ThemeHouse and Audentio Design

[vbresults]

@empire At a $10 price point there is no other way it could work than the latter case. They are also using this paid system to prioritize what in their large catalog gets attention, all add-ons are not equal. Remember too that all customers receive updates that they may not have necessarily paid for, those unaware of the paid suggestion system get what appears to be regular updates.

Considering these updates were bankrolled by other customers, they are likely to be more desirable features than developers could come up with on their own -- it's coming straight from the source.

 

[empire]

@vbresults That's true, but I've also seen them implement suggestions on their self-developed add-ons even if it wasn't a paid request. A lot of developers do the same because they want their products to be the best they can be. I am wondering if this will change now that they have more add-ons to support.

 

[vbresults]

@empire I can only speculate there; we grandfather clients, all which are paying, in [usually price-based] comparable situations, but we also don't have 300 resources.

 

[HWS]

Now people can ask them to fix those bugs because there is a relation buyer-seller which wasn't the case before. Where is the problem?

Is it actually been confirmed that those paying for those addons or subscribing to the monthly support will get new features added to those addons?

AFAIK that massively under-priced $10 includes support and fixes for said bugs when they are reported. It should be closer to $50.

Not acknowledging what a steal $10 is for support and reported bug fixes points to not supporting responsible pricing in any way. This says nothing about the alternative of said add-ons going poof.

p.p.s. $10 is way too low.

If any of you would have read the license terms of ThemeHouse you would know that there is no guarantee that bugs will be fixed in a timely manner.

Although we update (quite often in fact) our products, we do not specfically guarantee continued updates. Products are sold as is, bugs will be fixed as quickly as they can be, and features are not guaranteed. If you have questions, please contact us before your purchase.

Also there are several bugs in many of those now "premium" add-ons, known since months and no bug fixes until now.

 

[n00bsaibot]

This is an interesting scenario where both sides are right.

Small businesses need to be cut some slack with some expectations tapered. Audentio needs to communicate better. Underpromise, overdeliver.

 

[Dad.]

Paypal refund are possible in 60 days, after that who receive the refund will pay the fees.

Appreciate that. I think however Paypal will refund whenever. Officially they claim 60 days, but I've had refund requests after an entire year. Its annoying, but possible.

Edit: Just realized that this is derailing the thread, stopping now.

Your points are spot on. I appreciate your contribution.

The more polite and more resonable (and if you ask me also more correct) alternative would have been that you support the add-ons first (clean the code, fix the bugs and add features) and stick a price on them after that. Even a higher price (I assume the price will raise anyway as soon as you really work with the add-ons).

From this perspective, you miss the fact that work has to be done in the first place. People would still wonder why we tacked a price on. From our perspective, we paid for them. The fact they were 'free' in the first place is entirely missed. That is far too tough for us to sustain. Its too much.

I hope Audentio is here to stay in the community for a long time but to me it seems that the addons werent the only things inherited when Audentio took over Jons addons - the strange business philosophies have also been adopted.

I appreciate a lot of your words, but the strange business philosophies I find untrue. Our philosophy is quite simple, and that is to in turn make things simple for our customers. We do not have any complicated support plans or premium/freemium. Its one price for a license, a cheaper price for optional annual updates, and well thats it. Anything else is additive. A transition was always going to be tough, and I find it unfair that 300-400 separate pieces of code not being updated all at once on a THIRD-PARTY website (xenforo) not going so smooth and then associating that concept with everything else we do and with how we do business a huge leap.

Personally, all things considered, it went about as smooth as I could have hoped. I'll reiterate the fact that this is someone else's website, no database access, limited things we can ask from the staff, etc.

What I understood is that this idea funding feature is for those who wants their ideas implemented in those addons. Like if I want a special option, I propose this idea, the idea get fund and then get added to the addon. I don't think they will stop implementing stuff from their own. Maybe @Mike Creuzer can clarify this point?

Will the feature funding system be used only for niche requests, or would it be used for all feature requests?

The two above quotes are the same answer. And that is that you are entirely correct when you say we will always add our own features and bug fixes as we find them. The idea funding is for things that we either:

a) Do not have time for without funding
b) Features that are kind of specific to a small niche and wouldn't be the best for everyone.

That isn't to say that every 'good' idea will be implemented, like I said we have a time constraint factor. We will do the best we can. Those that get funded get a guarantee that they will be built. Anything short of this, you will have to find another developer. We recommend @Daniel Hood, @xfrocks, @Bob, @Liam W, and Im probably missing some Im just not sure who is actively taking requests or not. Not sure if Chris or Brogan are either.

And specifically @empire it would be great if all feature requests were put in some place, just because they do not get funded doesn't mean time permitting we will not add them in.

 

[Ryan M.]

The requirement to wait for admin approval (after registering, which is already something I didn't want to do) to even read topics on the themehouse forum is quite a turn-off. Big hype killer.

I was about to make a purchase from AD, but then I saw this topic, and went to read the themehouse forums (there was a topic asking about license conversion). I'm not sure I will make a purchase, I can't even read the topic that appears to answer my question about what will happen if I buy something from AD - will it still be supported?

Update: 12 hours later, still no admin approval.

Update 2: Okay, it is approved. StopForumSpam is aggressive towards first names.

 

[gfc]

Im administrating forums since 2003. i have used many softwares and hundreds of addons, code patches and fixes. Most free, some paid.

I have learned many leassons, one of them is to avoid free addons whenever possible. Why that? Free addons looks very tempting to use because you get new features without paying for them. And in the beginning the Developer is always very supportive. But after some time, it cools off. Support stops, a new Version of the forum software comes out and the addon breaks. And you have to choose

• to disable the addon or
• fix it yourself which takes some hours or
• do a custom development which costs a fortune

I even had one experience where a poorly coded addon broke my server (was hacked by a security issue of the addon). Free doesnt mean that it doesnt cost you something. Mostly time.

I run my forums for fun. But i am happy to spend 10$ or 20$ or 30$ if it saves me 2-10 hours of work in the future. So I support what Audentio is doing and hope they will do good on this business.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

A transition was always going to be tough, and I find it unfair that 300-400 separate pieces of code not being updated all at once on a THIRD-PARTY website (xenforo) not going so smooth and then associating that concept with everything else we do and with how we do business a huge leap.

Mike you're muddying the issue. It was never that you somehow were expected to pickup all of Waindigo's addons and get everything sorted right away. Nor was it about the transition going smoothly. I'm pretty sure everyone knew Jon's setup was a mess. You don't make 300 addons by yourself and have things run smoothly. It was that you tacked on money for what were once free addons without doing anything to them to warrant the price. Along with that, you got rid of the free versions so that no one could download them. Then you started with this ridiculous quasi-crowd funding thing on top of it all. Add those up on top of the second rebranding of your company this quarter, and you're going to have a bunch of people wondering as to what the hell was going on with the company.

 

[Dad.]

Update: 12 hours later, still no admin approval.

Thanks for the update reminder. Very helpful. Maybe some day I can hire someone to watch tickets while Im sleeping or with family. One can hope.

The requirement to wait for admin approval (after registering, which is already something I didn't want to do) to even read topics on the themehouse forum is quite a turn-off. Big hype killer.

I was about to make a purchase from AD, but then I saw this topic, and went to read the themehouse forums (there was a topic asking about license conversion). I'm not sure I will make a purchase, I can't even read the topic that appears to answer my question about what will happen if I buy something from AD - will it still be supported?

The reason you were stopped is because we check against StopForumSpam, amongst other things, as most forums do. You were flagged. It is beyond our control, but we did make some very minor tweaks in the hopes it will not stop non-spam users. But its all just tweaking numbers, the process of filtering spam is imprecise but we do the best we can for the majority. I am sorry you were flagged.

 

[Ryan M.]

The reason you were stopped is because we check against StopForumSpam, amongst other things, as most forums do. You were flagged. It is beyond our control, but we did make some very minor tweaks in the hopes it will not stop non-spam users. But its all just tweaking numbers, the process of filtering spam is imprecise but we do the best we can for the majority. I am sorry you were flagged.

If you're able to tweak it, maybe make so that even if someone gets flagged by StopForumSpam then they can still at least read topics in the Support forums. From the looks of the system right now, it doesn't say anything about why admin approval is needed. Fairly certain it was the username that got it flagged, since I encountered the system on another forum I registered on recently (but it gave a notice and I was able to register using a different username without issues). The downside of having a common name.

 

[Dad.]

If you're able to tweak it, maybe make so that even if someone gets flagged by StopForumSpam then they can still at least read topics in the Support forums. From the looks of the system right now, it doesn't say anything about why admin approval is needed. Fairly certain it was the username that got it flagged, since I encountered the system on another forum I registered on recently (but it gave a notice and I was able to register using a different username without issues). The downside of having a common name.

I agree its unfortunate, I will admit we should spend some more time on spam protection than relying on stopforumspam, something we do have planned actually. As I said, we do not wish to have client information public and indexable. Its a choice many forums make. Often times we have clients that forget they are in a public space and post private links, credentials, information in general. And while we try to catch things, this is just a safer option for us. Plus registration is required for support (creating threads/posting) as well as making any purchase. We've always had it this way even though Im aware some people we will lose because of this. Its a rock and a hard place.

Any presale questions can always be directed to us through our contact form.

 

[Mike Edge]

If any of you would have read the license terms of ThemeHouse you would know that there is no guarantee that bugs will be fixed in a timely manner.



Also there are several bugs in many of those now "premium" add-ons, known since months and no bug fixes until now.

Which is funny considering when waiting on updates of their own products, Jake states...

No point in releasing a product with known bugs.

This is an interesting scenario where both sides are right.

Small businesses need to be cut some slack with some expectations tapered. Audentio needs to communicate better. Underpromise, overdeliver.

And find a better solution for their tickets. It's getting pretty common lately for customers to be told by Creuzer in threads, you weren't being ignored, just that I missed the ticket somehow. That and promises on time frames not kept and not even a mention til days later after the promised release window has come and gone.

 

[Dad.]

Hi all, quick update on add-ons again.

Although they were on the list we just hadn't finished moving all the add-ons over, so we've finished that now. You can see all our resources (save only for Themes) here: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/authors/themehouse.83700/

We haven't quite finished updating all the titles/content/links entirely, but should have that done soon. We have however updated the icons so you can quickly and easily see the difference between the different types of products we have.

Premium Products
Denoted with full color.


Free Products
Denoted with no color.


Open Source
Denoted with the ThemeHouse Open Source icon


Tutorial
Denoted with dark background.


General
Denoted with dark background.


I hope this makes it easier when searching for products.

Premium products can be purchased at our website: http://forums.xf.themehouse.com/products/?order=updated
Open source can be downloaded/contributed to at GitHub: https://github.com/themehouse

Thanks,
Mike

 

[tajhay]

I hope this makes it easier when searching for products.

Mike, I would highly recommend taking a step back and looking from a users perspective.

Since this site is controlled by Xenforo and not you, are we supposed to come back on this thread to find 'what the heck did that icon mean again'?

Free addons, we can already see that its free - there is no price attached. Hell there is even a filter on here where you can search for things that are free.

Premium - i assume you mean paid. Yes we can see that its paid by the price next to the resource.

Open Source - wouldnt it just make it easier to put 'open source' text in the image? How is anyone who hasnt read this thread supposed to know the meaning of that icon? Even a suffix in the title of the addon would suffice.

Tutorial/General are controlled by categories anyway.

Personally couldnt care at all about the images used, when the information in the title of the resource should give you all the information you need (plus the price, category it is in).

What i find really frustrating is that Audentio is trying to be fancy and trying all these very different things without solidifying its own foundation. Im not trying to be critical of how you do things, and i have no right to tell you how to run a business (although i run a highly successful one myself), from a customers perspective im really concerned about is happening to you guys. Its as if there was a team meeting and everyone threw darts around the table and whatever ideas it landed on is currently being executed.

Try utilising the KISS principle.

 

[Mike Edge]

I have to agree with Tajhay, the icons are confusing. As a paying customer of yours, I am trying to stay up to date on the changes, but the daily changes to how something was done yesterday is really starting to make my head hurt. Just because a few vocal people don't like it, doesn't mean you have to re-do it and then re-do it again when someone else doesn't like the change. Your old site was simple and easy to use and now it's complex and confusing with things spread out in different places.. Why even move all the Open Source stuff to GH? Just keep it here in the Resource Manager, Shouldn't need to go to different sites to get products from the same company.

 

[Jake B.]

I have to agree with Tajhay, the icons are confusing.

You don't have to know what they mean, he was just explaining it. It's no different than if we used random icons.

Why even move all the Open Source stuff to GH?

So other people can contribute to them if they so wish. They still can be downloaded from the resource manager here.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

You don't have to know what they mean, he was just explaining it. It's no different than if we used random icons.

This makes no sense to me. Can you explain what you mean by "we don't have to know what the icons mean?

They still can be downloaded from the resource manager here.

This is an incorrect statement and confusing because I just did a search on the resource manager for the first 3 items listed on GH (
WatchedThreads, WatchedForums, and Warnings ) none of which are available here for download.
Personally I wish time was better spent updating the themes which (IMO are your bread and butter) are months behind and less time spent on making accessing add-ons more complicated.

 

[Jake B.]

This makes no sense to me. Can you explain what you mean by "we don't have to know what the icons mean?

He's complaining about the meaning behind the icons being 'confusing' when in the end, it doesn't really matter.

This is an incorrect statement and confusing because I just did a search on the resource manager for the first 3 items listed on GH (

Definitely not incorrect in any way.

WatchedThreads,

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/th-watched-threads.88175/

WatchedForums

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/th-watched-forums.87805/

and Warnings

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/th-warnings.58978/

They're definitely all there. I just searched for the repository names (with spaces between the words, of course) and each of them were on the first page of the search results.

Personally I wish time was better spent updating the themes which (IMO are your bread and butter) are months behind and less time spent on making accessing add-ons more complicated.

They are being updated, there is nothing wrong with the current versions. Clicking 'automatically merge templates' should take care of most outdated templates. The updates for all of the themes will be coming soon, we've just released another UI.X update with some more bugs fixed today.

 

[Daniel Hood]

(IMO are your bread and butter)

I think they're trying to find new/more bread and butter.

Transitioning is always hard. I feel like they could have had a better plan of attack but instead they're trying different things as they get feedback. It's a hard place to be in. I remember going through this with Syndol's add-ons and there were only 15 of those. I had minimal plan other than implement new features and implement a renewal fee. It went over negatively and I had to come up with some pro-rated new license cost on the fly. I couldn't imagine trying to deal with 20x the add-ons and presumably at least 20x the customer base (seeing as they were free, it's likely higher than that).

The fact that they seem to change their plan consistently shows that they are taking this feedback and trying to adjust.

Looking forward to when this settles and they can start cranking out updates.