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Not doing much with it

H

Harmon

New member
M&M Beta is not working for me (us really- speaking for our group on that much).

Being unable to save my work has frustrated me and because of that I have stopped working on it other then a few attempts.

Reasoning- I work on a character for thirty minutes and have to leave then come back, redo all that I did or leave the program open, or have to close it because the computer needs to go off. It kinda sucks.

I would be more willing to work on this thing if I could save my work and come back to it. Ya, I know, its driven by greed, you guys need to make as much profit as possible to make it in this world, but I need a little help on this, cause right now- not gonna buy it (to many bad memories; to much frustration).

So I purpose a time sensitive save able. Give me four months free on the program then when that time is up tell me and I either have to uninstall or pay someone for it. I would love to work on this, I really would, but as I said (or implied) its to much of a pain to have to redo and rework my last effort to get any ideas out and down.

Kinda annoyed, and very understanding, hope we can find some middle ground here.
 
Hi there,

All of your comments can be explained by one word in the first sentence of your post - "Beta". :)

Beta testing is intended to give selected users a look at incomplete versions of our products, without us having to polish everything enough for general release. This lets us get private feedback from our testers to make things better, without investing lots of wasted time in potentially dead-end ideas.

For example, this latest beta generated a bunch of very useful feedback about what needs the most attention from us. Based on feedback from beta testers, some areas clearly need more work than we thought - when we officially release the files, they'll be a lot more polished because of the feedback we received.

Regarding your comments on the "4 months free" idea - having a month's free trial (4 months is far too long - the industry standard is 2 weeks to 1 month for free trials) is an idea we've explored in the past. Unfortunately, there's no way we could do it without making piracy of Hero Lab much easier. Given that our older products had an extremely high piracy rate (multiple pirated copies in use for every one we actually sold), this isn't something we're anxious to return to.

Finally - as of more than a week ago, official beta testers can now save their M&M portfolios. However, you don't seem to be on the beta test list (I assume someone in your gaming group gave you the beta), so you won't be able to save - our policy is that it's fine to show beta stuff to your friends, but not to actually give them the software. It's worth noting that this would have got someone kicked out of the beta program by many companies, so please be more circumspect about posting this sort of stuff in future.

(For our other readers - yes, the M&M data files are being beta tested right now, but they still need a lot of work before we're ready to go public with them. Stay tuned for the public preview that we'll have available soon!)
 
My one question is how do you become a beta tester?

I think I know some one who would love to do some beta testing over winter break.

Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge

:)
 
You know, I could have SWORN I made a post about beta and stuff, well before Colen's post...and had seen it come up too. Was it removed? Or did it disappear on its own? Or am I hallucinating? (well, the last ou can't answer, I would think...)
 
Well, thank the GODS that I'm not going nuts, at least! Yes, that is exactly what I wrote. Wanting to know more about any possible beta-testing of M&M.

Although, now I more want to know where my post went?!
 
DannyBoy2k wrote:
>
>
> Well, thank the GODS that I'm not going nuts, at least! Yes, that is
> exactly what I wrote. Wanting to know more about any possible
> beta-testing of M&M.
>
> Although, now I more want to know where my post went?!


Sorry about that - I removed it when I was flailing around deciding what
to do with the thread. (The thread also disappeared for a while, then
came back.) Rest assured, your post is now in a better place. ;)

For everyone looking to join the beta - unfortunately this is a closed
beta right now. We're still missing important features like "Print
character sheets" and "Calculate proper bonuses to stats", thus it
wouldn't be very useful to you. :(

The public preview will be out soon, so you can all play around with it
when it comes out. We don't have any plans to let more people into the
beta right now, due to lack of features.


--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development
 
Ah. Well, I had no problem with lack of features during the d20 beta, but that all is for you to decide. I would enjoy doing it, though. :) Anyways, I'm looking forward to getting it when it DOES arrive.
 
Colen neglected to mention an important additional detail regarding the Beta. The current list of Beta testers was provided to us by Green Ronin. Ultimately, it is GR who has final say on who can/can't be included in the M&M Beta. If someone wants to participate in the Beta, approval needs to be secured from GR. I'm not saying that new folks can't be added to the Beta, but there is an important extra hurdle that is outside of our control.

I should also take a moment to clarify Colen's comment about "lack of features". Thus far, the focus within the M&M files has been on the "hard stuff", with the "easy stuff" being completely ignored. For example, how do we cleanly, intuitively, and efficiently let users create and modify power arrays? And what about power arrays with alternate powers associated with each power in the array? And what about various power feats, flaws, drawbacks, and whatnot on some of those powers? I'm sure that this one example alone should elicit an "Ugh!" from you M&M veterans out there. And there are multiple "Ugh!" situations within the M&M character creation process (devices, anyone?).

So Colen has been focusing on these nasty things first. Once those are well in hand - which they basically are at this point - then it's time to focus on the easy stuff. However, without all that easy stuff in place, the M&M files lack a lot of utility for character creation, and that's what Colen meant by "lack of features".

We have been Beta testing how all the hard stuff should work and getting feedback on that stuff alone. With the hard stuff pretty well sorted out, Colen is now overhauling the visuals in preparation for a public preview. The preview will show off how well we can handle all the nasty stuff. If we can do that well, then you won't have any doubts about how the easy stuff will be handled. :-)

And yes, there will be a second public preview shortly before official release of the M&M files that will incorporate nearly everything - including all the easy stuff.
 
Ok. Well, that all is up to you and GR to decide, then. :) I would find it interesting and fun o be part of the Beta-ing, but it seems as if GR doesn't want that, so I'll content myself with playing with it when it's done.
 
Actually I am a tester, or was, as I have not looked at the software in more then a month. With the save option added I will alert my group (also testers) and see if they are interested in resuming the testing they too gave up on.

It seems that you all lost about four or more weeks of testing from four people (about 16 weeks) due to this little snafu related to theft of what might be a very good product (if I can get past my feeling due to the saving option not being there).

Sorry about the lost time, but my own time is limited and I have not the time to make the same characters over and over again looking for more in depth issues with a program that I hope works.

Take care, and hope I can find the time to get this going again.
 
Harmon wrote:
>
>
> Actually I am a tester, or was, as I have not looked at the software in
> more then a month. With the save option added I will alert my group
> (also testers) and see if they are interested in resuming the testing
> they too gave up on.
>
> It seems that you all lost about four or more weeks of testing from four
> people (about 16 weeks) due to this little snafu related to theft of
> what might be a very good product (if I can get past my feeling due to
> the saving option not being there).
>
> Sorry about the lost time, but my own time is limited and I have not the
> time to make the same characters over and over again looking for more in
> depth issues with a program that I hope works.
>
> Take care, and hope I can find the time to get this going again.


I hope you find the time to try out HL again. However, please keep
discussion of the beta to the beta forums and not the public ones.


Thanks,

--
Colen McAlister, colen@wolflair.com
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development
 
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