@Dartanbeck

I'm going to respond to a few things. I mean no offence.

Quote - Carrara 8.5, like I've mentioned before, is truly the best Carrara to date.

Huh? The main reason for the "upgrade" is Genesis integration and it doesn't really work properly. Autofit doesn't really work and the CMS issue is a big problem.

Quote - Carrara 8.5 sold more copies than any other version to date. DAZ 3D pricing is very low.

This doesn't sound right at all. C8.5 has sold more copies than C7 or C8? Not likely, if you look at the state of the forums. I remember the release of C7 & C8 and the forums were abuzz with activity and people trying to learn the new features. Plenty of threads with renders, etc.

All I see now are a bunch of posts of people who can't find their content or to get autofit to work or whatever, and I'm not seeing nearly as many of these as you'd expect if sales to new users were so good.

When Daz told us about the upgrade, we were told it would be a nominal priced upgrade. $85 at the low end is NOT nominal. Especially for software that doesn't work right.

Quote - When the new forums came on line, many of us didn't even want to post it was so freaking anti-DAZ 3D. A little here and there is one thing. But these folks deserve much better than that.

When the new forums came online, people weren't anti-Daz, they were anti messed up forums. They were anti messed up marketplace. They were anti-security problems (for awhile, I would login and the Daz site would think my name was Jim or Bob or whoever). People were upset that we moved from a site that worked well (albeit with a few problems) to one that didn't work AT ALL. Then when it was obvious to everyone that the site was borked,(even Dazzers, who had spent time trying to convince everyone that the site was the best thing ever),rather than revert to the old site, they soldiered on with a site where nothing could be found, purchases couldn't be made, and forums that couldn't be used. THEN it became obvious they hadn't paid whatever company they bought their lemon of a website from for additional tech support to help them fix the disaster. No one was anti-Daz. They were anti-stupidity.

Quote - At a time when the whole country felt an enormous financial hit, and we would all have to put our 3d hobby endeavors on hold, DAZ 3D comes up with the incredibly cool idea of giving away three, beautiful software packages, a wealth of starter gear

This had less to do with the financial hit (which professional artists had been "hit" by years before the rest of the planet) than it did with the desire to sell content. They give away the software and you'll buy the content. Even at $2 here or there from casual users, that starts to add up to big money. Plus, If you get a few hardcore fans out of it and one or 2 professionals to add the software to their workflows, you've done well.

Quote - I was not aware that you were going to add an entirely unreasonable list of demands that, personally, I hope do not get implemented.

Doc Bernie's list was not of "Demands" but of wishes. Things he'd like to see implemented. He asked us to join in and add to his list. Some of the things on his list are not important to me. MY main wishes are they would fix what was broken in earlier vesrions of Carrara,and get us full Genesis compatibility (plus no CMS).

Quote - Carrara's render engines, the photorealistic engine specifically, is one of my favorite aspects of Carrara. I love it.

I love it too. I also love the Batch render feature.

So Dartan, I mean no disrespect to you and I don't believe anyone else here does either. Please accept my comments in the spirit in which they were given.

Best of luck!