Importing characters

[Shadowfoot]

Are there any plans to permit importing characters made by other people? This will be useful for NPCs and to give GMs the details about players, confirming they are made according to the settings permitted for the campaign.

 

[Farling]

That will probably be provided by the Campaign Theatre that might be launching soon-ish.

 

[Joe]

Campaigns will initially launch with the ability to import characters you've made on your own account, as well as characters from purchased content (that's the "Create from library" button on the character selection screen).

Campaigns won't initially launch with the ability to share characters across accounts. I don't know where that falls on our priorities right now, but I know we want to offer something like that eventually.

 

[BoomerET]

Sure would be nice if we could export characters in JSON or something similar. I thought this would have been already, along with the html, bbcode, etc.

I'm sure you know already why I'm asking. To create character importers for Fantasy Grounds and Roll20.


Dave

 

[flyteach]

Joe, IMHO, sharing characters across accounts is critical. Not sure why it hasn't been there already (and should be as I wouldn't think it's a campaign feature). We're just asking for simple export/import. This along with fixing the PDF output so it prints all the information needed (I won't even get into the separate file issue) should be at the top of the list.....not a nice to have 2 years from now.
Flyteach

 

[talsharien]

Joe, IMHO, sharing characters across accounts is critical. Not sure why it hasn't been there already (and should be as I wouldn't think it's a campaign feature). We're just asking for simple export/import. This along with fixing the PDF output so it prints all the information needed (I won't even get into the separate file issue) should be at the top of the list.....not a nice to have 2 years from now.
Flyteach

Agreed

 

[Farling]

Joe, IMHO, sharing characters across accounts is critical. Not sure why it hasn't been there already (and should be as I wouldn't think it's a campaign feature). We're just asking for simple export/import. This along with fixing the PDF output so it prints all the information needed (I won't even get into the separate file issue) should be at the top of the list.....not a nice to have 2 years from now.
Flyteach

I believe that Joe using the term "import" actually keeps the characters associated with their original accounts, but they are also displayed in the ref's campaign theatre.

This wouldn't require a corresponding export to get the character back to the players.

 

[flyteach]

I understand that, but if I want to give a character I've built to another person (with a current paid up active account of course) then I should be able to do that. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to share a character file just like an HLC portfolio file can be shared, including putting the file on a web site for community use. That's powerful and that's what I'm asking for.

 

[Joe]

That will probably be provided by the Campaign Theatre that might be launching soon-ish.

I was mostly responding to Farling's statement here, where he implied a relationship to the upcoming Campaigns functionality.

I should have said "The Campaigns launch won't include the ability to share characters across accounts, outside of players being able to import their PCs into the campaign."

Any future support for direct copying of characters between accounts, or exporting for use in 3rd party software will not likely be tied to Campaigns.

 

[flyteach]

Joe, please don't add information to my request/critique. I'm not referring to 3rd party software. I just want to share between users of HLO.

 

[Joe]

Joe, please don't add information to my request/critique. I'm not referring to 3rd party software. I just want to share between users of HLO.

That may be all you want personally, but as is clear from this thread, others want to export for use in 3rd party software. It is our (Lone Wolf's) job to address not only the features explicitly requested by users in forum threads for their own benefit, but also that of anyone reading who may not be directly responding.

 

[flyteach]

Sure, but I can only read what's written. You specifically mentioned 3rd party, which is very different from sharing only between HLO users. I respect that LWD is making decisions on what they think their customers are wanting.

 

[Tarmor]

Sure, but I can only read what's written. You specifically mentioned 3rd party, which is very different from sharing only between HLO users. I respect that LWD is making decisions on what they think their customers are wanting.

I think he was also taking into account Boomer's comment (above your first post) who does specifically mention 3rd party software using HLO data.

 

[flyteach]

@Dami,
Headslap! Yes, I'd like FG integration too, but I was trying to take baby steps as exchange between the native application shouldn't be that difficult. Sorry I missed that one line.

 

[Itzi]

The hinky part of exporting a character from one account to another is the possibility that the character uses resources/add-ons that the receiving account doesn't have.

You run into the same issue even now. Save out a portfolio of a character and email to someone else to import into their copy of HL and watch it puke errors all over the place when they don't have supplement X.

I'm sure that they'd like that to degrade gracefully. How that would be, I have no idea.

 

[Joe]

The hinky part of exporting a character from one account to another is the possibility that the character uses resources/add-ons that the receiving account doesn't have.

You run into the same issue even now. Save out a portfolio of a character and email to someone else to import into their copy of HL and watch it puke errors all over the place when they don't have supplement X.

I'm sure that they'd like that to degrade gracefully. How that would be, I have no idea.

The way HLC handles it is ugly, but fundamentally sound. Any content you don't have access to in the file will not be loaded, but the rest of the character will load. This of course, can leave the character in an unfinished state, with validations to resolve, etc. The errors you mention aren't fatal, they are the intentional (but admittedly crudely presented) way that HLC resolves this discrepancy. You are perfectly able to use the character after the inaccessible content is automatically removed in this process

HLO will work the same way, albeit with a nicer presentation of the content that won't be loaded.

 

[Itzi]

HLO will work the same way, albeit with a nicer presentation of the content that won't be loaded.

I would be completely happy if it simply listed the supplements that contain the missing content.

So I need Players Companion #15 for the missing feat. Got it!

As it is now, it's all guess-work.

 

[skald1]

That may be all you want personally, but as is clear from this thread, others want to export for use in 3rd party software. It is our (Lone Wolf's) job to address not only the features explicitly requested by users in forum threads for their own benefit, but also that of anyone reading who may not be directly responding.

HL Classic was used in my campaigns for as long as it's been around. It was so prevalent among my players, if HLC didn't have the item (and I bought into $$$ worth of Pathfinder supplements) the players couldn't have it. But the number one goal was for me to have a repository of everyone's sheets. With .POR files, this was possible.

Today as we play PF2E, I'm less likely to use HLO as it's a standalone tool; I can't import what the players have created. If I updated the player's sheets with XP, items, etc., I could send them their sheets. They were able to immediately import, view the changes, keep notes in the Hero Lab journals, and send it all back.

This isn't about 3rd party anything for me. It's about organization, ease of use, and portability.

In a world where most everything can be saved and imported, this was a backwards step for Lone Wolf Dev and a rather surprising one at that.

Steve

 

[LimpingNinja]

Joe, please don't add information to my request/critique. I'm not referring to 3rd party software. I just want to share between users of HLO.

Essentially it's just JSON out, JSON in, besides validation checks (for funky data) it should be trivial, but that's making assumptions about how they handle their service calls.

 

[Farling]

Essentially it's just JSON out, JSON in, besides validation checks (for funky data) it should be trivial, but that's making assumptions about how they handle their service calls.

Oh, if software was really this simple! ;-)