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Importing characters

Oh, if software was really this simple! ;-)

Heh, most software isn't; but JSON is usually the output of almost any well-built service built nowadays and ingestion really isn't that hard. ;-) Of course, that assumes they built it in any kind of recognizable manner. Ed: I'm biased and spoiled though, internally at AWS it's a shit-ton of self-service APIs :-)
 
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HL Classic was used in my campaigns for as long as it's been around. It was so prevalent among my players, if HLC didn't have the item (and I bought into $$$ worth of Pathfinder supplements) the players couldn't have it. But the number one goal was for me to have a repository of everyone's sheets. With .POR files, this was possible.

Today as we play PF2E, I'm less likely to use HLO as it's a standalone tool; I can't import what the players have created. If I updated the player's sheets with XP, items, etc., I could send them their sheets. They were able to immediately import, view the changes, keep notes in the Hero Lab journals, and send it all back.

This isn't about 3rd party anything for me. It's about organization, ease of use, and portability.

In a world where most everything can be saved and imported, this was a backwards step for Lone Wolf Dev and a rather surprising one at that.

Steve

With HLO we envision a completely different model, where there's less annoying bookkeeping like this (emailing files around, dealing with out-of-date files, conflicting versions, etc). You may have seen threads about the upcoming Campaigns feature, which will allow players to join their characters to a GM's game, much like an online multiplayer game.

We are hoping to launch the beta of this very soon, and while it won't cover all of the cases you mentioned above initially, our goal is to build it up such that it erases the need for any such manual drudgery.

None of that is to say that we won't introduce import/export at some point for other reasons, but we are not planning on relying on it to facilitate group play.
 
our goal is to build it up such that it erases the need for any such manual drudgery.

that'll be great if/when it gets released, but in the meantime we're SOL.

i guess the real question is "why was HLO released in such an incomplete state to begin with?"

that's more of a company management issue than a programming one though.
 
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Without the group license I don't expect to use the Campaigns feature. I know that some of my players haven't and won't buy an account. How useful will the feature be if one character isn't in it?
Most of my players sent me their characters via PDF which I then added to my account so I could validate the characters and understand what their capabilities are. This isn't straightforward as the PDF doesn't include all the details needed.
 
that'll be great if/when it gets released, but in the meantime we're SOL.

i guess the real question is "why was HLO released in such an incomplete state to begin with?"

that's more of a company management issue than a programming one though.

I don't know what SOL means.

But the company released the "single-user" capabilities allowing individual character generation first.

Now they are adding the "multi-user" capabilities - via the campaign theatre.

There are more features to come in the future - presumably you wouldn't even want the campaign theatre available until everything that they want to put into the product has already been added? (Since in your eyes even with campaign theatre it would be in an "incomplete state".)
 
SOL = Sh*t Out of Luck.



I'll guess that Hero Lab Online was released incomplete, because it's an evolving product that may never be in a final and finished state... ie., it's constantly being improved.

Also, at the time of release it had enough features done to be a useful tool at that point.

And lastly, Lone Wolf would have revenue coming in to cover their costs, as the product was being improved upon.
 
that'll be great if/when it gets released, but in the meantime we're SOL.

i guess the real question is "why was HLO released in such an incomplete state to begin with?"

that's more of a company management issue than a programming one though.

One short and easy answer is that we're a small company with limited resources, and nearly everything we do is paid for by what we release. Sometimes that means making hard calls, like releasing things before they have all the features we want, or before they have all the polish we'd like. Such is the life of the scrappy, independent developer.

Personally, I'm grateful to everyone who supports us, despite the bumpy road it sometimes is. Your willingness to stick with us through thick and thin is what keeps me and my pups fed, but more importantly, keeps me working on HLO to make it better.
 
The reason HLO was envisioned and released was to have the resources available to be able to do up the Starfinder Ship statitics, which HLC would not have an easy time doing, or even may not be able to do at all. Starfinder was made HLO exclusive.

So now any new license will likely use the App instead of the Program.
 
With HLO we envision a completely different model, where there's less annoying bookkeeping like this (emailing files around, dealing with out-of-date files, conflicting versions, etc).
Oh, I would certainly agree there are far better ways to share instead of ye olde timey ways.

You may have seen threads about the upcoming Campaigns feature, which will allow players to join their characters to a GM's game, much like an online multiplayer game.
I have and very much look forward to it, whenever it's released.

We are hoping to launch the beta of this very soon, and while it won't cover all of the cases you mentioned above initially, our goal is to build it up such that it erases the need for any such manual drudgery.
Which will, undoubtedly, be lovely. My complaint was the lack of the feature now that, while depricated later on by Campaign Theater perhaps, would allow for a continuity of workflow for those migrating from HLC.

None of that is to say that we won't introduce import/export at some point for other reasons, but we are not planning on relying on it to facilitate group play.
Understood, however unfortunate.
I assume Campaign Theater is offered at a separate sub?
 
This isn't straightforward as the PDF doesn't include all the details needed.
Bingo.
Pathfinder 2E. PDF shows stats, not how they were arrived. The complexity of Pathfinder 2E makes it difficult at best to reverse engineer higher level characters only so they could be imported on the GM's side.
 
One short and easy answer is that we're a small company with limited resources, ...
Well understood.

Sometimes that means making hard calls, like releasing things before they have all the features we want, or before they have all the polish we'd like.
It's an unfortunate truth -- no software today is considered complete upon initial release. And sales of that initial release is what allows for continued development.

Hell, beta testers were paid back in the day. Today, it's a privilege to be handed something incomplete. No snark at all, just how it is. :)

Personally, I'm grateful to everyone who supports us, despite the bumpy road it sometimes is. Your willingness to stick with us through thick and thin is what keeps me and my pups fed, but more importantly, keeps me working on HLO to make it better.
We're the early adopters and want to be heard, sure.

Problem here is I spend hours reverse engineering or asking for screen shots of my players' screens as I recreate high level characters created in the same tool. I'm left wondering if someone else has created a different product that does allow for import. And I'm one of the early adopters of Hero Lab Classic saying this.

In this case, we're talking standards of the industry which is beyond mere design or business model. You wouldn't want to retype an entire document for future editing because someone's doc resided in the cloud and couldn't be exported or shared with you.

Nonetheless, I'm aware I may be in the minority and we're not the ones for whom software is designed. That feature request aside and a damn bug that reminds me I can't use a particular character until the LWD team looks at it, I do like the software. I just pray Campaign Theater keeps me with LWD.
 
I wanted to pipe in here that i really like the initial release of the campaign theater and have already started a test campaign to see if it will work for my group (and if it does myself and my whole group will likely be buying individual licenses, unless the group license released before we start in june-ish) and the ability for me to include characters other create into the campaign is excellent, however... not being able to see the sheets of the added characters added is a problem. It makes what would be a really cool feature basically useless.

The ability to fully import characters into the CT is vital and needs to be top of the list. As a gm it does me no good to include characters from other log-ins if i cannot see their stats or apply conditions to them from the CT
 
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