Zugg Software :: View topic - No Pre-orders?

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 7:00 pm

I'm not sure what this means. Maybe people are just broke right now or it's the beginning of summer. Or maybe it means that the "zMUD audience" is not a good place to start looking for eMobius users.

The pre-order for eMobius has been available for almost a week now, and there have only been 5 pre-orders. In the first week of zMapper we had 50 pre-orders. eMobius has some demo applications that can be downloaded, whereas zMapper has nothing. Of course, the zMapper pre-order was only $10.

Now, I think the market for eMobius is out there and has to be bigger than zMUD or zMapper. But I'm wondering if promoting eMobius on the zMUD site is really the right thing to do.

Judging from the discussion activity in this forum, I had expected a bit more support than this. I get a lot of my energy from these forum discussions and it honestly hard to get very motivated right now with this kind of response. I'm also concerned at the level of beta testing that I'll be able to get with this low response rate.

So I'm curious and interested in speculation on this. Is there less of a need for better email than I'd thought? Is there something wrong with the order system? Is it because I'm still using eLicense? Is it just because "zMapper" sounded like something more related to zMUD than eMobius? Or are people just waiting for the real beta version?

(of course, this is probably the wrong place to ask since it's probably the 5 people who are reading this forum who did the pre-orders)

(and no, Rainchild, I'm not worried about you...you already told me about your situation. I'm more concerned about the general trend)

Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 7:45 pm

No offense meant at all but...

A beta would probably have harnessed more orders.

You're gonna have a tough time with the free email clients...

Magician Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 459 Location: USA

I haven't ordered yet, because I'm between jobs and the money isn't there. My wife and I both love Zuggsoft products and both had legit licensed copies of zmud before we ever met each other.

I'll buy emobius, but I just don't have the moola right now.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

I can't afford buying an email client at the current time. However consider this: Would you preorder eMobius yourself at its current state? So far you don't know much about it other than that it should be better than Outlook Express. So you decide to download the demo client from the web site to check it out. What you see is a few demo applications like a calculator(although a well written one I suspect) but that doesn't tell you much about the email client which was what you needed.

Preordering also has a certain risk: Will the software actually be released?

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I put my order in, and still haven't really had time to install ZEUS. Just too many projects on my table. So far everything you have said about how it operates excites me, but the demos to this point just don't have enough pull. I am still working at other projects. At some point I can see myself getting fired up to do a project with ZEUS and the ZDE (when released), but right now there isn't enough things in place for me to install the demo and start working on it.

Relax for a moment, take a deep breath. The market is there. You chose the demo apps because they were easy and some parts of them would be used in eMobius. They just don't have enough appeal to draw in the current market exposure.

I know this forum is read by a core of people who support Zuggsoft and know the product will be excellent. This forum is also your current alpha test market, as Insomniac said a beta will draw more. Sure the zMud market is not the same as the email client market, and here you only have the overlap and people that happen to find eMobius at this early stage. Those that are just happening upon it don't know Zuggsoft and your personal commitment to quality. The rest of us like giving you money and want to pay full price; or in the case of a few of us, want to buy it a few times at all different prices.

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 12:29 am

I've been considering buying eMobius at some point, the pre-release sounds a bit technical for me so I've been waiting to see an actual client (even if all it does is show me what's on the server) before I make any decisions

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 12:35 am

That is all true, but it was even more true with zMapper, which is why the difference in orders confuses me.

Remember that zMapper pre-orders delivered *nothing*. People bought it completely on faith and based solely upon experience with zMUD. The first beta wasn't released for a couple of months.

There is more description of eMobius in this forum then there was for zMapper when it was released.

So as I said, I understand the points you are all making, but those same points applied to zMapper and the difference between zMapper orders and eMobius orders is a factor of 10! That's huge.

Regarding Insomniac's comment about the competition from free email clients...maybe that's actually the key point. I don't see the free email clients as the competition at all. I don't expect anyone currently using a free email client to be interested in eMobius at all. So, if the majority of MUD players are using free email clients, then that might explain why such a small percentage is interested in eMobius.

It's possible that I'm stuck until I can release a nearly-public version that can be advertised on actual email sites and reviewed by magazines before the orders will start coming in. I hope I can survive until then.

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

Get a beta out, then word of mouth will help the situation I think.. if the beta is only outlook express with spam filtering and skins, I think you will start getting a lot more excitement and preorders.

But you're right, zmapper people bought on faith, so I dunno why you aren't getting the orders... maybe when zmapper came out people had more money to spare?

Wanderer Joined: 09 Oct 2000 Posts: 81 Location: France

Hmmm. Perhaps people are just waiting till the end of the 30 days trial period to actually purchase a licence... (I won't tho, I'm planning to get one during the week).

Posted: Sat Jun 12, 2004 10:28 pm

My own reason for not ordering currently is finances, however, I thought I'd add the following:

With zMapper, there was already an established clientel available, that had some idea of what they'd be getting. When people asked what it was all going to be abount, we could say "Hey, just look at the mapper in zmud, and imagine it better!", and there was an instant level of understanding for most of the customer base around here.

With eMobius, we're all talking relatively in the dark here. We all have our own pre-conceieved notions as to what an email is and should be, however without a common frame of reference, we're all kinda in the dark as to what the final product will be like.

So I kinda think comparing the two is probably a bad idea atleast until we have something we can chew on. Even an alpha of eMobius, or hell, some dev-build screenshots would be something that people could start seeing the product they're shellin out cash for actually exists would be something that would draw people in. But with the "technology demo pack", really the only draw that's available at that level is those who are interested in developing on the zeus architecture, or are interested in seeing how things are done in order to prepare for plugins/etc.

Have no fear Zugg, "if you build it, they will come", it's just a matter of building it Smile

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

Several reasons for me:

Lack of disposable income. Saving up to buy fiance an iBook. I am curious about Zeus, but I don't have the money to burn right now on curiosity.
Uncertainty about the Alpha license. Will it last as long as the first public license? When will it expire? Could I run into problems? Unlike the zMapper license, which was promised to last forever, the uncertainty of how long this license will last compared to a full $50 license is a deterrent.
Uncertainty about how long it will take to have a usable product. zMapper was a far less ambitious project, and while it did produce an interesting technology demo, lack of interest unfortunately killed it before it was as useful as it should have been. I fear eMobius ending with a similar fate.

Novice Joined: 15 Nov 2001 Posts: 39

Personally, for me, it's that fact that the $25 pre-order would literally empty my bank acount. I am a college student, and I am dead broke.

Plus, I will be overseas for the next few weeks (luckily I didn't have to pay for the trip...)

But, if I had the $$$, and access to my computer, I would DEFINATLY pre-order. I 100% intended to the moment the pre-order was available... then a couple of un-expected expences came up, and I ended up not having the money....

On a complete tangent: Zugg, would you like a gMail account?

Adept Joined: 12 Nov 2000 Posts: 268 Location: Canada

Uhh...........

I think it should be obvious enough. Theres no other program that really does what zMapper did. And it's 100% mud related, and used for OTHER things too.

Emobius, however, has HUGE competition. Everyone already has an email client for themselves, I think that eMobius will do ALOT better around the beta stage than zMapper and I think that once people see what it's capable it will take off.

I may pre-order in the next few weeks only to save the 15$, however I am personally unsure that it will deliver what I want vs another client such as Outlook 2003, or Thunderbird...Maybe you should post a set of like planned features. Or a 'Why use eMobius vs Other Clients'...? I mean I know plugins is a big thing, but thunderbird has plugins too...

(I'm just trying to help, sorry if this seemed negative.)

Let me just quickly edit that after reading the faq again: Perhaps something that details what eMobius will do vs other clients, instead of those short paragraph blurbs about the differences would help.

Posted: Sun Jun 13, 2004 7:46 am

I think the differences between eMobius and other clients is discussed in pretty good depth in some of the other posts in this forum. It's not on the official FAQ page yet because that page is "official" and I'd consider anything posted to the FAQ as a promise whereas the stuff we've discussed in this forum are just discussion.

What it really comes down to is faith. Sure, everyone has lots of questions. You'll never have enough information to answer all of those questions until you wait until the public release. If you have followed zMUD at all, you know that even the beta process is very fluid, especially for a new product. In zMapper, for example, the ability to do hex maps was completely because of discussion in the forum...I had never intended to add that feature from the start.

So, in a way you shape the development. It's not at all like waiting for a product and then saying "Gee, I wish it did this, or I wish it handled this differently." If it doesn't work the way you want it, it's because you didn't participate enough in the beta (or its because what you want is too hard to implement, which also happens sometimes).

But if you have watched the development of any Zuggsoft products, you know how this works and should have the faith that it will work the same in this project as well.

As far as the license, yes, I haven't promised the free upgrades...that's true. But I *always* reward early adopters. Honestly, if you are looking for something close to a "free upgrade for life" license, the earlier you buy, the better. The eLicense reg code that is generated for eMobius right now is the same type we generate for zMUD. We have not yet implemented any sort of "2 year free upgrade" license. When we eventually do implement this in eLicense, I'll have to convert all of the existing licences to the new system. How I do that is unknown at this point. Perhaps I won't convert them and I'll just leave them as unlimited licenses...who knows. All I know, and the early adopters of zMUD can vouch for this, is that I always reward people who buy early as much as possible. Without early adopters I wouldn't have the patient testers that are needed for a project like this to succeed.

I understand being broke and not having the money. That's perfectly fine. But as I've said, my guess is that if you are that broke, then eMobius is probably not something that you will need. And as I've said before, if you are already using a free email client and don't care for anything better, then don't register...you'll just always be complaining about all of the features in eMobius that you don't use or need.

Finally, to address "The Raven"'s last point. I've afraid you don't understand at all. zMapper was a "side project" and was just an enhancement to zMUD. While I saw some potential directions to take it eventually (that I might still eventually do), it was never intended to be a major product. I hoped for something along the lines of AC Explorer, which does about 1/8th the business of zMUD. I didn't expect something more than 10 times lower than that. So yes, I had to stop development because it was a complete waste of my time as a business project.

eMobius is completely different. eMobius is a "major" product, on the order of zMUD. I am spending 100% of my programming time on eMobius until it reaches "public" version status. I will be promoting it very much outside of the zMUD arena. You should eventually see it get reviewed on major web sites and magazines. I'm putting money into advertising because it is a traditional product that is easy to advertise, as opposed to the niche MUD market that no magazine care about any more.

And the bottom line is: If eMobius is not successful, then Zugg Software will cease to exist. I mean that. I'm betting the future of the company on this product. This isn't going to be a case like zMapper where I give up and say "oh well, I guess that didn't work". I'll be fighting for this with the future of my family. If nobody buys eMobius after it goes public and is marketed, then I'll find a "traditional" job and there will be no more Zuggsoft and no more zMUD. That's how serious I am about this.

But that's not going to happen. Even with the strong competition, the email market is huge. It should not be hard to get enough sales to make eMobius successful. And with eMobius bringing in new sales, then I'll be free to switch between projects and continue to upgraded eMobius, but also continue to upgrade zMUD and zMapper and zExplorer. That's the future that I'm planning on.

So, to summarize, think about it this way. There *will* be a public version of eMobius some day. It *will* be competitive with Outlook, Thunderbird, and any other email client you can think of. It will be competitive because of the involvement of customers in both the design and testing process. Nobody else has the kind of quality customer involvment that we have had with zMUD. That process will ensure the quality of eMobius, along with the fact that Chiara and I will be using eMobius full time ourselves as our production email and communication system. So, this *will* succeed, and the more you are involved in the process, the more it will meet your needs. It's completely up to you. But the price *will* go up. This is a totally different market than zMUD and you are not going to see any free versions of eMobius.

So anyway, that's my summary to this. Sure, everyone still has questions...I suggest if you are really interested that you go and read some of the threads in this forum. We've discussed all of this already over the past 6 months.

(and no, I have absolutely no interest in a gMail account)

Adept Joined: 12 Nov 2000 Posts: 268 Location: Canada

Well...I don't want to say that that post sold me..because it didn't really...but I'm still going to dish out the 25$ usd (34.08 cad) for ya Zugg, only because I hope to be able to one day make sick software and have people do the same for me.

Kudos.

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 656 Location: USA

I'll probably buy a pre-order shortly, but I'll admit I am hesistant and was considering waiting for the first public release. The reduced price does not concern me.

Like Raven mentioned, I was dis-appointed when developement stopped in zmapper and I am concerned this might happen again. I was very excited about zmapper and even bought a few lisences just to try to push it along.

Yes I was impressed by your response to catering to zmapper beta user's suggestions and this would be the reason for me to pre-order now.

I also have a concern because email is a new area for you, whereas you have been doing mud-related work for some time now. Although you seem to have some impressive background that could lead to some impressive spam filtering methods.

And lastly, I have a current email client (outlook) and Mail Washer that works, they may not do everything I want, but they work fairly well. Before Zmapper, I had to manually draw all my maps by hand, I had previously looked for tools similar to zmapper but did not find ANY. Its not like I had something else I could use until zmapper was done, I needed zmapper to save me all the manual work.

Apprentice Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 157 Location: USA

In my case, it's simply that eMobius is more client than I need. I read this forum frequently, but Mozilla's mail client, while I wish it handled some things a bit differently and had a few more features, really is all the client I need. I had originally been planning to buy myself a copy of eMobius, but the further the project went, the more I realized it was just too much client for my needs.

Then there's the portion of the market for whom eMobius would be a good choice of clients, but are either too cheap (preferring to stay w/ the free clients than to shell out even 1 penny for one), or too mired in inertia (preferring what they know over something new, even if the something new fits their needs perfectly). Then there are the paranoid privacy zealots (like me) who refuse to give out credit card info online (and yes, I know everyone says it's more secure to use a credit card online than in a restaraunt, but it's still not gonna change how we behave). But all of these ppl combined should only account for less than 1% of your potential clientelle. But who knows, maybe there are more of us than I thought. :D

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

Ya know, I made that post about why I won't preorder Zeus... I liked Zugg's response, went to pre order it... and realized I *had* pre ordered it already. I was one of the 5. Go figure.

It's absent-mindedness like that that had me buying 4 zMud licenses over the years. :-)

Wanderer Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 76 Location: USA

I'd like to order a copy, but it won't let me. It keeps timing out (and it's not my connection, I'm at work and we have a T-1 connection). Is it broken or something?

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

Apparently we've been having some unreported time out problems on the servers for several days. Zugg is fixing it today. Please try ordering tomorrow.

Chiara