Question about future of Realm Works

[Geronimo82]

This is kinda aimed down the road, say year and a half to two years (or later), but is there a possibility that RW will get a version that is stand alone from the cloud server? I've been keeping an eye on it since the idea cropped up and the core of the program -the campaign notes- is really all I need. The whole VTT stuff is fine, but not something I'm interested in.

 

[mirtos]

it currently is stand alone. you just need 3 seconds of cloud service to create the realms locally then you can work offline (and cancel cloud service).

Of course, you couldnt sync to players, but you could show in player view.

 

[MaxSupernova]

The whole VTT stuff is fine, but not something I'm interested in.

RealmWorks is not a VTT at all.

You can show maps to your players, but that's just about the only VTTish functionality.

It's mostly for storing and sharing knowledge about your realm. It's campaign management software.

 

[Chemlak]

To expand slightly: RW is intentionally designed not to have VTT functionality. Lone Wolf didn't want to reinvent the wheel.

First and foremost, Realm Works is for GMs to store and manage their campaign information, whether it be background info, stat blocks, maps, whatever, and link it together into a coherent whole. The cloud service and player reveal are extremely useful extras, but are in no way required.

Several of the features will work wonderfully alongside a VTT, and I will not be surprised to hear that LWD are looking at exposing RW to VTTs to simplify sharing information during game sessions, but the true beauty of RW is in information management, not live gaming.

 

[GThiel]

But in dual monitor mode, RW works very well to reveal dungeon maps to the players and then if required we sketch out the rooms on plexiglass over a square-grid mat.

No more me trying to describe the room (door immediately on the left, NO, the Other left .. .. ..)

And players no longer (more often was me) drawing out the dungeon as explored on grid paper. Just load up RW and the map state is were it was from the last session.

 

[Geronimo82]

I understand it's not a dedicated VTT. I kind of lump 'showing the players stuff' in the VTT area. And the initial sync is part of why I said stand alone. Other then up dates, I don't see myself needing anything else from Lone Wolf. And the features their offering compared to other programs is why I asked my question.

I've been writing things on legal pads up till now, I can continue to do that. A stand alone Realm Works is more a nice want then a desperate need.

 

[Silveras]

Well, as noted, you can use RealmWorks "off-line" as much as you want except when actually creating a new Realm. And as far as I know, that's not actually part of the paid "cloud service"; the stub records for a Realm on the cloud server exist in case someone who starts with "all off-line" later wants to make use of the cloud service. It doesn't force anyone to use the cloud service (at least as described so far).

Given that, I don't think LoneWolf sees much need for a version that could never connect.. since that would mean the user could not easily change his/her mind and decide to add the cloud service (at least not without starting over entering all the data again).

 

[Geronimo82]

If you have to handshake with the server at the start of every realm, then your being forced to use it. Ergo, not a stand alone program.

That's why I asked about the possibility of it down the road, because it doesn't seem like it would be too big of a piece of code to remove from the program, if all the server is there to do is provide a unique id once.

And they didn't foresee a time when Army Builder 3 wouldn't have licensing when it first came out, but they have more or less removed it now.

 

[Portilis]

Alternatively, the recommendation made by Lone Wolf has been to create a bunch of spare realms when you start, and just use/reuse them if you don't want to use the cloud.

 

[Kairos]

You don't need the paid cloud service to create realms from what I understand. That function is cloud service, but it's free.

 

[Parody]

You don't need the paid cloud service to create realms from what I understand. That function is cloud service, but it's free.

Sure, but it's still one time too many. Look at how you have to be online to create an Excel spreadsheet, a Hero Lab character, a text file in Notepad, or a new graphic in Photoshop...well, ignore that last one, Creative Cloud subscribers.

I would like to see an option, even if it means offline only realms can never be uploaded to their servers* and can't be viewed by player clients. I don't think it'll happen, though. Cloud service (with related features) and purchased content are too important.

But you never know, and the only way to let people know you care is to talk about it, so here we are.

Hope this helps.


* Aside: I don't see why they couldn't be converted later, even if it means waiting a long time while your local client talks to the server to create a new realm/base ID, imports all of your data and reapplies all of the links or updates all of the IDs, and (optionally) removes the offline only version. Maybe not simple, but doable. Like almost everything we ask for. :)

 

[MaxSupernova]

Here's a previous discussion about this, with a Realm Works employee's thoughts:

http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=49006

 

[Viking2054]

seems to me that if the whole problem is a unique identifier you could do a couple things. First generate an account based unique identifier when you first purchase and set up your account that would be part of every entry. Second, create a blank unique identifier inside the offline created realm that can be populated if you ever try to sync up a realm with the cloud. Put the two together and you'd probably have even less of a problem with unique identifiers and an offline only setup (after initial download and setup of the program).

 

[MaxSupernova]

Let's not get into re-engineering the RW back end, or making guesses about how it works or should work.

That makes for cranky devs. :-D

 

[Parody]

Oh, come on! It's a lot easier making the program when you're the one sitting in the comfy armchair and not the ones doing the programming and testing. ;)

But seriously, I think most of us are here because we're trying to understand what it is we have in Realm Works, why it works like it does in various situations, and make suggestions in what we think would improve it. Every once in a while that's going to include discussion about why it was written the way it was. Heck, I'm still wondering why it has the weird scroll bars.

 

[ShadowChemosh]

But seriously, I think most of us are here because we're trying to understand what it is we have in Realm Works, why it works like it does in various situations, and make suggestions in what we think would improve it. Every once in a while that's going to include discussion about why it was written the way it was. Heck, I'm still wondering why it has the weird scroll bars.

Why true it maybe better to "explain" why you need such a feature then to ask the Dev's why they did something. Saying "This should not need any connection to the internet and why did they design it that way?" Is not as helpful as saying "I only have internet access one day out of 29 and its limited bandwidth prevents me from using RW right now with its need to connect to the internet." One would allow the devs to work out a plan and or explain how to solve your issue with a work around.

Honestly I was trying to figure why does it matter in this day and age if a tool needs internet access? Its obvious you have access to the internet as your posting to the forums. You also downloaded the software from the internet and will get all future updates from the internet.

I mean I can't think of ANY game I played in 5+ years that does not need constant internet access. Hell watching TV or Movies requires a internet connection and most peoples phones require internet connection. So who cares if RW connects to the net for 2 seconds to make a unique ID for your Realm?

 

[Acenoid]

Freedom is about choice and there are still loads of programms that work offline. Of course they might be various reasons - bandwidth, location w/o internet and so on. But I see your point that most of the computers are connected anyway. However the services that you run at a given time online are limited, and personally for example I setup firewall / router and try to whitlist the things that need to go out...

In the end it comes down to trust...
Being online being connected all the time also allows for significant tracking and other options that the companies gain - this trust was often disappointed in the past by various companies and it will continue to happen. I'm not blaming the company here , I also bought realm works, and I trust that they do what they are saying.

But being online - in my eyes - is often more hassle than additional value for me as user. That's why I personally opted to avoid the cloud use for now (I understand that it's not fully working anyways, yet). And I hope that they will not make me a 3rd class customer of theirs for that.

From a company standpoint I can understand, they want to get monthly fees out from their customers and of course they can try. Market will decide eventually and I wish them all the best

 

[Parody]

Why true it maybe better to "explain" why you need such a feature then to ask the Dev's why they did something....

I don't like creation applications that restrict their usage in this way.

They've already given us the workaround: make a bunch of empty realms. I think that's silly, but whatever.

A very distant second reason is that I am often in places without Internet access. Even in a major city it's not everywhere, and everywhere appears to include where I've worked recently (blocked) and where I've gamed recently (no WiFi and bad cell reception.) Most of my usage is at home, so this isn't much of an issue to me.

I mean I can't think of ANY game I played in 5+ years that does not need constant internet access.

I almost never play video games that require constant Internet access. In the last five years I've played...maybe four?*, and only one in the past six months.

A lot of the games I play were purchased online and get patches online (if there are any at this point!), but I can still start a new game if I unplug the computer from the network.

Hell watching TV or Movies requires a internet connection and most peoples phones require internet connection. So who cares if RW connects to the net for 2 seconds to make a unique ID for your Realm?

My smart phone is still a cellular phone if I turn off cellular data and WiFi. We still have a land line phone; where that converts to IP I'm not sure, but it's probably not until the actual office given the local infrastructure. (We live in a weird hole in what they've gotten around to modernizing in our suburb.)

My Mom's side of the family lives on a farm about 15 minutes outside of the nearest town. For a long time they only had dial-up because nothing better was available in their area, and even now I have no cell service there. They have satellite TV and some form of fast Internet.

I know a few people who only watch TV over-the-air, including my Dad's side of the family. They decided that cable or satellite wasn't worth the cost. They miss a few things but between what's there and DVDs they have plenty of things they can watch. IIRC, they have some form of fast Internet but no WiFi. (They only have the one computer.)


We can keep throwing examples back and forth, but again it's more about freedom than anything else. There's other freedom issues at the moment too (you basically can't get data out of Realm Works) and I suspect much of what I'm doing right now is prototyping that will be discarded and redone once we all see how sharing content actually works and if/how data is exported and so on. I've been tempted to just put it aside and come back in a year or whenever everything's up and running, but for now I'm playing and learning like everyone else.


TL;DR: Does it stop me from using Realm Works? No. Does it make me not want to use and recommend it? Yes.



* Let's see: the two Star Wars MMOs, Diablo 3, Kingdom of Loathing (the one I've played recently), and...(looks through what's currently installed) oh, I guess I installed Guild Wars when I built this computer. So technically five. Did I mention my favorite types of video games are adventures (point-and-click/Sierra style) and RPGs**?

** I just finished Paper Mario***. That was a fun one!

*** The Nintendo 64 one.

 

[rob]

If you have to handshake with the server at the start of every realm, then your being forced to use it. Ergo, not a stand alone program.

And they didn't foresee a time when Army Builder 3 wouldn't have licensing when it first came out, but they have more or less removed it now.

How often are new realms created? Under normal use, realms will be created and then used for months or years. This makes your assertion rather specious IMO.

Also, Army Builder definitely still has full licensing. We reached a point where we weren't adding lots of new features regularly, which was the whole point of having the license renewals, since the revenue from the renewals paid for the new features. Once we stopped adding significant features, we stopped the renewals.

seems to me that if the whole problem is a unique identifier you could do a couple things. First generate an account based unique identifier when you first purchase and set up your account that would be part of every entry. Second, create a blank unique identifier inside the offline created realm that can be populated if you ever try to sync up a realm with the cloud. Put the two together and you'd probably have even less of a problem with unique identifiers and an offline only setup (after initial download and setup of the program).

You make it sound easy. It's a lot more complicated than that. We researched it heavily and there are lots of issues that would have taken quite a lot of time to solve. We opted instead for a very simple solution that works perfectly well and that allowed us to focus our energies on other features that the vast majority of users can leverage instead of something only a small percentage will use. See my next answer below for more on this.

But being online - in my eyes - is often more hassle than additional value for me as user. That's why I personally opted to avoid the cloud use for now (I understand that it's not fully working anyways, yet). And I hope that they will not make me a 3rd class customer of theirs for that.

From a company standpoint I can understand, they want to get monthly fees out from their customers and of course they can try. Market will decide eventually and I wish them all the best

If we really wanted to gouge people for the cloud, we would have done an online-only solution with no offline option. That would have been VASTLY easier to create, and some key RPG industry people told us that we shouldn't even bother with offline support. An online-only solution would have been significantly less useful IMO, so we went with the much more complicated solution.

The ability to work offline is extremely important. The fact that you choose not to use the cloud in any form at all - even the free aspects - will probably result in some minor annoyances. We have to tailor the product to the core audience, which means the majority of our users. Anyone outside of that group will encounter occasional limitations due to the product not be optimized for their preferences. This is true of absolutely every product ever created. It does not make someone a 3rd class customer.

I don't like creation applications that restrict their usage in this way.

They've already given us the workaround: make a bunch of empty realms. I think that's silly, but whatever.

For the folks that don't want to ever contact our server again, we made it possible to do so. Did we need to do that? No. But we recognized that there are users who feel that way and accommodated their desires. This required extra work. Did we invest tons of extra time to make things perfect for these users? No. Why not? Because all that extra work would be to accommodate a small contingent of users whose numbers are slowly dwindling over time. But we still made sure that they were accommodated with a very simple solution, even if some of them decry it as "silly".

This comes back to my response to @Acenoid above. We have to optimize the product for the majority of users. Those outside the norm will run into things that don't work perfectly for their preferences. However, the important thing is that we DO still provide a workable solution. I believe we've done a very good job of accommodating most users adequately across the entire spectrum of features within Realm Works, especially in this particular case.

 

[Parody]

If we really wanted to gouge people for the cloud, we would have done an online-only solution with no offline option. That would have been VASTLY easier to create, and some key RPG industry people told us that we shouldn't even bother with offline support. An online-only solution would have been significantly less useful IMO, so we went with the much more complicated solution.

I've also been surprised that it wasn't a web only service/application/whatever. Good to know I'm not alone. :)

For the rest of it, it's just a spot where we'll disagree. It doesn't stop me from using Realm Works. It's just one of those things that rubs me the wrong way.