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leif
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Post by leif on Sept 19, 2016 13:42:01 GMT -8
Frankly to say, I personally am disappointed in Forums.net and ProBoards.com both in its entirety and the administrative team behind it. The administrative team behind ProBoards and Forums.net are extremely talented individuals that control and maintain a part of living internet history, but, I feel ProBoards’ legacy is being lost with the decisions being made. I first found ProBoards because of an RPG, nearly everyone I have ever known on ProBoards found ProBoards because of an RPG, RPGs made up thousands and thousands of ProBoards forums and over a hundred million posts. You guys have had several RPGs break the 500,000 post market, and a great deal more break the 100,000 barrier.
Why do I say this? Because of the fact, that a great portion of ProBoards’ legacy lies with RPG forums. Many of your talented coders. Many of your talented designers. A bulk of the sites that were ever featured by ProBoards for marketing reasons to show how flexible ProBoards is were all RPGs, especially in the Manga, Anime, Fantasy or Harry Potter genres.
Many professional young designers today across the world got their starts on ProBoards or one of your competitors, mostly by being inspired to make their own “character graphics”. These are the designers that are now in the business world, with degrees, and pursuing careers that can help make influential decisions regarding what forum software their companies should use, or whether or not it is a good idea.
However, I, as a minor developer of simple applications and many of my talented designer friends are increasingly disappointed with ProBoards and Forums.net.
We have on numerous times, many designers, as shown by search history made several quality of life design requests to the ProBoards team, to be told it is being looked into. These quality of life changes almost never happen. ProBoards v5 was admittedly released a tad early, and it alienated a huge portion of your base and your legacy, many moved on. But, eventually many gave v5 a shot.
With v5, you do have to admit, that the designers have pulled off some amazing things with ProBoards, I’m sure many of the things that were pulled off, the Administrative Team at ProBoards was in awe over.
With the evolution of the online RPG community, it is now a paid community across thousands and thousands of forums. Every major online competitor to ProBoards is now offering and or catering to their needs. This even includes the pay for giants such as XenForo, InvisionPower Board, or vBulletin. They took the design requests, they took the plugin requests, and they took the requests of the RPG community seriously.
With the new pricing of Forums.net and the inability to move ProBoards to it, it is completely impossible now, to have a full controlled forum, without having to worry about content, graphics, or loss of data any more. We cannot control our own data on ProBoards, we cannot push the boundaries of our talented writing and designs on ProBoards. On Forums.net, we cannot do that anymore. $99 a month? You are now pricing yourself out of the low end of the market, to a price that is now higher than all the professional business software on the market. There is not one software, that is now cheaper than Forums.net on a yearly basis.
Plus, honestly, forums.net is a downgrade for RPGs. You removed one of our core most requested features just to get the peace of mind, of not having to monitor our content.
The reason given by your team: it costs too much to host a forum? In two months payment, I can pay for a year of hosting and a license to any software, and easily reach 500,000 pageviews within that price frame. My costs by using a paid for top of the line software & BigWetFish for example: $272. Proboards? $600. Okay, let’s try a smaller plan. ASmallOrange, a famous host, $5 am month and a free top of the line forum software, $50 a year and I can easily support more than 100k page views, and two months free with their hosting plan.
I’m sorry, ProBoards. You guys have hurt your legacy, to me, big time. I have always had a great opinion of ProBoards. But, lately, all these decisions have caused an increasing amount of disappointment to me and my friends. We’re afraid for ProBoards’ future.
How do we trust that ProBoards is there for us? You have completely alienated us.
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Post by Kami on Sept 19, 2016 13:52:16 GMT -8
I'm sorry, but please don't lump in all RPers with those disgruntled with ProBoards. I understand your frustration but as an RPer I'm incredibly happy with what ProBoards has done, and I know many others who are too, so these big sweeping statements for "us" I feel falls flat.
Not to take away from your concerns, which I think are valid for the group / type of RPer you speak of, but it's by far from all RPers. I mean, while I agree that v5 was a big messy on its release and it did wind up causing a lot of moves, the Forums.net option isn't necessarily where ALL roleplayers even consider going. Not everyone wants unrestricted content / migratory data / etc, so.
Leaving this post here so that the following two posts make sense, but I retract the above statement for the reasons below.
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Sàm
You don't need magic to perform miracles.
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Post by Sàm on Sept 19, 2016 13:55:51 GMT -8
I don't get the impression that he's trying to lump in all RPers. He stated "I" several times, and he talks about people he knows, his friends, not all RPers. He's speaking specifically to certain groups of people, not everyone, at the end with "we" and "us" just as he did throughout his post.
Edit: Also, it's important to keep in mind that he's focused on ProBoards as the entity (the collection of people) while talking about being unhappy with Forums.Net, which is the paid service he's concerned with.
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Post by Kami on Sept 19, 2016 13:57:32 GMT -8
I don't get the impression that he's trying to lump in all RPers. He stated "I" several times, and he talks about people he knows, his friends, not all RPers. He's speaking specifically to certain groups of people, not everyone, at the end with "we" and "us" just as he did throughout his post. That's fair, I think it's the bit at the end that confused me -- the "we" and "us" made it seem like it was inclusive or "roleplayers" rather than "myself and others I know" for some reason.
Thanks for the insight!
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Sàm
You don't need magic to perform miracles.
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March 2007
mcgennien
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Post by Sàm on Sept 19, 2016 13:58:09 GMT -8
I don't get the impression that he's trying to lump in all RPers. He stated "I" several times, and he talks about people he knows, his friends, not all RPers. He's speaking specifically to certain groups of people, not everyone, at the end with "we" and "us" just as he did throughout his post. That's fair, I think it's the bit at the end that confused me -- the "we" and "us" made it seem like it was inclusive or "roleplayers" rather than "myself and others I know" for some reason.
Thanks for the insight!
I get that. Glad I could help. =)
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Post by Kami on Sept 19, 2016 14:00:47 GMT -8
Sàm -- (off topic but didn't we used to talk a whole lot?) Also in retrospect I think I do agree with the concern regarding the migration from PB to FDN. I understand from past admin posts that not enough people took advantage of the migratory option to make it a cost effective practice + FDN is more geared towards business now rather than the average user. I wonder the % of users that would be interested in the personal plan still, now that a) people are more comfortable with v5, and b) v6's new features should blow v5 out of the water.
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Jul 15, 2021 21:35:53 GMT -8
Sàm
You don't need magic to perform miracles.
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March 2007
mcgennien
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Post by Sàm on Sept 19, 2016 14:09:39 GMT -8
( Kami , yes, we did. I was on your A:tLA site, and we were friends on AIM.) Our switch to Forums.Net was based largely on comfort and freedom. By allowing members the freedom to post more mature content (within guidelines we still set forth), for example, we were focused on improving our site's dedication to a fun community of role-players. I think that's what Nick was getting at. I definitely think people are more comfortable with v5, and v6 looks very exciting. As a user of non-paid PB forums, I'm very happy with ProBoards. However, we have been using the paid service for a very long time and feel as though we're thrown under the bus, despite how much we have paid. One concern wasn't necessarily that we had to pay for it, because we anticipated that before making the decision, but that many features either important or useful to role-players are ignored, and costs are increasing. If there is a more cost efficient plan that could trump other communities Nick has looked at, then that's definitely something PB should consider exploring. However, you've been staff here before and probably know more about it than me, so I acknowledge that this is all speculation as a member/administrator using PB/Forums.Net. I'm also grateful that there is a reasonable discussion happening and that this thread hasn't been ignored or even deleted yet.
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The Jedi Master of Proboards PBS Oscars: Most Unique
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Nov 19, 2012 0:15:08 GMT -8
Tommy Huynh
Coffee isn't my cup of tea.
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Post by Tommy Huynh on Sept 19, 2016 14:15:12 GMT -8
Sàm -- (off topic but didn't we used to talk a whole lot?) Also in retrospect I think I do agree with the concern regarding the migration from PB to FDN. I understand from past admin posts that not enough people took advantage of the migratory option to make it a cost effective practice + FDN is more geared towards business now rather than the average user. I wonder the % of users that would be interested in the personal plan still, now that a) people are more comfortable with v5, and b) v6's new features should blow v5 out of the water. All of my forums run on FDN. I would *love* it if the personal plans can come back. I've a few ideas for RPs and other communities I'd like to start. I've been using Proboards since 2002 and it's the most user friendly software I have used. Sometimes, I just wish there are some more features and other things like phpbb, IP, or Xenforo. However, v6 is coming...
The reason given by your team: it costs too much to host a forum? In two months payment, I can pay for a year of hosting and a license to any software, and easily reach 500,000 pageviews within that price frame. My costs by using a paid for top of the line software & BigWetFish for example: $272. Proboards? $600. Okay, let’s try a smaller plan. ASmallOrange, a famous host, $5 am month and a free top of the line forum software, $50 a year and I can easily support more than 100k page views, and two months free with their hosting plan.
It's not just the cost of shared hosting. Did you know that Proboards runs entirely on dedicated servers? There is also a dedicated staff to manage those servers as well. FDN clients have a service agreement of 100% uptime. I totally understand what you mean by the page views though... I wish the pricing is based on other things instead of page views. For some organizations, it can reach those limits pretty quickly. I'm creating a forum soon for an author. The pricing is a bit much for that so we'll have to visit licensing other software and hosting it ourselves. Nevertheless, I remain a loyal customer because of the community and staff. IMO, it's one of the best forum software out there.
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Michael
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wiseowl
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Post by Michael on Sept 19, 2016 14:25:41 GMT -8
Hi Leif,
I'd like to start with what feels like the crux of this which is that Forums.net has gone up in price. It has, significantly. We aren't at all shy or ashamed of that. When we first made Forums.net we weren't at all sure what that segment of our business would become nor what our target customer even wanted. We knew we wanted to offer businesses a chance to make their own community easily with our software and we knew we wanted to offer them access to tremendous support and community experts. Every decision we've made regarding Forums.net was done with the intent of appealing more to our target audience for the product. As a result, Forums.net is now a successful segment of our business.
We made some mistakes early on. We shouldn't have advertised Forums.net as an upgrade to ProBoards. Users switching back and forth between the platforms was time and resource heavy and the discontinuity between the two products was brought even more sharply into focus. Realizing this, we shifted our focus to appeal more to businesses and emphasized the differences between Forums.net and other similar platforms. Consequently we stopped offering transfers between the two as we started to both literally and metaphorically seperate the products further.
The bottom line is that Forums.net was not designed for RPG forums. It was never built with that in mind. Maybe that was a mistake and maybe that's next product we should think about working on.
I would love to talk about "The reason given by your team: it costs too much to host a forum?" I'm not sure who said that but I don't think (hope) anyone is claiming that any of our plans are just the cost of hosting a forum. Forums.net is about a superior customer service experience, access to tools like Single Sign On, InSite Forwarding, and regular check ins with our users to make sure they're getting the most out of their forum (and more). If you don't mind being handed a box of software and given a server access username and password and told "Good Luck!" then there are a whole world of products out there for you. We even might some day become a company that provides that box of software!
Will all that being said, I love roleplay forums. I am a member of roleplay forums, and have roleplayed since I was in high school. We love and value all of our roleplay users and admins. We've introduced features like quick account switching, the avatar maker, PBN, custom pages, and more in order to appeal directly to roleplay users. However, at the end of the day our product has to be more diverse than just a platform to roleplay on. Our biggest 5 forums on ProBoards are all other types of forums! Our product needs to be as diverse as our user base is. We will continue to offer and develop features for roleplay forums as well as all other types of forums. We want features that can benefit everyone that uses them.
I hope this helps answer some of your frustrations. I always love to talk to users about the challenges that they, and consequently we, face. It helps us grow and become the best we can be.
-Michael
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Post by Kami on Sept 19, 2016 14:26:20 GMT -8
( Kami , yes, we did. I was on your A:tLA site, and we were friends on AIM.) Our switch to Forums.Net was based largely on comfort and freedom. By allowing members the freedom to post more mature content (within guidelines we still set forth), for example, we were focused on improving our site's dedication to a fun community of role-players. I think that's what Nick was getting at. I definitely think people are more comfortable with v5, and v6 looks very exciting. As a user of non-paid PB forums, I'm very happy with ProBoards. However, we have been using the paid service for a very long time and feel as though we're thrown under the bus, despite how much we have paid. One concern wasn't necessarily that we had to pay for it, because we anticipated that before making the decision, but that many features either important or useful to role-players are ignored, and costs are increasing. If there is a more cost efficient plan that could trump other communities Nick has looked at, then that's definitely something PB should consider exploring. However, you've been staff here before and probably know more about it than me, so I acknowledge that this is all speculation as a member/administrator using PB/Forums.Net. I'm also grateful that there is a reasonable discussion happening and that this thread hasn't been ignored or even deleted yet. (That's what I thought! Nice to see you again!)
I think that's fair. I think I'm kind of on the fence here because I had plans to create my forum on FDN but with the increased cost of pricing I'm probably going to stick with ProBoards -- which admittedly, because of the global login feature kind of trumps what FDN has to offer. I can definitely see how using the paid service for ages would feel like you're getting thrown under the bus if prices keep going up.
I haven't been staff in a very long time, so I'm pretty out of touch with the current goings-on. But what I can say from being here as a member since that time is that the issue FDN faced in the past is that it just wasn't cost effective to have the migratory service / personal plans. Some people would take advantage of it then let their subscription expire, or would quickly move back to the free service, and so on and so forth. I do believe that FDN is now strictly supposed to be their business model (hence the white label) and while some casual users still use FDN for their hobby forums the intent is to fill it with features & pricing that would be fit for forum creators that would have supplementary income for the purpose of keeping the forum running.
Despite my initial knee-jerk reaction, I do agree that it might be beneficial for PB admins to reconsider some aspects of FDN to reach a broader audience. What was done in the past may not have worked well, but I know they'd see money from me each month if the personal plan was reinstated, at the very least.
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Post by Kami on Sept 19, 2016 14:32:04 GMT -8
Michael - I think the issue here is that the most common reason for RP people leaving the service is that ProBoards, regardless of its attempts to accommodate requests, still offers less in terms of what RPers want than other services on its free forums. While I know that PB cannot and will not (and understandably so) shift its business model only to cater to RP forums, the issue that FDN solved for many of these RPers is now (from my understanding from the OP / after talking with some friends who left) unobtainable with the removal of personal / non-business plans.
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Tommy Huynh
Coffee isn't my cup of tea.
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Post by Tommy Huynh on Sept 19, 2016 14:32:04 GMT -8
The bottom line is that Forums.net was not designed for RPG forums. It was never built with that in mind. Maybe that was a mistake and maybe that's next product we should think about working on. I would love to talk about "The reason given by your team: it costs too much to host a forum?" I'm not sure who said that but I don't think (hope) anyone is claiming that any of our plans are just the cost of hosting a forum. Forums.net is about a superior customer service experience, access to tools like Single Sign On, InSite Forwarding, and regular check ins with our users to make sure they're getting the most out of their forum (and more). If you don't mind being handed a box of software and given a server access username and password and told "Good Luck!" then there are a whole world of products out there for you. We even might some day become a company that provides that box of software! If it's okay, I'd like to piggy back off of this. I'm not sure, leif, if you work in a professional setting or not but there is a certain expectation of service when a client pays for any type of service. I'm not trying to be snooty or anything but if I am going to a nice restaurant and I am not greeted, or someone takes my drink order in an appropriate amount of time, that's just unacceptable - especially for the price I am paying. The dedicate support and tools such as Single Sign on, and inSite fowarding are some of the tools I use for my organization. We are launching a non-profit and these are features that are invaluable. Additionally, the dedicated support is pretty great, even if I just have a simple question. As Michael said, the targeted demographic are businesses and organizations. These groups typically have the resources to pay for such software and licenses.
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#e61919
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Michael
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wiseowl
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Post by Michael on Sept 19, 2016 14:37:01 GMT -8
( Kami , yes, we did. I was on your A:tLA site, and we were friends on AIM.) Our switch to Forums.Net was based largely on comfort and freedom. By allowing members the freedom to post more mature content (within guidelines we still set forth), for example, we were focused on improving our site's dedication to a fun community of role-players. I think that's what Nick was getting at. I definitely think people are more comfortable with v5, and v6 looks very exciting. As a user of non-paid PB forums, I'm very happy with ProBoards. However, we have been using the paid service for a very long time and feel as though we're thrown under the bus, despite how much we have paid. One concern wasn't necessarily that we had to pay for it, because we anticipated that before making the decision, but that many features either important or useful to role-players are ignored, and costs are increasing. If there is a more cost efficient plan that could trump other communities Nick has looked at, then that's definitely something PB should consider exploring. However, you've been staff here before and probably know more about it than me, so I acknowledge that this is all speculation as a member/administrator using PB/Forums.Net. I'm also grateful that there is a reasonable discussion happening and that this thread hasn't been ignored or even deleted yet. (That's what I thought! Nice to see you again!)
I think that's fair. I think I'm kind of on the fence here because I had plans to create my forum on FDN but with the increased cost of pricing I'm probably going to stick with ProBoards -- which admittedly, because of the global login feature kind of trumps what FDN has to offer. I can definitely see how using the paid service for ages would feel like you're getting thrown under the bus if prices keep going up.
I haven't been staff in a very long time, so I'm pretty out of touch with the current goings-on. But what I can say from being here as a member since that time is that the issue FDN faced in the past is that it just wasn't cost effective to have the migratory service / personal plans. Some people would take advantage of it then let their subscription expire, or would quickly move back to the free service, and so on and so forth. I do believe that FDN is now strictly supposed to be their business model (hence the white label) and while some casual users still use FDN for their hobby forums the intent is to fill it with features & pricing that would be fit for forum creators that would have supplementary income for the purpose of keeping the forum running.
Despite my initial knee-jerk reaction, I do agree that it might be beneficial for PB admins to reconsider some aspects of FDN to reach a broader audience. What was done in the past may not have worked well, but I know they'd see money from me each month if the personal plan was reinstated, at the very least.
We did a lot of number crunching before we removed the personal plan option. The bottom line (and this is the simplified version) is that personal plans lose us money. We would have to charge more for the plan and the bottom line is that vast majority of people just aren't willing to pay that price for what they're going to receive at that level. We even got a lot of complaints that $9.99 was far too expensive! I'm not saying this was the only reason we've changed pricing (and more) on FDN, but it was certainly a factor we had to consider.
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Jul 15, 2021 21:35:53 GMT -8
Sàm
You don't need magic to perform miracles.
492
March 2007
mcgennien
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Post by Sàm on Sept 19, 2016 14:42:39 GMT -8
Is it true that we would lose content if we left the paid service to transfer back onto the unpaid service? If so, that's a huge problem for leaving the paid model, as we have been dedicated and respectable users of the paid servers and have years of content that would be lost. If not, then this paragraph is moot.
Additionally, having the resources to afford a paid service isn't quite the issue here: it's that other, cheaper services with more features exist, and we haven't made a swap because, as I have implied, we have been loyal to ProBoards. We want PB to be the best it can be, and we don't think that means raising prices just because they can be raised.
I have been on ProBoards since I started role-playing on forums. I've loved the free service, despite its (understandable) limitations on content, among other things. We went into then paid service with all of that in mind. I think, despite the fact that the paid service is (at least now) geared towards businesses and not RP communities, we have been thrown under the base, no matter how you try to twist it.
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Post by Kami on Sept 19, 2016 14:42:57 GMT -8
Michael - I can understand that. I mean obviously I'm not asking that you disclose all the PB finances and stuff, haha. I just feel like perhaps there could be a middle ground. I know I'd be willing to pay more than the $10 / month but the bare minimum of $100 / mo is really steep! A couple of months ago I even decided I'd be able to shell out the $50 / mo for the lowest plan but I see that has also been removed. Far it be from me to tell you guys what is and isn't possible, but I am struggling to think that there cannot be a compromise between spending less than 200 per year and spending over 1000 per year.
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