Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:53 pm

I probably shouldn't even ask...but here I go.

OK, I know CMUD still has bugs. After all, it's still a beta. And since there is no such thing as bug-free software, it will probably still contain bugs even after the public release. After all, even zMUD 7.21 has bugs and zMUD is over ten years old!

But it's Halloween. And it's a little over a month until the planned CMUD public release on Chiara's birthday in early December.

The discounts for existing zMUD users expire when the public version is released. That's what I've promised since CMUD was originally announced, so that's not going to change. I also promised to notify existing zMUD users to give them enough time to evaluate CMUD and take advantage of their discount.

With the 30-day free trial, I need to announce CMUD at least one month before the public release.

So, that would be now.

Nobody has reported any really critical problems with v1.12 yet. Yes, there are problems with buttons in the new settings editor. Yes, the help files are still incomplete. Yes, Events still are not implemented. I could go on and on. But waiting another week isn't going to make this much better.

So what do you think about going ahead with the Halloween announcement? It's going to cost me a lot of money to send an email to every zMUD user, so I'm only going to do it once. In fact, I'll post the proposed email message as a reply to this topic. If you have suggestions for changes to the email, let me know.

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:53 pm

Proposed email announcement for existing zMUD users:

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

Looks great, except I'm almost certain everyone's going to want to know exactly when in December the upgrade deal will end. I know you're probably avoiding putting a specific date in the e-mail because you're not sure if something will happen between now and then that causes CMUD to not be fully ready for a public release, but just thought I'd put it out there.

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 1:22 am

In addition to sending the email, I plan to use a feature in zMUD which allows me to display a popup message when it checks for a new version. I'll be directing zMUD users to a page on this site that describes the discount offer. I'll use the popup message once later this week, but then again about one week before the public release. So anyone using zMUD will see the message. It will also be announced on this web site about a week in advance of the release.

But you are correct that I don't want to commit to a specific date yet. Too much can happen between now and then, and making a hard release date just causes me to release bad versions. Also, people should not feel like they need to wait until the last minute to take advantage of the offer. In fact, if you waited until the very last day and then had some sort of credit card problem that delayed the order, then you might miss the discount.

I'll be putting up another web page with more FAQs later tonight. In particular it will elaborate on the 2-year upgrade policy to remind people that it only applies to major version releases, so there really isn't any reason to wait until the last possible second to buy CMUD in order to maximize the 2 years.

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 2:32 am

I have added a new page to the web site called CMUD Information for zMUD Users. Take a look at it and let me know what you think. I have also added the CMUD news to the top of the main www.zuggsoft.com home page. This is the beginning of getting the word out about CMUD. Feel free to start telling your friends about it and encourage them to come participate in the CMUD beta process so that we can make CMUD better for everyone.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

The "CMUD information for zMUD users" page looks good. However, the page it links to in this text: "For a more complete list of new features and changes for zMUD users, go to the CMUD Documentation.": Changes for zMUD users: I would rearrange the order of the index on the left so that New Features is next (below Changes for zMUD users) so that it stands out more - I thought this article was missing when I took a quick look and I think it's more important than the new commands and functions.

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 4:24 am

Good idea. I've updated the order. (I like stuff like this that's easy :)

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:39 pm

Why is it going to cost you a lot of money?

If you want I can do the mail out for you for no charge!

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 8:38 pm

Because to send out a marketing email to 60,000 customers legally in the U.S., you need to comply with various anti-spam laws, and implement a database that supports opt-out links at the bottom of the email, and that can remove emails from the mailing list that bounce, etc. Dealing with this properly takes a lot of time and effort, and I don't have that time right now.

If you have a way to do all of that and track bouncebacks and deal with opt-out and then deal with forwarding valid replies back to me, then let me know quickly. Otherwise I'm using a service called MailChimp and it's going to cost me about $600.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:36 pm

Well, not for U.S. companies. I don't want to sidetrack this discussion, but the problem is that most of the spam is being sent from systems outside the U.S. where our laws don't apply. If clicking an opt-out link in an email from a U.S. company caused you to get more spam from that company, then you can report them and they can be fined a lot of money. Of course, some spam companies just pay the fines, but they are starting to crack down on that and give out jail terms.

It's actually scary how easy it is to report spam abuse, especially if the spam comes from a legitimate system like MailChimp. But most spam does not come from a legitimate email marketing system from within the U.S.

Systems like MailChimp are very strict with it's users about this though. They are able to get their email sent to users and not blocked by anti-spam systems *because* they are following the rules and are for legitimate companies sending non-spam to customers (like subscribed newsletters, etc). But you can see that this would be a very tough business to work in because of all of the crap out there.

As a real incorporated business within the U.S., I have to follow the rules correctly. If I just sent out 60,000 emails myself without complying with the U.S. anti-spam rules and someone complained, I would be in serious trouble. Here is the link to the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

But let's try to keep this on topic. Like I said, if you have a legitimate way for me to send this email that complies with all of the U.S. laws, then let me know. Otherwise just post comments about the email text that I'm about to send, or the other information about CMUD that I've been posting to the site.

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:02 pm

Well, it's a moot topic now. The email has been sent. I swear...clicking that "send" button felt like jumping off a bridge.

I have also set the message of the day for all existing zMUD users. When it checks for a new version it also downloads a short message, which is then displayed the next time you run zMUD. Also, I noticed that the current version of zMUD being reported was still 7.20a, so I changed it to 7.21.

There's no going back now!

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

CMUD downloads are taking off! 28 downloads in past 15 minutes! (From 98 to 126.) (I understand your trepidation, Zugg.)

[Edit: Now up to 181 after another 35 minutes.]

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 11:38 pm

Don't worry Zugg, it's the right thing at the right time.

You'll get a lot of needed extra feedback. Some of it will be disheartening bugs and the occasional bad review; but most it will shower you with accolades.

To give an example, I tried using zMud for my main mudding the other day, and the first thing that bug me (terribly) was that I couldn't dock the windows exactly how I wanted thanks to the new docking system in CMUD. While I know they all work now, I kinda missed looking at the compiled version of of the code.

Although I don't really use them, maybe I should look into it, I know the customizable menu bars will be a big, big hit. Fly out windows will be another winner. I haven't tried scripting them yet, but maybe I'll try that tonight. (Was that implemented yet, i can't recall now.)

Packages, Modules and Windows will probably call the biggest confusion. Now that I think about you might to add some recommendations about when it's a good idea to pull out certain classes to packages (although you probably have them already).

Bottomline is you've built it, and they will come...

Apprentice Joined: 29 Jul 2003 Posts: 101 Location: USA

Will the 30d trial be reset one last time before cMud goes public? That way people who quit messing with the earliest betas can check this out before they buy?

Newbie Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 2

I'm a bit confused with the discount offer. It appears that those that have been with you the longest and have been loyal customers are penalized and those that are new get a better deal. I'm sorry I just don't see the logic in this.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 1:09 am

Deniver,

This is a new product. You are rewarded if you helped Zugg stay in business by buying a license recently. That makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. You still get a significant discount even if you bought a license 7 years ago.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 1:12 am

Please see the CMUD Information for zMUD users FAQ for more about this. But this is standard software industry practice. The long-time users have gotten the most value from their purchase. Recent customers might feel more upset for spending money on something and then immediately having new software come out. With the majority of other software companies, discounts are typically only provided for people using the most recent version, or who purchased within the past few months. In fact, giving out free versions to people who bought something a year ago, and giving half price discounts back 7 years is almost unheard of.

Chiara and I have a family to support and bills to pay. This is our full-time job. We can't pay bills by giving away everything for free. We considered not having any discounts at all, but wanted to show our appreciation to zMUD users in *some* way. But we can't stay in business by giving discounts to everyone, and most zMUD/CMUD users would rather that we stayed in business and continued to improve MUD software.

Newbie Joined: 01 Nov 2006 Posts: 1

I always wondered how the zMUD business plan was feasible - free upgrades forever, too good to be true! Very Happy

I've used several zMUD trial versions before I decided to purchase it in May 2000, which is where it (from my point of view) became better than tintin (and various tintin'alikes). Since then it has only grown better. Thanks for a great product, and heres to the next!

I'll definitely buy CMUD.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 2:19 pm

One problem with the email is that it had all the links disabled due to Phishing warnings - e.g. "WARNING: URL text and host don't match, possible phishing attempt. URL disabled. Original URL='"http://mcsv.net/cgi-bin/redir?MCid=VsNG0ieHOiEjbRsHGoD2"'. Original text='https://www.zuggsoft.com/store'"

Too late for this mailshot, but something you may want to watch for in future ones.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 3:03 pm

WooHoo!

CMUD's up to 655 downloads at the time of this post! ;)

Why do I fear a never-ending onslaught of forum posts that say the exact same things? Not that I have anything in particular in mind, it's merely a phobia of repetition.

AaARRRGGGHHH!

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 3:04 pm

Oh, GMAIL had no problems receiving the email Zugg. Didn't mark it as spam, phishing or anything negative.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 6:02 pm

The MailChimp service that I used for the email replaces the links so that it can track how many people clicked the various links. While I realized that this might cause a flag on some email systems, I decided that the statistics were useful enough to leave them in. I've never done an email marketing like this and was interested in learning about the statistics of how many people opened the email and clicked links.

It's unfortunate that spam has gotten to be such a problem that legitimate email information like this gets trashed because of it. I'd guess that a huge majority of zMUD users would want to at least know about their potential discount, and yet there seems to be no way to notify them that doesn't end up looking like spam on some systems.

The good news is that it seems like the MailChimp system actually worked pretty well. Certainly much better than anything I could have put together myself. In fact, my tests with SpamAssassin rated the CMUD announcement email as less "spammy" than one of our normal "here is your license" emails that are sent from our ecommerce system.

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 6:03 pm

And yes, you will probably start seeing a lot of new posters in this forum...so be nice to them Smile