Delays in new content

ericphillips · February 25th, 2016, 03:09 PM

I like Hero Lab and have owned it for over two years using it for Pathinder and Savage Worlds. However, the slow roll out of new content for Savage Worlds is a major bummer for me.

I understand it takes time (although I do not understand who is making the expansions or how), but it takes way too much time. This is especially true for core books like the Sci Fi Companion and the Super Powers Companion (both the new ones, ver 2). I have had the books for a long time and only now is the Sci Fi companion coming out, and no idea about when the Supers hits.

I am looking at using the funds I would spend on this product purchasing another creator that has the content, though is in no way as nice as your product. It is just hard to justify loyalty here when I could be using a tool with the data instead of waiting or working with the editor to make it possible (which is difficult for me to do).

I am sorry, but this has moved from a wait to a deal breaker. Sorry Lone Wolf.

zarlor · 05:20 AM

Well, the core books are handled by Lone Wolf, or at least essentially by a person they contract to do so. The vast majority of the other content, settings files, are just fan submitted settings and, in the case of official settings directly from Pinnacle, Lone Wolf apparently has some deal with them in place that allows them to just take those fan-based products and offer those through their official updater in Hero Lab. Most of them are not done by Lone Wolf, though. Personally I just think there are not enough of us in the Savage Worlds market to make this product more than barely viable for them in terms of any profit they get from us. (For review of what is available there's always the Settings thread stickied on this very forum at http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=47707.)

For the overall process itself I can say that for the settings I've done the process has been that I would create the data file (often within a few weeks of the settings release) and I submit that to Lone Wolf for addition into the updater. At the same time I also post here that the setting is available directly from me as a pre-release, unreviewed version, which just means a download and double-click of a single file to install it into Hero Lab and that characters made with that file should be compatible with the final release. The only setting I've made available that isn't true for is Super Powers Companion 2, which I just build on the official SPC data file and where those characters will probably not be compatible with the official SPC2 data file when it's released.

Some other data files for non-Pinnacle releases, like High Space, were also fan created and those individuals contacted the company that makes those products and requested them to work out with Lone Wolf to make those files available through the official updater. So that's the main process with new settings. Lone Wolf doesn't do many of those at all, it's just fans putting them together and making them available so they can often be available, unofficially, fairly quickly. It's the review process that takes the most time, in my experience.

I will say that for setting files you could always request if someone is working on that setting. There are couple of new Pinnacle settings I've not done any work on (I think 6th Gun, The Last Parsec and Necessary Evil: Breakout are the only official settings from Pinnacle that don't have a setting file at least available, with only ETU and Evernight still to finish review to be in the official updater, along with an updated to Deadlands: Reloaded, but all of those last 3 are still available for the asking.) Admittedly I've not been overly motivated lately to go back and do them but I might try to knock out Weird War I when that Kickstarter finishes and I get the PDFs.

At any rate, other than the SPC2 what other settings are you looking for? I have almost no non-Pinnacle settings so I probably can't be much help there, but what other product even has more settings available than Hero Lab? I can only guess Wild Card Creator, but I wasn't too happy messing with that the last time I tried and the flexibility of getting house rules or homebrew settings was fairly... lacking. Admittedly the Editor for Hero Lab isn't the easiest or most intuitive thing to work with and the overall interface (especially for anything that isn't Pathfinder) looks like something out of the 1990s but I've yet to see any other game in town that will do the job for me, at least.

In any case I sympathize, it's sometimes been a frustrating ride here. If you really do find something that can really, really substitute for HL then please let us know.

Paragon · February 26th, 2016, 10:02 AM

I know there is some kind of Pinnacle-affiliated character creator for SW, but the people I've talked to about it have not been overly impressed with it.

SeeleyOne · February 26th, 2016, 03:45 PM

Yeah, I have tried them all, but out of them, I find that Hero Lab works the best. That said, I have started to work on my own. I do not know how long it will take to finish it, though, and some of its key design features are things that I have found frustrating with Hero Lab.

For example, as it stands, it is not easy to mash together two (or more) different Savage Settings. Ultimately someone would have to go through and edit or make a copy of the different data components (edges, skills, etc) and make them use a new source. Alternately, they would have to go through and preclude a ton of things. It is not a simple task.

How I am planning it, you make a campaign which then selects the components form the different books that are in your data library. You can select an entire book for convenience, or just pick the edge or two that you want. If you have an alternate version of Martial Artist, it will use your version automatically.

I am also making it easy to share and create new data files. No need to jump into an editor, and for the updates you can just point to a dropbox folder. It will look there for the data. Or on your flash drive if you configure it to do so.

From my posts, you guys can see how much I like to mod. The point is that Savage Worlds is a very diverse system as its settings can vary greatly. I am designing my own designer with this as a core design principle: anything can be configured in a specific campaign and/or setting. I say that because Joe might have some rules that are different than the setting specifically requires. It is designed around the requirements of the GM for a given campaign.

The above is not meant in a slam to Hero Lab. It was designed to be by-the-book, which at the time (at least when I came on the scene) was the older Explorer's edition. Savage Worlds has grown very much since then. The Hero Lab teams had no realistic way to predict this.

CapedCrusader · 06:59 PM

Hi. I'm Ron, the person Lone Wolf contracts to do the work for Savage Worlds.

The majority of the delays have to do with the fact that I do this part time in addition to a full-time job and all of my other responsibilities. If I have to spend more time at my day job (production release time is a bitch), then I don't have the time to work on this. Or if my other responsibilities get in the way.

Also, they have to fit my stuff into their testing/release schedule while they are working on new things, and sometimes they conflict. (D&D 5.0)

In addition to this, while the Super Powers Companion work went quickly, the Sci-Fi work took a LOT of time. It added a lot of new widgets that we didn't have before. The only other expansion that took so much time was the Fantasy Companion and the magic item system.

Since most of Savage Worlds additional material is fan-produced, Lone Wolf does not make any money from that material. So, they don't have the resources to hire a full-time programmer to support this. All of the Pathfinder stuff is purchased, so they can afford to pay people to produce it on a more regular basis.

I deeply regret that it has taken so long to get these out, but we want them to be right. The engineers at Lone Wolf are GREAT testers, they don't let me get away with anything. They are very specific when it comes to making sure everything works the way they want it to, and I really appreciate it.

And Seeley, ::grin:: it still goes by the book. It's you that doesn't! We stay as close as we can, but it's amazing how often a Setting will throw us a curve that we didn't allow for. (I'm looking at you, Fringeworthy!)

Also, the Pathfinder folks have it easy. Their game system doesn't change with every Setting. All they have to do is produce more material, not figure out how to fit starships into it.

What the analogy about ducks? From up top, they look peaceful and serene. But if you view from underneath, they are paddling like crazy.

CapedCrusader · March 1st, 2016, 08:14 PM

Basically, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot by doing so much fan-produced material...

zarlor · March 2nd, 2016, 05:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CapedCrusader

Basically, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot by doing so much fan-produced material...

How so, CC? You mean rather than having it done in-house? It seems to me that without the fan-produced stuff there would be a lot less material visibly available for the Savage Worlds folks (although we'd probably still have a thread here for people to get it through PM/email) and thus even fewer SW customers, I would think. Or am I missing something about issues that's cause on the LoneWolf side?

CapedCrusader · March 3rd, 2016, 11:58 PM

No, not at all. Totally my own opinion. I was just thinking that since we, the fans, wrote so much, there wasn't as much left over for Lone Wolf to write and make money on.

zarlor · March 4th, 2016, 03:46 AM

Oh, I see. To be honest, though, I don't think they have enough of a Savage Worlds customer base to make enough money off of us with those files anyway. That's the impression I've been given from them, at least.

Besides I would add that if getting some of their paid content for SW out was really going to make them some worthwhile money they'd probably pay you more to make it more worth your time to make those an even higher priority (and they would place the time set aside for the testing of it a higher priority as well.) I think it's just the nature of the RPG world lo these many years now that the only thing that's really made a dent in the behemoth of AD&D has been a derivative of it, Pathfinder. Outside of that all of the other game systems (even the BIG players like Pinnacle and White Wolf) are really small potatoes. So naturally we've got a smaller audience, no matter how superior we might feel these other gaming systems might be to AD&D, and thus a much, much smaller market. Kinda sucks, but I like systems like Savage Worlds far more than I like having the kinds of accessories available for Hasbro/TSR products (although more than a few of their own software releases have been far less than stellar, that's for sure).

dartnet · March 4th, 2016, 06:01 AM

You know what would be nice would be adding the Pinnacle settings on to the program in more of an official fashion. It would not be to hard. They use the same assets (edges, hindrances. derived traits) over and over. Pulse they would play nicer with the companions. Like for example there would not be 2 Sanity scores if you use Weird War 2 and the Horror Companion. Also we could get some the stuff (Rippertech, and card draws from Deadlands for example) to work better in the system.

Paragon Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 874 February 26th, 2016, 10:02 AM	I know there is some kind of Pinnacle-affiliated character creator for SW, but the people I've talked to about it have not been overly impressed with it.
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