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Silveras
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Old January 26th, 2017, 10:36 AM
The latest Pathfinder for HeroLab has content from Frog God Games for their Razor Coast release. Razor Coast included release on Realm Works as a stretch goal in the Kickstarter, which was reached.

I assume that at least some of the reasons why the Razor Coast content in HeroLab is now available for purchase is in support of the integration.

However, as reported in the HeroLab Pathfinder forum, it appears that those who have the files directly from Frog God Games have a duplication issue with content in the files that are part of the Pathfinder HeroLab package.

I'm mentioning this here in case there is a relationship between the appearance of the HeroLab content and the expected release of the Realm Works content.

As it stands right now for HeroLab, I have a separate copy of the Pathfinder game system in which I have loaded multiple sets of files for Lost Lands content received from Frog God Games as part of various kickstarters.

The sources in the Configure Hero screen show the integrated packages for Razor Coast as disabled, as I have not purchased them from LWD.

Assuming that the core Pathfinder game system will launch for content in the Razor Coast Realm, this will not work for me (and, presumably, for other backers of the Kickstarter(s)). I would need Realm Works to launch HeroLab with a different game system than the default Pathfinder -- the one with my Lost Lands content.
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rob
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Old February 11th, 2017, 03:26 AM
All of the Hero Lab portfolios included with Razor Coast are constructed using the HL data package that was recently released and not the files sold by Frog God. The files from Frog God had a long list of issues and were no longer being maintained, so we had to replace them to ensure that quality data files existed to support the material in RW.

If you are using a different set of data files and a different game system definition, the included HL portfolios will simply not work for you. And there is no way to convert anything, as the portfolios have been created based on completely different data files.

You will need to replace the portfolio in each NPC and encounter with the appropriate portfolio from the files you received from Frog God. If no portfolio exists for a particular encounter, you would need to create it yourself based on the Frog God data files.

I realize this isn't the news you were hoping to hear, but the Frog God files were not a viable option due to all the issues.
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Silveras
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Old February 11th, 2017, 08:11 AM
A couple of updates for things after the initial post:

HeroLab does not open portfolios from variant gamesystems correctly. In my testing, a portfolio created using a copied Pathfinder variant still opens in the core Pathfinder when launched directly (both from the OS by double-clicking on the file, or from RealmWorks to edit the content). I have reported this, and it seems to be acknowledged as a bug.

I have also raised the issue of the support files with Frog God Games. They are even smaller than LWD, and don't have anyone "on staff" conversant with the HeroLab issues.. so sympathy may be all we can get there.

Ongoing, the issue I see is that a common practice among HeroLab users is to create copies of the game system in order to support different default configurations of sourcebooks for new characters (among other reasons, such as having user-created files that replace standard content). It seems to me that if HeroLab support in Realm Works' content is going to created with the expectation of using the unmodified Game System, that strategy is no longer viable, or the "advanced" users of HeroLab will not find Realm Works as useful as they (we) should.
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rob
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Old February 11th, 2017, 02:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
HeroLab does not open portfolios from variant gamesystems correctly. In my testing, a portfolio created using a copied Pathfinder variant still opens in the core Pathfinder when launched directly (both from the OS by double-clicking on the file, or from RealmWorks to edit the content). I have reported this, and it seems to be acknowledged as a bug.
That's something for the HL team to resolve. It sounds like they are on it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
I have also raised the issue of the support files with Frog God Games. They are even smaller than LWD, and don't have anyone "on staff" conversant with the HeroLab issues.. so sympathy may be all we can get there.
That's exactly why we ended up taking the files on ourselves. Frog God wasn't in a place where they could reasonably handle it themselves. Unfortunately, by doing it ourselves, the files are now independent.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
Ongoing, the issue I see is that a common practice among HeroLab users is to create copies of the game system in order to support different default configurations of sourcebooks for new characters (among other reasons, such as having user-created files that replace standard content). It seems to me that if HeroLab support in Realm Works' content is going to created with the expectation of using the unmodified Game System, that strategy is no longer viable, or the "advanced" users of HeroLab will not find Realm Works as useful as they (we) should.
This is something that none of us thought of. And it's apparently nothing the Beta team has thought to try, either. There is currently no good way to handle this, and the only way I can think of to solve it right now would entail unpleasant changes to both RW and HL. I'll have to talk to Colen about this, but it's not likely we'll solve it before the CM launch.
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Farling
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Old February 11th, 2017, 02:28 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
Ongoing, the issue I see is that a common practice among HeroLab users is to create copies of the game system in order to support different default configurations of sourcebooks for new characters (among other reasons, such as having user-created files that replace standard content). It seems to me that if HeroLab support in Realm Works' content is going to created with the expectation of using the unmodified Game System, that strategy is no longer viable, or the "advanced" users of HeroLab will not find Realm Works as useful as they (we) should.
The problem is that we can't be sure how many GMs really take this approach, to know how significant a problem it might be.
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Parody
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Old February 11th, 2017, 03:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Silveras View Post
Ongoing, the issue I see is that a common practice among HeroLab users is to create copies of the game system in order to support different default configurations of sourcebooks for new characters (among other reasons, such as having user-created files that replace standard content).
Huh. Never thought about doing that, but I've never tried to replace standard system content items either. I do occasionally use template portfolios (with sources configured but nothing else) for character creation with identical setups.

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AEIOU
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Old February 11th, 2017, 04:21 PM
My bigger concern is whether the LWD content for Razor Coast will be usable within the Lost Lands setting from FGG. The deities, some races and some classes are non-standard. Plus there are many items and spells that have been added. Is LWD going to maintain canon? If not, it's basically useless even if it is now consistent and "up-to-date".

The same goes for all other FGG releases including The Blight which are all integrated within the LL setting. It needs to mesh with Razor Coast and all other FGG content.
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rob
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Old February 11th, 2017, 04:41 PM
The data files we did are for RAZOR COAST - not the Lost Lands nor anything else FGG has created. We certainly aren't recreating everything from FGG. The files from us are independent of everything else that FGG has done, so I'm not aware of any reason why they can't be used together. There may be a few things duplicated between the two sets of data files (I honestly don't know), but they are independent of each other, so they should co-exist - so you to choose which version you want of something that happens to be duplicated. As such, I believe your concerns are non-applicable to the actual situation.
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kbs666
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Old February 11th, 2017, 04:46 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by AEIOU View Post
My bigger concern is whether the LWD content for Razor Coast will be usable within the Lost Lands setting from FGG. The deities, some races and some classes are non-standard. Plus there are many items and spells that have been added. Is LWD going to maintain canon? If not, it's basically useless even if it is now consistent and "up-to-date".

The same goes for all other FGG releases including The Blight which are all integrated within the LL setting. It needs to mesh with Razor Coast and all other FGG content.
This should be where RW beats PDF's. You buy a setting and it includes the HL file(s) for that setting. Somewhere during the import process you get a popup saying something like "Realm Works has detected that you have HeroLabs installed including the Pathfinder game System. This Realm includes a HeroLab source file to allow for character creation using the customizations appropriate for this setting. Would you like to install this now?"

my Realm Works videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZU...4DwXXkvmBXQ9Yw
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Silveras
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Old February 11th, 2017, 05:32 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by rob View Post
This is something that none of us thought of. And it's apparently nothing the Beta team has thought to try, either. There is currently no good way to handle this, and the only way I can think of to solve it right now would entail unpleasant changes to both RW and HL. I'll have to talk to Colen about this, but it's not likely we'll solve it before the CM launch.
I'm pretty sure I said something about this a while ago.. but it may not have been conveyed clearly as to what the issue is.. it wasn't a formal bug report (pre-dates that page's availability, if I recall correctly).

But, yeah, this close to the CM launch I am not expected an answer as part of the CM launch.

The issue often comes up in the context of asking "how do I have multiple configurations"... which the "template" portfolio works for now. That will not work to allow launching alternate configurations to create new files from Realm Works, but using HeroLab to create them independently then loading them into a snippet isn't THAT MUCH more work.

The more likely people to have issues are people doing something exotic to implement house rules... and I have no idea how large or small that population is (as Farling mentions).
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