Realm Works Feature Survey – Charting the Future

[MNBlockHead]

Ruhar, I think you are correct in that GM preferences need to be weighted more heavily than player preferences, but I think that what I'm learning from these discussions is that GMs using pre-created material far outnumber those of us who create our own worlds.

I bought RW because it was the best option for creating and managing content on my world. Apparently, most GM users would prefer to enter in pre-created content and, therefore, it appears custom calendars just isn't as high up their list of feature-requests as it is mine.

That said, so many pre-created campaigns and modules use custom calendars that I would think it would be more of a hassle for those GMs to not have the ability to create custom calendars. After all, as I am building my own world, I can just say to hell with it and use Gregorian if my custom calendars become too much of a hassle.

In any event, at this time they've made their choice and the best thing is for them to execute on it. At this point I've accepted that custom calendars are not on the table. For some that may be a deal-breaker, but LWD has determined that it is a relatively small number and accepted that risk. For me, calendars are the only additional feature I care about, BUT RW w/o calendars is still much better for me than not using RW at all.

What was difficult was knowing that calendars were tantalizingly close. They they were a real possibility and that was exciting. It would have greatly improved my experience with the product. It is actually easier now that I know that it is just not a feature and not even a soon-to-be released feature.

The argument is over. Can you make custom calendars? No. Will you be able to? No. Time to focus on other things. This horse is dead.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

The argument is over. Can you make custom calendars? No. Will you be able to? No. Time to focus on other things. This horse is dead.

I don't want to add fuel to the fire or keep beating a dead horse, but when I looked at the update link in the first post of this thread it had this to say about calendars:

Originally Posted by Realm Works Feature Survey – Charting the Future 30 Jan

Much to our surprise (the calendar lobbying group was loud and proud), Calendars did not make it into the Top-3. Based on our analysis of the responses, there was a profound schism among users regarding calendars. Users either felt calendar support was of high importance, or they felt calendars were a low priority. As much as we want to complete the Calendars implementation within Realm Works, we had to stay true to what our users collectively identified as their top priorities.
The good news is that Calendars did manage to slip into the Top-5, so they should continue to march up the list as we wrap up other features above them. Completing Calendars is something that the Realm Works development team very much wants to see happen. As we’ve shared in the past, we’ve already put a lot of development work into Calendars, so the team definitely wants to see them in users’ hands!

Did I miss a post or update somewhere that said there wouldn't be custom calendars? Or were you talking about RW in it's current state?

[ruhar]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

The argument is over. Can you make custom calendars? No. Will you be able to? No. Time to focus on other things. This horse is dead.

Is it dead, MNBlockHead? Let's look at the discussion and the arguments:

Originally Posted by mirtos

That brings up an interesting question about the Survey. The Survey was available to everyone, players and GMs, correct?

Not a complaint mind you, but out of curiousity, do we have stats for number of players who responded vs number of GMs?

Because obviously that could skew results.. unless of course that was already figured in.

Originally Posted by Chemlak

It was definitely open to everyone - my wife, who only has Player Edition, completed the survey.

Originally Posted by Chemlak

I can basically say that if my supposition is correct, then "player desire" had a drastic impact on the survey results, and is part of the reason I just can't complain about calendars not getting love for a while - since RP is a social activity, it makes sense for RW to offer something to both sides of the GM's screen, even though the bulk of the work happens on one side.

The survey was available to everyone, including players. How many players do you have in your group, MNBlockHead? I have five. Let's so that two of them responded plus myself as the DM. The players want a journal to have first priority while I want calendars to have first priority. I paid more for my copy PLUS I'm paying the monthly fee for the cloud. Who gets the most votes? The two players who paid less? Or the one GM who paid more and continues to pay? If weight isn't put to the GMs votes then the players will have the most weight. To be fair the GMs, who will continue to pay for the service, should have the only say or the biggest say. At the very least the two groups should be separated and then analysed to see what the priority is for each group.

Originally Posted by Chemlak

And, frankly, if I'm allowed to use hindsight, I think I'd agree with Journals being more important than Calendars (won't stop me asking), simply because it offers greater engagement from more people. It's the same reasoning that says player-focused books sell more than GM-focused ones: If you have 1 GM and 4 players, that's 5 potential sales, because they're all players in one way or another. But a GM-only product is only one potential sale.

After seeing what the players see I agree with Chemlak that Journals are important. They have a program full of information that they discovered and can only know the order of discovery by looking at the game session log. But that only shows what was discovered and not what transpired.

Originally Posted by Parody

On the flip side, without a GM there's no players. The GM pays for a much more expensive product as well as ongoing cloud service to let the players be able to use the features of the Player Edition. Even if the players reject the product, the GM can still use it for their campaigns and still purchase items from the Content Market. So whose priorities should you consider? It's a delicate balancing act, something to be considered when looking at what to do next.

Originally Posted by mirtos

GM version (even without continual cloud access, in which point player version is pointless) costs a minimum of 5 times as much as the players version (with bulk pricing, the players version is even cheaper). So in the example given in the previous post, 1 GM at 50.00, vs 4 players at 10.00 each (assuming no bulk, less if they purchased in bulk (as low as 25 for the four players total)) there is no argument about how LWD is making the bulk of the income from.

This is foremost, a GM tool and is priced accordingly.

From a business model perception, it makes more sense to weight the GM survey results much higher than the player version.

And of course, unlike a product like hero lab, the player version depends on the GM version. The player version is worthless without a GM using it, but the GM version is not worthless without players using it.

So if a group of say 5 people, 1 GM and 4 players all had the product, all took the survey, would each person be an "equal" vote, or would the gm get more votes. I would suggest that it only makes sense if the GM gets a minimum of 3 votes...

If it was done that way, thats great. If it wasnt then you are likely getting a very skewed result. If entire groups use the product, you are going to have singinifcantly more player versions than GM versions, but that still doesnt equate to actual usage of a product.

Unlike a product like HeroLab, a pure decromatic survey doesnt make sense for a product like this. There are absolutely "more important" and "less important" users.

I would be willing to bet that players were the ones who wanted a journal while GMs wanted the calendar. If no weight is given to the type of user then the players' wish would be number one. If that is what happened then at the very least I would make the journal and calendar the first priority; something for the players (who pay a one time smaller fee) and something for the GMs (who paid a one time larger fee PLUS a continuous cloud service fee).

[ruhar]

One more thing, MNBlockHead, regarding pre-created campaigns. It doesn't matter if a module has its own calendar or not (which most don't unless its a world like "Forgotten Realms"), there are some things that a module doesn't take into account. I'm currently running one that has werewolves so the PCs could get bitten during a battle and I would need to keep track of the moon cycle to know when the PC will change if she missed her saving throw. Also, some GMs and players like to know what day of the week it is, is there a religious holiday coming up, what's the season.

The current "calendar" is only a database of what has happened. It's not going to tell me when the first moon is, or what is the next religious holiday, or the season. And that information is typically not going to be in a module unless it's part of the story line.

[Indus101]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

Apparently, most GM users would prefer to enter in pre-created content and, therefore, it appears custom calendars just isn't as high up their list of feature-requests as it is mine.

Just want to point out that oft-overlooked reality that pre-created content also relies on custom calendars. Want to buy a Forgotten Realms module? Make sure it isn't one where dates on the Calendar of Harptos come into play. Just downloaded someone's pre-made Star Wars adventure? Hope they've converted it all over to the Gregorian calendar. And not just for the DM, but for the players who want to update their journals as well.

Let's take a theoretical game session involving pre-created content. -->

PLAYER: "So how long do we have to get the droids to Coruscant?"
DM: "You have until Centaxday."
PLAYER: "Ah, right. And we got them on last Tuesday - I mean Primeday?"
DM: "Primeday is Monday."
PLAYER: "Right. So we have till Wednesday?"
DM: "Well, sort of. I mean, there are only five days in a week in the Galactic Standard Calendar, so it could be Wednesday one week then another day the next."
PLAYER: "Oh. So which is it?"
DM: "I don't know. With 368 days in the year, and seven weeks in a month and ....well, it just got too hard to calculate. Don't worry, it doesn't really matter."

And you know what? That might be true. It might not really matter that much to a lot of DM's or players. You can play a game calling Primeday Monday or Ches March or whatever whatever. I'm just pointing out that custom world or not, 99% of the content we're putting through it ain't gonna be the Gregorian calendar.

And being pre-created doesn't change that.

[ruhar]

Originally Posted by Indus101

I'm just pointing out that custom world or not, 99% of the content we're putting through it ain't gonna be the Gregorian calendar.

BRAVO! If this forum let us give thumbs up and down I would give you a thumbs up.

[enrious]

I don't disagree with that, but how often does saying the right day really come up?

Player: When do we have to be there?
DM: 3 days.

Player: When should we arrive at the Cliffs of Insanity?
DM: A week or so.

Not trivializing it by any stretch of the imagination, but for a published adventure, how important are specific, named dates anyway?

I get it for journals and whatnot, but I don't see it in terms of published adventures. After all, for me calendars is in my top-3, given that my custom world has roughly 14 or 15 in play.

But let's not conflate things.

[ArgoForg]

Okay, I do want to put in my .02 and say that yes, I am greatly disappointed that calendars and print/export (especially export... some form of PDF export, for instance, would totally kill a need for printing, as I could do it through my PDF viewer of choice, or tweak it in LibreOffice. I digress.) were not higher on the list after the surveys were complete, and that the next two items on the to-do list after the surveys are items that really won't help me whatsoever.

I don't generally use RW at the table, except for the way the players will when they eventually use the Player Editions: more as a database/sourcebook for my homebrew world, rather than anything handled as a virtual game, so single-character leveraged information is something I prefer to handle manually as a GM. While Journals may be of interest to me, I agree with others that say they really don't offer as much to me until I can use customized calendars and integrate them that way. And while it might be awesome to download content from others and from 3rd party distributors, that was never a big selling point to get me to buy RW at Gen-Con... being able to set up, and better manage and create for my world from top-down or bottom-up was.

All of that said, I am still a far cry from being disappointed with Realm Works. It's been one of the best utilities I've ever had outside of One Note for keeping tabs on everything in my game world, from towns and cities to specific magical items. I used nbos's The Keep for a long while, and liked it despite its clunkiness, and RW simply put blows it away for a campaign database.

Now, will I still be as high on RW if I'm paying for cloud service for a couple years and still can't add in any notable items from my world's history because I can't make a calendar other than the Gregorian? Time will tell on that.

[AEIOU]

For the sarcasm impaired, this is sarcasm: I'm really curious how many of us could have possibly gamed for all these years without calendars being integrated into RW. It's mind-boggling when you think about it. Nay, it's nigh impossible! I mean, it's the focus of every campaign and every adventure. Time is a critical component of the roleplaying experience. Dare I say, time IS the roleplaying experience? Without time, there is nothing else. And without calendars, well, what's the point? I mean, we just can't do it. Lone Wolf has destroyed gaming through their survey. And if they had implemented calendars, they could have foreseen this inevitability but given these dire circumstances now we can't even have timetravellers correct this grave error.

What's funny is that once calendars are implemented, they won't be good enough. And the forums will explode again. Death, taxes and forum unrest are the three certainties in life.

[ArgoForg]

Unsarcastically: I can't speak for anyone else, but as a history major, I have had some means of timekeeping in every game I've run, for my own sake, even if I just have given players an ephemeral "a long time ago", I like to know exactly how long.

Not having the ability to make custom calendars in RW hasn't made me avoid using the software, it's only meant that I've avoided working on much of the historical and timeline bases of my world and focused on geography.

And sarcastically: My game has utterly dried up and died without single-character information sharing. So there.

Originally Posted by AEIOU

For the sarcasm impaired, this is sarcasm: I'm really curious how many of us could have possibly gamed for all these years without calendars being integrated into RW. It's mind-boggling when you think about it. Nay, it's nigh impossible! I mean, it's the focus of every campaign and every adventure. Time is a critical component of the roleplaying experience. Dare I say, time IS the roleplaying experience? Without time, there is nothing else. And without calendars, well, what's the point? I mean, we just can't do it. Lone Wolf has destroyed gaming through their survey. And if they had implemented calendars, they could have foreseen this inevitability but given these dire circumstances now we can't even have timetravellers correct this grave error.