Pathfinder 1E: ETA?
 

Is there any update on when we can expect PF 1E to arrive on HLO?

And a follow up question: Is this something that's even being actively worked on right now? If not, is there any guess as to when y'all will start actively working on it?

And a final follow up: If there's no guess as to when you'll start working on it, are there still definite plans to actually make it happen? Or is it relegated to the "maybe, someday, if we have time" category?

Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

I'm sure a lot of PF 1E people would like to try the campaign theater, and it would be beneficial to Lone Wolf to have ongoing revenue from long time customers now that there aren't new data packages for the system.

For our group, we'd need 3pp packages to be live too (community package and spheres), before it would benefit our group.

But just getting PF onto HLO would be a great start.

I think the lack of a response answers your question. I think what we already have is all there will be for PF1. I don't think there is enough interest for Lone Wolf to spend the money to put PF1 on HL Online.

PF1 in HLO is still a future possibility, we haven't announced one way or another.

From a technical perspective, PF1 is an especially complex case compared to bringing a brand new game on board, as all of Starfinder, PF2, and SR6 have been. PF1 has been around FOREVER, and has mountains of content associated with it. Much of this content was developed against an older codebase that has since been upgraded, so we're faced with the choice of either a) bring the old content up to the new technical standard, or b) re-implement lots of old moldy code in the newer codebase to support the old content as-is. Both of these options are time-intensive.

People also have TONS of pre-existing characters that they will want a way to convert/bring over/import. Much of our infrastructure for PF1 and it's content packages predate HLO, in some cased by quite a lot, so we'd be looking at reconciling our old sales system vs the new.

Delivering this all at once is basically a non-starter, as we'd have to go dark for an effective eternity to make that happen. So internally, we've been trying to see if there are viable ways to deliver this monstrosity in meaningful chunks while still making progress toward the overall end goal. Breaking it into chunks introduces it's own complexity and pitfalls, so there's no easy answer.

But... you did, originally! LW had stated that the systems in HLC would be brought across to HLO. I note that this intention isn't in the HLO FAQ anymore. Now there's just a reference to "Classic users will have the option to migrate any content we duplicate in Online." I can still see Rob's HLC/HLO post where he says "Once we have those game systems ported over to Hero Lab Online, new material will come out for both products." I read that as an intention to duplicate HLC system in HLO even though that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
If bringing PF1 across is too difficult, what does that mean for all the other systems?

I suspect that PF1 is now back burned because the ROI is going to be low. No new products are coming out for PF1 so how can they invest the time and money to support it when they won't get much new income from it? I suspect Rob's comment was pre-PF2.

I personally would really like to see PF1 for HLO because that is what I play mostly. But I already own most of the PF1 packages, so they wouldn't get any new money from me and I am already using Starfinder for HLO so the annual maintenance cost would not be "new" income.

Now I would support a kickstarter to hire a contract developer to do the porting...

The old info being translated into the new database/codebase is beginning to look like a hand input job.
That would make the way toward HLO getting PF1 a lot harder if that is the case.

I have HLO for Starfinder, but I bought it for 2 very specific case uses. I was in a Starfinder game that we played just to see what it was like, and I wanted to take a look at HLO. My group was done with Starfinder after 1 session, and I won't be playing PF2 or Shadowrun. I might play Savage Worlds, but I've seen nothing to indicate it's coming to HLO. So once they start charging for server access to HLO I'm done with that, and I have lifetime server access for Realm Works. Which means that if PF1 and/or SWADE don't get ported over to HLO, LoneWolf will not have anything else I'm interested in paying for and will not be getting any more of my money (maybe I'll buy a couple more RW products like the Beastiaries, but even that's not really likely).

This is not said in anger - I understand the difficulty of making these decisions. It's just a fact. Well OK, to be fair, I AM a little angry that once again it seems they've promised something they will end up not delivering.

It IS disappointing. I've happily supported LW for years and years both by spending my money and (mostly) singing their praises. I am sad that I'll likely not have reason to do so any longer.

You'll have to forgive me, I'm a programmer, not a business guy. So I'm not always up to speed on every announcement and post we make on that front. I meant more along the lines of "We have neither announced a release date for PF1 in HLO, nor have we announced that we've decided not to do it."

My main goal here is to give my technical insights as best as I understand them.

Thank you for clarifying this, Joe. Is there a chance one of the business guys will chime in here? I'd really just like to set my expectations appropriately. If there is a good chance PF1 will come to HLO, I'm a "hope springs eternal" guy. If it's really not likely to happen I need to get that into my head and just let it go.