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Lasivian Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:18 pm
Unfortunate things regarding Cmud and Zugg
Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 6:06 am   
 
Again, I'm sorry you were upset by Chiara's post. She was probably upset at reading first post in this topic this morning and posted too quickly. But we all do that. That's what makes us human. She wasn't trying to make a personal attack on you. She was just pointing out the reality that there is no way we can just give away free copies of CMUD to all of our long time users.

Also, try to look at this from Chiara's point of view. First, she if my wife and is sensitive to people making negative personal posts about me. So, she wakes up this morning and during her morning support email answering she reads this thread. By that time it already has a page of posts. She knows how hard I've been working on CMUD for the past 6 months and how burned out I am and reacts emotionally to the negative post. She posts a quick reply. All she was trying to do is make sure everyone realized that there is no way we can give CMUD away for free.

Could her reply have been more diplomatic? Perhaps. But we all make posts like that and it certainly fit the tone of the original poster. I'm not going to second guess her reply...she felt strongly about it, just as you feel strongly about this. We don't filter all of our posts through some PR firm or some legal firm. We are just regular people like everyone else, and we get just as upset as you would if someone came over and trashed your work or made rude public postings about you.
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edb6377
Magician


Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 482

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 6:24 am   
 
You might advice against that.. Heres a statistic you should lookup sometime from small business administration and better business bureau. 1 lost customer ==> 10 lost customers. 1 happy customer ==> 10 customers. It the word of mouth statistic. No one here is one of the CHILDREN. END OF DISCUSSION doesnt go over well when its their pocket you want to tap or their heart you wish to please.

Perspective for you: Not really for here but life experience is what it is.

If something mattered to you and you went to your wife to talk to her about it and she gave the response {her opinion} END OF DISCUSSION. I am not thinking you would be very happy either. It automatically means im done listening to you its going to be the way it is. Works great in households badly in business.

Do we have a choice in what you decide to do. NO we offer our opinions you decide what you decide. Once again the business model takes effect. Your business depends on decisions you make. As a customer i dont care why you make them. I value that my opinion is heard and that you make the decision you feel is best (EVEN if its not what i think). Everyone in this forum i think is happy you take opinions and try to work it into your software. So the fact that anyone fails to understand that concept is beyond me.

If Rainchild posted some awesome suggestion and you replied im sorry i made you unhappy but we arent going to do it end discussion id be suprised if he didnt feel his input mattered and such would be upset as well. Although each persons personality is different i can only imagine it would be a matter of time before he stopped sending his opinions. Thats just my assumption though i dont know him.

Any further feelings i have on this topic i will email in myself as i feel it has no place on these forums and my intent is not to push anyone else away from your product. This should have been an email situation from the beginning. his initial post and all responses(including my own) should imo been done via email/private message anyways. although it doesnt change my opinion much this is the way i feel it should be done and thusly its what i will do.
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slicertool
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Joined: 09 Oct 2003
Posts: 459
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 6:42 am   
 
Ricky Nelson held a concert at Madison Square Garden. He had written some new songs, worked really hard on this new album, and was thrilled at the opporunity to finally do those songs live in concert. He really enjoyed his new songs and figured his fans would too.

They didn't. If I remember the story correctly, he got booed for not doing any of his old songs.

After that experience, he was really down. Didn't know what to do. Finally, he wrote a song to express it. The chorus went like this:

But it's all right now, I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

(the song was 'Garden Party')

Zugg's got to do what Zugg's got to do. He can choose to do a complete re-write of zMud and drop the backward compatability to create a new application that will help him, his business, and his family survive for years to come or he can drop Zuggsoft and go to work for a big corporation and not have time to work on zMud.

Is that selfish of him to want to provide for his family? God, I hope not.
Is that selfish of him to want to keep his business alive? Not in the slightest.

He's simply doing what he needs to do to keep his family and business afloat. Zuggsoft is his full-time business. It isn't a hobby like a lot of products on the web. It isn't some open source project that three-thousand people work on. It's just him. It is his livelihood. If he doesn't sell new software, he doesn't have any income.

Do I want to spend more money? Never. Am I going to support Zugg in this? Of course! (after all, I want that packages manager)

He's got to do what he's got to do. Anyone that has trouble with that hasn't tried to support a family nor tried to run a small business. Asking him not to support his family nor his business is really selfish of all of you.

You all can flame me and tell me that I'm dating myself by telling that story... you'd be wrong, but you could tell me that. I really don't care. I'm happy to see his business survive and even more thrilled to see this large batch of new features become available.
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Nezic
Apprentice


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 119
Location: Colorado

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 6:51 am   
 
Quote:
No one here is one of the CHILDREN

Actually, I think the original poster closely fits the catagory Rolling Eyes. His last two replies were clearly trolls. [Edit: actually, all of his posts..]
And that is the problem with trolls, they lead to threads like this where other people get inadvertantly offended, when no offense was ever really intended.


Anyway, I had been working on a long reply of my own, but in the mean-time several large posts were made.. But since I put in the work of writin it, I want to post it ;). (Keep in mind, it does NOT respond to the last 6 posts...).

This discussion seems to revolve around a couple of issues. First: Does cMUD *really* count as a new, seperate product?

Zugg has obviously made the argument here, and more so in other threads (with which I totally agree) that yes, cMUD is a new, seperate product. The problem people get caught up in is the 'idea' of a mud client. Some people may argue that it should still be counted as the same product. But why should it? Yes, the general idea behind it (it is a mud client) is the same. But somebody, somewhere has to be able to make the determination that something is a seperate product. People seem to abstract similar ideas until they blur together as one fuzzy mass.

Now, the other part of the issue blurred in with this discussion is it's free-upgrade promise for zMUD. Here's an analogy:

Let's say that I promise some people that I will mow their lawns for $10 a week, per lawn. After about 5 years of this I finish studying at a land-scaping school, and I want to stop mowing lawns to start a land-scaping business.

Can the people whose lawns I have been mowing reasonably say to me: 'No! you CAN'T change to a land-scaping business. You promised us that you would mow our lawns for $10 a week. Land-scaping is too similar to mowing lawns. How dare you try to change your promise and make more money. You need to keep mowing our lawns. We have been paying you for FIVE YEARS now. You owe us.'

My point is that Zuggsoft can't be a slave to the past, especially when the main arguments are that cMUD is 'too similar' to zMUD (even though it utilizes a higher level of knowledge, skill, and experience, as well as takes a lot of time and effort to do).

The main motivation to do anything in a free, capitalist society is to make money, and Zugg isn't making 'too much' money. Is Zugg not allowed to create cMUD and also not allowed to stop work on zMUD? Has he unwittingly signed himself into indentured servitude?



edb6377:

Quote:
Quote:
I like the new policy, I like even that it may cause some to refuse to buy.


Yet another sickening quote. Granted no one could hold the "CREATOR" responsible for it.


I suspect he ment to say:
'I like it even though it may cause some to refuse to buy.'
NOT:
'I like that it may cause some to refuse to buy'.

The difference means that it isn't exactly a 'sickening' statement Rolling Eyes .
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Chiara
Site Admin


Joined: 29 Sep 2000
Posts: 387
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:59 am   
 
edb6377

Zugg explained my post, but I wanted you to hear it from me. I apologize for distressing you. What you heard wasn't what I meant, but I should have been more careful with my phrasing.
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Tornhelm
Beginner


Joined: 24 Nov 2002
Posts: 20
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:16 pm   
 
CMUD is looking so good at the moment, that even though I won the lifetime free upgrades thing (and I still wear the Zuggsoft shirt - booyah!) I will probably end up buying a copy or two for some guys on the IRE games who do a HUGE amount of coding for their respective communities but can't really afford to buy it (they will have enough trouble buying a new computer for it).

I must admit that I did start out using zmud back in the 5.55 era with a pirated copy and used them for a while - even got other friends hooked on MUDs because of a pirate version which they later bought legally (as a side note here - elicense did a hell of a job eventually of stamping out the piracy - but damned it was an annoying pile of junk), but even back then it was well worth its money and ended up buying a copy (not under my name though - used a friends credit card so it was officially registered to him) and never looked back since.

This isn't even mentioning the fact that you will STILL be able to use zMUD well into the future - it just won't be "officially" supported, so its not like your code you bought 7 odd years ago went to waste. Honestly, your kind of attitude is what made the zMUD business model untenable in the first place.
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mr_kent
Enchanter


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 698

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:46 pm   
 
Well, this is an interesting thread. How many more of these trolls are there? In the spirit of rewarding honest and full disclosure business people (like Zugg and Warren Buffet), and helping other buisness owners to see the light, I will be offering Lasivian and edb6377 a free copy of CMUD as soon as I am able to order it. These will be the fully paid version, not the basic upgrade version of which I am eligible to buy several. Whether they are given away, or just stored on my bookshelf remains to be seen. I make no guarantees for purchasing future upgrades to their products, but I've been a happy zMUD user for over ten years and I'll probably still around in another five (if Zuggsoft is still around). If.

Thank you Lasivian and edb6377 for helping Zugg get started. As a very satisfied, long-time user I want to express my gratitude for your part in making zMUD possible.
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Lasivian
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Joined: 25 Jan 2002
Posts: 76
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 1:18 pm   
 
original post has been edited.
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Tarn
GURU


Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 867
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 2:41 pm   
 
mrkent wrote:

Thank you Lasivian and edb6377 for helping Zugg get started.


Lasivian wrote:

And we were also the first ones to throw our hard-earned dollars at you. We trusted in your beginnings when you didn't even have your own website, now we just get treated like we're the longest-term leechers.


The first few items from the Zuggsoft timeline:
http://www.zuggsoft.com/page.php?file=zuggsoft/about.htm
Quote:

Aug 1995 Zugg releases v1.0 of zMUD to fellow players on the Dark Castle MUD
Sep 1995 Zugg creates a web site to distribute zMUD as Freeware to the world
Sep 1996 zMUD v4.0 is released as Shareware -- Zugg Software officially formed


So you were presumably a donor in that first month or before, even before it was generally released Freeware ("when you didn't even have your own website")?

A little offtopic: We were trying to hunt down early versions to form a complete archive. You don't happen to have 1.0 lying around anywhere?

-Tarn
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MattLofton
GURU


Joined: 23 Dec 2000
Posts: 4834
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:49 pm   
 
Quote:

My brakes have a lifetime guarantee on that product.


As a direct comparison to ZMud or CMud, those brakes would have to be installed by a paid mechanic (sure, you can install them yourself for free but there's simply no way Zugg would let you work on CMud/ZMud yourself). Your lifetime warranty doesn't cover that, so for 4 brakes you are looking at around $50-100 minimum just in labor costs.
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ShadowDrakken
Beginner


Joined: 29 Dec 2002
Posts: 18
Location: USA

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:02 pm   
 
So many people complaining about how they were the first ones to pay for zMud and how that entitles them to more than others... I think you all are just greedy

You forget about all of us who were using zMud before even you first payers... those of us who used it back when it was freeware... To get a product for such a low price, that has evolved so much over 10 years... you'd be hard pressed to find any better deal in software

Most freeware doesn't survive, doesn't get upgraded, doesn't get fixed. If you compare the current zMud with the early version you paid for, it's hardly the same program anymore.

CMUD is a completely new engine from everything I can tell reading on here, and it's shameful that you people are so greedy that you want it included under an 8yr old license that applies to a seperate program.
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edb6377
Magician


Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 482

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:48 pm   
 
There is only one person with that complaint. That wouldnt be many. My post was an explination and opinion. Not a request demand or otherwise and is so noted in my post. Read first .... post later.

<removed by myself as there is no need to even attempt to explain the prior two posts as it will continue a fire>

So my statement stands. There were better ways all of this could have been worded. And your DIRECT assault in verbage is directly what leads to inflamitory posting in the first place and it will cost them customers i guarantee it. Its not about selfishness. Its not about greed. Its not even about the product. Its about the customer service aspect. Every word you type affects customers current or potential. You should have been attempting to understand and offer an reasonable explination. If he was unwilling to accept it. leave it to zugg and chiara since its their product to handle it via PM. Uninformed posts or posts directly attacking someone who wasnt even arguing against what you believe makes it even worst because then you directly attack your own supporters.


Last edited by edb6377 on Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:32 pm; edited 2 times in total
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edb6377
Magician


Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 482

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:10 pm   
 
I intentionally left the front part out of this as it directly concerns the customer

Code:

Where are all the "many knowledgeable and experienced members" the the "zMud community" the advertising mentioned? Not to say that you or anyone posting here are unexperienced, but with hardly anyone posting who has more than 100 posts, I feel a little bit deceived... Anyway, thanks again for your help so far, and please look at that post if you get a sec.


I responded in kind with an explination and continued to support his request for assistance. Maybe you should get back to focusing on the forums at large and assisting those people as you have done so long. I recieve these type of posts often and its exactly why people swarm to private sites which run and support ZMUD. Those sites most often started 8-10 years ago with their own purchase of zmud. Not that its always the case. Just realize the one person you may badmouth here may run websites that have inclusive numbers in the hundreds maybe thousands. You want to help zugg if your posts are going to be inflamatory and resolve no issues then express them through other channels or keep posts civil. You maybe sticking up for zugg and that i admire. You may also be defeating the very attempt he is making to keep the project alive. A majority of the people purchasing the product come here merely to buy the product and already have support groups with the mud they are involved in and often came here to purchase the product based on recommendations. CMUD being entirely new needs support from all of those involved who visit this site. Most that i have spoken to arent interested in it and i have begun plugging it on 3/4 sites i currently write code on. Including some of the screenies zugg posted to try and generate interest. Just a thought for you to go on. as i said 1 customer turns into 10 really quick. I deal with it day in and day out. Its my honest advice nothing more.
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edb6377
Magician


Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 482

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:17 pm   
 
MOST IMPORTANTLY I WANT YOU ALL TO REREAD THE INITIAL POST ON PAGE 1 BY Lasivian

You will find exactly what he was looking for and what i was trying to say all along .. TARN finally hit on it and lasivian expressed the feelings i was conveying. He wasnt looking for product, it wasnt money greed or anything else. It was a response from the general concensus (POSTERS) that fueled the fire. All he wanted was a you know what I understand how you feel and thank you for getting us started now heres the situation post from zugg himself. Might take that into consideration when you post in the future. Could have cost zugg a mass potential of current and future customers. I know i hold about 200-300 in my hands. I am not sure about lasivian but it exponentially expands.

I stated it on page 2

Code:

Running a business is about more than just providing product its about allowing your customers not only the opportunity to offer feedback(which i think you are wonderful at) [b]but to also make them understand you truly care and that your motives in doing something are not MERELY for the money but for the better of the whole) Remember they paid you (WHEN YOU HAD NO MARKET)[/b]


Told you exactly what he was looking for of which i got 2 more pages of direct attacks and 3 posts of explination

[Zugg] Personal note: If you had to hire/procure a PR Rep. I would recommend TARN lol, In all the posts i read of his no matter the context of the posts, he was calm ,collected and read and understood the posts involved to accuratly ascertain the problem and offer the solution without changing his stance. That is admirable and ultimatly the solution to the original posters problems.
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Vijilante
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Joined: 18 Nov 2001
Posts: 5182

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:01 pm   
 
I have reread Lasivian's original post, including his recent edits and feel my response was appropiate. My initial reaction to this entire thread was, "Oh, look. I have moderating powers in this forum, and Zugg really doesn't need to be reading this right now." My other initial thought was stifling the community of speech here only leads to greater problems for Zugg. I waited and read many replies before finally stating my mind. I will state it again in the plainest speech I can possible muster.
I chose to purchase zMud.
I chose to further support the zMud community.
I chose to further support Zuggsoft.
I made my choices and respecting Zugg's choice is something that we must each choose to either do or not do. I also respect the choices of everyone that has posted to this thread, and I stand by my previous statement...
Quote:
I like the new policy, I like even that it may cause some to refuse to buy.
...while I may respect the choice that person makes to not upgrade or further support Zuggsoft, I do not necessarily respect the logic and reasoning that led to that choice. In some cases I feel no obligation to even respect the person making such a choice.

Everything in this entire thread comes down to Lasivian's third point
Quote:
#3 You've decimated my trust. Your actions have become self-fulfilling, you're showing that the software is not the primary concern, money is.
Zugg lost his trust. Zugg has shaken the trust many of us had in him. At the most visceral level even my trust is shaken, and I do not admit that lightly. Zugg has made every effort, through all the years that I have been reading these forums, to maintain the most open, approachable, and personable atmosphere possible. In many ways I feel that he is family, and hearing that a part of my family is in dire straits hurts. Being hurt by someone weakens and destroys your trust in that person. So our own feelings of kinship with Zugg are one of the main causal factors of loss of trust.

I am still of half a mind to just not post this response at this point and let everyone keep babbling. Many of us that have been around here for many years likely feel similar familial bonds, but I am sure few of us recognize it as such.
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Lestaticon
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Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Wed Apr 19, 2006 11:18 pm   
 
As time moves on, it's becoming more apparent to me that people are dropping consciousness of the humans running a business. People no longer comprehend that "feelings are facts" too. This is a small business. It IS a business, but ultimately we are talking about two real human beings with regular lives. Large corporations or businesses hire masses of people in order to properly remove the effects of imperfect humans from your view. They prosper by feeding you a polished pseudo-reality business face. Workers are buried deep under rules, regulations, and policies aimed at suppressing as much human error and feelings as possible. Put on a smile for your customers because, oh no, it would be bad for business if they were inconvenienced in any way by reality.
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Nezic
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Joined: 10 Oct 2000
Posts: 119
Location: Colorado

PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:31 am   
 
Quote:
You will find exactly what he was looking for


I think everyone appreciates Lasivian cooling down and explaining what he really ment, but you can't deny that his original post was extremely caustic and insulting, and was very specific in talking about business choices. It is very difficult to figure out the real reasons behind a post like that when it is masked by hostility. Not to mention that it is notoriously easy to mis-interpret the tone of text-only messages.

I have always seen a constant attitude of respect from Zugg towards users, especially the ones that supported him early on and who participate on these discussion boards. That Lasivian was talking as if Zugg doesn't respect his users made everyone else wonder where he was coming from, because it doesn't match what they have seen at all.

So that leaves them to respond to what he actually said, and not what was driving his hard feelings.
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Zugg
MASTER


Joined: 25 Sep 2000
Posts: 23379
Location: Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:03 am   
 
Quote:
Where are all the "many knowledgeable and experienced members" the the "zMud community" the advertising mentioned? Not to say that you or anyone posting here are unexperienced, but with hardly anyone posting who has more than 100 posts, I feel a little bit deceived... Anyway, thanks again for your help so far, and please look at that post if you get a sec.

Was this something you got via email or something posted here? Is this person talking about the zMUD Discussion Forum here? If so, I can't imagine that they really looked at the forum. I just checked and there are *many* active people with well over 100 posts that have been helping people. MattLofton, Tarn, TonDeining, Vijilante, mr_kent are all very active. There have always been helpful and knowledgeable people on this forum, even during the past couple of years when my attention has been on other projects.

Hopefully I just misread this and it refers to some other forum.

I've never been personally super active in the normal forum. That's what the Gurus are there to help with so that I can stay focused on programming. I've always been more active in the Beta Forum and Developer's Forum. That's been true for 10 years, so nothing has changed. In many ways, some of the Gurus know more about zMUD that I do and certainly know more about helping people with their scripting problems. My time is better spent working on the products themselves. I try to read as many posts as I can, but there just isn't time to respond to all of them.

Back to the original (edited) post:
Quote:
I feel should have come from Zugg.

Well, I'm glad he edited it to show this. From his original post it sounded more like he was demanding something more substantial like a free version of CMUD. I always try to show my appreciation to long-time zMUD users when I can. I even have a Credits section in the zMUD About screen with some of the more notable "old timers" listed. But it's hard to personalize appreciation with so many customers.

There are over 10,000 people that you could call "old time" users. If you have suggestions on how I should show my appreciation for them, in a way that does *not* involve giving away free stuff or otherwise impacting the business then I'd be happy to listen. I can't even send out "thank you" emails to these people because the last time I tried that (many years ago) about 60% of the email bounced. People usually don't notify us when they change emails, and these customers are from over 7 years ago, so they are mostly impossible to contact.

But I've always thanked customers for their support in new version announcements and in my New Years letters. And the best way I can think of to show my appreciation is to keep working hard on improving my products to keep people having fun on their MUDs.
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adamwalker
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Joined: 12 Mar 2005
Posts: 195

PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:28 pm   errrrm
 
this just sounds crazy to me...

Ive never had a thankyou from microsoft for my 'dedicated' support, nor do i expect to be on thier christmas card list.

All the thanks i need from zugg is continued development (which is storming ahead), and for him to be honest about which direction he is taking the business (which he has been in probably over 20 posts and his new years letter)

If you want a thankyou go work for a charity, dont buy computer software.

silly people.

EDIT - As for your problem with your biggest customer base being the ones that dont check the forum.. all you need is word of mouth zugg. on the release of Cmud I plan to tell everyone on my mud that its out and what I think of it. Im sure a lot of people will come back from the people that 'advertise' via word of mouth! viva la zugg!

Thanks zugg!
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slicertool
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Joined: 09 Oct 2003
Posts: 459
Location: USA

PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:23 pm   Re: errrrm
 
adamwalker wrote:
EDIT - As for your problem with your biggest customer base being the ones that dont check the forum.. all you need is word of mouth zugg. on the release of Cmud I plan to tell everyone on my mud that its out and what I think of it. Im sure a lot of people will come back from the people that 'advertise' via word of mouth! viva la zugg!


Amen to that. I'm the only person on my mud willing to help with most zMud scripts people have. If I tell people that CMud is the greatest thing since sliced silicon, then they'll go buy it. (especially if I tell them that I've converted and I can support their scripts _much_ easier that way.)
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Lestaticon
Newbie


Joined: 15 Sep 2005
Posts: 3

PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 8:28 pm   
 
I'm one of the users who never took part in forum discussion and I've been a zMud user for at least 8 or 9 years if I'm not mistaken. Periodically I will check the zuggsoft site throughout the years. The whole CMUD project motivated me to register. I'm very interested in CMUD and plan to purchase it even if I don't use it actively.
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edb6377
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Joined: 29 Nov 2005
Posts: 482

PostPosted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:02 pm   
 
Quote:

Quote:
Where are all the "many knowledgeable and experienced members" the the "zMud community" the advertising mentioned? Not to say that you or anyone posting here are unexperienced, but with hardly anyone posting who has more than 100 posts, I feel a little bit deceived... Anyway, thanks again for your help so far, and please look at that post if you get a sec.

Was this something you got via email or something posted here? Is this person talking about the zMUD Discussion Forum here? If so, I can't imagine that they really looked at the forum. I just checked and there are *many* active people with well over 100 posts that have been helping people. MattLofton, Tarn, TonDeining, Vijilante, mr_kent are all very active. There have always been helpful and knowledgeable people on this forum, even during the past couple of years when my attention has been on other projects.


Recieved via PM on these forums. My response was similar to your own.

Quote:

Ive never had a thankyou from microsoft for my 'dedicated' support, nor do i expect to be on thier christmas card list.


Different people different experiences. I get all kinds of things from them all the time.. but im also an official beta tester for them.

Overall the post above this one helps convey what i was trying to get across to other members of the forum. Be careful what you say to people. You may flame them not realizing they run a website that supports the zmud scripts for that mud etc whatever and actually help encourage many people to buy a product. So by your defense you could cost him more as you think you are saving him.

Many of you emotionally over-reacted to the original post. While i admit it was inflammatory what his post aluded to was what he required and the reaction was overly severe IMHO. Hence my post. I can understand how he feels. It didnt affect my stance on the situation but i can empathize.
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Baram
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Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 33
Location: Seoul, Korea

PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:09 am   
 
I just want to say, I've used zMud for a long time. Back in the day I was one of those "I'm never going to pay for it" people, and found any way to use it for free. After a while I did decide to pay for it, then lost the key and bought another copy not too long ago.

As I am now, like Zugg, running(well in my case starting) a commercial company in the mud community, I completely understand and agree with his choice. At first I wasn't planning on buying cMud, as zMud handles everything I need. Then I heard that cMud-Pro will have SSH abilities, as a developer that news got me really excited. I do all my coding on Windows(better editors), and have to use other programs to access my two servers. If cMud-Pro will allow me to combine my client and my ssh tool(currently Putty), I love it.

Zugg has done a great thing for the mud community over the last 10 years, his product is by far the best one out there. He needs to live and support his family with this business. He's taking A LOT of time to completely remake zMud, to be faster and more compatible with today's technologies, then he should be able to charge for it. This isn't just an upgrade, but a completely new product. Look at games, Diablo and Diablo II are fundamentally the same game, but are still completely different. Did you attack Blizzard for charging you for a new product?

Zugg, you're doing a great thing for all of us, and the idea of a common place for us to store scripts is great. My company plans to have a nice set of basic scripts and store it there, so all of our new players can easily download them and not have to spend time recreating the wheel.

On a side note, if you(Zugg) have some time, please send me an email. I'd like to talk with you briefly about a future business deal that could benefit both of us.
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Joseph Monk
Working on yet unannounced MUD.
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seamer
Magician


Joined: 26 Feb 2001
Posts: 358
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:08 am   
 
Sometimes people just need to vent, and the -need- to vent raises disproportionately when it is -percieved- that there is alot of toadying and buttkissing going on.

Hopefully the act of venting has helped and the things that needed to be said are appropriately resolved...time to move along people, nothing to see here, go back to your scheduled pvp events ;)
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Active contributer to coffeemud.net, the advanced java-based mud system.
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Naviad
Beginner


Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 10
Location: Melbourne, Australia

PostPosted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:32 am   
 
Just to throw in my 2c, I've been using zMud since 2000, and its been my most used piece of software BY FAR since that time. The use I have found for the program in that time has been astounding, especially given the low price and that I get THREE licenses with my purchase.

Zugg, this is a change you should feel good about. There will always be idiots who criticise any change, especially when it comes to money. If this loses you a couple of customers and makes you financially viable, well, goodbye to bad rubbish.

To those miserly idiots who are getting aggro at Zugg for wanting to make a healthy living, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Either you can afford the modest charge rates for the new products, or you're on welfare and you should be using zMud. End of story.
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