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Novica & Forum Members Tips & Product Reviews Pt 13

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  • Robert FreiseRobert Freise Posts: 4,301

    I'm lucky about the fireworks as my critters usually just ignore them as they're doing right now.

    However when the first one went off and woke Miss Nudgely she looked at the back door arched her back and hissed, then turned over and went back to sleep

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421
    edited January 2021

    I've got to start being more active in this thread. Going to have to read back and figure out what this market script is about. 

    Anyhow, this is the first time I've bought a product(s) and asked for a refund in a long time - but I feel like the Promos for the new "Everyday Clothes and Pose" sets are completely misleading. 

    Each promo shows a completely different outfit - but really, with all 3 sets, you just get the base shirt and pants - and you have to purchase additional texture kits to get the look of the promos. This is kind of implied if you read every detail in the promos - but it isn't made clear - and there is no "required" notification anywhere. 

    Having 3 different products, with 3 different styles of clothes, and then the actual product is just the same clothes and different sets of poses seems dishonest to me. 

    A couple other vendors lost sales because of this too, because I told DAZ to make it easy and just refund the entire order - as the other products were discounted because the "Everyday Pose" items were "new" - and I wouldn't have bought the other products except for the discounts. 

    It sucks that DAZ still allows vendors to get away with misleading promo images like this - and this vendor is now on my "vendors who do skeezy things to get sales," lists. 

    edit:

    On going back to the product store product pages - I guess I do see that it does show the "additional products used in the promos" links at the bottom of the page - but generally this area is "things that appear in the promo like hair or backgrounds or clothes that aren't included with the product." 

    In this case - it is items that actually work specifically with the product. I don't know - the product itself is a good idea - but you would think vendors would really go out of their way to make sure customers aren't disappointed when they go to their content library and the product isn't really at all what they thought it was - and it'll be more money to make it what they were after. 

     

    Post edited by donovancolbert on
  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Novica said:

    memcneil70 said:

    The bundle is now $104.97. 

    Geez, aren't you glad you waited?
    Let's recall why we are all suffering through this store changeover. Oh yeah, so sales glitches would be minimalized / eliminated. How's that working for them?
    They do seem to hop on things as they're reported and attempt to fix them, but IMO the forum members should be PAID. We do a lot (if not all) the reporting about the issues. Dang, @barbult should own STOCK in Daz. (Not that she'd want it at this point...)  She files so many tickets to help get things fixed, I'm surprised they haven't offered her a full time job in QA. They should. 

    In all fairness, I very rarely see glitches anymore, at least the ones in our favor - and the 2fer1 gift card glitch is a thing of long lost legend now. On the other hand, prices have increased to the point where during a SALE I'm paying what I would have used to consider regular price. I think the changes are working marveously - from the perspective of DAZ, anyhow. ;) 

     

  • memcneil70memcneil70 Posts: 3,845

    donovancolbert said:

    I've got to start being more active in this thread. Going to have to read back and figure out what this market script is about. 

    Anyhow, this is the first time I've bought a product(s) and asked for a refund in a long time - but I feel like the Promos for the new "Everyday Clothes and Pose" sets are completely misleading. 

    Each promo shows a completely different outfit - but really, with all 3 sets, you just get the base shirt and pants - and you have to purchase additional texture kits to get the look of the promos. This is kind of implied if you read every detail in the promos - but it isn't made clear - and there is no "required" notification anywhere. 

    Having 3 different products, with 3 different styles of clothes, and then the actual product is just the same clothes and different sets of poses seems dishonest to me. 

    A couple other vendors lost sales because of this too, because I told DAZ to make it easy and just refund the entire order - as the other products were discounted because the "Everyday Pose" items were "new" - and I wouldn't have bought the other products except for the discounts. 

    It sucks that DAZ still allows vendors to get away with misleading promo images like this - and this vendor is now on my "vendors who do skeezy things to get sales," lists. 

    edit:

    On going back to the product store product pages - I guess I do see that it does show the "additional products used in the promos" links at the bottom of the page - but generally this area is "things that appear in the promo like hair or backgrounds or clothes that aren't included with the product." 

    In this case - it is items that actually work specifically with the product. I don't know - the product itself is a good idea - but you would think vendors would really go out of their way to make sure customers aren't disappointed when they go to their content library and the product isn't really at all what they thought it was - and it'll be more money to make it what they were after. 

     

    Well, I tried to read the description and was just confused. I have the initial outfit for males and females, but still haven't bought the other poses. I thought these were new clothes, but, they look the same. I came onto the forums to see if anyone had an explanation, but only you had a reaction. I just removed the items from my cart, along with the original poses. I just don't have the patience to try to figure something out when I am still cleaning a mess up on one of my computer's DAZ content. 

    Mary 

  • nemesis10nemesis10 Posts: 3,291

    As Someone who has participated in the discussions about the Everyday clothes, the idea is very simple.  There is a blouse and pants.  In order to keep the product reasonably priced and of reasonable download size, the product exists as a basic complete product.  There are additional products and add-ons which can further enhance the product; for example, multiple texture sets are available as add-ons. Also there are additional products that introduce additional morphs and were designed to be complete products that can use the add-ons.  The reason the morphs weren't combined into one product is that it would create a product that was too resource heavy, too expensive (rigging is the most time consuming task and what makes a product expensive), and would make a very complex downloadable.  Fortunately, there are threads if you seek more details and the creators have a thread where you can ask more questions:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/427101/aeon-soul-undress-dress-poses-clothes/p1

    and creator's thread:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/462571/everyday-2-sets#latest

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    @donovancolbert   That script will tell you what products aren't showing correctly in your Product Library, aka you will get black swirlies and not be able to read about the product, or get the downloads from Product Library. No small thing as people MAY still have products missing from their DIM (last time I heard, rather hard to sort out who has had what fixed. People don't always come back to the forums and say "It's fixed.") If it's not in DIM then you're stuck, if it's not in Product Library.  I've submitted a couple tickets the past couple days, including the six hundred swirlies in my Product Library. (Wanted to say, "Have fun with THAT. YOU did the store changeover.") 

    With the Woodpeckers being gone from one of the Songbird Remix bundles, sadly now I don't trust any of the content in Product Library. I just don't. When a product showed up there, I assumed it was all there if I saw several items. Since that product (Woodpeckers, Ken's SBRM series) isn't sold here anymore, Daz hopefully still has their copy. I do think Customer Service  tries to make things right, so I'm sure they'll try to locate the woodpeckers ("Woody" where are you?)

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861
    edited January 2021

    Let me talk about that script, because I am not a technical person and wasn't sure I'd know how to do it. SO easy. First, I made a folder so I'd know where to find the script. Just download the file and put it in your folder.  There's Data, a dll, and ProductLibraryScannerDaz. Click the last one and follow Taoz's instructions in his post. One thing- the generated list (when you click to provide a list) will be back in the folder. I was looking for a popup or something. :)  Taoz clearly stated whee the list would be in his post, I'm just inept.

    A small sample- the list will look like this: (SO ticked, look at all those great Ron's brushes I don't have!)  I have around 28,000+ products and it took several hours to run (more than four) but it moved at a good pace. I left the settings at 3 retries for failing items, and with six hundred or more, that really added to the time. But you want it to get it right. Edit- you can do other things while the script is running. 

    Here's the link to the discussion over in the store issues thread. Really recommend you do the scanner, and submit a ticket. Your Product Library should be RIGHT.

    Here's the scanner post by Taoz. It's on page 86 of the Store Issues thread. Again, VERY easy to use.

    6652 Ron'S Waves

    15384 Ron'S Digital Energy

    14503 Touched Anime Eyes For Genesis

    10083 Ron'S Concrete And Texture Brushes

    4828 3d Celebrity 'Genesis'

    4926 Nevada For Victoria 4

    12016 Faeverly

    12697 Ron'S Rain

    11896 Ron'S Particles

    11560 Ron'S Magical Snow

    11030 Ron'S Hydro Explosion

    10657 Ron'S Condensation

    10516 Ron'S Steam And Smoke

    9377 Ron'S Bokeh

    12962 Ron'S Atmospheric Bundle

    9160 Ron'S Suds

    8667 Ron'S Flames

     

    Post edited by Novica on
  • vwranglervwrangler Posts: 4,837

    Just a note for anyone considering the MMX Wood Shaders for sale today: they're 7-8 GB in DIM as compressed files, and likely much larger when installed and uncompressed. They really should have something on the product page that lets people know.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861
    edited January 2021

    Thanks @vwrangler! 

    Hey everyone, feel free to visit my Facebook page, I put a link in my signature. I haven't tested these HiveWire backgrounds but I love the various angles in the sets. Go down about four posts in Facebook.

    Post edited by Novica on
  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    nemesis10 said:

    As Someone who has participated in the discussions about the Everyday clothes, the idea is very simple.  There is a blouse and pants.  In order to keep the product reasonably priced and of reasonable download size, the product exists as a basic complete product.  There are additional products and add-ons which can further enhance the product; for example, multiple texture sets are available as add-ons. Also there are additional products that introduce additional morphs and were designed to be complete products that can use the add-ons.  The reason the morphs weren't combined into one product is that it would create a product that was too resource heavy, too expensive (rigging is the most time consuming task and what makes a product expensive), and would make a very complex downloadable.  Fortunately, there are threads if you seek more details and the creators have a thread where you can ask more questions:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/427101/aeon-soul-undress-dress-poses-clothes/p1

    and creator's thread:

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/462571/everyday-2-sets#latest

    This simple idea should probably be elaborated on in the product description for each product in the package. If there is a forum discussion elaborating on the *concept* and the reasoning - then the product pages really should acknowledge this and link to those discussions. 

    "Before you buy this product, you should understand..." 

    Because the forum page obviously exists because people have been buying the product with similar expectations as mine, and then were disappointed to find they didn't get what they *thought* they were buying. 

    This vendor isn't alone in this - there are lots of vendors where I've bought products and then opened DAZ, loaded the product and realized, "Oh... I've got to buy a LOT more things to get what I *thought* I was getting." 

    This one is just particularly onerous, in my opinion. Certainly a buyer-beware vendor product. 

    The promo images in today's releases are NOT what you're getting - they're the results you CAN get if you buy a bunch of other products in the vendor's catalog. 

     

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Novica said:

    @donovancolbert   That script will tell you what products aren't showing correctly in your Product Library, aka you will get black swirlies and not be able to read about the product, or get the downloads from Product Library. No small thing as people MAY still have products missing from their DIM (last time I heard, rather hard to sort out who has had what fixed. People don't always come back to the forums and say "It's fixed.") If it's not in DIM then you're stuck, if it's not in Product Library.  I've submitted a couple tickets the past couple days, including the six hundred swirlies in my Product Library. (Wanted to say, "Have fun with THAT. YOU did the store changeover.") 

     

    Thanks, Novica. This helps. I've downloaded the lastest version of the script, and plan on running it when I get a chance. So these are products we bought, that should have been installed, but never were installed by DIM?  

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    No, it doesn't correlate with DIM. Or may or may not, I can't check them, I have too many.  I just checked and my Nevada for Victoria 4 is IN DIM. That one is there, for example, in DIM.

    These are products which aren't showing up with Product Pages in your Product Library. You get black swirlies. So you can't get information through the Product Library with these titles. Which includes the install options (manual, etc)

  • nemesis10nemesis10 Posts: 3,291

    This simple idea should probably be elaborated on in the product description for each product in the package. If there is a forum discussion elaborating on the *concept* and the reasoning - then the product pages really should acknowledge this and link to those discussions. 

    "Before you buy this product, you should understand..." 

    Because the forum page obviously exists because people have been buying the product with similar expectations as mine, and then were disappointed to find they didn't get what they *thought* they were buying. 

    This vendor isn't alone in this - there are lots of vendors where I've bought products and then opened DAZ, loaded the product and realized, "Oh... I've got to buy a LOT more things to get what I *thought* I was getting." 

    This one is just particularly onerous, in my opinion. Certainly a buyer-beware vendor product. 

    The promo images in today's releases are NOT what you're getting - they're the results you CAN get if you buy a bunch of other products in the vendor's catalog. 

     

    This is one of those philosophical arguments that goes around in circles so we probably should not enter it.  I think of the illustrations of products as case uses rather than documentation of what is included with the product.  When I see a soda commercial and the actor is driving in a sports car, I don't don't assume that the sports car comes with the soda.  In this case, the product description is for a full and complete product that you can use without buying anything else.  You don't need any other poses to achieve the poses included in the illustration; i will have to check if you need any other product for the textures.  The other products have different morphs and there is no attempt to say that they are all included in one product.  I understand that there is a balancing act of assuming literacy of the users and that world market where people don't read or speak English so use the illustrations as the sole indicator of the product contents  but I think this is doomed to failure.
      
    I checked an all the textures shown are included with the given product.  The only case where different products are shown is where the ability to mix and match with other products are shown.  I don't see where you have to buy loads of products unless you want to mix and match.

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214

    donovancolbert said:

    Novica said:

    @donovancolbert   That script will tell you what products aren't showing correctly in your Product Library, aka you will get black swirlies and not be able to read about the product, or get the downloads from Product Library. No small thing as people MAY still have products missing from their DIM (last time I heard, rather hard to sort out who has had what fixed. People don't always come back to the forums and say "It's fixed.") If it's not in DIM then you're stuck, if it's not in Product Library.  I've submitted a couple tickets the past couple days, including the six hundred swirlies in my Product Library. (Wanted to say, "Have fun with THAT. YOU did the store changeover.") 

     

    Thanks, Novica. This helps. I've downloaded the lastest version of the script, and plan on running it when I get a chance. So these are products we bought, that should have been installed, but never were installed by DIM?  

    I ran this script and it showed me about 50 products that produced the black swirlies in my Product Library, I checked in DIM and I already downloaded the majority of them and they show on my ready to install tab, I think I only had 3 items that were swirlies in my Product library and as well weren't in DIM. Other items that showed on the list were gift card or PC membership purchases, as well as some older PC bundles and since I can't check those bundles I don't know what was in them so not sure if anything from them is missing. I am happy that I always download my products at the purchase time so I have a copy, but I will file a ticket with the list of missing items so Daz can add them back to my Library where they belong .

  • MelanieLMelanieL Posts: 7,188

    Novica said:

    ...

    A small sample- the list will look like this: (SO ticked, look at all those great Ron's brushes I don't have!)  I have around 28,000+ products and it took several hours to run (more than four) but it moved at a good pace. I left the settings at 3 retries for failing items, and with six hundred or more, that really added to the time. But you want it to get it right. Edit- you can do other things while the script is running. 

    ...

    6652 Ron'S Waves

    15384 Ron'S Digital Energy

    12697 Ron'S Rain

    11896 Ron'S Particles

    11560 Ron'S Magical Snow

    11030 Ron'S Hydro Explosion

    10657 Ron'S Condensation

    10516 Ron'S Steam And Smoke

    9377 Ron'S Bokeh

    12962 Ron'S Atmospheric Bundle

    8667 Ron'S Flames

    Well, I rushed to my Product Library to take a look (I have 64 of Ron's brush sets so I was nervous) but every one was OK in my account, including those ones you listed. Isn't this a weird problem?! 

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214

    MelanieL said:

    Novica said:

    ...

    A small sample- the list will look like this: (SO ticked, look at all those great Ron's brushes I don't have!)  I have around 28,000+ products and it took several hours to run (more than four) but it moved at a good pace. I left the settings at 3 retries for failing items, and with six hundred or more, that really added to the time. But you want it to get it right. Edit- you can do other things while the script is running. 

    ...

    6652 Ron'S Waves

    15384 Ron'S Digital Energy

    12697 Ron'S Rain

    11896 Ron'S Particles

    11560 Ron'S Magical Snow

    11030 Ron'S Hydro Explosion

    10657 Ron'S Condensation

    10516 Ron'S Steam And Smoke

    9377 Ron'S Bokeh

    12962 Ron'S Atmospheric Bundle

    8667 Ron'S Flames

    Well, I rushed to my Product Library to take a look (I have 64 of Ron's brush sets so I was nervous) but every one was OK in my account, including those ones you listed. Isn't this a weird problem?! 

    I checked all my ron's brushes ( I have quite a few as well) and they were all in my Product Library, definitely odd that everyone is affected by different products ...  hope it gets fixed soon! 

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861
    edited January 2021

    BTW, remember to check your Product Library for Ken's birds to get the list to him of what updates you need. Just type in Songbird. Since they'll be doing it via the HiveWire account, you have until the end of this month to do it. I just wanted to get it out of the way. EDIT- Heard back from Ken in five minutes! He said this may be too late for HIveWire but if so,  he's following up with Renderosity, that it may take a little bit to get things settled in there.

    When I gave Ken the screenshot of my Product Library birds that I own, I also identified which ones were on the list of updates. In other words, I didn't make him wade through the list one by one.   (It's like Customer Service here, the more info you provide, the faster they can work through it.)

    Ken has a list of what got updates on his site,  here they are for you. If you need Ken's email, just PM me. 

    Ken cares so much about his customers!  I really appreciate him.

    • Birds of Prey v1
    • Birds of Prey v2
    • Birds of Prey v3
    • Birds of Prey v4
    • Birds of Prey v5
    • Characters v1
    • Condors
    • European Edition v1
    • Flock Formations v1
    • Flock Formations v2
    • Gamebirds v1
    • Hummingbird Garden
    • Nightjars
    • Ostriches
    • Owls v1
    • Owls v2
    • Parrots v1
    • Penguins
    • Pet Shop
    • Pose Pack v1
    • Shorebirds v1
    • Shorebirds v2
    • Shorebirds v3
    • Songbird ReMix Base
    • Sparrows of the World
    • Threatened v1
    • Threatened v2
    • Toucans v1
    • Toucans v2
    • Vultures v1
    • Vultures v2
    • Waterfowl v1
    • Waterfowl v2
    • Waterfowl v3
    • Waterfowl v4
    • Woodland Jewels
    Post edited by Novica on
  • Songbird ReMixSongbird ReMix Posts: 289

    Thank-you for the kind words...

    In addition to the list above (of my DAZ releases), I've updated "Hanging Gardens of Nimrud" and "Water Lily Garden" and are available now.  My "free" updates include a native version for DAZ Studio and Poser, include reworked geometry, rigging, morphs, textures and support Iray, 3DL, Superfly and Firefly renderers.

    Waiting in the wings are the updates for "SBRM Corvus Corvus" and "SBRM Cool and Unusual Birds v3" which will appear once I get settled at my new home.  I'm working on Woodpeckers, Cool and Unusual v1 and Australia v2 now.  Hopefully, by the start of next year, I'll have my entire catalog updated.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    @songbirdremix   A few questions please-

     How do the updates work at HiveWire? Would the new files just replace the old ones?

    Will someone contact us to tell us the updates have been done?  

    If it isn't done in time for HiveWire, will we get told about Rendo doing it? I'm thinking some of us may have different emails for accounts there, versus the one we gave for HiveWire. (What a mess, eh?)  I'll have to go check and see which email I'm using over there.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    Alisa was FAST. My updates are being done tomorrow! 

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    Glad I got my birds last week over at HiveWire. They've shut off the reward points. 

  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214
    edited January 2021

    Novica said:

    Glad I got my birds last week over at HiveWire. They've shut off the reward points. 

    That's unfortunate as I have a cart waiting for tomorrow of over 150.00 but if I can't use the points I won't be purchasing right now, I will see what's available at the new place at a later date.  I thought we would be able to use them right up to Jan 4th as with all the holidays pay day is not the usual day. I even avoided buying a gift card here  for the 30% off as I was going to spend that cash at  Hivewire ...  

    Edit:  I thought I better check and I see you can use points you have, but you don't get more points.  ?

    Post edited by Kharma on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861
    edited January 2021

    @kharma   So you're saying you did try your cart to see if your points would apply? Curious.

    Here's the link to the forum post
    https://community.hivewire3d.com/threads/no-reward-points-til-store-closes.4382/

    Post edited by Novica on
  • KharmaKharma Posts: 3,214
    edited January 2021

    Novica said:

    @kharma   So you're saying you did try your cart to see if your points would apply? Curious.

    Here's the link to the forum post
    https://community.hivewire3d.com/threads/no-reward-points-til-store-closes.4382/

    @Novica, it only used the points I had previously applied but didn't add any more points. I guess they had to remove the points as the points were covering the entire order?  I had 4730 points and 1964 applied to my cart, I thought maybe when I got to the checkout they wouldn't work at all so I clicked again to apply points and it did say all 4730 points were applied but only used the 1964 that I had applied a couple days ago when I filled my cart which would be accurate according to what I was eligible to use, so I went ahead and completed my purchase.

    Post edited by Kharma on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    Nope, I just put things in the cart at HiveWire and you can't use your reward points. Mine shows zero balance.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,961

    I have the original Songbirds which is a DAZ Originals and that's it.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    OMG!!!  If you haven't seen this, wait through the beginning commercial, it's SO worth watching these dancing robots!!!!

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    When you get the updates from HiveWire, they do it as an order. Simple, easy, efficient. Alisa is on the ball! They also gave me the missing Woodpeckers from the Songbird Remix Near and Far Bundle bought here at Daz. (The Woodpeckers are missing at Daz, in other words.) 

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,861

    Aw, hoping Larry King (CNN previous talk show host) hangs in there. He's been hospitalized for over a week with Covid 19. He's almost 90 years old. 

  • donovancolbertdonovancolbert Posts: 1,421

    Just put the new hightops and the country roads bundle in my cart. Checkout price was $20.77. Noticed I wasn't logged in. Logged in hoping my PC+ membership would improve the price even more. 

    It went UP $1. 

    Between navigating the convoluted sales "Get 60% of on these items... if you buy from this limited set of new releases that are too expensive and undesirable, get 70% off - OR... buy from this limited OTHER set of desirabe, attractively priced new items, get *3* Genesis 2 or earlier items that we routinely sell for a couple of bucks or less - for free - OR...." 

    I've bought more from Rendo in the last 10 months than in the preceding 4 years, and less from DAZ. 


     

This discussion has been closed.