Realm Works Feature Survey – Charting the Future

[liz]

Earlier this month we wrapped up our Realm Works Feature Survey. On our website, we recapped the results and outlined our ensuing plans for the future. If you’re a current Realm Works user (or a prospective user), we encourage you to take a read!

Click here for the update!

Separately, we want to say a huge thank you to the nearly 1,000 people that took the survey! Your feedback has been heard, and we’re tailoring our plans accordingly as we look forward to bringing more of the Realm Works vision to life this year.

If you have any questions after reading the update, please chime in here and we'll get you answers as soon as we can!

[Parody]

Thank you for sharing. I'm not surprised that Export was pretty low, nor am I surprised that there's a large split for the features that get a lot of mentions here on the forums.

I think Realm Works will be a very useful tool the next time I'm running a traditional RPG campaign. That might be a while, though. :(

[Seregil]

Oh dear God!

Everybody get your body armour, the Calendars are not in the top three. The End is Nigh! :-)

[weogarth]

Originally Posted by Seregil

Oh dear God!

Everybody get your body armour, the Calendars are not in the top three. The End is Nigh! :-)

This was indeed disappointing, but I can't argue LWD's methodology. I guess Chemlak and I should have spent more money on bumper stickers and yard signs.

I will now be urging progress on the top 3 so as to get to #5 faster. I'm heartened by the dev team's desire to work on them as well. I'm picturing a carrot on a stick here....

<soapbox>Might I also say I'm disappointed in some of the 'I'm taking my ball and going home' reactions of some of the people? RW has a lot to offer a lot of people, and I think it's abundantly clear we ALL use it slightly differently. I hope that those people, when asked by others about the product, are fair and say something like 'It is a good tool, but it wasn't for me and here's why' rather than petulantly trash it.</soapbox>

Thanks Rob, Liz and all the others on the team. Keep on keepin' on. You do good stuff.

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by Acenoid

Thanks for the transparency with this, some good features are in the top three some stuff is postponed for some time. Looking forward for the 2016 survey

This made me laugh.... "selective transparency" is not transparent at all, and as to ANOTHER survey in the future, it is a poor business model to steer by. Especially with LWD talking from both sides of their mouth. "The survey will not dictate what gets worked on" (translation, unless it provides us an excuse)

Originally Posted by PatJe

I'm also dissapointed, that we won't see calenders in a while. It was mentioned as a "Key Realm Works Feature" in the kickstarter campaign and was very important to me.

disappointed doesn't even begin to describe it for me... It was a feature already "IN" when sold, then well "we" (LWD) weren't happy with it so its coming "soon", couple weeks, then months, now closing in on a year, and NOW well it didn't make the top three, so we wont be delivering on what we sold you, but its not out fault, its the communities??? SERIOUSLY???

Originally Posted by PatJe

I wouldn't say Realm Works is useless without it. But the more you work with it entering dates als text instead of calender entries, the more useless calender entries become. Who would rework the whole realm after this feature will come ... maybe ... sometimes

Well put, and I agree, the potential for a great product is there, but without CORE functions it is risky to consider its use.

Originally Posted by rob

@Nemesis: Clearly, you're one of the people for whom export is a deal-breaker. Going back to having to use three separate tools over the lack of export seems like a harsh alternative to me, but you've made your position clear. Unfortunately, the survey results place you in a small, but vocal, minority of the overall Realm Works user base. We have to prioritize our efforts to focus on what the vast majority of users want right now, and the results of the survey are compelling on the subject of export. It's unfortunate that your priorities don't mesh with those of most everyone else.

Edit for clarity: It's your fellow Realm Works users who put export near the bottom of the priority list. That's not where we had it on our list going into the survey. We're now calibrating our priorities to best satisfy the collective desires of our users.

oh please, it is convenient for you to say "its not our fault, its the communities", when you have on more occasions than I can count have said ""the survey will not dictate what order we work on things". which is it? (rhetorical)

Originally Posted by rob

@PetJe: To be honest, the dev team was also a little disappointed that calendars didn't make it into the top-3 of the survey. There's already a LOT of work invested in the underlying calendars mechanism, and we want to see it finished. The reality is that there are some things that are much more important than calendars in the eyes of most users, and the survey has pin-pointed those things for us. So we'll get those into place first and then finish up the calendars after that.

SMH instead of making good on a feature you claimed was ALREADY there when you sold it. ITs not like the end user is asking for something extra here... and not speaking for anyone but myself, I simply expect features that I already PAID for. That in any world is not unreasonable.

Originally Posted by weogarth

This was indeed disappointing, but I can't argue LWD's methodology. I guess Chemlak and I should have spent more money on bumper stickers and yard signs.

thanks for lightning the mood here as this is certain to be a dark thread.

Originally Posted by weogarth

I will now be urging progress on the top 3 so as to get to #5 faster. I'm heartened by the dev team's desire to work on them as well. I'm picturing a carrot on a stick here....

I won't, because it is blatantly obvious that LWD will do as they want, when they want. and make false promises along the way hoping to keep enough ears tickled to keep them afloat.

Originally Posted by weogarth

<soapbox>Might I also say I'm disappointed in some of the 'I'm taking my ball and going home' reactions of some of the people? RW has a lot to offer a lot of people, and I think it's abundantly clear we ALL use it slightly differently. I hope that those people, when asked by others about the product, are fair and say something like 'It is a good tool, but it wasn't for me and here's why' rather than petulantly trash it.</soapbox>

I agree with this, I was (and am) always of the assessment that silence is consent. "Taking my ball" crowd amounts to the same thing, to leave when things aren't going well is to be silent... I wont be... its up to you LWD as to whether the vocal crowd that remains is positive or negative in their appraisal of you. Your business is at stake.

Originally Posted by weogarth

<Thanks Rob, Liz and all the others on the team. Keep on keepin' on. You do good stuff.

[Aaron]

Gird your loins!

[Acenoid]

Thanks for the transparency with this, some good features are in the top three some stuff is postponed for some time. Looking forward for the 2016 survey

[MNBlockHead]

Have to say that I was surprised that journal made it to the top and that calendaring made it so low. Disappointed, but I am impressed at the developer's engagement and transparency.

[ruhar]

Originally Posted by Seregil

Oh dear God!

Everybody get your body armour, the Calendars are not in the top three. The End is Nigh! :-)

I did a quick scan to find out the status of calendars and I'm very disappointed and surprised that calendars is not #1 or even #2.

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

Have to say that I was surprised that journal made it to the top and that calendaring made it so low. Disappointed, but I am impressed at the developer's engagement and transparency.

I like the idea of a journal, but I don't recall it being the battle cry of the hoards since Beta release. I guess old battle cries just drop down the list as new ones replace it. I'm going home now to bury my calendar dreams. *sigh*

[Nemesis]

And with this I'm done with RW. The features that you plan on adding over the next couple of months are completely useless to me, while the features I need are on the bottom of your list (mainly export and calenders - also no word on the Mac version. Seriously, how long can you stall this?). Calenders are almost useless right now without custom calnders and the handling is terrible. And without an export option I won't use RW, I don't like the black hole approach at all.

And one more thing, dear LWD staff:

we will allow users to get their data out before we ever stop supporting Realm Works

I don't need your permission to get my data out of RW - it's MY data and I will use it in any way I want to. If your software doesn't enable me to do that, well, you're out. See, everyone I've talked to about the missing export feature reacted in the same way: "WTF?" It's a functionality so basic, that no one could believe it wasn't there.

And about adding it at some point in the future: what if at one point I decide there's another software that suits my needs better than RW does? Right now my data would be stuck in RW and I'd have to copy/paste every single snippet into another application. That's not an option at all for me.

So I'll be going back to my trusty combination of Scrivener, OmniOutliner and Aeon Timeline. These programs do everything I need (including links) and also have the option you put on the bottom of your feature list.

So long.