• Please note: In an effort to ensure that all of our users feel welcome on our forums, we’ve updated our forum rules. You can review the updated rules here: http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=5528.

    If a fellow Community member is not following the forum rules, please report the post by clicking the Report button (the red yield sign on the left) located on every post. This will notify the moderators directly. If you have any questions about these new rules, please contact support@wolflair.com.

    - The Lone Wolf Development Team

Importing Secured Content

E

EightBitz

Well-known member
First of all, congrats again. I have a few observations, comments, questions and suggestions. Not demanding anything or trying to rush anything, just pointing out some things and asking some things. I'll be posting three different topics so as not to muddle disparate things.

1. Content Sharing Between Realms
I recall an early discussion where it was said that eventually, content would be shareable between realms. Is this feature still on the docket, or has it been replaced by the import/export feature?

The import/export feature obviously has some limitations with secured content. If I just want, say 5 or 10 creatures from the Bestiary in my own campaign, my understanding is that I would have to import the entire bestiary and delete all the entries I don't want. That seems a bit cumbersome.

If the content sharing is still on the docket, great. If not, would it be reasonably possible to modify the import process to allow us to select which items we want to import?

Or, would it be reasonably possible to allow us to selectively export, as we do with an unsecured realm, but to an rwsecure file, so your protection is maintained?

2. Printing
With the inability to export anything, I can't even print a Hero Lab stat block from RW. I recall that a print feature was put on the feature list, but wasn't a priority. Same question as above. Was this replaced by the import/export feature, or is this still on the docket? If it was replaced by the import/export feature, that doesn't help with secured content.
 
I just did a partial export of the specific content I wanted from the Bestiary, then imported it to the realm in which I needed it. Worked like a charm.
 
Well, that's a pain. So currently, say I put together a one shot with 2 or 3 monsters from each of 3 of the Bestiaries, I've got to import all three of them in their entirety, then manually delete the 800 to 900 monsters I'm not using...

That can't be right.
 
You can't export secured content. For obvious reasons.

Now what you can do is make modifications to secure content. This is awesome! Picture this use case:

  • The D&D 5e SRD contains all of the monsters but none of the monsters pictures, descriptions, etc. Every-time you import the content you are therefore lacking the pictures etc.
  • Import the SRD into a realm.
  • Adds pictures.
  • Add descriptions.
  • Export the content.
  • Now you have an import pack that can be imported over the top of any SRD installation and it will re-apply the changes. You only need to update the pack once with the changes you want.

This is very powerful given most providers in this situation would simply block you from modifying or sharing the content.
 
daplunk said:
You can't export secured content. For obvious reasons.

Now what you can do is make modifications to secure content. This is awesome! Picture this use case:

  • The D&D 5e SRD contains all of the monsters but none of the monsters pictures, descriptions, etc. Every-time you import the content you are therefore lacking the pictures etc.
  • Import the SRD into a realm.
  • Adds pictures.
  • Add descriptions.
  • Export the content.
  • Now you have an import pack that can be imported over the top of any SRD installation and it will re-apply the changes. You only need to update the pack once with the changes you want.

This is very powerful given most providers in this situation would simply block you from modifying or sharing the content.
Click to expand...

"This car has only has a 3 gallon gas tank."

"Yeah, but it has an awesome stereo system."

What you're saying may certainly be true, but it does nothing to address the issue at hand.
 
daplunk said:
You can't export secured content.
Click to expand...

So the following is a true statement, then?

Maidhc O Casain said:
Well, that's a pain. So currently, say I put together a one shot with 2 or 3 monsters from each of 3 of the Bestiaries, I've got to import all three of them in their entirety, then manually delete the 800 to 900 monsters I'm not using...
Click to expand...

That's a huge pain in my butt, and way more trouble than it's worth. It might actually be easier to just manually input the encounters I need - in which case I've wasted a lot of time waiting for the Content Market (and Bestiaries) to come out, and I likely won't be spending any more of my money on them. A shame, since that's what I primarily meant to buy.
 
I dont understand this mentality at all.

It's way easier to have an import. You import the Monster Manual. And for most people I'd wager that's enough.

For the people who really only want a couple of monsters in their realm from that Monster Manual. You import the book. You create a new heading called "The monsters I want". You drag the ones you want into there and then right click delete the original Monster Manual container and delete the descendants.

It's a simple process. The idea of picking which parts of the import you want at time of import sounds tedious to be honest.

And I get that people are going to want to export secure content. But it's secure content for a reason. LWD can't just allow us to do what ever we want to do with it because it's legally not their decision to make.
 
But choosing what entries from the Bestiaries I want for my adventures is exactly what I do now.

The method you describe sounds easy - and I guess maybe it is. But to me it just seems... I don't know. Inelegant?

Say I'm making a 'realm,' an adventure, that's maybe 6 or 7 encounters. How big will that be - 10 mb? 20? I don't really know. But say it's 100. So to make that 100 mb realm, I've got to first bloat it out to a gb (roughly, assuming I'm using stuff from 3 different monster books at about 300mb per), then go back and delete most of that gb worth of material. Not to mention the time it takes to import those three large files.

And either way I've got to sort through them to find the monsters I want, so it's really a wash whether I do that before or after the import.

I totally get that that have to secure the content! It's sad, but there's no question, no doubt, the general population can't be trusted not to pirate it if given the chance. But it seems like it should be possible to set the export process up so that the exported file carries the same security as the original. It may not be - I'm no coder for sure so I don't really know. But there should be a more elegant solution.

Don't get me wrong - I don't regret purchasing RW (even at the ridiculous backer level I chose). It's still the premiere campaign management tool. But using the Bestiaries this way is cumbersome/unwieldy/inelegant.
 
daplunk said:
I dont understand this mentality at all.

It's way easier to have an import. You import the Monster Manual. And for most people I'd wager that's enough.

For the people who really only want a couple of monsters in their realm from that Monster Manual. You import the book. You create a new heading called "The monsters I want". You drag the ones you want into there and then right click delete the original Monster Manual container and delete the descendants.

It's a simple process. The idea of picking which parts of the import you want at time of import sounds tedious to be honest.

And I get that people are going to want to export secure content. But it's secure content for a reason. LWD can't just allow us to do what ever we want to do with it because it's legally not their decision to make.
Click to expand...

In my original post, I asked two questions.

If the content sharing is still on the docket, great. If not, would it be reasonably possible to modify the import process to allow us to select which items we want to import?

Or, would it be reasonably possible to allow us to selectively export, as we do with an unsecured realm, but to an rwsecure file, so your protection is maintained?
Click to expand...

Are those fair questions to ask?
 
OH! So no exporting at all - just choose which parts we want at import from the rwsecure file. That would be elegant, if it could be done.
 
I'm confused. Haven't people been paying attention? Secure content was never going to available for export. That was made clear when the import/export stuff was added over 2 years ago.
 
@kbs666 Most people are not going to remember discussions from 2 years ago. Lots of folks don't follow the discussion board closely. I do, but forgot about this. I don't particularly care as I'll just follow the process that daplunk recommends. It does make it more important, imo, to keep a copy of the purchased realm file handy since you'll need to import from that file to get purchased content into a realm.

This is why I would eventually like to see a web version of RW and have all this handled server side. With D&D Beyond, as a comparison, once I buy a book than its content is available for any character in whatever campaign. I don't have to worry about moving it around or doing multiple imports. Now, what DDB provides is not where near as complex and rich as what RW does. This is all blue-sky wishful thinking.

Bottom line, I'm extremely happy with the CM. It has greatly increased RW's value to me, even with the inelegant import functionality for secure content.

I was able to purchase Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts and Book of Lairs, download, import and was ready to run a game for my sons in under an hour. Smart maps, Hero Lab portfolios, and all the topics and linkages all done and ready.

I was also able to add Kobold Press's Creature Components to my current ongoing campaign realm and instantly have a system for harvesting and using monster parts added to my campaign.

Now if they could only license the official WoTC publications....
 
kbs666 said:
I'm confused. Haven't people been paying attention? Secure content was never going to available for export. That was made clear when the import/export stuff was added over 2 years ago.
Click to expand...

If you're confused, please reread my initial comment.
 
In my opinion, wht could make this possible without requiring to export secure content, and that could be useful in a lot of other user cases, would be a "copy to another realm" function for topics.
 
daplunk said:
You can't export secured content. For obvious reasons.

Now what you can do is make modifications to secure content. This is awesome! Picture this use case:

  • The D&D 5e SRD contains all of the monsters but none of the monsters pictures, descriptions, etc. Every-time you import the content you are therefore lacking the pictures etc.
  • Import the SRD into a realm.
  • Adds pictures.
  • Add descriptions.
  • Export the content.
  • Now you have an import pack that can be imported over the top of any SRD installation and it will re-apply the changes. You only need to update the pack once with the changes you want.

This is very powerful given most providers in this situation would simply block you from modifying or sharing the content.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't get this :(
If secure content can't be exported, after I add to that realm the Pictures and descriptions from purchased secure content, how can I export that modified content to make the import pack?
 
I haven't tried it, but I would expect that RW would not export a snippet that you modified from a secured import; otherwise you could modify every snippet (add a dot) and then export the entire secured realm.
 
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that there was supposed to be a way within Realm Works to share content between realms, but it relied on the Content Market to work. The export/import functionality as we now have it was a crutch that they released to appease the user base because the Content Market was so delayed.

I'm hoping that is still the plan - the export/import functionality is great for putting info into Realm Works or getting it out (especially with all of the work Farling has put into it), but it's still really clunky for sharing info between realms. Realm Works should make such inter-realm sharing easy, and in the process could continue to protect secure content.

-Ian
 
ibecker said:
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that there was supposed to be a way within Realm Works to share content between realms, but it relied on the Content Market to work. The export/import functionality as we now have it was a crutch that they released to appease the user base because the Content Market was so delayed.

I'm hoping that is still the plan - the export/import functionality is great for putting info into Realm Works or getting it out (especially with all of the work Farling has put into it), but it's still really clunky for sharing info between realms. Realm Works should make such inter-realm sharing easy, and in the process could continue to protect secure content.

-Ian
Click to expand...
What was publicly stated when import/export was announced was that there had been plans for a different sort of functionality for getting content in/out and shared between realms but that it was turning out to be too complicated/taking too long to implement. Import/export is what we have for all of that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top