# Apple users: Would you buy Hero Lab if it ran on Mac OS?



## Scorponok (Nov 10, 2009)

Hi everyone,

Ever since we released Hero Lab for Windows three years ago, people have requested a version that runs natively on Mac OS. Hero Lab works great under Boot Camp, Parallels, Virtual PC, etc, but Mac users (quite reasonably) want to run Hero Lab on their native operating system, without having to reboot or buy a Windows license.

We're actively investigating a number of porting options, and some are simply too costly to consider for a company our size. However, there is one option that we are seriously considering, and we need to better gauge the demand before we go ahead with it.

If you are a Mac user, and you don't own Hero Lab yet, would you purchase the product if a native Mac version were available? 

Please note that the following restrictions would apply:

1) The application would likely only run under "Tiger" (OS X 10.4), not earlier versions.

2) The application would look and behave exactly the same as it does under Windows, with the exception of things like the main menu. The user interface would not be rewritten for the mac.

3) All features would work on Mac OS exactly as they do on Windows. There would be no functionality difference between the Mac and Windows versions. Hero Lab currently supports Mutants & Masterminds, Pathfinder, the d20 System, World of Darkness (Vampire & Changeling), 4th edition, Cortex System, and Savage Worlds - all of these game systems would be available within the Mac version.

Given these conditions, would you purchase Hero Lab if you haven't already done so?

If you're a Mac user who's interested in using Hero Lab, now's your chance to show it. Please let us know if you'd buy Hero Lab if it was available for the Mac.


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## Hadrian the Builder (Nov 11, 2009)

Hero Lab? No way (I'm now using 4E/DDI), but Army Builder...in a heartbeat.


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## Alan Shutko (Nov 11, 2009)

I would not buy Hero Lab for 4e, but would likely buy it for Pathfinder.  I haven't tried the demo yet, but I've heard good things about it and the support for Pathfinder.


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## Rackhir (Nov 11, 2009)

Scorponok said:


> We're actively investigating a number of porting options, and some are simply too costly to consider for a company our size. However, there is one option that we are seriously considering, and we need to better gauge the demand before we go ahead with it.




Are you looking at a WINE wrapper?



Scorponok said:


> If you are a Mac user, and you don't own Hero Lab yet, would you purchase the product if a native Mac version were available?




Maybe I haven't tried the product. Price seems a bit on the high side, especially if you want more than one system. But I assume you have to pay licensing fees?




Scorponok said:


> 1) The application would likely only run under "Tiger" (OS X 10.4), not earlier versions.




Doesn't seem like this should be a problem. You've got to have a fairly old mac not to be running 10.4 or later, especially with SL only being $30. If you are going with some sort of "wrapper" solution, that's going to require an Intel Mac in any case.



Scorponok said:


> 2) The application would look and behave exactly the same as it does under Windows, with the exception of things like the main menu. The user interface would not be rewritten for the mac.




Mac users tend to get annoyed when something is blatantly "windows" in it's UI, but that doesn't seem to really be the case here. I'd have to poke around with the app though. A couple of screen shots don't really offer a definitive answer to how usable the UI is.



Scorponok said:


> 3) All features would work on Mac OS exactly as they do on Windows. There would be no functionality difference between the Mac and Windows versions. Hero Lab currently supports Mutants & Masterminds, Pathfinder, the d20 System, World of Darkness (Vampire & Changeling), 4th edition, Cortex System, and Savage Worlds - all of these game systems would be available within the Mac version.




If someone had a PC version of it with some of these data sets, would they be usable with their mac version or could they "switch" the license to their mac version. Would it require a separate purchase?


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## Scorponok (Nov 11, 2009)

Answering Rakhir's questions:

Yes, it would effectively be a WINE wrapper, although you wouldn't have to install WINE or anything to make it work - it would act like a normal program that you run in a normal way.

We do indeed have to pay license fees for each game system, plus it takes us several months of development time to create each one.



> If someone had a PC version of it with some of these data sets, would they be usable with their mac version or could they "switch" the license to their mac version. Would it require a separate purchase?




There would definitely be some sort of "sharing", so that if you owned several games for the PC version you could use those with the mac version. You definitely wouldn't have to buy each game again.


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## Alan Shutko (Nov 11, 2009)

I took a quick look at HeroLab on Windows.  I don't think I'd be too worried about the non-Mac UI.  Character generators always have idiosyncratic UIs and I've become resigned to that.  

If it were ported over, I think it would be a strong contender to PCGen on the Mac.  I would probably purchase it, because it has far more frequent pathfinder updates than PCGen.  For instance, Hero Lab has Council of Thieves content, and I had to add that manually to PCGen.

The most important items for me would be:


Performance would need to be good, even on my Macbook Air.
PDF output would need to work.
Printing would need to work.  I could work around this if PDF output worked, but for a commercial sheet generator, I think this is a core requirement.

I am pleased to see that Lone Wolf offers a secondary license tied to the first so that I could run it on both my laptop and desktop machine.  That's important to me.


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## Remus Lupin (Nov 11, 2009)

I would certainly consider it, if it worked for 3.5 and Pathfinder. I would, however, be happier with a "Mac-friendly" interface.


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## Scorponok (Nov 11, 2009)

For people concerned about the application looking too "windows-like", here's a screenshot of a Pathfinder character (click image for bigger):





Hero Lab uses its own stylized interface, not native windows controls, so it shouldn't really "feel like" a windows application. (For the mac port, the menu bar would appear at the top of the screen like all mac applications.)

For people who are concerned about the GUI being too "windows-ish", does that reassure you? If there are any mac users who have had experience of Hero Lab on PC or running in a virtual machine, I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on this.

Thanks for your feedback, everyone!


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## ShinHakkaider (Nov 11, 2009)

I purchased Hero Lab and 2 licenses (Pathfinder and M&M) and run it on my Mac Pro via Parallels. 

I'd love a OSX native version of it.


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## Remus Lupin (Nov 12, 2009)

It looks pretty good, and certainly better than a lot of the resources I've been using to generate characters.

Tell me, can it print nice looking character record sheets, or is it all intended to be used on computer?


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## Scorponok (Nov 13, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Tell me, can it print nice looking character record sheets, or is it all intended to be used on computer?




Yes, here's an example of a Pathfinder character sheet:

http://wolflair.com/hero_lab/images/pth_sample_output.pdf


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## Remus Lupin (Nov 13, 2009)

OK, I'm sold. If you make a Mac Port, I'll probably buy it. If your spell sheets are easy to organize and provide important details and descriptions, I'll definitely buy. I'm in desparate need of a good mac-compatible spell sheet program.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 14, 2009)

Lets just say I'm strongly inclined to buy such a thing.  Despite the option of doing so, I've almost never run a PC emulation program of any kind.  I just don't care for them, and I (so far) have had no need to do so.

When I use software for PC design, I usually make an idiosyncratic spreadsheet for each system.  So I have one for HERO, one for 2Ed D&D, etc.

Having one program that covers a lot of ground- especially without me having to figure out cell formulae- would be nice.  And from what I can see, the program looks slick and well-polished.

However, I'm a bit unclear on whether something produced on the PC version would work/be readable on the Mac version, and vice versa.  For me, that would be crucial, though not required, functionality.  After all, even though my spreadsheets aren't visually appealing, they done in dual-platform software so files can be freely shared.

And, FWIW, I'd love to see you add HERO 5th (and 6th) to your supported list of games.  IME, if ever a game benefited from having a PCgen spreadsheet, it was HERO.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 14, 2009)

(Oh yeah- for the record, I'm currently running OS 10.2.8 on a G3 I bought in 2003, but I'm planning on upgrading my entire system within a few months.)


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## Nylanfs (Nov 15, 2009)

Hmmm, if it's a WINE wrapper I wonder if it would also work on a Linux system?


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## Scorponok (Nov 16, 2009)

Nylanfs said:


> Hmmm, if it's a WINE wrapper I wonder if it would also work on a Linux system?




The wrapper would not work under linux. However, hopefully once we got it working, you would be able to run Hero Lab under WINE normally on Linux.


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## Rackhir (Nov 16, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> (Oh yeah- for the record, I'm currently running OS 10.2.8 on a G3 I bought in 2003, but I'm planning on upgrading my entire system within a few months.)




You would not be able to use it on your current machine. You need at least an intel mac to be able to use what they are planning on using to enable mac compatability.

WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) essentially "maps" what would be windows system calls to the equivalent in the "native" operating system. AFAIK, this requires the basic hardware architecture to be the same otherwise you would need a full fledged emulation package.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 16, 2009)

Oh I know I couldn't run it right now.

In fact, the growing number of software packages I want to run + the number of websites that no longer support versions of software I currently use is making me upgrade pretty soon.


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## Scorponok (Nov 16, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> However, I'm a bit unclear on whether something produced on the PC version would work/be readable on the Mac version, and vice versa.  For me, that would be crucial, though not required, functionality.  After all, even though my spreadsheets aren't visually appealing, they done in dual-platform software so files can be freely shared.




Think of Hero Lab as just another application, like Excel or Word. Data files and saved heroes will load into any version of Hero Lab, regardless of whether that version is running on the Mac or the PC. You'll be able to save a hero on the mac, load it on the PC, and vice versa.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> And, FWIW, I'd love to see you add HERO 5th (and 6th) to your supported list of games.  IME, if ever a game benefited from having a PCgen spreadsheet, it was HERO.




Hero System already has its own character creator, so we have no plans to support it in the near future.


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## Rackhir (Nov 16, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Oh I know I couldn't run it right now.
> 
> In fact, the growing number of software packages I want to run + the number of websites that no longer support versions of software I currently use is making me upgrade pretty soon.




BTW you know it is possible to build a mac out of standard PC parts (or even use a standard PC). Google "Hackintosh" and you'll turn up a bunch of sites/guides for doing it.

This is the one I've used. http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showforum=82

Not for the faint of heart or those who want a completely hassle free experience, though.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 17, 2009)

You have no way of knowing, but I'm "mechanically disinclined."

I get it from my father, who once "repaired" a washing machine and had parts left over.  A new washer soon showed up at the door.

He once "repaired" a toilet one New Year's Eve by replacing the float valve...but in actuality, the knob he turned thinking it shut off the water _didn't._  The resulting fountain of water hit the ceiling and we were bailing hundreds of gallons of water out of our house before the night was through.  Our houseguests arrived early in the morning...

Good times, good times.

I have great faith that were I to try to build my own "Hackintosh," I'd either be responsible for burning down my house or creating Replicators.  Or both.


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## billd91 (Nov 24, 2009)

I would buy it for Pathfinder and Mutants and Masterminds. I'd be trying to run it on Tiger but on the PowerPC chip and not Intel (though I have access to my wife and daughter's Macs - those are Intel - so that wouldn't be a dealbreaker).


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## Remus Lupin (Dec 21, 2009)

Any updates on this?


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## LWDPressRelease (Dec 23, 2009)

Remus Lupin said:


> Any updates on this?




Based on the positive feedback everywhere, we're taking the process to the next step. We're actively exploring the technical feasibility now. We should have a better idea around the end of January timeframe. Stay tuned for more info once we have it in about a month.


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## TheWyrd (Jan 3, 2010)

I would be very excited to no longer have to remote desktop into my work computer (windows) in order to create characters. I'm excited to hear more.


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## Remus Lupin (Jan 3, 2010)

Yeah, it excites me too. So much so that I'd be very interested in being a beta tester for it when they've got a stable-ish build. (hint, hint!)


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## DanChops (Jan 7, 2010)

Is the content acquired at the time you purchase a license static, or does it update with future releases?  For instance, if I were to purchase this software with a 4E license today, would I have access to PHB3 content when it comes out?

If so, then this would be a phenomenal alternative to the official Character Builder for mac users.  I have a hard time seeign how that could be the case without some sort of subscription pricing though.


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## LWDPressRelease (Jan 10, 2010)

DanChops said:


> Is the content acquired at the time you purchase a license static, or does it update with future releases?




The content continues to evolve with each update. The data files for each game system are separate from the product itself and are updated independently. Updates to both the product and the data files are provided.



DanChops said:


> For instance, if I were to purchase this software with a 4E license today, would I have access to PHB3 content when it comes out?




4E is different from other game systems. We provide most games under license from the publisher, but WotC is a major exception. For the old d20 stuff, we utilize the SRD. For 4E, we include a tool with the data files to download all the data from the compendium and automatically convert it into suitable data files for Hero Lab. If you have a DDI subscription, you have access to everything in the Compendium from within Hero Lab. Without a DDI subscription, you can only access the limited Compendium content, so only that data is available within Hero Lab.

So as long you maintained your DDI subscription, you would have access to the PHB3 content. However, the downloaded and converted Hero Lab data files continue to live on your system, so can terminate the DDI subscription and continue using whatever you currently have within Hero Lab forever if you wish.

And yes, we update the tool and the data files monthly, shortly after each new DDI update.


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## DanChops (Jan 12, 2010)

LWDPressRelease said:


> If you have a DDI subscription, you have access to everything in the Compendium from within Hero Lab. Without a DDI subscription, you can only access the limited Compendium content, so only that data is available within Hero Lab.
> 
> So as long you maintained your DDI subscription, you would have access to the PHB3 content. However, the downloaded and converted Hero Lab data files continue to live on your system, so can terminate the DDI subscription and continue using whatever you currently have within Hero Lab forever if you wish.
> 
> And yes, we update the tool and the data files monthly, shortly after each new DDI update.




So, to get full us out of this, I would need to purchase a DDI subscription as well.  Makes sense.  I've thusfar avioded DDI simply because the character builder doesn't work on Mac OSX.  This software could induce me to take that plunge though. 

Yeah, if it were released for a Mac I'd probably buy it.


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## steventylerbray (Jan 26, 2010)

yes yes yes yes yes yes ten-thousand times YES!


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## Ron (Jan 28, 2010)

I can't say I would buy Hero Lab's OS X version. However, that is already better than the fact I wouldn't even consider the Windows version, despite the fact I would like some of the services it offers.

Regarding your questions, I don't think the lack of new features or old OS X's versions support to be a problem. However, I expect my Mac applications to have a very distinct menu structure. If your software doesn't follow Mac standards in this regard, I don't think I would be very tempted to spend money in it.


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## okumarts (Feb 2, 2010)

I would certainly buy hero lab for mac.
I would want it for Mutants and Masterminds.
I've been waiting for it for 3 years.


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## azhrei_fje (Feb 8, 2010)

I've played with HL3.4 in a VMware session and I'm not too impressed.  The UI has an extremely clunky feel to it, like something from the days of Windows 3.1. 

HL doesn't auto-create any magical weapons (that I could tell) so if I want to give an NPC a +1 longsword I have to choose longsword, then make it magical, then "buy it" so it's added to the NPCs gear.  I'd much rather see the weapon type on the left and magical enhancements on the right -- it would significantly speed up that process.  Armor and other gear are similar.

On top of all that, the demo won't let me create a high-level druid (which is the next NPC that my players will face) so I can't determine how HL handles high-level char creation and as my group is 10th level this is an important consideration for me.

I do like the option of customization that I've read about in other forums, but that's not enough to overcome these other issues, IMO.  However, if the price is in the $30 range, then I may go ahead and pick up an OSX version to play with it more.  As MapTool's campaign frameworks mature, I'm finding less and less need for char builders...


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## Kurenen (May 4, 2010)

Scorponok said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> If you are a Mac user, and you don't own Hero Lab yet, would you purchase the product if a native Mac version were available?




I already own a HL license and would definitely be interested in a native Mac version. Naturally, i would like it to be compatible with the Win portfolios, and some form of discount for owners of priori licences would be greatly appreciared.


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