Hi Michael,

I meant to comment on this:-

>>One idea that I have had is that in the future I could still offer version 1.0 at its same current price as a kind of "lite" version for someone who was looking for just an essential modeling tool that is easy for them to use. I'm not completely sure about that yet, but that is one idea.<<

In its current state?

I ask because there have been many reports concerning what are seen as bugs in V1, which are fixed or being fixed in V2 and for a new user who may purchase V1 (after V2 is released) to make a bug report, to then be told it is fixed in V2 and a need to upgrade to get a fix could not be taken well.


- Steve

Perhaps you could offer a complete Support & Maintenance package, which includes priority technical support, maintenance releases, access to beta versions throughout the development period.This way you keep both groups happy and you don't have loss in sales. (just a thought)

Michael wrote:
"Currently my plan is to increase the price of v2 by US $100 to a total of $295 for a full license, or $100 for a v1 to v2 upgrade license.

Then probably after about another year's worth of work for v3, I think the same thing will happen for it, that it will go to $395. By that point in time quite a lot of the things that were missing in v1 will be filled in pretty well.

One idea that I have had is that in the future I could still offer version 1.0 at its same current price as a kind of "lite" version for someone who was looking for just an essential modeling tool that is easy for them to use. I'm not completely sure about that yet, but that is one idea."

---

Selling the 1.0 version with old price. I think, that's quite fair. And I'm a freelancer and I understand, that only money helps to pay all this things for living. My experience is, that my family says, it's ok if you are working hard on a project, but if you would do it for free, than please let it be and spend your time with us. ;)

An other tought from me is, if MOI3D grows, than you (Michael) shouldn't stick at the one-man-company road. Your work is outstanding and I would like to see you focus on design and programming. Marketing and forum posts could do employee for you. Yes, I know, employee cost wage, but maybe the v2 price could help in this direction.

It's a great idea to offer flexibility on price levels.

Marc

>At some point (perhaps V4) when your price nears the $500 mark, then it won't be such an easy decision for many people anymore. MoI then becomes a "main" package for many people instead of a "support" package.

I think Jonah has a valuable point here, MoI as it stands now or even at V2 completion is and will be very very good Pipeline Tool but it can not stand alone. To put into perspective:
Rhino $788
SpaceClaim LTX $825
Shark LT $475

Now let focus on the lowest price: Shark LT $475
__________________________________________1:Based on Dassault’s ACIS™ modeling kernel.
__________________________________________2:2D, 3D, surface, and solid modeling tools.
__________________________________________3:SAT, IGES, STEP, STL, OBJ, VRML, and DXF/DWG.
__________________________________________4:Windows and Mac OS X platform.

Conclusion: As Jonas said at $500 mark MoI becomes a "main" package, and to be honest that's I want MoI to be, But it needs to compete with others in features, compatibility etc.Then we have a winner.

ps.Sorry I write in bullet point I have to take my daughter to a pantomime.

>>Now let focus on the lowest price: Shark LT $475<<

Why Shark LT, you can get ViaCad pro for $249.99

The main difference between Pro and Shark LT is the 2d drawing output

""""Rhino $788
SpaceClaim LTX $825
Shark LT $475

Lets see you use any of those with a "Tablet" on a "usb stick!"

Last time I tried to use the developers forum at RMA, I felt accosted by a superior user of the product who expected me to "know" what I was asking, for "what and why" I was asking it, and didnt get the answer to my question.

A couple things here.

I have "MANY" softwares on my computer that cost 500 and above. Couldnt /wouldnt have stopped at just 1. They all fill a purpose

When I originally purchased MoI, 195.00 was alot for me to spend on an "unproven new software". With research on the developer and forum comments, I made the purchase. Seems like I stole something now! As the word gets out and communities begin to know and understand whats going on here, that initial hesitation could not be there for me. There is NO other under 200 software that is of the same caliber. V2 has "already" outgrown that level of play.

If I could Get tools to model surfaces that I would need rhino for, for half the price????

> Conclusion: As Jonas said at $500 mark MoI becomes a "main" package,

I'm not so sure about this conclusion.

Like Jonas mentioned, frequently a utility plug-in that you might purchase to extend another program (like a Render engine for Rhino, a CAM plugin for something else, etc..) easily run $500 or more. A plugin is certainly not a "main" package, and if you view MoI in this light it makes it pretty easy to consider it in the same category, if it does useful things to you and particularly if it has functions that you can't get anywhere else!


> Now let focus on the lowest price: Shark LT $475

Let us instead focus on this: Shark FX MSRP: $1795.00

I certainly agree that at that actually full version price nearing $2000, that makes it a "main" package. Although actually, does that version even do CAM built in?


Anyway it is sort of the essence of MoI to focus on creating geometry very quickly and fluidly. This is going to remain a primary goal for MoI throughout its life, and I will have a tendency to shy away from just adding in tons of things that actually ruin this essential function by increasing the complexity by too much.

So I do not really expect for MoI to become a full replacement for a parametric solid modeling program, really ever. Those programs have different goals that do not totally align with MoI's goals.

Of course I will be adding things in to MoI over time as well, and as this continues it will become a more complete program for various tasks, certainly.

- Michael

Hi Tony,

> So the intended upgrade price is always going to be
> the difference between the versions?

Yup, that's the idea, at least for the next several versions. At a certain point (probably at $495) the price of a full new license for the new version will not go up any more after that. I guess at that time I will have to figure out what to do about an upgrade price, since there won't be this kind of natural "difference between versions" price.


> At $500.00 I probably would not have bought though. After
> playing with the demo and at $195.00, no problem.

I guess if I had a $195 "lite" version in addition to a $500 full version this would probably still have worked for you.


> This might be a problem for me (non-pro) in the future if the
> upgrade price goes too high.

I pretty much expect for it to be $100 for an upgrade (targeting roughly once a year releases) for some time to come anyway.


> So I was wondering, can you change the lite version every
> so often to be 2 or 3 versions back rather than just remain
> at version 1?

Yeah I think that is a good idea. Maybe it would be better for me to focus more on v2 being the actual lite version once v4 is out, and probably not really having one until we get to v4.

- Michael

Hi Steve,

> In its current state?

Yes, that was the idea - none of those bugs that you are referring to were critical data-loss or crash type bugs...

But it may be better for me to focus on v2 as the target for that lite version in the future though, in addition to fixes other stuff like the much faster mesh output would work really well for someone who was focused on data conversion.


> to make a bug report, to then be told it is fixed in V2 and a
> need to upgrade to get a fix could not be taken well.

Well, v2 is certainly not perfect neither, no version will be. So this same kind of a thing could happen no matter which version I pick to fix for the "lite" version.

The only way around that would be to have the "lite" version be a kind of stripped down subset of the current actively developed version, rather than a frozen previous version.

However, producing multiple versions from a single active codebase adds some complexity and more work to my overall development process, so I don't really want to do that route.

- Michael

Hi Burr, I'm really glad you took a gamble on MoI and have turned out to like it so much!!! :)

- Michael

>>I pretty much expect for it to be $100 for an upgrade (targeting roughly once a year releases) for some time to come anyway

Thanks for your reply Michael, this is good news for me and I can budget for upgrades. Wouldn't want to be without MoI now :-)

Hello Michael,

>>Let us instead focus on this: Shark FX MSRP: $1795.00

I certainly agree that at that actually full version price nearing $2000, that makes it a "main" package. Although actually, does that version even do CAM built in?<<

I was wondering if I should take your statement seriously. A cad system with constraints / animation / rendering, is to you, lacking due to no in-built CAM.


>>none of those bugs that you are referring to were critical data-loss or crash type bugs...<<

We started to have this discussion before, but rather than continue you closed that thread. I am just happy that vendors such as who produce programs as Rhino do not have the same attitude as "if it dont crash then it can wait for a paid for update" OR "if you dont find a bug in the beta then the final release is final with no bug fixes until the next version"

Anyway, your attitude alone as made me remove MoI.

Hi Steve, to do what you want there would mean releasing MoI earlier than I did and have it full of bugs in its initial release.

Software that is done in that way requires numerous service releases like you seem to want.

I don't wish to operate in that manner, and I have no plans to do so - if that is unacceptable to you, then yes you should not use MoI.

What a completely ridiculous idea it is to be upset at having a completely stable version though.

- Michael

Show me a bug free app or OS.
You're dreaming Steve, no offense.

Oh! btw can I have your copy of MoI ? :)

--------
~Danny~

I am really confused by the last comment from Manz....
Michael's attitude is actually one of the best things about MOI, I have not seen many developers that are as responsive to user comments, about fixing bugs, adding features etc...
In my opinion, Michael is top notch for this.

As for the rest of the thread, here is my 2 cents:

The price of moi is incredibly low. As others have already mentioned, even plugins for certain apps, such as ext render engines, can cost up to 1000$ easily.
I have bought several apps for much more, and that have delivered a lot less....
As moi grows, I would also be willing to pay for upgrades, and I find Michael's suggestions of charging only the difference to the new price, as an upgrade price, very fair.

- MOI produces the best ngon meshes I have seen so far, and it play very well with RHINO (except for a lack of polygon mesh import). Even if you only need a mesher for 3dm or IGES, the price is a steal, really. I get a lot of 3dm models from clients (I deal with visuals for complex architectural projects). Moi has been a huge boost to get clean meshes out to our render apps.

-Beyond that, moi has by far the best workflow of any linear app out there in my opinion, for hard edge modeling.
Because I deal with visuals for Competitions / project at the conceptual stage, it normally does not make sense to invest too much time setting up a model with a deep construction history. It works much better to have a linear modeling approach in most cases (especially since we only model the smaller projects in-house; for more complex projects, we normally receive 3d models from our clients.)
Moi is incredibly fluid to work with.
And the tools just make sense.


All I need now are layers (...edited....), and I would be switching almost completely to moi for modeling!

Keep up the good work Michael.

I suppose we can't please everyone.

I don't excpect to have a lifetime free update from MoI. Everything has a cost, an MoI gives a lot for what I've payed for.

- Instant feedback for every little bugs. I'm not affraid to use it in production, I know whatever the problem I can have, it will be fixed most of the time in the
day, and if not I'll reveice 10 workarounds from Michael or others Moiers.

- For someone who never userd nurbs, bying MoI is like having a private teacher, called Michael, every day of the week ... priceless !

So maybe the develepement is quite different from others companies, but I'm glad to give a little of my money in this project, and I know where
my money is going.

Now I do agree with Manz, maybe, depending of the time Michael can put in, if the V1 is sold as a lite version, it would be wise to fix all the little bugs discovered
during the V2 beta (library updates, etc) without any feature update ofcourse. Actually V1 (and the V1 demo) is no more really revelant from what Moi is.

In the other hand, I've the feeling that having access to V2beta is part from some licence bying decission too.

OMG just reading this thread - I can't believe people are winging that MOI is or will be too expensive! MOI is the best value app out there for me and the high level of support is worth $100 a year anyway! If you think moi is expensive then look at the major architectural cad packages - autocad is just outragous in terms of bang for buck and they make you subscribe! How do people expect michael to make a living - no michael = no moi. I bought moi as a hobby app but seriously considering using it for work, even still I would/will be buying it for $100 each year till it levels out at the suggested $495 by which time im sure if will be a killer app. Keep up the good work michael.

""""He removed it.

Even REMOVED it easier and faster than any other app!! :)