.

umm.. yeah ive noticed people saying what merchants they buy this and that from - and id like to make a suggestion: in the interest of keeping this a constructive thread and not one long advertisement (and potential flamefest), can we keep merchant names out of it? because i see this deteriorating either into merchants getting into a huff over being included in some 'im not buying from them' category, or an opportunity for friends of merchants to shamelessly endorse their products.

nop sence ???? I think all that was meant is that we each tend to be biased to think other things are not as high quality as the things we particularly like to purchase. I don't like fetish gear. I don't care how high quality it is, it wastes my time to view it becuase I have zero interest in it. Does that mean fetish gear is junk? No. It means it is junk for me but only for me...no matter the price, no matter the quality, because I personally would never buy it. Does that mean I expect it to be taken off the marketplace? No, because most people here want it and get excited for each dental floss harness that is issued. That's fine. I skip past the dental floss and go on to something that really interests me. I don't expect everyone to share my tastes, and I don't think things that are not to my taste are automatically junk to other people just because I don't happen to like them. You also have to take into account the level of ability each person has. When I started with Poser, I bought light sets. Why? Because I didn't have a clue how to set up lights in my graphics. Now, I probably wouldn't buy a light set. For one thing, there are wonderful free light sets available and, for another, I can set up my own to my satisfaction (may not look like much of an improvement to someone else but I don't do graphics for other people). Same thing with textures and models. I don't do either so I buy them. If I ever got to a point of being able to do either, I would probably buy less. Oh well. I have a limit to my talent. I don't hurt you by buying what I need that is something you think is beneath you. It's just a matter of different tastes and different needs. It really isn't that hard to pick out what you want and skip the rest. I like having a variety to choose from. Perhaps Renderosity needs to do more testing, but it is hard to get consistency from volunteers. I would like everyone to have three views of their products (three real views, not three of the same thing) because often times it is hard to get a sense of what the product is from just one. But after that, it is buyer beware. Vote with your money. If a vendor doesn't sell, I doubt if they will continue on the marketplace.

There's a large difference between "junk" and things you don't like and will never use.

Mesh_Magick, dont take it to hart m8, i think you raised some good issues, i only hope it does not get pushed under the table like most things here...let,s not turne this in to a bitch fight people, let,s try to talk it through, like adults..

Well spoken and great advice that I will take heed too.

Ok maybe calling it junk and crap is too strong a word for it. Im going to start browseing by merchants for now on, At least from those I buy from and trust.

umm, no - im not 'quality biased' against items that i dont buy. theres a lot of very well done stuff out there - was just looking at a car model that looks amazing for under $20, theres a wicked mech model, etc. i wouldnt normally use this type of thing in my renders, but i recognise the top notch quality and im considering buying them. what you make has nothing to do with quality. i could model something as simple as a high-res wine glass, set it up with morphs and excellent material settings, and i am positive i could market it based on its top notch quality. however, there are a lot of things in the store where its evident that people didnt put much time or consideration into, aside from an attempt to make a quick buck. "You also have to take into account the level of ability each person has. When I started with Poser, I bought light sets. Why? Because I didn't have a clue how to set up lights in my graphics. Now, I probably wouldn't buy a light set. For one thing, there are wonderful free light sets available and, for another, I can set up my own to my satisfaction (may not look like much of an improvement to someone else but I don't do graphics for other people). Same thing with textures and models. I don't do either so I buy them. If I ever got to a point of being able to do either, I would probably buy less. Oh well. I have a limit to my talent. I don't hurt you by buying what I need that is something you think is beneath you. " i agree. i would still buy a light set, however, if it were sufficiently complex enough and priced so that it would be valuable to me by saving my time. if it would take me 4 hours to put together just some of the light sets i need, then the $5 or 10 it costs in the store is worth it to me. but thats how i started out. i would create things for myself - my light sets, tattoos, textures, etc were just things that i had made for my own use and had been using for months. when people started commenting and saying that i should sell them, i finally did and they sold very successfully. btw - i dont just think that freestuff should be used as an 'initiation' for merchants before they get into the MP, but also as a continuing thing as a gift to customers. im working on several new things to put in freestuff actually (but need to find some place to host them), and i always update my older products even though it doesnt make me any money to do so - just as a gift to those that bought them. cheers, -gabriel

pooka i dont think anyone is referring to the types of items in the marketplace here, but the quality and value level of some of them. even though i may not buy military vehicles, i still recognise that yours and kurokumas are an asset to the marketplace because of their quality. 'junk' would be if you had put them together in a few hours from poser primitives and textured them with solid material settings. it has nothing to do with the item, but the way its put together and priced.

"however, there are a lot of things in the store where its evident that people didnt put much time or consideration into, aside from an attempt to make a quick buck." Much true, Gabe. I've stopped with a loose jaw and stared a few times. I wouldn't go so far as to call it junk, mostly in an attempt to be diplomatic, but I have wondered "Why??" a few times. Especially with, as JoeyAristophanes pointed out, texture products that had very obvious seams visible in the promos. My quibble with the discussion was that it seemed as though everything not a certain style was junk, just to clarify my stance here.

Crosspost! giggle I was referring more to the vehemence used in posts that are now missing from the thread. Like Koshini and her accessories being "crap." Not liking them doesn't make them "junk."

it's AMATEUR, not amature

Wasn't there a website that wrote very detailed, impartial critiques of Poser-related software being offered here and at Daz? Now that was a GREAT idea! I think what Renderosity needs is a full-time "critic" to help wade through the morass in the marketplace -- just as a film critic wades through the large number of bad movies that come out every year. No doubt such a critic will be insulted, despised and accused of favoritism, just like real film critics are. But the bottom line is that this critic would ultimately steer buyers toward the really good stuff and away from the bad stuff. I've noticed in the past that if you say ANYTHING even remotely critical of anybody's wares, then they come down on you with swords drawn. But there is a lot of garbage in the marketplace and I've been burned a few times. Recently somebody posted a picture of a "work-in-progress" in the Product Showcase forum, asking for comments. I sent a message providing a link to a competing similar product, with the idea that the merchant's work-in-progress might benefit from seeing what's already there, and possibly do better (it was my subtle way of saying that the work-in-progress wasn't all that great, in my opinion). Immediately some bonehead came down on me for doing this, complaining that I wasn't being nice or playing fair. I guess you're supposed to be all "ga-ga" over each new thing posted, even though it might look like crap. Being supportive is sweet, and it's saintly to be all warm and friendly in the regular Poser forum when a newbie posts an art image and asks for opinions and help. But when somebody is trying to get into my wallet in the Marketplace, then I'd like to have the freedom to be critical. I'd like to see the Product Showcase forum be less of a love-fest and more of a gauuntlet for potential merchants, so that their wares are truly ready for prime time when they go on sale. I'd also like to see a real, live critic give fair, honest, detailed opinions of what ultimately goes up for sale in the MP. Now THAT would really shake everything up overnight! -jjsemp

Question for the court here... Are the promos in the Product Showcase already copyrighted? Since you are showing items in a reproducable form does that constitute copyright? It seems like the item is not yet finished. What if someone has an earth-shattering idea that will be sort of out of the bag, so to speak, if they promo (not saying I do have such an idea). I always wonder about someone elso doing a "rip off" of something they see in the PC. I have heard that it is difficult to protect form. And from what I have seen it would be possible for someone to go hey that's a great idea and make their own pack or product. I know this happens in brick and mortar business all the time, so I suppose that is just healthy capitalist funtion.

I know of course that promos are good things and that the general spirit here is one of great generosity.

About lower quality items. We have to be very careful here. I imagine that modelers and texture makers that make our great film animation works these days would look at EVERY item sold here and at DAZ as>.... well you know where I'm going. We have to face the facts, Poser is a low end program we can all afford and it cannot model. Anything outside the scope of the primitives has to be modeled by someone. We can't make motion picture level stuff at all.
There is fantastic stuff out there though, and the people that need it are going to have to buy it if they can't make it. So we should allow anyone to sell their stuff as always. If renderosity can host it all, then it should be there.

I don't know for sure why my time looking at peoples stuff I don't want to buy should be enough reason to say they can't give it a try. Usually I can see from the product images what the deal is with the item.

Renderosity recommends all of the good suggestions of previous posters as far as looking at other products and free stuff and charge correct prices, and so forth.

Now as far as someone advertising a product that does not live up to their claims, that is a different story. However we all know of a certain product that did not live up to claims when it first came out. Now it works very well. How do we as customers get refunds from merchants when this happens? From what I can see we may not be able to. I may be wrong on that though. Doea Rosity have a return policy?

That's "gauntlet," not "gauuntlet." Sorry about the typo. -jjsemp

I don't think merchants should restrict themselves to only things that will have a lot of sales. That might limit the marketplace to just sexy, scanty outfits. There's nothing wrong with trying to appeal to a small audience that is underserved. In fact, it might open up whole new markets and new areas of interest. I suspect that Mike textures don't sell anywhere near as well as Vicki textures. What would happen if everyone stopped selling Mike textures because the market isn't that big? We'd have even more NVIATWS pictures. I do agree, personally, that there are items in the MP that don't seem very professionally done, but there's also items by new merchants who are just starting out and haven't achieved all the skill of some of the old-time professionals. If the new merchant has something at a good price that saves me time, I might buy it even if it isn't the most breath-taking, awe inspiring item I've ever seen in my life. I factor the cost, time to duplicate, flexibility, and overall quality together in my purchasing decisions. I don't base my purchases solely on who has contributed freebies first. Some merchants are actually a group of people and the freebies might be under individual accounts. Some people have contributed with forum help, others with tutorials, etc., so just going by freebies doesn't mean much. On the other hand, having a few freebies can tilt the balance between me buying and turning away MP items. If the really poor quality stuff is ignored, the "guilty" merchants will either improve or get the hint and leave, clearing out the marketplace. That's how I see it, anyway. Cres

You know there is a community wishing well? You should have saved your self sometime.............. Here, I'll even give you a quater..... Ive made my wish lets see if it comes true.........

There's 1,200 merchants here? (See fStop's comment, #40) Whoa, I had no idea. So I guess there's maybe ... 4,000 items here? I think RDNA has about 20 merchant shops on its web-site. Well, if that's the case, there's a couple of practical things to consider: 1) I agree that Rendo definitely needs to tighten up its quality control for new items. Customers can't wade through that amount of stuff meaningfully as it is, so why add purely crappy things? You'd think Rendo would adapt this just as a matter of hardware survival. 2) Rendo also needs to improve its product database, again so people can locate something among the thousands of items. As others have observed, Rendo's search capabilities are just crude. Frankly, I've had the impression that Rendo's database was never meant to handle this kind of commercial application -- you can't even sort a subcategory by price. But 1,200 merchants here? Really?

Well, it's partly a matter of attitude. There are heroes like Koz who produce first-rate stuff and give it away because they care about the community. And there are prats who spend 30 minutes twiddling dials and then try to flog the result to some gullible punter to make a buck or two. I do get a laugh sometimes when browsing the marketplace and see some of the ludicrous things offered, sometimes at quite high prices. On the other hand, some of the products are of very high quality, and I respect that, whether it is an item I'm interested in or not. My suggestion would simply be to list the number of purchases of each item in the same way that the number of downloads in freestuff is logged. That way, if anyone tries to sell junk, they will have to contend with the humiliation of seeing their low sales figures displayed. I don't see any increase in the percentage of junk items lately, though - it's been pretty constant IMO.

Does anyone here know if v3's head will replace Mikes head for mike 3, Mike 3 is said to have been uv mapped to fit v3 textures......

I find that like with most things, the cream rises. You can generally spot good work from the thumbnails, but there are times that I've noticed an item that looked cool and wondered how on earth I missed it. I browse the new items everyday, and if I'm not paying good attention, I can overlook somthing I should have added to the wishlist. There's a lot of products to sift through, and not all of them are great, but everyone has to start somewhere. A new modeller could blossom into a better creator given time, but if they're squelched early on, they may get discouraged and give up. The comic book industry suffers from this in the form of the only major distributor, Diamond. To be listed in thier catalog, you must submit a finished book and be approved to be included. If you don't pass the scrutiny, you don't get to sell your book through the major channels (I know this, because I've published my own comic twice, and it was carried both times, but waiting on the thumbs up or down was kind of nerve-wracking). If an Internet marketplace has unlimited space, then there should be room for all. I'd rather have too much to dig through then not enough. -Jeff

"I think what Renderosity needs is a full-time "critic" to help wade through the morass in the marketplace -- just as a film critic wades through the large number of bad movies that come out every year." umno. renderosity is so fucking cliquish (just look at the hot20) that i shudder to think how full of corruption such a system would be were it to exist. think the hot20 is bad? well - imagine what it would be like with money at stake. "But 1,200 merchants here? Really? " almost. 1107 right now. thats up from under 400 just a year and a bit ago. both a good and bad thing, IMHO. cheers, -gabriel

That might limit the marketplace to just sexy, scanty outfits You mean, it isn't? :)

I think what Renderosity needs is a full-time "critic" to help wade through the morass in the marketplace -- just as a film critic wades through the large number of bad movies that come out every year.

Ummm ... to put it mildly, that wouldn't work.

What happens if the critic decides they don't like an item in the RMP? Then the merchant will accuse Renderosity of trying to damage their sales.

If the critic likes something and someone purchases the item based on the review but doesn't like it, then Renderosity will be accused of lying to get more sales.

Accusations will fly back and forth on favoritism, being hated by the staff, etc., when one product is reviewed before another.

And if Renderosity reviews items off-site, then any negative reviews would be seen as attempts to hurt competitors.

There's a reason that Consumers' Guide relies on subscriptions as their only source of revneue. Otherwise they can't help but have a vested interest in pumping (or softening reviews for) certain products.

Cheers!

I must say about all of this if an item truelly is as Mesh said "crap..hastily thrown together to make a buck" then they won't make a buck will they?It is not Renderosity's problem to decide on the merchantability of a product, just the workablilty. This kind of attitude toward new merchants is one of the many reasons why I will not ever sell anything here..

one thing i agree is that renderosity definitly would ened a more accurate/advanced search tool both for commercial and free stuff... but that also imply reediting all the free and commercial contributions to add the required database parameters :( often i look for something with a key word and it give me out totally irrelevant things, but not an item with that keyword exactly :(

I've bought a couple items in the Marketplace (non-figure/clothing-type textures packs) that were a waste of the couple bucks I paid for them, but also some things that were very good. There also seems to be a awful lot of people selling stuff these days. Maybe it is the lure of making an easy buck, but to tell the truth, it isn't all the easy to make real money out of Poser stuff, I aught to know, I do it for a living. Maybe they all got layed off from their day jobs, or something. Anyway, while I would love it if all the new guys quit selling stuff they can't really make any money on (and do Free Stuff instead), so people would have that much more money to buy MY stuff, I don't expect that to happen, it is a free country last time I checked. The store itself does all it can, they actually have pretty high standards for new items (however, the "old" stuff never had to meet them, and some never would have, either). Let me suggest this, though- if you buy items of no use to you, complain to the merchant, complain to the store, don't do like I did and just write it off as a learning experence and "gotta remember not to buy from them ever again".

You know what? In the end, the MP is just the same as Freestuff - It piles up higher and higher, and there will be good, bad and indifferent stuff all mixed up together. A year ago, DAZ made a smart move. They went through every item on the site and jerked the crap, explaining to the merchants involved that non-selling items were putting customers off visiting DAZ because they couldn't find what they wanted in amongst all the junk. (DAZ didn't put it quite as crudely as that, but that was about the size of it). So unless Rosity institutes some kind of annual clean-up, the situation isn't going to improve. I'd be against a critic, but I would be in favor of an annual review of what sells and what doesn't. Set a minimum limit based on some kind of average, and cut out the dead wood below that figure. I mean, if you sold 6 copies of your $5 light set in a year, can you really expect it to stay up? mac PS Jim - I keep hearing about these 'easy bucks'. Do YOU know how to go about making them? LOL.

btw when i hear about market place, i always fear that aside from 3d modeler artists there is no room for anything else.. maybe photo realistic veryhigh res textures... also (i may push people a bit too harsh but it is my way of speaking to shake people on a sensible matter): if there are so many junks, why not forbid/prevent new memebrs to post on the marketplace and only leave regular merchants contributing ? (oki i know it sounds awful and against any kind of freedom.. but i like to highlight excessive and extreme poitn of view, just to see how far all we can go... dont think i share the ideas i write :)

They went through every item on the site and jerked the crap If that's true, they made some really odd choices. For example, they jettisoned a morph/texture package for the M1 clothing called "Radical" that had some truly cool work in it: useful clothing morphs, fun texture styling. I still don't understand why that got taken down, and I'd bet there are a bunch of other products that got shoved off that shouldn't have been.

Well, it used to be easier than it is now, never was really all that easy, though! When I used to be in this store there was some talk about cutting out items that hardly ever sold, or moving them to another place, but many of the other merchants were against it. Might have been good for the customer's though- who is going to wade thru 50 pages of similar items? Only things that sell are at the front of the lists. The first rule of selling here is "always have new stuff, as people don't see your old" ;-)

Items that haven't been purchased in a while are put in the Warehouse and set at a permanent discount. Eventually they're completely retired. I'll ask about the improved search engine. We've had a lot of people ask about that in general. I know that sometimes it can be a bit hard for the merchants to categorized their stuff and some just pick whatever they think will get more hits, regardless of appropriateness. (I don't know if a system is in place to cut down on this yet.) Cheers!

I don't think you can go by lack of sales. There's a lot of quality goods that were purchased when they first came out but aren't being bought much now-- sometimes because you can barely find them-- Sharkey's gear, for instance, has been all but swallowed up in the much less imaginative slew of fetish ware that we've been flooded with. ame with Bat's Cleric Outfit-- It's innovative and incredible, but covers up a lot of vicki3 and I'll bet doesnt' sell well. There seems to be an far of judging by quality. Heck, I cansee thick bulging models without fine detail-- why can't Rosity. Some of this stuff I wouldn't even download for FS. And believe me when I say I would buy just about anything. Love CryptoPooka's military stuff-- I'll get around to tank-girl yet.:) Texture always seems to get the short end-- good texture is invaluable. Fine detailing and each change in texture a real change not some diddling with the hue slider in PhotoShop-- that really maddens me. 3DCommune is sorting through their merchants and lightening their load. According to what I hear, they want to concentrate on quality. They must think it can be done. Rdna made the announcement that they were concentrating on quality many months back- and you know what, I buy nearly everything they put out, because they stand behind it and it is as good as they say it is. If renderosity can't do this, it has to be because they have made a choice not to go for quality. Emily

Oh...yes, Queri! That Cleric Outfit from Bat is WONDERFUL!!! As for why there are so many merchants, I don't think they think they can make a killing. I think it's mainly for pin money so they can purchase other Poser stuff. :)

Queri that is so true. There are gems hidden in there. The problem is they're buried, and therefore aren't seen and don't sell. Renderosity really needs to rethink how things are laid out.

i liked the way the old hot sellers was laid out. when you clicked on it, it took you through the top selling products of all time here, in their order of sales. now, when you click top sellers, its only RECENT top sellers. which isnt all bad, but there should be an option to also sort it as top sellers from day 1.

{{{{{Here and other places you can't go lower than 5 dollars, even if you want to unless you are invited to do textures for one of the clubs (Platinum Club, ProClub at PoserPros, RDNA Real Deals).- LaurieA}}}} Hi LaurieA :) I wanted to correct one small thing in what you said, if it is ok :) Our lowest price on PoserPros is 3.50 ordinarily. For the ProClub it is true, we do allow folks to set prices to 2.49. I am not sure what the others are all about, but the reason our "club" of developers is invitation only at this time is strictly for quality control reasons, so that we can ensure that the quality of things developed for this area are top notch :)

Well, if anybody gets this far down, here is my beef - some things in the marketplace are just BAD product - defective - don't work - don't render peoperly etc - I'm not talking about artistic preference at all - just technical quality. I have bought several such things, and I have always done the right thing by contacting the merchant, etc. The problem is most of the time, I get a polite email from the author saying "sorry, and update will come" yadda yadda. But the update never comes - and now, because I waited so patiently, I can no longer get a refund - but the item is STILL being sold to unsuspecting people who may not spot the problem untill they install and check the thing maybe weeks later. I think this is just WRONG and I want to at least WARN others that this product has a defect, but if I make such a comment (even if it is valid and made with sensitivity), the author simply does not show my comment on the product. While I don't want people to get flamed unnecessarily, I think that if an author has the right surpress negative comments, it MUST be subject to the approval of some independent person. If the comment is VALID it should be posted even if the author does not want it. This simple system would at least discourage some people from putting up things that they surely know is crap, and allow the rest of us the ability to at least trust the comments that we read by knowing that valid negative comments have not been surpressed. As it stands, knowing that authors can surpress any comment they wish, diminishes the value of the other comments to me.

"Hi LaurieA :) I wanted to correct one small thing in what you said, if it is ok :) Our lowest price on PoserPros is 3.50 ordinarily. For the ProClub it is true, we do allow folks to set prices to 2.49. I am not sure what the others are all about, but the reason our "club" of developers is invitation only at this time is strictly for quality control reasons, so that we can ensure that the quality of things developed for this area are top notch :)" I understand completely about the ProClub policy Mehndi :o). Daz does the same and I think the whole RDNA site runs that way. It does ensure that quality is as good as it can get. And I WASN'T aware that you can go as low as 3.50 at PP. That's good to know :o)! Laurie

Not everyone has Cable or DSL, So browsing all those pages can be slow and time consuming.

Crescent wrote: "Ummm ... to put it mildly, that wouldn't work. What happens if the critic decides they don't like an item in the RMP? Then the merchant will accuse Renderosity of trying to damage their sales. If the critic likes something and someone purchases the item based on the review but doesn't like it, then Renderosity will be accused of lying to get more sales. Accusations will fly back and forth on favoritism, being hated by the staff, etc., when one product is reviewed before another. And if Renderosity reviews items off-site, then any negative reviews would be seen as attempts to hurt competitors. There's a reason that Consumers' Guide relies on subscriptions as their only source of revneue. Otherwise they can't help but have a vested interest in pumping (or softening reviews for) certain products." My response: To put it not-so-mildly but bluntly, I think it would work just fine. As I mentioned in my original post, of course a critic will incite a lot of anger, name calling, and cries of conspiracy or favoritism... ...just like REAL film, literary, theater, and art critics already do. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. Newspapers, magazines and TV hire critics all the time. We hate them, but we love them. It'd be no different here. And I don't think any blame will land on Renderosity. Computer magazines which are full of ads to sell things hire reviewers to review software all the time. Why can't Renderosity? Personally, I'd like a real intelligent, opinionated critic or two to help wade through the garbage and warn us of the pitfalls in the marketplace. Maybe somebody will start a web site totally unrelated to Renderosity that will take on the task of impartially and fairly commenting on some of the stuff in the MP (I still think one already exists but I can't for the life of me remember the name of it -- anybody able to help here?). --jjsemp

What I love are all the non 3d related items sold there. I still half expect to open the marketplace and find someone's rear left tire from their AMC Javilin for sale. What I am disappointed about is the lack of quality on some products and the lack of QA time. I can understand unforseen things happening ie an American product put on a French machine and it can't find directories etc. but having .bum files referenced or textures simply not found is out of line. Worst yet are clothes items that don't have the vertices welded. That's a huge pet peeve. Boy that Vicky suit looks great IF I DON'T BEND HER! But I've also see bad things from DAZ as well. One suit had a head band attached to the right collar instead of the head. I had to go into 3d studio and fix this myself or I'd have a fantom head band floating around every time I'd bend the figure. Also another pet peeve is lack of optimizing. Having meshes so vert heavy that they kill a 2 gig ram machine is unacceptable expecially if its an item like a belt or shoes or some such inocuous thing. Also having non character items being characters instead of props is a pain. A necklace should not be a conforming character if it does not bend. Earings should not be conforming characters. Same with bracelets. I have a wrist watch sitting in one of my articulated prop character dirs I will probably never use cause its a character; for a watch! Now if Poser had a way to filter the characters on its pick list so it could only show the root figures instead of every clothes item then things would be easier. And what is with the constant focus on the same things over and over again. Talk about market saturation. How many skin texture sets does the market need? I would imagine 4 or 5 good ones would cover 90% of the requirements but every other day there's a new "Brandy" or "Mindy" or "Bambi" or "Babette" character with "super high res textures made from real human skin!". Why would someone think they are going to make money introducing yet another skin texture and compete with the other 50 or so sets for sale and the other sets for free. Hey here's an idea. How about an overlay makeup pack for P5 material nodes. Now that would be useful. Some set of BW nodes that do an add or multiply and you can set their colors for blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow etc instead of having 12 face textures mixed and matched on sheets. Great way to give any p5 Vickie figure make up without munging the original texture to do it. The material nodes have tons of possibilities from bruise overlays to tattoos to cuts/scratches/ to sweat... all without duplicating someone else while providing a unique item for sale.

well i have a 56k right now and yes it can be long and tedious to look within either rmp or freestuff... but it can GREATLY be improved by a more accurate/complex search engine i think

As a buyer, I tend to look for things that are off the beaten path. I don't agree that one should not make an item that may have a version in free stuff. And that such an item is unsellable, because the two lamps in free stuff may not be what I am specifically looking for to match my vision that the sold one is. There are plenty of free ships out there, but that didn't stop me from buying one, because it fit the vision better or it's useful due to it's material breakdown. For me, shopping consists of what items I can use in the most images, regardless of the artist, though I give greater weight to purchases by merchants who I know are good at what they do when deciding, but if it's something that will do the job, I'll buy from a new artist just as quickly.

To me, the following would be useful:

1> Full feedback (good or bad) posted unless the feedback is of a malicious and/or incorrect nature. How can the buyer know if what he's buying is good if all that the merchant displays is good reviews and no bad? If the merchant is any good, the product feedback should display that. At the very least, it would give a heads up on what to expect that may not be in the promo images.

2> If it's a model, the material/vertex breakdown would be very helpful as one of the promo screens. The reason for this is that products that can be broken down into individual parts which may have further uses (for instance, the wheel from Poserworld's ship and the Rigging from Pauli's were combined to get the look that I wanted). Such a breakdown (along with the polygon count) would help in knowing if products do so. I bought an item where I was told the items inside were movable and I took that to mean that they were separate props like the Great Hall by Daz, but in reality, they were all one prop and moving the items (grouping them) was a nightmare.

3> The improved search engine would be good too...

I look at the What's New everyday and honestly, I don't see the big backlog that you all are claiming. Even after being gone more than a week, it took about 20 minutes to catch up to see if there was anything I was interested in. No, I don't look at everything, because I'm not interested in everything, but what I am has always been easy to find if it's there at all.

I just wish there was more stand alone objects (models that have numerous purposes) and sets that are not designed for one render, but they seem to be harder and harder to find in the Marketplace.

ShadowWind

Attached Link: http://www.critical-depth.net

I do agree that all comments, negative and positive, should be posted under products, as long as the comments are relevant of course. Otherwise the feedback to me is rather useless.

I agree about the comments; that's one of my pet peeves. You can't comment unless you've bought the item in question, and it seems to me that in that case, you've also bought the right to complain. If there's an exceptionally, unnecessarily nasty comment, then I'm OK with the merchant being able to appeal to an admin to have it removed, but in general negative comments should go up as well. Have a little faith in your customer base. I think most of us are intelligent enough to ignore comments of "ur ting sux. It dozn work." buried among dozens of glowing reviews. It would also be nice if we could edit the comments we've made. So, you know, if we have a bad day and go off half-cocked and leave a bad review and then realize that we didn't RTFM or if we have a problem that the merchant then fixes, we can change the review to reflect that.

I can only say is breathe deeply and browse TurboSquid for a while. Things could be much, much worse.