Realm Works Feature Survey – Charting the Future

[Avi]

Except that we haven't actually seen the survey results. That's what LWD tells us what the results are. We're just have to take their word for it. Which I don't.

This is just plain rude...
The conversation up till now was harsh/strong/"in your face" but mostly civil.

LWD are not a bunch of liars, and if you think so your place is not on their list, as anything they say will be suspect by you.

 

[weogarth]

Except that we haven't actually seen the survey results. That's what LWD tells us what the results are. We're just have to take their word for it. Which I don't.

Definitely uncalled for. I think Rob was more than kind in actually justifying this with a response. Personally, I would have rather him spent the time working on the marketplace.

To a far lesser extent, I've been in Rob's and Liz' shoes, and it wasn't fun for me. I can only imagine what it's like for them. I know there are strong feelings but NOTHING will be gained but stomping on their morale.

 

[Nemesis]

Well, LWD sold me a piece of software with a critical functionality, that is expected to be part of every modern piece of software, missing (namely "export") without even mentioning that it wasn't there. So I'm a bit hesitant in trusting them, as I've been burnt once already.

 

[Farling]

Well, LWD sold me a piece of software with a critical functionality, that is expected to be part of every modern piece of software, missing (namely "export") without even mentioning that it wasn't there. So I'm a bit hesitant in trusting them, as I've been burnt once already.

And the survey (which you don't believe) indicated quite clearly the size of the market which really wanted the "export" facility.

 

[Nemesis]

@ Rob:

Alright, here's what right now makes it difficult for me to fully trust LWD. The reasons are two-fold:

1. You do the survey, which is in itself a good thing as it allows users to vote on the features they'd like to see in the software. The problem is, some of the these features were promised a long time ago (see Dubya's posts) and even advertised as selling points for the software. But then the results of the survey are not used as a strict development plan but are just a guideline and the wording in the update at least sounds a bit like the features people voted on might be moved up and down if it's covenient to do so. Then why do a survey at all, if the results are just a general guideline and you reserve the right to change the position of features on the list? It just feels off (and I know other people have commented on this as well already).

2. The fact that journals came off on top of the most-wanted list just seems a bit too convenient. LWD is a business and they have to make money, so the features that are most beneficial to LWD as a company are those that either expand the user basis or will get more people to spend money on the software. Neither calenders nor export (or a lot of the other features) do that, but journals do. They only work with Player Edition, which in turn requires cloud services, which in turn is something you have to pay for. So basically the feature that's on top right now is the one feature that will actually earn LWD money if it's implemented, while the people who already paid for the software and have no interest in the cloud-based features are left by the wayside (and just to clarify, I worked for a software developer in the legal department for several years, I know the business and I completely understand that LWD of course needs to earn money to pay the bills - that's just how a business works). Maybe that's coincidence, maybe I'm overly suspicious, but it just feels odd to me.

Pair these two facts with my above mentioned feeling of being burnt by the fact that a (at least to me) crucial function was missing without that fact being mentioned anywhere, makes me suspicious.

I realize that this is not gonna make me any friends on the forum and that for you reading this must be hurtful, but that's the way I feel about this matter right now.

 

[Acenoid]

Good posts here all around
I think that LWD should concentrate now on setting things into motion and go through the list and we will see where we end up.

I'm sure that many ppl will be positively surprised, even it requires them to "come back" from paper/other software in the meantime.

I also hoped for some features which are now far on the horizon, but as long as the product is successful and growing, I hope that we are getting closer to this function at least.

 

[enrious]

I'm sad to see Calendars not in the top-3 and not sure about Journals, but mine is but a single voice. There are enough other things on the roadmap that I or my players will benefit from, just as there are things that I'm not sure we really will that are on there, which suggests to me that it's just about right for me - design and implementation is quite often feature compromises bundled together.

I also admit that I haven't really looked at any marketing material and so was completely unaware that Realm Works has been listing Exporting and/or Printing materials as a built in feature - where did I miss that?

As it is, since joining a drinking club while waiting for RW to go out to the early-access KS backers to now, I've really only see RW's list of features (working features mind you) only increase. Steadily.

Mind you, not as fast as I'd like and likely not as fast as rob and the LW folks would like, but I can point back to the release notes for every version and know that the releases have been relatively frequent and also include new features that I wanted or never knew I did until I tried them.

From my perspective, things are better than they were two years ago...and two months ago. But then, I'm not seeing a snapshot of RW - I'm seeing the Journal.

 

[Mmurphy]

I have stopped using Realm Works completely. Until the items that I want are in it, I find it to be too much of a distraction at the table to be useful. This is my personal opinion and I will still tell people about it if they seem interested but for my taste, it is easier to just fake it. I do not GM with any pre-planned plan--I have everything I need (maps, images, etc) as files on the computer and pull up what I need when I need it. The characters can take a job or not for all I care.

I was using Realm Works to track what has happened after each game for a bit but stopped because it really was only for me.

I am a kickstarter backer so LW already has my money and I have a lifetime top tier cloud service so I am not worried too much. I will just wait until a few more features are incorporated (like the "The grande temple of Jing") etc.

 

[AEIOU]

I hate to admit it but my RW entry stopped a month ago. Until I can share content with myself so start new campaigns fresh it's pointless. And until I can export I'm really not sure why I'm bothering. Maybe I'll get back to it in a few weeks/months. I'm tired of waiting and don't have the energy to complain.

I too have lifetime top tier cloud service. I hope Rob is paying attention to his strongest advocates and most vocal supporters. We're frustrated.

 

[kad]

Over the course of the three weeks that the survey was live, we had just shy of 1000 people complete the survey! Nearly 85% of the respondents were current Realm Works users, and about 15% were prospective users.

I find myself wondering what percentage of the total number of current users (by license sales) the 85% "current user" respondents is. Not that I expect LWD to reveal how many copies they've sold, that's not something small businesses usually do. But it would be interesting to know.

-Keith

 

[Mystic Lemur]

Well, LWD sold me a piece of software with a critical functionality, that is expected to be part of every modern piece of software, missing (namely "export") without even mentioning that it wasn't there. So I'm a bit hesitant in trusting them, as I've been burnt once already.

Have you asked for a refund? You're not happy with the product, and you've stated no less than three times already that you aren't going to use it anymore. Ask for a refund, and shoo. Your continued negativity contributes nothing to this thread.

And if LWD won't give you a refund, I will. Send me your contact information, and I will send you the cost of the product through paypal. I will gladly pay money to be rid of your constant, unreasonable complaining.

As for me, I'm not happy that Calendars will be further delayed, but I'm content that they are still being worked on. They'll be ready when they're ready and not before.

 

[Nemesis]

Interesting proposition, not that I would accept your offer, but for what it says about you.

As a paying customer I have every right to voice my complaints and I will continue to do so (I think there's this little thing called freedom of speech). If you don't like my posts, just ignore them.

 

[Indus101]

....and that was the last time the word "survey" was ever mentioned at headquarters....

 

[Parody]

(I think there's this little thing called freedom of speech).

Technical Point*: At least in the US, freedom of speech is a restriction on the government. This bulletin board is run by a private entity, not the government, and that private entity can prevent us from speaking here if they wish. Similarly, we can voice our opinions on our own websites and LWD can't block us from doing so.

I would also point out that this forum has an Ignore feature if anyone is so inclined. I've used it on other forums before. (Extremely rarely, though.)

ObTopic: A pattern that's been pretty plain throughout discussions of exporting is that the people like myself who wanted it the most are using Realm Works as they would other writing aids. That's also why I don't care whether or not you are allowed to export purchased items; I only want to be able to export things I've created. (Though you should be able to specify what people are allowed to do with stuff you want to share, much like in Acrobat, but I digress.)

Honestly, I don't see the point of getting worked up about exporting or calendars or any other pet feature that isn't being given first priority. LWD's decisions for the near future have been made. If their vision is different enough from what you need that you won't find it useful for now, then shelve it. Come back in a year and see what's up.

I've bought plenty of programs in the past that I never used to their potential, found weren't suited for what I wanted to do, or were too buggy to use properly. About all you can do is find something that works for you.



* The best kind of point!

 

[rob]

And now I'll respond to a wide range of comments made by various posters up-thread. This will entail multiple posts in order to keep them manageable in size, but I also want to avoid have a dozen separate replies from me. So each post of mine will often respond to multiple posts by others. Here goes, in chronological order...

 

[rob]

"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)

The intent behind our statement was very simple. We are not going to feel compelled to work on a particular feature first just because it came in a few hundreds of a point ahead of another feature. For example, we focused on the top-3 major features on the list, all of which were closely grouped in their rankings. We then assessed how much work was involved in those features, how much complexity was involved, which team members would need to do the work, and a host of other factors. The other two features required significant work by the same developers that will be up to their eyeballs on the content market and web-based access. Journals could be done largely by a team member that wasn't critical to those tasks. So Journals made the most sense to tackle first. The decision was in no way an excuse - just a question of resources.

If you assume that we would completely ignore the results of the survey, then you're also assuming we have no desire to make the largest number of users happy. That's just ridiculous, since that would also mean you think we would intentionally undermine the product that we've worked on for years. We're not in this industry to get rich - we could all make lots more money working for other companies, and we’d definitely have to work much fewer hours each week. We do this because we love gaming and want to create something for the hobby. To think that we would intentionally sabotage our own efforts is, frankly, insulting.

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.

According to our records, it appears you purchased Realm Works after it was commercially released and were not a Kickstarter backer. At the point you purchased Realm Works, custom calendars were not advertised as an existing part of the product and were clearly identified as both planned and still needing to be finished. That was the case dating back at least six months prior to V1.0 release, since it was already the case when we did the Early Access release the previous summer. So I’m having trouble reconciling your assertion above, since you are “not speaking for anyone but myself”. How did you purchase Realm Works where custom calendars were advertised as being already in the product?

With regards to the other hot-button features – printing and export – neither has been portrayed as an existing part of the product to my knowledge. Both were requested during the Kickstarter and added to the todo list back then. At that time, and ever since, export was acknowledged as something that we would look to address after V1.0 came out and printing was something we’d try to get into V1.0 in a rudimentary manner (which ultimately didn’t work as we’d hoped and was scrapped). They were given an equal place on the todo list with everything else, and we included them in the survey due to the interest expressed in them by various users on our forums. We reported how they fared in the survey results. However, I don’t believe those features can be claimed to have been advertised as an existing part of the product in any way.

 

[rob]

Only question, from a technical perspective, is that aren't "Journals" really an offshoot of a robust Calendar system? Since the next big feature will hinge on the current dating system, I just hope you don't run into programming issues when you do get around to handling Calendars, as it seems they be getting built in the reverse order: aka, journals derive from a robust calendar system, not the other way around.

As @Chemlak concluded, journals and calendars are completely separate, and journals simply reference calendar dates. So journals will initially only support Gregorian dates, just like date-based snippets within topics. Once we get custom calendars fully into place, both date-based snippets and dates on journal entries will automatically support those calendars. We can test and verify all that internally with the incomplete calendar mechanism that already exists. And members of the Beta team who have access to the old journal mechanism can attest that calendar dates already work fine with those journals.

The way I look at this is RW needs to focus on what will best help it grow its user base and increase profit so it can grow and afford to continue developing the product. That is why the marketplace and the more collaborative features have be given preference, even though I could care little about them. They just are not going to do as well focusing on GMs like me who are using the tool as a way to organize and build their world, but not to share with players. They need to sell player licences. They also need to bring in busy GMs that prefer to work with pre-created content. The marketplace is critical for this.

This is exactly the situation we’re in. Thank you for summarizing it so well.

As for calendars versus journal—I don't know—I would think lack of custom calendars would be a bigger turn off for potential buyers than lack of journaling. But this may just be a blind spot I have, as lack of journal features is not something I've missed in months of heavy use for how I use the tool.

The key thing with journals is that journals are a critical piece for engaging the players more fully. Based on the huge demand for journals within the survey, it appears that allowing players to keep their own journals is a big attraction for GMs. They can be leveraged by GMs as well, but I believe the biggest draw will be with players. The notion of calendars and dates is important to many GMs, but it’s rarely of concern to players – the GM typically tracks that stuff so that players can remain blissfully ignorant of it. Journals are just the opposite, which I’m assuming is why they ranked so highly in the survey results.

I think it might be enlightening to the developers what answers they would get if a large random sample of DMs, who were not current customers, if they would buy a campaign management tool that did not allow them to export or print their work. As a current user, when i go through this thought experiment, I find myself saying no.

There’s no good way to obtain information from a random sampling of GMs who aren’t current customers. So the next best indicator is assessing the weight our current users put on all the features that aren’t yet available, including export and printing. As we mentioned in the news update, the desire for printing is split, and there is little demand for export. Is this an absolute indicator of prospective users? No. However, it’s unlikely that the overall views of GMs out there would deviate significantly from the survey results. That’s why we’re looking into how we might be able to provide an alternative, more lightweight solution for printing – if the actual numbers skew upwards a bit, it ends up in the top third of the survey and becomes a feature of concern to a significant portion of the user base. Unfortunately, with export near the bottom of the list, it seems that there are some who consider it a deal-breaker, but the overall user base feels it’s of negligible importance compared to all the other things we could add to the product.

 

[Chemlak]

Random post inserted between Rob's!

 

[rob]

Excellent post, and something I will touch on. GMs and custom worlds, we are at least in a realm of 100 to 1 in favor of pre-purchased content GMs. To this day, I have played D&D/Pathfinder from grade 6 (so what 12?) to now at 45, that's 33yrs give or take, and in that time I have met/played with exactly two GMs that made their own custom world and content, and one is me.

With exception to my current group and the other person I know who does this incedently in my current group), every single group I joined starred in wonder when I pulled out my own game world and adventures as a GM. None, exactly none had ever seen that before.

And…

My experience is, that the split between commercial worlds and home-grown worlds is 50-50 - possibly 60-40.

My impression is also, that in the US commercial worlds are widely used, where as - at least in Scanadinavia - it is more 50-50.

The vast majority of GMs want pre-created content. Only a small percentage actually create their own entire worlds, and that’s why all the published settings are such a huge seller for companies like Wizards and Paizo. Outside the US, the numbers skew lower out of necessity due to the decreased availability of fully realized settings in foreign languages. Here in the US, the ratio is at least 10:1. A large percentage of GMs take pre-created content and tailor it a little bit – some heavily, but most are just a little bit. That’s a very annoying process with printed material – or even PDFs – since all those customizations must be kept separate. The vision with Realm Works allows users to obtain pre-created content and easily tailor it to suit their desires. In addition, that content is in a format that is ready for delivery to players with significantly less preparation work than with current print/PDF solutions.

Consumers are becoming less and less willing to invest the time to prepare games. There has been a huge shortage of GMs across the hobby, and the solution from many new publishers has been to simplify and streamline things. Other publishers have chosen to create game systems that encourage player participation to reduce the load on the GM. Numerous other creative outlets are increasingly available to consumers as direct competition to tabletop RPGs, which further erodes the hobby. There is still a huge interest in the hobby, but RPGs need to become more efficient and engaging to compete. That means the job of the GM continues to get harder. Based on these trends, the focus needs to be on further simplifying the lives of GMs and enhancing engagement of the players. It also means integrating technology into the process to achieve that goal.

That’s our vision with Realm Works and what we’re working towards. Our progress isn’t as fast as it could be because we’re taking the long-range view and laying a solid foundation beneath everything we’re doing. That makes everything harder under the covers, but it also means that we’ll be able to accomplish a lot more down the line. We just have to get there.

 

[rob]

Random post inserted between Rob's!