Release Cycle for Shop's Free Content?
bpsperan
Posts: 13
What is the current cycle for adding new content to the "Free Models & Content" section of the Shop? As I recall, before the recent switchover to the new forum and shop, at least one new item was added to "Free Models & Content" every week. At the very least it was once ever other week.
I checked my last download and the last time I got something new from "Free Models & Content" was on May 30th. Granted, that was when 6 nice items were made free at once, including 4 LE (Light Edition?) versions of 4 popular animal models and 2 very large Bryce content kits.
Those free items seen very generous on the surface. I don't mean to sound ungrateful. It is generous and appreciated.
However, the animals come with just one texture each (if that) and I would imagine many long-time DAZ3D customers would already have those models. The Bryce content was previously released on the Content CD's for Bryce 5.0 and 5.5. So, again, this is something a percentage of Bryce users already have.
I keep checking every week. But the only new item I've seen added is "FM Fight Club Boxing Shoes". And that's only free if we purchase the "Fight Club Clothing" item with it.
I'm just saying it's been a month and a half and I haven't seen a new freebie, which seems unusual for DAZ3D. It's not uncommon for Poser and 3D websites to have monthly freebies. And some 3d sites have weekly freebies.
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Comments
The weekly freebies have been coming pretty regular. However they haven't been showing up by going to the free 3d models and content link. I find the weekly freebie from the newsletters Daz sends out.
here is this weeks freebie
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/sushi-time-one/
I also found the weekly freebie a few times by going to environments & props and sort by price since the freebies are usually a prop items.
The monthly freebies are only free for a week, then they go to full price, not the Free Models & Content section. Most of the content there is quite old.
Fastest way to find the new DAZ freebie is to go to the store, select new releases, then sort by price.
To me, it seems like DAZ is not considering how customers look at this.
Is it reasonable to expect us all to automatically know to select new releases and sort by price in order to find the latest freebies? And isn't that a bit... inconvenient?
Sure, DAZ wants customers to have to actually read the weekly newsletters in order to find the freebies. I understand the reason for this change. But the least they could do was also change the message at the top of the "Free Models & Content" section to say something like, "Tip: Read the weekly newsletter to find additional freebies". If that's the way it has to be, it's a lot more considerate to actually tell us this.
There's been a lot of changes lately and, IMO, they're not obvious or user friendly at all.
Also, the Shopping Cart seems to use some weird web code that does not seem to work half the time in either Firefox or Opera. This should be something they'd consider important, considering that this makes it difficult to actually buy their stuff (for at least some of us). Sometimes I can't even add stuff to my Wishlist... Edit: I discovered that it usually works, but there can be a delay of several minutes before it shows up - in either my Wishlist or my Shopping Cart. Not even refreshing the page will help. And it won't let me check out until it shows up.
(PS: Seems like I now have to add double carriage returns at the end of each paragraph in order for my posts to display correctly. If I'm not the only one experiencing this, I'd think someone at DAZ would have noticed by now. I mean... did they downsize their staff due to the economy or something?)
Actually that method to find new free releases is old. I've been doing it that way practically as long as I have been here.
You can also select free 3D models then sort by date, but this wont give you the weekly freebies; as they are only free that week.
I think that is the confusion here. DAZ has a freebie section, then the weekly freebies, and the Pclub exclusive freebies. The weekly and Pclub freebies are only free the first week, so you wont find them in the freebie section.
No offense, but even if you and some others have been doing it that way, it doesn't necessarily mean that most do it that way. And as I was trying to suggest, it's not at all intuitive to know to do this. So some will always miss out if they don't manage to figure that out.
The confusion is that it used to be possible to find even the weekly freebies in the “Free Models & Content” section, even if they disappeared at the end of a week. Some of us assumed that this was the way to find all DAZ freebies (aside from the Pclub).
As for Pclub exclusive freebies: Was / is there a special, exclusive section to find weekly Pclub freebies that I was unaware of?
I was a Pclub member for a while, but I only recall finding the Pclub freebies in a special Pclub freebies thread in the Members Only forum. And those did not usually disappear at the end of week. Indeed the thread had Pclub freebies going back years. Which is a good thing, because they did not seem to release Pclub freebies regularly or often.
They are now doing monthly freebies for the Pc members. It is a new thing.
"And as I was trying to suggest, it’s not at all intuitive to know to do this."
How is it not intuitive? If it's new it would be in the new release section, if it is free it would be found fastest by sorting by price. That's practically a no brainier there.
If you select the freebies section even if you select sort by release date, you wont find the weekly freebie there.
The Pclub freebies are not new, and found the same way as the weekly freebie. And came out practically every week.
"Indeed the thread had Pclub freebies going back years"
The thread might but the freebies don't. The Pclub freebies were all limited time like the weekly freebies.
Clearly you and I have different views on this subject and what would or should be "intuitive".
Having a section entitled "Free Models & Content” implies that it is a section reserved exclusively for free models and free content. Non of the other "Shop" sections mention "free" or "freebie" anywhere. Nor can I find any instructions to sort a section by price, ascending, in order to find "hidden" $0.00 cost products.
I would be surprised if DAZ did not intentionally change things to make it difficult to find the weekly freebies without reading their newsletters (thereby increasing customer incentive to view their advertisements and, thus, be enticed into an early buying cycle).
Besides, this is new behavior. It used to be possible to find the weekly freebies in "Free Models & Content”. But not anymore. By definition, a change in how customers use a website to find certain products - without any sort of notice or instructions - is not intuitive.
I clearly recall that Pclub freebies used to appear very irregularly in the Platinum Club Freebies thread and stayed there. But then, suddenly, Pclub freebies came much more regularly and were limited time only. I had always assumed this was new behavior. But you seem to be suggesting there always were limited time monthly Pclub freebies available (just not listed in the thread). If so, I must have missed most of them during my membership.
Frankly, I'm rather peeved right now, learning that I probably missed out on monthly pclub freebies for many, many months just because DAZ never saw fit to tell us where to find them! :-S
Whether or not it is likely that customers would automatically know to sort certain sections by price to find monthly Pclub freebies, it would not have cost DAZ anything to clarify this in the Platinum Club benefits section.
You know, a lot of 3d model websites advertise their monthly / weekly freebies loudly. Often with a link on the home page. It's just good advertising! But to hide even the monthly platinum club "freebies", which are an added incentive to paying members, is inexcusable.
The idea of the Monthly limited time Freebie for PC members is new, Was only introduced very recently. These freebies are actually Daz Orignals that are offered to PC members free for a month, before they go into the Main store for everyone to buy, in the same way as the weekly freebies are free for everyone for the week, and then just go into the store as Daz Originals. This is why you won't find them in the Freebie section. They are limited time freebies.
THe other PC freebies mentioned, if you pull into the MO forum you will see that there is work being done on getting them all sorted out and back on offer, in MO.
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