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Calendars

ErinRigh said:
Sure are wrong there. Ya know that metal thing they keep showing at the beginning of Game of Thrones? It's an Astrolab that hangs in the great library, they have focused on it in episode. I think that it is reasonable to say, It's axial tilt is likely variable (ie it wobbles) and that the "current" scholars in Westeros have no idea how it works, but to say that it can't be understood humans is a bit reaching IMO.
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If the planet has axial tilt that the people understood enough to have astrolabes then that means they could measure the solar year, the tilt is measured against the plane of the elliptic after all. But there can't be a conventional plane of the elliptic because that would mean a stable solar year and stable seasonal lengths.

The only way the Known World works, beyond a handwave of "its just magic," is if the Known World's orbit is far more complicated than can be easily described. Perhaps it is actually co-orbiting two Jovian class giants which are themselves tidally locked together so that the Known World spins in some wild and extraordinarily complicated dance between the 2 planets as they spin around the parent star. This could result in long periods where the world was closer into the Goldilocks zone, summer, and farther out in the Goldilocks Zone, winter, or even periods where it was mostly occluded by one or the other Jovian resulting not in so much an eclipse but in long periods in the planets penumbra. I'm sure if you give the fellows at JPL a little while they could come up with a model of such a planetary system that might actually be stable. I'm just not sure how human life could survive on such a place.
 
Regardless of published works, Axial Tilt can be meaningless to some users anyway... such as my fantasy world where it is a flat "plate" that the gods drive the chariots of the sun and moon over each day and night.

If such a thing were implemented, I would hope it would not be in such a way that it was forced on those who do not care for such details.

In other words, Keep It Simple (I won't call anyone Stupid until they earn it, though).
 
I just wanted to say wow on the recommendation for https://fantasy-calendar.com It's extraordinary!

For what people have to pay for Realm Works I'd hope their development team would catch on to an obvious functional need requested several years ago.

Devs! Get on this! Even offer to the developers of that site a solid cash amount to port in the functionality and tie it to your timeline. Years, moon phases, calendar events, Then get the timeline function to let people pick custom years and setup eras.

There's a need for us world builders!
 
For what we pay for RealmWorks we get a very useful and feature-rich campaign manager. We are not owed anything else. Of course, it behooves LWD to continue to improve the product, especially if they want us to pay for cloud subscriptions and to buy content from the content market.

Calendars have long been asked for, a desire fueled by it being a possible feature that was highlighted in the Kickstarter (if I remember correctly). There is a very vocal group of us that have been hounding LWD for this for years. What is painful is that much of the work has already been done, you can even see it in screen shots from early beta versions. But they have not released it as it is not end-user friendly yet.

Unfortunately for us world builders who care about custom calendars, for most users this is apparently not a priority. Other features have been voted for over calendars. Also, custom calendars do not seem to be enough of a competitive advantage nor something that is going to draw lots of new users and drive much revenue. No, I don't have any numbers to back this up. Just conjecture on my part based on years of conversation with other users and the devs in this forum.

LWD is a small company and they are facing stiff competition from Web-based campaign management systems and from VTT companies that are moving into campaign management. I would guess that get the Web version up and running is a high priority as is taking the Content Market to the next step where content creators can post their own material for sale.

Then you have individual player reveal, enhanced and customizable pins, and many more features that have equally vocal users.

Over the years, I've come to accept that custom calendars may not be seen for a long time in RealmWorks, if ever. If it happens, it'll be a nice surprise, but don't hold your breath.
 
Calendars are a significant feature of the Kickstarter and the feature was not just a possible one.
 
I understand that some people are really resigned to this, some have developed work-arounds, and some people really don't care, but it's an important part of serious campaign management. I'm particularly surprised (and somewhat concerned) by users' apparent resignation, given their past posts on the matter.

For what it's worth, here's my opinion:

MNBlockHead said:
For what we pay for RealmWorks we get a very useful and feature-rich campaign manager. We are not owed anything else.
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I would say "feature rich" can still be lacking -- even lacking important features. Yes, there's no denying that RW has a lot of nifty management capabilities (like linking) but from a mechanical standpoint, custom calendars are an important feature of managing a campaign and campaign events, and not having it also hobbles other features. For example, timelines and even linking are less useful without custom calendars. From a role-playing standpoint, as some folks on this board have already pointed out, they really add to the immersion.

Calendars have long been asked for, a desire fueled by it being a possible feature that was highlighted in the Kickstarter (if I remember correctly).
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As Kbs666 pointed out, custom calendars were more than a "possible" feature. Custom calendars are highlighted as an existing feature in the Kickstarter video (at the 6:40 mark) and they're listed on the Kickstarter page under the "summary of the most important features" (note the phrase, "most important"):
  • Create custom calendars for your world. Link multiple calendars together and see how all the dates translate to your master calendar. Calendars can reflect different in-game cultures, lunar calendars, and worlds.
I'm sure at least some people purchased RW believing the tool supported custom calendars. This sort of feature is prominent -- and well-implemented -- in other world/campaign managers, such as World Anvil.

... for most users this is apparently not a priority. Other features have been voted for over calendars.
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There isn't enough data to support this assertion. The only thing we know(?) is that other features seem to have been voted higher in a survey. That does not necessarily indicate "most users." Surveys are notorious for receiving a small number of responses relative to the number of potential respondants.

Also, custom calendars do not seem to be enough of a competitive advantage nor something that is going to draw lots of new users and drive much revenue. No, I don't have any numbers to back this up. Just conjecture on my part based on years of conversation with other users and the devs in this forum.
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Similarly, I obviously can't speak for others but I, for one, started using World Anvil because they support custom calendars and integrated timelines.

Then you have individual player reveal, enhanced and customizable pins, and many more features that have equally vocal users.
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These are all good, useful, and desireable features (customizable pins!), but none of them are integral to a campaign setting/information, itself. I can't reveal date/time information to my players -- individually or all at once -- if I can't record the information to begin with.

Again, just my two cents.
~Ash
 
Ash Nazg said:
I'm sure at least some people purchased RW believing the tool supported custom calendars. This sort of feature is prominent -- and well-implemented -- in other world/campaign managers, such as World Anvil
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I was one of those. I believe my very first posts to this forum were to complain about what I felt was a "bait and switch" until I realized that they did not actually advertise custom calendars on the Web site from which I bought it (I was not part of the kickstarter). I had seen some videos that showed it and it was perhaps the main reason I bought the software. I came close to asking for a refund during the trial period, but put in the time to learn the software and came to appreciate what it did offer, hoping that custom calendars were just around the corner.

I've basically ditched using custom calendars in my current campaigns. But it is heartening to see the argument resurface. Now that content market is finally how, there is renewed hope at continued development. Maybe custom calendars with come to be after all.
 
Ash Nazg said:
I'm sure at least some people purchased RW believing the tool supported custom calendars.
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I was one of those, too.

I continue to use it, because it has many useful features, but without the calendars many of them remain somewhat shallow:


Ash Nazg said:
I would say "feature rich" can still be lacking -- even lacking important features. Yes, there's no denying that RW has a lot of nifty management capabilities (like linking) but from a mechanical standpoint, custom calendars are an important feature of managing a campaign and campaign events, and not having it also hobbles other features. For example, timelines and even linking are less useful without custom calendars. From a role-playing standpoint, as some folks on this board have already pointed out, they really add to the immersion.
Click to expand...

My point exactly.
 
Farling said:
From the Kickstarter's list of proposed features at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/610004753/realm-works-streamlined-rpg-campaign-tools:
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Thanks for providing the link to that, Farling. But, as I pointed out earlier, that's not just a list of proposed features. The page introduces the list as,

Here's a summary of the most important features: (emphasis mine)​

Lone Wolf was pretty clear that Realm Works was essentially done and in beta; the Kickstarter was identified as being mainly for additional $$ to help with the cloud features and the Content Market (which were not included in that list of features).

Everything in that long features list is implemented, except for Custom Calendars. I hope now that the Content Market is finally released that LW will return their attention to the calendars. I'm just sayin'.
 
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Given the planned development arc for Realm Works, I would like to strongly encourage release of at least a "beta" version of calendaring that supports creation of multiple calendars tied to a common time unit and the ability to link Topics to one (or more) calendars for the creation of a timeline that can be used to plot future events and ensure historical events are kept in the correct order.

Even if the interface is unfinished it would represent a form of completion for one of the outstanding KickStarter goals.

While there are other features I would like to have, within the context of Realm Work's current development status I believe this would greatest positive impact for developers - both game masters and authors.
 
pyremius said:
Given the planned development arc for Realm Works, I would like to strongly encourage...
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There is no planned development arc for RW at present. Nothing is being done, nor will it for the foreseeable future. I'm quite sure there's another thread that says that even a 'beta' of calendar's can't be made available.
 
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