I just picked it up. I'm sure I'll be busy adding data to it since it's missing most of the expansion books as of now, but so far it looks really nice.

Its finished? *goeslooking*

I'll give up Chummer when your pry my keyboard from my cold dead hands.

I do love Chummer myself, but I'm going to take a good look at the Demo version and see what I think overall.

I have the beta. I was unaware that it has been officially released? Gencon I assume.

And for what it's worth the folks at Lonewolf are busy adding the expansion material as we speak (or type as it were).

I picked up and I am impressed with it.

Must be nice to have the Beta. Yes their official release date was today. So when I got up this morning for work I picked it up.

Wish I could have gone to Gencon, but I seriously wanted this for over a year. So far adding stuff that was missing is simple enough.

I could probably put in most of the missing qualities fast enough given the pdfs of the books.

I played with Chummer for about 10 minutes and just didn't like it at all.

If I wanted to use a free one, I'd keep using DK's spreadsheet.

Here's an example... it only has the core SR4a races, not the metavariants like Dryads...

Creating a Dryad with Symbiosis and Glamor took me less than 5 minutes.

What are you guys talking about exactly? Would it be possible to get some links?

When is the last time you tried it? Nebular has done a fantastic job improving it over the last few months. At this point it has nearly everything I could want.

Indeed. Nebular has designed an amazing program. You would need some serious features to convince me that HeroLabs put out a superior product in terms of anything more than the style and design of the borders, which is neglible to me.

About 3 weeks ago. It just didn't impress me at all.

http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab

Wolflair's Licensed HeroLab Ruleset for Shadowrun which was released today.

http://www.wolflair.com

Question is ... How much for the supplements ? I don't want to pay 15 bucks per book like Pathfinders system. Dosnt seem worth it.

That to me, this is the kicker. I'm not going to pay for each source book when other free options with all the source book material is out there.

Yeah, well, Lone Wolf is trying to make money.

The other character generators out there? Not so much.

It probably does not help that character generators fall into such a legal grey zone.



-k

Until the free application developers get tired of maintaining the code. And go the same path as NSRCG.

That's the kicker for me... if I buy the data packages from Wolflair and they stay in business (which is more likely if I do) then I'll have free updates and free support, and the software will continue to be maintained.

If I use a free tool like Chummer, and the developer gets burned out, where am I then if a bug crops up, or I upgrade to a 128 bit system and the software needs to be updated?

Except of course for the ones that have a license to exist.

My experience is that the cost of the tools has little impact on the chance of that happening. Paid tools that no longer bring in money are just as quickly abandoned as free tools where the developer gets burned out. One advantage that free tools have is that when a developer wishes to stop supporting a product, they're often able to hand off everything to a new developer. (As an example, after Ancient History decided to no longer maintain the incredible products produced over the years, a number of people offered to maintain them. PACKS is still available.) It's also possible for an independent developer of freeware to hand off responsibility for a project to other individuals or groups of individuals for short periods of time if maintenance or conversion is desired.

Much of the data in Chummer is stored in .xml format, making it easy to modify and add on to. The character sheets are in .xsl format making it possible to add new styles of character sheets. Much of the technical information is stored on the Chummer Wiki ( http://www.dndjunkie.com/chummer/wiki/MainPage.ashx ) including information about adding custom data files ( http://www.dndjunkie.com/chummer/wiki/Cust...ta%20Files.ashx ). Should the tool be abandoned today and a new book come out, a number of us could simply create the custom data files for the book and publicly make them available.

Well, I suppose.

Whether or not a license is NEEDED or not is the grey area. Game mechanics are generally not protected by Copyright Law. You can get a Patent on them, but usually mechanics, the kind you can reduce to formulas on a spreadsheet, fail the "creative" requirement.

That said, if nothing else you do need a license for any trademarked words or logos belonging to the game maker.




-k

Somehow I missed Chummer until seeing this thread. Good looking project.

I have no problems paying for a product & supporting a game company if the product is worth it. There have been plenty of freeware that has been better than the licensed stuff, bit sometimes players and fans need to note a bullet if just to keep a franchise alive.

If the builder is good, lemme know. I will put in my order today.

Well Herolab is something like 15 years old.

I loved free tools... NSRCG was a die by tool for SR3, when Sr4 came out and everything changed, what happened to it?

If Neb decided today to quit supporting or working on Chummer and walked, what would the impact of SR5 be to it?

If SR5 came out tomorrow, I'm pretty sure, I'd be able to buy a new game system or data file for Hero Lab, within a period of time, and just go on my merry way with the same character management tool I might use for Pathfinder, D&D 4e, Cthulhu, etc.

And for that matter, managing the data files is more robust for HL. I can actually write code to sit behind various qualities and make the whole thing work. And I get that with my license.

So, your assumption is that A, for no provided reason, stops support and B, for no provided reason, adds support.
Given the ability to define your own assumptions as if they're facts, you tend to get the answer you want.

If SR5 came out tomorrow, I'd get it. Until such time, I'll pass.

Do you remember NSRCG?

I do... I used it for years, made a donation to the author for it (I believe it was the buy the author a beer program). Then one day he went away and when SR4 came out we were all screwed. Chummer may or may not be around for a while, but ultimately Neb is more like the author of NSRCG than like Wolflair. If Neb gets tired (as a lot of freeware authors do), or Catalyst decides to disallow character generators in order to drive sales to the one they get royalties from, I can tell you that I'll still be OK. And while they don't have a patent on the game system mechanics, they do have copyrights to the text contents of the books, so they could.

Wolflair on the other hand, has a license to manage a character builder for Shadowrun, when (not if) Shadowrun 5 comes out, they'll likely charge me money to get the SR5 rule set, but I'll be able to continue to use the same tool for the next generation and won't be lost as many were when SR4 came out and NSRCG was not updated to follow it. Odds are I'll be able to convert my characters (to some degree) to the new package as well.

Not meant as a personal attack, but are you schilling? Do you have a personal stack in Herolabs?

It's just as likely, given Shadowrun's history, that Catalyst somehow loses the license or somehow did not actually HAVE the rights to sub-license a character generator and Hero-Labs is forced to cease support. /shrug I'm not concerned with what may happen a year down the line. As I said, when SR5 comes out, if there isn't a free alternative, I'll pick up Herolabs generator.

Actually, I might pick it up for the Savage Worlds creator, if it has decent support...I'm tired of messing with my 5 year old spreadsheet. So, maybe they'll get my business afterall.

Chummer for me. He built it exactly like i'd build it (if i wasn't so lazy).

Just to put the "OMG! What happens if he stops developing it" stuff - like I've said in the past: if for any reason I stop developing this, I will make the source code available to anyone who wants it so that the community can continue to develop it and put it to use. I'm sure there's at least one other C# developer in the crowd who would be willing to poke around in it. When I released Chummer, I really had no idea that Lone Wolf was working on one. I had only seen the Excel sheets and half-baked, incomplete applications. Whether or not someone uses it, it doesn't bother me; not everyone's going to like it. At least the community has more options now, and if they don't like any of 'em, pencils and paper are still plentiful!

I'm not trying to persuade people into using my stuff by posting here. I really want to keep this on the actual subject and offer my opinion (and address the "what if" scenario for Chummer since that seems to keep popping up as an aside). Personally, I've never really cared of Lone Wolf's software (Army Builder, Hero Lab with d20, Hero Lab with Pathfinder), but I tried their Shadowrun demo to see what they've been up to lately. I've found their colour scheme gets very hard on the eyes after a short while, and their UI in general to be ugly with things crammed together. Hero Labs as a platform is an extremely cool idea. Getting something to work with multiple gaming systems is really neat and a huge amount of work. Having just one application to cover all of the RPGs you play could be a huge plus. That said, the big problem I see with it is that the game system files are these very distinct, very specialised pieces that are being crammed into a platform that has to be so general as to accommodate all of the different systems, so things are laid out in this sometimes awkward way, rather than having an application designed specifically for that system.


Not everyone wants to take the time (or for that matter, knows how to) write code to get something to work properly. It's powerful, but a smaller sub-set of your user base is going to actually be able to take advantage of this. The same could be done by either using a non-proprietary data format like XML and providing tags that translate into more complex behaviour within the application (while not everyone knows/wants to modify XML, it is usually a larger sub-set of your user base and an easy-to-understand standard), or a more in-depth but easy-to-use editor like RPGXplorer was which let you modify things in a more granular manner and build things up in blocks.

I don't think I'd have an issue buying the content packs if the game was new. It is one thing to say I made X, Y came out so it is new work I have to do and I want to be compensated. It is another thing to say A-Z is out I gave you only A which doesn't really give you a functional product but hey after I make B-Z you can pay for those as well and your character generator will be worth a damn.

And when SR5 comes out? Your HeroLabs SR4 version is dropped and all that money spent is gone. Just like they've done for years. And look how long it took for the SR4 module to finish development, and that's only the core book.

Er, they took, what, like a year or so?

That's pretty average for software development.



-k

For a character generator for a core book? They didn't create a new program, they made a module for a program that already existed. Yea, they had to write all new checks and triggers and all that, but it's not like they had to come up with an installer, update engine, etc etc.

Which is why it only took a year or so (give or take)...

I tried the demo version & while interesting, it doesn't have any of the supplement books like Augmentation or Runner's Companion. So I will hold off on buying it until it has all the supplemental stuff available.

I keep reading about "Chummer". Since I'm a newb idiot... can some care to elaborate on this app for chargen?

Check here: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=34674

Much obliged for the link.

You realize most commercial software development is on 2, 4, or 6 year cycles, yes?

One year isn't bad, even if it's a module for an existing engine.



-k

Wow... Chummer is a really nice program. Lemme say thanks & I hope it keeps up.

Did we ever find out if they're making us buy the books separately? Personally, I use Army Builder (both v2 and v3) for my Warhammer 40k, so I will say that I do like their products and they do build good software. If it's $30 and they keep it working and updated (in something resembling a timely manner) it'll personally be worth it, even though I love Chummer.

I have been a software developer for 20 years. I've only worked on 1 project that lasted 2 years, and it was an never finished cluster fuck. I'd have to say in my experience, most projects's release cycles of this size are more like 6 months, and many are much less. For instance, Chummer, which does everything that this HeroLabs one does for the Core book, plus it already handles most if not all of the other books, and it started from scratch in April (4 months ago) whereas HeroLab only added a module, not developing the underlying system.

HeroLabs might be cool, but my hat is off to the Chummer guy, who has turned out an arguably superior product in 1/3 of the time at non-butt-puckering price point.

Actually, my biggest turn off with HeroLabs isn't the price, which I think is too high, but it's the draconian DRM that it has. You can only install it on one machine, unless you fill out their special form to get a special second machine license. If your computer that it is installed on breaks down, you have to contact them to get another license to install it on your repaired machine. Crazy. I would never be able to convince the guys in my group to pay for or use this.

I'm glad we all have choices though.

Hear hear!

Ya know people, you realize you can like Chummer right, you don't need to justify your liking of it by bashing on something else.

Further if 35$ (the cost of a new herolab purchase which comes with one game system) is a puckering price point for you then what are you doing buying RPG books?

I was another of those who wasn't that sold on chummer, I'm still using DK's spreadsheet, herolab gives me another option. Hopefully their product's quality will exceed Chummers fairly quickly, that's what I expect to do in the case of a fan project vs a professional software house, if not feel free to use it.

Also to the best of my knowledge form talking to folks at the Catalyst booth (I had already bought from the herolab booth) including Jason the Herolab pack for shadowrun will include all shadowrun books out to date eventually, pathfinder is kind of it's own special monster as far as that goes. In the future if there is a major new gear book that might be seperate. But for now it is what it is.

I don't believe pointing out that it took from May 13, 2010 to Aug 04. 2011 to do the first book is "bashing". It's reasonable, at that rate of development , to question if SR5 will be published before the core books are even added to Hero Labs.

While I agree with you on your expectations of a professional software house, as a direct comparison, the Chummer project started from scratch well after the Hero Labs announcement of adding a data package to an existing platform and has outpaced it at an incredible rate (currently supporting 18 books and the German content from Arsenal and Augmentation). There is no reason to expect Hero Labs to ever catch up or outperform given their track record over the past 15 months. While I am less familiar with the spreadsheet project going on in the Community Projects sections, they also seem to be outpacing Hero Labs and it's nature makes it a much more open project than either Chummer or Hero Labs. Of the three, the slowest and least responsive is the professional software house project.

I like the choices, especially since my previous of choice appeared to be abandoned with bugs but after a year of waiting, Hero Labs need to make significant improvements to their product and delivery time in order to regain my confidence.

Actually considering that SR5 still isn't announced I do find it unreasonable, such is life however. I'm not going to defend hero labs, I just find all the bitching, especially bitching based on inaccurate information odd. (Speculation on expansion pack costs for example)

Kudos to Chummer for having a shorter turnaround then Herolabs, but they were starting from the ground up to support only Shadowrun. Now i don't know much about herolabs, I'm about to go fish my copy out of my luggage and do an install, but I do know that other people have highly recommended their other product packs. They needed to make the Shadowrun pack work with their existing framework. Little different beast, plus while I'm sure they would have liked to have everything ready at turn key with all the books. I'm sure that Gencon coming up encouraged them to get out a smooth but updatable project later drove them ahead.

Basically, what I ask is that you stop dragging the thread off topic. You want to start a thread expounding the virtues of Chummer, there already is one, and good on them. This thread was someone asking about herolab. I'm fine with line by line comparisons, and if I were to have to pay for expansion books ala pathfinder I'm going to be six kinds of pissed, but until then I'm going to give the product it's run and see how things go.

This thread was by someone saying "I think herolabs is great", why shouldn't people mention other options in a civilized (thank god MS is not involved^^) manner?

What I'm wondering, will CGL also use this tool for future books? The extra sanity checks would certainly help

LoneWolf is already at work adding content from the other core and supplement books. I have not heard whether they will charge for these or not. I could ask on their play test forums... Tho I haven't been very active there.

Also, someone mentioned CGL licensing rights above. The Herolab project was actually announced a few years back, but was delayed due to licensing issues. I'm fairly certain that the commercial release of SR for Herolab indicates that the appropriate people are getting payed.

Here is what their pricing page says on the issue of making us buy supplimental books separately...


From:
http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=...mp;page=pricing

There is no price listed yet for Supplementals for SR4, but that could be because none exist yet.