Custom Skill Enhancers

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by EternityShard
How hurt and upset would you be if someone insulted the very thing you've poured your heart and soul into for a long time? Joeteller apparently takes it for granted that Dan bends over backwards to make changes and fix bugs, at *customer* request. Such that when Dan isn't willing to make a small change, he's suddenly seen as a heartless cur with no sense of customer obligation.

Bah. I am firmly behind dan on this matter.

It's a programmer thing... they wouldn't understand (j/king)

[ogier300]

This is such a weird thread. One guy is asking the program to be changed to accomodate his personal need. So far, in this thread, he's the only one asking for this. Nearly everyone else here is either posting a way for him to do it with the existing program, busting Dan's balls, or supporting Dan.

Just plain weird.

[MisterVimes]

Oh... and as far as Dan's Customer service skills and fulfilling the customer's needs read this thread:
Customer Service 101... with Dan

[Derek Hiemforth]

I shouldn't get into this at all, probably, but I just wanted to make one quick point...

The fact that something doesn't work exactly the way you envisioned it would is a far cry from it not working at all.

So Hero Designer doesn't have a built-in checkbox or something to allow you to add a homegrown Skill Enhancer. That doesn't mean that you can't use it to accomplish exactly the same thing... it just means you have to do it differently than you originally expected you would. Rather than using the normal Skill Enhancer method, you have to add the homegrown Skill Enhancer as a Custom Skill, and simulate its effects with -1 Adders on the related Skills.

This is not quite as user-friendly as the built-in Enhancers, but that's normal. Virtually every piece of software in existence is easier to use when dealing only with cookie-cutter functions than it is when dealing with user-customized stuff.

I just can't imagine why anyone would view this as a make-or-break issue.

- Derek

[archermoo]

Just throwing my hat in as supporting Dan. People that show others no respect have no right to expect to be shown respect in return. The rant of "since you won't customize HD for me personally, I'll never buy anything from HERO again" is childish and insulting. Unfortunatly there are enough people in the world that will oil that squeaky wheel that this type of whining is encouraged. Buying a product does not grant you the right to be abusive or rude to employees of the company from which you purchased it. Statements such as "Thats annoying and definitely a feature I want improved on." show a lack of respect for the person you are talking to. That isn't a request for a feature, that is a demand.

[joeteller]

Didn't read my original post, or the follow ups I made.

I asked Dan how to do X. When he said it wasn't possible, I asked if there was a workaround.

I then was called a fool.

Dan doesn't know me. Doesn't know who I am, what I do, how long I've been gaming, what level of programming skill I may or may not have, how long I've been gaming, or anything else.

And all I know about Dan is what I see here. I still have NOT called Dan a fool. I have said his customer relations skills need work. I have said that his words, attitude and statements are making me heavily re-assess continuing to support the product or to use his software and whether I will recommend either to anyone in my gaming group, or all the various places I deal with other gamers.

I also said that as a marketing thing, limiting the software flexibility and customization was a bad idea, and it went against the very advertising (which I quoted from the website) that the product was being sold under. He seems to think that the customization and flexibility is NOT in the specs for the software, they were extra bells and whistles he put in. He and his employer/contractor seem to have a difference of opinion based on the advertising.

None of this is my problem, I'm the customer. It may be the 'modern' concept that the customer only matters until you have their Ca$h but thats not the way I was trained on how to do customer relations when I used work in customer service. You work with the customer, you help them to find a satisfactory method of solving their problem or you apologize for the inadequacy/limitation and move on politely. Polite is the important word.

If Dan had said you need to alter the Template, here's how, or even 'Look at Page # of the manual on how you can alter the Template to do this' it would have been a satisfactory response.

I Offer thanks to those who have offered to help, but I will deal with the problem on my own at this point, if I bother to continue to use the product or the product line at all.

[archermoo]

Originally posted by joeteller
Didn't read my original post, or the follow ups I made.

I asked Dan how to do X. When he said it wasn't possible, I asked if there was a workaround.

I then was called a fool.

No, you didn't. You asked how to do X. When he said it wasn't possible and gave you a workaround, you ordered him to fix it and asked how to do the workaround. He responded that he was probably not going to change things, and told you where to find the instructions on how to edit templates. At which point you broke off into a rant on how bad his customer support was, and effectively said that you wouldn't buy any more HERO products. Even then, he didn't call you a fool. The exact quote was "If you honestly think that I have no interest in helping out the customers of HD, then you're a fool." And I concur. There are MANY examples of Dan bending over backwards to provide support and modifications to the program for people. Several in just the short time that these boards have been back up.

When telling others to get their facts straight you should make sure that your own are straight first.

(edited for typos)

[EternityShard]

Leave well-enough alone? Not me...

joeteller
If Dan had said you need to alter the Template, here's how, or even 'Look at Page # of the manual on how you can alter the Template to do this' it would have been a satisfactory response.

Hmm. Geez. I seem to recall him doing just that. Maybe without the page number, but he did give you an answer. One which other users have expounded upon, in exactly the same way you complain about not being possible.

Let's take a look...

Joeteller, you asked the question:

joeteller
How do I add specialized Custom Skill Enhancers? I find nothing in the docs to do this and can find no simple way to do it thru playing with the program.

And Dan responded:

dsimon
You don't.

About all you can do is edit the ones that are there and edit the types/abilities that they affect.

Sounds like an answer to me.

But, Joeteller, you returned with:

joeteller
Thats annoying and definitely a feature I want improved on. It makes converting a specific setting of mine to Hero nearly impossible.

Ok how do I edit the existings ones then?

"That's annoying...", oh good. That is the perfect way to convince someone that you are worth their time. I would've ignored you at this point, but Dan kindly replied.

He said:

dsimon
It's probably a feature that will not be coming. I have no plans to add it at this point. HD is meant to follow/simulate the rules of the HERO System. The HERO System is very specific about what Skill Enhancers are, what they affect, and which ones are available.

If you want to edit any of them, you'll need to edit the template. Follow the instructions for editing templates contained in the documentation.

Again, no specific page numbers, but he told you exactly how to do what you were looking for, given the current functionality of the program.

Ah, but Joeteller, you again rebutted:

joeteller
...I'm the first person in my gaming club to buy the program, and if it doesn't allow adaption to house rules, I'll probably be the last....

"Change it or I won't buy from you again!"

Again, not the friendly tone one would think would accompany a request for modification.

Then later in the same post:

joeteller
...Oh well. I've tried to help the hero revival. I guess there's no real interest in meeting customer needs but a desire for a 'one true way' on how things will be done. I'm sure you folks will do fine without our money....

See, that's the rub.

"no real interest in meeting customer needs"??

Herodesigner is by far the most customizeable and flexible game product I've ever seen. On top of that, Dan is on these boards every day answering questions, suggestions workarounds, and fixing bugs. All without charging you $5.95 per minute. Name another software company that does that.

It wasn't until after that comment that Dan got mad. He's much more tolerant than I'd have been.

[joeteller]

Originally posted by archermoo
No, you didn't. You asked how to do X. When he said it wasn't possible and gave you a workaround, you ordered him to fix it and asked how to do the workaround. He responded that he was probably not going to change things, and told you where to find the instructions on how to edit templates. At which point you broke off into a rant on how bad is customer support was, and effectively said that you wouldn't buy any more HERO products. Even then, he didn't call you a fool. The exact quote was "If you honestly think that I have no interest in helping out the customers of HD, then you're a fool." And I concur. There are MANY examples of Dan bending over backwards to provide support and modifications to the program for people. Several in just the short time that these boards have been back up.

When telling others to get their facts straight you should make sure that your own are straight first.

And, as many others on this thread has taken it, he did call me a fool for feeling he was not being logical about customer relations, product support, flexibility & customization. Enough people read it just the same way as I do. Get your facts straight.

He did not answer the problem he simply said I'd need to redesign the template (reprogramming it) and I should follow the docs, without reference to where in the code to find it or the relevant code involved. RTFM is not a valid help desk response in most good software companies, and certainly not a way to get a happy customer.

When I bought the product, and AS THEY ADVERTISE RIGHT NOW ON THE WEBSITE, it was advertised as being Flexible and Customizable in many many ways.

If the product is not Flexible and Customizable without hacking Code, then it is NOT FLEXIBLE AND CUSTOMIZABLE to the majority of the population.

If I wanted to program stuff, I'd go back to school again and learn modern programming and design my own (my programming training is from the old-school days of Fortran and Cobol and Dartmouth Basic, not the current crop of language stuff).

I wanted to buy a program and use it to do what I needed to do.

If a program fails to do what I need, and I can't get it to do what I ask, then I tell folks it doesn't do what I need. As I said EVERY HERO GM I know of in this area has house rules that would require a customizable program. They will want to know if it requires this sort of thing. They will be told.

If I pay out money, I get the right to criticize what I don't like about a product, or tell folks what I do like about the product. Its a basic right of a customer. There are some good things about the software, I'm now trying to decide if they outweigh the problems and the poor customer relations the software support person is giving me.

Customer Relations 101 : The Customer Is Always Right. Always be Polite to the Customer.

This is not McDonalds or Burger King. This is not Microsoft. In Gaming if you alienate your customer base you lose their future funds. We can go elsewhere and will if not treated well.

Either you've never managed a business or worked in one where customer service was essential, or you didn't learn the basics for such.

You're not helping his case.

[EternityShard]

Originally posted by joeteller

When I bought the product, and AS THEY ADVERTISE RIGHT NOW ON THE WEBSITE, it was advertised as being Flexible and Customizable in many many ways.

First axiom of application and user interface design:
The more user-friendly you make a program, the less flexibility you will be able to give it.

The reverse is equally true.

It would be a momumental task to give both a program that gave every person who could possibly use it every option they could want *AND* had a simple user interface.

You say you were a programmer back in the day, then you should understand this. Every allowance Dan makes for changes in the app makes it harder and harder to keep other things simple and easy. The fact that you could make the change at all speaks volumes about the power of this software, and flatly refutes your claim that it supports only 'one true way' to handle things.

Sure, using the program to do the things the way they were intended is going to be easier than not doing things in the 'standard' way. Stop looking at how difficult or easy it is to break from the 'one true way', and realize that the fact that they have given you a path at all to do so is a blessing.

[archermoo]

I have my facts straight. He didn't call you a fool. I will again provide his exact quote, since you seem to keep missing it. "If you honestly think that I have no interest in helping out the customers of HD, then you're a fool." There are MANY examples of his providing support and program modifications to people that have asked. So I agree that if you honestly think that he has no interest in doing so, in the face of the fact that he has done so repeatedly in the past, you are indeed a fool. Again I have my facts straight. What part of the above quoted sentance confused you?

He didn't say you needed to redesign the template. He said you needed to edit the template, and gave you the location of the instructions for doing so when you asked. Editing a template does not require "hacking Code", it requires editing an XML document. The code for HD was written in Java, and end users don't have access to it. And beside that you have been provided with numerous ways to provide the modification you are looking for without even having to edit the XML document.

And yes, buying a product gives you the right to criticize it, or to laud it. It does not, however, purchase the right to be rude and abusive to the employees of the company that sold it to you. And no, the customer isn't always right. Quite often they are wrong. And yes, you should be polite to customers, but only so long as they are polite to you. No one has the right to expect to be treated well when they treat others poorly.

And I don't expect anything anyone says to help Dan's case with you. You were rude and insulting to Dan enough times that he finally responded in kind to you. At which point you got insulted. How dare someone treat you in the manner you are treating them.

[Simon]

Joe, you make my point more eloquently than I ever could.

About all that I can say to follow up on that is this: If you don't like my "customer support", then don't come into this forum. I post to this forum almost exclusively (I simply don't have time to read much of the others), so you should be pretty safe elsewhere.

If the rest of the folks in your group are of similar mind/attitude to you, I would suggest that they <b>not</b> buy Hero Designer. They won't be happy. Let them learn from your mistake.

For the rest of the folks out there: thanks for the support! I will continue to develop and expand upon HD every chance that I get. I'm having a blast with it and truly want to make it everything that it can be -- <b>within the concept/scope of the application as I designed it</b>. This, evidently, rubs some folks the wrong way, as they feel that they should have a programmer at their beck and call because they dropped $40 on an application. Oh well. I love getting feedback on the application and am happy to accomodate any request that fits in with the overall concept of the app as we move forward, so keep the requests coming!

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by joeteller
Customer Relations 101 : The Customer Is Always Right. Always be Polite to the Customer.

This is not McDonalds or Burger King. This is not Microsoft. In Gaming if you alienate your customer base you lose their future funds. We can go elsewhere and will if not treated well.

Either you've never managed a business or worked in one where customer service was essential, or you didn't learn the basics for such.

Wellllllllllllll. I have owned a business and managed a few as well and you forgot Customer Relations 102 : We have the right to refuse service.

You were repeatedly rude and when you got it thrown back at you, you got pissy.

If it was a store, I'd have tossed you out.

[nblade]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
Wellllllllllllll. I have owned a business and managed a few as well and you forgot Customer Relations 102 : We have the right to refuse service.

You were repeatedly rude and when you got it thrown back at you, you got pissy.

If it was a store, I'd have tossed you out.

Actually this leads into my favorite business rule, you can't make 100% of your customers happy. It just doesn't happen. Sometimes, you have to "FIRE" a customer, because there is no other way.

[ogier300]

Archermoo:

I have my facts straight. He didn't call you a fool. I will again provide his exact quote, since you seem to keep missing it. "If you honestly think that I have no interest in helping out the customers of HD, then you're a fool." There are MANY examples of his providing support and program modifications to people that have asked.

I think what you're missing here is that joeteller actually does honestly think Dan has no interest in helping out the customers of HD, and thus believes Dan called him a fool.

Once you realize that, I think the rest of this very weird thread becomes somewhat understandable.