My experience with XF1 paid resources (Add Yours)

[we_are_borg]

I'll be the first to admit I can be a bit hot-headed. That being said, I know our disagreement stems from the discussion regarding XF staff reviewing 3rd party mods. I've no intention of resurrecting that debate, I'm mentioning here as I believe that debate may be part of why you feel the way you do.

...

Fillip

It’s not about the other thread i know you from back in the vBulletin day’s you where different then you are here now. Alfa1 and Dadparvar gave you good feedback its not what you wanted to hear but it was honest. Like i said its basic PR 101, the first thing what i saw was Alfa1 with the price of the add-on(s). Then how you respond to Dadparvar instead of thanking him for the review you went in like a hothead, positive feedback is good but negative feedback you can improve upon much more then positive feedback. If people read this they can say well his add-ons might be good but personality is crap and how he conducts business is even worse. Positive feedback is hard to get and spreads slowly, negative feedback is easy to come by and spreads like oil, always on top and hard to remove. So instead of responding how you did control your emotions, what i saw in the reviews is that your addons are good but from their perspective its not 100% what they expected. Next time ask what they are missing and when they say what add it into your improvement and feature system. I want that security add-on that you make if i am not mistaken its has a function to say always trust this device if you have the authenticator enabled, the first time i saw this i was i need this its great. But its how you interacted that kept me away, i hope that with this information it changes so i can buy from you.

 

[we_are_borg]

Gotta respect a man who is willing to admit his wrong doings. Much Respect!

Thats true, a man that admits he is wrong deserves respect.

 

[RavenFeatherwing]

re: @DragonByte Tech

I have been using DragonByte tech for three years, first with vBulletin and now with XenForo and have four life time licenses across two different products and mediums. I've reached out several times to them for help and guidance, and where possible (sometimes I'm just an idiot) I've received it. When I was looking at the move to Xenforo and was looking to see if the XF Credits and shop mods were suitable, I sent a list of requirements that I needed and Decado told me that they would be added within the week following a discussion on TAZ.

True to his word, they were - I have never had any issues with them as a customer and we purchased a lifetime license for the XenForo products. Yes, I have felt frustrated at times since in the early days of the vBulletin Shop/Credits system I was dealing with my own fantasy roleplaying community who were sending me demands of what it should do, etc.

I recently reached out to @Belazor about XF2 and I was told that they don't plan to charge for the XF2 version if you have an existing license for XF1; that they plan to offer both versions in the same download; that the XF2's DB Shop is being redesigned to improve loading and stability for shop installations with many categories and that XF2 would be the focus going forward in optimising and reworking Credits and Shop. I also agreed to help test them both when they're stable since my RP community relies upon the shop and credits system out of necessity and we are keenly aware of the various issues they can have if not managed properly on our end.

It's all well and good complaining about the differences between vB Credits II Deluxe and the DBCredits, but one needs to recall that it was impossible to port vbCredits II Deluxe to XF because of how it was originally designed so DBCredits is basically its own work with very little crossover. I am fine with that, as what it lacks in some administrative functions it makes up with speed.

I am most impressed with the Shop addon - which allows users to own multiple shops following the request I made at the start of the year, and taxation via Credits is now a thing - both were necessary for a functioning RP economy based on our fictional world and DBTech is no stranger to catering to communities inspired by Final Fantasy.

I'd recommend the OP do more research in future before issuing fairly unrestrained attacks on developers. It's one thing to be frustrated, but I'd further recommend providing screenshots and evidence of your claims, as without evidence, I consider it as merely the temper tantrum of someone who could not get their own way.

 

[Robust]

This is also 100% false. I have never, ever stated that we plan to charge for existing customers to download the XF2 versions.

While plans are never set in stone until they are actually implemented, the plan has always been to offer the XF2 versions as a free download. In fact, the plan is to offer the XF1 and XF2 versions in the same download, so if you ever were to upgrade an existing XF1 site to XF2, you wouldn't even have to download anything else.

I'm really starting to wonder where you get this information from.

Back in early XF2 development, there was a thread where most developers (that posted) wanted to charge for XF2 add-on updates. You wanted to charge full price again. I stated that no fee should be charged, a small upgrade fee at best but ideally offer to all active licenses. You took a pretty harsh tone with me for that opinion and assumed I was an ungrateful customer (I'm a developer). You announced all intent to charge to upgrade to your XF2 add-ons (at least, that was my interpretation of it).

If @Dadparvar saw that thread, I can see where he got that assumption from. I guess your policy on that changed since.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Back in early XF2 development, there was a thread where most developers (that posted) wanted to charge for XF2 add-on updates. You wanted to charge full price again. I stated that no fee should be charged, a small upgrade fee at best but ideally offer to all active licenses. You took a pretty harsh tone with me for that opinion and assumed I was an ungrateful customer (I'm a developer). You announced all intent to charge to upgrade to your XF2 add-ons.

If @Dadparvar saw that thread, I can see where he got that assumption from. I guess your policy on that changed since.

Are you referring to this post? If so, I don't believe I ever stated anywhere in that post that we intended to charge. I've re-read the post multiple times and I can't find any part of that post announcing that DBTech was planning to charge. If I've missed something, could you please point it out to me?
I specified quite clearly in the post that it was my personal opinion, so nothing in that post should have been taken as company policy.

I agree that I did make the assumption you were a customer rather than a developer (I don't believe I'd seen you around before then, but I could be wrong), and I apologise for that.

That being said, I stand by the underlying idea of what I said. I believed, and still believe, that it is up to each developer to require you to purchase a new XF2 license if it is a significant undertaking for them to re-code their modification to work with XF2, and I believe each developer should have the right to do so without being hounded for it.

Of course, on the opposite side, it's also each potential buyer's right to avoid developers who announced something like that, but that goes without saying I think


Fillip

 

[Dadparvar]

@RavenFeatherwing
Thanks for your feedback. You are right about evidence. That is true. We also read about evidence in law school (Yes I'm CEO of an international law firm, and I know a little bit about evidence, WHERE NEEDED)

Me and @DragonByte Tech discussed enough and we both know what I meant. This thread is not to complain him, and Filip knows it. I am not the plaintiff and Filip is not the defendant. If you know their work with 4 lifetime licenses installed on a RP community, I know them with 13 lifetime licenses installed on a legal social network and a couple of global branding removal that each costs more than the price of all add-ons. And when running that many add-ons on site, I was talking to him to fix bugs step by step and even I trusted him and provided access to my ftp and admin in my main site (something that I rarely do) and when I'm keep using their works, it just means 1 simple fact: that I still am a fan of their works. (and as you saw, when Filip clarified things, I edited my post and made the changes)

Once again, I invite everyone to share their experience at all and don't come to this topic to just either attack Filip or defend him. SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES OF USING XF1 PAID ADD-ONS.

I appreciate all participation, but from now on, I won't come and answer to anything coming from misunderstanding me or Filip.

 

[Robust]

Are you referring to this post? If so, I don't believe I ever stated anywhere in that post that we intended to charge. I've re-read the post multiple times and I can't find any part of that post announcing that DBTech was planning to charge. If I've missed something, could you please point it out to me?
I specified quite clearly in the post that it was my personal opinion, so nothing in that post should have been taken as company policy.

I agree that I did make the assumption you were a customer rather than a developer (I don't believe I'd seen you around before then, but I could be wrong), and I apologise for that.

That being said, I stand by the underlying idea of what I said. I believed, and still believe, that it is up to each developer to require you to purchase a new XF2 license if it is a significant undertaking for them to re-code their modification to work with XF2, and I believe each developer should have the right to do so without being hounded for it.

Of course, on the opposite side, it's also each potential buyer's right to avoid developers who announced something like that, but that goes without saying I think


Fillip

Thanks for the clarification. That's the post, the above was the interpretation I got for it. Apologies if I misinterpreted what you meant to say.

The disclaimers never really work, people will get nervous either way. It's probably a good idea to separate yourself into a personal and business account by that sense (which is what I do as well).

 

[Bionic Rooster]

This is 100% false. I have never stopped responding to suggestions, and nowhere have I ever said that there are no more plans for XF1. I would be very much interested in a link to the post where I said there would be no more XF1 releases.

It won't be possible to prioritise updates for XF1 add-ons over making them available on XF2, that would make no business sense whatsoever. Every developer that does this for a living (including the XF devs themselves) are prioritising XF2, not updates for XF1 or the XF1 add-ons.

If the second quote is true then the first quote by you is 100% false. The second quote clearly suggests your priority is for XF2 and not upgrading or supporting XF1 products.

2 Lifetime DB Security licenses would cost $90, although if Branding Free was required that would put the price up to $249.

Really? You charge $90 (2 licenses = $45 each) for all that hard work to code DB Security and then charge $159 to remove a measly branding? A little over the top here no?
@Dadparvar Thanks for starting this very informative thread, and thanks to all who participated in sharing their opinions and experience with add on developers. It will be most usefull to many I'm sure in shorting out who provides what service with their products.

 

[Robust]

If the second quote is true then the first quote by you is 100% false. The second quote clearly suggests your priority is for XF2 and not upgrading or supporting XF1 products.

That's (almost) every developer's priority. Those quotes don't contradict. He simply stated that his priorities are XF2, but they remain open to further XF1 development in the future (guessing primarily in the form of bug fixes and security updates, which is going to become the same for most add-on developers here when XF2 goes stable).

 

[Alpha1]

If the second quote is true then the first quote by you is 100% false. The second quote clearly suggests your priority is for XF2 and not upgrading or supporting XF1 products.

It doesn't matter anymore. @DragonByte Tech has clarified this.

A little over the top here no?

As I am running an Ad free website Advertising software is also not an option for me. The logical result to me is that I need to calculate BFO as part of the purchase price. If you consider it like this then its not over the top. The branded version is clearly heavily reduced in price because you advertise the software product on your site. By way of reasoning: if a developer want to sell their software for $1000 per license then they are free to do so. Just like you are free to buy or not buy. I do not see a problem with it.

I sometimes do see that I would spend more on licenses if the total price for multiple licenses / products including BFO would be lower. For example: Dragonbyte global branding free is $400.00 which makes it less appealing to me to buy more licenses to try products or if the purchase is not really essential. You would have to buy 5 branding free licenses of $75 before the global BFO would be interesting.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

That's (almost) every developer's priority. Those quotes don't contradict. He simply stated that his priorities are XF2, but they remain open to further XF1 development in the future (guessing primarily in the form of bug fixes and security updates, which is going to become the same for most add-on developers here when XF2 goes stable).

Just to clarify further, once the XF2 versions of our mods have been released, any features added to the XF2 version will be accompanied by an XF1 update with the same feature(s) in it

Considering we still support vB3 over on the vBulletin side, XF1 is not going to be abandoned


Fillip

 

[oO5 Dynasty]

So i would like to add to this thread as well.

@Dadparvar Is flat out one of the Best Developers i have delt with.

• A great add-on developer, who is willing to create custom add-ons for you are Excellent prices.
• Also releasing free add-ons to the community that we all love.
• Customer support is 100% top notch. ( even if you and him don't see eye to eye on a topic, he will not give up on helping you.)
• Also looks into your website to see if other add-ons are clashing with other add-ons which might be causing problems.
• Finds a solution to those errors/problems and explains what the developer of those add-ons need to fix.

My only problem is the fact i do not have the Financial backing to hire him to work with my Company Full time. He is really good at problem solving and this is something every company needs when it comes to the back end workings of the day to day business.


@Allan One of my favorite developers as well. His add-ons bring STYLE to any forum, and I really like his website as well.
Just wish i see him around more, because it can seems like a ghost town on his site which kind of sucks. I can not wait to see what themes he develop for X2.

@Sheldon Love his Template edits etc..... Just wish he made those edits into add-ons so it is easier to edit them over time.
@Shelley Brought the creative visual aspect to xenforo. Wish this person never left, because it seems like the cool stuff doesn't get created anymore.
@ThemeHouse Looking forward to their X2 content.
@BassMan Love this devs work as well.


In Closing, I'd like to ask if developers can add more fun, and cool looking add-ons for us to use with our sites.

 

[ENF]

@Siropu

• Ads Manager

Fast in support. Not fast, but good enough for updates. Tons of features. Awesome ads manager. Reasonable price. Plan for XF2 and he will require to just pay for renewing (at least better than to pay full price). More importantly, you don't see critical bugs in his works usually. Satisfied so far.

This is the only one I really care to mention.... the Ads Manager was a complete game changer and enabled us to do direct marketing and automating some parts of selling ad spaces on our site directly to vendors and others in the same industry. We wanted to build something like this ourselves, but he came along and released this very powerful tool. The amount of income vs. expense of this tool calculated by ROI/TOC, is off the charts.

We have a mix of other paid resources, but It's hard to go through each one and comment on good/bad points. Probably @Mike Creuzer should get an honorable mention, their work has also been invaluable and once again, a very good ROI.

 

[Tony L]

A big positive vote for Slavik who managed the migration of my site from vBulletin 3.8.11 to XF 1.5. All went pretty smoothly given it is a large forum and any issues ironed out very effectively. I’d certainly use him again.

A huge negative vote for the company I now find is actually blocked by Xenforo here who have ripped me off to the tune of $70 and refuse to honour their alleged money back guarantee. Amazingly I’ve just lost a PayPal dispute over it, but no reason given as to why. Just avoid this lot if you can.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

add ons I use
@Bob AMS (Article Management System) is well coded with lots of options for any forum use, support is second to none, dev takes the time to fully explain things in terms that make it easy to understand and in many cases shows examples to show what he's talking about.
SC (ShowCase) is another excellent product by @Bob, easy to adapt to any forum usage.

PixelExit @Russ and @Steve F make excellent themes and offer great support for their products.