Realm Works + early access Question

[Jaynay27]

Hi Everyone,

Wasn't sure whether to post this question on the KS page or here

With the early access coming up I wondered if the player client was still going to be part of the RW functionality, for players to view information, and will this be ready for early access backers also?

Last nights session was so frustrating as all my Onenote hyper-links somehow got broken and navigation between the adventure information was tedious. This also impacted revealing information to my remote player, who joins us via skype, hence the question above.

Cheers,
Jaynay.

[weogarth]

IIRC, the Cloud will not be ready at the same time but a few weeks behind. Considering how long it'll take many of us to input and arrange data, it was not viewed as a major obstacle.

The Cloud is necessary for the clients to connect to.

[rob]

The Early Access release is for backers only. You'll be able to utilize all the in-game facilities like Player View, but your players won't be able to create accounts yet.

In addition, we won't have full syncing in place for the initial Early Access release. We'll first be focused on full syncing for GMs, and then we'll follow that up with restricted syncing for players, which adds a little more complexity to the logic and will required even more testing before release.

Hope this helps!

[Jaynay27]

Cheers Rob and thanks for the response.

Yeah - makes sense - my players will have a to wait a little longer.

At least I will be able to get a LOT of use from the GM side of things (I reckon the GM side of the program is work the price of admission alone).

We are toying around with a second monitor too, so player view from the main application will also be VERY handy.

Jaynay

[Spence]

Well for me I only plan to use RM as a GM campaign tool. We have even begun to not allow tablets/laptops at the game table anymore. We've gotten tired of eceryone Facebooking or tweeting or so and tgen constantly having to go back over what just happened a minute ago.

As long as RM retains the ability to print out needed docs it's good. As soon as it morphs into VTT light it will have lost its value for my group.

[Chemlak]

I think you have nothing to worry about, Spence. LWD have a very clear design goal for RW which carefully avoids crossing over into the space occupied by VTT. It is primarily a tool for hosting information, cross-referencing that information, and presenting that information in a user-friendly manner. Secondarily, it is for sharing information. None of the design-space it occupies covers any of the following (essential) elements of VTTs: chat (text, voice or video); game mechanical assistance (dice rolling); tactical movement; or map-drawing.

While some of what it does (barely) crosses into a couple of those (the last two), it is actually unusable as a VTT because it can't do all of them. And LWD have been clear that they see no need to reinvent the wheel (there are plenty of VTT sites and applications out there already), but that the design-space of campaign management is sorely lacking, and this software is being made to fill that gap. And I think they're doing a beautiful job, even with just the limited preview information we've seen so far.

[weogarth]

Originally Posted by Chemlak

<snip>While some of what it does (barely) crosses into a couple of those (the last two), it is actually unusable as a VTT because it can't do all of them. And LWD have been clear that they see no need to reinvent the wheel (there are plenty of VTT sites and applications out there already), but that the design-space of campaign management is sorely lacking, and this software is being made to fill that gap. And I think they're doing a beautiful job, even with just the limited preview information we've seen so far.

Exactly. There's no way you're going to get an all-in-one tool, so let a couple companies do a piece of it very well and LWD is stepping to be the one (and only one IMO) for Campaign Management.

[Spence]

I hear you. I mostly lurk but every once in a while I feel the need to point out I'm still here

Especially after reading endless comments leaning hard to get them to re-purpose.

[Jaynay27]

Forgive me if I was unclear in my original post.

I wasn't trying to pressure additional features in RW, only clarify when features that were already planned (player view in particular) would be available.

I do not think that RW needs to fulfil the role of a VTT...I was more talking about revealing information to the players (more like sharing players handouts and campaign information) via the player client.

We do not use a VTT in my group, but I have 1 player joining us from 2700 Kms away, and the player client would be a smoother way to reveal campaign handouts/information than say, email.

I also envision the second monitor to be useful as I can progressively reveal map information to my players (especially useful in dungeon crawls) without having to manually draw it out each time.
When we move to combat mode, my players will still be using our home made battleboard for all tactical encounters and I never expected RW to take over this function.

And as I mentioned earlier - the GM side of the application is worth the price of admission alone.

Sorry for the confusion.