How long, Really?

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by Dark Lord Galen

SOAPBOX "whine"
@EightBitz> Not sure what a reference to a herolab Posting has to do with this, other than, as seems the " chosen vernacular" "Nit-pick" against Shadow, so it really has no value here....

Shadow was teasing. I was teasing back. That's the alpha and omega. Why so serious?

[Dark Lord Galen]

Ah, pointtaken.... though some may be unfamiliar with your shared bandy....

And the HL reference left me abit lost to the grey of it.... aka the left brain engaged.

[Exmortis]

One product cant be all things to all people.

For me, RW has now replaced HeroLab as the one product I will not play RPGs with out in the future, followed by Hero Lab in close second. RW is the GM tool of my dreams, HL the Player tool of my dreams.

I have now two campaign worlds in development, and I have tried oh so many products to do such an under taking, and none hold a candle to RW. Gone is my duffle bag 4 binders, second duffle bag of books, all replaced by my Surface Pro 3, connected to three larger screens.

Gone are the reams of hand outs, player maps, character sheets, encounter records. All replaced by my Surface Pro 3.

Gone are the days of players begging me to tell them the name of the NPC they spoke to 4 weeks ago about the coin thingy. Or the lost maps, the hand out with the player working over time. Gone are the piles of ink cartridges spent printing mountains of paper. My printer sits oh so lonely, never used.

All of this is now on my Surface Pro 3:

Hero Lab for all players sheets and encounters
RW for the campaign, adventure, handouts, management, back player historical notes.
D20 Ultimate for interactive maps.
Campaign Cartographer 3+ for map making
Pathfinder book PDF speak for them selves

Instead of carrying back breaking 50lbs+ or books and binders and crappola, I carry one Tablet and dice.

Realm Works is a campaign creators dream. So far the only feature I want is calendars. It will come, for now that the one thing still done by hand on paper.

I am now going and entering my favorite old modules into RW, T1-4 Tempe of Elemental Evil just completed (yes complete, every little tidbit is in RW), next up, U1-3 Saltmarsh series. Each for now is done as its own realm, but with content market they will be sharable entities for my campaign worlds.

Realm Works is not with out its faults, but its like comparing a kite to an F35. On top of that, it has been improved significantly along the way, updates, features, bug fixes, UI enhancements. Not all to my liking, but I am but one person, and RW is for everyone.

The more you use it, the more you can't believe you ever played, created or enjoyed a campaign with out it.

[chaoscowboy]

Given that I play online, have access to masterplan I can still use for plot stuff, I usually run adventure paths, and don't run monsters or the like from herolab itself, this software as it is right now is just not worth the 50 american I paid for it, which is a pretty penny in canuk coins up here. I've gone through this thing with a fine toothed comb and there is legitimately nothing in here that I can't do in obsidian portal, masterplan, and roll20. If it had pathfinder GM specific tools that I've been waiting for for ages, hoping someone would make incorporated into a plot system like masterplan does, maybe, but it's just not worth it. I'm getting my money back.

[MNBlockHead]

Originally Posted by wurzel

Maybe a feasible way to avoid further disappointments is a clear statement on the product page which desirable features are NOT supported at the moment.

Who advertises what a product is NOT ?

If the feature is not listed, don't assume it is there. If you are not sure, you have the forum to post to, you can e-mail the developers, and you have a 60-day money-back period.

There is nothing misleading about LWD's current advertising.

[chaoscowboy]

Oh and to top it all off, I tried to launch an imported portfolio from hero lab and somehow it managed to reset my hero lab back to demo mode. So I had to re-initialize my license and now I have to re-download all my content, much of which is third party. YAY! ~sarcasm.

Goodbye realmworks, at least herolab is pretty good (albeit pricey).

[wurzel]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

Who advertises what a product is NOT ?

If the feature is not listed, don't assume it is there. If you are not sure, you have the forum to post to, you can e-mail the developers, and you have a 60-day money-back period.

Vendors of professional business software do that. That way they can avoid costly lawsuits.

Of course advertising is completely needless. You can always contact the developers to find out what they have in their queue. And you can always spend some of your precious time to find out what the product can do and what the shortcomings are.

Unfortunately all competitors inform their customers, and if you don't follow you will be out of business faster than you can imagine.

[rob]

Originally Posted by chaoscowboy

Oh and to top it all off, I tried to launch an imported portfolio from hero lab and somehow it managed to reset my hero lab back to demo mode. So I had to re-initialize my license and now I have to re-download all my content, much of which is third party. YAY! ~sarcasm.

Goodbye realmworks, at least herolab is pretty good (albeit pricey).

It is physically impossible for Realm Works to reset Hero Lab in any way. So that reset occurred due to something completely isolated within Hero Lab. It would have happened when you next launched Hero Lab, regardless of whether it was via Realm Works. The only exception is if you have TWO separate copies of Hero Lab installed on your computer, one activated and the other not, and Realm Works managed to find a different one from the one you normally use.

Beyond that, it sounds like your GMing preferences don't match where Realm Works currently shines, and that's fine. Thanks for taking the time to give the product a try!

[rob]

Originally Posted by wurzel

Vendors of professional business software do that. That way they can avoid costly lawsuits.

Of course advertising is completely needless. You can always contact the developers to find out what they have in their queue. And you can always spend some of your precious time to find out what the product can do and what the shortcomings are.

Unfortunately all competitors inform their customers, and if you don't follow you will be out of business faster than you can imagine.

You mean companies that sell software with many more zeroes after the price tag than Realm Works?

I don't believe that we advertise Realm Works as having any features that it lacks. And we don't preclude users from discussing what it lacks here on the forums, as witnessed by this very thread. So it's easy for someone to find out those answers. And with the 60-day money-back guarantee, nobody is out of their money if they give Realm Works a try and find it doesn't do what they want.

For a $50 product, that's about as big of a safety net as can be reasonably expected. And I believe that it's a lot more than many other software products offer. That's my opinion, at least.

[daplunk]

I have to admit. If Realm Works, Hero Labs, Roll20 and Obsidian Portal had a baby I'd probably just quit my job and become a full-time DM. Maybe throw TableSmith in there also.

Our group had a rather unique situation this week where we had to end on tense moment due to time. Instead of waiting for the next session we picked up the next day over Facebook. It was messy and hectic but it worked. The group excitement was amazing in that we basically had 3 full days of gaming and the focus of the group shifted from being Dungeon Bashers to actual role play.

That in turn led me to search for solutions that would cater to that situation better. Obsidian Portal, City of Brass, Epic Words. They all had what I was looking for. The ability to share the world I had build with my players. What they have that I've yet to see in Realm Worlds however is the ability for my players to interact and react to that world as I share it.

Web portal, group chat, private chat, instant online access to the content from where ever we all were. The ability to roll dice over the internet and most importantly the non-requirement for me to sort it all afterwards and copy and paste the content back and forth between Realm Works and facebook. Online XP logs and loot tracking has also been a popular request this week.

I stumbled across the Web Viewer that was demo'd earlier in the year. It was a truly exciting experience and god I hope it comes soon so I can go back to using a single tool. But they highlighted the weakness of the tool there themselves, it currently has no ability for the players to respond and I feel that is absolutely necessary in today's RPG market.

Overall all of the tools I tried were inferior in comparison to Realm Works. But as my player's can't interact with Realm Works that doesn't matter and we have been forced to adopt a new tool to manage the sharing of information in-between sessions.

Honestly, what Realm Works really needs IMO is the Web Viewer with a forum board style system that interacts with the Realm Works database taking advantage of linking and all the other content we have created. That would get my players into the tool on a regular basis and make it an interactive two-way experience.

Keep at it Rob. You have created a wonderful tool. We're just all visualizing the end product and wishing we could have it right now