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My Opinion on another Savage Worlds character creator program

J

jbearwillis

Well-known member
I had a chance to test out a new character creation program, which I will not name, but what it says it can do, is far off what it really can do. It lacks a lot of function that was promised as of right now for the price. It lacks so much compared to hero lab. Hero labs price is way worth paying, for what you are allowed to do and accomplish, and the sad thing about it is that the prices are very close. If you want more for your price, Hero Lab is the best choice. An example of what I'm talking about is how I was able to implement the starship design of High-Space into Hero labs savage World system. I really couldn't accomplish it in the other program to have it work the way it does in Hero Lab.

The only thing going for it as of right now, is it's ability to add things automatically for users that are not very good at programing things in, but it's only the numbers and none of the crunch and function that hero lab gives you.

So what I'm trying to say is great job Wolflair, you guys have one hell of a program and no matter what others might say, for the price I have payed for all the games I have, which is all of them. It was well worth the price to me.

I just want to send out a thanks to you all for all your hard work. :D:D
JBear
 
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I'm pretty sure I know which other program you're talking about, and certainly something like High Space just wouldn't be doable in that program. There is a lot to be said for the ability to get something like that into Hero Lab. That being said there is also a very steep learning curve to getting many things into a Hero Lab data file that require documentation that isn't always there. That other program is more intuitive for the majority of data entry work that a lot of people want to accomplish. It also does a few things that Hero Lab doesn't do and it has a bit nice character printout than hero Lab does.

Some of the missing things have been requested here, though, and often we'll see some of that eventually make its way into the program. Some of it we've been able to implement into data files ourselves and LWD in conjunction with PEG, Inc. have been excellent in reaching out to those of us in the community who have been willing to create data files for official settings, as can also be said for High Space. (One of the reasons I'm rather fanatically a Pinnacle fan boy is because they don't just allow fan-based content, unlike some other companies, they practically encourage it!)

We have had some issues on occasion with responsiveness, but I think that is more of a Savage Worlds issue just because I think the Savage Worlds side probably just brings in so much less money than the Pathfinder side does. Despite some of those delays, though, overall Lone Wolf has been pretty good about getting back to us. It also probably doesn't help that things here also tend to come in fits and spurts rather than a steady stream of things we may be working on.

I would also add that there is also a new program that just came out recently which advertised some really useful functionality for what it would do, but then it also failed miserably on delivering that. It has some promise, possibly on the form-fillable PDF front, but overall it's a heavily lacking product lagging FAR behind Hero Lab and that other program you mentioned.

So while I would still really love to see an easier or more understandable method where we might, for example, be able to use any form-fillable PDF as a character sheet, or at least a more intuitive or even graphical method for doing them, and while I would love to see even more of the suggestions I've made previously in the appropriate thread implemented, overall Hero Lab has still been my go-to character building program. Certainly there is plenty of room for improvement, but I'd also say that once you get over the cost of buy-in of the learning curve for doing some of the main data entry work kinds of things in it then it's still the best product out there for doing Savage Worlds characters.
 
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I don't think you do know which one I'm talking about, because the one that I bought, has a pretty bad print out and the character sheet that is nice doesn't print out everything you need. After you print it out it says you have to add the attributes your self and a few other things. It's doesn't even print out much if any of the description of the traits. I see further down you got the right program, The one I'm talking about just came out. It falls short of what it made itself sound like it could do. I feel it wasn't worth the money that the company charged for it. I just want to let the guys at Lone Wolf and CapeCrusader know that they have done a really good job on the program side. It might not be perfect, but it's ahead of the class and slowly getting better. That other programs form fillable isn't all that great at all, it really sucks. When I use it, I have to fill in some of the stuff.
 
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I gotcha and yeah, I very much agree that when all is said and done that new program just isn't even close to being ready for prime time, IMHO, and definitely doesn't deliver on its promises. Heck, it doesn't even let you put in Knowledge skills right, yet. Pretty shoddy, IMHO.

The first program I mentioned, though, has been a player in the market for a while and I was pretty town between it and Hero Lab for a while, but then decided Hero Lab was going to be worth the extra time I would need to invest in it to be able to get more out of it than I could with the other program.
 
Yea I know what program your talking about and it is nice, but it doesn't have the tactical console or a few other things. It's nice as a player, but is lacking as a gm tool, which hero lab is both. Also that other program isn't any easier to input things into it then hero lab is. I have it to. lol, now I have all 3 and I would have to say hero lab by far is my choice of the 3.
 
Lets just say there have been quite a few folks that have had to eat allot of crow on the other boards over this.

I think we have the better product and it keeps getting better. :)
 
Any chance of seeing more from you jbearwillis?

I say we as a community should go on a data file creating rampage and get more data files out than the other group can ever hope to match. I am shooting to do a file a month this year myself. Expect Mars real soon.
 
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I just finished up 2013 at that kind of tempo! I'm not going to have much time to really work on files until after March, though. Then I can either start working on the few other third-party products I have which is really just Accursed, Zombacalypse, Shaintar, Slipstream, Sundered Skies, Dawn of Legends, Runepunk, and Realms of Cthulhu. I have more than I though, actually. I also have Modern Ops which might technically be considered an Official Release, but I think its along the lines of needing to be updated to SWD (easy enough for me to do) and out of print. So I don't know if it could be released as an "official" source or not. Let me know if anyone is interested in any of those in particular but no promises on when I could get any of them done.

Of course other than for Deadlands Noir I haven't set up the NPCs (other than monsters and such) or encounters for the other data files I've already done. My focus has tended to be on character creation and less on things like encounters but I'm not sure of anyone who really uses Hero Lab for encounters on the Savage Worlds side of things anyway. It plays well enough at the table that not using the program for it isn't a big deal at all, I don't think. I could go back to work on some of those, though.

And I do have a minor update to make on HoE, but that one is pretty much ready to go. I just have to post the update.
 
I don't know which one you are discussing. I only know of Wild Card Creator, which is a nice little program still in Beta, MetaCreator, which is very AccessDB but it works (I can add a custom race easily), and Savage Outfitter, which is basically abandoned at this point.

HL is good, but adding to it is an abomination.
 
I assume by adding to it you mean adding in data files. And I would kind of agree with that to some extent (I actually mention that above, even.) But part of that is also what gives it a pretty high level of flexibility in what can be done with the program that can't be done in the others. It's one thing if you just wan to add some piece of equipment or the text of an Edge (and not necessarily all of the effects of that Edge), which to be honest is actually pretty easy to do in the Editor for HL as well as those other programs (and yes, other than Savage Outfitter, those are the progs being alluded to.) It just looks harder because of all the other options, which you can always just ignore.

However, having all of those other options, the ability to modify the stats on your sheet, or even conditionally do so if you are using HL at the table, the add other effects and so on, is an ability HL just has available right up front. Sure it's got a steep learning curve for doing that and the documentation can be more than a little cryptic (especially for folks with no real programming experience) but at least you've got several of us here who are active enough on the forum to try and help folks get over that hump, and some of the folks with Lone Wolf who check in here occasionally as well to give some of the really in-depth help if we get really stuck.

WCC may still be in beta, but it completely missed the MAIN selling point of its Kickstarter, that it would read any SW PDF and import it with all modifiers built in. It can't do that at all, so it's being done manually. And it's currently missing any good way for the customer to manually make their own stuff up, at least not well. Worse is that it is NOT in Beta, not at all. Current release version is 1.0.2. That 1.anything means it's the final release version, not beta, and no place that I could see on their site clearly defines the product as Beta.

Savage Outfitter is... well, barely a character creation program, IMHO, but I haven't bought it because it just looks abandoned and not really well done, I don't think. So overall I cannot give a fully informed opinion on it.

So to me the big competitor here is MetaCreator. Which to me has it's plusses (which, in part, you note but I also think you don't get all the functionality of adding something like a custom race that HL can do) and minuses which made it a big toss-up when I was originally deciding which one I really wanted to use for my gaming group in the long run. Now, with all of the data files that are now available for Hero Lab (and now that I have gotten past the biggest hump of working out how to make things for HL, knowledge of which I've tried to share on this forum) I think HL is hands-down superior to the other options.

Are there still issues with HL? Absolutely. And when I find them I try to bring them up in the threads on this forum for those things. Do they get fixed fast? It kind of depends on the issue, but generally no. They do tend to eventually get fixed, though, but I think we have to realize that for Lone Wolf their Savage Worlds line probably doesn't even hold a candle to the money they make on Pathfinder, so that's going to be their priority, period. That can be a bit frustrating, certainly, but as far as I can see it's still getting us more content and capability than any other character creation solution for Savage Worlds out there.

So there is a bit of a hump to get over to use HL well, but in the long run it's proven, for me, to be a worthwhile effort. We just need the kind of documentation for really using the editor (maybe even some tutorial videos) that they started on for their Wiki for a full on game system. Too many folks (including myself, originally) get confused by that Wiki thinking we'd need to duplicate a game system in order to make a data file, when we just needed to make a data file and set sources on it to help keep the things we do separated when needed. Stuff like that.
 
I agree with everything you have said Lenny, I have all those programs except Savage Outfitter and by far Hero Lab beats them all. WCC is very disappointing, it has fallen short of what they said. Yes it's nice for the person that just wants the words on a character sheet with no descriptions, but I and many of the people I play the game with love a lot of detail. Not just the basics, Hero Lab gives us most of what were looking for. LIke you said, is it perfect, the answer is no, but what program every is. It does live up to it capabilities. Each game system is getting upgrades, Maybe not to our wants, but then there is only so much time and people to go around in a 24 hour time period. So I say that with Wolflair being as small as they are, have done a superior job to the rest and at a great price. Also not to mention all the community help that is here. It's seems that every time some one new jumps on board we seem to learn something new also.

Also to say HL is good, but adding to it is an abomination. Is a bit short coming. It does have a small learning curve, but I have no programming experience at all, which I think help me in the long run. I just jumped in and tried to do things and sometime they worked and sometimes they didn't, but with help from the community and Wolflair I got my data files to work. I push the program in directions I don't think people expected it to be able to do even me, I just didn't take no for an answer. that's how I got the Starships to work in the program with most of the bells and whistles. Even if WCC gets High-Space into it, I feel and believe that mine will be of much more use then their file will be. Mine does a lot more then just adds text< but that is just my opinion and only mine, I speak for no others.
 
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