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A New Newsletter! Yay!

LWD didn't prepare for Paizo's new api requirement because Paizo had not announced it themselves. If you look in the fantasy grounds corner they also had issues with the api at launch. The difference in resolution times so far has been astounding though. They are up and running apparently after a few weeks delay. And that was back in 2017.
 
A few days ago I asked for some info regarding the remaining KS materials in another thread.

We have been told several times that these would be made available before the CM launches, so the issue with Paizo being first out of the gate doesn't apply. Plainly the mechanism for delivery exists, as other free materials are available. These are not Paizo materials, so the API issues don't apply.

But my query in the thread linked above has been met with dead silence from LW. Possibly I asked too nicely? This thread started out with (tongue in cheek) semi-snide sarcasm and got near immediate response...
 
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Hello everyone!

My apologies for the delay on this one! It’s entirely my fault, I was in and out of the office this week recovering from a hospital stay after an allergic reaction. Apparently, new medications are my kryptonite. Sadly, our new Director of Communications didn’t have the knowledge to answer this thread while I was indisposed and catching up with all the other items that needed my attention.

I honestly don't have a lot of information on the features you'd like to see here. I certainly wish I did! I would love to see calendars in place myself. Really, I have dreams where we have provided calendars and the world is a happy place. Which are preferable to the nightmares where you all chase me around with pitchforks and threaten to burn me at the stake for not having them. ;) The simple truth is that we are focusing on the Content Market because Realm Works has to make an income to pay its devs and we can't let the product go under trying to create a better calendar or other highly desired feature. We have to help pick the paths forward that make sense from a business perspective. Please understand, we are in no way abandoning Realm Works or work on future improvements to the program and we have a lot of dreams and goals in store for it that go well beyond where it is now.

I am a fan of Realm Works and I want to see it succeed. To do that, we need it to start bringing in a better revenue, so we can have more people to work on it and make it everything the company originally hoped it would be. I assure you, the Realm Works devs are focusing on Realm Works. They are currently working to fix a few of the bugs I have pointed out to them that are stopping consumers from using the program entirely and getting the workaround in place for the API issue. They are a very small team, so all these things take time and that has been part of the problem all along.

As I said a while back, I can’t change the past decisions made, all we can do is move forward with what we can realistically do given the resources we have, give honest answers, and try to get the past all wrapped up so we can move on to bigger and better features in the future. We have to launch the Content Market to fund all these items everyone wants to see. I get frustrated right along with you when I see the wonderful ideas you have here and I realize we simply don’t have the staff to make them happen right now.

While we would love to launch the Content Market as is, we simply can't for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that a market with just 3PP content is going to seem awfully small and be a poor representation of what we have to offer the world. That is not the only reason, but it is one of them I will share with you. I am also pursuing other licensed material while we wait for the devs to fix the API issue. Hopefully, that will make for an even better market in the future as well as speak to more of our consumers, making it even more likely we will be able to expand our team. While it’s true we have hired people lately, we have had very little actual team growth as we’ve mostly hired new people to replace others and improve our customer service. As we look to the future, our goal is to expand so that we no longer have to struggle so long to put new things in place.

As for the API, we thought everything we needed for it was in place a year ago and that turned out to be inaccurate. We didn't discover this until we were ready to launch the market and Paizo is understandably busy with their own house. We aren't throwing them under the bus, we are happy with our relationship with Paizo, we are just trying to find our own path while we patiently wait for their aid. Our system isn't the same as Fantasy Grounds, but like them, we will have to use a workaround that will take time to create.

As far as the backer content, we will have more items out to you as soon as possible. I can’t answer that thread right now because the people who I need to get a status report from to do so aren’t in the office today due to the Holiday, but I’ll try to come back around to it tomorrow.

I hope that clears up at least some of the questions. I greatly appreciate all of your patience to date with the program and the company and I understand your frustration. I’ll keep working to accomplish everything I can for you but please understand that like everything else, reorganization takes time.
 
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It is so weird that I saw this thread right now.

I had a very odd dream last night about being swarmed with lots of mosquitoes (probably because it was hot down here while on holiday in Mazatalan and I forgot to turn on the AC). I haven't yet decided whether it was related to us and BJ having to deal with all our comments or with the programmers having to deal with the bugs we find. In either situation, it seems to be a case of swat one and two more show up. :rolleyes:
 
"As I said a while back, I can’t change the past decisions made, all we can do is move forward with what we can realistically do given the resources we have, give honest answers, and try to get the past all wrapped up so we can move on to bigger and better features in the future. We have to launch the Content Market to fund all these items everyone wants to see. I get frustrated right along with you when I see the wonderful ideas you have here and I realize we simply don’t have the staff to make them happen right now."


Aaaand there it is.

The moment that the narrative pivots from "It's coming! We have this incredible plan and you guys just won't let us alone to implement it!" to "Well, we'll have to see what we can do to rescue this project because our plan isn't really working and we bit off more than we can afford to chew.".

That right there is what I've been waiting to see, hoping I wouldn't see, but mostly expecting to see: The standard kickstarter "Let em down slowly" pitch.
 
LWD has two options to pay for continued development of RW.

1) The CM which seems stalled and has such unbelievably bad word of mouth at this point I doubt it can be ever recover no matter what.

2) Deliver features that encourage more GM's to buy and get players to buy the product as well. LWD may not like this idea but it may be time to start looking at it because if they think selling old AP's is going to save them they really have another thing coming.
 
Oh, I don't know. I would totally buy RotRL. And I've been considering buying the PDF of Curse of the Crimson Throne - if I do I'd buy the RW package for it as well. There are other APs I really like and would probably purchase.

Also, Bestiaries.

Not rulebooks, and one-shot modules I'd enter myself.
 
If they re-work the application to be 64bit, render tabs in an instant and optimize how things go, I am paying gladly for such upgrade. Packing some UI improvements for extra punch and they got my money if costed in the proper way.

The old model for paid major versions is fair and I would not think twice. The other model is extortion and every developer and business owners thinking for it should go to hell.
 
Maidhc O Casain said:
Oh, I don't know. I would totally buy RotRL. And I've been considering buying the PDF of Curse of the Crimson Throne - if I do I'd buy the RW package for it as well. There are other APs I really like and would probably purchase.

Also, Bestiaries.

Not rulebooks, and one-shot modules I'd enter myself.
Click to expand...

There certainly are people who would buy RotRL. It is a classic and there are always people playing it. But how many sales would they have for Second Darkness or Jade Regent or any of the other less than classic AP's? Besides RotRL, Curse of the Crimson Throne and maybe Skull and Shackles can anyone really imagine enough sales of those old AP's to make the data entry costs worth while? That leaves the new AP's as they come out which means literally as part of the subscription delivery or it won't be relevant to a lot of the potential consumers.
 
True. Other than Runelords and Crimson Throne, possibly the only one I'd buy right now would be Legacy of Fire (yet another 3.5 AP, but a less appreciated one than Runelords or Crimson Throne). But that might change if I actually looked at any of the newer ones :).
 
Valyar said:
If they re-work the application to be 64bit, render tabs in an instant and optimize how things go, I am paying gladly for such upgrade. Packing some UI improvements for extra punch and they got my money if costed in the proper way.

The old model for paid major versions is fair and I would not think twice. The other model is extortion and every developer and business owners thinking for it should go to hell.
Click to expand...

The "other model"? You mean subscription models?

Sorry, I don't know what you are going on about.
 
I guess I now find myself in a very different camp than most of the people posting to this thread. I originally bought RealmWorks for world building and running my home-brew campaign. But work and life have made it hard to make time for that. In December a ended a campaign I'd been running for almost two years in RW and now am running published APs (Curse of Strahd and Trail of the Apprentice, both DnD 5e).

For now RW is shelved. Really, the only thing that would get me using it again would be Content Market material. I don't have time to enter content myself, but boy would I like to have that content entered already so I can use RW's tools to track party progress. If I were playing Pathfinder, I would find it very valuable to have the AP content available for purchase, old or new. Even if I already had the books, I would still buy the content from the CM.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like WoTC APs will be available. I sure would love to have Curse of Strahd, Storm Kings Thunder, and Tomb of Annihilation available in RW. There is no tool like it. It would be a huge help to have these APs in RW. Not big enough for me to data enter the content myself, but I would buy the content in a heartbeat--even Curse of Strahd, which I already own in paper and in DnD Beyond. I would not hesitate to buy it a third time if it were available in RW.

While I am not holding my breath for official WoTC content, I do hope that they can get some of the great third-party APs for 5e available in RW.

Having DnD 5e adventure content in RW is about the only thing that would get me using it again in the foreseeable future.
 
MaxSupernova said:
"As I said a while back, I can’t change the past decisions made, all we can do is move forward with what we can realistically do given the resources we have, give honest answers, and try to get the past all wrapped up so we can move on to bigger and better features in the future. We have to launch the Content Market to fund all these items everyone wants to see. I get frustrated right along with you when I see the wonderful ideas you have here and I realize we simply don’t have the staff to make them happen right now."


Aaaand there it is.

The moment that the narrative pivots from "It's coming! We have this incredible plan and you guys just won't let us alone to implement it!" to "Well, we'll have to see what we can do to rescue this project because our plan isn't really working and we bit off more than we can afford to chew.".

That right there is what I've been waiting to see, hoping I wouldn't see, but mostly expecting to see: The standard kickstarter "Let em down slowly" pitch.
Click to expand...

The project is not being canceled, and I am not using a specific softer tone to let you down slowly or hiding a dark future plan. I am just sharing what details I have with you in my own words instead of those dictated to me, which I do understand is a different feel from the past company tone most of you are accustomed to and may take some time to adjust to. I apologize for the confusion. The market is coming, and the program is still being worked on. :)

We are still plodding along, we have always had a small team and that's part of what makes it all slow. As I said, my hope is that after the API is fixed and the Market is out we will be able to hire additional developers to ensure features are added more swiftly in the future. That may not pan out but our current team will still be here even if it doesn't.

At the moment, our devs are working to repair a few issues that are plaguing users such as a bug that breaks something when you try to change the game system and an issue that people who haven’t logged in in several years are having that prevents them from using the program entirely. They are also trying to get a workaround in place for the API issue.

Additionally, we have a content data entry team, just as we do for Hero Lab, who are busy putting content in while we wait for the workaround to be in place.
 
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Maidhc O Casain said:
Oh, I don't know. I would totally buy RotRL. And I've been considering buying the PDF of Curse of the Crimson Throne - if I do I'd buy the RW package for it as well. There are other APs I really like and would probably purchase.

Also, Bestiaries.

Not rulebooks, and one-shot modules I'd enter myself.
Click to expand...

You're in luck! We fully intend to have bestiaries available at launch. Many of them are already done.

Curse of the Crimson Throne is complete as well. :)
 
MNBlockHead said:
I guess I now find myself in a very different camp than most of the people posting to this thread. I originally bought RealmWorks for world building and running my home-brew campaign. But work and life have made it hard to make time for that. In December a ended a campaign I'd been running for almost two years in RW and now am running published APs (Curse of Strahd and Trail of the Apprentice, both DnD 5e).

For now RW is shelved. Really, the only thing that would get me using it again would be Content Market material. I don't have time to enter content myself, but boy would I like to have that content entered already so I can use RW's tools to track party progress. If I were playing Pathfinder, I would find it very valuable to have the AP content available for purchase, old or new. Even if I already had the books, I would still buy the content from the CM.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like WoTC APs will be available. I sure would love to have Curse of Strahd, Storm Kings Thunder, and Tomb of Annihilation available in RW. There is no tool like it. It would be a huge help to have these APs in RW. Not big enough for me to data enter the content myself, but I would buy the content in a heartbeat--even Curse of Strahd, which I already own in paper and in DnD Beyond. I would not hesitate to buy it a third time if it were available in RW.

While I am not holding my breath for official WoTC content, I do hope that they can get some of the great third-party APs for 5e available in RW.

Having DnD 5e adventure content in RW is about the only thing that would get me using it again in the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

I am in talks to get other licenses in place while we wait for the API issue to be solved and we are working on adding 5E content from 3PPs. Book of Lairs, Tome of Beasts, and Creature Components should all be available at launch, for example.

If you're talking about the Legendary Games book Trail of the Apprentice, I actually wrote a cameo bit for that. I'm not sure when exactly we will have it but I suspect we will have it. :)
 
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MNBlockHead said:
I guess I now find myself in a very different camp than most of the people posting to this thread. I originally bought RealmWorks for world building and running my home-brew campaign. But work and life have made it hard to make time for that. In December a ended a campaign I'd been running for almost two years in RW and now am running published APs (Curse of Strahd and Trail of the Apprentice, both DnD 5e).

For now RW is shelved. Really, the only thing that would get me using it again would be Content Market material. I don't have time to enter content myself, but boy would I like to have that content entered already so I can use RW's tools to track party progress. If I were playing Pathfinder, I would find it very valuable to have the AP content available for purchase, old or new. Even if I already had the books, I would still buy the content from the CM.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like WoTC APs will be available. I sure would love to have Curse of Strahd, Storm Kings Thunder, and Tomb of Annihilation available in RW. There is no tool like it. It would be a huge help to have these APs in RW. Not big enough for me to data enter the content myself, but I would buy the content in a heartbeat--even Curse of Strahd, which I already own in paper and in DnD Beyond. I would not hesitate to buy it a third time if it were available in RW.

While I am not holding my breath for official WoTC content, I do hope that they can get some of the great third-party APs for 5e available in RW.

Having DnD 5e adventure content in RW is about the only thing that would get me using it again in the foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

Only you know how you can best use RW. But for me, running a home brew sandbox, it's still of great use. Other than dungeons, I rarely create content more than one session ahead of time. I'm often creating content at the table, and taking notes in RW.

Even without purchasing pre-made content or pre-populating the content by hand, I'm still using the RW a lot. Being able to look at an NPC or a faction and see which of the past 20 sessions they've had contact with the PCs and what that contact was helps me quite a lot.
 
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