Why I stopped using RW (for now)

[monsterfurby]

For the first time in 20 years of gamemastering, I aborted a campaign. There are many reasons behind this, but information overload and exponentially increasing complexity of a modern-world sci-fi setting with 400 NPCs is one of them. Realm Works is not to blame for this, certainly, but I have decided not to use it in the new campaign that I will be starting within the same group.

Because, at this point, I'm returning RW to the shelf for the time being, I would like to provide some feedback. I still think that the overall premise of the tool is great, and that there is absolutely a market for it. I'd love to use it, if it weren't for a few elements that made it less than optimal for me.

What follows is a list of very subjective grievances and hopes for the future which might be useful as a tiny bit of feedback.

1. UI Responsiveness
The UI has a discernible lag when switching topics and edit/view mode. This is something I mentioned in several places but ultimately figured I would learn to ignore. That is not the case. The way my creativity works is a bit of a fickle thing. Unless I can write something down right the instant it occurs to me, I may never do so. Running over a speed bump on my way there is very irritating.

2. Need for 'blank slate' template
I fully understand that for marketplace purposes, there need to be certain preconfigured categories. I found that these however weren't exactly all that useful. The tool makes it exceedingly hard to remove these categories and get them out of sight permanently - not just greying them out but preventing them from cluttering the appropriate area as well.

As someone who never plays published modules and settings, marketplace compatibility is of no importance to me. I ultimately decided to delete all categories to make room. It would be great if the "core" categories could be hidden by default, allowing users to start from scratch.

3. Allow defined lemma in templates
Right now, the only way to have "lemma: content" type factsheets is to either misuse tags or to make pure text snippets.

What I would like for characters in particular is the ability to pre-define a lemma for a snippet in the template, e.g. "Full Name:", "Place of Birth:", etc.

4. Make information easier to retrieve
Snippets might not be the best format for quick retrieval of information, since the DM/GM still has to sort through fully formed text to find the information they are looking for. Addressing 3 and 6 might help.

5. I don't get "tags"
The predefined templates use tags for things like looks. I don't understand that. Why would I want a list of all skinny, brown-haired NPCs the players have come across? I literally cannot think of a scenario other than an investigation adventure, and even then, it's more of a player thing.

I understand the principle of tags overall, but again, the pre-defined set doesn't make a lot of sense.

6. Improve formatting, make images smarter
One of the recurring issues I have is about the way the information is laid out visually. For some reason (possibly margins, possibly paragraphs, possibly spacing, not entirely sure), I find a Word document containing the exact same information a lot easier to use than a Realm Works database entry.

I fully understand that the format is somewhat constrained by the format of the database and the capabilities of the software platform. However, giving us more control over how we want to arrange the information, possibly with columns or custom defined width/height boxes for each piece of data, would be interesting.

This especially applies to images. It would be great if we could, for example, move an image off to the side where it doesn't interfere with the text, display it without any header line and comment, and move it around to wherever it best illustrates whatever information it is meant to illustrate.

7. Online view - maybe online edit?
As more and more RPG groups move online, sharing information through the web is an absolute requirement. I bought the player edition for my group, but usability issues mean that they hardly ever open the software to read up on things. Having an online view would help a lot.

Conclusion
To me, Realm Works excels in functionality, but the user experience overall is not optimal. Instead of helping me structure ideas and plan things out, it places obstacles in my way that I find irritating. I am of course not expecting the software to give me full-on OneNote-like freedom of arranging information, but better formatting and shorter response times would go a long way towards making this a much better tool.

At the same time, I would still recommend Realm Works to others. Just because I find that it doesn't, right now, make me happy, that doesn't mean others who are less irritated by small UX glitches and issues can't make use of it. I, too, will return from time to time to look at the state of the software, but for now, my group will retire it and return to using a fairly standard Wiki software for our campaign journal needs.

[adzling]

6 is an interface problem, it's clunky, poorly laid out and just not very well designed imho.

7 is solved, partially by the forthcoming (when?) web view. But yeah having a bunch of content inside realmworks that you cannot present to your players in real-time is rather crippling. It defeats the main benefit of using realmworks to organize your campaign and world imho.

[MNBlockHead]

#1
I used to have noticeable lag, but after recent updates, I really have not had issues with lag. More of an issue is the time it takes to launch RW. When I want to capture an idea, especially something more free form, I usually just create a note in Evernote. But when I have RW open and am actively working in it, I find creating place holder topics and creating content to be fairly fluid. There will still, however, be times where capturing thoughts in Evernote makes more sense, especially ideas that are more inchoate, that are not ready for the more structured environment of RW.

#2
Perhaps because I DM a DnD campaign, I don't have any issues with #2 and #3. I agree that for those that find the default templates unworkable, that perhaps a way to hide all the defaults easily, allowing you to start from a blank slate would be nice. I'm guessing (based upon discussions I read regarding this on these discussion boards) that it would be a minority of users who need this. But, for those who do want this, it is important.

Hopefully, when the Content Market is out and we are able to create realms from existing realms, this would be easier. You could go through a realm hiding all the default topics and articles and create all your own templates and then you would have that to use as template realm.Heck, someone in the community could then make this "tabla rasa" template available to the community.

#3
Specifically on #3, I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are asking for here. What kind of customized headers and labels are you unable to make, or am I misunderstanding the meaning of "lemma" in this context.

#4
I agree. On the one hand RW has some very nice features to filter to topic, especially if you've been using tags. Searching while in game is pretty is not very fluid. But it hasn't been a huge issue.

#5
This will depend on individual DMs. Some I find very helpful. Others I never use. I also make my own tags to make it easier to filter content in a way that works for me. Since you can create your own tags, I'm not sure I understand why #5 is an issue, especially if you would like to start from a blank slate.

#6
A nice look would be nice, but I'm guessing this is low on most users priority list, compared to other requested features. I will say that I find liberal use of heading and subheading and keeping the table-of-contents pane displayed is very helpful when working with larger topics and articles.

#7
Web view is coming. It is pretty much done. From my understanding it will be released when the Content Market is. The CM is holding lots of things back. It is understandable from a business perspective, but the CM can't be released soon enough (but not sooner than it is ready for prime time, of course).

[adzling]

Yeah but from what I heard web view will not be live....

[MNBlockHead]

Originally Posted by adzling

Yeah but from what I heard web view will not be live....

True. But many people will still be served by Web view without live synch. Some players are just not going to buy the software but you still want them to have access to at least a subset of your realm's content. Some players don't have Windows PCs. Most importantly, Web view will allow players to use tablets, including iPADs so they can have RW open in the Web browser to access information from prior sessions.

In Web view, the players will not longer need to sync. At most they would have to refresh. But, yes, I believe that that GM will still need to exit the realm to sync.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

True. But many people will still be served by Web view without live synch. Some players are just not going to buy the software but you still want them to have access to at least a subset of your realm's content. Some players don't have Windows PCs. Most importantly, Web view will allow players to use tablets, including iPADs so they can have RW open in the Web browser to access information from prior sessions.

In Web view, the players will not longer need to sync. At most they would have to refresh. But, yes, I believe that that GM will still need to exit the realm to sync.

And it will hopefully allow us to print.

[adzling]

I'm not saying web-view will be useless, it will certainly be better than player edition due to running on tablets and phones.

It's just not going to do what Realmworks needs to do imho, which is make Realmworks the core of getting the content in your fantastically detailed world you have spent umpteen hours / days /weeks working on into the hands of your players in session.

[Acenoid]

Agree with most points from the OP , I use RW during my game sessions and I can get around, but tab management and the inability to customize the GUI (eg. hide the topic list for a while, to have a wider main view) is a small hassle for me, as my laptop has a much lower resolution than my main pc.

And regarding printing, I try not to think about it and avoiding commenting too much on it before the freature is realeased. I just hope printing will be available within the tool and not from the web, because if it's only visible in the webview used w/o subscription are left out.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by Acenoid

I just hope printing will be available within the tool and not from the web, because if it's only visible in the webview used w/o subscription are left out.

Absolutely agree. But I know that's not on the top of the priority list. I'm not hoping that web view is the FINAL solution for printing. I'm just hoping it ALLOWS it, so those of us who want the feature at least have an interim workaround to help us get by.

[Valarian]

Originally Posted by monsterfurby

2. Need for 'blank slate' template
I fully understand that for marketplace purposes, there need to be certain preconfigured categories. I found that these however weren't exactly all that useful. The tool makes it exceedingly hard to remove these categories and get them out of sight permanently - not just greying them out but preventing them from cluttering the appropriate area as well.

As someone who never plays published modules and settings, marketplace compatibility is of no importance to me. I ultimately decided to delete all categories to make room. It would be great if the "core" categories could be hidden by default, allowing users to start from scratch.

I've owned RealmWorks for quite a while, despite not logging onto the forums until now. I've never used it. The reason ... I don't play D&D.

The experience of setting up a campaign for any other system is extremely frustrating. You have to try and unpick all the data that has been entered before even starting to enter your own. A "Tabula Rasa" or "blank slate" starting point would greatly help this frustration, as the effort of all that unpicking would be reduced, allowing the user to start to enter content for their own system straight away.

Originally Posted by Website FAQ

Which game systems are best suited for use with Realm Works?
All of them. Realm Works is completely game-system agnostic in its design. It should work equally well for every genre (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Modern, Historical, etc.) and every complexity of game (from simple to highly complex). There are no ties to any specific systems and the content structure is completely customizable. So Realm Works will work great for both the most popular systems of today and the most obscure systems from 30 years ago.

I find it galling that RealmWorks advertises itself as system agnostic, and then creates a fresh campaign with a load of D&D specific data. The effort of unpicking all of this is what has, up to now, prevented me from making use of the tool. I'm sure that it can be very useful, but until the blank slate campaign starting point is added and the setup of base system data is made easier I find that the tool is unusable for me and my needs.