Roadmap please

[kbs666]

Let me second Conandy and add my perspective.

I posted my feature request list back in November 2018 and in the next couple of months several items, clearly low hanging fruit, were done which was gratifying as every one of those mattered to people.

But after that flurry of updates? Nothing. We got 64 bit (RW is so much better and easier to use now) and we got a small features as LWD rolled out various updates to make the CM work. The CM launched (and it wasn't very good tbh) and besides some fixes for individual users with issues we've gotten nothing since, not even new content to buy.

I use RW every week for my two campaigns and I have a ton of time and effort invested in it. That doesn't mean I'll stay forever as new campaign managers come out, with close enough feature sets and active development ongoing.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by daplunk

If you are reading this Rob. People. Are leaving to try other tools simply because of the lack of communication....

People are also actively developing new tools to rival Realm Works. If you don't want to lose existing customers, you have to communicate. If you want to attract new customers, you have to communicate. If you want to stay ahead of your competition, you have to have a roadmap. And if you want to show people how and why you're better than your competition, you have to share that roadmap.

[evildmguy]

Yes to what @Conandy said, for the most part.

My own experience has been that I only check back every six months to a year to see any updates. Part of the problem was expectations but my own realization of my style. In the end, I need something that lets me put in ideas and notes as I'm gaming, not a system that seems to require all data entered into it and during a session, I just click to reveal things.

64bit helped and it's faster. It's still not at a level where pen and paper is faster for me. It might never be? I don't know. or it needs a whole new area for notes that I can type as I game, like a scratch pad, to put someplace later? Or the ability to record and convert to text? Or something?

I used to put data into it but don't even do that, and I do find that sad. That's where I'm at. I do think that RW was intended for a certain type of DM or to be used in a certain way and it hasn't ever come together for me.

[Farling]

Originally Posted by evildmguy

In the end, I need something that lets me put in ideas and notes as I'm gaming, not a system that seems to require all data entered into it and during a session, I just click to reveal things.

The use case for RW is very much "enter all the data first and between sessions", rather than as a note-taking tool during sessions.

[evildmguy]

Originally Posted by Farling

The use case for RW is very much "enter all the data first and between sessions", rather than as a note-taking tool during sessions.

Yeah, I know. I was just so excited for it when I first started using it. Probably because it's not how I typically prep or DM, it was showing me a lot of new ways to make connections and connect story points better. So, I appreciated and really liked that! But I still do a fair amount of reacting to what happens at the table, and RW just can't "keep up" so to speak with that style.

I think I was also really excited for the content market to have a lot of little one shot freebies, like an Inn or other buildings, including something that I could contribute to, over time but it seems like that's not the case, either. Or it's just that extra step of work.

Ah, well.

[kbs666]

Note taking is something I do at the table all the time. I just keep a text editor, I use textpad but I'm sure even notepad would be fine, open. I jot down a whole series of notes about stuff in the play session there and then the first chance I get I input all of that into RW. It works really well.

Considering all the benefits to session prep and helping me build an interconnected game world I can deal with a two step note taking process.

[the_redbeard]

Originally Posted by Farling

The use case for RW is very much "enter all the data first and between sessions", rather than as a note-taking tool during sessions.

I must be the exception. I've made my own game session category, separate from the provided tool. Each session I make a new topic, and order them with a prefix. I record which characters were there, the real world date of the session, and the (numerical) start and end in-game days. Then I take notes in snippets during the session, and I can choose if the notes are player info or DM info. It's all linked, so I can easily find a record of interactions with an NPC or when an item was found, etc.

Since I run a sandbox without a pre-scripted story, I may be an atypical RW user. But it's fantastic for a game heavy on faction interaction and where the past sessions influence the next.

EDIT to continue the conversation of the OP: I've got enough history and work inputting this world into RW that I won't be switching from RW as long as I'm DMing this world... unless some competitor put out an import feature. But all bets are off if I started a different world due to concerns expressed already in this thread.
I had hoped that the CM would provide income that would support RW development, and I fully expected there to be a quiet period after the CM release. I've even purchased a few CM items even though my world is nearly completely homebrewed, mostly with non-standard monsters and such, to support RW. I can also understand that Lonewolf's user base is largely Pathfinder and so a big development like PF2 (really not long after Starfinder too) would cause some shifting of resources. But with PF2 out, I'd have assumed that LW would have received previews and been working on PF2 before the launch so that with launch resources could go back to other things.
So, yeah: throw us a bone cuz we're going hungry. The dogs might start sniffing around another doorstep.

[Farling]

When I was GMing, I used to use the "game session" section to add brief notes of what happened during the game session. It recorded the start and end in-game dates (I think).

[Greebo]

BJ made some rather sobbering comments on FB which boil down to Pathfinder 2 is too important for us, so we currently cannot afford to invest any work effort into RW.

[daplunk]

From BJ

We aren't being quiet because we're hiding anything, we're being quiet because there is just absolutely nothing to report on the RW front beyond some PF1 society releases that released as I was heading to Gen Con and the already announced server time being available to purchase.

Realm Works is our passion project, but currently, we need to focus on the products that pay the bills. With the surprise of PF2 coming out and needing to get it all into place before PF1 sales drop off entirely we had to pull pretty much everyone off other teams to ensure it was even remotely close to done on time. We are still supporting Realm Works and have every intention of continuing to do so but at the end of the day we are a business and we have to make sure we take the steps to ensure all our products, Realm Works included, continue to be available for many years to come. Once things calm down, we hope to be able to reassign people back to working on Realm Works again and get fixes and new systems in place.