Realm Works Pre-Release Update

[Mead]

Bodrin,

As a user (not a developer), can you explain what the missing features are and why they warrant the delay? Can you explain why, if the software is as good and as use able as everyone keeps saying, the delay is still warranted? Because that's what's confusing us.

Also, in response to other comments, vaporware is software that hasn't been publicly released, regardless of whether or not it exists. I don't have the definition wrong. I invite Rob to prove me wrong anytime he pleases. If, and only if, that happens, you'll all be justified in pointing and laughing at me as LWD takes my money. But it has to be released first.

It has been released to the public. I and the other Kickstarter donors are public.... Just not the entire public yet. It's not vaporware.

It is wonderfully useable... but I can guarantee they need to ease it into the wider public..

We get that you are anxious, but I would rather they do it right, and slowly.. then to rush it and screw up. That would hurt everyone.

 

[KefkaZ]

EightBitz.
There are still people that are having major crashes to the software and even to their systems because of it. From what I have seen there are memory leaks. Some people that have been in BETA and or in the Early Buy in Beta release people that have not been able to access the software at all and has recently been fixed for them. I am talking months here without being able to use Realmworks at all. Some people are having problems Syncing with the cloud with out crashing completely.

It is not all a bed of Roses and it is tough for Lone Wolf to see all of this happening I am sure. I know I see them working at all hours and now even on the Holidays to get this out and see the frustration and understandably so of not getting it in their hands when the release is so close and yet so far away. It is a tough pill to swallow. But on the same hand it is going to be released and knowing the problems that have been happening in one form or other it could be worse if they released it now.

Imagine if you will: If you had paid money for a supposedly finished product but you are unable to use it at all... would you be more or less upset with it not being released or with it being released and not able to use it due to lack of fixed issues? Or even being able to use the software because you can't create a realm or if you do create a realm and get alot of work done only to have it crash and loose it all?

So in seeing both sides I understand where you are coming from and Lone Wolf. There is no easy answer to how this should be handled other then how they have been and hopefully no other crashes will happen with the BETA team and finally get a stable and good release going on to all of us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

Thank you. The extent of the bugs and how show-stopping they could be is the piece of information that made things fit for me. And although I'm not a programmer, I get how bugs can be tough to put a timeline on, especially when you don't want to cut corners. The problem was all non-backers were only hearing 1) it's close to release 2) The program is great guys! You'll love it! Well, those two don't jive. Knowing that there are rough edges and more importantly the severity of the rough edges is the third data point I needed.

 

[EightBitz]

It has been released to the public. I and the other Kickstarter donors are public.... Just not the entire public yet. It's not vaporware.

It is wonderfully useable... but I can guarantee they need to ease it into the wider public..

We get that you are anxious, but I would rather they do it right, and slowly.. then to rush it and screw up. That would hurt everyone.

A conflict exists between "wonderfully useable [sic]" and "not releasable." It can't be both. If it's wonderfully usable, then it's releasable.

So, which is it?

 

[Zinquox]

We honestly have no idea when that will be until we fix these major flaws."

Why is that so difficult?

EightBitz, I understand where you are coming from in stating this, but I think, to an extent I also understand where the RW team is coming from. By giving a hard deadline to the public, it is making them work twice as hard to get it done by then. Without that external deadline, it's not as much of a letdown when they don't meet the deadline, because only they know they didn't meet it. It's kind of like trying to lose weight. If you tell yourself, and only yourself, that you are going to lose 10 lbs. this month, then you fail, it's not as bad as if you tell 10 people you are going to lose 10 lbs., and then you fail. It's not a perfect analogy but I think it serves my purpose.

Now that having been said, is that fair to those of us who have been waiting deadline to deadline, for the product, No. However, I would rather be disappointed by a missed deadline, and have the product come out sooner, then not have deadlines and have it come out later.

As to the idea that with each missed deadline we become more and more jaded, that may be true for some folks, and if you are one of them, then I am sorry, that really sucks. Personally if they put out something that said "Spring 2014" right now, my initial reaction might be "I'll believe it when I see it," but come the middle end of February I would get excited all over again, just like I was when I first found out about this product.

 

[EightBitz]

EightBitz, I understand where you are coming from in stating this, but I think, to an extent I also understand where the RW team is coming from. By giving a hard deadline to the public, it is making them work twice as hard to get it done by then. Without that external deadline, it's not as much of a letdown when they don't meet the deadline, because only they know they didn't meet it. It's kind of like trying to lose weight. If you tell yourself, and only yourself, that you are going to lose 10 lbs. this month, then you fail, it's not as bad as if you tell 10 people you are going to lose 10 lbs., and then you fail. It's not a perfect analogy but I think it serves my purpose.

Now that having been said, is that fair to those of us who have been waiting deadline to deadline, for the product, No. However, I would rather be disappointed by a missed deadline, and have the product come out sooner, then not have deadlines and have it come out later.

As to the idea that with each missed deadline we become more and more jaded, that may be true for some folks, and if you are one of them, then I am sorry, that really sucks. Personally if they put out something that said "Spring 2014" right now, my initial reaction might be "I'll believe it when I see it," but come the middle end of February I would get excited all over again, just like I was when I first found out about this product.

If you tell someone "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this month", and you do it, they're proud of you. If you fail, then tell them the next month, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this month," most people would think, "OK, you failed last month, but maybe that'll motivate you more this month." If you fail again, then tell them the next month, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this month", their reaction is most likely going to be "Pff, yeah right. Good luck with that."

 

[zarlor]

If it helps any not all of us have the big problem issues and crashes that others are having, but I think it's the nature of varying hardware platforms and methods folks are using in creating their realms that are causing some issues like the ones mentioned to show up for just a few folks. I think the fact that anyone is getting them, though, is enough to make it all a show stopper for LWD to want to release any of it just yet, and certainly every time to put out a fix sometimes yet another unforseen issue crops up (although there were a few other minor crashes that were persistent but only just recently got fixed).

I will say that for most of us if the program does crash it tends to crash very nicely. What I mean by that is let's say you've been entering a bunch of information but then at one point the program crashes. Usually what will happen is a box will pop up saying the program ran into an error and ask us to provide an error report to LWD, then when it completes it saves everything (as best as it can, anyway) before trying to cleanly shut down the program. So losing data, or more accurately not having recently entered data or changes be there, at least in my experience, is not something that commonly occurs and, again in my experience, each patch has meant fewer and fewer crashes for me. I have only one persistent crash right now which I expect will probably be fixed in the next patch and that's about it. I won't do into the any real details, though, because I'm not completely certain what is or is not appropriate on that front based my NDA (and LWD, please feel free to delete or redact this post if you feel there is anything here in my broad statements that you think may be inappropriate, of course.)

So I think as testers we're seeing some strong and steady progress and I can definitely see where LWD would suggest that they are getting really close to release as every patch seems to show more and more things getting worked out. There are still some crashes and such that some folks have that the rest of us don't and there are those few missing features that LWD has pretty much mentioned in their updates already. On my end I'm not really seeing any big crashes at all, just one minor one, so I'm pretty happy with where the product stands now. I would very much like to see the finished functionality of what server sync will eventually give us that we don't have yet, but overall I've been really, really pleased with it. So for me, and probably most of us who have it, I can mostly use it as a finished product; I just think not all of the testers are in that boat is all.

 

[Mead]

A conflict exists between "wonderfully useable [sic]" and "not releasable." It can't be both. If it's wonderfully usable, then it's releasable.

So, which is it?

The conflict exists only in your eyes. You are upset that people have it, and you do not. We understand... but honestly, it is starting to sound childish. Most of us are sick of hearing it.

The software is wonderful, and pretty darn usable.. but it needs quite a way to go... and I would rather they do it right, and not screw it up by releasing it to more people before it is ready.

You've stated that you want it released.. I am not sure how harping on it is supposed to help them any.

 

[Mead]

If you tell someone "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this month", and you do it, they're proud of you. If you fail, then tell them the next month, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this month," most people would think, "OK, you failed last month, but maybe that'll motivate you more this month." If you fail again, then tell them the next month, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this month", their reaction is most likely going to be "Pff, yeah right. Good luck with that."

As a fat guy that has been off and on losing and regaining weight... I disagree with that.

You obviously hang around the wrong type of people.

 

[EightBitz]

The conflict exists only in your eyes. You are upset that people have it, and you do not. We understand... but honestly, it is starting to sound childish. Most of us are sick of hearing it.

The software is wonderful, and pretty darn usable.. but it needs quite a way to go... and I would rather they do it right, and not screw it up by releasing it to more people before it is ready.

You've stated that you want it released.. I am not sure how harping on it is supposed to help them any.

If you'll look back, you'll see I did stop. Then others kept harping on my post. When Rob asked me to stop, I did. When he asked others to stop, they kept going.

So, here we are now with you completely missing my point, and me seeing no point in correcting you.

 

[Dervish]

Point of order something could be wonderfully usable on only one platform but if the goal is a multi-platform rollout it would not be ready for release.

 

[Mead]

If you'll look back, you'll see I did stop. Then others kept harping on my post. When Rob asked me to stop, I did. When he asked others to stop, they kept going.

So, here we are now with you completely missing my point, and me seeing no point in correcting you.

That's right, blame others for you continuing. You don't have to respond to them, you know? You do it because you choose to. It's just more childishness...

If irritating people was not your goal, using a trollish term like "vaporware" was not the way to go, especially when people know it isn't true... and that team has been hard at work.

 

[Absolute84]

I've been an avid follower of RW since I heard about its conception and I'm as interested now about it as I was when I first saw the kickstarter (and subsequently missed the deadline for).

I've been a spectator of the various comments, complaints and in some cases 'bullshit' which is wheeled out by some people.

How many of those who are complaining are software programmers? If you are not then do you even understand the level of work and/or effort which goes into writing software from scratch and if you are then you should really understand the complexities involved.

LWD from what I can tell do not appear to be a large multi billion pound company (i.e Microsoft, Adobe, Steinberg, Apple, Oracle) who can throw resources ad infinitum into building an application. I find it hugely brave that they are standing firm on their pursuit to ensure it is adequately finished before releasing it.

The other thing which I must get off my chest about the seemingly childish 'throwing-my-toys-out-of-the-cot-behavior' is really, really....bugger me, instead of sitting on the forum getting wound up about RW supposed late appearance, get a life. What did you do before RW not being release became an angst in your existence....play games, go to the pub, read, whatever.

Its Christmas, surely this is the best time to show empathy and understanding.


Rant over....

 

[EightBitz]

That's right, blame others for you continuing. You don't have to respond to them, you know? You do it because you choose to. It's just more childishness...

If irritating people was not your goal, using a trollish term like "vaporware" was not the way to go, especially when people know it isn't true... and that team has been hard at work.

Just like you don't have to respond to me. Yet you are.

 

[Dervish]

this is proving to be a case of mind over matter, as in i don't mind because Eightbitz opinion does not matter to me. Let him call it what he wants its an opinion at this point and not fact beyond dispute.

 

[EightBitz]

For those of you who want to accuse me of being a troll and being demotivating, here's my challenge.

I have a Shadowrun book, 5th edition. I've never played any version of Shadowrun. I've never run any version of Shadowrun. It does interest me, though, and I've read only part of the book. I'm up to the point where it's going to cover combat mechanics.

I now have an idea for a Shadowrun adventure. You'll have to bear with me a bit for some tongue-in-cheek (If you don't want to, that's not my problem. You have the choice to stop reading and walk away.)

It's 2050, and RealmWorks is still not released. Obsidian Portal wants the software so they can design and release their own product. (I have no affiliation with Obsidian Portal. This is a purely fictional scenario.) Mr. Johnson hires the player characters to steal the software from LWD, which is now a subsidiary of one of the larger corporations and has appropriate security and protections.

In order to do this, I have to finish reading the book, go back for another run through and better assimilate the setting and rules. (Not a simple task with Shadowrun.)

I have to flesh out the adventure so it's fun and interesting for the players (not a simple task, given that this group has high expectations).

I have to teach the system to my players.

We have to run through character creation for several players.

I have to schedule the whole thing for a time when I can push our regular GM aside for a one-off while still getting everyone together at the same time for this game.

I won't have the benefit of Hero Lab (due to 5th edition) or Realm Works.

If Realm Works is ready before I get all this done, that pretty much ruins my game as it takes all the fizzle out of my plot.

So here's my challenge: Rob, let's race.

You'll have your own cheering section with a horde of people egging you on to smack me down. You have a development team.

I have a book, a word processor, an idea, some paper, a pen and some dice.

The gauntlet is down. Godspeed.

 

[Erdrix]

Ok, let me get this straight, you are comparing software development to just running an unfamiliar game? Really?

http://youtu.be/qI0RoJz7Tno

 

[fhscholl]

How many of those who are complaining are software programmers? If you are not then do you even understand the level of work and/or effort which goes into writing software from scratch and if you are then you should really understand the complexities involved.

I wouldn't consider myself a software programmer though many probably would. I have contributed to many projects in C++ and python and have been involved with many stages of the SDLC in my career.

That said, IMHO any of the features that are causing serious issues (including cloud syncing) should have been cut from the 1.0 release and added later. This would have made many people happy with having something in hand and taken a large amount of pressure off of LWD and the developers. The obvious question that would raise would be "when will it be added," but telling people an update is coming in 6 months to add further functionality is a lot easier for people to swallow than constantly pushing the initial product release.

 

[EightBitz]

Ok, let me get this straight, you are comparing software development to just running an unfamiliar game? Really?

No. The software is already developed and close to release.

 

[Erdrix]

How about this instead? Back off and let them finish, without having to take the time to respond to your stupid challenge. You want RW faster, then let them work.

 

[EightBitz]

How about this instead? Back off and let them finish, without having to take the time to respond to your stupid challenge. You want RW faster, then let them work.

I'm not expecting them to take the time to respond to the challenge. I'm simply presenting it. Whether they take the time to respond or not is entirely up to them. And if they do, you can complain to them for wasting their time with me.

When I backed off when asked, others kept complaining time or about me. So if you want me to back off, do the same.