Important Message

[Brendon Pywell]

Future Development

The past year has seen me work pretty much full time on BTB with a couple of side projects helping fund BTB development. That has meant between 12-16 hours every day with very few days off.

Whilst I have enjoyed indulging myself in BTB development and have added a lot of good features, continuing in this manner is not financially possible. Sales haven’t been anywhere near what is needed to sustain this rate of development.

My kids are growing older and naturally more demanding, the wife wants an occasional holiday and it would be irresponsible of me (and impossible) to continue solely on BTB income. A recent offer to join one of the leading game development teams at what they call "good income" still is a financial step backwards compared to what had been my regular job.

So, somewhat sadly, having given a lot to track building (very willingly of course) it is now time to devote more of my life to my family and to other areas of my life in order to live a more balanced existence.

Henceforth I am back into the regular development world and BTB development will continue at a more relaxed pace.

Licenses

Licenses are generated for a CPU and Motherboard.
I have had a few users request for licenses to be reset because they have had hardware failures. On occasion I get someone asking for a second license for another of their own machines, and after I reject their request, they later cite they hardware failure as a reason.

Given that I have no way of determining if a request for a new license after hardware failure is genuine or not; nor do I have any control over how well a user looks after their hardware; I have decided to reject all such requests. If your hardware fails, you will need to wait for your existing license to expire, then generate a HardwareId.txt file and upload it in order for a new license to be generated.

I will be resetting all licenses with v0.9 so if you are currently locked out because of hardware failure, you will be able to generate a new license again soon. If you wish to help test the Beta, then that will be even sooner.

Windows Vista and Windows 7

Windows XP is listed as a requirement for BTB.

More people are moving to Windows 7 and hence are asking for me to reset their licenses so that they can run under the new operating system.
I still do not have either operating system and will refuse to assist anyone attempting to run BTB on anything other than Windows XP running on a PC.

The version 0.9 release does contain some updates to the 3rd-party HardwareId generation application so it will be more stable when generating the HardwareId number. This might help some users where the HardwareId number changes upon reboot or where removable drives are causing fluctuations.

Emails

Ironically, despite the lack of sales, I get many emails a day asking for free BTB/Track building help. This is something which I cannot personally answer in any kind of satisfactory detail. Please continue to use these forums as a primary resource of assistance.

And as usual ... please read the sticky threads. I do intend on updating these over time and the tutorial videos too, but I can't give a date on when that might happen.

Thanks,
Brendon.

 

[MaxVK]

Unfortunately I have to agree with those who have paid for a license and are being forced to use pirates just so they can use the program.

From reading this thread alone Brandon seems to have vanished, in other words he is not developing and not supporting the product any longer, which means those of us who have (stupidly it seems now) paid for the product are left high and dry, with a flawed licensing system and no support from an absent developer. These are the pitfalls of buying software from single developers who are not prepared to take the step into team developing for whatever reasons.

As far as I'm concerned I got my moneys-worth out of the program without issue. If Brandon has dropped it and we don't want to do that then the answer can only be pirated versions to get around the license problems. I paid for it in the first place and will not feel guilty about that.

Perhaps Brandon (if he can be contacted at all) would consider passing on (selling?) the source code so that the project can continue. If not, then BTB is dead in the water. If the source code is passed on then I would certainly be up for becoming a part of a development team.

Somehow I doubt that it will go that far which is a shame because it was great while it lasted.

Max

 

[catboy]

Unfortunately I have to agree with those who have paid for a license and are being forced to use pirates just so they can use the program.

From reading this thread alone Brandon seems to have vanished, in other words he is not developing and not supporting the product any longer, which means those of us who have (stupidly it seems now) paid for the product are left high and dry, with a flawed licensing system and no support from an absent developer. These are the pitfalls of buying software from single developers who are not prepared to take the step into team developing for whatever reasons.

As far as I'm concerned I got my moneys-worth out of the program without issue. If Brandon has dropped it and we don't want to do that then the answer can only be pirated versions to get around the license problems. I paid for it in the first place and will not feel guilty about that.

Perhaps Brandon (if he can be contacted at all) would consider passing on (selling?) the source code so that the project can continue. If not, then BTB is dead in the water. If the source code is passed on then I would certainly be up for becoming a part of a development team.

Somehow I doubt that it will go that far which is a shame because it was great while it lasted.

Max

I agree. I have the source code of the BTB, for personal use only. of course I will not say as I did

 

[Nedo]

I agree. I have the source code of the BTB, for personal use only. of course I will not say as I did

Folks,......... stop moaning, groaning and whining about BTB.
Its ok for rFactor, use it as long as you can! it still works.
But if you really like creating Tracks in the future, start learning with the proper Software,
THE Software the Developers work with, ..3dsmax is one of them, the Developers even give you
plugins for it.
BTB have cool features, ie: importing GPS data, but this is also possible with the latest
Software (plugins). Track building is not easy, its time consuming, alot of learning, there is
NOT one mouse-button-click solution, its an ongoing learning (see Shaders ie. Direct X3 to Direct X11)
Just thank Brendon for BTB, it was a great time, lots of fun!!
Now go on to the next challenge...

thank you

R
Nedo

 

[Emery]

Unfortunately I have to agree with those who have paid for a license and are being forced to use pirates just so they can use the program.

Wait a second... the licensing issue is completely under the user's control. It's not Brendon's fault that they ignore the recommendation to select a short license period. It's not Brendon's fault that they upgrade their computers without due consideration of the license period they've chosen. No one is FORCING a user to be a pirate; you also have the option of purchasing another license, which is still much cheaper than buying Max.

 

[Kyle Puttifer]

It's not Brendon's fault that they upgrade their computers without due consideration of the license period they've chosen.

I am forced to upgrade my computer (the whole PC) because without that soon it will not work at all (due to overheating problems and possibly age), and no 3D games can be played on it anymore, like rFactor. My licence ends in December anyway, so I'm not worried.

 

[Raido]

It's not Brendon's fault that they upgrade their computers

Yeah...

Right.

http://bit.ly/hpdTFP

 

[Emery]

Raido... you left off the second half of my statement: WITHOUT DUE CONSIDERATION OF THE LICENSE PERIOD THEY'VE CHOSEN.

The license period is totally under the control of the user. If they chose a long license period, then the user is responsible for the consequence of installing upgrades before the license period has lapsed.

 

[Lasercutter]

so if you've just chosen 6 months license as you've no intention of upgrading and the next day your graphics card goes pop, or your hard drive starts playing up, or something doesn't work properly so you have to update drivers then it is ok that you can't get a response to your emails or use the software you've paid for, total bollocks. I guess that unless it's happened to you then you won't care but it is a stupid system.

 

[chub_pearson]

so if you've just chosen 6 months license as you've no intention of upgrading

If you choose six months then you are taking six times the chance that something will go wrong than you do if you choose one month. If you choose one month then there's a fifty percent chance the most you'll have to wait is two weeks.

Renewing the license has never been any problem as far as I'm aware.

 

[Lasercutter]

and there is a chance you'll have to wait a month, it's a stupid system as it has no backup support, I'm not going to bother commenting any further as obviously those who have never experienced problems can see no wrong, but please remember your comments if it should ever happen to you.

 

[chub_pearson]

It's not that I can see no wrong with the licensing system. I was merely pointing out how you can mitigate it's effects.

 

[Raido]

Raido... you left off the second half of my statement: WITHOUT DUE CONSIDERATION OF THE LICENSE PERIOD THEY'VE CHOSEN.

Yes,... because it's irrelevant.

Sorry, that just doesn't fly; upgrading your personal hardware is none of the application coder's business - ever.

You don't tie your program to the OS or to the hardware. Period.
Apart from anything else, that's just *asking* for trouble.

The license period is totally under the control of the user.

No it's not. Because it's server-based. That automatically means it's partly out of your hands.
Servers die. Always. Sooner or later.

 

[Andre_1th]

No it's not. Because it's server-based. That automatically means it's partly out of your hands.
Servers die. Always. Sooner or later.

Basicly you are very true indeed, but there are very positive exceptions, maybe you know about LFS, Scawen started 8 years ago, created his game in the garage and is still providing complete support.

 

[Emery]

Yes,... because it's irrelevant.

Sorry, that just doesn't fly; upgrading your personal hardware is none of the application coder's business - ever.

You don't tie your program to the OS or to the hardware. Period.
Apart from anything else, that's just *asking* for trouble.



No it's not. Because it's server-based. That automatically means it's partly out of your hands.
Servers die. Always. Sooner or later.

So do companies and their supported products and the people that use them. Everything dies sooner or later. To what lengths are you expecting a one-man company to go? No, don't bother answering and I'll quit replying too since it's pointless to wish for something (a change in the BTB licensing) that isn't going to happen.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

So is it ok to sell a product and not support it, if you claim that you do?

 

[woodn]

If you go by when the domain for btb.net expires we have less than one year! When the BTB site goes down then what?

 

[chub_pearson]

If you go by when the domain for btb.net expires we have less than one year! When the BTB site goes down then what?

We're all going to die?

For goodness sake, all domain names are rented on a yearly or multi-yearly basis so obviously there's an expiry date. Do stop panicking.

 

[Raido]

Everything dies sooner or later. To what lengths are you expecting a one-man company to go? No, don't bother answering

Sorry, couldn't help myself

The point is that exactly *because* you'd know that nothing lasts (at least on the Internet...) as a user you should not be long-time dependent upon servers being up, and a one-man company to supply eternal support.

You should pay for the software, use it as long as you like and whenever you like (as per usual); hope for updates, maybe get some support for a while, but not get cut off from using the program you paid for *because* you paid for it. That's just absurd. Copyright protection gone awry is all dat dis is.

 

[woodn]

We're all going to die?

For goodness sake, all domain names are rented on a yearly or multi-yearly basis so obviously there's an expiry date. Do stop panicking.

Your right we will not die but your program as well as mine will die. I DO NOT, AND WILL NOT RECOMMEND BTB TO ANYONE for this reason only!!

My copy of rFactor is atleast 5 yrs old and it still works, Will I be able to use MY COPY BTB next week, next month, next year?? ONLY one person knows that answer!!!

I REPEAT TO ANYONE WANTING TO BUY BTB.... DON'T DO IT!!!!!

 

[Butters69]

A bit harsh woodn I mean $80 for a yearly subscription to creating your own tracks sounds pretty fair to me. If it weren't for BTB and the people on these forums I would never have got the opportunity to have a blat on something that I have created. In my opinion it is no different to going out and buying the latest COD or other game which gets rehashed and relabelled each year but this one allows me to create my own pieces of gameplay.