Lone Wolf Development Forums  

Go Back   Lone Wolf Development Forums > Hero Lab Online Forums > Hero Lab Online Discussion

Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
talsharien
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Leeds UK
Posts: 250

Old August 1st, 2019, 03:14 PM
I have purchased the bestiary and it appears to add very little (except a slow running time) to my HL_Online, any thoughts?
talsharien is offline   #1 Reply With Quote
talsharien
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Leeds UK
Posts: 250

Old August 2nd, 2019, 09:05 AM
Okay thanks, I shall await with baited breath for the opportunity to unleash the many promised beasties
talsharien is offline   #2 Reply With Quote
Jamz
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Chicagoland
Posts: 397

Old August 7th, 2019, 10:20 AM
@LJStephens
Could you please mark things in the store with a PRE-ORDER banner or something?
I just spent 5 minutes refreshing and trying to access the Bestiary, it was very confusing...

-Jamz

RPTools.net | MapTool Discord Invite

Download Latest MapTool Release | Download Latest TokenTool Release
Jamz is offline   #3 Reply With Quote
LimpingNinja
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Posts: 19

Old August 10th, 2019, 03:46 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamz View Post
@LJStephens
Could you please mark things in the store with a PRE-ORDER banner or something?
I just spent 5 minutes refreshing and trying to access the Bestiary, it was very confusing...
Super agreed, was about to purchase but read the forums first. Still purchasing, but now at least expectations are not shattered.
LimpingNinja is offline   #4 Reply With Quote
Mathias
Senior Member
Lone Wolf Staff
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 13,207

Old August 10th, 2019, 08:43 AM
I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of where the existing bestiary content is - When you click the red "Create Character" button, instead of leaving "Type" on its default of "Hero (PC)", change that to "Monster or NPC". Then, open that character and go to the Ancestry tab and choose an ancestry - there's 291 to choose from as of Friday's update (of 410 in the book). We've finished everything from level -1 through 8.

Also, for monsters who need new items to complete their statblocks, like the Aklys for Dero and Ogre Hooks for Ogres, those are available to add like any other weapon, but we'll get to the other scattered content that isn't used by the monsters themselves after the monsters are done (an example would be the poison in the Boggard section - none of the Boggards carry any doses in their entries here, so we left that for after the monsters.)

Last edited by Mathias; August 10th, 2019 at 08:49 AM.
Mathias is offline   #5 Reply With Quote
Jamz
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Chicagoland
Posts: 397

Old August 10th, 2019, 11:43 AM
Would have never looked there. It's a bit cumbersome.

Are there plans to use the Create from Library? If not, what is that button for?

-Jamz

RPTools.net | MapTool Discord Invite

Download Latest MapTool Release | Download Latest TokenTool Release
Jamz is offline   #6 Reply With Quote
Steel_Wind
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 20

Old August 11th, 2019, 10:44 AM
I have been a loyal and longtime user of Herolab. As for Herolab "Classic", I have a "full" copy. I flogged your product on our podcast for many years, too, and featured Colin as a guest on it over the course of those years as well.

I purchased PF2 and the Bestiary add-on last week. The Bestiary is simply not implemented. To call it even an "alpha" is to stretch the meaning of the term. Let's not kid ourselves here.

The Tactical Console and Encounter builder isn't built yet either. If the only thing you want to do is create a character using the CRB, it *mostly* works. But that's it; and that's all.

I'm a GM. I use Herolab to GM and run my game. How am I to do this, using this tool? It's essentially useless to me in its current form.

Please - get your act together. This level of product quality isn't okay. I understand these things take time, but you HAVE had nearly 20 months now leading up to this since Starfinder's roll out.

And by "not okay" -- let's not bandy words here. This product is currently beta. At BEST. Instead of serving your user base, your code implementation appears to be instead about about reducing your costs and increasing your revenue per user, all while providing less functionality.

A LOT less.
Steel_Wind is offline   #7 Reply With Quote
BJ
Senior Member
Lone Wolf Staff
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 608

Old August 12th, 2019, 02:56 PM
Hi all! I'm afraid Lj got a little confused on this subject. This issue really had little to do with the number of excited people using the software. Though we do appreciate that so many wanted to try it!

Unfortunately, the poor performance is entirely our fault as we overlooked an indirect implication that increased the load when we launched PF2. Everyone is home now and working as hard as they can to get any performance issues hammered out and HLO should be operating much better even now.

We will be making an announcement soon offering free server time to those who suffered with us at launch.

We are discussing a better system for releases that will hopefully prevent stability issues from here on.

The launch of Campaign Theater in the near future will provide encounter building features for HLO. As we've said elsewhere, HLO is essentially a beta product. This is the reason we have yet to start charging anyone the subscription fee and are letting users continue on for free well past the initial free time given. We want to have a stable product that provides the appropriate functionality for both GMs and players before we call it a full product.

Hope that helps!
BJ is offline   #8 Reply With Quote
dacoobob
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2018
Posts: 305

Old August 13th, 2019, 07:25 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by BJ View Post
As we've said elsewhere, HLO is essentially a beta product. This is the reason we have yet to start charging anyone the subscription fee and are letting users continue on for free well past the initial free time given. We want to have a stable product that provides the appropriate functionality for both GMs and players before we call it a full product.
You've said that on the forums, but for new or prospective users it's not at all clear that the product is a beta. There's no "early access" or "public betatest" indicators anywhere on the HLO website or marketing materials that I can find-- instead it's advertised like fully functional product would be.

That's a problem because it sets up an expectation in new users minds that they're getting a finished product, then when they buy in and start using it and find all sorts of "missing" or work-in-progress features, they're pissed off and feel (rightly or wrongly) a bit cheated. The maxim is "Under promise and over deliver", but the imo the HLO marketing does it the other way around, implying a full product and setting up a situation where new users excitedly pay their money, get on and find problems, come to the forums in frustration, and only THEN discover that it was a beta product all along. Or worse yet, they find problems and decide the product sucks without even bothering to search out the forums. That leads to bad word-of-mouth etc-- not because the product is actually bad but because user expectations weren't managed well.
dacoobob is offline   #9 Reply With Quote
Maidhc O Casain
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Jonesboro, AR (USA)
Posts: 858

Old August 13th, 2019, 12:27 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by dacoobob View Post
You've said that on the forums, but for new or prospective users it's not at all clear that the product is a beta. There's no "early access" or "public betatest" indicators anywhere on the HLO website or marketing materials that I can find-- instead it's advertised like fully functional product would be.

That's a problem because it sets up an expectation in new users minds that they're getting a finished product, then when they buy in and start using it and find all sorts of "missing" or work-in-progress features, they're pissed off and feel (rightly or wrongly) a bit cheated. The maxim is "Under promise and over deliver", but the imo the HLO marketing does it the other way around, implying a full product and setting up a situation where new users excitedly pay their money, get on and find problems, come to the forums in frustration, and only THEN discover that it was a beta product all along. Or worse yet, they find problems and decide the product sucks without even bothering to search out the forums. That leads to bad word-of-mouth etc-- not because the product is actually bad but because user expectations weren't managed well.
This is well said.
Maidhc O Casain is offline   #10 Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 01:33 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® - Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
wolflair.com copyright ©1998-2016 Lone Wolf Development, Inc. View our Privacy Policy here.