Subscribers only, is that the right way to go?

Solar2D Daily Builds and Public Releases
#1

Hi! I hope I’m posting in the right forum (it’s kind of hard to find the correct place to post in, perhaps you could limit the subforums a little?)

Okay so daily builds and bug reports are subscribers only… I’m only wondering; why?

I can understand that you (the staff) wants more people to subscribe, but since you’ll have to subscribe to release your game anyway I’m just thinking this is an unnecessary way to go. This will halt people in their game/app development, just like myself right now. I need to use a later build of corona with a certain bug fixed, otherwise it will be hard to continue working on the game.

So for me the choice is either to pay for Corona, without being sure if I’ll finish the game or not. Or to look for another platform to create my game on. Perhaps I’ll choose the later, or just “wait” for next official release - which will make me lose interest in developing after a while.

Wouldn’t it be better to release everything public, encouraging people to create and finish more games -> they have to subscribe to publish -> profit for you.

I know that I will buy a subscription if I finish my game, but right now I can’t even finish it.

Just my five cents. (sorry for my English, it isn’t my native language) [import]uid: 26547 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 306551[/import]

#2

Yeah, I feel the same here ;\

It’s a turn off, not big enough for me stop loving Corona, but I imagine that it might turn off other developers.

T. [import]uid: 12684 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 22983[/import]

#3

Well, if there wouldn’t be so much noise in the forum already by people who did not subscribe and post things like “give me da code for the hit game” and/or don’t bother reading the documentation, then I would agree with you.

>>I know that I will buy a subscription if I finish my game, but right now I can’t even finish it.

So if you never finish the game, you have a great time developing it for free. And you won’t subscribe. I didn’t finish a game so far and payed for it. Well, we didn’t had the free ride before but maybe you see my picture. as a subscriber I would like to have some advantage over people who have a free ride. [import]uid: 5712 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 22992[/import]

#4

“So for me the choice is either to pay for Corona, without being sure if I’ll finish the game or not. Or to look for another platform to create my game on. Perhaps I’ll choose the later, or just “wait” for next official release - which will make me lose interest in developing after a while.”

Show me another platform that gives you more than Corona without paying… Sheesh, you’re not getting younger are you? The market is only growing exponentially every day you loose. Your loss is my gain. Please continue to wait on the sidelines! Sayanora! [import]uid: 11904 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 22993[/import]

#5

I’m a paid subscriber and I don’t want to mess with daily builds, so I really can’t imagine people evaluating the product should use daily builds. I mean, it really doesn’t do either Ansca or the potential customer any good to evaluate a buggy pre-release version.

It seems like people are confusing daily builds with the latest version of the product. [import]uid: 12108 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23105[/import]

#6

What jhocking said – people using a trial version (as in, to TRY it out) should be using the latest stable version, not the bleeding edge version.

While Ansca should listen to problems from people using the trial version, those who have paid the money have a commitment to the product and should probably be listened to at least a little closer. So keeping the daily build and bug database subscriber-only kind of makes sense to me.

I got a bug report for Corona Project Manager today and it was from someone using the daily build, not the released version of Corona SDK. I update often, but even I can’t do a daily release to match Ansca. :slight_smile:

Jay
[import]uid: 9440 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23154[/import]

#7

Phew, people I think you’re missing my point. What I mean is that Corona really is useless unless you pay for it since you can’t do much with your “free” product anyway.

Therefore, I think that it would be a better strategy for Ansca (but probably not for the elitists haha) to push more people to the “finish line”, in other words to pay for a subscription and release the game.

Releasing the daily builds to non-subscribers wouldn’t really do any harm, would it? The stable versions would still be available too. Since you will have to pay for Corona in the end anyway, why limit the free ride with more than the publishing part?

“The market is only growing exponentially every day you loose. Your loss is my gain. Please continue to wait on the sidelines! Sayanora!”

Well the market is already flooded, I’m afraid my loss (I’m going to buy a subscription though - Sayonara to you too) isn’t going to help you much. It’s really up to you to create a game/app that pops out from the masses. [import]uid: 26547 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23219[/import]

#8

Reading my earlier post I can see it was quite rude. Apologies for that. Hope you can see how a paying customer might want to feel recognized and differentiated too. I’m sure you will once you pay and subscribe! [import]uid: 11904 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23224[/import]

#9

Thanks, no worries! :))

Yes I can understand that you want value for your money. But isn’t the feature that you can actually release the game enough? Perhaps bug reports too.

But I really think daily builds should be publically released because ansca should aim on getting more people to subscribe, and limiting with daily builds seems weird. I don’t think anyone would pay just for the daily builds, it’d be more likely that they would pay for releasing the finished game. Right…? [import]uid: 26547 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23225[/import]

#10

I’ve found the daily builds to be problematic to get real work done with. While a daily build might fix a particular bug it’s also likely to be newly broken somewhere else. And I certainly wouldn’t want to release a product to the world using a daily build if I could help it. That’s what the “stable” releases are for.

That said, before daily builds I had to wait almost two months for a bug fix that was preventing my game from playing smoothly on devices, so I know how frustrating it is to wait for the next stable release.

Perhaps a happy middle ground would be if Ansca branched Corona versions so bug fixes are rolled in more frequently to the current stable release during the month or two when the bleeding edge features are added to the next major version.

I also agree with the point that a buggy pre-release version is NOT going to convince trial user to buy Corona.

One thing I noticed when trying a daily build was how quickly the project built for the device. Daily builds must be using a separate, dedicated server, and since only paid members have access to it the time to build was noticeably shorter. If Ansca were to *always* re-direct paid subscribers to a separate build server that was noticeably zippier it would be another benefit to subscribing.
[import]uid: 9422 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23251[/import]

#11

Releasing the daily builds to non-subscribers wouldn’t really do any harm, would it?

It could do a great deal of damage. People would try the daily builds, give up in frustration when they hit some bugs, and then Corona gets a reputation for being buggy. As I said, it seems like people (you in this thread, but I’ve seen other people do it elsewhere) are confusing daily builds with the latest version of the product.

What I mean is that Corona really is useless unless you pay for it since you can’t do much with your “free” product anyway.

That is really overblowing the importance of the daily builds. I mean, how much do you expect to change every day? Daily builds aren’t a panacea for huge roadblocks in your development; if you can’t develop something in the current release then you probably can’t do it with a daily build either.

Also, “useless”? Really? Talk about exaggeration. [import]uid: 12108 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23254[/import]

#12

It could do a great deal of damage. People would try the daily builds, give up in frustration when they hit some bugs, and then Corona gets a reputation for being buggy. As I said, it seems like people (you in this thread, but I’ve seen other people do it elsewhere) are confusing daily builds with the latest version of the product.
Does, for example, firefox have a reputation of being buggy? Or firebug? Both using daily (nightly) builds.

That is really overblowing the importance of the daily builds. I mean, how much do you expect to change every day? Daily builds aren’t a panacea for huge roadblocks in your development; if you can’t develop something in the current release then you probably can’t do it with a daily build either.
They are surely not a panacea for every huge roadblock in my development. But as it is right now, they are for two roadblocks. (elastic joints and removing physic bodies) These fixes are included in the latest daily build. But not in the current release. [import]uid: 26547 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23263[/import]

#13

All I can say, this is great feedback.

C. [import]uid: 24 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23275[/import]

#14

Does, for example, firefox have a reputation of being buggy? Or firebug? Both using daily (nightly) builds.

Well sure, they have daily builds. As does Corona. But the point is nobody is evaluating Firefox on the basis of those daily builds, because in that case yeah it would have a reputation for being really buggy. The only version users are encouraged to use is the stable main release.

The situation for them is a little different because it’s open-source software. The daily builds aren’t really for users of the software, they are for developers of the software. The users who do get the daily builds are often in that grey area between user and developer that happens with open-source software. [import]uid: 12108 topic_id: 6551 reply_id: 23288[/import]