The thumbnails have a bad address and won't load, so I have no idea what these are. Morphs, but for which hair?

The hair is coming to the MarketPlace-- look at the Product Showcase Forum. I had no problem getting the morphs down. They go in the morph target folder, or wherever you keep your morphs. Can't use them till the hair is here anyway. Emily

So it's another one of those boring campaigns to convince us to buy something by putting up useless add-ons in Freestuff all the time.... Jeez, I'm getting tired of having half of Freestuff occupied by nonsense like this! :] FishNose

I hope you're not serious, fishnose. I mean, I can't understand why anyone would begrudge another of offering a freebee. The thumbnail isn't sending subliminal messages to "buy me", so it's not breaking any rules & regs. The merchant is just offering an additional service to his/her customers. Generosity should be complimented, not degraded.

Well, I have a few add-ons for my store stuff in the free section myself, but they arrive when I learn new stuff and want to update something about the product. It does seem strange releasing free stuff before you even have your product in the store. I mean, why not just put those items in with the product and let buyers get the whole lot in one go? Especially morph targets. That way you could save people the hassle of installing them.

Huh?!? Tyger, this is no freebie we're talking about here - it's a morph for a store item that hasn't even been released yet, and can't be used without that store item. Pure promo. Freebies is another thing altogether! The whole idea of Freestuff is to GIVE AWAY stuff, by definition. The merchant should include the morph in the product instead, simple. ajax, fair enough. I think your way of doing it is fine. But I'm talking about the all too common practice of releasing so-called freebies at the same time as the product, just to attract us to the Marketplace. The Product Showcase was created to get the same type of problem out of this Forum and park it elsewhere - this Forum was used for promoting new products. And now it's happening all the time in Freestuff instead. Sometimes Freestuff is totally swamped - more than half of the stuff on a page can be promos of this kind sometimes. :] FishNose

Well I like when people give a way freestuff I can use, that is related to a product, without buying the product itself. Look at runtimeDNA for instance. I've bought several products there after being brought in by the freebies. It is an excellent and valuable marketing tool. I could list a dozen products I bought for those reasons. But when the person who is selling an item, offers a texture, bump map or morph for their product, that is useless without the product it isn't really a 'free' item is it? No they should be included with the package unless they are really, extras items that couldn't be packaged with the main set. The extra woodland textures darkworld did for instance. Now throw in the fact that some people are releasing the 'freebies' before the item that requires them is actually for sell and it seems like a transparent and somewhat irritating pitch for my buck.

I can understand if the product has already been uploaded to the MP and is awaiting approval-- and the author thinks of more morph targets. Ok, maybe it's a promo-- it still not as bad as the one that looked like a free Ferrari and turned out to be a pose for someone sitting in a the Ferrari they sold. I'm not too bummed cause I want this hair and if it has more morph targets, I'll take em anyway I can get them. Emily

I've been told the hair product in question is in the marketplace review now. Either way, I still really don't understand the problem. Following FishNose's way of thinking, all the Mike, Vickie or Stephanie textures, clothing morphs, and pose/MAT files posted in free stuff should not be allowed because a person has to actually own Mike, Vickie or Stephanie. But the only reason I eventually broke down and bought any of the DAZ folks was because I saw all the really excellent items available in free stuff. The same goes for the castle kit by liteluver. There are 5 textures in free stuff that really piqued my interest, and I ended up buying the set because it looked so good. No regrets for either purchase. I don't like the Product Showcase. I have visited that particular forum all of 2 times since it opened. Not because I am not in the market for items, but because it is a mess to wade through. I really enjoyed the random "see what I made for the store" ad that showed up in the regular Poser Forum because it was a welcome surprise to see a new product. Lord knows it sure beat looking through all the debates about the galleries posting. Yep. I'm glad to see free items for customers in the Poser free stuff of Renderosity. Because in the end, we're all customers of a Poser product.

There is, of course, another reason that someone may post free add-ons to a Marketplace product: to make the original purchase download smaller for dial-up users. It's certainly easier to download, say, 7 megs now and 3 more later than the full 10 all in one shot. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but it is something to keep in mind.

How would you guys feel about a new subcategory in the freestuff, "Marketplace Addons"? (I'm not promising anything!) Lyrra

Sounds like a great idea!

Lyrra, that would be excellent! I want to make an addon to a product I just re-released and I thought if posted in general freestuff it would just get buried and not be seen by the buyers at all! (I am not able to contact them all by email.) It's got my vote!!! :)

TygerCub, it's not the same thing, because it's not DAZ who is putting up the textures, clothes, etc. for Vicki, Mike, and Stephanie in the Free Stuff section in order to entice people to buy the figures. Those are users' contributions for them. In that case, it's not a marketing ploy by the merchant to sell the product. Melanie

What about brand new figure for a MP item? Case in point, I am going to be doing a set of conforming barding for my Redta Lizard. Now, the Redta is only $5.00 right now, and I just want this to be tossed in as a freebie. I am on dial-up, and it would be considerably easier for me to simply offer it as a freestuff item rather than re-upload the Redta, contact all the people that have bought it, get them the copy with the barding, etc., etc. And, yes, maybe it might get a few sales. But, then this is a business. "Curse all those stores that sell belts, which require that you buy pants with belt loops for them to work!" On the other hand, releasing freebies for a product not yet available to the public -is- a little reaching...

On the other hand, releasing freebies for a product not yet available to the public -is- a little reaching... If this is the vendor I think it is, this is quite innocent... they are a new vendor, and putting the addons as freebies was encouraged by admin due to file size limits, and the timing problem would probably be due to regular delay required for marketplace testing. Don't get too annoyed, this vendor is just trying to give his/her buyers as much as s/he can. If the methods are not quite right, it's all that's currently available for them. So let's support this MP addon freebies section! :D

Yes, but what constitutes an add-on freebie? We made add-ons for our products, but it's not necessary to have the product to use the add-on. That way, yes we're giving stand-along items away, though the item is made specifically with the set in mind.

made s/b make :)) We're still doing it. :)) stand-along = stand alone Sheesh!

if it requires a purchase for the free item to be even worth downloading and make it usable, those are what annoys freestuff searchers, plus wastes the vendor's bandwidth for non buyers to download. i guess those would be the ones intended for an MP freebies section. freebies that can be used on their own shouldn't be a problem... and it would be up to the vendor whether to post it in a MP freebies section or to open it up for everyone... just some thoughts :)

Yeah, thga tpose in the Ferrari was a killer! That was so ridiculous I actually laughed at it, couldn't take it seriously. Stand-along?? I like it - Let's have a Stand-Along section too! :o] (Stand Along is somewhere between stand alone and completely dependent by my reckoning) There are lots of exceptions, of course - like Ajax said, you think up something new and add it later. Cool. Or you bring down the size of a DL. Okay. Or it has uses even in other situations. Fine! But the commercialisation of this place is going so far that it's beginning to irk me. (sigh) It's the same old problem.... I've been here way too long, remember how it was before there was a Marketplace at all, how nice people were, just gave stuff away. Don't get me wrong, I like the Maretplace just fine, I buy way too much stuff! (Ask my credit card, it'll cringe at the question) And you should see my wishlist! Over 400 bucks! But that's not the issue here...... Lyrra, that's a brilliant idea! A separate section. :] FishNose

... a new subcategory in the freestuff, "Marketplace Addons"? shudder Most proposals to change this or that Renderosity feature tend to create nightmarish results everybody dislikes. I don't want anymore changes, it only gets worse. :P

When I created the Kaz Morphs for freestuff, the download generated about 10 queries asking why the hair didn't work, or where the geometry files were. (answer: they're at DAZ3D.) Several other folks responded that the freebie had prompted them to purchase Patrick Martin's product, and I was thrilled. I loved the simplicity and untapped flexibility of the model (it's not loaded down with countless "layers" and can be easily shaped). I was also able to do some nice morphing work on the hair to generate unique hairstyles for some of my characters. I felt that the possibilities that I didn't explore with the morphs were being wasted on my harddrive, so I uploaded them to free stuff. The original intent was to add variety and functionality to folks who owned the original product; the unforseen side affect was actually generating sales for another community member's product (which, when it comes down to it, is exactly how community support should work). I predict the addition of a new subcategory for freestuff will generate even more forum arguments based on semantics than the "Product Showcase" has. If a vendor blatantly abuses the freestuff area by swamping it with crappy promotional add-ons, they've done the community a service by steering members away from that merchant's site. Within the span of a week, the offending files are usually buried deep in the database. It's pretty obvious to the members here, which vendors are providing real upgrades and add-ons to their products to add to their value, and which ones are just trying to direct traffic to their stores.

I think there is a simple way to draw the line between what goes in the Add-Ons Free Stuff and what goes in the general FS: if it stands alone, like a full prop or something, so that anyone can use it, it can go in the general category. If it's something that requires the product to be of any use, like textures specifically mapped for the product that wouldn't be of much use for anything else, morphs, stuff like that, it goes in Add-Ons. Simple enough? I think this would actually be beneficial for two more reasons: One, because customers looking for MP extras would know where to find them, or at least most of them, without searching all through Free Stuff, and Two, because it would encourage vendors to create more extras that non-customers can use in order to promote their product through the general Free Stuff. Now, what could possibly be wrong with that?

That would put almost all textures, including Posette and Vicky textures in the Add-Ons category. It would also put all poses in the add-ons category as well as all morphs and cr2 only characters . In fact, lights, sketch render presets, cameras and complete models are the only things I can think of that would be allowed to stay in normal free stuff and not all of those could stay either. All conformers, many smart props and all hair items would have to go in Add-Ons. Almost everybody would wind up searching through add-ons anyway so you might as well not have bothered.

I think a Marketplace Add-on section would be a good idea as long as their are no Rule Nazis splitting hairs. It's the hair-splitting I dred. Free stuff for Victoria, where does it go? MP add-ons because you have to own Vicki, or normal freestuff? If the answer is MP add-ons, then the entire point is lost because most of us will have to wade through the MP add-ons to get what we want anyway. The best message to send people who you see as abusing the free stuff is not to buy their product. Send them a message and tell them why (and for Heaven's sake, be polite if you want them to listen.)

We're not talking about Vicki or Posette or anything like that. We're talking about solely Renderosity merchant products, and unique ones at that. Morphs for vendor hair props like this, textures for custom clothing (not standards like the basic Vicki clothes pack or anything), MAT's for non-Daz or CL characters, like some strange alien or something, these things would go in the new category. Or at least that's the way I'D do it...

Maybe the Marketplace should put in a section for free Marketplace add-ons, for those things that can only be used with specific items sold there, such as the morph targets for the hair that started this thread. That might solve the problem. People would know to look there. A merchant could post a small blip in the forum here that the free add-on or update to an item can be found there, for those who bought the purchase item. Melanie

Well, why would DAZ products get privelidged status over products by Renderosity merchants? And what about DAZ brokered products that are created by people who also sell here, such as all those Vairesh hair items? Also, not every Rendo product is exclusive. A lot of them are also sold at 3D commune and other sites and some are even sold both here and at DAZ. If you restrict Rendo merchants to putting their add-ons in some kind of Marketplace quarantine area, you effectively stop people like me from being able to get updates out to people that bought a product somewhere else. If a new rule comes in it has to be one rule for everybody. It can't be something that's going to require individual judgement by mods. We've already seen where that gets us.

I think the new Promo Free-Stuff category sounds good on paper, but might turn into a total nightmare in practice. How about we just ask vendors, if possible, not to upload "Fake Stuff" items relating to their newly released products that have no stand-alone value, but to include them in the package instead? And here's another thought: how about requiring vendors to contribute stand-alone items, every so often, to free-stuff? For every five items/packages in your store, say, you have to give away a stand-alone in Free Stuff. It's a misconception, after all, to say that the vendors keep this place afloat. They don't--the customers do.

Hi,
the discussion is about my hair. So what can I say?
I realy dont want to make people angry, I also wanted to make some promotion, that is true, why should I lie?. I also wanted that people know there will be more than just the Hair with the 21 morphstyles who come with.

I could not finde a place to post them.
In the Showcase?
Nobody (2 people!) left a message, so I think they dont read.
At the poserforum?
It is not allowed
At my Homepage?
Where should I post the message with the link? Still same situation.

OK, here the facts:
there will be two versions of the hair available:

1. 21 morphs included in the hr2-file = unzipped 32 MB, zipped 11 MB
2. only the hr2-file and 21 morphs for to add by yourselfe unzipped 4 MB + the morphs 20 MB for smaler Computers

I still have more than 20 morphs for free. I could not include them to the zips, because it would be to big.
I cant leafe the Morphs unsqueezed as stand alone, so what should I do?
Put them to trash?
OK, maybe it was to soon, (but I was so proud about this hair)thats why I added a text " available soon"

• maybe I should add the words "in the marketplace" - and then?
  If I read all the messages here, I dont think that people are not angry then. Then people are still angry, because it is not a "stand alone". How can I make a stand alone from a hairstyle-morph who belongs to a hair? Tell me and I will do it.
  Or they are angry because it is a freebie for a
  "Commercial-Item" if yes, so I cant post it in freestuff?.
  So what should I do now? I realy dont know. This is the situation I never wanted to come in...
  I am sorry about posting it at all now.
  So should I delete the Morphs?
  Any suggestions are more than wellcome
  And excuse my poor english...
  SWAM

There is a real simple solution, we can just package every add-ons and sell them for an extra 5 bucks. Make a small profit and no site changes are necessary. Freestuff wont be cluttered with good quality items to improve our products and everyone is happy. If I bought a product and the Merchant provides a free package of free ad-ons for that product, all I can think of is saying thank you, not getting upset because it is a marketting strategy. So he or she is trying to get people interested in his product, is that bad? I see the mistake that they were available before the product was, no biggie in my book. He or she just did not have a grasp of the time tables involving all this stuff. I see no reason to need a new section for merchant's freestuff. This is the typical attitude. If we continue to separate people into sections arround here, things will not be pretty and will continue to change towards the negative scale. Just my opinion.

"There is a real simple solution, we can just package every add-ons and sell them for an extra 5 bucks. Make a small profit and no site changes are necessary. Freestuff wont be cluttered with good quality items to improve our products and everyone is happy." There ya go. The customer is always wrong. And frankly I don't see this happening--the trend seems to be toward more extensive and cheaper packages here, which is good. "If we continue to separate people into sections arround here, things will not be pretty and will continue to change towards the negative scale." The fact is, as with any commercial enterprise, there are sellers and there are buyers. The less actual Free Stuff (as opposed to Fake Stuff) there is in the Free Stuff section, the less I log in here, therefore the less I'm likely to buy in the Mplace. Free Stuff is already the bait that brings people to the Mplace, folks--the more actual, usable content there is there, the better the vendors will do. And SWAM--all publicity is good publicity. Got a URL for your hair thingy in the Showcase?

http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12413&Form.ShowMessage=729479

"folks--the more actual, usable content there is there, the better the vendors will do." I'm sure the morphs are very usable and make the product a lot more versatile, so that is not the problem here.

By "actual, usable content," I mean, of course, stand-alones that don't require the previous purchase of marketplace items for their use.

Hey SWAM--nice hair. How much?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=728530&Form.sess_id=8483729&F

Hey, it's ok if somebody asks. Isn't it?

No it's not, Mosca. Since the product showcase forum came into being, merchants aren't allowed to post links to products even if somebody asks. The official ruling was that you could post a link to a non-subscription site but not to an individual product within that site, even if somebody asks.

Here's a thought: If a freestuff download has a particular requirement, just say so. Like this: Picnic Ants for Poser! (Requires Picnic by PiccyNic) Simple! Then the potential downloader can either say "got it", go get it, or say, "nah, no thanks". Nothing has to be separated or isolated, and you can see right up front what the requirements are. My 2 cents. 8]

Attached Link: http://www.ironhart.us

I think listing it is just a courtesy, really. Saying "oh, this needs X to work" in a prominent place, because old ladies like me can't read little print. ;]

Certainly, every thumb should tell you what the item is and what it's meant to be used with. Realistically though, there will always be people that forget don't know or don't understand as well as thumbs that don't display properly for everyone. Looking at it from the other side, there also seem to be a lot of people that completely ignore what's written on the thumb. I often see people complaining about freebies where the thumb was perfectly clear and I know when I post an update for something of mine, it will be downloaded by about 100 times as many people as actually own the required item, even though my thumbs always tell you what's required.

And then don't for those that use free servers like Tripod. It doesn't take long for those thumbs to ne overwritten with Tripod's logo. I just noticed that in freestuff tonight.