I am really not trying to be negative..

[rudedog1968]

agreed gedsta, what leaves a bad taste in my mouth is that they are trying to sell this pre alpha now. If they would have released just the demo so people could try it (on vB's site), offer feedback and do some stress testing then most would have thought vB learned their lesson and learned how to manage software development.

I can only imagine the talk around the water cooler via support and QA staff, behind the backs of upper management. I must be brutal

[gedsta]

I think anyone being honest can at least agree: they should not have shown this to the public at large yet.

I think they should have done, but not put it for sale.

If I were IB I would do what Microsoft does and do a public beta and then start to sell it when it is somewhere near ready, as at today, it is far from anywhere near ready. And if you use Windows Server / Plesk / and Helicon software, you are pretty much goosed at this point in time.

[Jafo]

I think anyone being honest can at least agree: they should not have shown this to the public at large yet. Second, they should create a list of current license holders who have over the years kept their licenses in good standing and offer those people free beta testing privileges. These people are not going to run and use it without paying for it, they have demonstrated it in the past. Even if a handful did, it is worth it because IB would get a wealth of useful feedback instead of irritating their loyal customers like this release has.

Whoever came up with the business model that users should pay before they see a finished product needs a head check.

[alfanexus]

I think vb5 looks promesing and i really like that they had the guts to do something different. There is still some work to be done especiallt with the blogs. But its not a releaded version yet so lets wait and se

[Sador]

Does anyone have any idea when the stable version will come out? This year?

I'm fairly sure I read a comment by one of the support staff saying it'd be released in 2012.

[beishe8]

Does anyone have any idea when the stable version will come out? This year?

This year???
With the speed it is developed even the next year won't be enough.

[c0bra]

I regret I have to share many of the sentiments here. I was initially excited to hit the vb5 demo page looking forward to seeing how the vB development team were bang on track to right all the previous wrongs with vB4. And when the page finally loaded my heart sank. I can't believe how bad the vB5 beta appears to be. I'm almost at a loss for words to describe how I feel about the preview.

Beta release 10 suggests they are quite a long way along in the development process. Alpha 1 is where the current demo feels it is to me - a very early stage build showing off initial concepts planned for the final release.

I don't want to be overly harsh or critical of anyone while this is still in beta. The team deserves the chance to take on board all the feedback and work night and day to turn this sinking ship around before release. But the fact this is labelled as beta and not alpha, and the fact they are making the software available to download now to anyone who pays for vB5 Connect, it's hard to feel good or hopeful about the direction vBulletin is heading.

I also agree with previous comments vBulletin 3.8 is still the best forum software around. I've looked at alternative competing products recommended here, but nothing is as polished as vB 3.8 to use. Nothing comes close to vB 3.8 as far as I'm concerned. At least we can continue to use vB 3.8 and there is still some support for it. But it's just sad to having to rely on software so old, feature-frozen, when we're hungry to move forward with something new and exciting.

[E0N]

Does anyone have any idea when the stable version will come out? This year?

[Deimos]

Two of my clients who also waited for vB5's release both went IPB in the last two hours. One of them was an avid vBulletin user since 2003.

Yea, I've used Vbulletin since (roughly) 2001/2002 and I put off upgrading to 4, until it was of a half decent standard, which in my opinion, was at 4.2
But I and the company I work for, won't be sticking with vbulletin in the future, sadly.

[Aitorcillo]

I totally agree with the complaints. Can not ask for $ 200 for a BETA product. As in video games, all development takes a polish and bug fixes. Allow people to try out your new BETA product for free to report bugs and problems. And once that is completed successfully, you can ask for money... but meanwhile, in my opinion, the image you're giving is that you need the money to finish the product. Not a good way to start the version 5.0 of Vbulletin, the complaints are evident. Do not think it's good for the image of the company.

Regards

[Ramsesx]

The good news, a vB4 suite license gets cheaper.

[Gomjaba]

I am still in shock that you get such a poor product in yet a poor beta stage for a LOT of money and just a month of ticket support ? If connect is anything like vb4 then it takes months or years to iron out certain bugs. I remember we couldn't even use the attachment manager for months because inline attachments didn't work.

I'll stick with vb4 and when I get bored, change to another product.

[craigvm]

oh man, this can't be happening. 5 looks so lame and the video is terrible. This company is scaring me now. I'm so looking forward to this forum switching to 5, so I/ we can either dump the entire concept ( get closure) of continuing with this format or do cartwheels with joy. I hope its better than what appears to be extremely bad.

What a gong show.

you wont see it on here looks to me they wont use it as its so bad but they expect us to pay for it ,if they really thought it was good this site would be on vb5 now

[sparky]

I must say I'm very dissapointed! (I recall the comments and frustrations prior to vB4 being launched and the almost contempt replies from people associated to the company). It seems it's been launched in BETA (if you can call a product missing half the tools 'BETA'), the same way without offering what we already use in 4 and they're relying on peoples faith or the naivety of new business and experience of their product.

I'm actually thankful that I intend to close my forum or sell it on during next year because I'm not sure I can stand reading another 4+ years of general user frustration. Don't get me wrong, version 4 was starting to get there in some sense but it's never really delivered anything more than a glorified forum with a ribbon tied around the box.

[Mirical Bernd]

There must be some reason this was rushed (perhaps we don't know the story behind the story -- management pushing for a release and coders pressured to release something... anything). My advice is to pull it, add a lot more testers (bribe a few big boards), work on it longer, and release a 4.3 to satisfy everyone in the mean time with a few more features. When you do release it, give people a more meaningful discount than the tiny one being offered. I can't remember any company offering such tiny discount for upgrading a previous software version -- and to a beta version at that, not even to a fully complete product.

You cannot ask people to pay for beta-testing. Exlamation Mark, as high as the Burj Khalifa. Give out the beta for free, ask people to install it and the feedback will be far more valuable.

Another piece of friendly advice. Put the darn thing on the most powerful set of servers you can find. Whoever decided to put it on the current server had to know it would be hammered when the emails went out. I can only hope that you have enough resources to buy the most powerful servers money can buy so that when you demo your new product to the world, speed/slowness alone doesn't kill first impressions.

I would love to download and test run it on our servers - yet I am NOT going to pay for this pleasure. Yet I don't think it will run fast even on our machine which has these specs:

• Intel® Core™ i7-920 Quad-Core
  
• 24 GB DDR3 RAM
  
• 2 x 750 GB SATA (Software-RAID 1)
  

Just compare the speed of vBulletin 4 and 5, which run on the same machine. Plus: They should not cheat. There is a big need to have a base for comparison between vB 4 and vB 5.

Admit some mistakes happened instead of denying/defending and move forward!

Hell yeah, you are more than right with this.