First thoughts about RW:PE

[Chemlak]

Originally Posted by Indus101

Meek, this was a question I had. If you're creating custom categories, will they not be seen by players when they sync to your realm?

As I understand things, new custom categories are okay for sharing, and you should be okay adding things to existing categories, but if you've customised an existing category and stripped things out, that will cause a problem with sharing, because when you download a new topic that someone has written in the default category format, your copy of RW will throw a hissy-fit because there are missing snippet types that it's expecting to add.

I'm sure Rob or Liz will correct me if I'm wrong.

[Indus101]

Thanks Chemlak, that was my understanding as well.

To be clear, what I've been doing is DUPLICATING existing categories that I wanted to modify, so as not to mess with any of the Realmworks defaults.

For example, the "Region: Political", was a detailed as I liked, so I duplicated it and made a "Region: Nation", which was essentially the same thing but with more fields and snippets. I just want to make sure that when my players do sync to my realm, they'll be able to see this new category I created as well as the Realmworks default ones.

[Parody]

Categories are contained within the Realm just like Topics/Articles and everything else. When you download a Realm as a player, that Realm contains any new Categories and any changes to the existing Categories.

The Categories are just templates and lists of predefined snippet types. Look at what happens to existing Topics/Articles when you change a Category that's in use: nothing. You have to explicitly go in and tell Realm Works to add any missing Snippets or to rearrange the Topic/Article to match the Category.

While I don't know for sure exactly how Realm Works will deal with mismatched Categories, it shouldn't affect the content itself at all. You might end up with two similar Categories ("Category" and "Category 1", say) with all the new Topics/Articles tied to one and the existing ones tied to the other. You might end up with a bunch of Topics/Articles tied to an existing Category that doesn't match what they look like. It shouldn't matter in the long run. (The LWD folk can correct me if I'm wrong as well. :)

FWIW, I've also been duplicating Categories to customize them to my liking and then hiding the Global ones. For what I've been doing, most of the Categories are too generic and the Topics Categories especially are too detailed in their genericness. (Not to mention that the default Categories and Tags are geared to Pathfinder.) Also, I don't want LWD's changes to the Global Categories and Tags to change what I'm doing.

Don't be afraid to customize your Realms to fit you, especially if you're not planning on sharing with the world. Not all of us are writing non-systemed or Pathfinder supplements for publication on the Content Market.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

They don't even need to be "marketplace" ready. Now that PE is out, just share them with all of us users. We all download the sample realm and view it in RW and get to see how it's structured and laid out and then we can talk about more concrete things.

Of course they have to be Marketplace-ready. That's HOW we will get them.

Which is ONE of several reasons why the Repository and Marketplace are the next "big" projects on LoneWolf's agenda (at least that was the last I read; it has been a while).

[AEIOU]

I have no idea how the importing of material will work.... But if it works the way I think it might, if you plan to put content on the Market, please consider sticking to the standard templates. If you use your own templates for Personalities or Terrain Type or whatever you run the risk of fragmenting the community. It will either take work on the importer's part to consolidate your work into theirs seamlessly. Or they will have multiple versions of the same tags, descriptions, fields which will make maintenance more difficult. Or you may create duplicate names and overwrite material that the importer thought was safe.

I'm hoping someone with knowledge will pipe in and put fears to rest.

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by Silveras

Of course they have to be Marketplace-ready. That's HOW we will get them.
.

I know you were likely being funny/optimistic, but no actually they don't.

They could be shared today using the PE functionality.

[Dark Lord Galen]

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

They could be shared today using the PE functionality.

Shared? You mean viewed right? Currently the PE lets your players( or anyone you grant access to) "view" your realm. But isn't the idea of "sharing" mean to incorporate someone else's data into your realm and use as you wish or modify as it fits your world? Maybe I'm misunderstanding totally what the "Share goal" is....

[pyremius]

The short term goal is to see a completed Realm created by the experts, as a reference point for our own work. For that we don't need to change, only to see and navigate - and Player Edition is supposed to cover that.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by MaxSupernova

I know you were likely being funny/optimistic, but no actually they don't.

They could be shared today using the PE functionality.

Funny? Yes, or at least not snarky.
Optimistic? Maybe. I don't think so.. I think that's how it will work.

"shared using PE funciotnality"? Nope, at least not as real examples.

The purpose of the examples is to show how the "professionals" approach entering their realm data. That includes GM notes and other hidden information. The GM Notes and hidden information are not visible in the Player Edition.. so any of the examples made available by that means would be incomplete.

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by Silveras

Funny? Yes, or at least not snarky.
Optimistic? Maybe. I don't think so.. I think that's how it will work.

"shared using PE funciotnality"? Nope, at least not as real examples.

The purpose of the examples is to show how the "professionals" approach entering their realm data. That includes GM notes and other hidden information. The GM Notes and hidden information are not visible in the Player Edition.. so any of the examples made available by that means would be incomplete.

Ah yes. Good point.