Where is the demo for vBulletin 4.0, where is a complete list of screen shots?

[burntire]

I was excited for a second. This is a poor marketing plan. I want to see a demo.

[WoodiE]

cart, horse

Simple and to the point - well put. Jelsoft couldn't be any more backwards than they are right now.

[WoodiE]

I must say, I truly laughed out loud when I seen this in the announcement forum...

As a preferred customer with an active license, we are excited to offer the vBulletin Publishing Suite at a pre-sale discount price of only $130 (over 50% off regular price). This is a truly limited one-time special offer giving you $120 off the upgrade price but will expire on Friday October 30, 2009.

And then seen this comment from Wayne...

Screenshots will be up as soon as possible. The demo will not be updated to vBulletin 4.0 until after it goes gold.

Jelsoft is absolutely hysterical! "Hurry give us your $130 as quick as you can, oh but you can't see what it is your buying" Does it get any better than this Jelsoft?

We can give you our money but you can't give us a demo of ANY kind? Not even a beta or development demo? How about screen shots - or is that to much to ask?

You guys are quick to ask for our money but sure as heck ain't giving us anything in return. So what, next week you guys are going to start taking Pre-Orders on vBulletin 5?

[dr1]

This is all "A$$" backwards. If you're going to build up curiosity and hype, at least let your audience get a taste of the product.

[Deimos]

I to was expecting to see a demo of some sort, bit shocked to see nothing but sales spiel.

Unsure as of yet if I'm going to spend anymore money on VB.

[smnet]

I have to side with everyone here. I certainly wont be upgrading any forums until I've seen a demo of suite backend and the best of it's front-end features. If a demo does not emerge before the pre-sale period ends then I will be particularly angry -

I have no objection to vBulletin generating a pre-release boom of cash by dangling a carrot in this fashion as long as a demo exists. Asking people who were not part of any beta or even alpha testing to part with their money before using a demo is morally wrong. vBulletin makes great products but they are definitly far from being everything to everyone - that's why there is such a HUGE mod scene.

I urge vBulletin to consider the webmasters out there who daily manage communities. To them, their communities are critically important - the features they offer and general feel of their website is vitally important to them - all of them are different and have varying MUST HAVE requirements that are specific to them.

Given that many sites will have a hell of a task recreating the community on vB4 I think it's only right and fair that vBulletin allow demo access before the pre-sale window expires - it's morally the right thing to do to allow webmasters to first assess the demo in order to understand the scale of the tasks that lie ahead in conversion of their sites, etc. In short we NEED to assess the lie of the land in relation to our own personal setup in order for us to make an decision on whether to buy in now.

How can we possibly make an informed, intelligent decision based on so little information?

No offence, keep up the great work but I think a lot of people feel VERY STRONGLY about this point.

[vertigo jones]

Got the pre-sale email, excitedly came here to check out a demo - credit card in hand...and nothing. Not very well executed guys.

[Markro]

Screenshots will be up as soon as possible. The demo will not be updated to vBulletin 4.0 until after it goes gold.

This definitely isn't what I wanted to see.

[ixian]

Hey, I'm not the only one - instead of soloing, I get to add my voice to the chorus

Like everyone else, I got the email. I came to the site. I saw a giant list of features that is more or less meaningless to me - I can read about all those features on any other big CMS project site, and I can actually see them in action too because they have demos. I found no demo here.

I then read this thread and if I am reading this right there won't be a demo before the pre-sale ends? Who's in charge of marketing there? You just blasted your enormous, paying customer base with an email (and admin update) talking up the great new version in an attempt to get us to pay up.....and we can't actually see what we'd be buying?

Who's idea was this? We only get the discount price if we buy blind? This is how your best customers are treated? A giant list of bullet points isn't a demo.

FULL DEMO before asking for cash, it's not a lot to request.

[Heavier]

I got an email from vb talking about a 4.0 release, so I came to check it out...and I have not found anything to check out. You can't send a pre-sale email out when you dont have anything to present to your userbase.

Agreed. The homepage has been shiny-shiny redesigned just adding to the confusion when there's not a single screenshot or demo.

I think forums are dead.

what?

[siliconfinance]

I certainly didn't mean to start a firestorm. Everyone should relax. I am sure that after reading some of your responses, it was probably a slight oversight and if it wasn't then the screenshots will be up much sooner than originally planned.

Nevertheless, is it possible to get some video as well if you can't release a demo any time soon? I would like to understand how everything works together before I commit. Even if we had access to beta version of the software and that software gets overwritten with a fresh copy every night just so we can see how things work, it would be very instrumental in helping myself and others to fully understand how much of a bargain your presale promotion is for us individually.

[gerbil249]

Before I put down any big amount of money, I want a demo, there is no way I will buy it without a demo. At least screen shots.

[Tzu-Theory]

Forums aren't dead.

[retsell]

Wow. I haven't been around for awhile. Truthfully, I think forums are dead. I got an email from vb talking about a 4.0 release, so I came to check it out...and I have not found anything to check out. You can't send a pre-sale email out when you dont have anything to present to your userbase.

Forums dead? And what is replacing them?

[Bubble #5]

I think the question is whether or not we'll be able to test and work with vB4 before October 30th which is when the presale ends.

So now I'm really confused. Wayne just said that a demo wouldn't be available until after 4.0 went gold. I guess screenshots are better than nothing but not what people really want to see. So do they expect us to pay 130.00 for something that we can't actually test first? I doubt 4.0 will go gold by Oct 30th