opus13 Posted November 22, 2005 Share Posted November 22, 2005 considering that ordering via credit card is the only way to buy maxwell... im surprised that i havent heard of people using the anti-fraud protection that credit card services offer. if i had ordered early, then the item was not delivered and the company was skating around talking of the product, i would be putting a claim in with my bank and getting a refund. whether the product looks like it will be good or not, there are certain levels of ethics that a merchant is responsiblwe for. maxwell customers have not gotten what they orderd, and shown a surprising amount of patience. in general, they are either suckers or idiots to defend them. whether the announced release date is realistic or not, that is not the customers reponsibility. an implicit contract was agreed to by both parties, and NL is breaking that agreement. i'd be getting my money back as of now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricardo Eloy Posted November 22, 2005 Share Posted November 22, 2005 I'm not a Maxwell user (or should I say tester?), and have been watching this whole fuzz from a certain distance, but I think this was a risk from the beggining. I mean, they started to actually sell their software even before it was ready. As I understand, their customers are people who believed NL could deliver their promise. And paid for it, a promise. And that's where the problem lies, because even though you guys have a beta version of it, no one can help not feeling like being fooled (I'm not saying anyone was fooled, it's just a figure). It seems like NL started with the wrong foot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 22, 2005 Author Share Posted November 22, 2005 Rick your absolutely right; if NL hadn’t sold a pre-release version of Maxwell we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It would have served their interests better to simply release a free demo version and then offer some discount or something to those users once the full version was finished. As it stands now you've got thousands of people from all over the world that have put down good money for a product and they are slowly seeing that they aren't getting what they paid for. The silence from NL's side is just making a bad situation worse and the longer they take to correct this the worse it's going to get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted November 22, 2005 Share Posted November 22, 2005 In the beginning, even the alpha, it was a surprisingly good render engine for an MLT derivative (BSDF). I think they figured that the core was stable, and more or less complete, and it was just an issue of fine tuning from there. Plus they felt pressured to get it out on the market. Soon the competition will probably have biased derivative path tracing engines (vrays working furiously on their ppt algorithms im sure), which will be a bit less realistic, but alot faster, so NL feels this heat. Plus I think at the beginning, obviously, they needed cash to finance the development team, etc. From there things went downhill, as we've seen. We've seen that the beta needed a core overhaul, which is serious business, and as far as the stand alone aspect/plugins aspect is concerned, NL had to make some tough choices based on their predictions for future competition, thus a planned release for a product i don't think many expected. Plus, they're a subborn bunch of guys, they won't easily admit defeat (or mistakes), which is generally a good trait in rough seas. Good point, above, btw, these kind of games piss resellers off - skipping the nov 22 deadline announced on their front page is not wise, i hope they keep their resellers more informed than their customers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricardo Eloy Posted November 23, 2005 Share Posted November 23, 2005 Just occured me something from my Marketing MBA: winning a new customer costs 10 times the money you would spend keeping the old ones... Dangerous seas they're sailing in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kippu Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 hehehe was reading their forums ... seems like the RC is delayed ... lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dworks Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 hehehe was reading their forums ... seems like the RC is delayed ... lol i received an answer to a mail request about the RC release today. they say we will get it 'next week' and also new license information 'prior to that'. markus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted November 24, 2005 Share Posted November 24, 2005 Strange company. If you contact them via email, they are very polite, responsive, and fast. On their principle means of communication to their customers, their forum, the total opposite, a complete mystery. This means, obviously, that their 'strategy' for communication on the forum is done intentionally. Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the past few days, the forum was flooded with requests for the rc release date, and instead, they chose to post some obscure (and incorrectly worded/quoted) answer to some questions by some user, instead of simply giving a simple response to the hundreds of posts asking when the rc would be released. So, at this point, we know its intentional. Interesting game they're playing, I think they're smarter than we give them credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 25, 2005 Author Share Posted November 25, 2005 I guess it could be that they don't pay any attention to the forum and only check it periodically to see what is going on. I agree that they are definitely playing a game with us but the question is why. I don't see the benefit in having an angry user base, I don't see how that can benefit them. I don't understand why communication isn't uniform and we keep getting different messages. I guess as long as people keep giving them money and we keep talking about them they feel like there in a pretty good position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buffos Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 The problem arises from the fact that this is an internet business. If I had bought it from a place in my country, i would have acted legally already. The problem is that distance acts as a defense for them. There is really to much beaurocracy to touch them, too much time needed, and too much money. I am now 99.99999% sure, that the user interface is assembled NOW.Why? Simple. The tools are there (realflow), the look is the same (realflow) and the knowledge is there (realflow). So definately this would not take them any time to assemble. I do also think that their main problem was core engine. I also think they may also be serious problems that they did not overcome even until now! For example the sunlight-dielectics problem. I really think what happened is that they really thought they had an engine running, the released the alpha, users found many important bugs, that they were not able to solve. So i think they started to rewrite some parts, and my suspicion is that they have not solved those problems but faked the solution, which is not bad by the way. The problem is they did take money, i think they really a significant amount, and what happens at time like that is that you behave like a man who is drοwning. I think after they release , whatever they release, smart users (i not include me in them ) will definately spot what is (if anything) wrond. I am also curious about the vip usergroup. If they offer services through that group, how can they deny it to me (remember they actuall banned me), when they actually never gave me the chance of a refund. So they want me as a customer, but they dont want me either ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 26, 2005 Author Share Posted November 26, 2005 As for the VIP forum there are currently about 500 people signed up and I would suspect that there are still many either on vacation or holiday that haven't signed up yet. I don't think that they should ban you from the forum since you did pay for your license, perhaps you could ask to be reinstated under some kind of conditional probation. I think your right about the engine and them having to re-write it to solve problems, let's hope it's almost done. One thing that does concern me is the policy they have taken regarding their licensing and multi core processors. Currently Victor has stated that Maxwell treats multi core processors as 1 core = 1 CPU, where as Microsoft considers 1 socket = 1 CPU. This obviously means that NL will be able to charge more for its licenses depending on the number of cores you have even if it's all on one chip. Which means that since manufacturers seem to have stopped trying to increase MHz speed and are adopting more cores per CPU, now you have a speed limit that you will reach no matter how fast your computer turns out to be? If CPU's never reach or surpasses the 4 GHz limit then one license of Maxwell will only support 4 cores and if there never faster than 4GHz what is the point in upgrading your machine even if it has 100 cores you can only use 4 of them at 4 GHz a piece. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 Their licensing scheme seems suicidal... why would the saddle the slowest, most power hungry renderer on the market with the most restrictive processor usage allowance? Now, who was it that said that Maxwell was the best thing that ever happened to Vray? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_PopArt Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 Its a very restrictive policy, and its reflects their need (or desire) to generate more revenue, because its very restrictive. Once again, as i see it, not an issue of suicide, but rather a shrewd business move, that assumes that they are very confident in their product. If 1.0 is as solid/good as one would assume, they can lock the doors on license policy, and people will pay just the same.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adehus Posted November 26, 2005 Share Posted November 26, 2005 If 1.0 is as solid/good as one would assume, they can lock the doors on license policy, and people will pay just the same.... You could be right, but I have some doubts. Right now it can easily take 200 hours to execute a print resolution interior render on a top of the line dual core machine. So if speed improvements in the app cut that time in half, and use of another dual processor cuts it in half again (hitting the 4 core per license limit), you've still left with approx 50 hour render times from one license for a single scene. Do you think most would think that those render times are acceptable out of a $1000 app? (asking sincerely) BTW, Daros has mentioned that data from a single scene rendered on a network can take up to an hour to merge into a single image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 28, 2005 Author Share Posted November 28, 2005 Well it seems that they have announced that there will be an announcement regarding the RC today. I mean at this point what is the point, no one believes them any longer and odds are that even if they say the RC is going to be released this week it won't be. I wish that someone had actually kept track of all of the announcements of past release dates so that we actually knew how many times we've been through this already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 VERY EXCITING announcement! Dear Friends, We're happy to announce the exact date of first release candidate. Maxwell Render RC1 will be released on Dec 2, 2005 (Fri) Thank you for your great support! Best regards, Tom Are they friggin' kidding me? They're passing this off as "announcing the exact date"? The approximate date when I paid them was October. Then the exact date for the final was November 22. Then the approximate date for the RC was the week of November 20-26. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 28, 2005 Author Share Posted November 28, 2005 Welcome to the club, when I purchased Maxwell the full release date was some time in May of 2005! I won't believe it till I see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricardo Eloy Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 At least they have a UI to show, this time... http://www.maxwellrender.com/whitepaper/index.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 28, 2005 Author Share Posted November 28, 2005 Here is a shot of the Maxwell GUI http://www.maxwellrender.com/maxwellrender/vista.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJLynn Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 An open latter to my NL sales rep: Maya- This is an open letter. I am writing to request a refund if the RC1 release is delayed past December 2. I bought a student license from you back in July, and I am very disappointed in the way the development and publicity people have treated the release date. At the time we were promised updated betas until a final release in October. Then it was a final release in November. Then November 22. Then it was going to be a prerelease that week and a final in December. Now it's December 22 for the release. I need this software for my school work. It's gone from being something I could use this semester, to something I could use for my finals, to something I will not be able to use this semester at all. And every time they push back the release date, they treat it like it's a clarification of a date that was vague before. Either the customers are being treated like a bunch of idiots, or the announcements are being written by somebody who is not fully aware of the current state of the user community. Either way the customers are being mistreated. A suggestion: if a delay is being announced, the announcement should be something like this: "We're very sorry to announce that the next release will be delayed. Previously, we announced that a new release would be available this week, but we misjudged the amount of time we would need to implement the feature set we want and fix the known bugs. We understand that this delay will interfere with some of our customers' plans, and we apologize for this inconvenience. I would like to take this opportunity to offer my personal assurance that we are working hard to bring you the best release we can, and I hope that our customers will find that the next release is worth the wait." Instead we get this: "Dear Friends, We're happy to announce the exact date of first release candidate. Maxwell Render RC1 will be released on Dec 2, 2005 (Fri) Thank you for your great support! Best regards, Tom" I believe that I have been very patient so far. I've defended Nextlimit in the past because as a former software engineer, I understand how difficult it is to correctly estimate a release date and then get the product done, but this is getting ridiculous, and the treatment of customers is sorely lacking. So I would like to announce to you this very special opportunity: If RC1 is delayed again, I want my money back. Thank you for your great support. Andrew Lynn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 28, 2005 Author Share Posted November 28, 2005 Andrew, All I can say is good luck to you, from what I've read NL has no refund policy and that's something I think buffos knows something about. I would be very interested to hear what Maya has to say about your letter, she always has treated me well so she might have something relevant to say. You should also post this letter on the Maxwell forum, but get ready cause I'm sure plenty of people will be taking NL's side on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 I hope all of you can find as much humor in this as I have, these guys must have lost all connection to reality. from their email to customers today: As you can imagine, things have been quite busy around NL headquarters and everything is running smoothly. smoothly, they say Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricardo Eloy Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 Well, of course "everything is running smoothly"... Everything would be "running smoothly" here too if I could set my own deadlines and still get paid in advance... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted November 28, 2005 Author Share Posted November 28, 2005 We should all adopt Next Limits philosophy for doing business, sell pre-orders for renderings and animations. Set a date for when you will have the final version to the client and then perpetually move the date back so you don't ever have to do any work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
renato Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 I don't want to imagine what will be the forum if they push back the release again... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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