Hero Lab Online and Starfinder Q&A

[Toblakai]

Originally Posted by Dervish

I am curious as to exactly what feature Hero Lab Classic is missing that you believe Hero Lab Online will mystically manifest.

Shared resources (i.e. loot tracking, spaceships).
The big one for me is auto-updating in MY tactical console when the players add buff to their sheet.
Mass application of buffs/debuffs to a group (and auto updating players characters with this info)

I am sure there are many, many more things that can be done with a connected model that cannot be done with a stand alone app.

And "mystically manifest" is an odd term here, magic doesn't really exist. It should be "Developer writes code".

[daplunk]

Can't wait for some some synchronisation between the players and my dm station

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by Dervish

I am curious as to exactly what feature Hero Lab Classic is missing that you believe Hero Lab Online will mystically manifest.

They've already said.
1) Starfinder has some group rules regarding ships that would be more difficult to manage in HLC than HLO.

2) Access from any device with a web client, be it Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Linux, whatever.

3) It's easier to develop for and support a single code base than to develop for and support a separate code base for each platform.

These are very practical reasons. Nothing mystical about them.

[qcgreywolf]

Since I am a staunch opponent of the "Lets move everything in the world to a subscription!" movement, will there be a 'lifetime subscription' license that we can purchase?

As an example, I would be willing to pay *tosses random, ballpark figure out* $60-$120 to never have to worry about ANOTHER endless payment that goes on forever and I have to track throughout my bills.

It is always a challenge to explain to people why it sucks to have to pay endlessly for Internet, Netflix, Spotify, Adobe products, a MMO flavor of the month, or whatever 6-12 'things' that we have to pay for as a subscription.

[MNBlockHead]

I'm all for a subscription model. A buy-once model is harder to support for a hosted service and I doubt that 60-120 for a lifetime subscription is sustainable. Hopefully, they will eventually ofter StarFinder for HLC, but it isn't going to support all the features of HLO.

What I look for in subscriptions is flexible pricing. I only want to pay when I'm using it. I can cancel HBO Now when there is nothing I'm currently watching on it and start it up again when there is a new season of a series or a new series I want to watch. Similarly, I would like to pay for HLO only when I'm playing in or running a campaign using a supported system.

[qcgreywolf]

I don't buy the story that single purchase software is non-sustainable. I can't vouch for a smaller company like WolfLair, but Adobe, Microsoft and Valve didn't become behemoths selling subscriptions. (Yea, I know, they are a different market and a different product; tabletop RPG's are pretty niche)

Is there more money in subscriptions? Yea, of course. You're siphoning endless dollars from countless people, most of which have proven that they are unlikely to 'pause' or 'temporarily cancel' subscriptions during the times that they aren't using them.

Meh, I don't know why I am speaking into the ether, there are far more people than I would like to admit that would rather pay $10 a month forever rather than paying $100 for a product once.

[daplunk]

Originally Posted by qcgreywolf

I don't buy the story that single purchase software is non-sustainable. I can't vouch for a smaller company like WolfLair, but Adobe, Microsoft and Valve didn't become behemoths selling subscriptions. (Yea, I know, they are a different market and a different product; tabletop RPG's are pretty niche)

It's just how the industry works now. Companies are outsourcing everything these days and that includes server infrastructure. LWD will almost definitely have their servers in a 3rd party data center. So they will be paying a monthly charge themselves and that charge will likely vary depending on how much bandwidth and storage they use. The more customers using the service the more the back-end infrastructure will cost.

[Toblakai]

Originally Posted by qcgreywolf

Adobe, Microsoft and Valve didn't become behemoths selling subscriptions.

Microsoft and Adobe make huge amounts of money from subscriptions.. B2B is where they make their money.

Also try buying Adobe Photoshop.. subscription only now.

Valve is different, its just an online store, they don't actually make much.

[daplunk]

Steam is a different model. That's a distribution platform where they take a cut from the sales. LWD need to pay the content owner for that right so it's turned around and upside down.

[Arjon Smithson]

Just as a matter of interest, has there been any suggestions to move any other of the official game systems over to HLO. I realise that Starfinder was the initial game, and this thread is full of speculation about pathfinder/pathfinder2, but what about the others?