

Hopefully this clarifies what I intended.

I think so.

Now, come's the interesting question from a Dev standpoint of how HL integrates with RW (let alone RW:PE - nice btw)

So, from what I have gathered, and coming from an IT background, RW isn't actually integrated with HL, or rather, HL isn't integrated into RW as far as the actual file goes.

Your example is perfect, Player makes character, GM attaches HL Snippet into RW. Player levels, and GM has to put in NEW file, rather than updating old file.

Strikes me that the HL integration is an xml formatted file or similar type integration. I wonder if having HL .por files being actually linked rather than uploaded wouldn't be a better solution in the long term.

Although....thinking on that now, it would cause issues with file locations, cloud storage, access and the like wouldn't it? I use Google Drive for my GM'ing needs. Laptop, computer, friend's PC, doesn't matter. I just open file, Google Drive, RPG, Pathfinder, HL and there's all my files. I can open them anywhere. If instead of "uploading" a file into RW, if you were to link the file, that would be a huge issue wouldn't it?

So, I guess the next design question I would have for RW:PE, would be, Instead of having a GM version, and then the player only being able to SEE what the GM has revealed, could the RW:PE allow editing of LIMITED information?

i.e. Player characters category would allow a player to upload their PC's into RW:PE, and then the Full, GM version would sync that info into the main DB?

But then you run into version issues, don't you?

Hell of a program you guys created. Lots of hurdles to overcome. you're doing great. Keep it up.

(Disclaimer, ignore the ramblings of an unemployed Project Manager/Analyst/BI/Technical Writer who's gotten very bored of late and has been pretending his campaign integration into RW is a "job".)

[karpomatic]

Even though I am a Ream Works backer, I've only recently begun to use it in earnest. There is a bit of a learning curve but the tutorials help a lot. Once you get the hang of it the data entry just flows. It took me the better part of an entire day and night but I got everything for my home spun Aberrant game plugged in. That being said, I have a question. If one of my players has his own full version of RW, can he use it as the Players Edition for my game or do we have to purchase a separate product? I think it would be good if we could log into a realm that is not ours as a Player if the author gives access.

[mirtos]

They've actually answered that. We will be able to use a full GMs version of RW also as a players version when the player's version is released.

[karpomatic]

okay cool! I didn't have the time to sift though all the posts.

[mirtos]

Thats cool. If i came off as patronizing, didn't mean to.

I would link the post its answered in, but i honestly dont know either.

[Vornmusion]

Originally Posted by Joe

In order to have a good solution, we will need to make a new feature to allow players to contribute files. This will either mean allowing players to access and modify a topic to put the portfolios, or coming up with a separate place (maybe a "player characters" screen of some kind) for them to go.

By your phrasing is this to say "We are going to create this feature", or "We would need to make this feature for this aspect of RW, but we are not planning on making them (right now/ever)".

Just for clarification, unless it's not something you can comment on at the moment.

Regardless I think both of your suggested ideas would be good additions. Having a Player Characters section for this purpose would be nice to keep bloat away from the main sections of RW, and allowing players to modify a topic (as allowed by the GM, I would hope) would be useful for any variety of reasons.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Vornmusion

By your phrasing is this to say "We are going to create this feature", or "We would need to make this feature for this aspect of RW, but we are not planning on making them (right now/ever)".

Just for clarification, unless it's not something you can comment on at the moment.

I was speaking hypothetically, sorry I wasn't clear.

As a general rule, everything is speculative to some degree until it's actually in your hands in a shipped version of the product. Even something the dev team really wants and is actively working hard on could technically fall through if big enough complications arise.

I'm hesitant to ever say we are going to do anything, because I can't see the future. As development progresses, you discover lots of things that weren't at first apparent. Maybe whatever it is is technically unfeasible and we need to approach it a totally different way. Maybe it's technically feasible but prohibitively costly in some way. You won't know until you get there in most cases, so promising in advance is making a promise we don't know we'll be able to keep.

That said, it generally becomes more and more probable the more the dev team focuses on it, so things we tell you we're actively working on are likely to be delivered.

So to answer your original question, we are thinking about possibilities of how we would handle this issue, but aren't necessarily planning anything yet.