Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Azhrei said:

I can tell you that I'm going to be moving my HL installation into a virtual machine. At some point, LW is going to drop HL Classic (likely not for a few years from now, at the soonest) and when they do, it might not be possible to authorize a license on a new computer. However, if I put it inside a VM, I can always move that VM to a new computer when I replace my old one, even if they do kill their web-based license server. (And this is the main reason I hate centralized license servers. At least LW allows one authorization for the computer to activated and stay activated. This thing where your computer must connect to the vendor's server at least every X number of days is terrible.)

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Based on how old Army Builder is and is still supported I do NOT agree with HLC going away anytime soon. Longer than a few years more like 10+.

If it happens I am pretty sure LW would give plenty of notice of this fact. On top of this I think it would be easy to see this change coming. LW would only do it once they had very few customers using HLC. Again not something that is going to happen for very long time. I would personally not be worried about the desktop app going anywhere for.

ShadowChemosh said:

I would personally not be worried about the desktop app going anywhere for.

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"My number one rule is, 'hope for the best, plan for the worst.'"

Here is the main issue I have with HLO.

I don't see support for custom material like the Pathfinder Pack. There isn't any way to upload custom portrait art or disable the cookie cutter images that are forced on you with your character and race choice. There's also no multiple license provision so instead of giving secondary licenses to my family and group, I've got to pay the full price for the program and expansions for everyone.

LazarX said:

Here is the main issue I have with HLO.

I don't see support for custom material like the Pathfinder Pack. There isn't any way to upload custom portrait art or disable the cookie cutter images that are forced on you with your character and race choice. There's also no multiple license provision so instead of giving secondary licenses to my family and group, I've got to pay the full price for the program and expansions for everyone.

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Just FYI these are all "coming" in the future things. I know it doesn't fix the issue now but I am trying to way patiently also. The no custom content part is just killing me!

LazarX said:

There's also no multiple license provision so instead of giving secondary licenses to my family and group, I've got to pay the full price for the program and expansions for everyone.

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This alone make HLO a non-starter for me.

No way am I purchasing the entire Pathfinder library four times so my wife and daughters can have copies of their characters.

I'll go back to the custom sheets I made for Word.

Artanthos said:

This alone make HLO a non-starter for me.

No way am I purchasing the entire Pathfinder library four times so my wife and daughters can have copies of their characters.

I'll go back to the custom sheets I made for Word.

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The official HLO FAQ says this is NOT how things will work for Pathfinder. Each Pathfinder license will allow an additional device to be logged in. Exactly so that your "Wife" or family member does not need to re-buy everything.

HLO FAQ said:

Q: How will my Hero Lab Classic secondary licenses transfer to Hero Lab Online?
A: In Hero Lab Classic, secondary licenses allow users to access their content on multiple devices. Hero Lab Online will employ a similar concept, allowing simultaneous access to your account from multiple devices (e.g. multiple family members). Migration from Classic to Online will convert your secondary licenses to simultaneous devices in the new environment.

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Where I run my games we don't have internet access at the gaming location at all, HLO just isn't worth the extra cash to us. We don't run starfinder at the moment either so its kind of a waste to us. I can print sheets from the terminal we have set up with Hero Lab at the game location but without internet HLO just doesn't serve our needs. I'd prefer to print out things before going to the game location but with the players not always being consistent its a bit of a bother to do that. Sometimes they will level up, change their mind about a choice they made a couple times before arriving at the game and then I have to change the sheet anyway. I just do everything at the game location when it comes to their sheets now.

RavenX said:

Where I run my games we don't have internet access at the gaming location at all, HLO just isn't worth the extra cash to us. We don't run starfinder at the moment either so its kind of a waste to us. I can print sheets from the terminal we have set up with Hero Lab at the game location but without internet HLO just doesn't serve our needs. I'd prefer to print out things before going to the game location but with the players not always being consistent its a bit of a bother to do that. Sometimes they will level up, change their mind about a choice they made a couple times before arriving at the game and then I have to change the sheet anyway. I just do everything at the game location when it comes to their sheets now.

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Must be a real backwater then. No cell phones either? A night of gaming will use less that 500k of data.

I am really looking forward to the features an online model can offer that a desktop one can't.

Toblakai said:

Must be a real backwater then. No cell phones either? A night of gaming will use less that 500k of data.

I am really looking forward to the features an online model can offer that a desktop one can't.

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Not all of us like, or or able, to be connected online all the time. Anyway, public wi-fi is inherently insecure.

Also, what happens on the game nights where the server is down for maintenance. This is possibly more of a problem in Europe than the U.S. if the servers are taken down during the U.S. day when it will be evenining in Europe.

Farling said:

Not all of us like, or or able, to be connected online all the time. Anyway, public wi-fi is inherently insecure.

Also, what happens on the game nights where the server is down for maintenance. This is possibly more of a problem in Europe than the U.S. if the servers are taken down during the U.S. day when it will be evenining in Europe.

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Public wifi maybe insecure, but that doesn't stop 99.99% of people from using it

The server maintenance windows are problematic. They need to come up with a zero downtime deployment, I suspect this hasn't been a priority yet but should be as the number of users increase (i.e. when Pathfinder is available).

All pretty frustrating when this is what they said previously:

rob said:

The big problem with a purely web-based approach is that everyone *has* to have an internet connection. There are still many gaming venues, especially large Cons, where internet access is unavailable, horribly slow, and/or expensive. So a purely web-based model is hamstrung out of the gate due to this limitation. We're using a hybrid approach with our upcoming Realm Works product, and we're looking at hybrid solutions for future use with Hero Lab as well.

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Farling said:

Not all of us like, or or able, to be connected online all the time. Anyway, public wi-fi is inherently insecure.

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No, it's not.

You're insecure when you're going out of town for a long weekend and your girlfriend chose that weekend to host a big party... and you find out her exes have been invited.

Your phone is unsecure when you're the girlfriend and you find out that your boyfriend has been reading the party texts on your phone...



Of course, it's become common in the media to confuse these two and so they are frequently used interchangeably nowadays. Sort of how "hacker" and "cracker" meant different things previously, but now are treated synonymously.

As someone who thinks words matter, all I can say is, "Sigh."

Fuzzy said:

All pretty frustrating when this is what they said previously:

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A post from 6 years ago. Guess what the world has moved forward in 6 years of time since that post. Grandmothers use iPads and tablets and social media sites and are "always" connected. I honestly can not think of a single person who is somehow not always connected by a smart phone, tablet, or computer to the internet. Not saying it does not exist but I think you have to "try" and not be connected these days actually (yes I get someone is going to say they are not connected but its rare now). In the years to come that will be even less and less people.

Most services are moving to take advantage of the fact that most people are constantly connected to the net through wifi or LTE. More get connected each year and the cell networks are getting faster and faster. Hell I know people that stream 4K movies using 5G from Version using a tablet as a hotspot.

Desktop software and apps for tablets/phones are going away. More and more software is moving to some type of cloud/web based solution.

I am not saying I 100% agree or like the change myself. More and more subscriptions I have to pay for is getting really tiresome. Honestly even the stupid little $2 dollar HLO cost is irksome actually. None of that changes the idea that apps are moving to online only services and LW need to change with the times.

Toblakai said:

Must be a real backwater then. No cell phones either? A night of gaming will use less that 500k of data.

I am really looking forward to the features an online model can offer that a desktop one can't.

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I live out in the countryside. I have farm land all around me. And I'm lucky if the 30 mbps internet I get at home is running at 3 mbps on a given night. What the cable company promised and delivered... two very separate things. Verizon is no better. Both sides talk big on internet out here and deliver nothing, we don't even have fios and until the city actually sues them over it, we won't see it anytime soon.

To say its a backwater is an understatement. The store we game at is kind of in the ghetto. Its a nice store, but its also the kind of place you can't have nice things at. I had installed a screw mounted pencil sharpener in the place and a week later it was gone. Someone setup a dedicated computer for people to use for printing sheets for RPGs, less than a month later it was found stripped of internal components. And there are no cell phone towers near the place, so we don't even get a signal in the place when we game there. However, it is the closest place to where I live and doesn't involve an hour long drive to a place with internet access and none of my players want to spend more on gas (or pay road tolls) to game where there is internet. We take our own stuff and it comes home with us. We have a dedicated computer and printer we bring just to print sheets. The store is so ghetto we build our own terrain and it comes home with us. The terrain pieces in the store get broken all the time by kids who hang out up there and have nothing to do with their time.

RavenX said:

To say its a backwater is an understatement. The store we game at is kind of in the ghetto. Its a nice store, but its also the kind of place you can't have nice things at. I had installed a screw mounted pencil sharpener in the place and a week later it was gone. Someone setup a dedicated computer for people to use for printing sheets for RPGs, less than a month later it was found stripped of internal components. And there are no cell phone towers near the place, so we don't even get a signal in the place when we game there. However, it is the closest place to where I live and doesn't involve an hour long drive to a place with internet access and none of my players want to spend more on gas (or pay road tolls) to game where there is internet. We take our own stuff and it comes home with us. We have a dedicated computer and printer we bring just to print sheets. The store is so ghetto we build our own terrain and it comes home with us. The terrain pieces in the store get broken all the time by kids who hang out up there and have nothing to do with their time.

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Ugg.. I'm sorry for you, I don't know how I could live without d20pfsrd.com during a gaming session

I guess it re-enforces GM fiat though.

I'm a brand new Hero Lab user for Pathfinder. If Starfinder were supported, I'd have paid for that too. What I won't ever pay for or use is an online service. I want to use what I've paid for any time and any place I want, without being subject to external forces. With an online service, you're subject to:

1. internet connectivity between you and the servers. Not just existence of a wi-fi connection or Ethernet jack in whatever place you're playing, but also things like a cable modem experiencing one of the many unexpected outages cable companies are prone to in the middle of a game session.
2. The availability of the servers. There are posts here about planned outages for maintenance, and it's only a matter of time before there's a significant unplanned outage due to a bug. Lone Wolf is a small company in a small niche market--they obviously can't manage the uptime of Amazon or Google, and it would be unfair to expect them to.
3. The whim of the company. They can simply delete anyone's account whenever they feel like it. Sure, it would be crazy for them to do so, and I have no reason to think they would now, but who knows what will happen in the future?

khagler said:

I'm a brand new Hero Lab user for Pathfinder. If Starfinder were supported, I'd have paid for that too. What I won't ever pay for or use is an online service. I want to use what I've paid for any time and any place I want, without being subject to external forces. With an online service, you're subject to:

1. internet connectivity between you and the servers. Not just existence of a wi-fi connection or Ethernet jack in whatever place you're playing, but also things like a cable modem experiencing one of the many unexpected outages cable companies are prone to in the middle of a game session.
2. The availability of the servers. There are posts here about planned outages for maintenance, and it's only a matter of time before there's a significant unplanned outage due to a bug. Lone Wolf is a small company in a small niche market--they obviously can't manage the uptime of Amazon or Google, and it would be unfair to expect them to.
3. The whim of the company. They can simply delete anyone's account whenever they feel like it. Sure, it would be crazy for them to do so, and I have no reason to think they would now, but who knows what will happen in the future?

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Welcome to the 20th century!

Point 3 is also true of HLC, they can shut down the license server anytime..

Toblakai said:

Point 3 is also true of HLC, they can shut down the license server anytime..

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And when they do, some enterprising individual will hack the code and remove the requirement for a license. It's not very difficult...

Which is undoubtedly one of the motivating factors for moving to a monthly subscription plan. Once you no longer have the program or data stored on your own device, they can control it and do whatever they want with it at any time.

(I had written a couple paragraphs about how free software with subscriptions for updates and a "features-for-hire" service are the only sustainable model in the long term because it's the only one that puts the interest of customers first, but it was off topic so I removed it.)

Toblakai said:

Welcome to the 20th century!

Point 3 is also true of HLC, they can shut down the license server anytime..

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It's actually not, because shutting down the license server wouldn't have any effect on your ability to use the software and data you've already paid for and downloaded.

Two other issues, if the licensing server dies, existing installs dont suddenly stop working, and offline software isnt subject to a host of outside issues (server maintenance, ISP issues, or general wifi/network issues). Having an offline option means that I can play at GenCon. Lets see HLO work at GenCon 2018 (not trying to insult LW, just a fact). Having software as a service (ie subscription) is an obnoxious approach. I dont want to pay monthly for something, because odds are in the long term I will be paying 2 or 3 times more for the same software if I payed up front.