Where can I find the new plants?

Started by AndyWelder, April 02, 2009, 03:05:55 AM

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Oshyan

#45
I apologize for taking a little while to respond to this topic, but as you can imagine we're pretty busy trying to roll everything out. I am sorry if that has meant that communication with the user community was not the best.

That being said I'm a bit saddened by the reactions here so far. Here are the bullet points of the announcement which will hopefully put it in perspective:

- For the next 30 days pricing on TG2 Deep and Deep + Animation is the same as it always was. This is the "grace period" we promised for those who wanted to see the final prices before buying, and still wanted to get in on the pre-purchase price. I think this is fairly generous.

- The price after the 30th is going up $100 for each of Planetside's products. So for TG2 Deep, it's going to be $299 and $399 for Deep+Animation. This is a pretty reasonable price increase, not too much, but definitely a decent discount for those who purchased early.

- The Xfrog bundle includes *all* of Xfrog's 1300 plants. As far as I know there is no other bundle like this available anywhere, and the price is excellent. If you were to buy those plants in XFrog's own separate bundles you would spend $2000! Granted they are only in TGO format, so for those who use multiple apps it is less appealing, but for a TG2 user it's an extremely good price. I understand it's still out of reach of many people and that's unfortunate, but there is no doubt it is a great discount.

- For those who already purchased TG2 there is a coupon discount off the bundle equivalent to your original purchase price. So pre-purchasers are at no disadvantage for this bundle purchase.

- Xfrog is responsible for any additional product options they might make available, like individual plant sales. I do know that they are interested in doing this, but beyond that I don't know any details about whether this is coming soon or not. I think it would be a great option, but keep in mind that per-plant the prices would necessarily be much higher than the bundle (which works out to 45 *cents* per plant variation). Of course for those people who only need a few specific plants, the "a la carte" option would be more interesting, and I hope that does become available.

- I can't give any information or update on any additional free Xfrog resources that may be coming as those are of course Xfrog's responsibility. I know Stewart did talk about that previously so I will try to have him come and give an update about that, but he's quite busy today (understandably) so it may not be immediately. However Planetside does have a few additional free models we will make available soon.

- The website is still being finalized, some of the content from the old site that was useful will need to be added. We have launched the site for the product announcement today, and we will continue to improve it. One thing of note is we haven't been able to add image credits to all images, but we will definitely be doing that, and a *big* thank you goes out to everyone who allowed us to use their fantastic images! In the meantime if you find any broken links, formatting problems, etc. feel free to email them directly to me at oshyan AT planetside.co.uk

I hope you can see now that the $699 option is specific to the Xfrog bundle deal (and it's a good deal), and that the prices of TG2 as a standalone product remain reasonable and within reach of the hobbyist. We are happy to be working with Xfrog and I think the arrangement we have worked out is a great option for certain customers. But Planetside is still only a software developer, not a content provider, so it's up to other vendors to provide other options for the hobbyist. We do the best we can for our own products (e.g. free version of TG2).

- Oshyan

neuspadrin

Quote from: Oshyan on April 22, 2009, 05:39:58 PM
I hope you can see now that the $699 option is specific to the Xfrog bundle deal (and it's a good deal), and that TG2's prices remain reasonable and within reach of the hobbyist.

- Oshyan

that i do, especially with your generous educational discounts.  you guys are very good to your market, which seems to be pretty much hobbiests.  Which is why yes the xfrog part of all those models is very awesome, and if i was rich id hop right on that deal. but paying more for plants then i am the program i want to put them in just doesn't compute.  what we really need is small packages at decent prices for a decent amount of content, all easily downloadable from online.

AndyWelder

I only hope this doesn't mark a change in course by PS, now solely aiming at the high end market/users and leaving the long time hobbyists who supported Terragen for all these years out in the cold. It took me quite a while to scratch together the money to buy TG2 because I have a family to support (and admit I was pleasantly surprised by the discount for registered users!) but the pricing by Xfrog is way out of my range so I have to forget about decent looking vegetation (apart from the few free items I was able to download while lighning could share his stuff and some of the later plants by a few contributors)
"Ik rotzooi maar wat aan" Karel Appel

Oshyan

Quote from: AndyWelder on April 22, 2009, 05:53:05 PM
I only hope this doesn't mark a change in course by PS, now solely aiming at the high end market/users and leaving the long time hobbyists who supported Terragen for all these years out in the cold. It took me quite a while to scratch together the money to buy TG2 because I have a family to support (and admit I was pleasantly surprised by the discount for registered users!) but the pricing by Xfrog is way out of my range so I have to forget about decent looking vegetation (apart from the few free items I was able to download while lighning could share his stuff and some of the later plants by a few contributors)

We are certainly not abandoning the hobbyist market. As I said above, our prices remain in a similar range (while increasing a reasonable amount as we always said they would), and we will continue to make a free, non-commercial product available, free of watermarks and logos, without time restriction.

As far as plants and other resources, I think the market is ripe for lower price points on individually packaged goods, and I hope Xfrog capitalizes on that. I think one way or another, whether it's Xfrog or another vendor, you can bet it will happen soon.

- Oshyan

Zylot

What ever happened to those "free high quality" TGO's xfrog said were going to be offered in tandem with TG2's gold release?  Did I miss though, or did they never amount to anything?

reck

Oshyan I have nothing negative to say regarding the planetside side of things at all. The TG2 price I think is more than reasonable and even when it goes up to full price it's still a good deal. Also the grace period is a great thing for those people that haven't purchased yet, (why not?).

But like others I am disappointed with the xfrog offer. I was hoping for a small free package of maybe 10 or 20 plants with an offer to buy a set of maybe a 100 plants or so at a discount price for TG users. Also maybe sets of 100 plants for sale at a cheaper price of say $15-$20. It just doesn't seem to make sense to pay $400 for some models when the software your going to use them in is only $300. But the real kicker is that 3ds max and maya users just got a 100 xfrog plants for free which technically we can use in TG2 as well but are told that tg2 users will have to buy their plants at $400 which is way, way out of my spending budget when I don't use TG2 to make money, I just can't justify that. Yeah the price per plant is good but the problem is the initial cost, i'd rather pay more per plant but get a smaller bundle.

Congratulations on the site btw, it looks great.

sjefen

Hi Oshyan,

I am a owner of Terragen 2 and was just wondering, if I come up with $400, do I then also get this box right here? Also... are you planing a box release later?

I must say I'm pretty surprised by the Terragen 2 price increase. I was sure it would go up to about $600-700. Or $599-699 ;)
$399 is a very good price :)

I also wonder where those free plants are, but I guess that's a question for Xfrog.

- Terje
ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/royalt

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X
128 GB RAM
GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

Mohawk20

#52
For everyone asking, I'd like to point out this:

Quote from: Oshyan on April 22, 2009, 05:39:58 PM

- I can't give any information or update on any additional free Xfrog resources that may be coming as those are of course Xfrog's responsibility. I know Stewart did talk about that previously so I will try to have him come and give an update about that, but he's quite busy today (understandably) so it may not be immediately. However Planetside does have a few additional free models we will make available soon.

- Oshyan

And I think it might be time for me to crack open the piggy bank, and perhaps stay at home during my vacation...
Howgh!

Oshyan

Terje, the Xfrog plant models are very large, so you would definitely be getting those on DVD. I'm not sure if it also ships with the TG2 DVD or not. That would be a question for Xfrog as they're handling physical product fulfillment at this time. We do not have specific plans for a boxed product ourselves, but we'll definitely consider it. We do certainly like the advantages of a digital product delivery system though (and hey, it's Earth Day, so it's environmentally friendly too!), and a boxed product would cost more if nothing else.

- Oshyan

neuspadrin

only thing that might be nice is a printed out manual/guide and such available.  i don't really care for a cd of the tg release, as its only what, a few mb? digital is definitely better for such things.

sjefen

ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/royalt

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X
128 GB RAM
GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

Oshyan

Yes, we might provide a printed manual in the future, either as part of a retail package, or as a separate purchase. We also will be looking at bundled content, which would significantly increase download size, so that might make a packaged option more attractive.

- Oshyan

sjefen

That sounds cool.
I'll promise I wont throw the plastic enclosure in the nature ;)

- Terje
ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/royalt

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X
128 GB RAM
GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

Cyber-Angel

I am now in two minds about a printed manual, however they do serve a purpose; if such a thing where produced in the future my request is that it be spiral bound so that it can be opened flat some thing you can not do with a hard spine, as that kind of binding while looking better tends to crack.

There is the question of how often the printed manual would be updated, for cost saving I would think only for full versions as incremental versions that may only have a few additions lets say bug fixes of minor new features would best be served either by a PDF manual (Offline) or a link to the forums, any new changes if the PDF manual route is used would be reflected in the "Whats New" section of that document.

;D

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel             

Jack

couldn't you do it yourself the node reference guide has a print version :o
My terragen gallery:
http://wetbanana.deviantart.com/