Hero Lab for SR4, Is it going to happen? Options

[Shrike30]

I started using Lone Wolf Development's Army Builder for Warhammer 40k a while ago, and it's a solid product for putting together army lists and working with them. Lo and behold, LWD put together a product called Hero Lab to handle RPG characters, and there were rumors for a while that they were going to support SR4. I figured I'd wait until they put together the SR4 data pack, and grab it then.

Fast forward to today, and they haven't added SR4 compatibility yet. Digging into their forums, I found this:

"Any idea if ShadowRun is going to be done for HeroLab?"

"The last we heard from Catalyst, everything was a "go" in principle. The hold-up was that they still needed to get some additional stuff inked with WizKids regarding their license that had to be in place before we could ink a derivate license for HL. To my knowledge, that's where things currently sit. We're hoping to get this all nailed down soon. Colen runs a regular Shadowrun game, so we're all really anxious to get the green light on this one."

That's about 6 months old. Has this just been put on hold amidst all the chaos, or decided against for some reason?

[RunnerPaul]

"The last we heard from Catalyst, everything was a "go" in principle. The hold-up was that they still needed to get some additional stuff inked with WizKids regarding their license that had to be in place before we could ink a derivate license for HL. To my knowledge, that's where things currently sit. We're hoping to get this all nailed down soon. Colen runs a regular Shadowrun game, so we're all really anxious to get the green light on this one."

That's about 6 months old. Has this just been put on hold amidst all the chaos, or decided against for some reason?

We just finalized our license with WizKids and that has created a lot of additional work -- getting sublicenses with foreign publishers, software companies, and other industry partners up and running -- and we are all busting ass to get that stuff done in addition to our publishing schedule of games.

While Adam doesn't specify which software companies, the two pieces of information from the seperate companies do seem to dovetail quite nicely together.

[Jrayjoker]

It dovetails, but that is still inconclusive.


Adam, any comments?

[Adam]

I can't comment on this ... except to say that I think Hero Lab is totally awesome, and I wish it ran natively on OSX. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Jrayjoker]

I can't comment on this ... except to say that I think Hero Lab is totally awesome, and I wish it ran natively on OSX. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thanks Mr. Johnson. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[cryptoknight]

Somebody should comment on this now... I was checking out their software, and while they don't have Shadowrun available as a program, they certainly had the Shadowrun logo showing in their booth at Gencon.

[DireRadiant]

Man at the booth said 6 months or so.

[raverbane]

Right after Holostreets

[hobgoblin]

around same time as DNF in other words...

[DocTaotsu]

Shadows of Latin America?

*Takes cover*

Wow, this Hero Lab thing looks pretty fucking cool. Sure hope all the attack lawyers sort this one out soon.

[Caine Hazen]

I think I saw that out at GenCon... was I mistaken?

Wait.. nevermind (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

[DocTaotsu]

Look the problem is clear. Someone here needs to stop playing SR long enough to get absurdly wealthy so they can create an SR endowment and get all this cool shit financed and finished.

So we can mooch, and mooch hard.

We'll like... have your face in the back of every book with a bio or something. Jeez, just do it already!

[cryptoknight]

Man at the booth said 6 months or so.

Six months? Ugh... The only part of SR I hate is making characters... I used to use NSRCG to do it... but now that I'm 4th ed at best I have several partially finished spreadsheet methods... all of which are amazing in how far they've gone... but at the same time frustrating because they haven't gone far enough... *sigh*

[Adam]

Look the problem is clear. Someone here needs to stop playing SR long enough to get absurdly wealthy so they can create an SR endowment and get all this cool shit financed and finished.

This isn't a financing issue. This is a license issue; we're working on getting the details signed and then Lone Wolf [the developers of Hero Lab] will proceed from there.

[cryptoknight]

This isn't a financing issue. This is a license issue; we're working on getting the details signed and then Lone Wolf [the developers of Hero Lab] will proceed from there.

That's awesome... hurry up and agree so you can get the royalty payments from my purchase of it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[DocTaotsu]

Well, whip those lawyers damnit! I want my Cyber Hero Lab! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[cx2]

Couple points -

First the original mention of "software licenses" could just as easily have been referring to getting licenses for productivity software cleared for Catalyst, such as PDF creation server software etc.

Second the licensing probably involves M$ since they own the bulk of the rights to electronic SR related stuff, not counting PDFs. I believe they had to clear this with M$ when they made the editor for Battletech. Now as much faith as we have in M$ (cough cough) we all know what this means. Unless of course the old deal with M$ included for this provision, but I wouldn't count on it knowing our luck.

[Tycho]

MS has given up all the Fasa licenses for quite a while now. So MS has nothing to do with this decision.

cya
Tycho

[cx2]

Since when? I'm dubious due to that abomination of an SR game they made, and I did hear something about them licensing SR game rights to another company.

Just because they haven't done anything with the BT rights of late doesn't mean they don't still own them, and they actually own them outright not just license them. As I recall they bought those rights when FASA went down, which is why noone did anything while they butchered Shadowrun with their cheapo Counterstrike knock off. I don't see them "giving up" rights they own.

[Tycho]

FASA was officially shutdown on September 12, 2007 with only the Community Manager and Technical Support Manager positions remaining active to support their games. Microsoft subsequently sold the rights to produce electronic adaptations of FASA games back to Weisman, who is currently heading a new venture called Smith & Tinker.

Smith and Tinker HP

News about the Fasa Licenses

cya
Tycho

[cx2]

Fair enough, I missed that somewhere along the line. It might be they need to negotiate with them instead then.

The issue was I misunderstood "for quite a while now" as "quite a while ago", and I don't see that period as being that long really.

Edit:
Just rechecked, those pages said they "licensed" the rights. Doesn't make it clear who owns the outright rights at the end of the day since you can and companies do license things on a temporary basis quite regularly. Either way though it's one more set of people they need to talk to for them to get this rolling.

[otakusensei]

Ah, now I see what a cluser this must be. Worst thing that could happen is if the whole process gets cocked up because someone fears that an electronic product for the Shadowrun Pen and paper RPG might become confused with the 360 game that just happened to share a title.

[Adam]

Tycho: Microsoft has licensed the rights to Smith and Tinker, but still *own* the rights. The Smith and Tinker press release that you linked to is quite clear; I'd suggest trusting it over Wikipedia.

[deek]

Six months? Ugh... The only part of SR I hate is making characters... I used to use NSRCG to do it... but now that I'm 4th ed at best I have several partially finished spreadsheet methods... all of which are amazing in how far they've gone... but at the same time frustrating because they haven't gone far enough... *sigh*

Hehe...try building a character in Hero System by hand...makes SR chargen feel like choosing a number between 1 and 10:)

This will be cool when its out. I remember using a little app they community created around here a number of months ago. I little .NET windows app...from a GM perspective, I could easily sit around and punch out a ton of full-fledged NPCs in minutes and save them to my harddrive. Came in really handy during game sessions. I even built mooks in there...made things really easy to run.

[MJBurrage]

Tycho: Microsoft has licensed the rights to Smith and Tinker, but still *own* the rights. The Smith and Tinker press release that you linked to is quite clear; I'd suggest trusting it over Wikipedia.

Dismissals of Wikipedia always bother me becasue they simplify that it is hands down the best place to look up almost anything, as long as you understand what Wikipedia is, and that it is not a final source. That's why it has footnotes.

In this case an editor just misunderstood the press release they cited. (Which has now been corrected.)