Regular Updates and problems

[SyntaxLAMP]

I have an idea that might help the success of cPGS overall. First of all, the only reason I chose cPanel over Plesk or any other control panel option, was that I heard cPanel had a great game server management system. However, there are some problems with the system that are making me want to reconsider and change panels.

First, the cPGS is finicky. I understand that it is constantly under development and issues arise. However, the issues that do arise seemingly don't get fixed or aren't changed until the next update. There are autoupdate and other issues that dont' get changed until the next release. There have been several large problems in the past that are not fixed for several weeks.

The cPGS finickyness is oh-so readily seen in everyday use. A customer learns how to use cPGS and able to understand it and use it (most of the time pretty server-illiterate), and then the next release everything changes. I am constantly band-aided cPGS and trying to stretch it and make it work for all customers.

Don't get me wrong, cPGS is a GREAT control panel for game servers. It really is and Darren is excellent and quickly responding to support tickets and helping. The only problem is, I could send 10 support tickets per day. But, I know that wouldn't do much good because although one of my servers would be helped, I have lots of servers that would need that change or fix implemented as well as the rest of the GS community.

I realize that cPGS is free and complaining is not a good idea, I just want cPanel to know that if they want to continue developing cPGS, they need to realize that people depend on it. I depend on it on an every second basis. It needs to be always working. I'm not sure if what I'm proposing means hiring more people to help Darren in terms of GETTING SOME MORE GAMES ADDED and helping fix bugs, and maybe even releasing a patch or software update EVERY WEEK so that the bugs are worked out. Right now it seems the updates come every few months and the update ecompasses TOO MUCH and then the errors are abundant and usually another update has to be released in the coming weeks to counteract some of the bugs from the last release.

As a developer myself I know constant updates are a necessity. If you fix to much at one time, there are LOTS of bugs. As seen with cPGS.

I'm not saying I'm closing my cPanel licenses, by any means, I just have these grievances with cPGS that I would like addressed. Countless times cPanel has said that cPGS is a free solution and is basically promotion to get users to choose cPanel over competitors. It worked on me a few years ago, and I'm still here. It's a great option. But, it is super unreliable. I've had great success with it, and would hate to see it closed down. But, I really wish it would be more reliable and have updates and not have so many bugs and problems. Whenever I setup a server I think I have a 15% change of something going wrong. This being a permissions issue, or some bug stopping it from starting, or the SOFTWARE BEING OUT-OF-DATE.

Maybe even making this program cost a little a month, maybe a 1 user license for $4.99/mo or something would suffice. Anything to get a little extra so that there can be someone that answers the tickets, someone who packages updates consistently, someone who answers forum questions and adds games, etc. There needs to be more active involvement or I think cPGS is always going to be like this. I'm starting to get to a point where I can not justify with my customers the downtime or problems they experience. There are other control panel options out there that are very reliable and well-built and updated. Having a control panel with, sorry to say it, not a lot of thrills, and having it always go down, is not justifiable.

I'm sorry to rag on cPGS like this, Darren, you're the greatest developer I've met, but I really think cPanel needs to set up their game.

[darren]

Thanks for the honest feedback Syntaxlamp. My only real option to take to address your concerns is to quit listening to clients and just stick with my own development schedule to get cPGS out of BETA status asap. I know I won't be able to make everyone happy all the time, nor do I expect cPGS to be the one-stop solution for all GSPs or web hosters that want to "casually" offer game servers. Adding more games means more maintenance time and less core development time. To have major updates with less bugs almost requires me to not release anything until 1.0, I don't have a QA department available to me for this so bugs are not to be unexpected. I release these BETA builds to get feedback from clients about what direction they want to see it go, not for folks to run commercially. At the same time I know that some do, so I try to keep it at least usable, but as anyone can attest, the interface is pretty ugly, especially WHM. I've tried to keep the frontend as unchanged as possible to not make clients freak out at the unknown, I thought had done a pretty good job of that.
We likely won't see new devs pulled into the project until/unless it turns some sort of profit, which would probably require some sort of fee, and we surely can't charge for it in it's current state. So the best I can offer right now is that I will try my best to perhaps make more releases with smaller changes and hopefully less bugs between versions; sometimes a change just has to be huge however so please don't tar and feather me if I don't start releasing every two weeks