Realm Works Player Edition Update - Page 6

rob · 11:55 AM

The above analysis of LWD's composition is - unfortunately - utterly wrong.

Only some of the people you have listed above are employees. And some employees don't ever post on the public forums - although they are often active on the Beta team forums. So this analysis is a classic example of "garbage in, garbage out".

The Realm Works development team consists of Rob (me), David, Richard, and Joe. Rob used to work on the Hero Lab team until I split off to spearhead Realm Works, and that's been my sole development focus for years now - although, as the company owner, I'm still heavily involved with Hero Lab on the strategic and business side of things. The content team consists of Jeremy and Chris. Note that many of those names don't appear on the list above. The team member who left in April is similarly not on the list above.

On the Hero Lab side, the development team is three strong. There are another three data file experts on the Hero Lab team.

The languages and environments used for Realm Works and Hero Lab are quite different (C#/.Net vs. C++), so there are no shared responsibilities between the development teams. The content for the two products is radically different, so there is again no overlap between the teams.

Beyond the above, we have Liz as Community Manager, a business manager who also helps out with the Realm Works content, an operations/finance person, and a dedicated support person.

That's a total of 15 employees, with ZERO overlap between the two product teams.

The assessment regarding community support being a major contributor to Hero Lab is very true for various game systems. We have a bunch of volunteers doing things that enhance the data files that we produce. We also utilize a number of part-time contractors to help with the data files that we do produce.

One of the core principals we've ALWAYS operated under is that we don't lie to our users. The analysis above implies otherwise, and I personally take offense at that. You are quite welcome to ask questions, and we're generally pretty open about answering them. But please do NOT assert things that are based heavily on conjecture as "likely" or "unlikely".

Thanks!

mirtos · August 19th, 2014, 12:44 PM

Rob, as you mentioned, its probably just frustration. I doubt Dark Lord Galen meant offense (and if you see earlier posts, you can see he "sided" with me when i said that the player account wasnt taking away from the web access.

Web forums tend to cause calm debate to become not so calm at times (though i think people have done a good job).

On a matter of thanks, though, I doubt you saw this, but I am personally thankful for you (meaning LW, and since you are the owner, I think you deserve at least some credit) allowing a non-employee to work on fixing bugs related to the HeroLab d20 system. For those of you who dont use the HL d20, I'm not that person, but I am a user, and I (and I think most users of the HL d20) appreciate it.

Its something you wouldnt see many companies being willing to do. It shows a great willingness to care about its users.

So,

Thanks.

(and now - get back to work!

)

Dark Lord Galen · 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

The above analysis of LWD's composition is - unfortunately - utterly wrong.

Humm for being "utterly wrong" I managed to list more than 75% of the team by name.... seems the only thing I didn't clarify is the two softwares being in different languages and composition (as I have mentioned in other threads), so thanks for clearing that piece up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

Only some of the people you have listed above are employees. And some employees don't ever post on the public forums - although they are often active on the Beta team forums. So this analysis is a classic example of "garbage in, garbage out".

Funny how its "garbage in garbage out" when using the information you provide...... hummmm I didn't make up the titles nor the delegation of postings, all that information is readily available within this forum.

If you took the time to actually read the post in relation to thread, I have defended you Rob......

and never claimed that the list was inclusive nor and organizational chart, but as an explanation of your available resources to do the goals set infront of LWD. The list of people simply tries to define whom you had supporting the efforts. Any readily that chose to read the forum can find the same information accessible (see Current Posts under name).

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

The Realm Works development team consists of Rob (me), David, Richard, and Joe. Rob used to work on the Hero Lab team until I split off to spearhead Realm Works, and that's been my sole development focus for years now - although, as the company owner, I'm still heavily involved with Hero Lab on the strategic and business side of things.

seems I named 3 out of 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

The content team consists of Jeremy and Chris. Note that many of those names don't appear on the list above. The team member who left in April is similarly not on the list above.

List based (as noted) on forum response, was never to convey a company org chart. Just to reinforce the large quantity of work being done by few individuals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

On the Hero Lab side, the development team is three strong. There are another three data file experts on the Hero Lab team.

Pretty sure I've named 2 of these as well.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

The languages and environments used for Realm Works and Hero Lab are quite different (C#/.Net vs. C++), so there are no shared responsibilities between the development teams. The content for the two products is radically different, so there is again no overlap between the teams..

I generally concur as to the differences with the softwares ( made mention to many that seek a spreadsheet or word processor out of database), but there are comments through out that show team members from one group supporting the other and causing impact simply do to time constraints....

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

Beyond the above, we have Liz as Community Manager, a business manager who also helps out with the Realm Works content, an operations/finance person, and a dedicated support person.

That's a total of 15 employees, with ZERO overlap between the two product teams.

You yourself are an overlap Rob.... while you may not have the day to day duties you once had within HL, you do have "poetic license". Don't you?
And also noted that the company size was probably in the 11-20 range.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

The assessment regarding community support being a major contributor to Hero Lab is very true for various game systems. We have a bunch of volunteers doing things that enhance the data files that we produce. We also utilize a number of part-time contractors to help with the data files that we do produce.

My "garbage"... pretty much said exactly that. Save mentioning that some of your contributors were part-time contractors. I felt it was not necessary to convey the original goal < SMALL COMPANY> to those expecting instant gratifications.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rob

One of the core principals we've ALWAYS operated under is that we don't lie to our users. The analysis above implies otherwise, and I personally take offense at that. You are quite welcome to ask questions, and we're generally pretty open about answering them. But please do NOT assert things that are based heavily on conjecture as "likely" or "unlikely".

Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DLG

NOTE, this does imply structure based on Forum response, which is a pretty poor benchmark, but the only common Benchmark readily to be found...

1> Never implied all the people were employees nor where they were assigned , but were in support of your team.
2> Never implied you lied ANYWHERE in ANY of my 100 plus postings... Not sure at what point you took it to say such... I simply utilized the forum and based data on that (I referenced it as such) it didn't suggest anything other than a small group of people doing ALOT of multitasking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirtos

Rob, as you mentioned, its probably just frustration. I doubt Dark Lord Galen meant offense

I didn't, and the afore mentioned post was not frustration, but in defending LWD accomplishments... 600 plus posts by six people on top of doing their REAL work...

Did I post earlier in the thread conveying I would not pass on suggestions to my players to purchase, yes, simply because it is not yet ready to support my players needs / play style based on missing items from the DM side.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ruhar

I'm guessing, Dark Lord Galen, that you were still typing when Rob posted.

Seems so, and for defending LW no less .... No good deed goes unpunished.

Dark Lord Galen · August 19th, 2014, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirtos

On a matter of thanks, though, I doubt you saw this, but I am personally thankful for you (meaning LW, and since you are the owner, I think you deserve at least some credit) allowing a non-employee to work on fixing bugs related to the HeroLab d20 system. For those of you who dont use the HL d20, I'm not that person, but I am a user, and I (and I think most users of the HL d20) appreciate it.

I too am a D20 user and convey this same appreciation.

rob · 05:06 PM

I read the post completely differently from how it was intended. I keyed primarily on the assignment of staff to teams that they have never contributed to in any way and the final assertion of...

"So, to conclude that there are separate stand alone "teams" is unlikely... More likely they have leads for each Software Branch, and the others support when / where they can..."

The big gotcha is that I didn't detect that your post was being written while my post was made. I don't look closely at timestamps and didn't circle back to see the response until an hour later. So I interpreted your post as a response to my mine instead of overlapping it. Based on that, I took the incorrect information as an intentional statement that contested my post, which was an honest mistake on my part.

Bottom line: Timing is everything.

If you had hit submit two minutes earlier or I had done so three minutes later, I would have seen your post when I submitted mine and realized it was an overlap. I saw it an hour later, didn't check the timestamp, and drew a completely different interpretation from what you wrote. Sorry about that!

rob · August 19th, 2014, 03:59 PM

One additional detail regarding the Hero Lab team...

Delays incurred by the Hero Lab team are completely unrelated to the situation with the Realm Works team. The Hero Lab team has lots of publishers to contend with for data files (and the resulting issues associated with that), plus their own technical hurdles they encounter as they work to enhance the product and bring it to new platforms like the iPad. Fortunately, their delays aren't nearly as egregious as ours have been on the Realm Works team.

Madmaxneo · August 19th, 2014, 05:58 PM

After attending Gencon 2014 and asking this very question at the demo, I will report that it is possible to give someone a copy of the player edition, but once they log in they can change the password and email info easily. The email address is needed so the player will get updates when the GM updates what the player sees along with important RW program updates amongst other things. After having it explained to me it makes perfect sense that the license usually goes with the player. If needed it is best if each player gives the GM the money for the purchase (or purchases the license themselves, which is not recommended).

This will become a problem when after running for awhile and a single new player gets involved, he will have to pay $10 for a license because no one else is joining in at the time and can't get the discount.

Bruce

Kendall-DM · August 19th, 2014, 06:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark Lord Galen

Kendall-DM...........Spy?

Though I think of myself a highly skilled programmer, I am just a dedicated fan of both pieces of software, and thoroughly impressed with the job Rob and his team have done. Spy is just a special board title I was given last year (2013) after playing Resistance with the LWD team there. I'm just a guy on this board with some specialized knowledge.

Viking2054 · August 20th, 2014, 02:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Madmaxneo

This will become a problem when after running for awhile and a single new player gets involved, he will have to pay $10 for a license because no one else is joining in at the time and can't get the discount.

Bruce

Why would this become a problem? No one need discuss any kind of group discount some people received because they grouped up for a purchase. And who is to say that the new individual couldn't group up with some other late comers in the local gaming community and still get a group discount?

Besides, at least for my group, we have three active GM's and one that runs a mini campaign once a decade (at least that's what it feels like). So out of a group of six at the table, I expect half of them to eventually get the full license of RW. But I'm waiting for a few key features I consider essential before I broach the subject with my group. And since I'm not the current GM for the group, I can wait a bit.

Grimmric · August 20th, 2014, 03:04 AM

I am still amazed that $10 for a player is a big thing.
If you cant afford it you dont have to buy it.
If you think its something that will enhance the experience and help you enjoy the game a bit more, the $10 is a small price to pay.
Its not like you have to pay it monthly as when you play games like WoW.

Grimmric Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Posts: 35 August 20th, 2014, 03:04 AM	I am still amazed that $10 for a player is a big thing. If you cant afford it you dont have to buy it. If you think its something that will enhance the experience and help you enjoy the game a bit more, the $10 is a small price to pay. Its not like you have to pay it monthly as when you play games like WoW.
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