OptimusBain

The writing has been on the wall for quite a while, so nothing surprising here. IPS could have definitely handled this more gracefully, but it is what it is. What I find disappointing are two main things:
- The cloud pricing is extremely crude, based only on online users, which in itself is poorly defined metric. Can we block bad bots in the cloud? can we reduce the crawling rate for the good bots? Why no more flexible options instead of one monthly peak bumping your pricing for the entire month? Ability to stop the community instead of going automatically on a higher plan? Why not being able to remove apps to lower pricing instead of getting full package even for users who do not need it? And so on...
- The performance of IPS community here is definitely nothing to write home about. My self hosted community feels snappier, even if I am using heavier theme, more apps and I am not super optimized and speed obsessed either. As an advertising for improved cloud performance, this community here does not do very good job. Right now it sounds like "Pay more to get less".
Maybe IPS and @Jordan Invision can initiate a broader discussion regarding the cloud, so we do not hijack the Zapier thread. 

I've been with you since the days of Ikonboard, so you I love you. However, I'm starting to grow concerned after reading that IPS have made a specific, conscious decision to start restricting features (albeit with the first) to cloud-hosted SAAS customers. It's perhaps akin the to the controversial Marketplace changes. As a multi-license customer, I'm saddened that there is a visible "It's our way, or the highway" style approach that seems to be increasing these days.
This statement feels like it could be the start of a paradigm shift, and if so, one that I'm concerned is edging gradually towards a pretty slippery slope. I'm concerned that a moment of realisation will inevitably follow such a shift, where more of the latest, long awaited or most requested features could no longer be available to self-hosted clients.
I realise with SAAS you have more or even total overall control of the environment which is good from a support perspective, and it's been stated that if you could have a do-over with today's tech, SAAS would be the way to go from the outset.
SAAS certainly has its benefits, to both sides of the provider/customer fence, don't get me wrong, but I still find the cloud-hosted IPS on offer here (which as your main showcase, it should be super slick, speedier than The Flash using a bathroom and instantly responsive), to be more sluggish and generally slower than many self-hosted sites I come across; even though I'm using a 40Mbps fibre connection (thanks rip off, overselling BT, I'm still paying for that 80Mbps Infinity 2 connection, you know... yeah, that's right, you hear me!).
And then there's this risk, it does happen...

On the way to the point where more features are restricted, how many restricted features will it take before self-hosted clients begin to feel like they are getting the light version or feel less valued. The software is expensive (aside from a couple of the recurring add-ons which a fairly priced), self-hosted clients money is of course just as good as that of SAAS clients, and after all, wasn't it the self-hosted user base that helped get IPS to where it is today? So I would ask IPS to at least consider this approach and also, if you propose removing lesser used large features from products (like Commerce) that's fine but please don't forget to reduce the price accordingly.
Thanks for listening.

We most likely won't use Zapier, but I really look forward to THIS reaching self-hosted customers!   Its the only barrier for us to upgrade from 4.4.x to 4.5+!

Agreed! Crippled software for faithful customers who prefer to self host...

This is a bit of a slap in the face to self hosted clients. Nothing to celebrate here. 👎

That's awesome indeed!
I'm unsure about the meaning of this sentence "available for Cloud and Enterprise Community customers exclusively". 
Arent the vast majority of ipb license holders non cloud or enterprise customers?  

Adriano gets points, badges and ranks for it.

Earning points is cool, but the only thing a member can earn is "Badges"?

Members Shop is the perfect gamification plugin, because it offers 'abilities' to the members, ways to spend their points. 

-Pin a Topic (For set amount of days)
-Change Member Title
-"Purchase" an item in the Downloads section with points
- So much more.


In my Downloads, I have made custom desktop and mobile wallpapers that can be purchased with points. I also offer custom made profile photos, cover photos and signature banners. I plan on offering more soon.

This has been working out great on my forum. People love earning enough points to collect them all. Thank god that @Adriano Faria has taken over Members Shop. Hopefully it will continue to grow. If there was a way to use the Points earned from the IPS Achievements, but then use them with the features Members Shop has to offer, this would be a great method of utilizing both systems. 

 

Would love to see a feature added to detect bounced emails and stop sending emails to those users. After moving to Invision, a number of old users ended up generating thousands of bounce notifications when they (somehow) got subscribed to emails they didn't get on our old platform

Saw title. Thought to myself "oh wow, they finally put in attachments!". Read post. Shook head sadly.

This sounds great and I love the suggestions as well.  It would be MUCH easier to manage our newsletter from right in Invision where all of our members reside, then have to rely on a whole separate system for sign up and what not.

This all looks great! Looking forward to the new release.

Is it possible to limit which groups receive email advertising?
We sell subscriptions that give people ad-free browsing of the site, and I'd like to exclude this group from receiving ads via email.

I am not going to pay them for that either!! 🙂

Maybe I'm just a crusty old dinosaur, but I don't get this war against BBCode being waged everywhere. Just because something is old doesn't mean it doesn't work, and BBCode "just works". It's especially useful in posting prewritten text to include formatting. It's a much larger pain in the backside to use the post editor to do that.

There is no publicly available estimated release date for 4.5 yet, no.

I am not going to pay them for that either!! 🙂

I am not going to pay them for that either!! 🙂

I am not going to pay them for that either!! 🙂

This sounded great until I read you have to pay Apple for the privilege of being able to make use of it!
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot? 🤨
Still, nice addition to 4.5, IPS!

The next clubs blog should make you very happy. 🙂