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Yes, the negative tone seems to take over here. I wonder what this forum looks like in about a month or so... Will it be completely silent (due to the lack of improvements to VW2014 and everyone has given up) or will it be vibrant with positive comments about how NAG finally has listened to their users and released their best/stable VW ever!

Time will tell...

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I definitely anticipate a plethora of improvements and new functionality......albeit half baked low-bim items with user interface decisions being made by well meaning but

undersupervised engineers executing underdeveloped policy.

VectorWorksAround.

Rant over, back to work.....around.

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Although there has always been negativity associated with this list, it seems that ever since NM pushed the "annual release schedule" on VW, there now seems to be a constant flow of negativity.

In the past, it would take almost a full year of bug fixes to flush out the issues with a given release. That duration hasn't changed, and now "pow!" there is a new release out to begin the bug fixes once again...

Whoever thought it would good business practice to push annual releases will wake up one day realizing their had had been slowly nibbled off by thousands of frustrated clients.

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I agree the one year release cycle is responsible for a lot of the dissatisfied customers. But I don't agree that in the past it took almost a year to get a semi-stable version out - it always took a minimum of a year and a half, and for most versions it was well over two years. And even then there were still plenty of bugs in it. Having a yearly release cycle for Vectorworks is company suicide. If they don't go back to a 3 or 4 year cycle I doubt they will be around much longer. And make Quality Control the absolute Number One priority.

They abandon the previous years release while it is still chock full of bugs, as soon as the "new" years release comes out. No wonder people feel the way they do.

It is very sad, really. And a terrible business decision. Just because AutoDesk and Maxon, and everybody else decided to do it, didn't mean VW had to follow along. I personally believe the annual release cycle is pure evil. I hates it.

Edited by Monadnoc
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Why does it appear that Nemetschek seems more concerned with yearly releases than a true working product?

What would happen if they released a new version say every 18 months or 24 months? Assuming of course the new releases work as they should.

I am more concerned with having the product work as it should in place of it being half baked.

Can you imagine;

64 bit

Multicore

Multi user

Uses graphics card engine instead of CPU

OIP tabbed or other than current endless scrolling

The abilities we have been asking for

Improved interface

Use of dual (or more) screens

Libraries by type instead of all grouped together (more scrolling)

just to name a few

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They've all moved to yearly releases because of the revenue stream generated by subscriptions. I think its a catch 22 in the end. Having been a user since Minicad 5, I can tell you things really aren't that different from the old schedule. The upgrades are perhaps more expensive and there is certainly more inconvenience with changing file formats every year. Under the old system most people waited for the .5 version for stability (ie. VW8.5, 10.5, 12.5 were major steps).

The market and expectations are moving very fast at the moment. And VW is moving slower that the average already (see the Architosh interview where they actually say this, as they are playing wait and see in Asia). They are at a distinct disadvantage to many of the newer players since they have so much legacy code. This makes them less nimble when technology changes.

KM

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To tell you the truth I think it is a good tactic to take it easy and not make hasty decisions just to be at the forefront of technology in BIM if you don't have the finances, HOWEVER if this is the tactic then a stable well working and well thought out product is ESSENTIAL!!

You sell your product either through innovation or quality, both puts you at the top, neither kills you............at the moment VWs is dying!

Edited by Vincent C
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A really big problem they have is that they want new things every year to attract more people. These new things take so much resources that they are always half baked, and all other things stay half-baked and are never truly finished. As an example of this, why after two releases that stories are a part of VW, have not all objects got the possibility to link to story types? Every object should be able to do this in order to get the benefits of being able to change story type heights and having all of the objects adjust themselves. Now I always have to check the whole drawing and adjust all objects that aren't able to connect. It's a lot of work........

I see a good future in VW if they can put their act together and just finish the whole thing before adding new things to it. Or maybe the need to do what Microsoft did with Windows? Starting from scratch with a whole new methodology in mind?

Or they can just remove old stuff that is deprecated but in it for compatibility and just make sure older drawings are converted to the new stuff. As an example: why are we able to use the old raster fills(or whatever they are called)? If only they just got converted to some normal hatches so they can be gone..... It would be so much easier and old deprecated code could be gone, and as a plus, the users will take the time to use the new stuff in it.....

Just some thoughts as I really want that VW gets better....

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I don't think there's a problem with an annual release cycle. And there's definitely not a problem with introducing features and then incrementally improving and adding to them each year. This is how it should work.

The problem is it doesn't tend to happen this way (enough). While there are exceptions what tends to happen instead is that headline features are introduced to flesh out the "version comparison" charts we get with each release. But these new features can be left to languish for years. My favourite example is the wall sculpting tool. Great idea but pretty much next to useless in an architectural context because it has never worked at the corners of walls since it was introduced in 2009.

Nemetschek have generally been heading in the right strategic direction (apart from their little hiccup of believing that collaboration is more important to BIM than modelling the data in the first place) but development simply isn't fast enough. When you add to this their historic lack of architectural expertise, instability and a woeful lack of integration between tools then is it any wonder we're here complaining about VW. Some longer than others.

What we don't perhaps know is whether these problems can be blamed on management or whether there are bigger problems at play with the way Nemetschek is financially set up. (Edit: or as someone else has suggested elsewhere, that everything will be fine once the 64-bit Parasolids rebuild is completely finished)

Edited by Christiaan
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Christiaan's observations are very accurate.

My example of a great idea that was half finished and will likely be left to languish is the Auto Hybrid object. A very powerful object in principle but I've filed so many bugs from using them. I've also discovered you can only use one or two in a file before it gets unruly. I actually had my distributor tell me that one of my main bugs is being fixed..... in VW2014.

Kevin

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I think 64 bit would help a huge amount. It's probably the main reason VW handles so poorly/sluggishly and why you can't import and use modern models which contain hundreds of thousands of polygons. I truly hope VW2014 is 64 bit. Right now, I think that's the biggest thing holding it back. But I might be wrong...

I too, want VW to succeed, and get back to doing what it used to do best. Speed. Simplicity. Intuitive tools and commands. It never had stability, but it would be so nice if they included that finally.

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I think 64 bit would help a huge amount. It's probably the main reason VW handles so poorly/sluggishly and why you can't import and use modern models which contain hundreds of thousands of polygons. I truly hope VW2014 is 64 bit. Right now, I think that's the biggest thing holding it back. But I might be wrong...

Well lets hope that the rebuild for Parasolids is done soon and that 64 bit also will be solved soon so that they can put the resources on fixing the tools and functions, because God knows it's about time!

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I do not think VW has a strong beta program. Each release remains unstable until about SP2. I have realized that they rely on crash reports to fix up the software and the best way to get them is to simply pretend the software is ready and release it to the public.

I am excited for the new release (as I always am) but I am not going to upgrade the firm until after the 1st or 2nd SP is released. We had so much trouble with VW13 - we have learned the lesson.

If their is not a major overhaul in the next 3 years, I can not see sticking with it. The industry is moving faster than they are, and time is running out if they are going to catch up. I was told by an insider that we should expect some major revisions in 14 + 15 - including a new way of referencing that will allow multiple people to edit the same model at the same time. If this turns out to be true - it would indicate right headed thinking about the capabilities needed to turn VW into a prober modern BIM ready software.

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VW is a dear friend of mine. We have spent a lot of time together over the last 10 years. I've invested a lot into it. However it does feel a bit like holding the hand of a dying friend. Cautiously waiting to see what the next release brings.

Last time I check my upgrade price from VW 2011 to 2013, I could buy 2 New Revit LT seats instead. I get multi view. Live Sections. Proper referencing. A curated interface stability and live hidden line rendering. All the things I want. When VW2014 is released the cost will go up, only strengthening the reason to change....

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that 64 bit also will be solved soon so that they can put the resources on fixing the tools and functions, because God knows it's about time!

Just a thought:

What do you think the chances are that NVW have a 64 bit version already baked in their labs?

I mean, you wouldn't want the 64 bit transition to take as long as the parasolid transition?

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Well, someone pointed out that Quick Time is 32 bit and VWs depends greatly on QT so rebuilding to 64 bit automatically means rebuilding a replacement for QT. Can't imaging they have been able to do it for the coming release ergo: perhaps 64bit for v2015 release ergo better BIM tools for v2016 release!?

(Soon there won't be any 32bit pro machines out there so the transfer is unavoidable.......?)

Edited by Vincent C
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I remember reading an article that said they started on removing Quicktime in 2012. It implied it was a one to two year process, so the result would show in either VW2013 or VW2014. Regardless they likely have a test version somewhere.

Perhaps a lot of our wishes were held back by the Quicktime dependency and some of the recent half implemented features were stop gap solutions trying to bide time.....

Kevin

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