Ok it´s 16. June today

[vjapi]

How many time wasted looking the at the Announcements forum....

[dellis]

is that really how it works EGZ....it makes sense. I had a project not too long ago that i wanted to use the Aura beta on....it would've been cool. It was a fairly high profile case ($$$$$$) involving a huge pile up on a highway due to smoke travelling across the road... but my email was never responded to. The plugin would've helped tremendously...but more then that its an area of 3d that i have always been interested in so beta testing it wouldn't even be work. Same goes for the internal builds of VRay.... though...i'm so bothered by that because it does what we need it to do.

For everyone who is bitching about the release date of Vray....you have a point...anouncements shouldn't come unless they are meaningful. We can't depend on good intentions.....deadlines are deadlines are deadlines. But on the other hand if you look at your Vray purchase as an investment...then the amount of money you have made to what you've paid should keep you quiet. $799 is joke for what you already get with Vray as it is right now....and everyone bitchs because they are going to make the renderer better by leaps and bounds....and then give it to us for free. I'll wait...patiently!

[Janus Rölder]

800 bucks ARE a joke. correct.

the problem is, that we would pay for an upgrade with an smile when all things are working like they should.

i bet that we will see july without 1.5 and still betatester will tell us that we are close to the final.

in september/november we will, most likely, get Max 7 and the game starts again?

[TJE]

Hey guys!

Well, I've been following this thread for a while now, and I sort of decided that I would refrain from participating, as I think it's a waste of time, and I know that there's nothing I can say to get the new version faster anyway. But I think it's important to prevent mishaps like this in the future.

The way I see it, there are 3 things that went wrong, and subsequently caused threads like this:

1. We were handed something that looked like a release date, which surely raised the anticipation level to the max, and has now left people very frustrated because they didn't get it. 'It'll be well worth the wait...' doesn't cut it at this point.

2. We're told about new features like fur, which is fine, but gives the impression that other very needed (or buggy) features, like DR for example, is second priority or completely forgotten.

3. Some people feel left out, hearing all this talk from the betatesters, who were lucky to get a copy. I know I do... The forum has been divided into the having and the craving.

I suggest the following for the future:

- Don't give a release date if you can't keep it (Damn cliché, I know) and if you do, make sure to keep it like the rest of us HAVE to if we want to stay in bussiness. I'd rather hear nothing, than be waiting like I am now, reading threads like this... I'm sure that Chaos will also be a lot less stressed out, not having 1.000's of people on the edge of their seat.

- Make sure that promises are kept before making new ones. That the features we chose Vray for, work properly, before introducing new ones. Remember, that we BOUGHT the DR feature... Gives me ugly flashbacks to the fR days...

- Contact betatesters directly - Chaos obviously know who they want - and have them sign an NDA if there's a chance of the beta leaking.... Then let them discuss their thing in a closed part of the forum.

Great! Now I feel dirty, guilty and stupid, so I better stop.

I wish all a good day!

[egz]

Great! Now I feel dirty, guilty and stupid, so I better stop.

Don't, you make some good points without resorting to ranting. And I think Chaos should take note of your suggestions, It would probably mean a lot less bad feelings, ranting and flamewars in the future.

I do disagree a bit regarding the discusison of beta features though. I think that if it wasn't for the missed release dates people would enjoy the previews a lot more. Just look at the Brazil community. They are also being shown previews of new features, but without any hints of a releasedate, and it seems to be working well there.

[TJE]

Yeah, I agree, Egz. If the deadlines are met, all the previews in the world, please!

Otherwise all should be able to test the beta, perhaps with NDA's if nessesary. That would satisfy a lot of people. It would be at peoples own risk, of course, instability-wise....

[egz]

I think that was the original plan. But they stopped that when the beta was leaked to crackers. An NDA would solve this problem partly I guess, but managing NDAs for thousands of users is more than a small team would want to handle, while at the same time trying to get some work done.

You might say that it is unfair to cut off the honest users after some dishonest ones have leaked the beta. The damage is already done, what harm can it do? Well, there are new builds all the time, and they wouldn't want to risk the same with the next one. There's no doubt that pirated software often builds a software's reputation because of the "underground buzz" generated by it. Having it pirated in the first place is bad enough for business, but it is also potentially harmful to the reputation of the software if the pirated build has serious bugs (it is beta after all).

[TJE]

Yes, well, these are the dilemma's of having a public beta and an eager support community. I suppose it's no different from all other software developers, it's a choice you have to make and be firm about. I agree, the fishes seems to be doing something right.

I guess we're back to a small closed group of betatesters, if the fear of piracy is dominant.

[Syclone1]

I think another issue with Chaos releasing the internal build to the general public is that with some of the current buggs it would be like a scene from Frankenstien where the angry villagers (public) would storm the castle (Chaos) with their pichforks and torches after their beta software causes them to miss a deadline due to bugs. And of cource as egz mentioned the odd village idiot leaking the software.

-dave

[TJE]

Oh, you mean all the pillaging villagers that don't understand the word 'BETA'?

[Dynedain]

I understand the word BETA. In fact I beta-test for several companies, including Symantec. But that doesn't help me get in on the beta does it