Player Edition Questions

[ruhar]

When I did the Kickstarter I thought the player version would be real time. After my players bought their version we found out it useless during a game. Personally, if I had known that I wouldn't have strongly recommend they buy a player copy. But, it wasn't that much so maybe as RW evolves i will become more helpful for my group.

[adzling]

Yeah personally I don't see what the use of the player edition will be once the web interface is live.

Previously I had thought the player edition would have a live interface to Realmworks, which would offer some advantage.

But now that it's clear it doesn't I don't understand what the use case is for the Player Edition.

I guess it was just a bridge until the web version is complete?

Just seems weird it's so gimped.

[Farling]

Player Edition provides with data whilst not connected to the internet. The web version won't help in those situations.

I seem to remember that LWD are reluctant to implement on-they-fly syncing because that starts to get into the territory of being a VTT; which would open up a completely new set of worms/requirements/wishes.

[Chemlak]

Worth mentioning, though, that once upon a time, there was a non-functional "Sync Realm" button on the ribbon bar in RW. It got stripped out pretty shortly after early access went live (a few updates down the line), but it was there. IIRC Rob said it was something that was on the roadmap at some point.

[davidp]

And for sharing remotely with players, you can share the player view screen using a tool like Skype, join.me or a myriad of other free software offerings allowing remote players to see the player view screen and any updates to it in real time.

[adzling]

Hey Davidp thanks for that suggestion, don't know what it did not occur to me before.
cheers

[MNBlockHead]

I wasn't involved in the kickstarter, but my understanding as someone who has been using RW for about a year and has one player out of a group of 6 who bought the player version is that the player version is meant to be a record of the realm the player has knowledge of and a place to keep game notes. It is like a diary kept between sessions.

My understanding is that the Web version will be limited in terms of how much content you can reveal for free and will not have journals (when released). Also, as others have stated, you would need Internet access take advantage of it.

At the table, players could use the player version to look up information, just as they might in a game notebook.

In my campaign, none of my at-table players have RW. I'm happy to remind them of anything that was revealed to them if they ask. I use the player view on a screen to review items I want to share with them—mostly maps.

My one player who uses RW is my one remote player. He is also the newest player, so for him it has been helpful in getting him up to speed.

I use Google Hangouts to share the player view with my remote player as well as to communicate with him during the game.

Personally, live sync is a very low priority to me. Even if all my players had the player view, it would still be low priority. Anything I want to share, I put the screen. I don't want to reveal something, say on a map, and have them all looking at their own individual devices. Having them looking together at the screen makes it a group activity. I have a player who brings a laser pointer and they can together look at and discuss maps much like their character would be.

Live sync might be more useful for remote games, but even then, I find it easier to share with Google Hangouts or some other web-meeting interface. That way I'm controlling the pace and they needn't shift their attention to another application.

Now, all this said, so many applications now offer live updates. We are so used to software like Google Apps, Office 365, web apps that save as you type, or at least when you tab to the next field, that I really would hope that someday RW way of updating and synchronizing content is modernized.

I'm hoping that the Web version will allow me to do most of the content creation and editing I need to do using modern Web technologies to allow saving as you type, etc. RW software would then, for me, be primarily a means to keep a look backup so I can use it when I don't have an Internet connection.

[adzling]

Yeah the player edition is further hampered by only running on a windows pc.
This means folks need to bring a laptop to the tablet to access the realm data, which doesn't happen at our table.

I do use the second display to share plenty of content.

However it's just not practical for long, dense text reading like shared clues, documents and similar.

Web-view on a tablet would be ideal.

However from your notes web-view is going to be purposely gimped?!?!
Do you have a reference to any postings by Lonewolf on the extent of such gimpitude?

[Parody]

I use Realm Works on my Windows tablet. It's slower because this tablet's hardware is much less powerful than my desktop, but it works fine for viewing.

[Vargr]

Originally Posted by adzling

However it's just not practical for long, dense text reading like shared clues, documents and similar.

When using text heavy clues and similar, make a handout. Find a good font for it befitting the style of the campaign (or handwrite it), add some stains and tears to make it look old (there are a number of nice tips for just this on the net). Works way better than having it on screen in my opinion.