How long, Really?

[Vargr]

I agree with ShadowChemesh.

RW is a great program with lots of features. So try it out - there is no risk.

[daplunk]

100%. most if the things I find people in this thread are hanging for I have never even considered needing in my campaigns. There are always going to be things that people want though that is not yet available.

Personally I think there are two things that absolutely must be delivered first and must be delivered correctly in order to achieve the desired outcome...

The content Market. Bet your bottom dollar that requirements have been added by 3rd parties during discussions which have caused delays here. Get this right though and LWs profit is going to increase.

Web based view... The market has shifted since realm Works was invisioned. Cloud services now means something completely different to people than it did 5 years ago and expectations have changed. They need to deliver this to come in line with other cloud based solutions to ensure the usability by both dm and player will improve. Again this needs to happen as will attract more users and therefore more money.

Both of these things are core improvements that demand significant planning and infrastructure to ensure they are done right. Get it right and the money will come enabling Lone Wolf to invest more heavily in the features that small yet vocal groups of DMs are in need of.

[pakrat77]

I've been working with Realm Works since December when I started planning my Shadowrun campaign. There have been a few minor issues I've run in to but most of it has been user error.

I sat in on Rob's session at GenCon talking about the content market and spent probably 30 minutes talking to him at the booth on Saturday.

To me the content market is "hey, this is a really cool thing we will be able to do". Yes I want to run the Grande Temple of Jing for my players without having to key the the entire thing in myself. But I'm lazy and will wait for the content market. In the mean time I will continue copying and running Shadowrun missions (which won't be in the market) in my campaign with Realm Works.

The market and realm syncing takes an amount of planning to avoid all kinds of issues most of us never think about. And remember, all of this is being done by three people!

[chaoscowboy]

Alright well I bought this software because I wanted something like masterplan only pathfinder compatible. If it can manage xp, gear, and help me organize my plots I guess its worth the price.

[daplunk]

You can certainly find ways to do all of that however:

Hero Labs integration really shines, especially for management of player XP and gear. (and monsters, and npcs)

Personally I have my players loading into a Hero Labs *.por file. XP, gear, spells, level ups are all handled through Hero Labs. Combat is also managed through Hero Labs using the Encounter Manager.

You will certainly be able to manage your plots via Realm Works though and you can certainly load it up with all the gear you like and XP tracking should be simple if you do plan on doing it within the tool.

Have a play within Story Board mode. And don't forget you can load up a Smart Image and add pins. You can connect those pins to other content. When you load a smart image up these a little button on the top right that splits the screen into two halfs, image or flow chart on the left, selected content on the right. This is great for running games as you can have the picture of the dungeon on the left, click pins as player enter rooms and the content for that room loads on the right.

Awesome feature yet something I did not truly understand until 6 months into my RWs use.

[chaoscowboy]

I've got the fan-made encounter library for reign of winter set up, and don't quite find the hero lab encounter manager up to snuff, especially given that I run stuff on roll20 with plenty of macros (and import scripts), I think I can handle that. I just need the stuff you said it can do well. I wish there was some helper for making sure loot levels are as they should be for their level and encounters aren't too hard but that seems like a wish that will never be.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

You have 60 days from purchase to ask LW for your money back. My advice is to take that time and actually TRY the software. Just because some people are whiny about stuff does not mean the software is not fantastic. Most likely you will find the few features that are still coming down the road you don't even care about. RW does SO much to help in running games and keeping games moving forward.

Make an informed decision with actual use of the software and not from stuff you read on the internet. Especially when the missing features and MORE is coming down the road. LW has proven that each new release (which we get for free) has improvements and new features. You really can't not expect "more" than that from a software company.

I'm one of the whiny people ShadowChemosh is talking about. I want printing. But I also agree that you should try it out and make an informed decision. Maybe what's important to me isn't important to you. Maybe what's important to others isn't important to you.

You've already made the purchase. You have the 60 days. Won't hurt anything to kick in the tires and drive it around the block.

[ShadowChemosh]

Originally Posted by EightBitz

I'm one of the whiny people ShadowChemosh is talking about.

Absolutely no disagreement from me on this statement.

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by ShadowChemosh

Absolutely no disagreement from me on this statement.

Just for that, I'm gonna nitpick. :-p

The second comment in this thread offers bad, or at least, very unclear advice:
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=51966

2) How to deal with your house rules and community Pathfinder Pack?
A: You should treat the community data set files in the same way you would official Hero Lab files. This means you should NOT make changes directly to the .user files as those changes will be lost when you update to the next version. Instead you should create a new uniquely named .user file that does a Replaces Thing ID if you need to put in your own house rules over these community data sets.

I generally consider the use of "Replaces Thing ID" bad practice, because the replaced thing becomes completely unavailable, regardless of which sources are checked or unchecked. And this can cause much confusion.

Rather, create your own thing, give it a source, then preclude the thing you want to replace, and give the preclusion the same source. This way, your changes are only effective if your own source is checked. If your source is unchecked, it defaults back to the original thing.

Unless, you really, absolutely, 100% want to exclude something, preclude it instead of replacing it, and define a source for that preclusion.

[Dark Lord Galen]

SOAPBOX "whine"
@EightBitz> Not sure what a reference to a herolab Posting has to do with this, other than, as seems the " chosen vernacular" "Nit-pick" against Shadow, so it really has no value here....

@Shadow> I have always had (and still have) the greatest of respect for your efforts here on the forum and in support of HL... but to classify others as "whiny" (interpreted as a yammerer from my perspective) is not accurate, (well in most cases). Being the left brained engineer type, I like the black n white of things..... and to point out challenges, failures and successes are not whiny but simply stating facts in the light of day.

I don't think (IMHO) that it is unreasonable to expect LW and more specifically Realm Works to do some of the things that was advertised YEARS ago. Nor do I think its Whining to complain on their lack of making those deliverables in what any supplier/consumer relationship would consider "reasonable amount of time", especially since the sad but true comparative here is now labeled as "Soon".

I think it is the collective public opinion that the poll was a failure, miss leading and served no real purpose other than to help RW staff know what added features were popular, but they missed badly on grouping those responses together when each group (DMs vs Players)had very different ideas, needs, and expectations.

They compounded this with a lack of good forecast planning on how long things would take (both from an internal company perspective and and outward reporting mechanism) to the public. This was further impacted by Developer losses early into the project.

Frustration on both sides set in, and the trenches were "dug" each defending their ground.

Is it reasonable to expect some things?
Possibly
I for one have no real need for being able to print since 95% of my tabling is now electronic, but not everyone games as my table does. So I think this was a reasonable expectation EARLY on.. yet still is not here...

Is it reasonable to at least export all the data self installed if one chose to no longer use RW?
Yes, but with the caveat that this was not offered as an option early on so it is not reasonable to expect it to be placed above other deliverable or overstatements that should be addressed first.

Is it a reasonable expectation to have custom calendars?
Yep, especially since this was "presumably near complete" YEARS ago. But still remains unavailable. (see below for references)
I have LONG been a vocal sound of the lack of action on this topic (see other threads)HOWEVER, while I desire, want and even need it for my RW to be a better DM tool, I went back to my old tried and true methods as I cannot wait for LW and "soon". I would even backseat this to exporting or player journals as this seems to better fit the need of the many, my own players included, who feel their money was a waste for the Player version.


Is it reasonable to expect VTT Features, Live sync, etc etc etc...NOW?
No

As these were things discussed that "could happen in the future". Just like Player's version, (which is virtually DOA till more features support it)

The Kickstarter was intended to supply capital to LW to hire developers to "push it thru to the finish line".
One goal of the KS was to share your creations with other GMs. All these years later the finish line has crept closer, but what was supposed to be a sprint to finish has turned into a marathon in the Rockies with the unfortunate result of leaving all parties on both sides exhausted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSbgEOYcUhU
In Feb 2013 we were told

• :37 "Three years of development and a year of refinement" Counting that number we are on year 7
• :40 Rob says" We are now in the home stretch"
• :50 "Kickstarter to enable more features sooner" Bullet mark
• 1:00-1:18 Features available now> Custom Calendars and Dates"
• 1:44 "RW Starts with all the features you would expect from a word processor" Well I think some expected printing.
• 6:46 RW Supports (implies at the time of video), video shows custom calendars "Imperial and Lunar" 6:58 Even automatically transferring dates from one calendar to another.
• 8:18 Why a Kickstarter if RW is done?" Rob's words.. hope to hire more dev to support the cloud server and the "community repository" 8:41"letting us accomplish more and do it faster"
  
  And last but not least, the one that provides probably the most "unrest among the natives"
• 8:53 Rob says>"as you have seen here, we are already close to completion"

But Shadow (and may notable others) are right. There is a refund if you make your purchase and are unhappy with it... There are some Great features, some good features and some not so good ones... But with all its warts, RW is "hopefully" going to be come everything promised and more than what was envisioned by any.