Crippleware

So, for an evaluation, what can you actually evaluate in Army Builder?

Can I create a whole army list? NO

Can I save a work-in-progress list, so I can add bits and pieces as they occur to me? NO

Can I print out the stub of an army I can make, so that I can at least evaluate the quality and usefulness of the printouts? NO

Can I automatically update my files? Eventually, NO (You get 10 automatic updates, then you have to do it manually)

Am I TOLD about these limitations? NO!!. The splash screen says (and I quote)

While in Demo mode, you will be limited in the number of units that can be added to the roster, as well as a few other limitations.

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A FEW other limitations? I am NOT ABLE to evaluate the software due to the overwhelming set of limitations imposed.

Limited number of units? Fine

Not able to save? Extremely annoying, but fine. (Not being able to save means you must have all the units already figured out - on paper or otherwise - unless you want to spend a WHOLE lot of time mucking around in the program to get them right.... EVERY TIME you run the program.

Not able to print out? NOT fine. Sure, you get print preview; how does that help me if I wanted to actually USE the program? Printouts are 50% of what this software is used for, nerfing this makes NO sense.

I will NOT be buying this, as the "unlocked" product may or may not be what I'm after - the Demo version is SO nerfed that I CAN'T evaluate it properly.

Just thought you might want to know why you have lost a potential sale, as most people who think as I do will install and try the demo, then uninstall it without further comment.

Viperion

It seems that you are asking for an almost complete version as a tryout version. They will not do that.
On the other hand they are able to give you a key that works for a year so they might be able to give you a tryout-key that enables you to use the tool for 2 weeks. That would be a better solution if you ask me.

Army Builder is really a no brainier...seriously it is.

Ask yourself these questions..

1) Do you play any miniature game that is point based?

2) Is there a Data file for that game(s)?

3) Would you like a rather cheep (monetary value only) piece of software & data files that takes the pain out of making your roster for you?

4) Do you enjoy writing out your list the manual way?

If you answered yes to questions 1, 2, & 3 then Army Builder is for you.

The demo gives you the perfect ability to test out the program and data files for the game(s) available. What it doesn't do is give you a fully functioning product that you can use forever and never have to buy the program.

I sell Army Builder in my store and out of the many many many that I have sold nobody has ever come back and said anything negative about Army Builder. If you play a supported game this product absolutely rocks.

It's worth not buying a DVD this week and buying Army Builder.

You also have to remember that the folks that make Army Builder have absolutely nothing to do with making the data files for whatever game(s) you play. That is done by the community of players that make the data files FREE and on THEIR OWN TIME. Your just paying for the program that makes gameing so much easier.

Toller

Benman said:

It seems that you are asking for an almost complete version as a tryout version. They will not do that.

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That's NOT what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that so much of the functionality is disabled in the demo that you can't effectively evaluate it. Sure, there are a lot of happy customers. None of them are me, and it may not work the way I'd like it too. The evaluation demo doesn't let me evaluate it.

On the other hand they are able to give you a key that works for a year so they might be able to give you a tryout-key that enables you to use the tool for 2 weeks. That would be a better solution if you ask me.

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That sounds like an ideal solution to me - who do I ask for such a thing?

Thanks for the suggestion,

Viperion

Viperion said:

What I'm saying is that so much of the functionality is disabled in the demo that you can't effectively evaluate it.

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And that's just your opinion. I and a lot of the others disagree. There is enough functionality that it CAN be effectively evaluated.

Viperion, I take from the first post that you play Warhammer. 40K or Fantasy, dat does not matter. But AB 3.x is a great tool for making/building your armylists. There's almost no restriction on what you can do with it, rename units, characters and the like.
If you don't like the data-files that are made by the volunteers you can also try and change some stuff to your own liking with AB creator (included).

I used to use version 2.x but now that i have 3.x i wouldn't go back to the older version.

gilvagor said:

That is done by the community of players that make the data files FREE and on THEIR OWN TIME.

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Or, if you are like me, you write the BFG files while it's quiet at work on their time



To give you a little background Viperion, the previous release of Army Builder (2.x), was heavily pirated, and done so easily as there was few restrictions on the trial version, hence the greater restrictions on the current trial.

Before it's licensed, AB behaves as a demo. This means that you only get a taste of the product to see what it can do. You don't get the fully operational product. If we did that, we'd call it shareware instead of demo mode.

Let's look at the auto industry for a moment, since we modeled our approach to be similar. When you go to buy a car, do they give you the keys and tell you to drive it as much as you want and then bring it back when you feel like it? No, they don't. They let you drive the car a few miles to get a feel for what it can do, and that's it. They point out all the cool features so you can imagine what the car can do, but you don't get to actually experience it until you buy the car. Our model works much the same way.

The demo mode is not intended for creating a complete army list. You can readily see how AB handles all different kinds of units. If you hit the unit limit, you can delete units to experiment with other units.

You can preview what printouts will look like all you want to assess the usefulness of the printouts. The only reason someone would actually *need* to physically print the output is to use AB at the game table. At that point, it's no longer a demo, is it?

The automatic updates works 10 times before it cuts out. Since AB is behaving as a demo, that's perfectly reasonable. For the typical person, experimenting with the product 10 times is generally going to give them more than sufficient information to decide whether the product is worth purchasing. For the rare exception, they can continue experimenting with the data files they've already downloaded or retrieve new updates with a few extra mouse clicks. So it's anything but crippling. Besides, if someone needs to use AB on a protracted basis, then they probably aren't assessing it's usefulness anymore and are actually try to fully *use* it - which goes beyond what the demo is intended for.

It sounds like you fall into this camp. Different people have different expectations for what they *should* be able to do in a "demo". Some people are also a lot less scrupulous than others. Sadly, we need to decide on a single set of limitations for "demo" mode that works for everyone, and those limitations must be skewed to protect against the less scrupulous folks out there. We learned this lesson with V1.x and V2.x of AB. If you get frustrated about this, please direct it towards the many people out there whose actions have spoiled it for others like yourself.

Benman said:

On the other hand they are able to give you a key that works for a year so they might be able to give you a tryout-key that enables you to use the tool for 2 weeks. That would be a better solution if you ask me.

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This claim that the license only works for a year is not accurate. The license will continue to work *forever*. The only two things that are tied to the license expiration are access to new product releases and the automatic updates mechanism. The reason for this is that we were *not* able to solve the time-limited license problem that would automatically disable itself on a user's computer after X amount of time. We spent a *lot* of time trying to figure out a way to achieve that. Unfortunately, there's just no practical way to do it. There are too many versions of Windows with wildly different ways to bypass any of the mechanisms that can be devised. So the demo mode is the only solution that would reliably work.

I'm not like the original poster; the demo of 3.x has me sold already. My concern is with the licensing mechanics, because it reads a little weird to me, and what Rob just stated seems to vary from what is in the FAQ.

Rob said the license works *forever*, just not for new product releases and automatic updates. I can fork out $40 for the program, easily--it's a great product. I can even rationalize paying $12.50 per year after that to keep current with new releases and have the ease of the auto-updater.

But from the way the FAQ reads, if I don't renew my license, then in two years I won't even be able to INSTALL the software I paid for! (As my license will be closed on the server, doesn't this mean I can't install the program to a new machine anymore?) That's different than my license working *forever* and so I'd like some clarification.

I see myself paying the $12.50 anyway every year--it's a great program; but I'm not comfortable with the idea that if I stop paying for this that eventually I can't install it anymore. I bought Office 2000 a long time ago, and as long as I'm content with the features it has, I can keep installing it to my machine as long as I want.

Eugee said:

But from the way the FAQ reads, if I don't renew my license, then in two years I won't even be able to INSTALL the software I paid for! (As my license will be closed on the server, doesn't this mean I can't install the program to a new machine anymore?) That's different than my license working *forever* and so I'd like some clarification.

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Basically, that language represents a guarantee that we aren't going to just go away and leave people hanging. In our early years, some people were worried that we might just fold up shop and disappear one day. So that language was added about 10 years ago as a reassurance that we would keep the servers going for at least two years, even if we closed up shop. I never dreamed that someone would look at it as a liability, but I guess it could be viewed that way in hindsight.

If Microsoft were to close up shop tomorrow, then anyone who relies on the internet activation of copies of Office or Windows would be unable to do so from that point forward. The same applies to smaller companies, such as us. We put the two-year guarantee in there to eliminate concerns that we could just disappear one day.

Licenses are not automatically yanked on the server. The language includes the word "may" - it does not say anything absolute. In fact, to this day, no license has ever been closed on the server due to not being extended.

To put it into perspective, we've kept the everything going for all the old V2.x licenses for five years now (i.e. since V3.0 was released). We obligated ourselves to keep them going for at least two years, but we never turned off support, even though we could have easily done so three years ago. At some point, it will become more difficult to keep that stuff going, but we won't pull the plug until we reach that point. In the meantime, all the old V2.x licenses can be managed smoothly by those who still use them.

I hope this explanation proves helpful. If you still have questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.

(Many apologies for what is probably considered a necro, haven't been on here for a long time)

rob said:

Let's look at the auto industry for a moment, since we modeled our approach to be similar.

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Really? Let's examine that a little further:

When you go to buy a car, do they give you the keys and tell you to drive it as much as you want and then bring it back when you feel like it? No, they don't. They let you drive the car a few miles to get a feel for what it can do, and that's it. They point out all the cool features so you can imagine what the car can do, but you don't get to actually experience it until you buy the car. Our model works much the same way.

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No, it doesn't. Your model works like a car that can't select Reverse gear. Or turn left. Or turn on the aircon. When you test drive a car, you are limited by the amount of TIME you have to test it, but you have FULL access to all of that car's features.

Now, I DO understand how hard it is to create a non-crackable time-limited demo. I do. I have worked as a computer programmer in the past. And I also understand that a LOT of people have found the demo system you use to be more than adequate, have purchased the license, and have never looked back. However, I find that the version I am able to use doesn't let me use the features I need to enable to test the software adequately, in my opinion. I thought it might be of value to you to know why you have lost a potential sale, as there are probably people like me out there (not too many hopefully ) who won't post anywhere to say why they didn't buy your package.

You can preview what printouts will look like all you want to assess the usefulness of the printouts. The only reason someone would actually *need* to physically print the output is to use AB at the game table. At that point, it's no longer a demo, is it?

Click to expand...

Of course it is. Printing out a 300 point limited force (or whatever the limit is, I have already uninstalled the demo) is not playing a full game!

Besides, if someone needs to use AB on a protracted basis, then they probably aren't assessing it's usefulness anymore and are actually try to fully *use* it - which goes beyond what the demo is intended for.

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Understood - but when did I say I wanted protracted use? I simply want to test more functionality than your demo allows me to. Something I could easily achieve in a single execution of the program.

(snip post on why it has been so limited)
Understood again; I am simply stating that you have over limited the demo, in my opinion, and have lost a potential sale (I can't say whether I definitely would have bought it) because of it.

But as is obvious, plenty of other people find it fine to use, so I guess you are pleasing most of the people most of the time, which is about as good as you can get.

Viperion

So exactly what 'features' don't you have access to? You do have access to all of the features except for a physical printout, but you still get to see what it would look like via the 'print preview' option. Is a car dealer going to let you go on a 3,000 mile test drive on a cross-country road trip? No. Yet that's what you're wanting from Army Builder. The demo shows you all of the basic features that the program has, which is exactly what a demo is for. You're asking for more than a demo, you want the program for free, even if only for a limited time.

Ghaz said:

You're asking for more than a demo, you want the program for free, even if only for a limited time.

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Like when you test drive a car?

Viperion

Viperion said:

Like when you test drive a car?

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*Every* time that I have taken a new car for a test-drive, I have had a salesman in the passenger seat with me. As part of the test-drive, I was allowed to drive the car only a few miles, under reasonably controlled conditions. I was *not* allowed to see how it handles at high speeds, nor was I allowed to do anything special to really push the car and discover how it performs. Based on that limited amount of exposure to the vehicle, I was expected to make a buy/no-buy decision.

Now, it's distinctly possible that you live in an area where car dealers are much more lax about their rules for test-driving vehicles. Maybe they just hand you the keys for a day or so and let you do whatever you want with the car. However, I based my analogy to test-driving a car on my personal experience with the process. What we provide in the demo version of AB is very similar to my experience in test-driving cars.

At this point, this topic is merely becoming a difference of opinion, with there really being nothing useful left to say. So I'm going to close this thread. We'll simply have to agree to disagree on how much capability should be included in the demo version of AB. It works for the vast majority of our potential customer base, and there's no way we'll ever be able to make everybody happy, so I'm happy with what we've got.