As of now, those of us with perpetual licenses are basically barred from any resources/support for IPB. My suggestion is this: Leave the current ticket support setup as is, and force us to renew our license for official IPS Staff support, however, open up the peer to peer support forum to perpetual license holders.

I can't really see how this would harm IPS in terms of profit, unless, for some reason the majority of revenue is coming from support renewals? Regardless, it would be nice to have *some* support options available.

This has been beat to the dust. IPS is not interested in opening up support forums to anyone except those with current support licenses.

The Support Forums are part of the support fee for IP.Board. I, personally, do not see this changing anytime soon.

Just pay them the money for the annual support contract. Ironic that their support is amongst the best I've encountered but about the lowest priced.

3DKiwi

I have no problem paying for official IPS support - I just wouldn't use it nearly often enough to bother spending anything on it. Not to say anything bad, because their support is amazing. I just don't see why we should have to pay to ask each other questions.

I suggest signing up at another IPB users site then like Invisionize.com then.

3DKiwi

Perpetual licenses did not come with Lifetime support. Only the original lifetime licenses did. I have a perpetual and I pay for support. $30/yr really is not that bad. Companies have to stay in business and continue development some way.

$30 a year is beyond bad considering people who bought yearly licenses or standard licenses only pay $50 for a year. Makes the perpetuals not worth much if you want support becuase you're only saving $20 per year which amounts to nothing. That means compared to the yearly licenses that were offered you have to own a perpetual for SIX YEARS before you save a penny.

The perpetual and yearly licenses aren't directly comparable. Perpetual licenses have unlimited upgrades.

And so do yearly when you pay that fee.

Also it's pretty ridiculous that even people who get hacked are told to use the client area. Being hacked is much different than receiving new features in an upgrade. People who buy software expect it to be secure.

Presently there are no security issues that we know of in IPB. That means if you get hacked, we HAVE to get in to your site to research and find out what happened. There's no way to do that without you submitting a ticket. I'm sorry, but getting hacked is a PERFECT example of NEEDING to use the client area. It's not something we can fix here from the forums, unless you got hacked due to a recent security update (at which point we could simply point you to the topic with the patch, since they are released publicly).

$30 a year is a pittance! (about £15) well worth the money... especially if you submit loads of tickets when my pc was insured I had to pay a £1 a minute to talk to a tech and that was with insurance...

Don't you mean you'd have to wait 1 year to save $20?

Nope. yearlies cost $70 when they were offered and perpetuals were $180. So basically the perpetual wasn't worth doing unless you don't use support.

The yearly plan was a leased ownership. The perpetual allowed the end-user to own the product. At the end of the term you did not technically own the rights to the forum if I am not mistaken. Even if you use the support, the perpetual still ended up cheaper after 6 years. If you only needed a forum for a year, then yes the leased option was better. However, they cannot control remote leasing, especially with software. So it was probably in their best interest to do the community hosting as they do now. And as previously stated, with the perpetual license you are only paying for support, not upgrades. Now you are paying for both. Also to your point about the product being secure there are security releases in the updates that are free with the perpetual license. Now all updates are feature related. If I am not mistaken, the 2.2->2.3 was mostly feature related and security releases are in between.

Finally, what surprises me about this is how this was never brought up about the IPS Beyond website, but is now an issue that they merged it with these forums.

Actually it was quit often, and I was a strong proponent of the idea. However, over the numerous times that it has been brought up, I've been enlighted (bashers will probably call this brainwashed) by the management into understanding the purpose of such segregation. It makes sense to me both economically and morally.

$30 a year is fine for support, but paying $30 to cover submitting and editing files/articles to the Resource Website is not.

You don't pay $30 to cover submitting and editing files/articles, you pay for support, access to the Resources site is a perk (that IPS is not all required to provide) you get for having an active support contract.

As well even though there is a ticket center IPS Staff has been here in the forums many occasions helping with minor fixes and small issues that they have provided and answer to or assisted in the topic somehow which most times cuts down on tickets and phone calls. Do I want someone who is too cheap to pay for support to steal attention away from those who do pay for it? Absolutely not. I have a 2 Lifetimes and 1 Perpetual and even though there is no need for me to pay a renewal fee to access this site, I pay it every year anyway and never once used there support center for trouble tickets during the 4 or so years I have been a client, but I have used the forums to get quick answers to problems beit the staff or member to member.

And who is that mask man that thinks $50 renewal on a yearly license is cheaper than $30 renewal on perpetual? Yearly you are paying for upgrades and support vs perpetual you are only paying for support. Regardless of when you earn your money back you already are at a loss owning the yearly license compared to the perpetual but better position somewhat compared to the standard now available. Seriously how long will it take for me to make up $60 that I paid more to have lifetime upgrades compared to the extra $20 you will have to pay forever to have access to upgrades and pretty much support too because you can't split the two($50 every year forever)? The way I see it, I won and yearly license holders are the ones taking a loss lol Look at how much I'm saving with my lifetime... Do you think I took a loss on that too?

EDIT: Just realized yearly license renewal is the same cost as the now standard license renewal ($25 twice a year).

I worded that wrong, but I just do not think it's a perk to be able to contribute things for the IPS community, downloading the actual files and viewing whatever else the Resource website has to offer is on the other hand is worth it with the Support Contract.

Eh? What about bandwidth costs and etc? What about the staff who people pay for support are floating around here providing solutions, news, feedback and support? You seriously think the owners are just going to allow a free for all around here and pay their staff to monitor a free for all site?

I'm sure a lot of programmers can attest to the bandwidth and file downloads that for now I will just say "Leeches" use at their sites. Heck I can remember one member had over 2000 plus downloads for one single file lol. Why in the Sam's Hill did he need to download the same file that many times.

Example: You buy a membership at Cosco's or Sam's Club... You get to enter and shop their store that's for paying active members. When the subscription runs out you can enter still, but you can't shop the store anymore until you renew. I doubt they will ever say "Oh you bought a membership 2 years ago and even though it's expired for 1 1/2 years, we will just let you come on in shop anyway".

Look at the fee as supporting the company, because if the company cannot pay the employees then nobody gets support.

I pay my fee even though I do not have an active board at this time. I do so willingly because I support the company that makes a great product.

personally I think that it's ok to pay 25$ to renew your licence and have access to Client Center for support and download the latest version, but why can't I have acces to IPS Resources and the Customer Forum? I am stil an customer, I just don't understand why...

Because it is a perk, one that grows over time as more things are added by both the community and the company. If you stop paying the company you "were" a customer. You'd be a customer again if you come back and pay them again. However, if you decide to just suck off the value of your investment (i.e. perpetual license updates), you aren't STILL a customer from an IPS perspective.

Part of this comes down to simple economics and part of it comes down to IPS attempting to give back to the community that supports us.

On the one hand, we WANT to give back. We look for ways to try to get our community involved and active. We want modification authors to release work for others to use and we want skinners to keep putting free skins out there for customers to use. We want to build a knowledge base of useful information for members to utilize. We want to help get unofficial projects launched (i.e. the Tracker project). These are things that, as a company, IPS is very interested in being involved with. It makes our customers happy, which in turn of course makes us happy.

On the other hand...we are all paid employees. All of the time and effort that we put into setting up, skinning and maintaining the resource site, and attempting to help (unofficially) in the resource forums, we are still getting paid for. The analogy to Costco above was perfect. Or perhaps, to take a page from Lindy's book, a car analogy. Say you bought a car and your dealer offered you free oil changes so long as you brought your car in to get a tune-up. This is called a "perk" - it's something the dealer is throwing in as an incentive to show you they appreciate your business. Say you stop bringing your car in for tune-ups...should you still be entitled to free oil changes?

when I signed up initially as a customer...the license stated that I would be granted a years full of support along with the customer forum access..this was before IPS beyond was created...after the creation of IPSB...and change of license terms and conditions...it was made that perpetual license holders will have to pay to access customer forums...I know many forum admins will require official support...but as for me I never needed it...and whenever I needed it I paid for it...I don't mind paying if I require official support...honestly this was the reason why I took a perpetual license...to be part of the "Customer" community ...and have the updates...but as I have mentioned the change in liscence terms and conditions have rendered the older customers like me...forcing us to pay for official support. I have raised this issue with IPS management before too...asking for IPSB (now IPS R) access...and allow us to be a part of the "offcial" community...we really dont need any support..when we need it we will pay for it...maybe create a new license of sorts...just for the perpetual holders for IPSR access? Is this really difficult? Anyways...I am not pointing any fingers...if IPS is not willing to put an option for us perpetual license holders...I am happy to pay for the combined "official ticketing+ IPS R" access. Just wanted to convey my opinion.

EDIT: Oops...just noticed this is an old thread...sowwie

Well, technically, the LICENSE related to the software never stated that you would have access to customer forums. Further, the access to the customer forums never stated that it would be forever (nor does it now either, IPS could just give up on IPSR if they wanted to). So while that may have been a deciding factor for you, I don't think that you necessarily got the shaft or anything.

As I mentioned before, the reason IPS wanted to do it this way is so that they can afford to put forth the resources to continue the development of IPS. Their argument is that they are going to continuously expand the resources available (community projects, planning, etc). If they had to restrict prep holders in a sufficient way, they'd have to restrict access to all new resources from a given date after your last payment. This would be a managerial nightmare. I'm sure you'd agree. The only choice is to simple remove all access, period. And the most efficient way to do so is to remove it if you don't keep a support agreement (because it is the one sole thing that is binding to all licenses). Is it the best system? No, but you do have an outdated license and they are still honoring it by giving you updates for the rest of your life and letting you access new stuff within their community if you want to continue to make contributions to the company. I'd say it's not a horrible solution either

thanks for the info guys

The thing that i find REALLY odd about the currect prices is that IPS actually value their support higher then there product. $30 a year for support $50 for the product+support (meaning they value the product at only $20) surly it should at least bee the other way round.

You can only purchase support for $30 a year under the Perpetual license, which we no longer offer. We are simply honoring the terms this original license was purchased under.

Support + upgrades is $25 for 6 months under any current license.

I don't agree. We bought these licenses under the terms provided, which was perpetual updates. It seems that you made an assumption about getting customer-to-customer support via the forums, since that was allowed at the time. Of course there are still unofficial forums with customer-to-customer support, so that's an avenue for you to explore if the cost of the official support channels are beyond your means. If it is not an issue of funds but one of principle, then I suggest you review what IPS promised as compared with what you assumed our licenses would cover.

If you have a perpetual you "are" a customer still no matter how it's sliced.

This is my understanding also. When I purchased a forum and gallery on a perpetual licence in April 2006, I knew I would be paying support at $30 each per annum. I went for the perpetual licence primarily because of the free upgrades that were offered at the time.

I'm sure glad that I took the support option though. Only yesterday (03:51 24 Sept 08) my website and forum were hacked (by scream), my first hack in 8 years. My ISP suggested somebody had guessed the password! At 9 characters comprising A-Z, a-z, 0-9 combination, who in the world is going to guess that? They couldn't say or appeared reluctant to suggest anything else. I've since changed the password to a 20 character string. I've been reading up on my particular hack and have seen references to an 'sql injection'. I'm not the wiser even though I've read the page twice.

Invision, God Bless their cotton socks. In less time than it took me to make a cup of tea, they corrected the permissions on the odd file or two which had been CHMOD to 363 from 755. I wouldn't have known where to look and I still don't and I don't have to, but I'd like to.

The support option depends entirely on your own technical expertise. The support I've been given is worth more in a forum back online now.

Remember: You do not have to pay a money when they(IPS) tell, you can pay 3 weeks later (if you have a perpetual license - you can get new downloads & news, just can't access to those forums - the customer lounge & to the IPS Resources) you can visit Invisionize community and to download lots of modifications.

Again, I really think it's not bad to pay 30$ per each-year. But the thing that is not good at this time is the "group" of our (the customers) on the forums.
People can see + before the names and to know who is an IPS customer and who is not. The management can make a group for those people
that can't pay 30$ for a year, and then to put them on their +Level. (the visitors / guests must know who are your customers and who are not for the public relations).

My 2 cent,
I wish you still offered it

i don't agree with the ipsr forums being paid either tbh. My reasons are that support should be optional and since everything inside ipsr and the support forum is peer to peer or user created content your essentially making money off what other people do for you for free? see my point.

Another thing I'm a proficient php developer and know ipb like the back of my hand so i don't actually need support and I've met a few people with the same views. If they want support they can buy the support package but seeing as the tickets are the only extra things that ips has to take care of it should only involve that. Most of my posts on this forum is usually to provide support to other people which is my choice but an advantage to ips as its free and all their customers benefit. I like to post mods in ipsr which i also do for free but just last month i wasn't able to do either of these things cus my licence ran out. This didn't effect me personally as there's places like invisionize i can post and get mods from for free which support a community just as big as ips's one. So the argument the restrictions are to stop piracy etc are unfounded as there are tons of support forums out there for invision customers.

An example would be Michael which is probably one of the biggest mod releasers around, now could you imagine if his support package runs out and he decided he didn't need support so wouldn't want to buy it but then he couldn't provide support on the ips forums or post in ipsr this might make him buy the support package or he might just say sod it i'll post on invisionize or start my own invision support community (call it invsion modding ). Now Michael has billions (this isn't an exaggeration) of mods in ipsr but he wouldn't be able to update them, post support for them or anything which is basically ips having no real scheme in which is says yes we value our mod releasers and support providers.


**Michael was just an example and these in no way reflect his views, that i know of.

I agree 100% with you jaggi being a perpetual licence holder myself who has used ipb scince 1.3 and knows the inner workings of it like the make of my hand (my forum contains about 25% purly custom code) i have created countless mods for ipb (though never released publically as i dont have the time to offer support) i have never in all my years (and many many hundreads of $$ spent at ips) needed to use the ticket system to ask for support (ive only submitted 2 tickets and both then were licence enquires).
I would love access to beyond or whatever its called now (instead of having to ask some1 to grab a specific mod for me ) but i lothe paying a company for access to other peoples work.

Which isn't supported by the company either. really the resource site simply almost shut down the other sites which had been offering mods and made it where getting the same exact mods as were ocne offered in other places will now cost a support fee.l

So far I have gone a while not renewing support.

$60 bucks every 3 or 4 days for a full tank of gas to get to work, and someone is actually complaining about $30 a year for the highest standard of support I have seen from any company I have ever had to deal with on the net. (and I've got a lot of goodies to support, I must say) Seems kinda ridiculous to complain if you ask me. But that's just me. Sorry if I stepped on any toes, but I mean seriously, you'd pay $30 for a skin, or $30 for a good mod, or heck, $30 to your nephew in a birthday card for goodness sake. $30 once a year for full support anytime you need it at the drop of a hat from the best community software corporation on the market is hardly anything to complain about. Besides, there are like 20 or more sites out there where you can get free support from independent IPB experts if you don't want to pay it. At least they're not like VB where they try to make you pay every year just to keep your forums live. Them bone heads over there actually expect you to uninstall your forums if you don't renew your license every year. Even if you don't want to upgrade and you want to just leave it how it is. They are crazy enough to expect you to uninstall your forums. (that's just stupid) Sorry. I'll get off my soap box now.

I'm just curious though...
What's next? Having to pay $10 a month for hosting ..?? That's $120 a year for WHAT ..??!!!! Just to keep your website up and running? Sheeeeeeeesh! What's this world coming to? lol (sorry, had to throw that in there.)

Bad Baby! Bad Baby!! Bad Baby!!!

(too much coffee today I guess)

Nobody's complaining about the price of support. They're complaining about paying it when not asking for support, but rather to get things from third party authors which had been offered in other places before.

Some authors still offer them various places anyway. But a few offer things only here.

i guess you never read the replyes by myself a jaggi. i would bee more the happy to pay $30 for the support if i ever actually needed it. but in all the years ive used ipb i have never once needed support.

to use your example its like paying $60 every 3 or 4 days for "gas" (peterol ) then walking to work giving your keys to a stranger.

and $10 for hosting lol im closer to $400

HOLY COW!!!! $400 a month ..??!!
Okay, I'll shut up now. I am so sorry. I retract my complaint. lol

Must be a pretty awesome site if you need a dedicated server for it.

2 servers

and ALL the costs are paied for by donations NO ADDS

Holy crap, that sounds like a pretty large user base.

I kept thinking he said per day instead of per month and I was like umm no way it's that per day.

pff thats nothing i work for a isp and we've billed companies thousands of pounds for montly servers, i think google pays 300,000 a month for its data centers or something like that.

When i was running my sites i had 5 dedicated servers and costs of about £400/$800.

Back to the topic tho and i know you've retracted your statement Evanescense, but just to carry it on a little alot of things in life are not about money but about principle, have you never complained about paying taxes? or felt it was unfair when you bank charges you a fee over something. Thats sort of how i feel with ips charging for use of ipsr its like being charged for air. You come along realise you have to pay for support, you say ok i'll do that then you enter the ipsr area and see on wait (since the new addition) this mod i wanted costs money too, it all adds up. I think something supported for free by mod authors and programmers should be provided for free i have no problem producing mods for free and i have no problem providing free peer to peer support.

I personally feel on this issue (for NEW customers);

You pay $150 for your license charge - giving you 6 months OFFICIAL support and upgrades, and unlimited P2P Support and IPSR access.
Then, every 6 months, you pay $25/$30 or whatever it is for another 6 months of OFFICIAL support and upgrades.

Well, that's how I'd do it...

yup, no0nes disputing paying for official support or upgrades.

Of which I have a perpetual license, but on these forums, they alienate against our kind by not having the red plus next to our usernames.

I too, would like to see the resources site go away from this "pay to use" forms they have now, because if you take a good look at it, people sell their modifications through that very site. What gives?