Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12357&Form.ShowMessage=2542408

There is a post in the Community Forum where some people are saying that they like the changes. I posted a link to this thread in there so that they can see what the rest of us are saying. Also here is the reply I got in email yesterday when I wrote in:

Quote - First off let me say Linda, we as admin do read as much of the forums as we can but certainly we can't read them all as there are approx 2 million forum posts and 60 different forums. Being as something like this is a big change and there are lots of threads in a lot of different forums we asked the moderators to keep tabs on the threads in their specific area and to note to the members that have suggestions, opinions, etc that they want seen by the admin to come to this email address so that we can be sure as to not miss them. We appreciate all the opinions, suggestions, etc that have been received and will be reviewing them all for possible changes to accomodate as many members views as possible. Thank you, Stacey Community Manager

No comment other than than being the Devil's lawyer and I know I'll get privately scolded for this one before hand..yet I'll say it! Amazing how positive feedback started to spring around the moment USA and admins woke up! It was all the other way round before sunshine hit over there! hehehehehe! Cheers guy and let's get it into our skins! Like it or not this baby will stay and they couldn't care less of what we say! Rolling up sleeves to find out all about it as this will be it regardless of what! Another fact of life! :( Rena

"We are receiving lots and lots of positive feedback through IM's, emails, phone calls and forum posts and we realize that not everyone will love it at first (and maybe never) but we are going to try and do our best so that the majority feels good about the change. " funny... there's always hordes of this praise when a change is made... but none of it in the forums. can anyone else smell bovine excrement?

hey, what the heck ????? I've posted twice in this thread and in this window I don't see either post (the second was a repost of the first because I didn't see it)...but now, in ANOTHER window, my second post is here in this thread, but it STILL doesn't show in this window, even when I refresh...I even deleted my cache...looks around warily for Rod Serling

I've read the posts advocating patience, and I guess you have a point. Still, in the real world when a store is renovating they put up "pardon our dust" signs. I guess a lot of the confusion is due to the "here's our new baby, don't you just love him" signs. That kind of indicates that the renovation is complete. On the other hand, this is a hobby for me, I thought it was a business for the RMP, surely the same rules don't apply.

Well checked that link and looks like a lot of complaints to me. The fact that only a few people are vocal in the forums means nothing.I talk with a lot of people behind the scenes and have my own site where peeps send me pm's all the time about issues like this.No one likes the store and when I told them there are quotes here from some admin that its not finished yet the answer usually is unanimous that they should have had it ready before uploading or that they should have someone dedicated just to this project so it can be done speedily and with as little distraction to the members as possible. Rosity is an enormous site and essentially its an outlet of Bondware that reflects what you can expect if you buy into the Bondware package.Its kinda like putting the cloth for a teddy bear in a display window and then once in a great while adding a little something to it like cutting a shape,adding some stuffing,etc...until finally after three or four months you finally have a completed teddy bear in the window for sale.Its backwards thinking in other words as even if some people would be interested in seeing the process develop,they have little patience for a prolonged undertaking and will simply stop looking when they see no progress~they simply lose interest. In advertising,keeping the company in the spotlight is essential when they're introducing change.If you fail to do that or they run into unexpected problems,you then stop the advertising because it becomes like a false promise.Consumers are very unforgiving of products that don't meet the expectations promised which is why I made fun of the "Introducing our new baby" promo by saying it has birth defects...it sets an expectation that the store is finished and so it is judged by what you see.A better promo would be something like "The NEW Renderosity Store~Under Construction"...maybe then follow with a take on the Six Million Dollar Man by saying you intend it to be faster,stronger than before,you wanted a better store~the Renderosity Marketplace will be that store. Sorry,my former job occupation coming back on me with the ad pov but still,it was a very poor way to promote the store when its still a fetus and not being in here hammering people with facts like its not done yet or telling people what the store "will have" when its finished...keep hammering away so as to alleviate consumer misgivings and help ease the transition.The foible with the store right now should have their maximum attention as it could be an economic fiasco if finishing it up takes too long.There are simply too many other sites to compete with right now and a site as big as rosity does not have the luxury of time smaller sites have as it allows the competition to lure away both their valued merchants and buyers.

Ahhhh, yes.....we needed for yet another thread to be started up on this subject. The ones that existed already weren't enough to do the job.

I've stated my opinion elsewhere. Rather than re-write what I've already said, I'll just do a quick 'n dirty cut & paste job (besides which, I just love quoting myself):

*Two years from now, Rendo might decide to change the store format again.

I can't wait to see what'll be said about the subject then. I wish that I'd saved a copy of the old threads which sprang up at the time of the last Marketplace changeover. You could have substituted those old threads for this one. And nobody would notice the difference.

And yet here we are being told just how WONDERFUL the "old" Marketplace was -- even though it wasn't actually very old at all. And a lot of people had expressed outright HATRED for it at the time when it first assumed that particular form.........

Ah, well.....the more things change, the more that they stay the same.*

aah yes.... we needed for yet another condesending post from Xenophonz. The ones that existed already weren't enough to do the job. ;)

aah yes.... we needed for yet another condesending post from Xenophonz. The ones that existed already weren't enough to do the job.

Hit a sore spot, did I?

;)

not at all old chap. just observing your being your normal self thats all... feel free to condesend some more. not that you need the permission of course.. you'll do it anyway... ;)

OK, here's my two cents ... From a design standpoint, it is a LOT cleaner on the eyes. Having all of those categories and links on the home page of the store in its previous incarnation was a real eyesore. So as far as the layout goes, it's a vast improvement. BUT ... the common practice is to design the entire new site on a separate server, and do it so that all you have to do is "flip the switch" and have a big surprise for your visitors the next day. That makes the changes as seamless as possible. But it also runs into problems because you aren't really able to test it completely until it goes live. As others have said, give 'em time to work out the bugs. It sure is a lot easier on the eyes this way!

Thanks for the heads-up Rena, I won't touch my product until things get fixed. My 2nd page promo pic is at the top of the page now (??) and I've got table errors too.

Hasn't been a good week, with DAZ Studio's latest update crashing every other minute...guess I'm going to try learning the ZBrush 2 demo in the meantime. :)

SnowS edit: nooo, they confirmed in the linked thread that you won't be able to change store page colors. There goes the little hope I had of getting used to this. :(

Message edited on: 01/17/2006 11:32

@ Khai --

Oh, well, I could engage in this sort of personal tit-for-tat all day ---

But I'd rather discuss the facts of the case here. Not personalities.

However, you are right on one score at lease: I don't need your permission to do so.

;)

BTW - I note that you have in no way responded to the substance of what I had to say. Rather, you have merely expressed your personal animus.

Keep it up. Who knows? Perhaps the posts will be deleted, or the thread itself locked/deleted.

[Edited to add "@ Khai" -- just to personalize it.]

:)

Message edited on: 01/17/2006 11:34

shock there was substance? I thought you were merely being condesending and superior and not contributing at all in general... reviews your first post in this thread yup exactly what I thought.. carry on old chap. good to see your consistant :)

@ Khai --
dramatic eye roll

You are correct once again. This level of 'discussion' won't accomplish much. But -- seeing as how you've insisted on engaging in it......I'll leave you to it. You do it so well.

---

As for the subject at hand:

I would like to see prices added back to the wishlist. That's sort of a no-brainer, IMO.

Xeno,there are more than one thread on this simply because some are spread out in different forums and some people just simply want to put in their two cents seperately so their comments at the top and won't get lost in the replys to follow. As for copying and pasting from the last time rosity made a marketplace change...if they made the same mistakes then of course the complaints will be the same~thats called common sense.What isn't common sense is "knowing" you'll get the same complaints and not thinking ahead to find a way of doing things to avoid it.Its kinda like when a murderer escapes justice and kills again,you'll hear the same complaints raised and possibly even louder the second time if the same thing happens again.You don't want killers repeatedly released you raise your voice...you don't want to deal with these changes over and over at rosity,you again raise your voice as thats the only thing you can do. Read what Deecey had to say as thats exactly what should have been done.They didn't even need to put this on a new server,all they needed to do was create a new database on this one not linking to it until it was ready and swapping out when there's little traffic to see how the changes look.

@Armorbeast --

Once the good folks at Rendo have a little time to get some feedback (as from these multiple threads), and then have a little time to make some tweaks -- I have faith that it'll all work out in the end.

If nothing else: people will simply get used to doing things in a new & different way -- and move on into "business as usual" mode.

shrug It's always worked out that way before. As in with the last (then-hated) Marketplace alteration.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/index.ez?viewStory=12891

K, gonna link to this 1 more time, and even quote what's in it. I know, there are things missing, but they *are* in the works to be converted. " There will be a few items that will not make the initial conversion. They will be converted quickly after the initial conversion. # Product Reviews. # "Customers who bought this item also bought" listing." It was posted last week, and linked to in the Newsletter. As well, Admin sent out an email with a link to the linked article, which held a coupon, good for before the conversion. In hindsight, it could have been clearer that shopping carts would empty upon conversion. " We would like to offer everyone a extremely special coupon to purchase the items that may still be in your "Shopping Cart". Please click here to find out how you can save money and get those products you've been waiting to purchase. If you are unable to purchase those items before January 16th, but still want to keep a record of what you want to purchase, you may add those items to your "Wish List". Everyone's "Wish List" will be converted to the new BCS MarketPlace." At this time, the store is the only part of the site that has been converted. In order to convert the whole site at once, we'd have to shut the site down for more than 24 hours. In order to minimize the inconvenience and the loss of information, it is being done in parts. MorriganShadow Poser Moderator

At this time, the store is the only part of the site that has been converted. In order to convert the whole site at once, we'd have to shut the site down for more than 24 hours. In order to minimize the inconvenience and the loss of information, it is being done in parts. I can't even imagine the work involved to revise a site of this magnitude. My sympathies! LOL

i have no problem with the upgrade to php, in fact ive been eagerly awaiting it. what i object to is the renderosity members, customers and merchants being used as guinea pigs. this isnt a personal homepage, or a nonprofit community service website. its an online community and marketplace. there shouldnt be a week of 'tweaking' - all this should have been done already on a separate, parallel machine and the final code should have been launched without these errors. the code that is in place now wouldnt even qualify as an alpha build, let alone a beta or RC.

personally i feel if it aint broke dont fix it. nough said........ also "new and improved aint always , new or improved" i come back to shop in a few months when i can geta page to load in less than an hour........ Rita

.

Well that answers one thing as they're definately planning on redoing the whole site.But it also reveals a bit of falsehood in regard to this issue as by doing it in parts,they can certainly do it on a different server or another database to get it developed correctly and then make the change.They don't have to construct each segment individually...in fact,doing it this way makes it look like its taking much longer so people will be less forgiving. If it took up to 24 hours to propogate a change like that then shut down pieces of the site for that time...people are forgiving of that.Doing it this way makes it look like you don't know what you're doing,it causes confusion and it creates conflict that could have been avoided with foresight. To be honest Morrigan,I don't read much of the newsletter because it tends to be a bit dry and any mention of coupons I scan right over cause the rosity coupon discounts simply do not interest me...you have to make a purchase of a certain amount and have a short timeframe to use it so when I finally do get some cash to spend the coupons no longer valid.As Xeno alluded to with his comments regarding the repeated posts,he's noticed because he probably surfs all the forums...most don't and no matter where you post you should know in advance a lot of people probably won't see it or it will be the same ones because they surf multiple forums here. I don't like DAZ which by now everyone should know,but their site is far easier to navigate and when they make changes like this they have learned (in most cases) to put the info up in bold text wherever the most customer traffic is...they don't bury it in a forum thread or simply rely on their newsletter when a lot of peeps may not be subscribed or may not read it if they are.They have a much more fluid site when you surf looking for products and although they also have issues,they do take steps to correct them.Here its clear a lot of people are having problems...the DAZ answer would be discounts and reperations of some kind~here its keep pointing out that members should have known and more or less its your fault for not knowing.This from someone who hates DAZ and likes Renderosity so you know it burns my goat having to say they're better than you in any way.

I hear where you're coming from Armorbeast, but I was trying to get out there that we did at least try to notify community members of the change, the coupon code, and that stuff in your cart wouldn't be in your cart after the changeover. If you decide to delete your newsletter or emails from here, we can't do anything about it on our end ;) sorry, spelt your s/n wrong!

Message edited on: 01/17/2006 12:43

We would like to offer everyone a extremely special coupon to purchase the items that may still be in your "Shopping Cart".

That would be nothing, since it seems people's shopping cart contents were lost in the move. :-D

Are they really switching to PHP? Does this mean no more Bondware? Or is Bondware switching to PHP?

People were complaining that Bondware was out of the Jurassic age. Maybe this will be a good thing. Eventually.

Or maybe we should file this under "be careful what you wish for..."

Attached Link: http://www.bondware.com

randy, The coupon was offered *before* the migration. Bondware did design the new code. Bondware is a company, not just software ;)

im much too busy to read every newsletter or forum post, i only stumbled upon this one by accident. listen, im happy about the change - php is a good thing for all of us. im not prone to posting the typical poser forum knee-jerk 'the sky is falling' type posts, and thats not why i posted here. im just displeased about how it was implemented. many of these issues should have been ironed out before it went live. if within a couple of days all of the bugs are fixed and we all have at least what we had before the change, ill be one very happy camper.

I missed a coupon? How did I miss a coupon? All the other "special offers" have come through just fine.

Jeez. I coulda gotten As Shahim's new hair before the changeover. I'm scairt to use the MP now.

I probably won't be buying anything for a couple of weeks anyway -- so I figure that all of the kinks should be out of the system by then. ;)

But if there was something that I wanted badly -- I wouldn't hesitate to purchase it now.

Things are slowly changing back over. The wishlist changes appear to have been implimented, along with items on sale. It may take a few days, but I'm sure the fixes will be added. Randy, did you get the last newsletter? It was in there. The coupon has since expired, though, so it's not really of any use. I believe it was 10% off of $10+.

I think a lot of the coupons didn't get into the mail ...

Problem there Xeno is if there are bugs then that purchase you make could become more of a headache than its worth.What if you make a purchase that doesn't go through on their end correctly even if it says it does?You go look in your cart to download and its not there?You make a complaint and they say we have no record of a purchase?That could happen anyway but the potential is vastly increased now because its basically a work in progress...they simply cannot be on the ball with everything because with php there are so many more variables.I know because my site is php based and its a real pita.I wish we had gone with simple html as thats still a viable platform and when the simplest thing goes wrong with php you can lose everything or be down for days.Php does have strengths but overall the weaknesses are a real bitch to deal with.

It's THERE guys..phew!!! Don't let that dreadful account list of orders scare you any longer! LOL Just click on the link above it that says "Item List" Purchases show the good old fashioned way we're all familiar with...with links to product, price, vendor name, store item number, download links, search function and all the goodies we know so well!!! DOUBLE phew!!! :) Rena

"The wishlist changes appear to have been implimented..." Very good, MS!! :)

'Just click on the link above it that says "Item List" Purchases show the good old fashioned way we're all familiar with...with links to product, price, vendor name, store item number, download links, search function and all the goodies we know so well!!! DOUBLE phew!!! :) Rena' I discovered that it sorts by date too if you click on the column header! ;0)

Message edited on: 01/17/2006 13:45

I've also found the goood old fashion way of displaying our past purchases. Don't let that account screen orders scare you off! Just click on top to the link "Item List". All is there the way we know it! DOUBLE phew!! :) Rena

"funny... there's always hordes of this praise when a change is made... but none of it in the forums." (secondary admin names) 400,000 members (joined, not ever revisited. lost usernames. many joined in the 90's) allways around 2000 ppl online 24/7 (preset counter minimum, advertiseing price advantage) We hate kiddy porn- remove all faries, we hate pornography, reomve all nudity, we hate your politics, remove the OT forum, we hate your closeness with each other, you might organize, remove the Pub........ect "funny... there's always hordes of this praise when a change is made... but none of it in the forums."

is it faster than before?

"I've also found the goood old fashion way of displaying our past purchases.
Don't let that account screen orders scare you off!
Just click on top to the link "Item List".
All is there the way we know it! DOUBLE phew!! :)

Rena"

It sorts by date order too if you click on the relevant header. ;0)

Message edited on: 01/17/2006 13:48

Overall, it looks good to me -- although I'd like to see a "wishlist" button included at the top of the page. Often it's handy to be able to jump back and forth from the wishlist to the cart.

I'd also like to see the old "move to wishlist" option put back into the cart. Saves a lot of unnecessary clicking.

Ok...if you're finding these then how come there's no progress updates from the admin;P

Because we like to see ya squirm ;) There will be an announcement when all extras (meaning not necessary for the store to go) are implimented ;) MS

Attached Link: RMP Problem Resolution progress

There IS progress guys.. there's even an update story running live! :) Check it out! :) Rena

A few nit-picks: 1) Where do you get the "400,000" number? Is this the number of members? If so, out of that number, how many are active? How many actually used the site more than once? How many read messages in the forums? I bet the number is significantly less. 2) As it is, there was no call for imput, no glimpse at an alpha, no warning it was coming and no "letter to our faithful members" explaining the implementation cycle and goals. This is how Renderosity always works: they make a change and then adjust things based on users' complaints. Remember the big drama a few years ago when they changed the look of the site? Did they beta-test? Did they ask members for feeback before it went live? Did they do any kind of "user impact" study before putting the new pages in place? Not at all. Instead, people were stuck with a "mud" color scheme that was hated by most people. So why should this "upgrade" be any different? --John

Hey...HEY...don't post that here Rena,more fun to squirm and squeal here in the mud with everyone else;P

Oh come on guys! If I'VE LEARNT to live with it within a day and hundreads of personal complaints..I guess the rest will too! LOL

Rena - thanks for the link to what is being fixed. I don't yet see anything to re-implement the old "updated products" list though. That was especially useful to me for when I can't be online all the time (gasp!) and may miss a notification of an update. I used to go check that list because not all vendors notify you via email or IM.

And Hawkfyre (Tom), in case you're still reading all the hooplah....tosses a big beefeater steak tomato with direct aim.....some of us are trying to give helpful feedback to aid in getting the new MP running smoothly.

So sheesh right back at ya babe! :P

~arry ;)

The prices in the list of purchased items in the user account contain the actual price, and not the sale price if that was the case, i bought an item for $5 and the list says the price was $6.50.
I know we can check the Order number details (it would be nice if this was clickable too, btw), but still this is a bit misleading.

Has search been fixed yet???I came here to buy something yesterday and did a general search to see what was available and no matter what I put into the search criteria it drew up only one page.Thats how I got sucked into this trying to find out what gives and whats with all the bugs.

Well.....speaking for myself (it's always best to speak for yourself) -- I want EVERYTHING fixed ! Like I want it to be fixed ! Not Right Now, man -- LAST WEEK!

They should all be strung up! That's what I say!

(Just one man's opinion)

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I'll check back in a bit. Perhaps it'll all fall out to my satisfaction sometime in the next 30 minutes or so. It had BETTER be -- or else.........