Realm Works Feature Survey – Charting the Future

[EightBitz]

When the Kickstarter began, some people wanted printing, so we came up with what we thought was a viable solution for simple printing. The fact that printing would be simple was stated on multiple occasions, with anything more being something that would be determined by user demand after V1.0 came out, but I can definitely see how I conveyed that simple printing WOULD be included. The details about printing being dependent on some assumptions was communicated to some people, but I clearly failed to do so widely in the general comments. After the Kickstarter, when we realized a critical assumption for printing was not valid, the idea for simple printing fell apart. I haven't spent the time to dig through all of that stuff, but I'm pretty certain that discovery WAS communicated to backers.

I'm curious as to how "simple printing" and "basic printing" are being defined here. Does this mean the scope of what we can print in any print job will be limited? Maybe to a single article at a time? Or does it mean that certain things like page size and orientation will be pre-defined and unchangeable? Does it mean that we won't have access to certain printer features like duplex printing?

I'm not looking to complain or criticize, just to understand. Because that can mean a lot of different things.

 

[Chemlak]

I suspect (pure guesswork, ahoy!) that "simple printing" is things like "print this topic" and/or "print all player revealed snippets in this topic", but won't include various other linked info like stat blocks and maps, or the ability to print multiple topics per page

Complex printing would be things like "print all topics linked to <city> as one document, topic headers bold".

Things that you can tell your printer to do (like double-sided printing, for example) would be accomplished through the printer's settings, but the print code within RW has to be able to organise the data you want to print, and then send that to the printer. Considering the variety of possible "but I only want to print this" that RW encompasses, that's a non-trivial task.

(For the record, I'd really like printing. I read paper far better than I do a screen, and absorb the information far more readily, which is why I buy hardcopy RP books and adventures, even if I also want softcopy.)

 

[EightBitz]

I suspect (pure guesswork, ahoy!) that "simple printing" is things like "print this topic" and/or "print all player revealed snippets in this topic", but won't include various other linked info like stat blocks and maps, or the ability to print multiple topics per page.

If I could selectively print individual topics, or collectively print all topics, I'd be happy with that as a hold-over. I can print statblocks and maps separately, since those items exist outside of RW anyway.

 

[EightBitz]

And to be honest, printing maps is going to be tricky anyway. I'd rather do that in a program better able to handle it anyway ... one where you can print a small selection or print the whole thing in different sections on multiple sheets.

 

[mirtos]

I agree with EightBitz about printing maps being complicated, and "simple printing" being enough...

the ability to select the topics via checkbox to be printed would be very nice....

 

[ruhar]

Oh dear God!

Everybody get your body armour, the Calendars are not in the top three. The End is Nigh!

I did a quick scan to find out the status of calendars and I'm very disappointed and surprised that calendars is not #1 or even #2.

Have to say that I was surprised that journal made it to the top and that calendaring made it so low. Disappointed, but I am impressed at the developer's engagement and transparency.

I like the idea of a journal, but I don't recall it being the battle cry of the hoards since Beta release. I guess old battle cries just drop down the list as new ones replace it. I'm going home now to bury my calendar dreams. *sigh*

 

[Chemlak]

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that journals came so high because as a GM whose players use player edition, their overwhelming message to me has been "we want to keep track of what our characters have done", and journals are a huge part of that (notes will do in a pinch, but they want to share the info). I don't imagine my group are particularly unique in that regard, so if all the GMs in a similar situation rated journals as highly as I did, then that would easily beat out those who want calendars.

 

[mirtos]

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that journals came so high because as a GM whose players use player edition, their overwhelming message to me has been "we want to keep track of what our characters have done", and journals are a huge part of that (notes will do in a pinch, but they want to share the info). I don't imagine my group are particularly unique in that regard, so if all the GMs in a similar situation rated journals as highly as I did, then that would easily beat out those who want calendars.

That brings up an interesting question about the Survey. The Survey was available to everyone, players and GMs, correct?

Not a complaint mind you, but out of curiousity, do we have stats for number of players who responded vs number of GMs?

Because obviously that could skew results.. unless of course that was already figured in.

(im mostly curious at this point)

 

[rob]

I suspect (pure guesswork, ahoy!) that "simple printing" is things like "print this topic" and/or "print all player revealed snippets in this topic", but won't include various other linked info like stat blocks and maps, or the ability to print multiple topics per page

Complex printing would be things like "print all topics linked to <city> as one document, topic headers bold".

That's a relatively accurate assessment. There are some wrinkles, but that's the essence.

If my idea actually turns out to be viable, we can leverage the same mechanism to provide some other capabilities that I think users will find very desirable. Of course, it also has a limitation that I think is minor, but some of you may object to it, even though it's the outside-the-box trick that could make the solution more useful and versatile in other ways. That limitation is yet another reason why I need to think it through more fully before talking about it openly. If I conclude that the idea will work, I'll let you all know and find out what you think about the limitation versus the benefits that become possible.

More on it next week...

 

[rob]

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that journals came so high because as a GM whose players use player edition, their overwhelming message to me has been "we want to keep track of what our characters have done", and journals are a huge part of that (notes will do in a pinch, but they want to share the info). I don't imagine my group are particularly unique in that regard, so if all the GMs in a similar situation rated journals as highly as I did, then that would easily beat out those who want calendars.

That was my interpretation of the results as well. I didn't expect journals to come out so high. I thought they'd be a middle-of-the-pack ranking.

 

[Chemlak]

That brings up an interesting question about the Survey. The Survey was available to everyone, players and GMs, correct?

It was definitely open to everyone - my wife, who only has Player Edition, completed the survey. Journals were the "big thing" <insert obvious joke here> that she wanted from RW.

In fact, when I told her about the results LWD have given us, she basically bounced when she heard that Journals were up there. I doubt my other players completed the survey, to be honest, but that's two respondents I know of who both ranked Journals highly, and only one of us rated Calendars.

I can basically say that if my supposition is correct, then "player desire" had a drastic impact on the survey results, and is part of the reason I just can't complain about calendars not getting love for a while - since RP is a social activity, it makes sense for RW to offer something to both sides of the GM's screen, even though the bulk of the work happens on one side.

And, frankly, if I'm allowed to use hindsight, I think I'd agree with Journals being more important than Calendars (won't stop me asking), simply because it offers greater engagement from more people. It's the same reasoning that says player-focused books sell more than GM-focused ones: If you have 1 GM and 4 players, that's 5 potential sales, because they're all players in one way or another. But a GM-only product is only one potential sale.

 

[Chemlak]

That's a relatively accurate assessment. There are some wrinkles, but that's the essence.

If my idea actually turns out to be viable, we can leverage the same mechanism to provide some other capabilities that I think users will find very desirable. Of course, it also has a limitation that I think is minor, but some of you may object to it, even though it's the outside-the-box trick that could make the solution more useful and versatile in other ways. That limitation is yet another reason why I need to think it through more fully before talking about it openly. If I conclude that the idea will work, I'll let you all know and find out what you think about the limitation versus the benefits that become possible.

More on it next week...

Good to know I can be at least roughly right.

Can't wait to hear what this idea is, Rob. Outside-the-box can be a cracking good way to solve problems.

 

[weogarth]

That brings up an interesting question about the Survey. The Survey was available to everyone, players and GMs, correct?

Players, GMs and, I believe, people who do not yet own the product. So, everyone. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that there may have been some weighting involved giving existing owners more say than prospective owners.

Unfortunately, all of this means that Rob is going to be spending even MORE time away from his IDE.

 

[EightBitz]

Unfortunately, all of this means that Rob is going to be spending even MORE time away from his IDE.

Interstitial Dimension Encampment?

 

[ruhar]

@PetJe: To be honest, the dev team was also a little disappointed that calendars didn't make it into the top-3 of the survey. There's already a LOT of work invested in the underlying calendars mechanism, and we want to see it finished. The reality is that there are some things that are much more important than calendars in the eyes of most users, and the survey has pin-pointed those things for us. So we'll get those into place first and then finish up the calendars after that.

Rob, I have cheered you guys on, grumbled at you guys, and defended you guys, but this time I am TOTALLY disagreeing with you. I appreciate that you listen to the users BUT you can also have a say. I believe that the key important features would be what was promised in the Kickstarter. One of those features was calendars. Not just a simple calendar system but "custom calendars, dates tied to those calendars."

"Key Realm Works Features
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 am willing to say that "Conveniently manage game notes and preparation tasks with full linking to game content," would be the Journal, but this feature was listed AFTER the calendar feature.

You guys have put a lot of work on the calendar feature and users wanting/needing the calendar feature may not, obviously, be the majority who responded to the survey but they have been the most vocal. All those involved deserve to have the feature completed. If not them then at least for Kickstarter backers who were told it was a "Key Realm Works Features" (emphasis my own). In my opinion what was listed on the Kickstarter should be at the top with everything listed below. Journals and Content Market was not featured in the Kickstarter. Web-Based Access was addressed in the FAQ as a feature that wasn't a high priority. That FAQ even ended with, "We've designed Realm Works to meet the future demands of gamers, but we're doing it without sacrificing the needs of gamers today." Not having calendars at the top of the list is sacrificing the gamers who supported the dream through Kickstarter and expected the feature of multiple calendars.

 

[Parody]

Unfortunately, all of this means that Rob is going to be spending even MORE time away from his IDE.

Interstitial Dimension Encampment?

Integrated Development Environment, likely Visual Studio since this is a .NET application.

And, frankly, if I'm allowed to use hindsight, I think I'd agree with Journals being more important than Calendars (won't stop me asking), simply because it offers greater engagement from more people. It's the same reasoning that says player-focused books sell more than GM-focused ones: If you have 1 GM and 4 players, that's 5 potential sales, because they're all players in one way or another. But a GM-only product is only one potential sale.

On the flip side, without a GM there's no players. The GM pays for a much more expensive product as well as ongoing cloud service to let the players be able to use the features of the Player Edition. Even if the players reject the product, the GM can still use it for their campaigns and still purchase items from the Content Market. So whose priorities should you consider? It's a delicate balancing act, something to be considered when looking at what to do next.


One other thing:

Printing was mentioned a single time out of a Beta team of about 100 GMs over the span of a year. ... This lack of importance was basically echoed by the Beta team.

When the Kickstarter began, some people wanted printing, so we came up with what we thought was a viable solution for simple printing.

You've mentioned this particular data point a couple of times now. Hopefully you've already considered this, but if practically nobody on your Beta team is concerned about a feature but the Kickstarter responses and survey says your users and potential users want it, maybe you need to rebalance your team to be more representative. At the very least make sure there's a champion on there, otherwise you won't get useful testing out of them if/when you do add that feature. :(

I don't know how much your team was affected by self-selection (50ish Beta team members should be those who were willing to pay many times the cost of the app for the privilege, according to the Kickstarter) but I hope it helped.

 

[Mmurphy]

The issue I have with the lack of the calendar feature (and this is from memory) is when the kickstarter was released in the beta version we were told that the calendar was removed but all the code was in place for it. They (LW) did not have a good visual interface to make is better streamlined.

I do not know enough about programming, did they lose all the code or is all the code that already exists within the program no longer applicable (new function made the old code obsolete)?

As I stated in a previous post, I am not using Realm Works right now as it really is not a big help to me. I tried to use it as a 'this is what happened' or (insert James Earl Jones's voice here) "Last time with our floundering hero's..." and I even bought the players 10 pack. I gave away 3-5 of them and after 2-3 weeks, no one that I know of had used it.

That might be a good question to ask, "How many players are using the players edition?".

 

[Parody]

I do not know enough about programming, did they lose all the code or is all the code that already exists within the program no longer applicable (new function made the old code obsolete)?

The same calendar code runs the single calendar currently exposed (the Gregorian Calendar) so I doubt anything has made it obsolete. They still want to make a better interface for creating new calendars.

 

[mirtos]

[
On the flip side, without a GM there's no players. The GM pays for a much more expensive product as well as ongoing cloud service to let the players be able to use the features of the Player Edition. Even if the players reject the product, the GM can still use it for their campaigns and still purchase items from the Content Market. So whose priorities should you consider? It's a delicate balancing act, something to be considered when looking at what to do next.

That was kindof my point about the question regarding the survey. I hope weighting was involved when considering results... but i dont remember if there was a question about GM vs player.

GM version (even without continual cloud access, in which point player version is pointless) costs a minimum of 5 times as much as the players version (with bulk pricing, the players version is even cheaper). So in the example given in the previous post, 1 GM at 50.00, vs 4 players at 10.00 each (assuming no bulk, less if they purchased in bulk (as low as 25 for the four players total)) there is no argument about how LWD is making the bulk of the income from.

This is foremost, a GM tool and is priced accordingly.

From a business model perception, it makes more sense to weight the GM survey results much higher than the player version.

And of course, unlike a product like hero lab, the player version depends on the GM version. The player version is worthless without a GM using it, but the GM version is not worthless without players using it.

So if a group of say 5 people, 1 GM and 4 players all had the product, all took the survey, would each person be an "equal" vote, or would the gm get more votes. I would suggest that it only makes sense if the GM gets a minimum of 3 votes...

If it was done that way, thats great. If it wasnt then you are likely getting a very skewed result. If entire groups use the product, you are going to have singinifcantly more player versions than GM versions, but that still doesnt equate to actual usage of a product.

Unlike a product like HeroLab, a pure decromatic survey doesnt make sense for a product like this. There are absolutely "more important" and "less important" users.

LWD is a fairly long lived company, so I would assume they know this, and I'm going to assume all of this was taken into account. I hope I'm right.

 

[ruhar]

This is foremost, a GM tool and is priced accordingly.

From a business model perception, it makes more sense to weight the GM survey results much higher than the player version.

{SNIP}

Unlike a product like HeroLab, a pure decromatic survey doesnt make sense for a product like this. There are absolutely "more important" and "less important" users.

Very good points, mirtos.