NWDA Community Store - Welcome Packs Announcement

[FrankB]

Welcome Pack Announcement here: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=8388.msg89564#msg89564

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a great Christmas eve this year, and that you can't wait to get back onto Terragen again

... because in the past weeks, I've been working on an extension to NWDA, and this is now ready for your beta testing, if you're interested!

NWDA COMMUNITY STORE: http://store.nwdanet.com

What's that? It's an open place on the internet that allows everyone to become a NWDA Merchant!

Becoming a NWDA Merchant is quick and easy, and provides you with the following benefits:

   * Ability to sell your great products, be it presets, functions, objects or procedural terrains
   * Recognition and visibility of your hard and quality work
   * Benefit of the NWDA brand: visibility beyond the Planetside user forums
   * Ease of use: easy to find your products by other users, due to an optimized store structure and search
   * Front-page promotions opportunities through "NWDA Top 5" and "NWDA Spotlight"
   * Networking and User Connections and communitcation
   * Monthly Newsletter promotion opportunities
   * Free or fee: you choose the product price or make it zero!
   * Upload product images to help decribe and sell your products
   * Membership is free

At this time, I believe the basic functionality is there, but I need a couple volunteers to test the site, the concept and simply everything to fine tune it.

The main site, www.nwdanet.com, is being re-branded as the NWDA Premier Partner Store. It's meant to stay the quality assured and specifically maintained, separately promoted site that you enjoyed in the past. The NWDA Community Store (CS) is just completely open to everyone who believes he has a product that is worth sharing with others for free or for a fee.

I would be delighted if you'd give NWDA CS a shot

Cheers,
Frank

[dandelO]

Hmmm, this is interesting, Frank.
You say that the vendor chooses the pricing for products, I'd really only be in it to share anything I thought worthwhile for free. I don't want to sell anything. Would that be a problem? It isn't really making anything for you that way.

Also, a new account has to be made to become a merchant, is that right? I can't get in with my NWDA details.

It'd likely be a while before I got anything I have to share tidied up and 2.1 friendly, anyway.

It's a good idea.

[Oshyan]

If you just want to share things for free, why not use Terragen.org or another dedicated file sharing site?

Frank: I'm really glad to see this feature come around. When we last discussed it I expected it would take longer for you to set it up, so this is a pleasant surprise.

- Oshyan

[cyphyr]

This is great and VERY interesting, I'm intrigued. Two questions then Are there any file size limitations and what % is NWDA CS's markup?
I could definitely see myself selling some high resolution models but the file sizes tend to run into the 100MB plus textures. I could also see a few freebies passed along too
Great idea!
Richard
Ah, just seen the "Getting Started" page, max file size 10MB, still useful though

[FrankB]

Hi,

@DandelO: all good questions. You have a lot of freedom on pricing, and yes, you can "sell" products for free. The only exception is prices between 0.01 and 0.99 Euro, which is not allowed, because Paypal will be eating to much of the funds transferred. So it's free, or it's 1 Euro or more.
I don't mind free products, instead I welcome it. Especially when the free products are tgd's or tgc's, as they don't eat a lot of space and bandwidth. I need to think about whether I can allow free object models generally. Not sure about that yet. However, your planetary grass shader has been downloaded - what? - some 300 times? If you'd sell it for 1 or 2 Euro, which is not a problem for anyone, you could buy a new and fast CPU from it easy. Just a thought, I think you're making great things, and asking for a Euro is not a big deal at all for anyone. Instead, I think most people would be glad to donate a little something for it. Let it sink a little bit, then think about it again

@Oshyan: yes we first talked about it almost a year ago. Since then NWDA has become a known brand, technology has advanced and I felt this step is now feasible. I really hope many people will participate.

@Cyphyr: thank you. Currently there is a file size limitation of 10 MB. That's ok for smaller object models, and definitely enough for any TG2 node network. I can upload larger files through the back-end, but there has to be a certain sales potential for these in order to justify the space and bandwidth consumption. So I need to decide this on a case by case basis. At least in the beginning. If NWDA CS proves to be successful, I can possibly justify to migrate to a larger server. and lift the automatic size limitation considerably
The NWDA markup is 40%. I have published the whole merchant agreement on the site, but you can only see it once you are registered as a user on the site.

Cheers,
Frank

[Thelby]

Wow, this does sound good, Much Appreciated and Happy New Year!!! 

[Henry Blewer]

It may be a good venue for selling the farm buildings, tools, tractors, and other things farm related I have been working on. (temporary set back re-installing windows.)

[FrankB]

... for registered users, I have started to write up a "best practices sales guide" and published what I have so far.
http://store.nwdanet.com/salesguide

I think this is a must-read for everyone planning to create and sell a product through NWDA CS. It's not finished yet, but I've finished the first chapter about product creation, pricing, and optimizing the product page.

Cheers,
Frank

[dandelO]

Well I'll look at getting something sorted out in the next few weeks, hopefully.
My newest grass shader, here, is actually only at about 200 downloads. But while we're on the subject of numbers, though, the whole library of my public files(3 volumes so far) has almost reached 3000 downloads at this page at Terragen.org... http://www.terragen.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=eea9cb044b967692eea1085c62b69769&action=tpmod;dl=cat184;tpstart=10
So, you may be on to something there.

Still, do I need to make a new account for the CS site? I can't use my NWDA one to log in to read the notes and stuff.

It's ok, I got it.

[FrankB]

yes, NWDA CS requires a separate account, unfortunately. A little inconvenience, but luckily a one-off

[FrankB]

Just uploaded my procedural Field Rows Shader to NWDA Community Store.

All integrated into one shader, easy to integrate in your scenes.
Features:
- adjustable rows frequency
- adjustable rows heading
- adjustable rows dynamics
- adjustable edge smoothing

The product can be seen here

Regards,
Frank

[Jack]

this is very cool frank! Terargen has been needing this for years ( a terragen store) just like cornucopia3d for vue. Im currently working on a broken fence and gate with ivy maybe its a model that could be sold a nwda?

[FrankB]

Yeah, sure

[FrankB]

... and we welcome our first NWDA CS merchant, SwissAdA

I would like to make the following announcement:

SwissAdA and the next 5 new NWDA CS merchants can look forward to a little welcome pack:

• A NWDA coupon for one of my packs and
• 300 User Points on their NWDA CS merchant account

(User Points are the virtual currency at NWDA, which can be redeemed into cash once the minimum threshold is reached)

Cheers,
Frank

[FrankB]

A little update to http://store.nwdanet.com

1 - I've increased the max upload size to 15 MB
2 - Posted a "sales guide" that hopefully helps you setup your product page, find the right pricing etc. Not complete yet, but the first chapter is published.

Cheers,
Frank