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Details on 20 18?


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Hi folks

 

im wondering if there's any details of the up coming release of vw.

 

im getting a fair few reminders that my vss is due for renewal, but I have no idea what I'll be buying with it.

 

the release of 2017 was marred with tools that didn't work, regressive issues and bugs, with a very long wait between service packs. 

 

vw covers many different industries so I'd like to see what's coming for my workflow...

 

ive noticed that the design summit is much later this year too, which is usually the platform for announcements... does that hint at it being a much later release?

 

i can't justify it at the moment to my accounts people with no info, as I'm still getting told off for a huge faux pas over renderworks.

 

bought designer (no renderworks) found that none of the image props or plants worked without it, which annoyed me a lot... persevered for 18 months, then shelled out another £650 or so to add RW, just to see that everyone got it for free two months later anyway.

 

very wary buyer nowadays. :(

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
5 minutes ago, Kevin McAllister said:

I love that the Teaser Tuesdays thread was posted yesterday...... (perhaps only made public today)

 


Correct! I love it almost as much as when I'm planning on doing something anyway and then a user asks for it after the fact ;) 

A huge amount of the time, I get to see users ask for something that I'm already halfway done the project plan for. I take this as a sign that I'm going the right direction.

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On 21/07/2017 at 3:25 PM, RussU said:

 

im getting a fair few reminders that my vss is due for renewal, but I have no idea what I'll be buying with it.

 

 

Thing is, to *actually* know what you're buying, you'd have to wait until a few weeks after release, then read through the forums here to see what % of what you're allegedly buying really works....

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1 hour ago, line-weight said:

 

Thing is, to *actually* know what you're buying, you'd have to wait until a few weeks after release, then read through the forums here to see what % of what you're allegedly buying really works....

That's a problem with all forums that are sales based, with every new release diminishing product trust

VWs would do best to focus on quality content, that backs up the Marketing gimmicks, because times are tough for the battlers

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On 22/07/2017 at 10:52 PM, line-weight said:

read through the forums here to see what % of what you're allegedly buying really works....

That is completely true unfortunately. It seems that a new tool or feature needs to mature by a couple of years before being stable or properly tested. I feel that prior releases only leave the beta phase at or around sp3. I used to get really excited by new release cycles, but actually get bogged down in learning to avoid strange performance issues or crashes.

 

I don't mean to be negative, but it's just the repeated experiences. Even now, after so many years, silly things still happen. A good example is a sheet with a title block and viewports with labels. Duplicating the sheets messes the titles and VP numbers up. I've made so many school boy errors, and looked like a fool for letting these things slip through when I'm in a rush, but instead need to nurse the software over the finish line and double check things (more often than I should!)

 

Another thing that I notice is when a new annual release happens, all support for previous launches cease. So if a fix for an issue comes up in the current version for something that never worked properly, older users are left to flounder or forced to upgrade.

Autodesk, Apple and Microsoft roll out important updates to legacy products also. Why isn't this the case in VW?

So my worry is... No VSS upgrade and I might be left with a perpetual licence of 2017 which doesn't work as intended... Or Buy VSS and spend 6 months on Beta tests.

 

Don't get me wrong... I earn my living from VW, so it's a vital part of my daily routine. I'm it's biggest advocate and super-fan in the local design community. I am really looking forward to teaser Tuesday, like everyone.

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5 hours ago, RussU said:

Another thing that I notice is when a new annual release happens, all support for previous launches cease. So if a fix for an issue comes up in the current version for something that never worked properly, older users are left to flounder or forced to upgrade.

 

This is particularly annoying.

 

Especially when the thing that's fixed in the new version is something that was in fact sold as one of the new features of the older one.

 

An example - the structural member tool, which was one of the new features that 2017 was sold on. I think it's fairly widely agreed that it basically just doesn't work, in any useful sense, even now after 2017 SP4. Despite several threads giving detailed feedback on what wasn't working, any response from VW went dead a month or two ago.

 

Maybe if we're lucky it will be fixed and usable in 2018? But if so, will it also then be fixed in 2017? As you say, previous experience suggests not. In which case, in order to get what you thought you were paying for in 2017, you have to buy 2018.

 

 

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12 hours ago, line-weight said:

the structural member tool

How was it ever allowed to go to full release???

It didn't take more than 3 minutes of use to realise that it was not fit for purpose. Remember my post about plan view and top view causing the beam to align to the opposite side? It might have been nice to alert people that it was still in testing (like ifc data would be fully implemented in sp1, on 2016 I think) wasted time, which is chargable hours

 

And we still, to this day, don't have any BSI Universal Columns appearing in the list. I flagged that many months ago. Big issue for a lot of us.

 

also, it's widely acknowledged that any sp5 (or sp6 on one occasion) is generally a compatibility release, not a bug fix. So I don't expect to see a fully working structural member tool in 2017, ever. Lets see what new info comes out in the next few days... you never know. Surprises do happen!

 

I am surprised that no one at VW commented about my buying RW, only to have it given away 2 or 3 months later... The REALLY hard thing to swallow is that my reseller is on the Beta test team, so it's very highly likely that he knew this fact when he took my money off me.  AND it put up my annual VSS subs cost too... had I not done it I would have saved a lot on the RW module AND have a cheaper VSS sub cost. (I should have been told on initial purchase that the plant tool image props wouldn't have worked without RW....)

#CustomerFeedback, #FeelingSwindled

I do want to support VW going into the future.... but I expect VW to support me too.

Edited by RussU
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Something similar happened to me, re. RW, when I purchased last year. Shortly after I'd paid up for Architect+RW, RW became something included.

 

I think I was not stung as badly as you, because I got in on another last-minute special offer that saved me several hundreds of pounds compared to what I'd have paid a week or two earlier. So that possibly cancelled out the RW thing. However it did cause me considerable trouble when I'd had a price from two resellers, one suddenly offered this massive discount and the other one seemingly hadn't been told about it by VW. That other one, who I'd been about to place an order with, got very annoyed (somewhat unfairly, with me) and a somewhat stressful situation resulted. It was resolved in the end, and is somewhat by-the-by, but now, sitting wondering whether to renew my VSS in the next few days, I wonder, is some kind of special deal going to appear where it turns out I would have been better to let the VSS lapse and then re-start it on a special deal 6 months later if and when reviews of 2018 seemed favourable?

 

This kind of uncertainly is not helpful, and the whole setup feels like it's arranged to offer the best deals to new users rather than those who have been loyal over many years.

 

I'd really rather a pricing structure that allows us to upgrade when we want, based on whether the new release actually offers anything, instead of holding us captive in this subscription setup that effectively penalises us for *not* renewing rather than placing the incentive on VW to provide something that's worth paying for.

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15 minutes ago, line-weight said:

would have been better to let the VSS lapse and then re-start it on a special deal 6 months later if and when reviews of 2018 seemed favourable?

My point entirely... There's no info or incentive to renew, except the threat of being left behind,

15 minutes ago, line-weight said:

it's arranged to offer the best deals to new users

Yes. I took advantage of an offer too.... But as it turned out it was to get the last few remaining sales and up the vss cost before giving it away for free... @JimW my customer number is G0GTZC if you want to check the validity of this claim.

15 minutes ago, line-weight said:

based on whether the new release actually offers anything

See above... I used to use VW machine design in a previous studio... then support was dropped and, as I'm aware, there was no free or cut down migration to another designer product, just straight back to fundamentals. lost section VPs and nav pallette functions to name a couple.

The Machine Design components we paid extra for are considered legacy and are unsupported/undeveloped. Taken since 2009 and some investment from me to get my confidence back.

 

I think if sales/customer service/retention team offering me a genuine sweetener would help.... but... never heard a word, to date on any issues raised.

Edited by RussU
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I am personally 100% in the Release a Public Roadmap camp and a large majority of my efforts are geared towards promoting further openness from all departments. This is the direction we intend to keep moving, but it will not happen all at once for a large number of logistical reasons. 

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2 hours ago, line-weight said:

and the whole setup feels like it's arranged to offer the best deals to new users rather than those who have been loyal over many years.

 

I find this to be true. There are an awful lot of offers that are of no use to me as a longtime existing user who has VW Designer with Renderworks. My distributor is very good and I feel like I've always had a fair price but we have a distinct disadvantage with the currency exchange here in Canada.

 

KM

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I find the whole situation laughable. I would never go into a store and hand my money over and not know what I was buying and worse still have to wait several months to find out what I had bought. The 'software' industry feels this is perfectly acceptable and its 2017. 

 

Other models have started to arrive over the last couple of years and I know its not everyone's preference but I like the Adobe model with regular updates and no huge disappointment once a year.

 

I already know that UV Mapping will not make an appearance despite the fact that Sub-D is dead without it, I will still be exporting Tri's out of VW and Education users will get treated as second class citizens.

 

I opened up Web VR only to find the lighting broken (took 10 seconds), Sub-D failed (2 bugs accepted immediately) after a few minutes....I could go on.

 

Still no evidence of a public beta on the horizon which would massively help everyone as you know earlier what you are getting, an experienced army of testers are available, things work a lot better and the whole QA cycle is quicker. Maybe the phrase 'No Brainer' was invented for this?

 

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20 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said:

 

I find this to be true. There are an awful lot of offers that are of no use to me as a longtime existing user who has VW Designer with Renderworks. My distributor is very good and I feel like I've always had a fair price but we have a distinct disadvantage with the currency exchange here in Canada.

 

KM

Exchange rate!  Tell me about it.  Yikes.  We just recently purchased a third license and lets just say...Ouch!  Nothing against Resolve.  They have good people there.

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3 hours ago, Markvl said:

Exchange rate!  Tell me about it.  Yikes.  We just recently purchased a third license and lets just say...Ouch!

What I find odd is that my year long subscription cost seems to be calculated based on the exchange on the day they quote me instead of an average. At least with something like the Adobe subscription model I benefit from month to month as the rate changes.

 

3 hours ago, Markvl said:

Nothing against Resolve.  They have good people there.

My distributor is Paxar who are fantastic (I started with Minicad 5 which predated Resolve).

 

KM

 

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I would find it much more thrilling to now leak all fixed bugs and improvements to

existing tools and unveiling "new" features after release.

(which may be nice or not, ready for release or not)

opposed to how it currently happens.

 

And I read again things like "not yet in the current release" while I would prefer

to get only 1 feature per year that is finished, beautifully designed, production ready

and bug free.

While 2017 release, when cleaned from new features that are still not working

or not meet expectations from maketing, had some very important improvements,

new features broght still more problems than were solved with that release.

Edited by zoomer
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13 minutes ago, zoomer said:

I would find it much more thrilling to now leak all fixed bugs and improvements to

existing tools and unveiling "new" features after release.

(which may be nice or not, ready for release or not)

as it currently happens.

Me too.

 

13 minutes ago, zoomer said:

And I read again things like "not yet in the current release" while I would prefer

to get only 1 feature per year that is beatifully designed, production ready and

bug free.

^ I agree with this too.

 

13 minutes ago, zoomer said:

While 2017 release, when cleaned from new features that are still not working

or not meet expectations from maketing, had some very important improvements,

new features broght still more problems than were solved with that release.

By far my favourite improvement in VW2017 was the ability to edit drawing numbers of all sheet layer viewports directly in the OIP. My second favourite is tabbed documents.

 

KM

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38 minutes ago, zoomer said:

I would find it much more thrilling to now leak all fixed bugs and improvements to

existing tools and unveiling "new" features after release.

(which may be nice or not, ready for release or not)

as it currently happens

Love it or hate it, this is where the Adobe model excels. Bug fixes and upgrades are rolled out as they occur.

A big source of frustration was waiting until many fixes were collected into a service pack. I agree that the autodesk million updates and billion hotfixes are insane, but that's only when they're down to the user to download/discover. The auto-check / download and patch adobe style makes life nice and easy.

This will naturally increase customer satisfaction enormously.

 

Also... that's where beta tools could be launched. Perhaps an opt-in user choice. so those of us with patience can try the new things out, and those that need ultimate stability can stay only on gold released items. It was painful to have all the exciting new tools marred with bugs and silly untested behaviour for 8 or 9 months (with some still lingering even now!) when 2017 is about to drop off the support cycle.

 

Personally, I'm all in favour of the software as a service licence method, both for affordability and update roll out frequency.

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