Web player version status ?

[MNBlockHead]

LWD has stated that the free cloud service will not kick in until the Content Market is released. Now I am not LWD and there may be some caveats I don't recall. You can find other threads about this in these forums. That said, my "six-month" free cloud service has continued for well over a year by this point.

From everything that I've read from LWD, there will not be an additional charge for the Web version, beyond the cloud subscription.

As for updates, I don't think that there is anything that is factually incorrect. Rather, I think this is another example that illustrates that LWD really needs to avoid any indication of timeline. So many people keep pounding on them for ETAs. We are all eager to know when our most anticipated functionality will be released. But historically that has led to issues. If things take longer, they get bashed about "promises" broken. This is why they have, smartly, decided to not give out estimates or announce releases until they are on the cusp of releasing them.

The good news here is that because they did make some big announcements about the CM and Web version, we can be reasonably assured that in this instance they are very close to being done. They even demonstrate functionality of the CM in their most recently release video.

I'm not sure sure how important Web view is for you, but I encourage you to start using RW anyway. It is a great tool. There is nothing that compares. Obsidian Portal does not compare (though it has been awhile since I've looked at it). When I first bought RW I was upset that custom calendars were not there. I had seen them in a You Tube demo made by a user who had the demo version. LWD decided not to release that feature until it could be made more user friendly. It is my fault for not reading the details on their website and assuming functionality based on third-party media. I was also intimidated by what I perceived as a complex tool with a high learning curve.

But once you jump in, and get over feeling like you have to fill in every field, you'll find that it is not that hard to get started. You can move things around pretty easily if you feel that you should be organizing things differently in the future (and you most likely will).

As for sharing on the Web, my one remote player bought the players version and I use players view on a large screen for my in-person group and share that screen with Google Hangouts with my remote player so he can see maps as I reveal them, etc.

For me, the only thing that the Web version will provide is a way for my players who have not bought the players version to access a limited subset of revealed content. I guess it would also give players who buy the players version the fully revealed content but now on a tablet or any other device that can display web pages.

Whether or not my players buy the players version (and therefore have access to all content in the Web view) does not affect the value of RW for me as a DM. If been running my campaign in RW for over a year with most of my players not having the player version.

The Web view, like the Players version of the installed software will only provide access to revealed historical data. It is not going to be useful for live sharing. Unless you are constantly leaving your realm in game and synchronizing the realm and having them refresh the page. The only live sharing during the game that makes sense is the player view. That can be made available on tables using third-party software like Google Hangouts.

[Dr_Automaton]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

LWD has stated that the free cloud service will not kick in until the Content Market is released. Now I am not LWD and there may be some caveats I don't recall. You can find other threads about this in these forums. That said, my "six-month" free cloud service has continued for well over a year by this point.

From what I remember from the dev posts, it might be more accurate to say that our subscriptions won't expire until some time after the Content Market launches. I'm pretty sure the clock starting ticking on our accounts quite awhile back. Like you, however, I haven't gone back to dig up any old posts on the subject.

[Parody]

What I hope we've learned so far is that you shouldn't buy software solely based on promised features that aren't already included. If you can't get good use out of what's there already, you should wait. (The productivity software version of "Don't pre-order video games!" :(


Re: Cloud Service Time: LWD started cloud service timers on November 17, 2014. They suspended them again at the end of April 2015. They said they'll remain suspended until at least a month after the Content Market is available, but otherwise (as far as I can remember) they haven't said anything more specific about when things will resume or how much time folks will have.

Re: Real-Time Reveal: My guess is that an eventual web client would be much closer to real-time reveal if both sides are using the web. If the GM reveals something using the web client and the players refresh it'll probably be there. But that's just a guess.

[liz]

Regarding cloud service, We suspended cloud service 4 ½ months after Player Edition release. The announcement can be found here. After the Content Market launches, we’ll be waiting at least a month or two before announcing anything about resuming the cloud service clock. Once we make the announcement, users will have at least a month before the clock resumes. So at the end of it, anyone who got cloud service through the Kickstarter will end up with a minimum of three months back (we expect more) out of the 4 ½ months "spent" after the Player Edition released. That's in addition to the more than two years of cloud service prior to the Content Market launching.

I hope that clears up any concerns about cloud service ticking away. Now you have a more recent post "in writing" from Lone Wolf staff.

[Vargr]

- deleted -

[theparadox]

Originally Posted by MNBlockHead

LWD has stated that the free cloud service will not kick in until the Content Market is released.

Again, that is directly contradicting statements that they currently have live on their site.

When Does My 6 Months of Cloud Service Begin?
We announced in May that the six-month clock on cloud support would not begin until Player Edition was officially released. As of the November 18 release, the six months of free cloud service has begun for all Realm Works users. If you purchase Realm Works GM Edition after the release of Player Edition, your six months of free cloud service begins on the date of your purchase.

Now looking at another post in this thread it appears that the date was from 2014, not 2015, and that it has been suspended again? Now I'm not accusing anyone of deliberately spreading misinformation. I'm just frustrated and to be honest, a little concerned with their inability to communicate what the heck is going on with their software.

I'm not sure sure how important Web view is for you, but I encourage you to start using RW anyway.

It is very important to me. I've been using obsidian portal for another campaign and it takes a long time to format and link information manually. The appeal of RW is that my players can have access to what has previously transpired and information that I have shared. We don't meet regularly enough for this information to be fresh in their minds so unless I want to retell the story multiple times it needs to be published somewhere. Half of my players are also not at all technical and would not bother to go through the trouble of installing software just to see campaign information for our not-even-monthly sessions. They also don't have laptops, only phones. They wouldn't be able to reference anything at the session and wouldn't be terribly likely to do so more than once outside the session.

I'm honestly a little concerned that I might have to purchase multiple player versions just so that my players can view the campaign info on the web. I understand I won't be able to divulge information individually, but I can't afford to dedicate a screen to player info. I already do that for my map tracking software, which my players request I use. They greatly prefer it over theatre of the mind, which they have trouble keeping track of.

As for using the software, I've already run into multiple hurdles that have frustrated me. A month or two ago I gave it a more thorough try and after putting in a significant amount of preliminary data, I started to clean it up and just deleting entries would cause a crash. That was fixed, but now I get errors when trying to sync, or a notice that the program is running on my desktop when I launch it on my laptop when I know it isn't still running there. I had to totally wipe my local database and sync from the cloud to get it to work and I'm still getting popups about terminating an active session that is no longer running. These kinds of problems would be avoided if the system was was also web based. Hell, I manage an infinitely more complex web based information system as part of my day job. It can certainly be done.

Now I am a very technical person and can deal with these issues in something free or open source but it is disappointing to spend a good bit of money on something and have it be this time consuming just to get working.

Originally Posted by Parody

What I hope we've learned so far is that you shouldn't buy software solely based on promised features that aren't already included. If you can't get good use out of what's there already, you should wait. (The productivity software version of "Don't pre-order video games!"

My logic was that either way the application would be useful and that the additional functionality would just be a bonus. Unfortunately, my experience has been disappointing so far, even before the anticipated new features. I didn't use it heavily enough to experience the issues within the first 30 days and I wanted to support and encourage development is products like Realm Works. They are few and far between.

As a rule I don't pre-order unless I feel the way I felt above so ultimately it IS on me for not testing it more thoroughly within the first 30 days. However, blaming someone for believing inaccurate information from the developers is also part of the problem. The developers need to talk to whoever manages their website and update all of this outdated information. There is no excuse for it.

[kbs666]

This is really starting to get to me.
<Beware rant ahead>
LWD is not Microsoft. People spent a fairly small amount of money for a piece of software that does something that literally no other software had ever done before. But they're not happy that the roll out is slow and the software has had bugs? Really just how entitled are people?

Then people are complaining about cloud service, no one has been charged a single dime for it yet and no one has even had the clock on their free time end yet. We still don't even know what LWD will charge for the service and still people are finding reasons to complain.

I'm just glad the guys at Lone Wolf are passionate about Realm Works because stuff like this could really sour a coder on the work they were doing. I've been there.
<end rant>

To LWD, I use RW a lot and love it. Do not listen to the naysayers I doubt anything could make them happy.

[MNBlockHead]

Originally Posted by liz

I hope that clears up any concerns about cloud service ticking away. Now you have a more recent post "in writing" from Lone Wolf staff.

Thanks Liz!

[Silveras]

@theparadox

The issues you mentioned (repeated messages about existing sessions, deleting a topic causes a crash) sound like things support should be working on. Do you have bug reports/ support requests open for these?

Others use RealmWorks on more than one machine without these issues.

I know that on the occasions when I have had a crash, my next launch of RealmWorks prompts me to terminate the active session.. because the crash prevented RealmWorks from gracefully closing the existing session. So, if you are experiencing repeated crashes, the "terminate existing session" prompts may be a side-effect of that, and not really a separate issue.

The big changeover to HTML from RTF exposed a greater number of issues than LoneWolf had expected, and it took them a while to chase down some of them. There may still be people with individual issues lingering, as they prioritized the issues in part based on the number of people affected.

If you do have one or more support tickets, you can reply to them to request a status update or to notify LoneWolf that your issues are persisting. If you do not have any support tickets open, LoneWolf can't fix what they don't know is a problem.

[AEIOU]

Seriously folks, it's software for a game. Go outside, get some air, enjoy life. If RW doesn't work for you, just go back to how you were doing things. Be happy.

RW is a remarkable program that is not for everyone. There is definitely a small group of folks that needs to politely request a refund and come back in 5-6 years when all of the features are in place, it's a solid product, has a large selection of products to download and has had an UI facelift. For the rest of us, it's an amazing program that has changed our gaming, that many of us have sought for 30+ years and which continues to mature.