Pathfinder 1E [Pathfinder] Software Support?

[Nikosandros]

Thanks for the information. If I end up buying the program, I'll be back to pester you for information...

 

[Perram]

Just a heads up for those of you who may be considering using HeroLab for Pathfinder.

The software can only be activated once every 120 days (4 months), and if you need to reinstall you have to email the companies support line and explain to them why you have to reinstall the software.

I enjoyed the software, but having just installed Windows 7 on my machine, I'm not enjoying that I currently can not use it while I wait for their support lines to get back to me.

 

[Perram]

Another note about Hero Lab:

Having not yet received a response to my email. I attempted to reach the company by phone, only to be informed by their answering service that they will not answer support related questions via their phone.

I then found out that their estimated email response time was 2-3 days.

Not a happy halfling.

 

[LWDPressRelease]

Just a heads up for those of you who may be considering using HeroLab for Pathfinder.

The software can only be activated once every 120 days (4 months), and if you need to reinstall you have to email the companies support line and explain to them why you have to reinstall the software.

I enjoyed the software, but having just installed Windows 7 on my machine, I'm not enjoying that I currently can not use it while I wait for their support lines to get back to me.

The 120-day waiting period is in place so that a gaming group doesn't collectively buy one copy and then install it on everyone's computer. Every year, I watch 3-4 such groups walk up to the booth at GenCon and openly take up a collection to buy one copy that they plan to share once they get home. Those are the ones who *openly* do it, right in front of the company, so extrapolating that to how many would do it in private yields a scary number. If it weren't for these unabashed pirates, we wouldn't have to impose restrictions like this that inconvenience honest customers.

Anyone who needs to activate their license on a new computer or O/S installation sooner than the 120-day period needs to simply email tech support. We can waive the waiting period so you can get running again. Since the average consumer typically upgrades his system every 18-24 months, it's uncommon for users to run into this limit, and it strikes a balance that helps protect against the aforementioned pirates. For anyone curious for more info, complete details about our licensing are on our website (http://www.wolflair.com).

 

[LWDPressRelease]

Another note about Hero Lab:

Having not yet received a response to my email. I attempted to reach the company by phone, only to be informed by their answering service that they will not answer support related questions via their phone.

I then found out that their estimated email response time was 2-3 days.

Not a happy halfling.

Licensing issues are typically handled within 24 hours during the week. Since many folks seem to not understand that we don't all work seven days a week, the 2-3 days covers the weekends. Depending on support volume and everything else we're trying to juggle (we're a tiny company), we can also sometimes take an extra day to clear an email through the support queue. And major technical issues get routed to us developers, which usually takes an extra day or two. We'd rather estimate 2-3 days and reply in one day than do the opposite.

P.S. If you happen to have left us a voice mail this afternoon, you insisted we contact you back, but neglected to include any information about yourself. No name, no email address, no license number, no phone number. That makes it extremely difficult to contact you back about anything.

 

[Perram]

The 120-day waiting period is in place so that a gaming group doesn't collectively buy one copy and then install it on everyone's computer. Every year, I watch 3-4 such groups walk up to the booth at GenCon and openly take up a collection to buy one copy that they plan to share once they get home. Those are the ones who *openly* do it, right in front of the company, so extrapolating that to how many would do it in private yields a scary number. If it weren't for these unabashed pirates, we wouldn't have to impose restrictions like this that inconvenience honest customers.

Anyone who needs to activate their license on a new computer or O/S installation sooner than the 120-day period needs to simply email tech support. We can waive the waiting period so you can get running again. Since the average consumer typically upgrades his system every 18-24 months, it's uncommon for users to run into this limit, and it strikes a balance that helps protect against the aforementioned pirates. For anyone curious for more info, complete details about our licensing are on our website (http://www.wolflair.com).

Yeah, that was me, I'll send you a PM with the contact information. I realized that mistake on my drive home today, I get forgetful when I'm upset.

I was finally able to get the software to work on my end by using my secondary liscence (You get one free with each purchase, which is good, stated purpose to allow you to install it on a secondary computer in the policies he links above.)

It did however take me four tries over the course of an hour before it did work. My old liscense is still locked into my old installation of XP, though.

My suggestion? Do what Adobe, Apple, etc... does with their activations: Allow the software to be 'deactivated' and thus allowing the software to be installed somewhere else while at the same time making sure its only installed on one compupter.

 

[LWDPressRelease]

It did however take me four tries over the course of an hour before it did work.

That's concerning. It's a wizard that should prompt you through the process and typically takes 60 seconds to complete. So I'd like to understand what took the full hour. I'd also like to know the error messages reported so that I can figure out what might have been going wrong.

My old liscense is still locked into my old installation of XP, though.

Nancy should be able to get that sorted out for you when she goes through the support queue next (should be tonight).

My suggestion? Do what Adobe, Apple, etc... does with their activations: Allow the software to be 'deactivated' and thus allowing the software to be installed somewhere else while at the same time making sure its only installed on one compupter.

We looked into doing this 5-6 years ago. The problem with this approach is that the majority of our users re-assign their license due to UNplanned events, such as viruses, disk crashes, and operating system upgrades without first stopping to remember about the need to deactivate their license. Consequently, most of our users would not have properly deactivated their license in the first place.

That being said, it might make sense to offer the deactivation option *in addition* to the current option. This would allow those users who DO think ahead to avoid the hassle. But how many users would that be?

The ultimate question is how many users would it really benefit and what is the comparative value of adding deactivation versus a different feature that more users would potentially find valuable. Since we're a tiny company with very limited resources, we need to weigh the relative benefits of every feature before adding it to the product. I don't know the answer to this question, so I'd be interested in hearing feedback from folks.

 

[Perram]

Well I know for me at least it would make this DRM thing seem a lot more ok, and it seems to be an industry standard way to handle it.

Besides formats and viruses and stuff it would also allow for buying new computers or deciding you no longer want it on your desktop but your laptop instead, etc.

 

[Perram]

That's concerning. It's a wizard that should prompt you through the process and typically takes 60 seconds to complete. So I'd like to understand what took the full hour. I'd also like to know the error messages reported so that I can figure out what might have been going wrong.

This issues already been fixed, it was a problem with Windows 7 as we discussed over the phone. But I'm replying here just to clear up the 'over an hour' part.

I don't meant that I tried to do it constantly for an hour straight, but that I tried repeatedly over the course of an hour before it took. As opposed to trying four times in a row. I tried a couple of times, waited, tried a couple of times again... waited, and so on until it finally worked.

 

[hazardjsimpson]

Character excelerator excel sheet

The sheet my group has been using is the Pathfinder Character Excelerator. I'm not sure who develops it, but it's awesome. The current editions of Heroforge for PF proved to have some bugs, and my group isn't big on buying RPG software since we never know what system we'll be playing or who has what computer, etc. (most of my group are in IT as am I, so our machines change constantly)

This sheet is similar to heroforge, it plugs in all your numbers and auto-calculates, and has all of the feats and background options from the PF suppliments and adventure paths. We're playing Curse of the Crimson Throne, and I found all of the feats and options for my character there, no problem. It prints out to a nice sheet, and best of all - free!

Pathfinder Database - Pathfinder Character Excelerator

Hope this helps anybody.

*edit: Looks like this was developed by Erian7 from the Paizo forums, he has notes and an active thread on the project here: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboard...les/erian7sExcelBasedCharacterSheet&page=last