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- The Lone Wolf Development Team
RealmWorks Database Format Documentation
- Thread starter AutoDMC
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Fair enough. I'm not saying my experiences are statistically significant. But to extend your observation, I've found that the very few people who are vocal are people who have strong opinions either way. They really like something, or they really dislike something. I've seen more comments about not being able to print, and few if any comments about "I LOVE Realm Works!"
One could extrapolate that the few people expressing their opinions is artificially skewed toward those whose opinions are strong, not toward those whose opinions are favorable vs. unfavorable. Strong opinions can exist on either side.
MNBlockHead
Well-known member
@EightBitz, I think that there may be some oberver's bias here, because I'm not seeing greater negative vs. positive posts. Though that, of course, depends on how you define "negative" or "positive." I think that the most common posts are requests for new or tweaked features. These can be perceived negatively, but I think most are made by people, who even if they don't preface "I love RW, but" on every feature-request are heavy users who are greatly invested in the software (far beyond the purchase price). I love RW but when I'm posting about something I would like to see (calendars) or something I would like to see working differently (sync), I generally don't bother including a lot of fluff.
You are not going to see a lot of "I love RW" posts because this isn't a review site. What is telling, however, is that when a newer user posts frustrations how many responses they get encouraging them to stick with it because it is a great program. Just the fact that a lot of people take the time to encourage and help a new user indicates a positive attitude about it.
When folks are frustrated and upset they are more likely to post—that's just the reality of the Internet. Even for fans, we are more likely to post when we have an issue or could use some advice. It is easy for such posts to come across as negative. If I were evaluating a software product by the posts on its support forum, I would not given an individual complaint a lot of weight but would note the volume of the concern. I'm more interested in how the company and other users respond.
I do give a LOT of weight to program that has an active user community who takes the time to help and encourage new users. Not only because I can take advantage of that help and good will but it shows that the software must be doing something right for people to invest that amount of time and good will to give free support and tips to other users.
You are not going to see a lot of "I love RW" posts because this isn't a review site. What is telling, however, is that when a newer user posts frustrations how many responses they get encouraging them to stick with it because it is a great program. Just the fact that a lot of people take the time to encourage and help a new user indicates a positive attitude about it.
When folks are frustrated and upset they are more likely to post—that's just the reality of the Internet. Even for fans, we are more likely to post when we have an issue or could use some advice. It is easy for such posts to come across as negative. If I were evaluating a software product by the posts on its support forum, I would not given an individual complaint a lot of weight but would note the volume of the concern. I'm more interested in how the company and other users respond.
I do give a LOT of weight to program that has an active user community who takes the time to help and encourage new users. Not only because I can take advantage of that help and good will but it shows that the software must be doing something right for people to invest that amount of time and good will to give free support and tips to other users.
I'm talking about other gaming forums where people ask about RPG software: VTTs or character generators or campaign management software. Other people offer their suggestions with others seconding and thirding. Then I'll throw in Realm Works, because no one else ever does, and rarely does anyone even second, let alone third. The reason is usually printing.
Again, I'm not claiming statistically significant results here. But the claim that people only comment when frustrated is not supported in my experience.
Again, I'm not claiming statistically significant results here. But the claim that people only comment when frustrated is not supported in my experience.
MaxSupernova
Well-known member
I try to talk up Realm Works in other places too, and I've had the "What? No printing?" response from people investigating as well.
Sorry I don't use forums much this was suppose to be a quote but I dunno how to do it lol. So, there ya go, told ya I'm not technically proficient lol.
I do cry foul at the statement above. This survey was anything but disingenuous. We had over 1000 Realm Works users (and prospective users) participate. Print to PDF was squarely in the middle of the results, and simple export and import via XML was near the bottom. To see the full announcement and conversation, head here. There were some additional questions that Rob was happy to answer in that thread.
It sounds like some sort of export/printing is important to you, but that doesn't make it important to every Realm Works user. Frustration that your top feature request wasn't the most important for everyone does not make it okay to accuse us of misleading our customers in any way. Lone Wolf has been in business for over 20 years, and we couldn't have lasted this long in this industry and built up a loyal user base by lying to our customers.
You're welcome to debate and even disagree with our business decisions here on our forums, but spreading misinformation will be called out (either in a post like this or a PM). I encourage you to read our forum rules, and feel free to PM me directly if you have any questions.[/QUOTE]
For me this assessment was based on the number of threads alone I've seen in this forums, which you are correct could be a vocal but low number of users. But more importantly, the just sheer number of people who I game with and talk to on other forums with don't even consider this product because of what they consider a lack of that basic feature. Honestly, this was just my perception of things as I have been talking to people and seeing them now. However that is anecdotal evidence therefor is not as scientific as a survey... I guess my point is that people who were turning off by this one issue probably didn't participate in the survey and would otherwise be your customers. I didn't mean to accuse and that's why I added the qualifiers I think and so on. I don't think the survey is representative of the marketplace atm... I don't think it's purposeful on your part but I still don't think it is. That however will be the final time I mention it and I'm sorry to argue. Copyright was brought up in this discussion and I want to know how a program like Fantasy Grounds seems to have the same digital distribution deals with the same companies as Hero Lab so I assume RW as well, however please correct me if I'm wrong, yet are not breaking copyright law or losing their deals due to an easy export feature of everything from character sheets to rulesets.... So, I guess I'm asking if possible for a little clarification on how it's okay for them but not for RW and why if copyright is indeed the concern.
I do cry foul at the statement above. This survey was anything but disingenuous. We had over 1000 Realm Works users (and prospective users) participate. Print to PDF was squarely in the middle of the results, and simple export and import via XML was near the bottom. To see the full announcement and conversation, head here. There were some additional questions that Rob was happy to answer in that thread.
It sounds like some sort of export/printing is important to you, but that doesn't make it important to every Realm Works user. Frustration that your top feature request wasn't the most important for everyone does not make it okay to accuse us of misleading our customers in any way. Lone Wolf has been in business for over 20 years, and we couldn't have lasted this long in this industry and built up a loyal user base by lying to our customers.
You're welcome to debate and even disagree with our business decisions here on our forums, but spreading misinformation will be called out (either in a post like this or a PM). I encourage you to read our forum rules, and feel free to PM me directly if you have any questions.[/QUOTE]
For me this assessment was based on the number of threads alone I've seen in this forums, which you are correct could be a vocal but low number of users. But more importantly, the just sheer number of people who I game with and talk to on other forums with don't even consider this product because of what they consider a lack of that basic feature. Honestly, this was just my perception of things as I have been talking to people and seeing them now. However that is anecdotal evidence therefor is not as scientific as a survey... I guess my point is that people who were turning off by this one issue probably didn't participate in the survey and would otherwise be your customers. I didn't mean to accuse and that's why I added the qualifiers I think and so on. I don't think the survey is representative of the marketplace atm... I don't think it's purposeful on your part but I still don't think it is. That however will be the final time I mention it and I'm sorry to argue. Copyright was brought up in this discussion and I want to know how a program like Fantasy Grounds seems to have the same digital distribution deals with the same companies as Hero Lab so I assume RW as well, however please correct me if I'm wrong, yet are not breaking copyright law or losing their deals due to an easy export feature of everything from character sheets to rulesets.... So, I guess I'm asking if possible for a little clarification on how it's okay for them but not for RW and why if copyright is indeed the concern.
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Oh one more thing to Liz. This program is awesome... it is super not useful to me right now but I go out of my way to use it in hopes I can build an actual like worlds... I will keep it although I think I'll be looking for a refund on my two player editions and will email about that soon. Thank you. Yeah I honestly was hoping to real time reveal information and things the characters learn as they learn them on the sheet and dice roll with custom skinned dice but I think that's probably a fantasy in at least the near term so I'll use FG for actual gameplay and this as a reference archive... ugh the double typing though lol
If I'm reading this correctly, many (most?) of the people you've spoken with about Realm Works won't use it because it doesn't have a feature they haven't told Lone Wolf is critical to them? The single most helpful thing you could do in this situation (for both them, and for Rob), is to have them contact Lone Wolf either directly or through the Feature Request forum and identify the missing feature they feel is responsible for preventing their purchase of Realm Works - along with the fact that they did not participate in the survey. It won't shift priority away from the Content Market, but it could have an impact on second- or third- tier feature prioritization.
As someone noted earlier... when there are threads about software RW rarely gets a mention and if it does it's never more than like a few people... a small margin of the discussion... sure I'll link them to the website but again no one ever seems to make it lol cause they can't use the tools and data they already have for their campaign... it's madness imo lol. Top three questions I personally get about it before people say they aren't interested are does it import xml... does it output xml... does it allow my friends to add to the campaign... oddly they just assume there would be a print until it's pointed out most of the time... That's just my experience and again is anecdotal I really think that explains FG's forums population (much higher) vs these as they have go with a more open source build. Although achieving different goals they still have the same exact thing regarding a store and modules.... so I really ask the OPs again how can they do it but it's somehow going to hurt deals with RW... even though they have the same deals with companies seemingly as hero labs.... again correct me if I'm wrong.
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Before answering, I’m going to clarify the language used in this thread by differentiating between “copyright” and “intellectual property”. To be clear, I’m not an expert on this stuff (we have a lawyer on retainer to help us navigate the legal issues when necessary), but this clarification is important.
- Copyright is the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of the author or creator and for a period of 70 years after his or her death within the U.S.
- Intellectual Property is property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks.
Your two questions appear to be the following:
- Why can users export characters and character creation details (like spell/ability descriptions) from tools like Hero Lab and Fantasy Grounds if it’s a publisher’s IP?
- If publishers are fine with exporting characters and character creation details, why would they have a problem with exporting content through Realm Works?
Realm Works is very different from Hero Lab. Whereas Hero Lab is mostly game mechanics, the Realm Works Content Market will sell rules content, campaign worlds, adventures, and similar intellectual property. This material, if exported, could be used by some people in place of the official books because of the way it is presented and compiled – it’s essentially the entire book reorganized, augmented with things like plot diagrams and map pins, fully indexed, and extensively cross-linked.
As an example, we sell the Rise of the Runelords encounters through Hero Lab. These encounters include all of the monsters & NPCs present throughout the official Pathfinder Adventure Path. Someone could technically print all of the monsters & NPCs to PDF and put them on their website. However, they’re not that valuable by themselves, because you don’t know the story details (the context) behind their character sheets.
Now imagine we sold Rise of the Runelords in Realm Works, and that we had some sort of print to PDF feature. While it might not be organized the same way as the official PDF or printed book, suddenly someone could print the Rise of the Runelords story, put it on their website, and anyone could grab it for free. You can imagine that Paizo (the publisher behind Pathfinder) would not be very pleased with us, especially since they’re still selling Rise of the Runelords. Angering one of our partner companies would not be a good business move for us.
I hope this makes it clear that the content exported or printed from Hero Lab is fundamentally different from the content that could potentially be exported or printed from Realm Works, and so it really cannot be compared.
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@azomboid, you’ve also indicated throughout this thread that PDFs can be easily pirated, and suggested that we shouldn’t try to protect against it. Simply stated, we will be doing all we can to protect our partners’ IP. Let me explain our rationale a little bit more below.
We’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but Paizo goes to great lengths to police pirating of their PDFs, and so do many other companies. This is an absolute necessity, as I’ll explain in a moment. The realities of piracy make publishers very sensitive to the subject. We’re well aware that there are known limits as to what security can be implemented through PDFs, and publishers are actually looking to achieve significantly greater protection through Realm Works’ digital sharing. Your contention that PDFs are readily shared neglects to consider that publishers want the next solution to be an improvement – not the status quo.
Unfortunately, piracy is a big problem in our industry and it has a dramatic impact on the bottom-line and financial viability for virtually any company who offers their products digitally. We experienced piracy ourselves shortly after the company got started. Almost 15 years ago, we found out the DRM we originally used within our Army Builder product had been hacked. Because that hacked version was readily available, it turns out nearly 80% of our user base was using a pirated copy (based on metrics we instituted within the product to determine our exposure). That was 15 years ago, when the world wasn’t as plugged into the internet as it is now, so it’s doubtful that consumer attitudes (i.e. those numbers) have improved over time.
This experience speaks to the general philosophy of many gamers in our industry – if they can get it for free, they will. Once we implemented a new DRM mechanism, our sales tripled, which clearly showed that people wanted the product and were willing to pay for it – but only if they couldn’t get it for free. It’s safe to say that without the financial success of Army Builder, we wouldn’t have had the resources to develop Hero Lab, and, without the DRM we now use, it’s unlikely that publishers would have trusted their IP with us.
This experience has also made us keenly aware of the need to secure the intellectual property of not just ourselves, but also the publishers we partner with. That’s one of the reasons our partners have trusted us over the years, and why they’re willing to pursue partnering with us for Realm Works. An important goal with Realm Works is to improve content security for publishers, which will increase their sales and ultimately their ability to put out more and better material than they already do. Failing to do our utmost to protect their IP would represent an acceptance of the status quo, squander an opportunity to improve the financial health of the industry, and fail to put ourselves in the strongest position possible to court publishers. As Rob has mentioned in the past, Realm Works’ financial success relies on the Content Market, which centers on the adventures, campaign settings, and other material from publishers. We would be risking the product’s long-term viability by making choices that don’t take the needs of these key partners into consideration. That’s why we’ve chosen the path we have.
We’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but Paizo goes to great lengths to police pirating of their PDFs, and so do many other companies. This is an absolute necessity, as I’ll explain in a moment. The realities of piracy make publishers very sensitive to the subject. We’re well aware that there are known limits as to what security can be implemented through PDFs, and publishers are actually looking to achieve significantly greater protection through Realm Works’ digital sharing. Your contention that PDFs are readily shared neglects to consider that publishers want the next solution to be an improvement – not the status quo.
Unfortunately, piracy is a big problem in our industry and it has a dramatic impact on the bottom-line and financial viability for virtually any company who offers their products digitally. We experienced piracy ourselves shortly after the company got started. Almost 15 years ago, we found out the DRM we originally used within our Army Builder product had been hacked. Because that hacked version was readily available, it turns out nearly 80% of our user base was using a pirated copy (based on metrics we instituted within the product to determine our exposure). That was 15 years ago, when the world wasn’t as plugged into the internet as it is now, so it’s doubtful that consumer attitudes (i.e. those numbers) have improved over time.
This experience speaks to the general philosophy of many gamers in our industry – if they can get it for free, they will. Once we implemented a new DRM mechanism, our sales tripled, which clearly showed that people wanted the product and were willing to pay for it – but only if they couldn’t get it for free. It’s safe to say that without the financial success of Army Builder, we wouldn’t have had the resources to develop Hero Lab, and, without the DRM we now use, it’s unlikely that publishers would have trusted their IP with us.
This experience has also made us keenly aware of the need to secure the intellectual property of not just ourselves, but also the publishers we partner with. That’s one of the reasons our partners have trusted us over the years, and why they’re willing to pursue partnering with us for Realm Works. An important goal with Realm Works is to improve content security for publishers, which will increase their sales and ultimately their ability to put out more and better material than they already do. Failing to do our utmost to protect their IP would represent an acceptance of the status quo, squander an opportunity to improve the financial health of the industry, and fail to put ourselves in the strongest position possible to court publishers. As Rob has mentioned in the past, Realm Works’ financial success relies on the Content Market, which centers on the adventures, campaign settings, and other material from publishers. We would be risking the product’s long-term viability by making choices that don’t take the needs of these key partners into consideration. That’s why we’ve chosen the path we have.
*sigh* This is why we can't have nice things ...
I remember recommending Hero Lab and RealmWorks to a friend, and he was asking me questions about how the licensing works. He and I have both done many rebuilds, and we've been burned on not being able to reinstall software we've legitimately purchased. I told him that your licensing model for both was superb. I've done many rebuilds and license transfers since I've purchased Hero Lab, and I've never been left out in the cold. Sometimes, I've had to wait a day or two, but that was the worst of it.
When publishers look for improvements, I only hope they keep in mind a balance between protecting their IP and respecting their customer base. I know this isn't on you guys. It's just a general comment.
One of my coworkers is a musician, and he once bought a certain brand of digital recorder to record his live gigs. When he tried to copy those digital recordings to his computer for archiving and processing, the device would not let him, because of copy controls ... even though it was his own, original stuff that he recorded. And that's just ridiculous.
I understand companies wanting to protect their IP, and I greatly respect when companies do it in a way that still respects their customers, but some people lose sight of that, and that's a shame.
I'll give the content market a chance. Once. And if it's too restrictive on how I can use the content I have paid for, I won't buy any more. LWD needs to get it right for both the publishers and the users. Or they need to figure out how to sustain themselves on cloud subscriptions alone....
Thank you very much for the clarification. Let me begin by saying this did clear up a few things in my mind and again saying thank you. So, I guess it's been said before but what stops them from simply using other methods... screenshot the module... type it out... stuff that we know already happens on cases with our favorite games. Secondly, if it's a PDF I suppose one could say yes they could pirate it but we should encourage strong drm... well I agree with the drm part as far as watermarks or another measure goes but the lack of access makes combining rw with other tools difficult at best. Frankly it does not function as it was said it wasn't intended to do as a VTT... so it's another whole program I need open during the game. (that's just me ofcourse sorry bit of a rant) Lastly, while I mostly agree with your points about FG one thing stuck out to me and that was about rulesets... The Edge of the Empire ruleset on FG is pretty good for a v3.0 that one guy made. It has the entire core book but when you go to read about an item it says refer to page so and so for description.... This method has been openly used on the official FFG (a parent company) forums for a long time now. It seems to be completely fine with them because they remove other IP infringing links. So, if that's okay, that puts the onus on the person as it should be not to steal... and if they do and publish infringing then a lawsuit could be filed against them as the law provides. So, I guess my question is two fold about the last point. One. Will the marketplace have the ability to share character sheets and other mechanics information... ie npc's and the like with a refer to pg# in book so and so to share? So, not taking from the book but simply filling out the free published online character sheet with references to the book. Secondly, is there anyway to just give us the ability to export certain features... Places (w/maps) and characters (w/maps) but not give us the ability to export stuff like story events and timelines... that would at least let the people who run parrellel games with friends and share resources start at least building a community in the non supported games. Again, I'd like to thank you for the frank and honest discussion of this issue.
Well, basically it comes down to the owners of the data.
LWD can't do much more than suggest solutions and hope they and the owner can find a compromise that they are both happy with.
LWD is of course bound by the agreement they make with the owner.
So basically we should petition the owner of our favourite game/world/movie to allow a huge degree of sharing of their content in RW - and not LWD.
LWD can't do much more than suggest solutions and hope they and the owner can find a compromise that they are both happy with.
LWD is of course bound by the agreement they make with the owner.
So basically we should petition the owner of our favourite game/world/movie to allow a huge degree of sharing of their content in RW - and not LWD.
Dark Lord Galen
Well-known member
Yep, stupid people doing stupid things means we all suffer for it. Its funny how nature doesn't seem to have this same rule. If your "stupid" your lunch.
## Here Here and Agreed! Like Eightbitz, HL has migrated across multiple laptop upgrades at my table as well. And while their has been the occasional bump in the road for incompatibilities of *.user files, the licensing has NEVER been an issue. In fact if everything else were to operate as seamlessly there would be a lot less to post about.
Well said
My view as well.
Nothing prevents it. Azomboid, it is not LWD task to police "less than honest" people on there nefarious ways, that is simply unrealistic. As a small company LWD would be prudent in identifying those that use their product in such ways and hand them over to the owners of that IP and their armies of lawyers. Just as Piazo, Drivethru RPG, and many others already do via the watermarks and other warning mechanisms they put into place.
I suspect you know that already though. So, I really have a hard time trying to understand what it is you hope to gain by your continued reverbing of ways and means the masses choose to circumvent the protections in place for those that have rightly earned it by their creativity and willingness to share with all of us?
I really don't get this statement. IN GENERAL (excluding debated sub features and the survey induced priority need) Realm Works functions EXACTLY as described, as a game management tool. I don't know if the latter half of your post was an inadvertent mis-typing, but it is accurate. RW "wasn't {EVER} intended to be a VTT." And there is nothing saying that RW (LWD) may not take that approach. IT is dependent on the owner of the IP as well. You can't judge LWD on their methods approach until seen, that is simply unreasonable.
Spot on Vargr... remember azomboid, (and any that support his perspective) LWD is not the owner of the IP in this case.
I want just my data to be fully accessible and so on. Bought stuff - don't care
Once your data gets co-mingled with purchased content, where does the line get drawn? That's where all this gets mighty complicated.
Let's say you import some purchased content in with your own, then let's say you go in and heavily modify some of that purchased content, making it 90% your own creation. Is it yours? Or not? We could do things simply and make it an all-or-nothing thing, but lots of folks aren't going to like that. They want the parts they created to be their own.
But what about a snippet that started out as purchased content and only had one word changed? Or 5 words? Or whatever threshold you want to pick? Now extend this question to every other type of content within RW and the minor to major changes that users will be able to make to purchased content. It all gets very blurry very quickly.
That's the real problem that has to be solved to do this "right". And it's not something that can be done easily.
Yes. As long as the contents of the characters are well within the bounds of commonly held views on fair use, there won't be any problems. Including references to page numbers in rulebooks is generally considered to be fair use, so that shouldn't be an issue.
That gets extremely difficult. Why? Because the views of PublisherA won't necessarily match the views of PublisherB regarding what is/isn't acceptable. In addition, for a game like Star Wars, the contents of certain maps may actually be closely held IP, while others aren't. Then there's the blurring that can arise between what's a map and what's a picture. You could easily include a picture of Han Solo within a smart image. So if we made maps always safe to share, it could readily be abused by someone who tried to work around the framework we put into place.
The bottom line is that each distinct element may or may not be considered IP, whether it's story, timeline, picture, map, or whatever. That makes the entire subject of sharing material very murky, and different publishers will often have different views on what is/isn't reasonable to share - with Disney generally being one of the more stringent. As I indicated above, it all boils down what is generally considered to be fair use. Anything that ventures outside that "safe zone" will run the risk of receiving a take-down notice from the publisher, which we would be obliged to honor.
For more information on fair use, which is itself a somewhat grey area of law with regards to interpretation, I recommend starting with a Google search. There are numerous thoughts on the subject from qualified legal sources that will probably be very enlightening. The question of what is/isn't fair use is not one we'll be actively getting involved in, but we will absolutely be responsive when a publisher claims use of their IP falls outside of fair use. So it's best that you and anyone else interested in the subject understand it before running afoul of it.
Important Note: For anyone worried about the ability to run a private game for their gaming group with Realm Works, that should never be a problem. The intent of the publisher when selling RPG material is that the GM be able to share that information with his players. So entering and revealing content to players over the course of a game is perfectly legitimate - it's what are already expected to do today. The issue arises when IP is shared beyond the scope of a gaming group. That's what @azomboid is seeking for us to support, and that's where we will side with the publisher by honoring any take-down notice we receive if users overstep the limits of what the publisher considers acceptable.
Perhaps a export without img or just a way to export custom sheet rules? That way everyone is kinda on the same page when the marketplace does come. Just a thought if it's not possible I understand. So does that mean the strategy will indeed be to simply police to market with companies serving take down requests? I advocated for this in a earlier post I think. I'm extremely happy with the mechanics and character sheet public domain answer. However I must point out is what you said I'm seeking you to support is simply a not true of my stance. It's not that you should simply let people infringe on peoples IP but something a little less stringent like other programs... I know we are waiting on the marketplace and I am really hoping that solves it. I just think some of this goes too far. I've never once said oh go pirate this or that. I'm just trying to point out the futility in it in hopes of a more liberal approach taken to some of, if not all of the data but I'd be happy with some. I assume I'll settle for little to no access outside of this portal. Honestly other than my inablilty to use this with a VTT I love this program in like every way. If this partnered with FG or somehow they made like and import export licesnse directly to it or something... omg I'd cry lol.