Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Maxwell announced today to some of it's customers that they will be pushing back the official release to November 22nd. I for one have been waiting for 8 months to get my hands on this piece of software and now it looks like I'm going to have to wait even longer. For those of you who don't know what's going on Next Limit was originally supposed to release Maxwell in July but said because of development problems they were moving the date back to October. Those of us who pre ordered Maxwell were also told that Next Limit was not going to give us any more updates to the beta version of Maxwell because this would slow down development and they wanted to make sure the October release was met. Today's official announcement hasn’t even been received by most of the Maxwell community and is causing some serious debate about the truthfulness of Next Limit with regards to how far along the are with the development of Maxwell. It also seems that Next Limit has been using these pre release special offers to generate revenue and increase the buzz about the software even though they knew it would not be ready when they said it would. I would like to warn anyone who is considering purchasing Maxwell to think twice about it. Since July communication between Next Limit and the Maxwell customers has been almost non existent, even the most basic question goes unanswered. This is not the way to do business but Next Limit doesn’t seem to see it that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Cassil Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Hehe, they seem to be following Cebas in how they deal with thier customer base. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 NL called me today (as Business development manager for VisMasters) to let me know. We were expecting it to launch October 31, but I guess that want to squash a few more bugs and get another feature in there I think. I get the feeling they probably wanted to meet the Oct deadline, but something unexpected came up. I could be wrong, but when I spoke to them this morning that was the impression I got. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2005 Author Share Posted October 24, 2005 Jeff did you get any calls from them when they failed to meet past deadlines? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2005 Author Share Posted October 24, 2005 Brian, Cebas is a gleaming jewel compared to Next Limit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Jeff did you get any calls from them when they failed to meet past deadlines? No becuase I was not with VisMasters back then and we only just added started the promo on our site about a month ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lambros Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 maxwell forums are flooding with complaints right now, but no one from NL posted a comment. I just bought maxwell 10 days ago, and I must say that since the NL team does exist and calls you Jeff, they should pay some respect to their beta customers and post a reply. Maxwell is a superb product, and I am very very happy with the beta version, but I must admit that tonight I went on and bought Vray. I have used Vray free and demo and they are more stable and deliver on time. I am saying that in order to state that I would not warn anyone who wants to buy maxwell not to do that. Get informed about the situation, but know that maxwell is the future....Vray is for the time-being;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2005 Author Share Posted October 24, 2005 Jeff I think that if CGarchitect were to put some pressure on Next Limit we might actually see a Maxwell 1.0 before the end of this year. I'm afraid that Next Limit is not listening to their customers and it may take some external pressure to get them moving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazdaz Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Pushed back to Nov 22nd, but when was it "supposed" to ship? I mean Nov 22nd is only like a month away. If they are doing it to squash bugs and make everything run faster/better, then good for them for wanting to ship a stable product, but if they just said Nov 22nd to give them more time to throw together their software and then shove it out the door, then that is BS. I think there is a fine line between getting it out the door in a timely manner, and rushing it out the door just to shut your customers up. Until it ships, none of us will know which it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2005 Author Share Posted October 24, 2005 Well you've hit upon the problem; no one knows what's going on since they have stopped talking to us in July. When I first purchased Maxwell back in February the first version was supposed to come out in May, it was pushed back to July and then to October, now it's November 22nd. My point is why create all of these release dates when Next Limit knew they didn't have a product that was going to be ready on any of these dates? I received this on October 5th which was only 2.5 weeks ago and it leaves no doubt about when the final release was supposed to come out. I have a hard time believing that 2.5 weeks ago they thought they were ready and now they need another month to get ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennisHolland Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 I feel for your statement Maxer, but the warning for Maxwell towards any possible clients is a bit strong don't you think? Also, marketingwise thinking, it would be a very stupid action from NL if they were only to push presales to the roof with these actions. What about later? If they throw a piece of half-fabricate on the market would there be anyone out here to even think of buying a fresh full priced copy? I don't think so, but i do think some appologies are in place from them towards us in front, and in front of the great promotion we do for them... I also recieved the quite arrogant mail today but I'm still very positive about Maxwell render, don't forget that they made a nasty breakthrough in renderland just a year ago with some features that every other developer could only dream of. Lets wait some more man, sit back and have a coffee... Dennis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazdaz Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Well I can DEFINITLY see people's frustration, but having worked in an industry where you bring new products to market (not the software industry though), I can definitly understand how stuff just pops up and pushes your intrduction date back weeks (or more). If they do actually ship the software on Nov 22nd and it is stable and fully-featured then all this frustration will quickly die down... but if they shipped it in October but it was quite buggy and missing key features, then the frustration would just have started, and gotten worse. I am just trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 24, 2005 Author Share Posted October 24, 2005 I wish I could do the same but after 8 months of this and repeated letdowns my faith in NL is completely gone. We will see if they keep their word this time for a November release but even then I think they may have caused irreparable harm to their company image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 Maxwell is a superb product, and I am very very happy with the beta version, but I must admit that tonight I went on and bought Vray. I have used Vray free and demo and they are more stable and deliver on time. Lambros which version of VRAy did you buy? which version is shipping?? my understanding is That VRAY 1.5 was supposed to have shipped LAST YEAR or 6 months ago or LAST MONTH or wat a Year and half ago ?? still have not seen That bad puppy either unless it has shipped in The last week or Two just curious i Tried to order Maxwell 2 weeks ago while it was still being offered at $495 and The link would NOT work at That price so i gave up Trying To buy it software development is full of pot holes which would you rather have a decent piece of software ? or a rushed out the door oops it really wasnt ready-for-prime-Time POS ?? Randy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 I have never seen a community grow so fast as the Maxwell one: more then 13000 registered users in less then a year. And the more furious these users are about missed deadlines, bad working plugins, etc, the faster this community grows and probably the pre-sale licenses too. I don't doubt that eventually NL will come with a working product, but what ever way you look at it: they will sell many licenses just because of the hype and they will probably sell licenses against full price again, especially to the users who complain the hardest, when V1 proves its right. I can only hope that these funds are used to refine Maxwell instead of developing new products like they are planning soon - time that could have been spent to push an EARLIER release of MW v1. Whatever: I can do a lot of magic with VRay, fRender and MR. And because of the unbiased nature, just this magic can be a problem with MW. A lot of users will be very happy when MW's render speed goes from 50 hrs to 10 hrs, but I can only be happy if MW goes hybrid to do some more magic instead of beautiful realistic photographs... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lambros Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 vizwhiz - bought it 4 hours ago, got payment authorization mail, will have to wait up to 48 hours for download link delivery. As far as I know 1.5 is not out yet, it will probably be 1.47 or sthg. Also, I had no problem buying maxwel, links worked fine, downloaded instantly, got authorization mail 2h later. Piece of cake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted October 24, 2005 Share Posted October 24, 2005 BTW: The Maxwell site sometimes reminds me of this site: http://www.collab.nl They should also start a constant chat/live video part. Could be a lot of fun around anouncement times Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 We were expecting it to launch October 31, but I guess that want to squash a few more bugs and get another feature in there I think. Which feature is that? The comment sounds far from off the top of your head. OK, I am trying to be cool about this, but am having some trouble doing so. I'm actually really angry. The reason is the feeling that they surely knew they weren't even close a few weeks ago and left it until 11:30PM to let us know we're outta luck for another four weeks. I'm hearing my biological clock going tick-tick-tick! Its been so long since I paid for the right to wait for v1 that I dont remember if it was a $400 or the $500 price. I bought two licences, so they are sitting on my $800 - $1000 all this time. That gives me the right to expect a bit more information than I/we have gotten. They need someone in Jeff's position, but not mine since they've already cashed the check. No problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vizwhiz Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 did anyone see This? i found This posted over at www.vizdepot.com http://www.vizdepot.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20265#post20265 ** Maxwell Render 1.0 Releasing Nov. 22nd We hope all is well and that you are as excited about the release of Maxwell v1.0 as we are. We have set an official release date for Maxwell: The big day will be Nov. 22! Yes, we know that many of you were hoping to get your hands on it this month as we’d previously announced but after careful consideration, we’ve decided to wait a few more days and make sure that it’s released the way we all want it to be and get a little more Beta testing under our belts. Things are looking good….. really good! We hope you understand. Believe us, it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, to tide you over until the release, you will be receiving weekly updates on progress, features and information regarding the full release version of Maxwell. As always, we are at your disposal to answer any questions regarding Maxwell Render at maxwell@nextlimit.com and you can keep up to date at www.maxwellrender.com Best Regards, Next Limit Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted October 25, 2005 Author Share Posted October 25, 2005 I love how they are now calling it the "official release date"; if you had seen what they were saying back in May you would have sworn we were all just a few days away from an official release back then! I also like the part about receiving updates and that they are at our disposal to answer questions. There has been virtually no Next Limit presence on the forum in months and none of the questions the users ask get any response from official Next Limit people. As for updates it almost seems comical to hear them say that. We haven't even been privileged enough to see a screen shot of the GI that they are developing much less get any concrete information regarding what features will be included in 1.0. To me it's just a little tidbit that Next Limit is throwing out to try and calm the storm. Just to let you know that on the forum there is a thread going that is now over 18 pages and not a single comment from any Next Limit staff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuck Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 I'm honestly not that upset, but I purchased the software last week, so I haven't been waiting for 6 months like some of you guys. I hope they are true to there claims and release a product that I will enjoy. Speed is my biggest concern, 20hrs isn't that uncommon for me on a single 3ghz P4. I also think that $500 is a bargain considering you get multiple versions... So who thinks this will really be the final release date?? Chuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 Which feature is that? The comment sounds far from off the top of your head. OK, I am trying to be cool about this, but am having some trouble doing so. I'm actually really angry. The reason is the feeling that they surely knew they weren't even close a few weeks ago and left it until 11:30PM to let us know we're outta luck for another four weeks. I'm hearing my biological clock going tick-tick-tick! Its been so long since I paid for the right to wait for v1 that I dont remember if it was a $400 or the $500 price. I bought two licences, so they are sitting on my $800 - $1000 all this time. That gives me the right to expect a bit more information than I/we have gotten. They need someone in Jeff's position, but not mine since they've already cashed the check. No problem. Don't forget thet contacted me as a representative of VisMasters and reseller of their product, not as the owner of CGA. I did not ask what they were adding or what bugs they were trying to fix. It was only about a 30 second call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 I got that email too. Seemed more than a bit obnoxious to me - the line about "the big day" made me stop and think for a second that I must have misread somewhere when they talked about an October release. The "a few more days" part was kind of funny - I always thought a few was 3 or 4, not 22. With spin like that these guys should be in politics. But the worst was the bit about "many of you were hoping to get your hands on it this month" - like we're small children and they have the best ice cream sandwich. Oh well. I too have worked in software, and I know how it is when you're debugging a large program. But they need PR, and fast - a full-time person to answer questions, post on their boards, give us some screenshots and descriptions of new features, and generally make us feel assured that we haven't bought vaporware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 Oh well. I too have worked in software, and I know how it is when you're debugging a large program. But they need PR, and fast - a full-time person to answer questions, post on their boards, give us some screenshots and descriptions of new features, and generally make us feel assured that we haven't bought vaporware. Not disputing the delayed release, but have you ever looked at the competition? If you think NL's PR efforts are bad, they look like the top spinmeister for the US President compared to the others in the industry. I don't think they even know what PR is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted October 25, 2005 Share Posted October 25, 2005 Don't forget thet contacted me as a representative of VisMasters and reseller of their product, not as the owner of CGA. NextLimit already owe you big props for getting this crowd excited about what they were up to, which in many cases led to pre-sales. And this is no $30 plug-in. They should have been able to raise some decent cash. But my point was that they still feel a need to impress you, Jeff--as Mr. Vismaster--to keep the cashcow at the milking station. You got a call, we existing customers got the slap-happy email. Later. It's not like I have a moment to actually learn to use Maxwell. But it would be nice to have since I already 'own' it, and to provide the excuse to buy the Boxx 8-core machine--8 cores, 8-core licences for Maxwell. See? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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