So I had Poser 12 and was quite happy with it.  Yesterday afternoon, I try boot it up to do some work, and surprise, surprise my "Lease" was finished because Poser changed hands and the licensing server was no longer active.    So if I was going to continue with my hobby, I had to pay the $100 "blood money" to continue with 13.   I paid it, but I'm not at all happy about it.   In order to qualify for the "upgrade", I had to put in my previous serial, which I did.   But this only proves that the previous serials are still located somewhere, and could be accommodated should the Poser team deem it acceptable.   This was basically a FORCED UPGRADE.    Basically pay up or shove off.    

This doesn't exactly engender feelings of goodwill in the community.   Want to have a more loyal user base?   Dump the licensing server nonsense and never go to a subscription model.   If I buy Poser, I should OWN it, not lease it.    I have some more to say about all of this, but none of it is complimentary and may violate the terms of this forum, so you can pretty much guess.    

Oh, and upgrade L'Femme and L'Homme with more morphs.  Several morph packages are needed.   Those figures simply can't compete with the G series from DAZ, and need a ton of upgrades to be viable.   Even the venerable old M4 and V4 are more versatile.   How is Poser supposed to compete with DS if the G series figs (DS only) utterly dominate the space?   Check your own marketplace if you don't think that they do.

So there's my Tough Love for you all.  Have fun!

My copy of Poser 12 still launches, at what point do you think your 'Lease' expired?

Are you talking about Poser 12 or Poser Pro 2012? Because Poser 12 is owned by the same people who own Poser 13 and are still selling it.  If it is Poser 12, then contact support at support.posersoftware.com. You may also get your money back for Poser 13 if you want. You'll have to ask about that.

Poser 12 just needs to periodically contact the license server to renew the lease. Just let poser go on the internet. You don't need to buy a new version. All Poser 12 license are perpetual.

Open a support ticket and we will fix this for you. https://support.posersoftware.com

This is a side effect of the weekly Licence renew in Poser since it is at "renderosity" not even a optional offline activation as they also removed that one, either users run off and probably many get the notification that poser expired and just go in silence, good customers get pissed off, with the assumption that it is a lease and do not want to invest any further. A confusion is created with this system. I guess that already just the idea of that call home system caused allot of users to run off. Same happen when SM did it the first time there they lost a big majority of users right at launch !  

This is a side effect of the weekly Licence renew in Poser since it is at "renderosity" not even a optional offline activation as they also removed that one, either users run off and probably many get the notification that poser expired and just go in silence, good customers get pissed off, with the assumption that it is a lease and do not want to invest any further. A confusion is created with this system. I guess that already just the idea of that call home system caused allot of users to run off. Same happen when SM did it the first time there they lost a big majority of users right at launch !  

It is a little wrong thinking, It just punishing the loyal members and main purpose is to control the financial aspect with these activation methods. There is no security activation that could not be hacked, even Microsoft win gets unlocked and other big industries with allot more capabilities. so the purpose is sure not prevention, it is just a excuse.

Poser 12 and 13 were out without any call home the same day of release so where is the prevention ? Customers will buy it any way if they want it, same thing with assets ! But the way it is constipated atm with that weekly call home is rather causing damage then any good, one activation would be enough but not dependent on a connection. So witch version will the customers prefer ?  SM ended up offering Permanent activations, why ? Renderosity made it even worse with a weekly call home , if you are online then every day the license gets replaced on your system. But if you have a good firewall well then it might not get through. 

Have you ever asked your self why Poser as rare exception is causing the firewall asking for a setting on first boot ?  Think of it ! and ask your self how many of your other programs cause the firewall to boot on the first run to set it up !? 

Yes I buy poser13 like quiet some other users because there is a alternative in case they take down that activation server. What happen with SM was a lesson for sure and will never happen again , that is the point where I stop spending money ! as for these Plugins for Poser 12 and 13 I am not even thinking about buying one of these exactly because of that aggressive privacy invading call home system, so where is the gain?  ( I Don't even look at these Py and Plugins exactly because of the fact that I know that they Invade my Privacy) 

The only poser I ever skipped was Poser12 but just because it never came out of pre-release. It would of been considerate because there is a rescue plan. Would there be no rescue plan then well , they can keep it and I use other software or the older versions. but at the end if I like it, Need It and have a rescue plan then I buy it ! 

You know this may not be the place to mention this, but as I read this thread I realized why I stopped upgrading Poser. Poser in its various permutations has been my "Go To" 3D program for decades ... that started to fade at Poser 11. I realized this was not because I had lost interest in the program in general, it was because the Poser developers seemed more interested in accessorizing it's products proprietary figures than it did about adding features I as an artist would find useful. Now that all seems moot with Daz Studio being available cost free. I'm still forced to make use (of a never ending stream) of new base figures, but at least these figures have a superior quality. I actually may not have been paying attention all this time and the Poser figures may only be intended to be "average" figure bases used in industrial images and the like. Dunno but I've never been able to squeeze a convincing character out of L'Femme and L'Homme. It may just be me, I'm a known slacker, but that doesn't keep me from feeling a little disappointed about the general state of Poser. 

I hated the deactivation feature when it was introduced and particularly the underhand way that it was introduced along with Game Dev,  Nothing as changed much and I still do not like the phone home procedure but, begrudgingly, I have to admit that so far it has never caused me a problem.  Once it was introduced I had two choices really, stop using Poser or accept the new feature as one of those bug bears in life that I cannot change and stop worrying until it actually become an issue.

Many years on I am still using Poser which still has the procedure I do not like but then there are so many things in life that I just have to accept.  Sure I could get upset and after buying Poser 13 I could have spent weeks looking under the hood to try and see if there is anything else I do not like and then start bleating about Poser 13 being unusable.  Surprisingly I took and option that seems alien to some, I tried using it and discovered it was fun and that there was a lot about Poser 13 that I like.  The increase speed of render has allowed me to play in areas I have not done before and I discover more every time I use it.  While many may find my renders not to their liking I love the renders I am able to produce with it and it has given ideas of scenes I want to create.  Perhaps I should feel guilty for having so much fun when I could be spending my time looking endlessly at what might go wrong but I don't feel at all guilty.   

Perhaps I should be looking at the wider issue and looking at matters that might be driving customers away that will ultimately lead to the end of Poser.  Trouble is, the end of Poser is nigh is a chant I have heard for all of the twenty plus years that I have been using it but I have sort come to the acceptance that it will end some time and if there is no alternative I will have find another hobby.  Until then, I will continue to use Poser to escape reality and all the other matters in life that upset me and I cannot change.  So give little thought, well actually no thought, to what might happen and what hidden coding might be lurking in some list buried in Poser.

I accept it can be really annoying and upsetting when the world turns out differently than we would like it to be but to my knowledge no one has been forced to upgrade to Poser 13.  Yes there might be situations where people are obliged to upgrade or placed in a position that they feel they must upgrade for some reason or other but forced?   Having paid for the upgrade why not get some fun out of it, unless of course your fun is derived by telling others all that is, or might be, wrong with the program.  Personally I have chosen the former......oh well my complicated render has finished so I can quickly move back into my Poser world and leave reality behind once more.

SydneyKeys posted at 7:43 PM Tue, 16 May 2023 - #4465553

You know this may not be the place to mention this, but as I read this thread I realized why I stopped upgrading Poser. Poser in its various permutations has been my "Go To" 3D program for decades ... that started to fade at Poser 11. I realized this was not because I had lost interest in the program in general, it was because the Poser developers seemed more interested in accessorizing it's products proprietary figures than it did about adding features I as an artist would find useful.

What features would you find more useful?

Now that all seems moot with Daz Studio being available cost free. 

"100'000th reminder: free daz can't compare to Poser because only "daz + many costly tools" can"

Could you please elaborate?

I don't have Studio currently installed, but AFAIK it includes (almost) everything Poser does.

(Especially if you compare it with P12/P13, which removed WW, the Face Room and 20yrs worth of Python scripts)

The only thing it didn't include was a MorphBrush tool, but this has been rectified by offering the Mesh Grabber plugin. ($64.95 for the Bundle, $39.95 for the basic plugin)

So, what else is there that would be needed to elevate Studio to Poser functionality?

So off we go around the 'mine is better/cheaper than yours' loop again.  The argument is bearable for the first ten years but after that it wears very thin.  Then again they do have one thing in common, no one is forced to use either.

So off we go around the 'mine is better/cheaper than yours' loop again.  The argument is bearable for the first ten years but after that it wears very thin.  Then again they do have one thing in common, no one is forced to use either.

Y-Phil posted at 11:31 AM Wed, 17 May 2023 - #4465591

SydneyKeys posted at 7:43 PM Tue, 16 May 2023 - #4465553

Now that all seems moot with Daz Studio being available cost free. 

100'000th reminder: free daz can't compare to Poser because only "daz + many costly tools" can.

As for this reminder, there were times where Poser had tools that was burning holes in your purse and also loads of assets that you wanted to get right on release. Now sure you can say " Daz is more expensive " well wonder why, could it be that they have stuff to offer that you can buy and that for poser it is hard to find something worth spending money on ? 

DAZ is derived from Poser and just having more success and having better offers because it gets supported by creators so sure the reason that they have tools. poser aint got any and if you get one of the few there even more expensive then the ones for DS comes to it that they have call home, so what a great business.

Even that I am not a Daz user I have to admit that they at least do something and not just dream doing it,  just comparing renders they do with the ones Poser users do are worlds apart. 

I think there should be respect for what they do, the main issue of a poser user like me is that we just are to lazy and do not want to spend another decade building up something even if it might be better ! and not because it would cost something to get some tools ! 

Poser users in here do not even buy anymore allot of times I think they got most of there collections from Warrez and have built up there huge library this way. not having to spend a dime on it anymore with enough assets for a lifetime. Best way to save ain't it !? but actually the same problem with ds just that they still have releases worth getting.

The original problem has been solved and the thread has gone off-topic to something that has been rehashed too many times so I'm locking the thread.