Poser Pro 11 and Poser Pro 2014 Game Dev - but only used as accessories to Carrara Pro 8/8.5 (handles Poser content natively) and Vue Infinite 2015 (handles Poser content with assistance from Poser).

IceEmpress posted at 1:06AM Tue, 16 February 2016 - #4255286

Some of us come here because we really dislike Renderosity, but still stop by in the foolish hopes that maybe, just maybe, it will return to being the Renderosity we once loved.

Count me among those with foolish hopes. It's frustrating to watch a once loved business and community self destruct before our very eyes.

A little advice to the powers that be at Renderosity:

To convince me to part with my money, you must convince me that what you are offering is worth more to me than the alternative uses I have for my money, whether that be buying from another 3D store or saving it for a new outdoor grill. To convince a vendor to sell here, you must convince them that what remains of their profit after you take your cut makes their product creation efforts worth more than alternative uses for their time, whether it be selling at another store or finding another career, side job, or hobby.

What value do you provide to your customers? What value do you provide to your vendors? Why should customers hang around on your forums (increasing the chance they will see something they want to buy here)? What value do your forums provide? Are any of your answers to these questions different from what someone at another site would say?

If you answer these questions honestly, you might have a fighting chance of survival.

I really do wish Renderosity the best. I just don't see it happening without a major change in direction.

3D-Mobster posted at 11:03PM Mon, 15 February 2016 - #4255118

I don't see why you would have a go at Renderosity for this. There are nothing uncommon or weird about this. The rules that applies on Renderosity are 99.9% identical to those of other sites.

One of the keys to running a successful business is to differentiate yourself from your competitors. Just because everyone else is doing something doesn't mean it is right or the key to success. Those who try something audacious are often rewarded handsomely. Look at how much money RedHat makes around Linux, an operating system that is available for free and may be copied and redistributed as much as you like.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the old "New Products" forum that allowed links to products on other sites provided VALUE to the community. If Renderosity wants to draw people back to the site, and especially the forums, Renderosity needs to provide something of value to us, especially if it is something the other sites don't have. Otherwise, I and others will go to the sites that we perceive as providing more value. If none of them appear to provide value, we will choose another activity entirely that provides value to us, such as spending time learning a 3D modeling package, going for a bike ride, or hanging out with friends.

It's all about alternatives. Renderosity isn't competing only with other 3D sites, Renderosity is competing with anything else we could be doing instead of hanging out on these forums or browsing the store. If they want to bring this site back to its former glory, they will need to do something audacious like broadening the scope of the forums to be more inclusive of the 3D community at large. Be open to links to other sites. Make Renderosity forums the "one stop shop" for all things 3D, whether it is sold here or not. I think you'd be surprised how effective that could be (and how effective it once was). Becoming a "walled garden" now is like fencing in a bunch of dying flowers with nothing but gasoline to water them with.

It's interesting that this is coming up again. Long ago, there was a "New Products" forum here at Renderosity, that allowed any member of the community to post links to products on ANY site. That forum provided VALUE to the community and encouraged lots of people to hang out here and even buy some stuff. Frequently the product on the other site required or at least complemented something in Renderosity's huge store resulting in a sale for both Renderosity and the other site. Then advertising competing sites was banned and the forum was renamed "Marketplace" or something like that, and only contained announcements about new products in the Renderosity store. Pointless. If I wanted to see what's new in the store, I'd go to the actual store (crazy, I know). That's when I gave up on the forums, though I continued buying from the store. I didn't really come back to lurking around the forums until after all the recent changes to the site and Prime membership. I've stopped buying anything, but enjoy watching a good train wreck.

It seems that Renderosity is getting desperate to turn things around, but everything you do is simply reinforcing previous missteps and adding new ones. I mourn for the future of what was once my favorite 3D site. Coupled with DAZ's foolish foray into DRM and exclusion of Poser users by most vendors, this hobby is dying fast for me.

As for the "censorship", consider that passionate complaints are a sign of a healthy community. It means the members care enough to tell you what you are doing wrong so you can serve them better and ultimately make more money, keep your jobs, etc. If the complaints stop, it isn't because everything is OK, it's because no one cares anymore. If the complaints are censored, you will simply drive away your most passionate supporters, the ones who care enough about your business to spend their time trying to help you fix problems you may not be aware of. Embrace the gift of complainers. They will help you grow your business.

As a public speaker, I always explicitly solicit negative feedback from attendees. Comments like "great job" or "loved it" won't help me grow and improve. I'm far more grateful to the guy who tells me, "Your explanation of X confused me..." or "I couldn't hear you in the back row..." because I now have something to work on to better my skills as a presenter. You should do the same with site members.

Even knowing the changes they planned, I renewed. However, this is probably my last time. There just isn't much value in it for me anymore. As others have stated, the coupons are not nearly as good as they used to be. Also, while the content doesn't seem to be quite as dominated by female characters and hair textures as it used to be, the prime pricing doesn't make the new variety of products nearly as attractive as they might have been. I no longer buy things on impulse because, "hey, it's only $3.50 and I might have a use for that someday". With prices sometimes significantly higher than that, I'm forced to think over my purchases and the answer so far has always been "no thanks - I don't NEED that now".

I love the Poser products too. I'm a Carrara and Vue user, both of which are designed to use Poser content. Carrara uses it natively - no importing or converting. Just point Carrara to the runtime and it shows up in the library and everything works just like it does in Poser (except for python scripts and dynamic clothing). Vue can easily import Poser content in two ways: static import (no posing in Vue) and a linked import where it uses Poser to pose and modify content inside Vue (very slow, but sometimes useful).

While Carrara handles Genesis reasonably well and Genesis 2 with a few hiccups, it cannot use Genesis 3 (yet -and there's not much hope at the moment). Vue can't use anything from Genesis on up.

So keep in mind that some of us "Poser users" are really using other applications and Poser file formats are just a "lingua franca" for consuming content. If it works in Poser without some crazy plugin or import process, we can use it too without much effort. The only time I actually use Poser is as a staging area for importing content to Vue and I won't even touch DAZ Studio if I can help it.

http://www.renderosity.com/renderosity-site-notifications-cms-15822

I don't know if this had anything to do with my complaint about Renderosity spam (if it did, Thank You!), but it is definitely a step in the right direction.  The death of the ebots can't come soon enough!

Execpt that I shouldn't have to do that.  Most companies make it easy for their customers to decide which e-mails they want and which they don't.  I didn't want to block all e-mails because I would have liked to get the newsletter and coupon messages.  Without any way to turn off the wishlist and favorite artist notifications, the amount of spam became intolerable.  Besides I have tried filtering the e-mails, but Renderosity periodically makes subtle changes to their return addresses and or subject lines which always allows them to find a way around my filters eventually.

Stacey,

As you suggested, I have now cleared out my wishilst of around 150 items.  I will miss having it since I was able to quickly look things over to catch sales anytime I received a coupon or was about to purchase something just released.  But I just couldn't take the incessant spamming from your site.  Now, that wishlist is gone and neither Renderosity nor any of your vendors will ever derive any revenue from me for those items.

Without the benefit of my wishilst, I won't be buying anywhere near as much as I did before.  If I don't have an immediate need for something, I will simply pass on it from now on.

Plus I no longer have any use for the coupons since I will rarely have enough new items in my shopping cart to meet the minimum.  So now I can safely disable all emails from Renderosity and regain some sanity in my inbox.

Thanks for this.  It will save me a bunch of money.

Wow.  That's a real shame.  This really should be an option.  Now I'm going to be forced to remove everythigng from my wishlist just to make the e-mails stop.  That sounds bad for your business, but at least it will save me a bunch of money in the near future.

My apologies in advance to all the artists I'm about to unfavorite too.  I still love your work but hate the e-mails.

LostInSpaceMan,  apparently you missed the central issue.  This has very little to do with galleries and such.  Rather it has to do with the Product Showcase forum, which is all advertising all the time.  It was originally created so that ads wouldn't fill up the regular forums.  So, if you hate advertising, you've probably never been there. :)

In that past, anyone could post to the Product Showcase Forum regardless of where the product was actually sold.  Now, only Renderosity merchants can advertise there, which is just silly since most of us go to the Marketplace to see what is new here.

Many of us found the Product Showcase Forum under the old rules to be a valuable resource for seeing what was new in the community at large.  Now it is a completely useless corner of the forums that has been all but abandoned by those who used to frequent it.

So, it not all about nothing - there is much more to it than you apparently realize.

Quote -
I understand what you're saying, but in the end, having the Marketplace Showcase open to offsite vendors hurts Renderosity vendors more than it helps.  That is one of the main reason for the change.

Really?  How has it hurt Renderosity vendors?  Do you have numbers to back up that claim?

Although I can't provide numbers to the contrary, I can honestly say that it in my case it has HELPED Renderosity vendors.  There have been several instances where a third party vendor advertised a texture set for some product here in the RMP that caused me to buy the RMP product that I otherwise thought looked like crap.  Similarly, I have purchased texture sets here for meshes that were advertised in the product showcase for other sites.

So many of the products here depend on or are depended on by products in other stores.  You really are cutting off your nose to spite your face with this new policy.

I can almost understand you not paying attention to your merchants - that seems to be a theme in all too many of the stores, so you figure you can get away with it.  But I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor am I likely to ever be a merchant.  I am a Renderosity CUSTOMER, and I am seriously ticked off over this.  Note to merchants: If you want my business from now on, please sell somewhere other than Renderosity.  This place obviously could care less about their customers.  I am not likely to make any further purchases here unless I desperately need something for a project and I can't find something similar anywhere else - and even then I will think twice before giving any more of my money to this place.

Thanks Renderosity admins, moderators and other authorities for completely ruining one of the best sites in Poserdom.  I have bought more stuff here than than any other site by a long shot - but that is about to change thanks to this ridiculous new policy.  Now that I am forced to visit these other sites directly on a regular basis, I have found lots of cool stuff I never knew existed.  I guess I'll be spending my money there instead.

Looks like I found a new home at Content Creators Guild.  Thanks for that.  It is desperately needed by this community.

The Borders and bookstore Wal-Mart analogies might make sense if it weren't for the fact that their competitors are selling the exact same products that they are.  I can buy the same book at Barnes and Noble as I can at Borders, so of course they won't advertise for each other.

However, your so called competitors are selling things that we can't buy here!  So, the product showcase provided a valuable SERVICE to your customers by giving us a "one stop shop" to find things available here as well as things that ABSOLUTELY CAN'T be purchased here (99% of the time anyway).  This is analogous to stores that have a bulletin board up near the front where businesses can put their cards or flyers advertising their products or services that are somehow related to the products you might purchase in that store.  By allowing this, these stores are providing a FREE SERVICE to their customers which fosters good will.  I frequent stores that do this more often since I can find other things I'm looking for without walking all around the city.

And if you are thinking in terms of me spending money elsewhere rather than here, that is simply ridiculous.  Either a product here meets my needs or it doesn't.  Same for the other vendors.  Since the products aren't the same, you aren't losing anything from me if I buy something from another store.  Sure, I might not buy something immediately if I spent my money for the week somewhere else, but your product will go into my wishlist and get purchased eventually if I really want it.

And to top it off, even in that 1% of cases where a product is available in more than one store, you guys take credit cards while most other vendors only accept PayPal, so you win by default with many of us who hate PayPal.

PLEASE rethink this policy.  I really came to rely on the Product Showcase forum and what I see in there now is just depressing - hardly any new posts in several weeks.  Why bother?

I very rarely post in the forums, but I am a long time Renderosity customer who has spent ridiculous amounts of money here for something that is just a hobby, and I am absolutely infuriated by this new rule.  You (the management)  have destroyed one of the most valuable assets of this web site.  I used to come here on a daily basis to peruse the new products forum to see what was being announced from the community at large.  Now all I see is what I could find by browsing the marketplace, which I did anyway - before I would browse the forums.  I no longer have any good reason to come here on a daily basis, especially since I now have to visit a whole bunch of other sites directly to see what is new.  That means I will spend less time browsing the RMP and more time on other merchants' sites which means less sales for you.  Please rethink this rule, as it will only hurt Renderosity in the end both in terms of lost sales and unhappy customers like me.

Interestingly enough, DAZ still allows "advertising" as long as posts are tagged commercial.  No wonder I'm hanging around their forums more these days...