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Colen
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Join Date: Dec 2008
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Old July 31st, 2011, 06:34 PM
Approach #2, the Steam approach, is basically what we do (although without using an external service like Steam). We check that your copy of Army Builder is valid when you install or update it. After that, you're free to use it as much as you want without requiring an internet connection. You certainly don't need an internet connection every time you launch the program, unless you want to download program or data file updates.

Approaches #1 and #3 have obvious flaws which you mentioned. Unfortunately giving someone a week's "grace period" exposes us in a number of ways. For example, what happens if someone simply uninstalls and reinstalls Army Builder after those 10 days? What happens if they just set their clock back or forward? What happens if their system clock is failing?

Those are all problems that can be solved, but it makes the process more complicated and error-prone. So, we decided to go with a simpler system - either you're licensed, or you aren't. Licensing requires an internet connection when you update the program, but that's it - otherwise you can run disconnected.

Regarding the number of licenses - while you wouldn't share your licenses with your friends, sadly many people feel differently. Every year at Gen Con, we have people in the booth discussing how they'll buy one copy of our software and share it between them - we think a limit of 2 is very reasonable, and additional licenses are available for $10 each if you have more computers.

Hope this helps explain why we do things this way
Colen is offline   #21
nyteschayde
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Old August 9th, 2011, 02:52 PM
You're being fairly cagey on how the steam solution didn't work for you. As a developer myself and very unhappy (with your anti-piracy solution) customer I think more disclosure on why the steam model doesn't work is in order.

Make your tool more of a kiosk client. Logging in through the app from any machine [with Hero Lab or other product installed] with proper credentials should be enough to validate we are an honest customer. Verifying that only one (or 1:1 number of users per license) are logged in at any given moment should help keep piracy at bay, your income in good standing and your customers happy.

If you feel you need a developer to help design this scenario, feel free to contact me. I am a long time pen and paper role-player and a long time professional programmer and there is no excuse other than, an excuse the anger rant, greed and laziness for punishing your paying customers like you are.

And if you really think that the average customer only has one computer these days I'd really like to see the stats behind it. Stats showing that they use only one computer to log in is not a good indication of this fact.


Quote:
Originally Posted by rob View Post
The Steam suggestion is a good one. Unfortunately, the Steam solution has a number of flaws for a product like AB. We've investigated something like it and found it to be no better than what we currently do. All it does it move the issues around, without providing an overall net improvement. In other words, there are some users who would benefit from having a Steam-like solution (such as yourself), but there are others who would be negatively impacted by such a solution.

Even if the Steam approach was the perfect solution, though, we'd need to invest major development effort towards implementing it. For a tiny company like Lone Wolf, we'd have to basically stop further development on all of our products for a protracted period of time while we implemented this mythical perfect solution. From a business standpoint, the benefits of having the perfect licensing solution would have to outweigh the costs of halting all product development for a lengthy period.

In an ideal world, I'd love to conceive and implement the perfect solution. Alas, this isn't an ideal world, so we need something that is also practical, and that means any solution we come up with will have some limitations. If we can come up with something that can be implemented in a practical manner and provides a better overall solution than our current one, we'll put it into place. We regularly explore new options with that goal in mind. Thus far, though, we haven't found something that is substantively better overall.

If anyone has suggestions, please share them! The Steam idea is a good one that we've already explored. What other approaches should we be investigating?
nyteschayde is offline   #22
Colen
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Old August 9th, 2011, 04:01 PM
We provide a free secondary license precisely because many users have more than one computer, like a desktop and a laptop. Up to 2 additional secondary licenses are also available for users with 3+ computers, as that's not uncommon.

Like I said above, we use something very similar to the Steam mechanism - we authenticate a computer once, and you can then use the product on that computer until you transfer the license to another one. Yes, we could theoretically rewrite our licensing mechanism to work differently, but we feel that there's more value in adding new features to the software that everyone can use, rather than a new licensing mechanism which is not needed by the majority of our users.
Colen is offline   #23
pipninja
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Old August 10th, 2011, 09:21 PM
Lolz I was about to run my card to purchase Hero Lab until I read about the DRM and stumbled onto this thread. Think I'll keep that puppy holstered for now. I have a friend who buys many of his games only to pirate them after. DRMs suck the fun out of hobbies. I understand the need but this does seem rather extreme. I'm self employed and know how hard it can be to keep afloat at times but some moderation might be called for. No one would come to my shop if I enforced a cavity search for every patron. As with any business, shrink prevention is important but not at the cost of customer service and company image. The cost of fielding phone calls and emails, not to mentioned deterred and lost customers has to be approaching an equilibrium at some point. I really like your product but ease of access is something to consider. I'm not sure what your licensing contracts with these game publishers look like but unless you have exclusive rights, an other, less terminator-ish development company is going to come along and hijack all but your most faithful customer base. The second reason I opted not to buy, FYI (I like it when my customers help me to improve so I'll pay it forward), was because of the nickle and diming that you have going on with content packs. I understand that licensing may force you to stiffen up your prices but man! I was adding up what it would cost me to be able to use the software in my basic campaign setting and it was rapidly approaching what I've already paid out to Paizo. I like your product and I really hope you guys do well but had I shelled out the $70+ I'd have to in order to build the characters I need to and I had to be tethered to just 2 computers when I have three within arms reach of me right now and more at work.... And that's best case scenario barring technical issues and from what I've read, inconsistent CS. The average household may have 2 computers but most of us aren't quite average.
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Leonal
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 80

Old August 10th, 2011, 10:16 PM
@pipninja: Paragraphs are your friend.

I have no issues with the DRM of HL or AB, and I suspect the majority of the paying customers fall in that boat, else the programs wouldn't be as successful as they appear to be.
Leonal is offline   #25
Tiibor
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 8

Old September 27th, 2011, 05:20 PM
You know what guy's this is such a great program, its saved me hours of paperwork and it does a terrific job, I have a computer at home, a computer in each of my 2 office locations and a laptop and an Ipad, the initial licence was really not very costly for such a useful bit of software and having to pay 10bucks for an extra licence is frankly not an issue as far as I am concerned, compared to many other very costly bits of software I personally think AB is great value for money, and further I think we should all buy those extra licences because if we were to all pirate it, there would no longer be a lone wolf and the moste useful bit of hobby software I own would cease to exist, so please when getting bent out of shape about licence costs remember the guys at lone wolf have to feed themselves too and that probably takes a lot of extension licences to acheive.

Keep up the awsome job Colen
Tiibor is offline   #26
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