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How long to develop one kit

E

eponette

Well-known member
Hi,

to all the courageous guy here that did the job, how long does it take to create a kit for a game? I think the idea very interesting, but I want to stay realistic. I don't want to spend month doing it and I prefer spending time on my campaign and my players than coding. Therefore, is it worth the effort? How long does it take (when I read some posts, it seems to be a HUGE work and the skills needed are very high.

Could you share your experience (no technical stuff here)?
 
I'm not certain how long it would take as I have not yet finished one, it heavily depends on how big and/or complex the system is, I have put in about 20-30 hours so far reading through the material on the Wiki and experimenting with the sample files. I would suggest you read through at least the following, as I think they will better help you understand what is required.

http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index.php5/Data_File_Development_Process
http://hlkitwiki.wolflair.com/index.php5/Savage_Worlds_Walk-Through

If you get involved with it, others on the forum are very skilled and helpful, and LWD is active here as well in answering questions and providing direction.
 
I've put in at least 100+ hours and I have only done part of the Star Wars d6 system. And finding time to go back to it is hard when life gets in the way ;)
 
eponette said:
Hi,

to all the courageous guy here that did the job, how long does it take to create a kit for a game? I think the idea very interesting, but I want to stay realistic. I don't want to spend month doing it and I prefer spending time on my campaign and my players than coding. Therefore, is it worth the effort? How long does it take (when I read some posts, it seems to be a HUGE work and the skills needed are very high.

Could you share your experience (no technical stuff here)?
Click to expand...

This depends on how you build it and how complicated the system is. I've been working on Deathwatch for many months and am still not done.

Some systems will be easier to do than others, and it also depends on your focus. If you're just building the basic mechanics and leaving the data entry to someone lsr, it can go faster. Just depends on what you focus on.
 
The easiest system I ever had to do took 12 hours but that was only because it was written around the skeleton data files - for something fairly straightfoward from a commerical publisher I'd allow at least 50
 
Lots of variables. There's a learning curve for the authoring kit, so factor that in for your first game. My first was Qin the Warring States, which is fairly straightforward, but has some oddities that kept it interesting. Doing GURPS Lite on the heels of that (although I haven't had a chance to work on it in the evenings -- working on ITIL certification) and the core work went MUCH quicker on the core work the second go around.

Everything is in the AK wiki, but pay particular attention to the advice for planning your project and definitely do the Savage Worlds walkthrough.
 
One thing I don't understand (correct me if I'm wrong...):

In order to use the HL, you need the kit to be developed. If you play a game where there are no kit, HL is useless for you. Therefore, you need to develop the kit yourself (hours, even months of work). But you need to pay for the development kit. And when the kit is developed (time you spent plus the money to have the possibility to develop it), other can buy HL and use you kit.

Not that I want to be paid for the development, but I find it weird to have to pay to work

But as i said, maybe I'm wrong.
 
Once you get your game done, you don't have to share it with the community if you don't want to, but most people do. The community helps each other. It's your choice to do so. That's left up to you. There is no pressure to make you share. The work and time is yours to chose if you share or not.

Hope that helps and answers your question, but any one that you allow to use your game must have the Authoring Kit, that part is true.
 
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No way I'm not going to share anything (if I do it).

Is the authoring kit delivered with the HL or is it something I will have to buy extra?
 
You can add the authoring kit to your Hero Lab license as an additional game system from the License menu...Purchase Data Package.
 
You can do the entire development of a new game system without purchasing the authoring kit package. What will happen is that you'll always the game system you're creating in demo mode (meaning you can't save or print characters). The authoring kit package allows you to use any user-created game system (plus our two example game systems - D&D 4ed and Savage Worlds) in normal mode rather than demo mode.
 
Well, this is what I said. I have to pay double price (HL and the Authoring kit) just to use the software and the kit I created. But if I play Pathfinder (for instance), I have to pay only once (and spend no time at all programming).

I find it weird commercially to ask people to pay twice and to do the job for you. But as RPG is a passion, I can easily imagine people paying (as I might do it as soon as I receive the rule book. But still weird.
 
When you purchase Hero Lab, you can choose ANY game system as your FREE option. One of these options is the Authoring Kit. Included with the Authoring Kit selection is Savage Worlds, D&D 4th Edition, and any games for which users create data files. A significant number of Hero Lab users have employed this approach.

Based on this, it's not a matter of paying double the price simply to use the Authoring Kit. The Kit option includes two game systems that have meaningful value to a lot of players across the globe. In addition, the full data file source code of both those games is available with the Kit option.

Hope this makes things clearer! :)
 
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