Release Schedule?

[rob]

It should come as a surprise to anyone that Paizo is in the process of mapping out their long-term strategy for digital tools. We've been in talks with them about that strategy, but so have others. While we would love to be Paizo's "official" tool of choice, that decision is ultimately up to Paizo, and all indications are that they won't be making any decisions in that regard for at least a couple more months.

What we needed to make sure with Paizo was that anything we did now would be reasonably in line with Paizo's long-term view. The last thing we wanted to do was mess things up by doing something inconsistent with Paizo's long-term view or have to change things if we are able to work something out with Paizo.

As for d20Pro, we have no exclusive arrangement with them. We can definitely support other tools, and we'd be happy to do that - assuming we can work out a suitable arrangement with the tool developers. In the case of d20Pro, they were highly receptive to the idea and were happy to "meet us halfway" in regards to making the integration process work smoothly. They worked with us to spec out an intermediary format that worked well for them and that we could readily produce from Hero Lab.

A critical factor is the architecture of the VTT software and whether it can readily allow the import of characters from outside. I know in years past this was a key limitation of at least one VTT tool.

If another VTT vendor were willing to work with us the same way that the d20Pro team did, we'd be more than happy to work with them. Feel free to contact your favorite VTT vendor and have them contact us about integration.