The future (and past) of Reaktor

Some threads have people asking the question: Should Reaktor 4 been released at all?
Well, yes.
And no, of course not.
But most threads have people reporting bugs, or giving up on the software, because of the bugs.

Most people but a few aren't happy at all with Reaktor 4, me, I'm not on either end of the scale (even though I tip towards the unsatisfied end of it), but I do wish the release of R4 had been delayed much further, perhaps as much as a couple of months.
Now more and more people wants the same thing, but let's go back in time a few months, let's look at how things were then.
Remember? We had people screaming for the release of R4, how NI kept delaying it all the time, how deadline after deadline was superseeded.
People wanted Reaktor 4 and people wanted it NOW!
NI came and tried to calme things down when the jump from 3.0 to 3.5 was cancelled and 4.0 would be released instead, but it didn't seem to help, heck, some even threatened with legal actions against NI.

So what did NI do? Well, for one they caved in and gave us Reaktor 4. Later than expected, but it's here.
And does it perform well for most people? Not really. It's still a pretty much unfinished product.
Some complain about being beta-testers for a software they purchased, but hey, we all demanded the release
of Reaktor 4 (or else...). Remember?
We pretty much got what we asked for. I think it's important to remember this when we, in retrospect, write all
these messages about how it shouldn't have been released in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a "See? I told you so" post, but hardly anyone can disagree that NI was
cornered by dissatisfied customers who demanded a release.
And we got it for free. Zero. Zilch. Nada. As long as you were a registered Reaktor 3 user, you didn't pay a single dime for Reaktor 4. Forget about all the cool ensembles that we missed unless we paid for it, we still got the software for free.
Anyone who knows anything about programming and being a software house, knows how much software development costs.
Heck, these people are living of coding software. I don't think they have any other income but selling software (and the 4 Control unit, books and t-shirts), still they chose to give away the Reaktor 4 update and Pro-53 update for free.
No matter how you think of it, that's pretty generous, no one can deny that. I'd love to see Micro$oft give away Office 2003 for free to anyone who purchased Office XP. Exactly, in your dreams.

But how satisfied were people when it was released? Well, first we mumbled how it was about time, then we complained about the slow web site (since about two billion users tried to download it all at once), then we complained about how long time it took to get the registration email, then we complained about the ridiculous authorization system. Then we were actually ok for about a day or two, before we started to complain about the bugs.
I can almost picture NI employee's saying it: Will these people ever be satisifed?
The short answer is: of course not!

So what is my point here? Well, the point is that after all, Ni is to blame for all of this, but the blame is lack of communication, not poorly written code. If NI at any stage didn't promise to have the update ready by this date or that date, the expectation wouldn't be so high and the strong demand for a release wouldn't be there. And instead of communicating with the community and just say: "Frankly, Reaktor 4 isn't ready for release yet, there are still bugs to be sorted out. Expect a release in perhaps two months, if not longer", we wouldn't all sit here with a product that should never have left the beta stage.

Yes, I know there are people out there who's happy with it, I also know they don't experience all the bugs some do, but does that really help? Does that really help all of those who simply can't use it because they are experiencing too many bugs for it to be usable at all?
No. Naturally not. And before someone does, don't come round calling people for computer illiterates because they don't get their software to work. Some of us work with computers and mainframes all day long and know very well most there is to know about computers and software, way beyond the Windows and Mac threshold. Unfortunately that's of no help when we experience bugs which cannot be corrected in a logical way, without reprogramming and debugging software.

There are also people who claim NI just care about releasing and selling new products and thus this focus eliminates the importance of releasing bug free products. To those I have only one thing to say: How many NI products besides Reaktor 4 do you own? I own Pro-53 and FM7 in addition. I have NEVER experienced a crash in either of those two. They are as stable as an atomic clock, standalone and VST.
This doesn't mean Reaktor 4 is badly coded, it simply means Reaktor 4 is an immensely complicated software in comparison.

So the bottom line (and to finish this already very long post) and question we all should ask is:
Should Reaktor 4 be released at all?
No, but we demanded it, and here's what we got.

 

Nah, it should've been released. Works great for me. I know that doesn't help you, but I don't think NI should've held onto it because it doesn't work for some while others can do a lot with it.

 

Keep in mind that the people who are satisfied with it have no reason to be posting. I suspect most people who don't have a problem with it (me being one of them) don't even read the complaint threads because we feel we have nothing to contribute to a post that doesn't relate to us, so you won't see posts in those threads saying "hey, it works great for me, I love it" too often because no one wants to make the users who're having problems feel even more frustrated --- as you yourself pointed out, saying that does no one any good. My point is that if you just look at the threads on this forum as a gauge of end-user satisfaction, you're looking at a negatively-biased sample. It could easily be the case that the number of satisfied users far outway the number of disatisfied users, but you'll never know it by looking on this forum (and even if you did know it, it really wouldn't change anything).

I see no reason why it should have been delayed - for upgraders - if you aren't happy with it, keep using R3. For people buying the software new, I can understand the frustration.

- CL

 

I agree - I'm thrilled they released it and, while I see that there are some kinks to work out, Reaktor 4 is a wonderful upgrade that works well for me. However, NI could improve its communication with customers - it would serve them and us well.

 

OR

many many more people who are having extreme problems just haven't posted anything either thinking "there's already a thousand people screaming about bugs, what good is it for me to join in on the screaming?"

(which happens to be me and a few others I know)

I would bet that the number of unsatisfied users outweighs the satisfied on this release...

 

I doubt that personally. People on forums are just alot more prone to bitch about things. Thats just the nature of the forums. Its like the general rule of thumb that if you get a bad shopping experience someplace you are going to feel like a pud and are going to tell as many people as possible that they should never buy anything there. Just like i tell people whenever i get the chance that they should never ever get msn as an isp because they ripped me off so blantantly by signing up for an account i didnt request and billing me for seven months worth that i didnt even know about so i never even signed on or even had the software to do it. And when i called the the charges were "legitimate" have a nice day. Whereas most people who are satisfied with the software are less likely to post because
1. They are more busy using the software
2. They dont like coming here cause whats the point if they cant learn anything about the software on this forum since it has gotten so political.
3. Forum posting can be a waste of time really and people who just spent some x amount of dollars on a software that doesnt work are going to be fuming and will take the time whereas satisfied people dont want to put forth the effort and i dont blame them. and i dont blame the bitchers either really some people have the right to feel frustrated.

 

i agree with you in general. but...

i know 3 other owners of Reaktor 4 that are unable to use it due to bugs AND dont use this forum at all. i really do feel that the R4 release is as bad as is gets bug wise. opinion, that's all.