vBulletin = FAIL

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Here is the email I received from vbulletin:

We hope your community is enjoying the flexibility and power of vBulletin™. As always, our goal is to offer a great product at a great price, and we are dedicated to helping you build and grow successful online communities.

Over the last 12 months, we have been building vBulletin 4.0 to be the most powerful forum and social publishing software. Today, we are proud to introduce the new vBulletin 4.0 Publishing Suite product that includes the power of the vBulletin 4.0 Forums with a seamlessly integrated content management system (CMS) and blogging platform.

As a preferred customer with an active license, we are excited to offer the vBulletin Publishing Suite at a pre-sale discount price of only $130 (over 50% off regular price). This is a truly limited one-time special offer giving you $120 off the upgrade price but will expire on Friday October 30, 2009.

Learn more about vBulletin Publishing Suite features and pricing on our new website: http://www.vbulletin.com/

Beginning today, we are introducing new a license structure. vBulletin is changing to a one-time owned license fee for each major point release. That means no more annual renewal fees. Once you purchase a major point version, you’ll receive maintenance, security and minor point releases for the life of 4.x.

You have the option to keep your current active license until it expires (according to the 12 month term and conditions). For the remainder of your active license, you will continue to receive support and have access to forum software updates, including vBulletin 4.0 Forums. Once your license expires you will only be able to access the 4 Series software updates by switching to the new one-time owned license. For more information, visit the vBulletin FAQ.

Over the last 10 years, our products have offered an exceptional value and we look forward to bringing you the best and keeping you as a loyal customer. Our team is expanding in number and expertise in order to develop more innovative features and to deliver them faster. We are investing in exciting development areas such as new products and services for 'Big Boards' and mobile applications and look forward to helping you grow your community.

Sincerely,

The vBulletin Team

The vbulletin team announced that vBulletin 4.0 would come out by the end of June 2009. It is October 14th today and with an announcement like this and a new website, you would think vbulletin 4.0 has finally been released! But no! It is still in alpha testing, there is no demo available and I have been given the opportunity to purchase the upgrade to the suite for the $130 discount for only 16-17 more days. And they still have not announced when the vb 4.0 version will even come out.

And even though I bought the blog add-on for $50 a year ago, I get the same discount price as someone who only owns just the forum license. wtf.

When my license support renewal is up, which last year would have costed me $40 for updates, will now cost me $195 for the new license if I haven't paid the $130 or more by then to download vbulletin 4.0 which may still not be out by then considering they are 4 months behind schedule with no product.

So. We will probably continue running vb 3.8 until we find another alternative or vbulletin changes their pricing structure (which I'm sure they won't). I wouldn't mind paying for new forum software, we've spent plenty on vb over the years with renewal costs and one time purchases. But I can't justify staying with the company because of the part I have put in bold above.

If we use just the forums and pay the initial upgrade price of $195 or so in january and switch to a free blog system because the version we have won't be compatible with vb 4.0... we'll still be stuck with another issue. Once vb 5.0 comes out (which should be 12-18 months according to a staff member), we'll have to buy a brand new vbulletin license for version 5 at the full price of another $195. And assuming a new major release then comes out every 1 or 2 years, it'll be hundreds of dollars every year or two just to keep using this software that still doesn't do everything I want it to do.

I'm really starting to hate vbulletin. If I want to stay with this forum software, the only way I'll save money is by paying the cheaper upgrade cost of $130 which gives me the entire suite, but I only have 16 days to make my decision or pay $200 in January and only get the forum software.

WTF!

Anyone have any forum or blog recommendations? I was thinking about invision power board, but they're in the process of releasing a new cms like system and I don't know if that will be bundled in with their current suite. But even ipb is $250 for the suite with $60 renewal costs. But even that price is better than the new vbulletin price structure. Apparently, I have to make a decision within 16 days. *kicks vB in the balls*

[Myk JL 1,731]

... Just out of curiousity is it really necessary to upgrade all the time?... The only other VB Board I go to still runs on 3.5.4 & the only thing I've noticed between the 2 is this one just has a bit more features...

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Nope. Its not necessary to upgrade. I generally like upgrading to get new features or bug fixes tho. As it is now, we'll be running this 3.8.4 version for a while until we come across something better... or until vbulletin 5 comes out. At that point, vbulletin will stop releasing security patches for the version we currently have. Then we'll have to switch to something else or face possible hacking issues. Another thing that pisses me off is that unless my vbulletin license is active, I can't access vbulletin.org to get updates for the mods that we currently use either.

[Ladywriter 7,783]

must be they want vb to fail so they can write off the loss on their taxes

[Sledgstone 8,672]

Nope. Its not necessary to upgrade. I generally like upgrading to get new features or bug fixes tho. As it is now, we'll be running this 3.8.4 version for a while until we come across something better... or until vbulletin 5 comes out. At that point, vbulletin will stop releasing security patches for the version we currently have. Then we'll have to switch to something else or face possible hacking issues. Another thing that pisses me off is that unless my vbulletin license is active, I can't access vbulletin.org to get updates for the mods that we currently use either.

Nope, I was wrong. Our current forum software will be unsupported and susceptible to new security exploits once they release vbulletin 4.2.

[ame=http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1809932&postcount=7]vBulletin Community Forum - View Single Post - vB Forum 4.0 upgrade no longer free![/ame]

[Khellendross 1,260]

That's a retarded business model.

IF they didn't crank out major releases but once every few years, maybe, but if they're on a 12-18 month schedule with each X.00 release then yeah, overcharging for that BS.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

vBulletin went downhill ever since they were bought by Internet Brands. And over the course of about 6 months, most of the developers of vBulletin have either been fired or quit the company. Which helps explain why vbulletin is about 4 months + behind on development. And this entire pre-order bullshit and price hike can also be contributed to this link:

Internet Brands, Inc. to Report Third Quarter 2009 Results on October 28, 2009

http://investors.internetbrands.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=414873

The vbulletin pre-sale ends at the end of October. Coincidence? I think not. The company is only concerned about money at this point and raising its stock value. Which also means that new versions will probably come out on a yearly basis so they can continue to make profits. Because if new versions don't come out, then they won't make revenue because they no longer charge renewal fees. So I can only imagine that new versions will be a standard release of about 12-18 months or else the parent company will probably just close vb due to it not making them money, or try to sell it off. And with their customer loyalty base completely destroyed, vbulletin will be going the way of UBB and lose its huge market share of internet forum software.

[Khellendross 1,260]

Sounds like they're going to drop in quality anyway, So a switch would be a good thing.

Down with the money grubbing bastards!

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

This reminds me of the Call of Duty Series. In the name of making money, Activision has 2 different developers make the game just so one can come out every year. Infinity Ward makes superior games, and rocketed the franchise to success with Modern Warfare (and soon to be MW2). Treyarch makes sub par, mediocre games and really just ripped off MW's engine to make yet another WWII game instead of trying something new with the series like IW did. So fans of the series are stuck with a lesser quality version of the game every other year, tarnishing the series rep. Infinity Ward seems to be trying to rid itself of the CoD name because of it. Modern Warfare 2 was originally suppose to be called just that, but Activision decided to slap CoD on it anyways.

The urge to milk products for money always ruins the quality. I can see most of the yearly updates for vB being stale and pointless... kinda like college books, they update the edition every year just to stop used book sales... all they did was switch a couple chapters around and added some new pics in the book without adding anything new.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

The thing that still kills me is that they still haven't even upgraded their own official forum to vbulletin 4 beta yet. Supposedly, they're going to upgrade their official forum to 4.0 sometime soon so that everyone can see what it at least looks like. Because as of now, everyone has to make a $100+ purchase based on their word as to what the new software can do, that and these six screenshots:

http://www.vbulletin.com/index.php?do=screenshots

And obviously, no-one can believe their word anymore, which means they expect people to pay for an upgrade based on 6 screenshots which are not impressive in the least.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

This reminds me of the Call of Duty Series. In the name of making money, Electronic Arts has 2 different developers make the game just so one can come out every year. Infinity Ward makes superior games, and rocketed the franchise to success with Modern Warfare (and soon to be MW2). Treyarch makes sub par, mediocre games and really just ripped off MW's engine to make yet another WWII game instead of trying something new with the series like IW did. So fans of the series are stuck with a lesser quality version of the game every other year, tarnishing the series rep. Infinity Ward seems to be trying to rid itself of the CoD name because of it. Modern Warfare 2 was originally suppose to be called just that, but EA decided to slap CoD on it anyways.

The urge to milk products for money always ruins the quality. I can see most of the yearly updates for vB being stale and pointless... kinda like college books, they update the edition every year just to stop used book sales... all they did was switch a couple chapters around and added some new pics in the book without adding anything new.

What you said reminds me of the street fighter games. Remember how a new version of Street Fighter 2 would come out at least once every year? Capcom made some money milking the hell out of that series.

Capcom: "Look, we added a new character to the exact same game you already own. 'Street Fighter 2: Super Turbo Anniversary Edition' on sale now for $49.99!"

Me: "Damn, and I just bought 'Street Fighter 2: Turbo', I'm already 2 versions behind, my friends are going to make fun of me." *dishes out more cash*

The difference now with vbulletin is that instead of $50, its upwards of $250-$300 an upgrade. F*ck that.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

X'D when we were kids $50 was like $250-300 cuzz we didn't have a job!

btw SFIV just came out less than 8 months ago, and they already announced Super Street Fighter IV, they added old characters they didnt put in IV with 1 new one. X'D

[Sledgstone 8,672]

rotflmao! The cycle repeats! X'D

[Myk JL 1,731]

Off Topic: Glad I'm a MK Fanboy...

The old VB will be missed... then forgotten... maybe...

[Guest frank530]

Just a day after telling a Swedish tabloid that it would take a 'miracle' for him to ever play golf clubs again, Jesper Parnevik, a five-time US PGA Tour winner, has been reported as saying that rest and physical therapy might well put him back on the Tour in a couple of months(ishiner).