Belated thanks to George!

[Gambit37]

I've been getting a bit carried away recently with all the bug finding and suggestion making for RTC, so I just wanted to say George that you've done a fab job with RTC thanks for keeping the spirit of Dungeon Master alive! It hasn't gone unnoticed!!

If/when RTC becomes a fully fledged dungeon creation tool, what status will it have? Will it be freeware/shareware? I personally hope that it's shareware, and that you make it so that all the features can't be used unless it's bought. One of the reasons I never sent you anything for using DMute, much as I wanted to, was that it was just so easy to forget and to continue using a 100% working program.

If RTC is shareware, then I for one would certainly pay for the privelege of using it. What do others think?

[beowuuf]

I agree, especially as George did mention that no-one had sent anything. It is too easy to forget to register a fully working copy...by the time money comes around (I was finishing thesis at uni at the time...guess my bank balance!)...I think it slips everone's mind.

The best idea might be to make the .ini file (or whatever will be so highly customisable) disabled until registration, so effectively you are only getting DM to start with. Just a thought...

[George Gilbert]

In my opinion I don't think crippling programs really works. Firstly any programmer worth their salt can easily crack *any* encryption-password style thing in a few minutes (literally); they're really not difficult unless you have multi-layer self-modifying code, but even that can be single-stepped through in a debugger in an hour or so. Once someone does it then the code is posted on the web and that's the end of that. Additionally reminder screens and the like are just irritating and more likely than not will encourage people to seek a way round them; or just ignore them - how many of you have registered your copy of PKZip/WinZip, Doom, Winamp...the list goes on.

More to the point I don't think it would make much difference. As you say in the posts above - you are very aware that DMute needed registering but still no-one from here (with one exception) has registered. It's not a question of being reminded. Sadly, in todays culture shareware just doesn't work - The capitalist oriented world in which we live and human nature means that people don't pay for things that they can get for free!

I'm not sure what I'll do with the end version of RTC; if anything. Any suggestions are more than welcome though...

George

[Gambit37]

Well, I for one certainly pay for software that I use a lot and that has a reasonable charge. If I find a piece of software that I like, and it's too expensive for what it does, then I simply don't use it. I'm constantly amazed at the amount of shareware I find that only does one or two things but the author's are asking upwards of $70-80 for it. Clearly, that's never going to encourage 'normal' users to pay for it.

I have bought quite a few shareware progs across the net, and most of the time they only cost a few pounds, and you have the added benefit that it can be paid for and used immediately. I would certainly pay for RTC if that's how you choose to market it.

Having said all that, you're right, I still haven't registered my copy of WinZip!

[amaprotu]

I would go with a crippled software approach, only one where certain parts of the software were not just dissabled, but completely missing from the shareware version. That is more difficult I imagin if you want to have the whole program available as a DM clone for free, and charge people for the ability to edit the program, someone would go and make a DMute for RTC! lol. However if you decided that the non shareware version only gave you the first 3 or 4 levels or something and none of the editing ability, that might be easier to implement, maybe. Someone could still go make a RTCute and recreate the the rest of the levels or something, but at that point I think most people will just think its worth saving the time to pay, I value my time at a lot higher than $10 or $20 for however many hours it would take to create RTCute and the missing levels.

Really I'm just saying its harder to crack something that isn't there. If the cost to register is low enough that it would be easier to pay than to crack, by a large enough margin that people realize it, then crippling will work.

Also make it easy to register. Services like paypal etc. could even allow you to accept payment over the internet (credit cards etc).

Just my opinion. <p> <a href="http://www.icq.com/icqtour/webcomm.html"><img alt border="0"src="http://online.mirabilis.com/scripts/onl ... e.gif"></a> AMAPROTU
<p><a href="http://msg.mirabilis.com/scripts/contac ... 7004"><img altborder="0" height="23" src="http://www.jps.net/amaprotu/wot/icqme.gif" width="88"></a><ahref="mailto:2667004@pager.mirabilis.com,amaprotu@jps.net"><img alt border="0" height="23"src="http://www.jps.net/amaprotu/wot/email.gif" width="87"></a><ahref="http://web.mirabilis.com/scripts/srch.d ... 7004"><img alt border="0"height="23" src="http://www.jps.net/amaprotu/wot/zoom.gif" width="87"></a></p></p>