Storyline 2 pricing

I do understand software has a life cycle, just take a look a Photoshop or Illustrator there are about 18 versions of them, and it will be naive from me or anyone to expect new free content on software updates; the reason why I feel disappointed is because the features added in Storyline 2, I personally feel, are features there were supposed to be in Storyline 1 in the very first place.

Storyline 2 should had been called "Storyline 1 Extended Edition" and for something like $399 and I honestly think no one would have complained or made so much noise, and then in a couple of years release Storyline 2 with truly new and amazing features, and not features they have been in PowerPoint for like forever.

Don't get me wrong I do love Storyline and wouldn't use anything else, and despite glitches and missing content, I still remember thinking "WOW this software is awesome" the very first time I started using it. I was expecting the same wow feeling with Storyline 2 but I just feel disappointed.

Anyway, better finish this project and head over to the upgrade to Storyline 2 page.

Is Storyline 2 Stable Enough to Warrant the Update Price? Your Experience Appreciated.

Hi Forum Members-

I am at the end of my trial version of SL2 and am wondering if the upgrade is worth it. I've used SL1 and other Articulate products for several years. Like others in this forum (and my colleagues), we've experienced a lot of bugs and instability. Some fixed/some not over the years. And one that may have cost me a large recurring project. (Yet to see.)

In checking out SL2, I updated a recent file created in SL1 to SL2 when I opened it to see how conversions might go. There were several issues besides a few instances of text being skewed:

1. Built in player buttons (Prev/Next) sometimes take multiple clicks and waiting times to work. That won't work.

2. When I reached a certain point in the course and went back to a slide using PREV, that slide was not accessible.  I can see it in my menu, but when I click, nothing happens and using the Next/Prev buttons just skips over it.

I just stopped there. So, I'm not counting on updating any previous projects if I upgrade to SL2. I'll use that only for new projects. (BTW, the course works fiine in SL1.)

In reviewing many of the threads, there seem to be a lot of bug complaints still for SL2 in addition to the upgrade pricing.

Bottom line for me -- I'll pay for the new features even if some should have been in SL1 -- but is SL2 stable enough to be worth it? 

Just wondering how others who have used SL2 for a few months feel.

Any insight is helpful since I pay for this myself.

Hello Linda!

Hopeflly members will jump in with their personal experience.  I just wanted to share the comparison chart of SL1 and SL2 in case you need to see a full list of added features.

Thank you Emily. I have reviewed the comparison. There are certainly new features that I appreciate and can use (and could have used in SL1).

As I said, I've been using SL2 for a trial. My main concern is regarding the stability and bugs in SL2. I was burned badly (understatement) by bugs and a specific one in SL1. 

In a very simple analogy, I'd rather have a car that worked reliably with fewer wiz bangs than a car with the most wiz bangs that I couldn't rely on. 

I want to depend on my software tool to work without a lot of work arounds, bugs, or crashes.

We shall see.

Best regards,

Hi Linda, Your number one (below) sounds like the change that was made in navigation logic. The restricted navigation has a different logic in SL2 than in SL1. Restricted now means that the timeline has to end before the next button will be active. No triggers off set this. There is a workaround that was posted late last year. I have pm you as well.

1. Built in player buttons (Prev/Next) sometimes take multiple clicks and waiting times to work. That won't work.

Even the beta versions I tested for SL2 were very stable, and I have not yet to see SL2 crash on me, even with large projects.  In my opinion both versions are very stable.

Hello Linda. I can tell that you and I are looking at the SL2 upgrade through the same lens. I think what you are doing is wise and is in line with common risk assessment practices for companies looking at upgrade possibilities for software. Are the new features worth the upgrade price? Will these features increase productivity for my workers and add value for our customers? Is the software stable enough for general industry use (ie. will crashes and glitches cause lost man hours/work)? From a management perspective, all these questions are critical to the final decision to upgrade or not, so I will answer them as I have experience with both SL1 and SL2.

1. Are the new features worth the upgrade price? As you have said, you have looked through the new features and used the SL2 trial, so you are aware of what they are. In my experience, the new features are worth the upgrade. Greatly enhanced font rendering and tools, Player buttons can be hidden or disabled and are linked to trigger actions, Move animations with a good variety of paths, a good number of new animation effects, automated backups, customizable UI (ie. the tabs can be detached and moved to full screen, such as the Timeline), and more. SL2 is not just an upgrade from SL1, but has enough new features that most in the industry would consider to be a point release.

2. Will these features increase productivity for my workers and add value for our customers? I addressed some of this in #1, but the answer to this is also yes. The amount of additional customization, enhanced font rendering, and increased animations alone make it more appealing to customers assuming you have trainers that can take advantage of them. The enhanced UI layout is also more productive from a trainer standpoint, because I can detach the tabs. This alone is such a huge upgrade that it is worth it. Also, the automated backups are critical from a production standpoint. The ability to rollback to a saved state is very important.

3. Is the software stable enough for general industry use (ie. will crashes and glitches cause lost man hours/work)? From my experience, yes. I will caveat this by saying though that there have been some serious stability issues reported on these forums. However, nobody in my group has experienced any stability issues with SL2 of any kind. That is not to say that we have not experienced bugs here and there which have been reported and the Articulate staff has been very responsive in following up with us about them. We have experienced some minor glitches when upgrading projects from SL1 to SL2. All of these things were easily fixed by such things as manually moving text boxes back into place, for example. In no case did we experience an issue that would cause us to scrap an SL1 to SL2 conversion because in all cases, we were able to quickly resolve the issues that arose. I do think that Articulate could have put more effort into pretesting SL2 prior to release in more "use case" scenarios, but overall I think SL2 is a good release that is stable enough for industry use.

Thank you Julie, Bryan and David for taking time to answer. Your insights are greatly appreciated. . 

Any other feedback si still welcome. I have a few days left in my trial.

Best regards and have a great weekend.