Starfinder

[EightBitz]

Until you need to switch computers or you upgrade your PC/windows and need to renew your license.

But you said you don't deal with a company that doesn't have a policy for hacking and backup, but you have Herolab, so you obviously break that rule.

So it seems you trust LWD here, so there is no point in not trusting them for HLO.

Switching computers is an existing feature with proven functionality.

This as opposed to the slipping release dates for the initial release of RealmWorks, and the slipping release dates for the content market, and the lack of custom calendars.

And now, with Hero Lab, we've gone from Starfinder being announced for the end of August to possibly never.

You're comparing a long-standing, proven, reliable feature to a complete paradigm shift (that demands new investments) from a company who, over the last few years, has had constantly moving goal posts.

Hero Lab, as it stands, is a good product. Best in class.
RealmWorks, as it stands, is a good product. Best in class.

The fact is, though, there are people still waiting (after how many years?) for RealmWorks features that were promised in the Kickstarter. And in the midst of that angst, they're announcing a paradigm shift in their flagship product with features that are coming "soon" after cancelling (not just postponing, but cancelling) their previously announced release of Starfinder for Hero Lab.

You expect this to inspire trust in me?

And that's my last word on this topic. I'm not going to drag this out into another big kerfuffle.

 

[Toblakai]

I won't be dropping money on Hero Lab online, I don't have internet access where I run my games, so its not worth the added expense. I can take my laptop and printer with me, print the necessary sheets and I'm good. If I need internet access I'd have to print everything at home and hopefully not forget to bring the printouts when I drag the books with me. Half the time my home internet doesn't work well either.

Sounds like you need to move

 

[Mystic Lemur]

If Hero Lab Classic had the basics of Starfinder (character creation and maintenance) I would be much more likely to buy-in to Online for the extra features. As it is, I feel like I'm dealing with a car salesman. The only way to get the basics I want is by paying for all the extras I don't need. There is a dissonance there that is raising my hackles and making me resistant to this whole thing.

 

[Alewis]

If Hero Lab Classic had the basics of Starfinder (character creation and maintenance) I would be much more likely to buy-in to Online for the extra features. As it is, I feel like I'm dealing with a car salesman. The only way to get the basics I want is by paying for all the extras I don't need. There is a dissonance there that is raising my hackles and making me resistant to this whole thing.

I'm probably in the same boat. If I could get Starfinder on Classic I wouldn't care what they're doing with HLO.

 

[Paragon]

Think about the market they will be able to open up to also. Right now Hero Lab is not useful for the emerging market in the rpg industry. There are ALOT of people playing over the internet. There are people playing around a table with a few member playing from the other side of the country.

You make Hero Lab work over the network and you instantly open up the tool to that market. I suspect this move will make for quite a few new members of our community. I'm sure it will result in some leaving too. But I'd wager the positives will out weight the negatives for LWD.

This is only an issue if you need the program to be interactive from multiple sources at once. I have one group where half the people who play are remoting in, and I use HL with them fine, thanks. I don't need them to see exactly what's going on in my instance any more than I do with those playing face to face.

So this isn't about people playing over the internet; its about a very specific kind of usage over the internet, and to claim otherwise is overstating it.

 

[Toblakai]

Switching computers is an existing feature with proven functionality.

My point here was, you can't do this if their license computer has no data.

This as opposed to the slipping release dates for the initial release of RealmWorks, and the slipping release dates for the content market, and the lack of custom calendars.

And now, with Hero Lab, we've gone from Starfinder being announced for the end of August to possibly never.

You're comparing a long-standing, proven, reliable feature to a complete paradigm shift (that demands new investments) from a company who, over the last few years, has had constantly moving goal posts.

Hero Lab, as it stands, is a good product. Best in class.
RealmWorks, as it stands, is a good product. Best in class.

The fact is, though, there are people still waiting (after how many years?) for RealmWorks features that were promised in the Kickstarter. And in the midst of that angst, they're announcing a paradigm shift in their flagship product with features that are coming "soon" after cancelling (not just postponing, but cancelling) their previously announced release of Starfinder for Hero Lab.

You expect this to inspire trust in me?

I totally agree here.. Realmworks delivery timeline is not one to inspire trust in them hitting release dates and adding features. But RW is pretty stable now and the updates and cloud service work perfectly fine for me, so I think they probably have that aspect under control, backups and security are the easy thing compared to the actual development.

I am still stoked for what this can potentially do, and hope that they can get new features in fast. The loot tracker sounds great, currently all my groups use a shared google spreadsheet, and an integrated solution would be much nicer. Especially if the GM can just dump the loot from an encounter into it in an "unidentified state" (yeah wishful thinking..)

 

[RavenX]

The coding team is small, this isn't a company the size of google or facebook with hundreds of code monkey slinging code all day. And Rob doesn't have that kind of financial backing to hire hundreds of people either.

Frankly, I find Lone Wolf hits their targets within reasonable time frames.

It's nothing like say, Onyx Path publishing who took in over half a million dollars on kickstarter for Exalted 3rd edition and missed the marks they promised by 3 years and only just recently hired new writers to pick up the slack... Frankly, Lone Wolf missing a release by a month or two is far easier to cope with than waiting 3-4 years past a kickstarter goal date for a book you paid in full for three years before the missed deadline. I'd say waiting an extra month or two is fair on hero lab. It's not fun to wait, but there are worse things you could be waiting on.

 

[TemporalVengeance]

The coding team is small, this isn't a company the size of google or facebook with hundreds of code monkey slinging code all day. And Rob doesn't have that kind of financial backing to hire hundreds of people either.

Frankly, I find Lone Wolf hits their targets within reasonable time frames.

It's nothing like say, Onyx Path publishing who took in over half a million dollars on kickstarter for Exalted 3rd edition and missed the marks they promised by 3 years and only just recently hired new writers to pick up the slack... Frankly, Lone Wolf missing a release by a month or two is far easier to cope with than waiting 3-4 years past a kickstarter goal date for a book you paid in full for three years before the missed deadline. I'd say waiting an extra month or two is fair on hero lab. It's not fun to wait, but there are worse things you could be waiting on.

I just think that I (and others) would be a lot happier if maybe HLC had all the character creation components and the shipbuilding was in HLO. That being said, the rules for Starfinder are VERY similar to the old Starjammer books and until I stopped working on it because of LWD's Starfinder announcement, I was quite successful in implementing the ship-building rules of Starjammer using a variant of the Eidolon Mechanics. It just treated the ship like an eidolon/animal companion as far as the software is concerned, the hull was a race and the systems were an treated like an eidolon upgrade.

 

[RavenX]

I just think that I (and others) would be a lot happier if maybe HLC had all the character creation components and the shipbuilding was in HLO. That being said, the rules for Starfinder are VERY similar to the old Starjammer books and until I stopped working on it because of LWD's Starfinder announcement, I was quite successful in implementing the ship-building rules of Starjammer using a variant of the Eidolon Mechanics. It just treated the ship like an eidolon/animal companion as far as the software is concerned, the hull was a race and the systems were an treated like an eidolon upgrade.

I am finishing up implementing the mechanics for Alchemical Exalted right now in the Exalted 2e file I created. I know how much work it is but its not too complex to add things to Hero lab. It just takes time and commitment. In the last 3 months I've implemented the Books of Sorcery and all the other manuals of exalted power. This is literally the last book I have to implement before I can focus on just adding data. I shouldn't have to do any more source code hammering once I get this last book done.

 

[drakahn99]

The coding team is small, this isn't a company the size of google or facebook with hundreds of code monkey slinging code all day. And Rob doesn't have that kind of financial backing to hire hundreds of people either.

Frankly, I find Lone Wolf hits their targets within reasonable time frames.

It's nothing like say, Onyx Path publishing who took in over half a million dollars on kickstarter for Exalted 3rd edition and missed the marks they promised by 3 years and only just recently hired new writers to pick up the slack... Frankly, Lone Wolf missing a release by a month or two is far easier to cope with than waiting 3-4 years past a kickstarter goal date for a book you paid in full for three years before the missed deadline. I'd say waiting an extra month or two is fair on hero lab. It's not fun to wait, but there are worse things you could be waiting on.

A MONTH OR TWO!?!...are you kidding?

copied/pasted from the realm works kickstarter...

Pack Member: You’ll receive a copy of the Realm Works software when it is publicly released. You’ll also be listed as a Pack Member supporter in the manual and have a corresponding Pack Member badge next to your user name on the Realm Works server. You'll receive the monthly Realm Works developer blog as well.

ESTIMATED DELIVERY
Jul 2013

ESTIMATED DELIVERY of 2013... thats 4 years and still waiting on the content market... i mean they know they have people waiting on this and they aparantly know they have a small development team... they should devote resources to finish the promised projects BEFORE starting on another poject if they want to inspire trust rather than start something now....

 

[Aaron]

A MONTH OR TWO!?!...are you kidding?

copied/pasted from the realm works kickstarter...

Pack Member: You’ll receive a copy of the Realm Works software when it is publicly released. You’ll also be listed as a Pack Member supporter in the manual and have a corresponding Pack Member badge next to your user name on the Realm Works server. You'll receive the monthly Realm Works developer blog as well.

ESTIMATED DELIVERY
Jul 2013

ESTIMATED DELIVERY of 2013... thats 4 years and still waiting on the content market... i mean they know they have people waiting on this and they aparantly know they have a small development team... they should devote resources to finish the promised projects BEFORE starting on another poject if they want to inspire trust rather than start something now....

I don't think it is fair to make this comparison. The two main programs we make have different teams, different scopes, and different complexities. If you want to estimate timelines for HLO, you're better off looking at how HL has performed in the past than Realm Works.

 

[Winterfyre]

Maybe a couple are, most are not. I mean.. backups and hacks, do you require all companies you interact online with to tell you exactly what they do for these things?

Price changes? That's another non-issue, it's a service, why in the hell would they refund the money if the price went up. Let's get some real questions answered not these useless ones.

The company is asking us to pay for data packages, some of which are rather pricey. They now wish to charge us an rental fee to access those data packs, the ones we paid for.

They claim they fee will be negligible, $2.

I want to know what happens when the fee be comes non negligible BEFORE I sink hundred of dollars on Starfinder data packs they can at some point charge whatever they want for me to continue using.

You might have enough free cash lying around you can afford to pay $4, $5, $19.95 a month to access data you already paid for, I can't.

 

[EightBitz]

I don't think it is fair to make this comparison. The two main programs we make have different teams, different scopes, and different complexities. If you want to estimate timelines for HLO, you're better off looking at how HL has performed in the past than Realm Works.

I recall an announcement that Starfinder would be released for Hero Lab by the end of August, and then that was delayed due to con crud, which is fine except that now it's become maybe never.

 

[Toblakai]

The company is asking us to pay for data packages, some of which are rather pricey. They now wish to charge us an rental fee to access those data packs, the ones we paid for.

They claim they fee will be negligible, $2.

I want to know what happens when the fee be comes non negligible BEFORE I sink hundred of dollars on Starfinder data packs they can at some point charge whatever they want for me to continue using.

You might have enough free cash lying around you can afford to pay $4, $5, $19.95 a month to access data you already paid for, I can't.

Don't buy it then, duh.

 

[EightBitz]

I don't think it is fair to make this comparison. The two main programs we make have different teams, different scopes, and different complexities. If you want to estimate timelines for HLO, you're better off looking at how HL has performed in the past than Realm Works.

There was also the announcement that Cortex sales have been TEMPORARILY suspended. (Emphasis was Rob's, not mine.)

And there was an announcement at some point that an agreement had been reached to release the BASIC system for free.

EDIT: The BASIC system might been announced as free to anyone who's already purchased Call of Cthulhu. But still.

EDIT #2: I'm not pointing these things out to demoralize anyone or to throw stones. I love Hero Lab. I actively use it, and I will continue to purchase data sets for it as my finances allow and as my interests are piqued. My only point was to keep the conversation honest. Hero Lab development has had some bumps in the road.

 

[Aaron]

I recall an announcement that Starfinder would be released for Hero Lab by the end of August, and then that was delayed due to con crud, which is fine except that now it's become maybe never.

Where did you get "maybe never"? What have I been working on for the last couple months then?

 

[daplunk]

There's been some confusion Aaron.

Even more exciting, we’ll be demoing Starfinder and our brand new program, Hero Lab Online, which will be joining our family of products this fall!

From what I can tell the formatting of this sentence is being used by some to indicate that Starfinder support for Hero Lab was announced. To most it's clear and we certainly know now that you are releasing Star Finder on Hero Lab Online and not Hero Lab Classic.

I suspect this is the basis for the 'never'.

Q: Will Hero Lab Classic support Starfinder.
A: Starfinder is a unique system with various aspects that are much better suited to Hero Lab Online. Heck, that’s why we’re focusing on Starfinder first! Consequently, we will not be offering Starfinder in Hero Lab Classic, at least initially, as it wouldn’t be as powerful or enjoyable to use.

 

[Aaron]

Ah, thanks for clarifying, I guess.

 

[EightBitz]

Where did you get "maybe never"? What have I been working on for the last couple months then?

On August 3rd, the second post in this thread:

"We are working hard to bring Starfinder character creation to everyone by the end of the month."

EDIT: This was an answer to the first post in this thread, which was: "So what's the skinny on Starfinder? It's dropping very soon and I'd like to add it to my HL & RW."

Nothing was mentioned about HLO. I don't think HLO had even been officially announced on August 3rd.

There's no interpretation here. There's no ambiguity.

 

[EightBitz]

In regards to "maybe never", I can't find where I read that, but I'm pretty sure I did.

If you're saying that's wrong, though, then say it clearly. Can you say with certainty that Starfinder will be released for Hero Lab Classic (nee Hero Lab)?