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https://stardock.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/4/group/13

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Dont even start please.... Multiplicity.. I beat the drum a while ago regards the lack of ipv6 support which is very importanat to my network and i was brushed to oneside.  I ended up using MWB and never looked back.

So far i have dropped: Multiplicity, tiles2 (work with this on large screens , Fences4 (waiting for price decission), Spacemonger, IconPackager, Deskscapes (Makes my audio skip when changing desktops, multiple machines). All of the mentioned apps were usefully for me but the lack of development (EX Fences) pushed me into using alternatives or scrapping.  So now i have gone from using eight S'D apps daily to using only two and i jst know if i am not in a place where i believe the pricing isnt right for me then like @NewRaven  says

Well, thanks for the fish.......

FTR i stopped using fences4 because at some point i just know a windows tweak is going to cause this app problems, so id rather adjust life without now, than wait for that to happen.  Unless Fences5 offers me an appreciated user discount.

Quoting Fyew-jit-tiv, reply 76

Quoting klepp0906,

reply 74

Quoting swarnold,

reply 52

and while i'm here... multiplicity 3 when?

 

Dont even start please.... Multiplicity.. I beat the drum a while ago regards the lack of ipv6 support which is very importanat to my network and i was brushed to oneside.  I ended up using MWB and never looked back.

 

So far i have dropped: Multiplicity, tiles2 (work with this on large screens , Fences4 (waiting for price decission), Spacemonger, IconPackager, Deskscapes (Makes my audio skip when changing desktops, multiple machines). All of the mentioned apps were usefully for me but the lack of development (EX Fences) pushed me into using alternatives or scrapping.  So now i have gone from using eight S'D apps daily to using only two and i jst know if i am not in a place where i believe the pricing isnt right for me then like @NewRaven  says

Well, thanks for the fish.......

 

FTR i stopped using fences4 because at some point i just know a windows tweak is going to cause this app problems, so id rather adjust life without now, than wait for that to happen.  Unless Fences5 offers me an appreciated user discount.

 

Obviously I am not going to get involved in the pricing and license discussions other than to say all the software other than ObjectDesktop and Fences 4 (newer licenses) / 5 are only available in traditional non subscription form including the newly released Start11 v2 and, as with all things in life, if something isn't offering you value then the right course of action would be to not buy it and if you wish let the company know why as I know some of you have.  It may not change anything, but feedback is always useful.

With regards to IPV6, whilst I quite understand that is important to you personally, it wasn't as important to the potential customer base back in 2014 I think when MP3 was designed and it requires some larger changes to how MP handles things.  We did actually look to add in v6 support to a 3.x a few years ago but it was going to cause some issues.  Given the very few complaints over this in the past 9 years I think the decision to only support IPV4 remains the right one for v3.  That said would a hypothetical v4 support IPV6, probably.  You have to remember we sell a lot of MP to businesses who might not appreciate a non backwards compatible change as a update (vs new product) and we are more cautious with changes to it because of that.

As a product MP3 has probably the longest lifecycle but it is also one of the more expensive apps depending on SKU.

If changing a desktop using DeskScapes is causing an audio stutter then you may be speaking to the wrong people.  Audio priority isn't something DeskScapes alters and how resources are allocated is largely a Windows thing.  It sounds like whatever is playing the audio simply gets starved of CPU resources briefly and may be using too small buffers.  I am curious if you mean a Windows Virtual Desktop switch or a DeskScapes background switch though?

Hi Neil,

I always believed ipv6 would end up in MP4, wouldn't be Stardock otherwise....  

For me this is a no win situation for the License holders.  Dont upgrade sofware eventually stops working. Uninstall.  Loose everything purchased todate.  Take up SaaS,  Stop paying, loose access to everything.   When i look at things this way, i really want to end up deleting the lot and install windows 11!  My plan was to wait till Win10 EOL but this stardock problem kinda changes that sum. 

Deskscapes.  So i use Cubase amongst other DAW's. Everytime i run deskscapes and have my desktop background switch pic my audio would skip.  No DPClatency spikes, GPU or CPU spikes.  this would happen on a new project with just a simple drum pattern right up to a complex live recording, def not struggling with system resources. Never seen this with windows slideshow or any other software ie... Displayfussion.  Only ever happens with Deskscapes.  Removed Deskscapes and my system doest blip. So for me the obious culprit is............

Thanks for getting involved Neil,  Hopefully we hear from Stardock soon! 

All the best  

To add a small bit to this: Fences 4 works quite well with Windows 10 and has only minor quirks with Windows 11 at this point. This was a complete different thing for quite some time after Windows 11 released, but it's usually okay now. Only thing that come to mind:

- Creating a Fence/Folder Portal with the right mouse button doesn't work. So if you used to use Fences this way because it wasn't ever an issue with Windows 10 and before... you probably need some time to get used to this.

And there seems to be an issue when you have disabled the new context menu, but since I never did that (the quick override with holding shift is sufficient for me), I don't know how much it affects the use of Fences 4. Other than that, there aren't really any issues I know of.

But honestly... there were always some little issues you had to work around with every Stardock tool I ever used. That was often clearly not the fault of Stardock and rather some compatibility issue for a workaround they used to make things work, but there was always something there. I loved Groupy, but it had serious issues with applications which used some special skinned non-standard windows. I never bought version 2, because honestly, I don't think it's something Stardock can ever fix from their side. At the end, I changed the way I work and the applications I use to make it less and less "needed" anymore until I uninstalled it at some point.
I used DeskScapes, because it was a worthy successor of Microsoft's short-lived animated wallpaper thingy (was it called Dreams?), but not only has it a bigger footprint on resources than similar, even more powerful tools, I also had "hitches" when the app switches to another background, especially if it was something more complex like the Dreams from wincustomize, while another unnamed but fairly popular "wallpaper-app" with even more complex and even interactive scenes or huge videos never gave me such "short hiccups".
Even when I think way back to Windows XP times, me using Windows Blinds, there were things you had to exclude in some versions because otherwise something would crash. There were always these little things you need to tinker a bit with to make the stuff work. But when it worked, it worked good. I was used to it, I was fine with it, I honestly think the quality of Stardocks software is fine for what "exotic" function they often offer, even with sometimes some tinkering needed. I mean, that's the reason I buy stuff from that company.

But, considering Fences 5 isn't really an option, I also start to think about working around the use of Fences without changing my workflow too much. Because, at some point, Fences 4 will stop working with newer Windows builds, that is for sure. So, for general shortcuts, the pinned and now stackable apps within the start menu are a viable option for me. My two folder portals can't be replaced, BUT as a user of Directory Opus, I could easily also open two pre-set lister and have the same effect with one additional click more. Not as fancy, but similar workflow. At the end, it will be fine.

If this sort of price increase is the way Stardock is going, I will probably not purchase future Stardock prices. I'm unwilling to pay for a subscription, and the fact you charge an absurd price for Fences 5 permanent license despite only adding minor new features... yeah, no.

I already wasn't a fan of Stardock requiring you to re-purchase every version upgrade when the new versions were only minor improvements and not actually significantly different, but I tolerated that because the prices of individual software were fairly low.

If buying the Fences 5 permanent license was actually a lifetime license (i.e. would include Fences 6, 7, etc.), then that price point would be more reasonable, since the previous ~$10 price point didn't include a major version upgrade.

Or if the subscription let you keep whatever version you had when you were last subscribed, that might be acceptable.

But quadrupling the price without adding significant functionality? Yeah, no. Not happening.

So we can safely say most of us here are singing from the same hym sheet right.. It's down to the man and his master plan "Brad".   Speaking for myself, i think i have voiced my opinion loud enough, Brad is aware we are here so its a waiting game now.

All the best.   

Fair and valid critique.

We are increasing the velocity at which we output software, Start11 v2 was our first mid-cycle update for that product and the release cadence of Fences is increasing as well (F3 was 2016, F4 was 2021, and F5 is 2023, and we are targeting an F6 in 2024) - moving to this cadence is not a simple process.

When we knew we would be releasing Fences at a faster rate, we switched to a subscription model back in June while reducing the initial price; Fences was selling for $19.99 for about a year before we moved to the new model. For anyone who purchased after June, they are already ahead as they got F4 and F5 for $9.99 and even if we miss our target of F6 in 2024, they are still even under the last price of $19.99 for the first two years.

None of these decisions were made in a vacuum and we looked at a lot of data to make the decisions that you see today and talked to quite a few customers along the way. For a customer who has typically purchased a new version of Fences the first month it is available, the new model is more cost-effective - we are priced at $10 a year, not a month but a year.

But I realize that may not be as obvious today because we are in the very early stages of shipping more frequently but once we continue our cadence, those who want the latest and greatest version of Fences, we believe, will be better off paying $10 a year rather than $20 a release as they had previously done.

And for everyone who is on Fences 4 and says they will never upgrade, that's perfectly fine! We know that not every single release will attract a 100% upgrade rate and we still have active customers using Fences 2. But we hope that we can continue to build new functionality and maybe in the future, we will have enough packed into the product that you feel it's worthwhile to grab another permanent license or if we have proven that annual releases are a good value, you try that out too.

I resisted writing any of this for a while as this does nothing but open us up to additional attacks as the arguments get picked apart but maybe this will help provide some insight. We aren't a giant evil corporation, we want to keep building more, better, and faster, and we are transitioning into a team that can do just that.

Been using Fences since V2. I've upgraded with "reasonable" prices through the years. I'm using V4 now.

I will NOT use subscriptions, especially since Fences major updates are years apart. The major updates aren't really that major.

I will NOT be updating to V5, as it's NOT worth it at this price point or new features. Ridiculous 300% price increase for permanent license. BIG MISTAKE to push out loyal users. 

Like it's been said in other comments, I'll wait till it breaks...then look for alternative software elsewhere.

i think a major concession that can be made (can we call it a concession?) is not losing access to the version you land on should you go the sub route.   Disabling is absurd.

Do it like techsmith does it.  or symless.  once you buy the software they have a maintenance sub you can opt into (one is 9, one is 11 annually iirc) and as long as you pay it, you keep getting your major version upgrades.   

Each major version upgrade you'll get your new key along with it.  each key is tied to each major version and as such, you can always use any version you paid "up-to" and any prior since you started.

For example I use last years snagit on my laptop due to this years already being used on my two main machines. 

This i would be on board with. 

Why is it not free for people who have purchased Fences 4 Permanent license or Subscription? 

i mean it would make some sense because there is always new people who did not have Fences 4 before fences 5 came out.

I am just using common sense Because spending 30$ for Fences again is not Something I would do.

Sure this is fair for the customers who like subscriptions and have been asking for it. But, from the point of view of the customers who prefer permanent licenses the calibration is off in its early stages of deployment. Realistically, there is an overall strategy is to have a faster cadence and deploy new versions more often. So, when you at the same time increase the price to 30 dollars AND have a plan in place to migrate to a new version faster this becomes a huge penalty to those users in favor of ownership. Just because a few users say they prefer to have this subscription method does not mean 100 percent of stardock users agree that this is the best way. People with the preference of permanent licenses should not be punished

I am glad that you didn't, the transparency is very helpful here. I plan on being an early adapter of Windows 12 so now I know that Fencer 6 may be the better option for me because of this. And now that people know they will not be shocked by the changes and things will go more smooth in 2024.

Also of course Stardock is not an evil corporation. A lot of feed back is actually left here for the simple fact that Stardock really and truly does listen. I only leave feedback here because I also believe I could help change things for the better. If I were to leave feedback with Microsoft on the other hand, I know my comments would only be ignored. I do thank you guys for listening and even joining in with the conversations. Even if we disagree on our views my feelings on stardock are still left more positive because of the active engagement.

Hello,

I recently purchased the Fences 4 license on Steam during the Autumn Sale for Steam.  I have been looking at this forum and it said if we purchased Fences 4 after October 15th 2023, we get a free Fences 5 license upgrade.  This is since the Release Preview is still going on.  Am I to believe that I get a Steam license key sent via email?  If that is not the case, I would like to know please.  Thank you for your time.  I will say that it loads at startup 100 times faster than Fences 2 has on Windows 11.

im timing out on this.  I am down to using Start11v2 and Groupy2 as soon as these two get with inflation rise anywhere close to the inflation that hit fences5 (300%) i'll be closing down my account.

If brad's does decide to bring fences upgrade fees into a resonable price bracket then its obvious to say  "ill be here for a long long while".

All the best folks.   

Nice as it was to hear what thoughts were behind the price increase and subscription model, I am sad that this means a goodbye from me concerning Fences. I have been using Fences since the beginning, but skipped version 4 because I don't use all the features.
I was considering upgrading to version 5 because Fences 3 seem to have become increasingly ressource-hogging in the last year or so.

But as it seems Stardock is firmly set to keep the absurdly high prices for permanent licenses, I have uninstalled Fences today and switched to a free alternative for now. It may not have everything Fences had but it has everything I need and is so much faster when booting up windows.

Best wishes for Fences and the future!

If anything maybe $4.99/yr or $15($10 for upgrade) permanent license for 3 users. Give options to different plans or have us customize it. I do know I will never buy Fences 5 for $30.

Quite a good suggestion! 10 bucks for a permanent license seem quite fair.

I'll join in!

And yes - no one will buy that for 30 bucks.

Maybe they just want that the customers are buying the Annual Subscription.

30 bugs will help with this decision.  

True, if the new subscription model is the way to go. Then it should do so on its own merits and selling points. There should be no need to have a penalty tax tacked onto the permanent licenses.

I think I will leave the conversation here.

My best wishes go out to everyone and I am glad we were able to have a good conversation on this thread!

Got you back on this one bruh!     

Hey Brad, thanks for your response. It's very much appreciated.

First, a small little disclaimer: while we certainly don't agree on some things, my intention is not to pick apart your post or attacking you in any way or form. Furthermore, I'm fully aware that a forum post won't change any of your business decisions, and that's fine. My intention isn't for you guys to change your mind, it was only about giving feedback about my decision for not being a customer any longer. Nothing more, nothing less. The quotes in my response maybe will be a bit out of order - just to keep the context.

And this is basically the issue - you changed your payment/licensing-model before you changed your development/release-model with Fences. It probably would have made more sense to first increasing the output of new versions and then changing to subscription, because then users would know exactly for what they are paying and what is changed in regard to your past development cycle. For now, we don't. We know how it worked in the past and that's all.
If you really trust your process of changing the velocity of the software output and a more agile, flexible and faster development, and really wanted some reliable revenue stream, there would be other more consumer-friendly options, too. For example, like someone else here already said: you could have offered a subscription, even to a slightly higher price, maybe even 20 bucks for an upgrade, which lasts for a year, but let the user keep the last version of their subscription period if they are not renewing. This is the only case I personally would consider a subscription for Fences. If you are sure about you can bring enough meaningful features that they will renew or "not cancel", this shouldn't be an issue.
And if not, well... than the changes probably didn't cut it, but then, even with the current model, subscribers will probably unsubscribe at some point (yeah, may take a while, people are lazy and probably don't care enough about 10 bucks)

But back to the permanent license upgrade or the lack there of... if all of this was a decision with also consumers in mind, it should also be their decision to "pay more". If someone would like to pay, let's say 15 EUR for a "version upgrade" and it only lasts for 10 months, because then Fences 6 is released, it should be still their choice as long as they know what they are getting and know that a subscription can be a "cheaper" alternative. Actually, that would - contrary to what you did for now - actually be a valid and real pro-argument for the subscription, because what we have now is basically "subscribe" or "get the worst non-upgrade upgrade-option possible".

That being said, as a sidenote: I already had upgraded to Fences 4 before subscriptions were a thing and it costs me 8 EUR back then. So I got a permanent license for less than the upgrade subscription cost for one year now. But that isn't really the point... the point of all of this is still: why isn't there a fair offer for the permanent license upgrade? I don't ask for 8 bucks or even 10 bucks... but for a reasonable price for an upgrade. Nobody wants the subscription be gone and if the consumers you talked to were fine with the subscription model, they will probably subscribe - and there would be no harm in offering a real upgrade option as an addition to that for users who don't. I mean, from that perspective, we want to pay more voluntarily, and if this "but the subscription also has a better value for the consumer"-thing is true, there is no drawback for you in letting us doing so.

But you sadly made exactly this a "bad idea". Even if I wanted to buy a new permanent license, even if I would pay the - in my opinion unreasonable - 35 EUR it would cost me right now, that just isn't a price I would pay again and again for every new version. Not with the "old release cycle", especially not with the intended new one. That's an amount of money I pay once for such a tool - and even then only if I know I'll get the upgrades on a fair discount. I never would have paid the full price for Fences if there weren't discounted upgrades considering we often need these upgrades for compatibility with new OS versions. This tool has, I said that already, a clear feature set... there is no realistic way you can "add" something reasonable and meaningful (but still within the scope of the tool) to any version of it which will make me feel okay to spend 35 EUR again and again every 10 months, 8 months, 16 months or whatever your increased output will end in. You made these permanent licenses - at least for private consumers (it's a whole different thing with licensing on business consumers, I know) - just an, sorry for being blunt here, incredible dumb thing to buy. Intentionally so, I might add. And I mean: dumb thing to buy for everyone, not just existing customers, because at some point after some Windows update everyone will need an updated version for this software to continue to work, no matter if they are interested in new features or not. And they will only get it for full price - or by an active subscription.

Again, thank you for writing it anyway. I hope my response to it was at least fair.

On a more personal note: I - and I don't talk here for anyone but myself - use only the "core"-part of Fences feature set. I need folder portals, I need basic fences, I need the roll-up-feature and I need sorting rules. That's it. I never used the "desktop-pages"-function of Fences, I never used a single hotkey in Fences, I never used Quick-Hide, I never used Peek and I barely use even the customization (I change the transparency for the Fences globally and sometimes change a title color, but that's it). So, with that said... I usually upgrade to the newest version of Fences solely for compatibility.
With the two major new features of Fences 5, this wouldn't be any different. You enhanced Peek, which I, even knowing it's there and how it works, already never use in Fences 4 and you implemented something called Chameleon. Even after reading everything about it on the website, I don't even understand fully what the latter does. I could already change the transparency of icons in Fences (including the option to disable transparency on mouse-over) and - besides the reason I use fences to not have icons outside of fences - I could easily change the general transparency of desktop icons for MANY years now with many other tiny tools. So, yeah, probably nothing for me - I'm fine.

That for sure doesn't mean that you guys couldn't implement something I really want to use in the future (I mean, for example, dockable roll-up/slide-out fences for the left and the right side of the desktop with a then vertical aligned title bar are the next logical step for years by now, because they would just complete a feature we already have for years) - but for quite some time, this just wasn't the case.
I basically paid for Fences 4 for just being able to use it under newer versions of my operating system without any compatibility issues and this probably would be the same with Fences 5 or whatever version is current when the next major Windows update breaks things again.

I'm fully aware that there is need for the features I personally don't use by other customers - but maybe this makes it a bit more clear and adds to my previous statement why I don't see much worth in a subscription in my use case and I won't pay 35 EUR to "upgrade". Ever.
Or... since I own two Fences 4 licenses (because of the stunt you guys already pulled with the release of Fences 4 regarding multi-device activations) - 70 EUR! Heck, if you continue to be totally "not evil" the way you are doing it right now, we probably have to pay per fence when Fences 7 is around. Just kidding... or am I? I'm totally fine with paying good money for good software... but this has started to get totally out of control and for me, the better option is to adjust to work without Fences at all than to wait for whatever stuff you try to pull here next. While your software is still great and reliable, the way you do business just isn't anymore.

Yeah horrible communications regarding upgrade vs pricing vs release-models. You will piss-off users again if the next v6 version releases shortly after, for those that picked a "lifetime" version again.

The easy win would have been, to clearly communicate this new release cadence and the shift to "force" users into a subscription model. Than you should have allowed existing users to get a discounted 3/5 year upgrade subscription period for like 5$ per year, which i would have upgraded too.

Now i'm also pissed at Stardock, will stay at v4 and be pissed again when v4 breaks or is no longer updated.

PS: That's not complicated, just ensure your existing customers are happy, instead of this BS....

I dont understand why this is being made so complicated.  Make a reasonably priced sub, and each major version give the subscriber a new license key(s) so they always have access to the currently subscribed version and all versions they paid for (were subscribed for) prior.

they unsub, no more upgrades, no more license keys until such a point they start subbing again.  ive been using snagit for a whole lotta years due to this being the m/o

For me, I'm surprised Stardock have the audacity to release a version 5 on a yearly subscription introducing new bugs that will never get fixed based on their history. They still haven't fixed the old bugs.... Even in V4 your monitor support is utter garbage (it's never worked consistently more me), but if you think a subscription to V5 is the answer then I think your loyal users will vote with there wallets including me.

I personally stopped relying on it more due to the terrible multi monitor support and found Stardock support non existent.

I now prefer a non cluttered approach to my desktop, so your new sales model doesn't affect me as I'm no longer your target audience.

Crazy looking back that I bought it on first release....

Damage control incoming....