My Players Reaction To Player Edition

[pickin_grinnin]

.....

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I'm going to have to sit on this a bit. In my mind, we were clear that Player Edition was not live updates, but something with previously revealed info to read in between sessions or reference at the table. However, obviously this was not communicated clearly for everyone.

I think the disconnect is that this is a feature that many (if not most) people assumed would be in a tool like this, and didn't notice that it wasn't. It's like data export for Realm Works - since it's such an obvious feature for a data-driven product, most people probably didn't even notice that it wasn't in there. When I saw that the PE didn't do live updates, I chose not to buy it. I evidently didn't read closely enough to see that Realm Works in general doesn't export data, so I made the mistake of buying it, instead of waiting until the product was more complete.

That's the nature of advertising, though. Some people will read every word of a product description, some will just buy things on faith, and some will read just enough to decide that they want to use it, without checking to make sure that all the critical components are in place. The only thing you can really do it make sure you are aware of what the average person is going to consider to be critical components, and then make sure to indicate in large bold print that it can't do those things.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I think one of the biggest problems is that none of us outside of LWD knows what Realm Works is really supposed to be when it is "finished" and the feature-set is complete.

I think it would be fairer to indicate in the advertising and product descriptions that the product is not yet complete. It's really more in a beta-phase right now. That way you can be sure that most people who buy into it are aware that it's missing a lot of critical features, and don't get turned off by that.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

You're a kickstarter backer, which is essentially a donor, with hopes of getting a product. There are no guarantees.

I, on the other hand, actually paid full retail for this. I'm in the same "waiting for what was promised" boat for the actual product and service that I paid money for. Plus I am now slowly losing my "cloud time".

As it is, I'm not going to renew without some serious advances in functionality, and I'm already looking at going back to using a wiki.

I didn't back the Kickstarter because it sounded like there was still too much up in the air. In general, I only back Kickstarters where the product is finished and they are looking for some extra money to polish things off.

I waited until the actual retail release, assuming that it would be a more complete product by then. Unfortunately, once I got it and really dug into things, I realized that I had simply bought into what was essentially the beta phase of a promising product.

Like you, I'm watching my "cloud time" dwindle away, and the product is still not useful to me. I simply can't invest the time that comes with putting my content into a product that doesn't give me good options to export that data as needed. I have been burned by that sort of thing before, both on a personal and professional level.

The developers really should extend everybody's free cloud time by a year, until they develop the product further. Like you, I have no plans to renew at this point. I'll sit on the product I purchased until such time as they have developed it into something that is actually worthy of being called a full retail product, and then will re-subscribe, assuming that time comes.

Right now I have to write the whole thing off as a loss. Given how useful Hero Lab has been to me, I'm very disappointed with how Realm Works has gone. I think they bit off more than they could chew, and took it to Kickstarter far too early in the process.

 

[Mystic Lemur]

I guess I'm just the opposite. I'm satisfied with RW the way it stands right now. If they never made another update, I would still feel as though I'd gotten my money's worth. Player Edition is one of those non-critical things to me, with the way I use RW. It's nice, and I understand it was a milestone that had to be reached to make way for content sharing, but even that is less critical to me than having a place to store and organize my data.

I realize other options exist, but none of them have been as useful to me as RW. Do I wish it did more? Sure. Am I looking forward to updates like custom calendars (hint hint)? Of course. Do I feel like the product could use some more polish? Eh, maybe. It's not as pretty as Hero Lab, but it's helped my organization and presentation a ton, and I don't even use Player View much. Just having the information in a coherent form, rather than a jumble of notes and half remembered ideas has taken my game to the next level.

I really like this product. I really want to master this product, which is hard when they keep releasing new features. I know I'm probably not using half of what this product is already capable of. Maybe I'm easily amused, or not a power user like some of you. Maybe that's why I'm not stressed about getting every possible thing now, or maybe some of you are just expecting too much from an already solid product. Purchasing the product was a one-time expense. You never have to pay another cent for every feature they release between now and when the product is eventually phased out. Do you really feel like you paid too much?

Sorry for the stream of consciousness, but I've had an exhausting day with family.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

Purchasing the product was a one-time expense. You never have to pay another cent for every feature they release between now and when the product is eventually phased out. Do you really feel like you paid too much?

For me, it's not really about having paid too much. It's about getting a product that is no use to me because they haven't implemented a couple of very basic features (content exporting in particular). I just can't get behind the idea of putting all my content into a product and then having it locked in, without the ability to dump the data into formats that I can use with other products out there, or reference with programs I write myself.

I have been in several professional positions where I had to try to pull a company's data from a proprietary product once support from that product went away, and it's a nightmare. I never recommend that clients use products that don't have some sort of data dump feature available, or (at the very least) direct SQL access to the databases that contain their data.

Realm Works doesn't have a great user interface, and it's no small matter to put content into it. If I'm doing that much work, I have to know that I'm not going to have to do it again if I want to reuse the content in the future.

 

[Chemlak]

If this comes off as antagonistic, my apologies in advance: I'm sincerely trying to understand something.

I'm not personally following what you're looking for with exporting the data. From the post above, it seems that you're concerned about support if RW gets sunsetted in the future. But other things you've mentioned suggest that you're more concerned about moving your data into other software for active use.

I guess my question is what other software are you using that you want to manipulate your Realm data in that you want to be able to export to? Personally, I just want to be able to print info and export it into something like pdf for distribution. On the other hand, since RW is all about "living" data (by which I mean data that changes and changes its state on an ongoing basis), exporting to a "locked" document that I'd have to keep updating would be a waste, especially when the software itself has read functionality.

So while I am abundantly aware that there are some features of RW that it needs to be complete in and of itself, I'm not sure what features you're expecting that will make you consider it to be complete for use outside RW.

 

[Seregil]

I have to go with Mystic Lemur: this is the product I have been looking for for the last 25 years: a campaign planning tool that includes a wiki and flowchart tool along with the capability to show map and pictures etc.

Looking at the MaxSuperNova's list of missing features (great work , btw), it essentially comes down to

• Import/Export/Share Content (such as stretch goal content)
• Calendars
• Hero Labs license

In terms of functionality, almost everything else is already there. Really, only the calendar is actually a functionality of the actual TOOL. The license could have been given out at any time, why it hasn't is beyond me.

Now, I can certainly accept that the missing Export/import/share parts are key to some people, but I find it quite a stretch to say that the tool is non-functional or in 'beta' because it hasn't been implemented yet, delays or no.

Still in need of tweaking? Sure.
Not functional? uh, no.

Give me better journals (which, I assume, means the gaming session notes will link to the rest of the tool), give me a web interface (because all my players use tablets at the table, not PCs) and, yes, permit me to load/export content even though I probably will never use that feature (I play pathfinder with FR 1e 'old grey box', no supported content to be expected) but what I currently have in this tool is incredible.

As usual, YMMV.

 

[Dark Lord Galen]

Looking at the MaxSuperNova's list of missing features (great work , btw),

Agreed, though it can also be said that some of those deliverables were due out in 2013 and here we are nearly complete with 2014....

Give me better journals (which, I assume, means the gaming session notes will link to the rest of the tool)...........
As usual, YMMV.

This was the single disappointment from my "beta testing" players. They understood going in RWPE would not be "live" but their expectation was that this players edition would be a VAST improvement over the pitiful journal in Herolab. The expectation was they could keep their journals during game sessions (granted notes kinda does it (barely),but is very limited, lack of calendar support, etc.) While they find the auto link feature, and the ability to "see" my reveals of their story lines (via storyboard) informative, that was a perk they would not trade for EXPECTED features from a player perspective.

1. Ability to see things from a single PC perspective
2. Be able to export or print their journals or info learned
3. see upcoming in game calendar events
4. the ability to default the font size and style for cut/paste

The lack of full journal and the lack of character level reveal makes them wish to stick to MS Word, since they can word search (ie link in effect), print, and hyperlink to my calendar system.

It makes one wonder what the LWD people (who I know are gamers) do? Surely they have more than one PC? Having reveals or a journal (when it comes out) by player is short sighted... do all of their PCs know everything the others know? Or are they relying on Player knowledge vs PC knowledge to separate this? IF the latter, then why bother with RWPE at all? My players keep separate binders, separate electronic folders, and even Hero lab has the default ability of separate PORs...

Even some detail features available in the DM version of RW are not there in PE, ctrl q for example. They as players may wish to flag people they have encountered that I in my RW did not. In some cases I didn't feel the NPC was relevant (could the players know that .. of course not) in other cases, it was oversight on my part.

Perhaps a "tool" that would allow Players to flag, people, places, events, etc that would create a list during their "sync" up to the DM level. When the DM syncs, the DM could decide whether those "flagged items" are warranted to be incorporated via an approve or something? Granted, this is an additional feature.

And as I have commented in other threads, if LWD course of action is to slow roll features out for PE, the might consider expanding the community site to separate those questions and requests as they relate to PE, just as they have for the variant versions of HL.

the feedback I have received sofar is "eh its ok"... but their disappointment grows the more the two look at it.

Currently PE isn't even "bare bones" as some of the bones are missing.
And to compound this, now the meter ticks off our cloud access when we still don't have all the base features solicited for either product.
IMO

 

[liz]

The expectation was they could keep their journals during game sessions (granted notes kinda does it (barely),but is very limited, lack of calendar support, etc.) While they find the auto link feature, and the ability to "see" my reveals of their story lines (via storyboard) informative, that was a perk they would not trade for EXPECTED features from a player perspective.

1. Ability to see things from a single PC perspective
2. Be able to export or print their journals or info learned
3. see upcoming in game calendar events
4. the ability to default the font size and style for cut/paste

The lack of full journal and the lack of character level reveal makes them wish to stick to MS Word, since they can word search (ie link in effect), print, and hyperlink to my calendar system.

I'm curious how much you told your players about what to expect with Player Edition (actually, this goes for everyone). In other words, did they know not to expect journals and were nonetheless disappointed that they weren't there. Or did they hear "Player Edition", assume some sort of journal feature would be present, and end up disappointed when there wasn't one.

Again, if anyone wants to chime in on this, that'd be great. If your players knew very little of what to expect, I'd be curious as to what features they assumed would be in a product like Player Edition, especially if those features weren't present. I think that's probably where some of the confusion around "no live updates" may have come from, through reading the posts in this thread. It sounds like in many players' minds (and some GMs'), "Player Edition"=live updates.

Even some detail features available in the DM version of RW are not there in PE, ctrl q for example. They as players may wish to flag people they have encountered that I in my RW did not. In some cases I didn't feel the NPC was relevant (could the players know that .. of course not) in other cases, it was oversight on my part.

Perhaps a "tool" that would allow Players to flag, people, places, events, etc that would create a list during their "sync" up to the DM level. When the DM syncs, the DM could decide whether those "flagged items" are warranted to be incorporated via an approve or something? Granted, this is an additional feature.

That's definitely an interesting idea, but I'm unsure what limitations we have from a technical standpoint. "Content creation" was supposed to fall squarely under the GM Edition. This would be a great idea to throw into the Feature Request forum.

 

[Teresa]

I also feel that RW is very incomplete, but I'm already planning to create a "Research" realm so as to organize and quickly get all the information I research and pile up, filling tens of binders. Which means, incomplete or not, RW is already pretty useful the way it is now.

Export is fundamental for me, but these forums have made me feel confident, so I'm taking advantage of the waiting time (namely when I can start sharing bits of and entire realms with myself and my sister) to find out the best way to adapt RW to myself and vice-versa.

I also use it for world building and organising my writing notes for stories.

It would be awsome the idea of being able to write my stories straight in my Realm so as to quickly find what I have written (and when) to avoid anachronisms without envolving careful rereading with lots of notes on my side to make sure everything is right.

Of course I know this is me daydreaming, as RW is devoted to gamers, but I also plan to share my ideas and notes (with PE) with my sister so I can keep her up-to-date with what I'm doing, and she can read on her own like a beta and comment on my work. That means that player view will also be useful for me.

I understand the comments and other users' frustrations, I'm not denying that because, depending on people's needs and style, the situation can be difficult; but it is also good to know there are users out here who are already happy with what they have (albeit anxious for all the promises to be kept as well as occasional extra goodies inspired by users)

 

[evildmguy]

This escalated quickly.

 

[liz]

...Snip...

I understand the comments and other users' frustrations, I'm not denying that because, depending on people's needs and style, the situation can be difficult; but it is also good to know there are users out here who are already happy with what they have (albeit anxious for all the promises to be kept as well as occasional extra goodies inspired by users)

Thanks, Teresa!

This escalated quickly.

Your comments prompted some good discussion, evildmguy. Everyone's being respectful and constructive in their feedback, which is appreciated.

 

[evildmguy]

My comment was mostly tongue in cheek. I have enjoyed the discussion and am glad it has been civil.

I think for myself, it's forgetting that my players want things easy, up to date or with messages on updates, and are more in game types than doing something away from the table. However, the PV doesn't show text/info well, imo, for my group even with the second monitor to use as the way to give them info, which is why they were thinking live updates, with their laptops at the table, was what PE was for.

I still find RW as a campaign creator and ways to track my information. I still struggle with using the storyboard but I think it's more I want a mind map / free form bubble area to track things than as strict as it is.

Thanks!

edg

 

[Silveras]

I for some reason just assumed PE was realtime sync, I thought that was the reason for the cloud, like how Roll20 uses the cloud, never really looked too hard at the specs I guess.

That's too bad its not, anyone not playing face to face will not find it as useful. Even face to face I'd rather have a live PE that any player could bring up on their own notebook, live no syncing required. Then they can move around looking up things while others take notes while on the big screen the GM displays what information he wants them to see via PV.

Just to throw another perspective on this...

Actually, running a Play-by-Post/Play-by-Email game, RealmWorks (especially PE) is *more* valuable than in a face-to-face game. With RealmWorks, I can provide my remote players with all of the information they have discovered to-date, all of the background information their PCs "should know" about the world, and so on.

 

[Seregil]

So, @Liz, when is the next patch/update?

 

[Zogg]

Just to throw another perspective on this...

Actually, running a Play-by-Post/Play-by-Email game, RealmWorks (especially PE) is *more* valuable than in a face-to-face game. With RealmWorks, I can provide my remote players with all of the information they have discovered to-date, all of the background information their PCs "should know" about the world, and so on.

Agreed. I have players at either end of the country and I'm near the middle. I'm patiently waiting for the free web-based player view and individual player reveal to be implemented and then I'll be able to keep them updated without endless email attachments. In the meantime, I'm ever so slowly uploading content.

Ever. So. Slowly.

There's a lot of work involved in transferring nearly 30 years of world building into RealmWorks.

 

[Seregil]

Agreed. I have players at either end of the country and I'm near the middle. I'm patiently waiting for the free web-based player view and individual player reveal to be implemented and then I'll be able to keep them updated without endless email attachments. In the meantime, I'm ever so slowly uploading content.

Ever. So. Slowly.

There's a lot of work involved in transferring nearly 30 years of world building into RealmWorks.

I can imagine. I bought the product a few days before PE came out and I have been inputting information ever since. My campaign is only in the North of FR, 1E, so the amount of stuff is limited to essenitally 2 sourcesbooks: FR1 Waterdeep and North and FR5 The Savage Frontier and even THAT is taking forever....

 

[Indus101]

Just want to point out that, even with the current limitations of the Player Edition, for all that Realmworks does, it is very reasonably priced and very useful product. I have it hooked up to a projector during our game sessions, and make great use of the Fog of World feature. From an organizational stand-point it is superb, and the interfacing with Hero Lab makes combat a lot smoother. Like Teresa, I also use it outside gaming as a replacement for older hypertext programs I would use to track notes for books or novels.

Does it lack features that would be nice? Absolutely. And I'm not discounting any of the criticisms by evildmguy or anyone else in the thread. I think those issues need to be addressed, and I think many of them will be in time.

But it will take time. LWD is a small developer building an enormous, very ambitious piece of software for what is a niche-market. The customer base isn't going to be large enough to support a team of ninety developers working the weekends to fix things. It's too bad all those millions logging into World of Warcraft don't discover the joy of table-top gaming and bring their money here, but it is what it is....

So make sure your voice is heard on that development priority survey that's coming (and make sure a customizable calendar is part of your vote! )

 

[weogarth]

Just to throw another perspective on this...

Actually, running a Play-by-Post/Play-by-Email game, RealmWorks (especially PE) is *more* valuable than in a face-to-face game. With RealmWorks, I can provide my remote players with all of the information they have discovered to-date, all of the background information their PCs "should know" about the world, and so on.

Oh, definitely +100 on this for me in my own online campaign. This will NOT be used for realtime updates but for players to review between sessions and sometimes during sessions to remind themselves of something they'd learned.