Thanks for your feedback derKThga. We are still in the process of refining our move to a Maintenance model and we're doing our best to communicate that change to customers, both old and new. In every purchase and upgrade option in our online store we have made clear that 1 year of Maintenance is included. Perhaps we can do a better job of explaining exactly what that means in the context of Terragen. It's a very widely-used industry standard term, and it means the same for Terragen as it does everywhere else, but we'll look at improving the language we use to be more clear to those less familiar with the concept.
You originally purchased Terragen 3 with Maintenance, about 8 months before the actual release of Terragen 4. Had we been using our previous model of "all 3.x updates included", you actually wouldn't have gotten Terragen 4 at all because major version updates were not included in the old update approach. For $100 more (which was optional) you got a year of Maintenance from the time of your purchase including an upgrade to Terragen 4, which is now a $299 upgrade from TG3 for those without maintenance. We also offered you a refund on the maintenance price, as well as an extension of the maintenance for an additional 6 months. We've really tried our best to make things right in this situation.
I don't really understand your comments about the release being "beta". We had a public beta period which helped us finalize the software, but we released the "gold" (final) version on September 5th and sent the final download and key files to all purchasers of TG4 and TG3 with Maintenance. Terragen 4 is no longer in beta. All major software releases have bugs and we're working to correct those that are coming up, and so far I'm glad to say it has not been any buggier than previous major release of Terragen, despite the addition of some major new features including the real-time preview and a whole new cloud shading model. One of those major new changes was the implementation of a new ray tracing engine that dramatically speeds up the render time of many scenes, as demonstrated on a variety of scenes in our render time comparison here:
http://planetside.co.uk/whats-new-in-terragen-4/#tg4-faster-rendering.
Since the introduction of Terragen 2, all major version updates have been based on the previous version, with a similar UI and basic functionality, and significant features added onto that base. That is the model of a majority of the software industry as well (3DS Max, Maya, Zbrush, Mudbox, Photoshop, and many more), and it ensures a smooth upgrade path for users used to the existing system, as well as allowing us to focus our development time on the important new features.
You do not need to login to see what the pricing for upgrades is, only for you to be able to actually access the upgrade. Pricing is always laid out clearly and in full on our Price List page. You can find the current version here:
http://planetside.co.uk/terragen-price-list/I hope that addresses your concerns.
- Oshyan