Like I said, I base it on something someone else posted, and I would be happy if it were wrong. I didn't bookmark the post but the premise went like this:

I currently have an owned license for 3.8. I won't have to pay a yearly fee anymore if I don't upgrade to 4.0. However, if I'm not paying a yearly fee, then technically once my current one runs out, I'm not going to be a "current" license holder, and only current license holders are allowed into vB-only areas such as vB.org.

So, IB is removing the requirement to pay $40 once a year for 3.8 (and under), but by not having to pay $40 once a year I won't be on the list of those who are allowed into vb.org - or into the support area of vb.com.

Yeah, once my current license expires.... mybb here I come!

i didnt get what you are talking about. its 235$ for a CMS pre-sale account, but you say its 130$... i tryed to purchase it, but its stil 235$... i hope you got the point

This is pretty expensive and I think because of prices people are going to go to IPB. But let's wait and see!

The price for upgrading from active license ($130) and getting the new CMS, not having to pay the yearly fee for 4.0 is a good deal IMO. Can't find a better deal out there unless it's free.

The expensive part is of course when you do not own that active license... they should have warned customers more clearly before removing the old (cheaper) upgrade option. So I would say this is mostly not ideal communication.

235$ for me is too much, In th Czech I can earn about 1.2k usd per month and have to pay 1/5 to renew vbb.

How said, I see MyBB looks so good :)

As I don't own my own forum and i simply renew my license to code addons for vbulletin, making me buy a completely new license is absurd and i will no longer be coding addons.
Can anyone say 'Goodbye vbulletin community'?

I don't need to see screen shots or a demo, it takes little imagination what it will look like (bad with your default templates ;)) and what it will do. I'm very happy with vBulletin Forums and I trust the v4 and the CMS will be a decent quality product as well. But really, are you expecting me to buy it without having a realistic estimate on the release date? Is it going to be released this year? A 'month' would be nice to know... November after the presales period is over? Or December? early/late? Or do you really expect us to buy something that is going to be released in 2010?

'Force' would almost fit better than 'expect', because it's either pay up $130 now for the full suite or pay at least $175 (for the forums alone) within the next 12 months (when v3.8 license expires). So even if you don't want to the CMS, this deal is for many the cheapest way to get the forums to v4.0 unless your v3.8 is fairly new. At first it seems the upgrade to the forums alone will be free, but that's the product upgrade, it doesn't effect the duration of your current license.

So basically those who stick to 3.8 won't have to pay anything, but those who take this socalled free upgrade will be forced to buy 4.0 or move to another product (as moving back to the 3.8 obviously won't be an option...) once their 3.8 license expires (which costs $45 more than upgrading to the full suite costs now) and those who know for certain they want vb4.0 forums should take this deal now. Let's say my v3.8 expires in 4 months. Why pay $175 then to upgrade the forums if for $45 less I can get the full suite. But isn't 'that' exactly the stain on this who announcement/deal...

I'm sure all this negativity isn't what you hoped for but I really think a lot of it could have been prevented by a. providing a lot more screen shots (come on, how can you not have time to post more of those, make time,delay this pre-sales announcement 10 minutes.., almost makes me think there's nothing else in such a final stage it's safe to post ss of) and b. posting a release date (-estimate). The latter would have made all the difference (between being a great deal and a weird feeling in my stomach.)

Yeah, but I sorta have to make a couple of choices, since I currently just have a leased version of vB.

A: Purchase the 4.0 suite with the discount
B: Wait it out and eventually have to pay 295$ for a owned license

I'm sorta stuck on option A, if i wanna save the most money on it, but then again i do not know what I'm spending my money on..

Honestly, i think vB.com has gone about this in a really bad way or I'm just missing something obvious.

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Seems a lot of coders and designers are saying the same. In the end of the day, the community will suffer and so will vB.

Wow. You people never cease to amaze me. The BEST forum solution out their and you are surprised the company is going to make a buck???

The way I look at it, it is a ONE TIME fee of $195 for the life cycle of 4.0! (all upgrades uptill 5.0 are included) Now they say the 5.0 upgrade is going to come 12 to 18 months so lets break that down on a month pricing structure from high to low. Let's say they upgrade to 5.0 in 12 months that mean the software will cost $16.25/month but if it takes 18 months the software will cost about $10.80/month. It could take them longer to get to 5.0 which means the month break down is going to be even cheaper!

If those fee CRIPPLE you financially, then yes, maybe it is time to move to phpbb.com or ipb.com or whatever floats your boat. The 4.0 upgrade is going to be a better code base and actually save me some $$$ on the plugins that I have to purchase for 3.X (vbseo for example)

Calling 4.0 the next coming of Vista is just retarded. The only thing I am going to call foul on is vBulletin asking for money before we see a finished product. The discount should be extended at least a week or 2 after they convert the vbulletin.com forums to 4.0