An Update from Rob

[kbs666]

8. Have you considered opening the code to the community?

We have discussed it at length but won’t be doing so at this time. Our original vision included evolving Realm Works and Hero Lab both to a point where we could more fully integrate them and blur the lines between the two products. While we don’t currently have the resources to do this, we still absolutely plan to bring some of the key capabilities from Realm Works into Hero Lab. Additionally, the commercial framework used in the Realm Works UI costs thousands of dollars and anyone wanting to work on Realm Works would need to purchase that framework to begin working with the product, making it unlikely that much good would come from it.

If the HLC team isn't even paying attention to things that break a heavily used feature of RW I have my doubts about the integration of the tools. I also predict that people will be uninterested in paying for a combined campaign manager/character manager. This especially applies if that means HLO.

As to the 3rd party libraries used in RW, the first thing an open source project would do is strip out all of that stuff and replace it with open source equivalents. Qt, or equivalent, for the UI elements. I'm sure some research will turn up a diagramming package.

I understand that this is Rob's dream app but if it isn't working as a business let the community turn it into something that fulfills both the goals that were initially set for it and to add the features that would make it so much better for the dedicated users.

 

[MNBlockHead]

One point: the Kickstarter advertised the use of custom calendars. Without that, the "completion of the Realm Works Kickstarter" is not accomplished.

Yeah, that happens with Kickstarters. The product they delivered contained most of what they described and it has been far more successful than many Kickstarters I've seen, especially software projects.

This is the risk of Kickstarter and is why I generally avoid software products on Kickstarter.

You have no recourse besides venting on a bulletin board.

Perhaps is LWD ran their first kickstarter for RW with a more modest scope and conducted subsequent Kickstarters to fun additional functionality, we wouldn't be in the current situation. Not sure. But at this time, there is no point in going on about the KS being fulfilled or not. Doesn't matter at this point.

Personally, I more than got my $60 from this program and I expect to get a few more years of good use out of it.

Putting all their efforts on HLO seems like the right business decision, even if it means the products I love are put on ice.

I wish the LWD team the best.

 

[Cammagno]

YARPS looks promising, but updates seem far and few between, looking at their facebook page. So if and when it releases... unknown to me.

Yarps is currently in closed beta.
It will be released in open beta and launched on kickstarter in this month, as soon as the current beta testers will have "approved" the last feature that has just been introduced.

 

[Madmaxneo]

Putting all their efforts on HLO seems like the right business decision, even if it means the products I love are put on ice.

I disagree. There are many of us that don't or can't use HLO because we don't play one of the systems supported on it. I purchase HLC authoring version with the hopes of adding the systems I play into it. The coding is all over the place so that trying to figure it out is next to impossible. I gave up on it and actually learned a little PDF Javascript and programmed my own character generator.

 

[gloranphile]

Yarps is currently in closed beta.
It will be released in open beta and launched on kickstarter in this month, as soon as the current beta testers will have "approved" the last feature that has just been introduced.

An interesting alternative, thanks for making a mention of it. I'll be watching this one closely, though I'm a bit burned out on 99% of Kickstarters out there.

 

[Jay_NOLA]

Was waiting for the Pirates Guide to Freeport to eventually be available in the Content Market and some other Savage Worlds stuff.

That development has stopped on Realm Works is a huge disappointment. I really wanted custom calendars and the player stuff like journals.

Wish LWD would make available some of in house the content importing tools that were used to make the current content at least.

 

[Murrdox]

I'd just like to say I appreciate how difficult this is for Rob, BJ, and the other people at Lone Wolf. I'm glad Rob took the time to put together the statement that he did, and then answering some more questions for the Realm Works community.

With all the talk about the future of Realm Works, talks about substitutes, etc...

Well, here I am with a game session planned for this evening, and I'm just going along as normal updating Realm Works. Still getting value out of it. I was sort of asking myself if I didn't already own Realm Works, and I was a new user coming here for the first time... would I buy Realm Works and get value out of it?

I think the answer to that is still "yes". Personally I'd be a lot less apprehensive about buying Realm Works rather than paying for an online subscription service. You buy it, work with it for 60 days, and you can get your money back if the tool doesn't work for you. The server subscription fee is so tiny that I barely count it. I pay more money for Google to host my family pictures.

Anyways, my GM life is still chugging along as per usual. I'm still enjoying the product.

I was playing a game of D&D the other day... and I'm not the GM for that game. Our GM has this CRAZY map of Forgotten Realms. He has advanced the timeline by 1000 years, some cities exist, some don't, we've got temples to visit, entrances and exits to the Underdark. All of this is written on this Forgotten Realms map using MS Paint.

I'm almost to the point of putting the map into Realm Works for my own use as a PLAYER because the map drives me up the wall and I can't remember what everything is. I need Realm Works pins and topics for all these locations!!

 

[stuartwaring]

Like many others, I am saddened by the decision to stop development of RealmWorks, and part of that is the reality that some people have lost jobs, or had their jobs reduced. It must have been an incredibly difficult decision, but ultimately it will hopefully be beneficial to LWD, whom we are all customers of because we like their products (or saw their promise). That reality certainly helped keep in perspective my feelings about the cancellation of the RW project.

Like a number of other voices hear though, I do not feel at all ripped of by RealmWorks - it is still an incredibly useful tool at what it does. Far from perfect, but still excellent for my choices. If i did not already own it, I would still buy it.

I hope that in the longer term LWD is healthy as a company, and grows so that perhaps Rob can at some point in the future return to his baby!

 

[Zaeran]

Any chance you're able to share the framework that was used?

 

[BubbaDave]

BUT, if the servers do eventually get turned off we won't be able to create new realms without some sort of update to sever the requirement to call home. Seems like that won't be a problem for the time being, and I hope that Rob and the LWD team wouldn't leave their customers out to dry if it came to that (at least, they've always struck me as a stand up company that way).

If they do shut the servers down, I'm hoping they would at least give us a Save/Save As functionality.

 

[Viking2054]

If they ever do shut down the servers, they need to give us a way to generate new GUID's or else no new realms for anyone.

 

[Farling]

Any chance you're able to share the framework that was used?

If you look in the RealmWorks folder you can see a lot of DLLs from the DevExpress framework.

 

[Parody]

Any chance you're able to share the framework that was used?

The app and DLLs tell us that Realm Works is a WinForms application using controls from DevExpress (as Farling noted), the Northwoods GoDiagram diagramming tools, and the Firebird database engine.

 

[Knightblde]

Ugh. I too was an Alpha Wolf backer with beta access. I had a lot of issues with this program when they changed the data system to a much more structured and rigid system that made it difficult to use Realm Works as I want. This is super important to me. I don't care about sharing my stuff with the world, and I don't care about using the stuff of other people. Both, in my opinion, would require systems that don't mesh well with custom data.

That said, I have come to LOVE the power and level of customization within Realm Works. I have been using World Anvil since Rob's letter and after 10 hours, I am super frustrated. It seems to me to be a web authoring program, not a database for my games. It might look pretty, but damn, it is a major pain in the butt.

So, where do I (we) go from here? I want to trust that RW will be around for a while and I can keep putting in my info and setting it up as I need. RW has spoiled me in that regard. But can I trust it is not a dead program? Dunjinni was an awesome map making program, but it is gone now.

I do wish LW the very best, but my Star Wars FFG games are not supported by HLO. I bought it, but after 10 years or so, I'm not really interested in Pathfinder anymore. I'm sure I will be back to it, but for the foreseeable future, Star Wars is my game.

So again, where do we go from here?

 

[kbs666]

Personally I'll continue using RW, assuming the HLO integration issue is fixed, until something clearly superior comes along or it fails for some reason.

Ultimately I think a campaign manager is such a narrow tool that it will be challenge for any to be a commercial success. I had hoped LWD would release the RW code base to serve as a starting point for an open source program but if that isn't going to happen people who want a powerful GM's tool might need to come together and do it themselves.

 

[Farling]

So, where do I (we) go from here? I want to trust that RW will be around for a while and I can keep putting in my info and setting it up as I need. RW has spoiled me in that regard. But can I trust it is not a dead program? Dunjinni was an awesome map making program, but it is gone now.

RW is an application on your computer, not a web based tool, so it will be around as long as you can install it on a computer. The only restriction is maybe losing the ability to create new realms in the future (if they were to ever shut down the RW cloud server).

Thus, there isn't any reason to stop using it for your existing campaigns.

 

[Acenoid]

You could create a few dozen placeholders now if you'd like to, you should be save then ?
Not enteirely sure bout it , is a connection required if I copy master db files between laptop and desktop? Atm there is no problem since the servers are there.

Anyways it would be best if LWD would maybe review their decision once in a while.

 

[Ualaa]

I created a bunch of empty realms, for future campaigns. Basically one for any adventure path or module that I'd like to run at some point. Plus a dozen or so, that are brainstormed ideas of campaigns that aren't really fleshed out much.

For me, the integration of a Realm Works saved portfolio of Hero Lab content (which I already had most of for Pathfinder) was a major reason to be RW (Joshua Plukett's videos, specifically).
Hopefully Realm Works will integrate with the newer and shiny 64-bit HL, in the near future.

 

[Knightblde]

I just spent 3 days and $100 with World Anvil. Amazing people. Clueless as to GM tools. Somebody sell your IDEAS to them. They have an incredible community and a good start. No idea what it means to have a system you can USE at the table. They are too much polish, not enough paint.

 

[Teresa]

Although I am sad, I still love what RW can do. I am not a GM - I use RW for wordbuilding related to writing. I've also tried World Anvil but RW is still better for what I want: to develop my own notes. WA seems to be, as somebody said before, too focused on looks. Perhaps it'll get better in the future.

I also hope that RW will be able to be developed in the future. I'm not holding my breath, though; neither will I be surprised if it never happens. Still, it doesn't hurt to be hopeful in the backburner.