Junior Member
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 6
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It'd be a similar analogy to say that we've successfully built a rocket to the moon, now we just have to do it a little differently so that we can build the internet. There's no reuse, and virtually no overlap in skills, even in terms of business model and logic. As Lone Wolf isn't a huge development shop, I doubt they can just change gears and be a different kind of company. It would probably be easier (and cheaper) to form a sister company to build the application. |
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#91 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 865
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sometimes rewriting from scratch is actually easier, though. We had to do that at our current company, take a 10+ year old codebase and make it a responsive web application (using a restful framework), and we shocked ourselves. it was nonstop work, but we did more in 4 months than we thought possible. That being said - i dont think HeroLab would be a good web application. I much prefer it as a standalone. There are a lot of other issues to consider. For a web application to be responsive, you dont want it to be file based, and thats one of the real strengths of HeroLab, in my opinion. Then of course there are servers to consider, services, etc. now while i can imagine that given their druthers, they might redo some architecting, (no developer is EVER happy with their product, not really *grin*), i dont think just assuming "web app", is the way to go. There are always plusses and minuses for every type of application, and in the case of HeroLab, I think standalone makes a lot more sense than web app. Last edited by mirtos; May 9th, 2014 at 11:15 PM. |
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#92 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 416
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Well, the real twist of the dagger, as it were, is that they ARE making a web interface for Realm Works...
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#93 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 865
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From what I understand from the kickstarter, it was either always in the plan, or at least very early on from the time when they decided to do cloud syncing. and from what i understand stripped down version. But thats not the key point. and this is obviously only for people who have their data synced to the cloud. So not really a fair comparison.
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#94 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 677
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So comparing an Apple to an Orange is a hardly a fair comparison! |
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#95 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 416
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#96 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 865
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ummm.... the Player Version is not limiting players to active internet access. That would only be if they wanted to sync data. So, it doesnt go against Rob's statement about Cons.
What you're referring to is the FREE website player access, which is going to come later. Players who sync their data on their paid version will be able to use their data without connecting to the internet. Again, apples and oranges. the model of the application of HeroLab is very different from the model of RealmsWorks. Forgetting even that its a major difference between databases and flat files, the licensing, everything is different. But even RealmsWorks isnt a web app. IT doesnt require internet. I commute to work for a few hours a day. I sometimes take my laptop. During that time, I work on both RealmsWorks and HeroLab. If I was required to have an internet access, I wouldnt be able to do so. Same thing for when I run my games. (sometimes I run games in a store that doesnt provide WiFi). Then of course there's the reality of a web app with non-database. Reading and writing to files is slow. And of course the file would have to be stored somewhere. You'd have to run a server. Local web service? Maybe. But then its just local. In some ways, it would be even slower, and use more memory. The list goes on. There are a lot of pros to doing web app. There are a lot of cons too. Its never a simple thing. |
#97 |
Senior Member
Lone Wolf Staff
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 4,690
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Rewriting enough of it to make Hero Lab viable as a web app is certainly possible, and we could do it if we had to, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up taking at least a year of development time to get even the basics working well. Even if we split that over more than one developer, that means the entire Hero Lab team is doing nothing but porting Hero Lab for at least 6 months, almost certainly longer if we want to support all the features that Hero Lab on the desktop does. Could we do it? Sure, if we had to. But if we're doing that, we're not spending that time adding more functionality to Hero Lab on the iPad, or adding cool new features like the encounter builder, or making it easier to create Hero Lab data files so that more people can use the editor or build new game systems. Unfortunately we have limited resources, and we need to spend them both on opening up Hero Lab to new audiences, and on features we feel will benefit existing users, who have already supported the company by making their purchase. The same applies to rewriting the whole thing from scratch as a web app - we could do it, if you don't mind seeing no progress on anything else for at least a year, maybe 2. Quote:
With Hero Lab, everything was designed with the assumption that it's running on something similar to a desktop computer. It's still possible to rework things into a webapp, but we'd have to fundamentally redesign a number of things to make it work. That's something Realm Works doesn't have to deal with, as the server-based nature of the app was baked in to the design. |
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#98 |
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 6
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Creating a java port of the stand alone app probably wouldn't be as monolithic, but it's certainly a massive stretch in resources, plus a tremendous added cost in support (I can just hear Sesame Street's Count singing "3... 3 codebases ah ah ah"). One thing I easily overlook as a consumer is that hero lab is not just a pathfinder module. There are dozens of other systems that I don't have a personal care for which are included in this package. Even if they were all separate versions of hero lab (e.g. download the pathfinder .exe versus the 4e .exe), that'd still be separate code to maintain. Just supporting iPad is a pretty substantial investment, especially given how much of a pain objective-c is in my opinion. |
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#99 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 416
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#100 |
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