Zugg Software :: View topic

Apprentice Joined: 16 Dec 2002 Posts: 114 Location: USA

This *should* be my final post on this thread. I do owe an apology for the way that I handled myself as well. My intention was not to insult anyone here, but to bring to light that yes, elicense does cause a great number of issues (which I think is becoming more aparent). As I said, I will most likely begin to develop a new protection method for the software, and send it in to Zugg. As far as my writing, you try and be fully awake at 3:15pm when your a 3rd shift person ;). Oh well, no hard feelings to anyone or anything other than elicense. Hasta.

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|Demone YoungBlood|
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Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

The implication that I'm a thief goes too far. Beause I didn't keep my unanswered emails after 4 months or so makes me a liar does it? I've already told you I can offer the proof. I'm not posting that information here to satisfy the forum nazis. I'd just as soon offer the proof in the form of a refund demand for being accused of something I'm not guilty of. Take it for what you will. I've had it with trying to enlighten the thickheaded.

Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2002 10:10 am

In terms of Samson's claim, I have checked our user database and while there is no match for the email address he is using in these forums, there are several "Samson" users, so he might very well be a legitimate user. However, I have no recent emails from him. I have all incoming email saved back to 10/19/02 and don't have any email containing the word "Samson" anywhere in it. I can't speak for either Chiara's mailbox nor eLicense's mailbox. However, Chiara usually forwards eLicense problems to me so that I can send them to eLicense and I have no record of that.

Of course, if the problem was 4 months ago (or 2 weeks...not sure you were consistent with that), then I wouldn't have it. But if the problem was 4 months ago, then you shouldn't be griping about it...you should be trying the new version in 6.40. The eLicense version used in 6.40 fixes a number of problems including the Windows XP multi-user issues, proxy server issues, and a variety of other more minor problems.

Nobody was asking for your registration code, they were simply asking for a summary of what problem you were having. Was it a code 17 error? Was it a proxy server issue? What problem? Without *any* mention as to the problem, then of *course* people are going to be suspicious and accuse you of things.

There are a total of 3 people I see in this thread who are complaining about zMUD. One of these people has already stated that his problem has been fixed. The other 2 have not offered any specifics about their problem.

Unlike the claims made here, customers are *not* shy about complaining. I get a *lot* more email than forum posts (about 100 emails a day). When there is a problem, even a minor problem, I will get many emails a day about it. So far, the only emails I have gotten from legitimate users with problems have been on the first day of the 6.40 release when people were getting code 17 errors because I forgot to instruct people to unlicense, and people who were getting code 501 errors when trying to unlicense. Both problems were fixed within 24 hours.

I take customer support very seriously, so I take offense when people post "rumors" about not getting support for 2 weeks. Except when we have a vacation message specifically set up as an email auto-reply (like now for the holidays), we answer every email we receive within 48 hours. Several emails per day bounce because of various problems with the customer's email (either they used the web-based feedback form and mistyped their email, or their mailbox is full, or stuff like that). I have been in constant contact with eLicense about the email they are getting, and again, from legitimate users, there are no unresolved issues at this time.

There seem to be some people who think that there is something better than eLicense. I have done very careful evaluation of this. I pay eLicense money and I'm not going to pay money to a company that I don't completely trust. People have implied that eLicense has lost customers because of negative feedback. In the past year I have been working closely with eLicense, that just isn't true and I challenge the poster to produce evidence of that. In fact, as several copy protection companies have failed during the bad economy, eLicense has survived. They have many very large clients, much larger than me, in both the corporate software world and the corporate music world.

People have also implied that eLicense is easily cracked. Well, the version used in zMUD 6.16 was cracked about a year ago. That crack allowed people to use later versions for free as well. But the actual eLicense code that has been in use for about the last 6 months has *not* been cracked. All crack methods involved using the earlier versions. This no longer works. I happily challenge the hacker community to try cracking the new version. The more people try to crack eLicense, the stronger eLicense gets. That's what I pay them for. But the *fact* is that the latest version has *not* been cracked, and it has been available to hackers for several months already. But go ahead and work on it...I don't mind getting my money's worth from eLicense and make them work hard at improving their protection.

And while I appreciate the offers to help in this area, unless you are a reputable company doing copy protection for a business, I'm not about to give up eLicense. You'll need to have customer referrals for me to talk to and a track record proving your software technology. I'm not about to hand the keys to zMUD over to someone doing this for a hobby. Instead, if you have suggestions for improvements, email them to me or to eLicense. I have suggested several things to eLicense over the past year that they have implemented. The 90-day autorenewal is just one of them, to prevent your licenses from getting lost forever due to Windows problems. eLicense has been very responsive to suggestions for improvement.

Finally, someone mentioned that other software companies don't use copy protection like eLicense. Well, if you look at those companies, they are BIG, and they sell EXPENSIVE software. They have calculated their losses due to software piracy and built that into the price they are charging. So, you are PAYING for all of the hackers that are using that software for free.

I could do that same thing. I have good data on sales. I've been selling zMUD for 6 years with various copy protection schemes (or lack thereof) and can tell you that sales is about twice as high *with* copy protection compared to without it (any copy protection, not just eLicense). So, I could just double the price of zMUD to compensate. Of course, fewer people would pay $50 for a MUD client, so I'd have to increase the price even more to stay in business. How about $100? Would enough people still buy it to keep me in business? Why do you think software is so expensive? There are a lot of programs where the crack rate is even higher than 50%.

Why don't other MUD clients use copy protection when they are only charging $25 too? Because they are hobbies and not businesses. There is no MUD client that is supporting itself as a business. The closest competitor to zMUD that charges for the client has a sales rate 10 times *lower* than zMUD. Their business is supported by other products. When your sales rate is this low, it's hard to find a 3rd party copy protection company that will work with you, and it's hard to afford their initial setup fees. So, people writing MUD clients for a hobby don't care how much their client is cracked or how much money they lose.

I choose to use a 3rd party to do the copy protection so that I could spend my limited programming time adding features and fixing bugs. I used to spend a *lot* of time on copy protection when I was doing it myself.

So if you are a legitimate customer with a problem, email us and we'll fix your problem. If you are a hacker who is unhappy because you can't use the new version of zMUD for free, then go use one of the many free MUD clients that are available and stop annoying people here. If you think there are better MUD clients available, then go use those and leave us alone. There are tens of thousands of zMUD users who will disagree with you and who are very happy with zMUD, even with eLicense.

Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

quote:

Of course, if the problem was 4 months ago (or 2 weeks...not sure you were consistent with that), then I wouldn't have it. But if the problem was 4 months ago, then you shouldn't be griping about it...you should be trying the new version in 6.40. The eLicense version used in 6.40 fixes a number of problems including the Windows XP multi-user issues, proxy server issues, and a variety of other more minor problems.

The problem was four months or so ago. I don't know where you came up with two weeks. So by your own admition you don't even know if you got the email or not. Way to accuse someone of something without the facts to back YOUR claim. Already told you why I've not upgraded to 6.40, you chose to ignore me the first time - so I'll state it again: I'm avoiding it because all of the mud friends I have have explicity TOLD me it's not safe, even after the supposed fixes for it came to light. You want more details than that you can ask them yourself. I'm not going to do your work for you, nor am I going to babysit them into filing complaints they don't want to file.

Tens of thousands of registered users? Hrm. Don't suppose you'd be able to share this interesting figure with those of us in the community? Since we don't see anywhere close to that many people playing muds ANYWHERE these days.

Either way, I sense we'll just have to agree to disagree. You say eLicense is cool, fine. I say it sucks. What more can be said now?

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

*yawn samson* is all I can think of saying

Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2002 9:40 am

quote:

Tens of thousands of registered users? Hrm. Don't suppose you'd be able to share this interesting figure with those of us in the community? Since we don't see anywhere close to that many people playing muds ANYWHERE these days.

http://www.zuggsoft.com/zuggsoft/about.htm

There's the data on the amount of registered zMUD users over the years, for reference.

Now, to point you at another item:

http://www.kyndig.com/hosting/

Notice: That counter almost NEVER dives below 500 users, and usually during peak times can exceed 1,000 -> 1,500 players on this ONE hosting group.

Then you have places like betterbox.net which host a great number of muds, and that's just 2 of the hosts out there, not counting the number of people who host their own (of which I'm also guilty of), etc.

Take for instance as well, TMC. They boast 1773 listings. Lets say for the sake of arguement that there are enough muds out there not listed to bring that total to 2000 (we're being conservative). Now assume each of those muds has ATLEAST 5 unique players (most have atleast that many in immortal staff of "friends they hired" etc.) That alone gives you the 10,000 your so searching for. And that's ignoring muds like Medieva and others whom have a minimum playerbase at any one time of atleast 50+.

Not quite that hard, if you do the math.

Icechild

Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

11/00 zMUD registrations reach 30,000
11/00 eLicense used for copy protection and eCommerce

Call me .... hmmm.... paranoid... but I find it interesting at the very least that the sales figures being quoted all suddenly stopped for zMUD after eLicense came around. Perhaps time for an update to this section? Otherwise it's all rather old statistically. Also doesn't account for registrations which have since become moot because of people who stopped using it.

quote:

That counter almost NEVER dives below 500 users

Not to bash Kyndig, but this is somewhat funny. For I checked out of curiosity and found only 488. Seems under 500 to me, and I'm not one to believe this was a fluke for my eyes only.

quote:

... That alone gives you the 10,000 your so searching for. ...

So "Tens of thousands" only means 10,000? I don't know about most people, but describing it that way gives one the impression of ALOT more than that. Somewhere on the order of 50-100K at the very least. I don't see enough math here to support that, but nonetheless, the statistics you have shown here ARE interesting. Although.... they also at the same time suggest that they're ALL registered zMUD users and I find THAT awfully hard to believe.

"This page was last updated on July 24, 2001"

Seems the page also needs an update, period.

Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2002 10:47 am

Can you clarify your complaints now, in 20 words or less? As far as I can see, you've had several chances to get problems with eLicense fixed but all you can do is whine in a roundabout way...you said you got everything off your chest, too. Obviously not :/

Why oh WHY did I have pass door on...

Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

Wasn't an eLicense rant there perse. Just questioning the validity of the statistics is all. Or should I not do that either?

Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2002 7:23 pm

Let's see, the date on the last sales figure was 11/00. Did it ever occur to you that I have better things to spend my time on than updating sales figures?

For the record, the current number of REGISTERED users as of today is 42,623. Go ask anyone else who sells a MUD client for sales figures...you won't get much response. But I'm proud of the zMUD sales figures and am happy to share them, even if they aren't any of your business.

For other statistics, you could look at the Download page where we count the number of zMUD downloads. The 6.40 version has been out for 5 days now and it already has over 5,000 downloads. And this page does not count the number of people who just used the auto-update features within their older version of zMUD. I don't have any statistics on that.

And yes, on July 24, 2001, I updated that page because I had moved to Colorado so the contact info needed to be updated. At that time, the sales numbers were still less than 40,000 and I only wanted to update every 10,000 users at this point. When sales actually hit 40,000 a few months ago, I felt that it was more important to continue programming and fixing bugs rather than worrying about web pages that few people even bother to look at.

The fact that you think there is some sort of big conspiracy involved with it just makes me laugh even more at your posts. So, while I'm sure everyone is amused to continue to read your ill-informed posts, you might want to actually think before you post next time.

Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

Well, hey. At least I was good for a laugh or something. Hate to think it served no purpose at all....

Call it coincidence then or something. It just seemed wierd to me was all. Still though, the original claim was "Tens of thousands" of zMUD users. If you've only got just over 40,000 and the math Icechild computed was accurate, then that suggested to me that you were both claiming to have literally every mudder as a registered zMUD user. If this is actually true, then you are indeed to be commended for pulling off something most of us would have figured impossible. Statistically it doesn't hold up though. That's all I was saying.

As for being able to get sales figures out of those who make other clients, I've had no problem obtaining those. Dont know why you think they'd not respond. Sure, it's none of my business, but they answered anyway.

So anyway. I've no more amusement left in me. Time to fade back into the obscurity I emerged from - for now.

Novice Joined: 16 Oct 2000 Posts: 43 Location: USA

quote:

Way to accuse someone of something without the facts to back YOUR claim.

<snip>

I'm avoiding it because all of the mud friends I have have explicity TOLD me it's not safe, even after the supposed fixes for it came to light. You want more details than that you can ask them yourself.

May I offer an observation, Samson? What you have put into your email is what's called "hearsay evidence." In other words (according to Merriam-Webster), it's evidence based not on a witness's personal knowledge but on another's statement not made under oath. Hearsay evidence is (except for some carefully, narrowly drawn exceptions) not admissible in court because it is considered rumor.

Translated into your situation, you have friends telling you zMUD and eLicense are "not safe," and you are presenting their opinion as fact to support your position, without saying why, what the problem is, or who these people are. I could just as easily say you are a knob, and when questioned why, say that all my friends tell me you are one and refuse to provide any more information. What differs hearsay from fact is the ability to demonstrate the truth of the matter independently of the hearsay.

I keep seeing lots of verbiage from you in this thread but I don't see anything that could give ANY tech support person enough to work with, and thus there is no way to independently demonstrate the truth of what you're passing along from your friends. Nobody wants your reg code; what they want to know is:

* What you were doing when you got the error;

* What the sequence of events was, such as starting zMUD then logging into a particular MUD;

* What the error message was;

* What version software you were using, including the Windows version;

* Any other software you have running on your computer like Norton or McAfee virus scanners, firewall software like BlackICE or ZoneAlarm, etc.;

* Any proxy servers running in your network,

* Is the problem repeatable;

and so forth.

Instead of doing this, you post screeds about how your life is full of torment, pain, and anguish because Zugg won't remove eLicense from HIS SOFTWARE, and how it really pisses you off that people would even ask you what the actual problem is THAT YOU ARE HAVING.

For someone who wants help, you are making it extraordinarily difficult to give you help.

Let me also point out something that is maybe getting lost in the dust-up here. You don't own zMUD, you have a license to use it. The license term is 90 days, renewable automatically. The eLicense system is used to enforce the license term and to ensure that the user has paid for the license. If you try to screw with the software, Zugg Software can revoke your license.

If this is so draconian for you that you simply can't stand it, you can return your license and get a refund. It's a free market; you can choose another client that's out there, and there are several, or write your own. Give this client to your friends to use. Charge for it, or not; use encryption, or don't. Provide support, or screw it. It's safe to say that the people who are on these boards, *donating* their time to help provide support for Zugg so that he can write cool software are not doing it for money, or to spite you, or to run a fiefdom where everyone has to call them Great Lord And Master. They do it because they love MUDding, because they love the software, and because they believe in supporting a good thing when they see it.

So this thread is at an impass. Your friends say one thing that you repeat as fact but you won't offer your own experiences or information, and the people here who can help solve problems have yet to get anything from you more than teeth gnashing and furious declamation. As has been suggested all along, if you were to provide useful information to Zugg, or eLicense, or any of the gurus on this board in private email, and they could help you solve your problem (whatever it is), they would do so in a heartbeat. My guess is that you are no longer here to solve the problem but rather just to vent your spleen as a means of getting attention.

From where I sit, your options are:

1) Continue your arm-waving and bad-mouthing without actually working the problem. Nothing will get solved, you'll still be angry, and you'll further isolate yourself from the people who are actually in a position to help you.

2) Return your license for a refund of your US $25. Use the freeware 3.62 version, someone else's client, or even just an ordinary freeware telnet app. Problems with zMUD and eLicense, if any, are solved, and your blood pressure and life stress levels should go down noticeably.

3) Contact Zugg, or Chiara, or one of the gurus, or eLicense. Use the cleverly hidden troubleshooting tips from earlier in this post to provide information to the people trying to help you. If you've provided a valid email, valid user name, or other contact info, they can figure out if the reg code got munged somehow. If you've provided details about what's happening ON YOUR SYSTEM (not your friend's, or your aunt's, or your dog's), be prepared to do some troubleshooting on your computer.

People are here to help, the offer has been extended repeatedly. If you keep slapping their hands away, then maybe you should spend less time mudding and more time in calming restorative activities like tai chi, yoga, or meditation.

Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

Funny how it's assumed I'm having the problem -NOW- when I've more than once mentioned it as a problem that's -FOUR MONTHS OLD-. I don't have to prove to anyone that my initial email was ignored. Doing so would almost surely be viewed with skepticism now anyway. I simply needed to vent frustration over it, I've done so. Being able to remember which error codes it was from that long ago would be nice. Having a copy of the original email from that long ago would be nice. Zugg doesn't have a copy either, so that more or less makes the whole thing moot now. I'm not interested in whether or not you believe me. I do find it interesting that somehow I'm the only person who ever complains and manages to have emails go unanswered. The odds would be highly against this actually being the case.

If it's any consolation to you, I made the update to 6.40 - and so far - no problems. But then I've been using the 6.3x betas for the last 4 months or so since solving the original problem I had on my own. It involved a ritual known as FORMAT C: which most Windows users are painfully aware of. Caused in that instance by eLicense, but you don't want to hear that, which is fine by me. We shall see if the problem pops back up again. When it does, it'll be reported like last time and we'll see if being ignored was a fluke or not.

Side note: Seems complaints get more attention here. Perhaps the public exposure is too hard to let pass?

Wanderer Joined: 02 Nov 2002 Posts: 76 Location: Tuvalu

Why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends? (My hippie BS.)
Now then... Someone close this thread; it's not accomplishing anything.

-Shibbidy Joe.
Step over to my "#WAIT Problem" topic if you need something to do.

Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2000 Posts: 388 Location: USA

quote:
I do find it interesting that somehow I'm the only person who ever complains and manages to have emails go unanswered. The odds would be highly against this actually being the case.

I'll be the first to admit that things happen to emails. They get lost, addresses typo'd, eaten by crashing servers and backbones, misfiled, mis-sorted as spam, etc, and so forth. And sometimes I don't meet my 48 hour goal for the usual assortment of reasons.

What I will say, however, is that every email I get is answered as soon as possible, and we take customer feedback seriously and always try to help.

If you don't get a response in 5 days, write back. Something has gone wrong.

If you don't get a response from elicense, forward that email to us, and let me know.

If Elicense isn't helping, I want to know that too. At the time, when I can do something, not much later when all the particulars have been lost or forgotten.

Chiara

Novice Joined: 22 Nov 2000 Posts: 40 Location: USA

I'll try to remember to keep hold of the emails and such next time. If need be I'll print them out if I have to. Only reason I lost the last set was because I couldn't wait any longer and had to reformat Windows.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

No more to add to this thread.

Kjata