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Demo access to Campaign mode is urgently needed [Now Available]

L

LotsOfLore

Member
Hi, I love Hero Lab Online and enjoy my Starfinder subscriptions and content.

However, I have to point out how important it is to allow demo account access to the new campaign mode (and how much better it would have been to have this from the start), ESPECIALLY since it is still in beta mode! I want to convince my players to switch from the integrated starfinder (and pathfinder 2) character sheets in Roll20 to managing all our characters in Hero Lab and enjoy the much much better experience, but as of now this is impossible.

I cannot ask them to each pay a 6 months subscription to a specific product line, just to test out a feature which is still in beta (!!!). C'mon!

I know it's in your "coming soon" list. I am here to tell you it's not soon enough. Please, if you know a concrete timeline for when you will allow demo account to join a campaign let me know. I have several players waiting to try out your product.

Thank you.
 
If I recall, they said somewhere that we should see a change in account types before the initial subscription renewal date (which I believe is the 24th of this month?) So, hope we come out with the demo enabled books sharing version and not just the multiple device license support.
 
Koro76 said:
If I recall, they said somewhere that we should see a change in account types before the initial subscription renewal date (which I believe is the 24th of this month?) So, hope we come out with the demo enabled books sharing version and not just the multiple device license support.
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That's good to hear, thank you.
 
LotsOfLore said:
Not a very effective business model
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that's LW-- they're great at code development but not so hot at the business management side. tbf though that's pretty common when programmers try to become entrepreneurs. LW are hardly the only ones and definitely not the worst.
 
dacoobob said:
that's LW-- they're great at code development but not so hot at the business management side. tbf though that's pretty common when programmers try to become entrepreneurs. LW are hardly the only ones and definitely not the worst.
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To be fair (and as has been covered in prior HLO discussions), Lone Wolf used to be more transparent to the fans (basically, as RPG geeks themselves, they just honestly portrayed themselves as being just like the rest of us, just with a job working on it), but it came back to bite them when deadlines shipped, features got de-prioritized, etc, and the fans were angry because "they'd promised" all of these things. :)

I'm just glad that they're still chugging along and that I get to be along for the ride.
 
We're here and we're listening, we just don't always have time to reply. As a company, we're trying to make do for the time being with a smaller staff than we've had in the past. That means fewer people are stretched thinner (I, for instance, should probably be writing code right now :p )

Duggan is right that we've been burned in the past. To be clear, plenty of that responsibility is on us still. We get excited about new ideas, underestimate how difficult they are to implement, and have to scale back/delay, causing understandable disappointment. As a result, we've garnered a somewhat deserved reputation over the past few years of promising too much and delivering too little.

Speaking personally (and not for LWD as a whole), I've started to think with a new philosophy: speak with what we ship. Promises of what might or might not happen sometime this year or next are no good to anyone, especially when they seem to rarely manifest. People asked for campaign demo access and group licensing, so we worked hard on those and have delivered our initial version of that. And we'll keep on iterating on those and polishing. "Show, don't tell."

All I ask of you all is that you keep this in mind: You're probably used to dealing with giant, faceless corporations, with armies of PR people dedicated to spinning whatever BS their upper management wants you to hear. Here you're dealing with a surprisingly small group of dedicated (and in some cases, very overworked *cough* Rob *cough*) gamers who are doing our damnedest to make something we love, and share it with all of you.
 
Joe said:
We're here and we're listening, we just don't always have time to reply. As a company, we're trying to make do for the time being with a smaller staff than we've had in the past. That means fewer people are stretched thinner (I, for instance, should probably be writing code right now :p )

Duggan is right that we've been burned in the past. To be clear, plenty of that responsibility is on us still. We get excited about new ideas, underestimate how difficult they are to implement, and have to scale back/delay, causing understandable disappointment. As a result, we've garnered a somewhat deserved reputation over the past few years of promising too much and delivering too little.

Speaking personally (and not for LWD as a whole), I've started to think with a new philosophy: speak with what we ship. Promises of what might or might not happen sometime this year or next are no good to anyone, especially when they seem to rarely manifest. People asked for campaign demo access and group licensing, so we worked hard on those and have delivered our initial version of that. And we'll keep on iterating on those and polishing. "Show, don't tell."

All I ask of you all is that you keep this in mind: You're probably used to dealing with giant, faceless corporations, with armies of PR people dedicated to spinning whatever BS their upper management wants you to hear. Here you're dealing with a surprisingly small group of dedicated (and in some cases, very overworked *cough* Rob *cough*) gamers who are doing our damnedest to make something we love, and share it with all of you.
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Thank you for your time and effort. I have just now had a look at the new subscription plan offers... To be completely honest, a PAID demo access (15 $ per year) is not exactly what I was looking for. But I'm sure some people will find this suitable.

Thank you and keep up the good work.

P.S.: your editing of my thread title should actually read [Now Available, Sort Of...].
 
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Dami said:
Where do you get $15/year from? The HLO Demo is free and includes trial Campaign Theater.
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Yes, I have a demo account, and just tried the campaign theatre. Be aware that you can't delete characters from your theatre, and are limited to 3 or 4 characters in various places.
 
We were able to have a free Demo account join a Patron-level Campaign. It looked to us like a free account can play a character but not edit/level it; that needs the Apprentice-level account (or having the GM do it). Admittedly, we only took a quick look at it (this is our 4e weekend, not our PF2 weekend).

Edited to add that we were able to transfer the character from Member-Controlled to GM-Controlled, which removed it from the Demo account. That should allow the GM to edit/level the character when needed and then transfer it back.
 
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charlieluce said:
Edited to add that we were able to transfer the character from Member-Controlled to GM-Controlled, which removed it from the Demo account. That should allow the GM to edit/level the character when needed and then transfer it back.
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I doubt that the demo account will be allowed to receive the levelled-up character.

It would negate the need for any sort of "player-only" account subscription level.
 
Since the character we used was 4th level, it can certainly view the character without a problem. We didn't try using it in combat, though. If I get a chance I'll play around with it some more.
 
Hey Gang,
So long time Hero Lab user here with plenty invested in product.
So trying to figure out the levels of access for my gaming group. From what I can tell The Demo Account lets a player control a Patron Created and Leveled PC but not level or edit? While The Apprentice Account gives full access to the shared content to level inside of Campaign. Sound Right?

Also, would like to be able to see Player controlled PCs as the DM without having to transfer them back all the time.
 
DJalin1 said:
From what I can tell The Demo Account lets a player control a Patron Created and Leveled PC but not level or edit? While The Apprentice Account gives full access to the shared content to level inside of Campaign. Sound Right?
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correct!

DJalin1 said:
Also, would like to be able to see Player controlled PCs as the DM without having to transfer them back all the time.
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i believe they've said this capability is coming, just not implemented quite yet
 
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