Shadowrun - Abandoned

[Vytek]

It looks like Shadowrun wasn't pulling it's weight and was abandoned by Lone Wolf.

Still some missing 5e content, and 6e was dropped after the main book came out. Such an absolute shame since I loved the HLO interface.

If anyone is looking for a FREE alternative check out Genesis for Shadowrun 6e. Interface isn't as good, and it eats your character (backup!) every now and again but at least it's up to date.

I would love to see SR 6e updated. I'd buy every book dataset Day 1. After two years of waiting - it's just not going to happen. RIP.

[asvaldson]

They just released a newsletter and Shadowrun was not mentioned anywhere. I'm very disappointed. I vary rarely play PF2e and don't play SF at all. I don't need HLO for PF1e, which I play almost ever week. It's just not worth paying a monthly sub for an account when the one game system I need it for is no longer fully supported. I never thought there would be a day when I would stop supporting LW, but I guess it's time. *shrugs* I dislike Genesys due to it not being official and can't have the PDF text in the files. At least they recently added a way to edit the description so I can add the text myself.

[Enin]

I asked their support about this back in October and they mentioned prioritizing their best-selling products instead. While I can't blame them for doing so (after all they would be foolish to abandon the products that make them money), I don't see Shadowrun ever generating income if they don't put any more effort into it. I'd gladly re-sub if they added support for the gun/magic sourcebooks.

[Farling]

There has been no development for any HLC game systems.

[Duggan]

We do get some occasional updates. But, mainly Pathfinder.

[Farling]

Originally Posted by Duggan

We do get some occasional updates. But, mainly Pathfinder.

The last Pathfinder update was 09-Apr-2020 (according to the Updates panel in my HL), and HL was updated to V8.9h in 28-Apr-2020.

Other than an update for Savage Worlds V6.1 in 26-Apr-2021, there's been nothing in the last two years.

---

I see a pattern, maybe we can expect something to update in Apr-2022?

[The_Traveller]

Aren't those packages created by the vendor? In this case it would mean that Catalyst Labs dropped the ball. Hard to believe given how well they manage projects :P

[asvaldson]

No, Wolflair creates the package. They have a -much smaller- data entry team who codes all the books. now, the 3rd party data sets for Pathfinder (Kobold Press etc) I think uses their own data entry, but I'm not 100% certain. I know I had to submit a bug report to a different email for one of the New Path's Compendium entries once. Of course, that was for HLC. I think Mathias's team had to code it themselves to convert the HLO because of the server architecture but *shrugs* I dunno for sure.

They lost a lot in the way of coders after Mattias was able to come back full time after he recovered from his illness. His partner that was running things when he couldn't made a few bad decisions and he had to fix it, which sadly meant downsizing his workforce because he was busy trying to fix mistakes and couldn't focus on income producing material. Keep in mind some of this was gleaned from posts he himself made. I know it was after when he posted that he had to fix data structure for the HLO system that other data slowed waaaaay down. Of course, then in early 2020 he had to downsize again because of Covid. But because of all that they had to prioritize their largest source of income generation, which is Paizo and PF2e. They put out more books more often and it's a more popular system.

I'm not going to give up on Shadowrun support 100% until Mattias says so himself, but I getting discouraged.


Disclaimer: I do not work for or with Wolflair. This is all information I've gleaned and inferred from various posts from Mattias as well as his senior coders and none of the information can be taken as 100% accurate due to a lack of explicit explanations.

[Duggan]

Originally Posted by asvaldson

They lost a lot in the way of coders after Mattias was able to come back full time after he recovered from his illness. His partner that was running things when he couldn't made a few bad decisions and he had to fix it, which sadly meant downsizing his workforce because he was busy trying to fix mistakes and couldn't focus on income producing material. Keep in mind some of this was gleaned from posts he himself made.

Minor thing, I think you mean Rob. Mattias does do the data package coding, having taken over from Colen.

[asvaldson]

Originally Posted by Duggan

Minor thing, I think you mean Rob. Mattias does do the data package coding, having taken over from Colen.

I so rarely see Rob on here that I completely forgot about him lol.