[VALKAMA]

So far I am happy with the new V2 and the increased speed performance is a big help. I guess I am still getting over the sticker shock but i guess thats the way it is.

I like your comparison to Crack and V2 rusteberg as maybe thats how nextlimit was thinking when they came up with the new pricing system.

Bottom line for me since I primarily only use 3 computers it going to cost me $885 to continue working with the new maxwell and the increased speed will pay for itself soon.

[rusteberg]

atta' boy! see, it's not all that bad once you get your fix! welcome back to the positive side of life valkama!

[RK_art]

Nevertheless, I also payed more to upgrade all my licences to V2 than I had previously payed for it at the first time (V1.5 standard came with 3 free render nodes).
So, this is the first software I own that costs me more to update than it costed to buy it new.
Hope I don't discover soon that waiting for a new bundle-offer and to buy it completely new would have been much cheaper than to upgrade now ?

[zdeno]

I am looking for this kind of bundle with patience.

IMO price for upgrade MAIN license is fair - but this ridicoulus price for ONE node is much too high.

upgrading main license, should at least give possibility to use 4 PC , and adding one more node it is worth something about 25 euros , not more.

sooner or leater market will force NL to lower prices or another changes to license policy.

if you pay 900 euros one can use 10 PC to render with vray.
but when you want to render with maxwell on 10 PC you have to spend about 4500 euros

sorry NL team , with all do respect maxwell IS NOT THAT GOOD !

[caldas]

Hi, I have never posted anything before, I confess. But as I go now through this thread I thought I had to give my humble opinion. Which is:
I must go with polyxo opinion.
A lot of us were sort of Maxwell pioneers. We jumped in with Maxwell and I remember we endured a lot of troubleshooting times back then and we still do sometimes. As hardware evolved, we saw Maxwell offer us extra licenses which would take advantage of extra cores and computers. I think version 1.0 came with 2 licenses if I remember correctly, but I am not sure. So get this, we bought a main license and Maxwell later, gave us 4 in total. This became our package.

I think we were never told these were temporary and that later they would be discarded to start things anew. Now when I try to upgrade the system tells me the number of licenses I have, and how many I want to upgrade at the price of 345 euros per license plus vat. I don't think this is correct. Sorry Maxwell.

What happens to us pioneers?
We just disappear. We become like any other customer.
We had sort of a "gold license" that was worth 4 and that status
is being taken from us.
Ok, they were offered, but they became ours.
Ok, we payed a special price back then when thing were
started, but that was the proposal at the time anlike I said,
we endured a lot of rough times...

The problem is that I feel like history has been erased.
I have lost my privileges.

I think it would be fair that people that have believed in Maxwell from the beginning
should deserve a second thought on behalf of Maxwell.

I am not saying this should be eternal. Or that it should pass from father to son .
I don't know exactly how this pioneer status should evolve or how it could
be modified, but I think we deserved a better offer than the one Maxwell is giving
us right now. Give us a bonus discount, or something. At the very least give back the
rights to my original humble 2 licenses for the 345 price.

Regarding a member who said that the price asked would pay itself in a couple of weeks,
I honestly fail to see the connection. Maybe Maxwell should triple or quadruple the price instead.
Who cares, it will pay itself not in a couple of weeks but in a couple of months. Maybe that philosophy
can be applied to other stuff. Start selling a common pencil at 100 euros each. Who cares, it will pay itself
in a couple of days.

And what the heck does it matter what people are charging for their work?
Not all people from freelancers, to small and huge companies have the same
rates. What does this have to do with it? Maybe now Sketchup should up the price to
3.000 euros and Autocad start its price at 20,000. What you use it for and what you
charge are non consequential. Everybody has a different situation. We can't judge this
situation on this denominator.

All I am saying is that we have a commom sense that is born with us. It is almost
like instinct. And we can't help feeling like this isn't right. I know we can't do anything about
it, but it just doesn't feel right.

I know that Maxwell invests money in research and development.
They have a top notch product and they deserve to get back the time and effort
they have burned on this project, but not this way.

That is all, I think I "spoke" too much

Thanks for a great product Maxwell.
I just don't agree with the upgrade option.

All the best to you guys.
Buena suerte para usteds

[RK_art]

zdeno wrote:
IMO price for upgrade MAIN license is fair - but this ridicoulus price for ONE node is much too high.

upgrading main license, should at least give possibility to use 4 PC , and adding one more node it is worth something about 25 euros , not more.

sooner or leater market will force NL to lower prices or another changes to license policy.

if you pay 900 euros one can use 10 PC to render with vray.
but when you want to render with maxwell on 10 PC you have to spend about 4500 euros

sorry NL team , with all do respect maxwell IS NOT THAT GOOD !

I totally agree with zdeno.
Between 300 to 400,- € (incl.VAT) for the whole V2-upgrade of 1 licence + 3 nodes that came previously free in the bundle would have been fair.
Although I already bought the upgrade, it leaves a very bad taste that NL charges so much money for an simple upgrade, especially when you compare it with the upgrade-prices of other apps. Even a C4D-Studio-upgrade is much cheaper !

[JTB]

I think what describes best the current situation is this... We should be able to upgrade and have what we already have... I mean, upgrade one licence and have the 1 main licence and the 4 render nodes... Or, use a very low price for the render nodes... Otherwise, it is like taking back what we have...
Although I can't easily compare with other renderers because I don't know the prices, I think that for one person using 3-4 computers as a small renderfarm the upgrade cost is big... More than usual...

[Bubbaloo]

Next Limit could take Autodesk's policy. Charge an annual subscription fee of $500, release yearly "new" versions, and if you're not on subscription, you pay around $3000.

Or... they can continue releasing free upgrades lasting many years until the next major release, which they will price very low. Really, I think their process is very customer friendly. The amount of work they put into this latest major version is worth much more than what they are charging, in my opinion. The overhaul of the network rendering system alone is awesome.

Upgrade your license to V2. Make lots of money from your photorealistic renderings. Use a renderfarm if you need to while you save up for node licenses if you need them.

[jo]

1) the license scheme was changed from "per core" to per machine.
This took place as an adaption to hardware developments: People with quadcore-machines used up one complete
license with a single machine and kept complaining about this fact until the scheme was finally adjusted.
This had nothing to do with giving away Freebies due to endless Troubles around the V1 release.

Now we know that the license scheme had to be changed from "per core" to "per socket".
Because this is what the hardware development was about: no more processor speed (GHz) but to increase number of core.
If we had have from "per core" to "per socket" now Polyxo wouldn't have any problem.

Ciao, Gio

[yolk]

[giacob]

Next Limit could take Autodesk's policy. Charge an annual subscription fee of $500, release yearly "new" versions, and if you're not on subscription, you pay around $3000.

Or... they can continue releasing free upgrades lasting many years until the next major release, which they will price very low. Really, I think their process is very customer friendly. The amount of work they put into this latest major version is worth much more than what they are charging, in my opinion. The overhaul of the network rendering system alone is awesome.

Upgrade your license to V2. Make lots of money from your photorealistic renderings. Use a renderfarm if you need to while you save up for node licenses if you need them.

Good commercial but...
keep into account that medium sized studio ( not me a freelance) , given this node pricing policy, could choose ( and sometime they do) Fryreneder since it offers twofree render nodes with a single licence....who could blame on them
Fryrender 1 license + 2 nodes 795,00
maxwell 895+(2 x 445,00) for the same

even an upgrade (one license * 2nodes) cost the same as a new fry license + 2nodes

[hyltom]

I agree with Polyxo too.

When I bought maxwell, it was for one machine/one core. At that time I was happy, the deal was great 495 Euro (if I remember well) for a rendering software that deliver amazing quality picture. Can't ask for more. Then computer arrived with 2 core, 4 core, we wait long time the realease of maxwell 1.0 and the licence policy changed. At the end for the old time user, it become 8 maxwell licences. This was great, because in 4 years, I have bought few computers, allowing me to use maxwell on different machine and get faster rendering...or more views in one night. Now that version 2.0 is out, they claim it to be faster but I can use it only on one computer...after all I just bought one maxwell licence, why should I pay for few upgrade, somewhere, I feel cheated. NL has given me freely the power that was missing in maxwell render by allowing me to use few computers with my only licence. Now that the couple "computer group"+8 maxwell licence cover my need, they are asking me to upgrade one licence per computer (or one licence + node licence). At the end between something that is faster on one computer or something that is much faster on few computers, I have chosen to keep using 1.7 even if quality is not as good.

By the way, I also tend to find that this release is more an update then an upgrade...not much new features but many bugs correction.

[tanguy]

Agreed...
And I would like to say, it is even not so much a problem of money... It's just the they do that.
some people, Free lance, Studio or large facility are waiting for a long time this Major Upgrade, because it was really interesting. It sounds to be interesting, but now, the Licensing policy change and nobody was aware of that until they released the V2.
So here, we are working with 16 computer, we bought 2 Licences and we get 4+4 free as well. So our production is based on that for 1 year and half. But now we have to pay an REALLY EXTRA COST of money to stay at this level. That is a shame, or I would like to say... Somebody is getting our balls in an applier...
So whatever the amount of work they put in the V2, all the major render engine used to do that by the past, Vray, Brazil, MR and even RenderM. Never we saw this kind of Pricing for a new release. And Speed is nice, I agree, but that is not a REVOLUTION. Try Fry Sp2 actually and MX V2, I wonder the speed mastering is not so OBVIOUS.
So in case of forcing the actual and previous customers to barely buy new license (that is the way I feel this new policy) maybe it should be a good idea to let us know that before the end of the secret time and also, ask us about that. Because WE are the customers...
And to finish my post... The time when showing or producing a REALISTIC rendering was kind of magic is done, OVER.. FINISH. All the engine, with a bit of talent and time are capable to make enough realism to blow any customer... So now, how we can SHIFT the increase of this rendering solution on our products, when the market is the worth for the last 10 years ? Does somebody can give us a solution, or maybe a paper with License V2 which explain it is not our fault... but the Engine one ?

Regards,

Tanguy BODIVIT
Vfx Supervisor
NYC

[RK_art]

All in all, NL seems not to care about these protests concerning their update-pricing politic.
So, everyone has to decide for himself if V2 is worth the money.
As I already said, I upgraded all my licenses, but when I now see that my V2 render-times in rendering human-skin-setups (multiple SSS-layer) are not soooooo much faster than they were with 1.7, I have doubts that I will repeat this procedure with a future V3 for that high price. If the new VrayforC4D-Version has a suitable fastskin-shader for human skin, their price-value-relationship is much better and gives me all I need for an affortable price.

[jrandom]

Give people some free addictive drug of choice, then wait until they can't live without it, then start charging them for it.

I freelance and I own most of the major Max render engines. I use which ever one gets the job done.
Upgrades are a fact of software life and I think the full version upgrade price is totally reasonable.

The cost of converting a full license to a render node is IMO ludicrous, those should be next to free or at least a reasonable charge of an administration fee. This in most circles considered a downgrade. You (as in NextLimit) are not losing anything only gaining user loyalty. If anything when a user needs another seat, they more than likely will buy one at full-price to compliment the their existing Maxwell pipeline, then NextLimit comes out ahead.

I do not now of any other rendering software that charges to upgrade a render node when it is less then 10 units.

Mental Ray of whom used to be notorious about its node pricing now allows you unlimited network rendering through max.

I in all honesty doubt the v2's speed is anywhere near as fast as v1.7 + 4 nodes, I maybe wrong but whatever. me = 1.7 8+0