Sky Pack Edition 1

#21 Here's some Bryce5 skies, Torque ready and free.
www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=29441

#22 See, these two last post prove what I was saying.

Take Joseph first post for example:

"You can't really see the detail on small images like that.

Most websites that sell skybox textures have full size (watermarked) images of them."

Then we uploaded larger screenshots (watermarked) as suggested, what for? To find his last post linking to other sites. Why did Joseph that if we followed his suggestions? Simple, there are some people that never intended to buy the product in the fisrt place. They just wanted to put some rocks in the road. Reasons? Not the point. But they will do, "freely", to hurt others' business.

The ones who really want to buy your product do not post this things in a forum I can say by fact, they just request things directly to the mails provided in your site.

So, Joseph. What now? Were not the screnshots large enough for you?

#23 See, these two last post prove what I was saying.

Take Joseph first post for example:

"You can't really see the detail on small images like that.

Most websites that sell skybox textures have full size (watermarked) images of them."

Then we uploaded larger screenshots (watermarked) as suggested, what for? To find his last post linking to other sites. Why did Joseph that if we followed his suggestions? Simple, there are some people that never intended to buy the product in the fisrt place. They just wanted to put some rocks in the road. Reasons? Not the point. But they will do, "freely", to hurt others' business.

The ones who really want to buy your product do not post this things in a forum I can say by fact, they just request things directly to the mails provided in your site.

So, Joseph. What now? Were not the screnshots large enough for you?

#24 The screenshots are large enough now...

The problem with the small images are you can't see the detail...

I never said I would buy them, It was just a suggestion so others can see them (and You didn't have to do it, it was your own choice)

#25

Quote:@Joseph, thanks for the link man I just bought it from you and appreciate you accomodating your potential customers, by providing high quality content at an affordable price, in a format I can actually use.

erm... thats not my site

It's just a link I had :p


But I'm sure the owner of the site is thankful :)

#26 "@Everyone, I highly recommend NOT purchasing this guys products or paying any attention to him until he does some growing up."

That is "moral damage". It is not me who should grow up and watch my words. "Quit": mybe is what you have been pursuing from the beginning -trying to lead the thread to the current stage of "fueling" so that we abandon our activities.

BTW, Joseph, even so, why the post? Did I hurt your feelings in any way by following your suggestions to provoke that reaction?

#27 Your point has turned out ot be damaging. Maybe it was always your goal from the beginning.

Accomodation works to some extent, and only if there exists "real" potential cutomers that want the products you offer.

Otherwise, it just a sadistic game that some would play since they will never become a customer at all. They just wanted to see you dive deep.

Sad.

#28 Woah, this thread got quite out of hand while I was out relaxing after an 11 day trip....

Outsider's perspective (well, obviously biased towards Torque, since I -am- an employee, but!)

To Pulsar, and all content providers:

Taking away any negative connotations or emotions that may have come out through this thread, a point remains:

Content packs, when it comes straight down to the meat, have a main market for independent developers who don't have the time or skill to create and prepare the art for their selected target platform/engine. The business savvy content provider will take the extra time to present their content in a format that is "plug and play" with zero effort (or as close as is possible) on the purchaser's part.

Keep in mind that while cash is always low for an independent developer/team, time is a resource that they can never get back, and any provider that is interested in doing well in this type of market (assuredly, they won't get hugely rich off of it) should be interested in providing content in a format that is as plug and play as possible.

Food for thought for Pulsar: You have some very nice work, and simply by the post count on this single thread within just several hours of your original post, there is obviously some interest. At the price point you are offering, I fully realize that any time spent preparing your content for target engine specific formats is at first glance a loss of margin, but if you think it all the way through, at that price point Torque ready content would be a done deal, not a hot debate topic. Add up the minutes/hours that you've spent simply responding to these posts, and quite honestly you would be very much far along on having Torque ready skyboxes of very nice quality ready for sale--and while you won't be minting money of the sales from here, the one-time effort would have long term benefit.

Again from a business perspective, it obviously took you time to do your market research, identify Torque developers as a market, and post here (along with follow-ups) to present your material. It really does make business sense to spend just a bit more pre-market time and effort to be as fully ready to penetrate your selected market as possible.

Just my $2.00 worth, but I've been monitoring this site for 20 months now, and have seen what succeeds and what doesn't...at least from the indie market perspective!

And one final moderator note: This thread has gotten a bit too uncomfortably close to personal attacks--so far a couple of different people have presented their opinons/positions well, so let's let that move on please!

#29 I've just purchased it, I'm downloading now, I'll let you all see some shots of my game with some new skies in a bit =)

#30 Thanks Midhir!

Take due note that after you convert the files to jpg, the DML file for, say, the first skybox should be something like:

csA_B
csA_R
csA_F
csA_L
csA_U
csA_D





Also, in the "World Editor Inspector" select the sky element and look into its properties. To see the whole skybox, please ensure that all 3 check boxes in the miscelaneous group are checked (for demo purpouses you can also delete any terrain element that you may have).

I am hereby posting some example images:

#31 This is one with the clouds and old moon position.


This is no clouds, the fog colour twiddled with, and, an ominous man in the moon =)

(The moon is not part of the skybox, the man in the moon is some comic relief I threw in for laughs =)

This skybox feels like it was made for this map =)

#32 @Midhir kewl man I nearly busted a gut when I saw your man in the moon, thats dangerous around hot coffee ;)

#33 Just a quick note: a zip prepared for TGE users has been added to the sky pack. It includes all the texture files converted to the JPG format, 16 DML files (ne for each skybox) and instrucions for the porper installation and use in TGE.

The images that you see in my previous post were generated with JPG versions of the textures with 85% quality ratio. The JPG files included in the pack were saved with 100% quality ratio.

#34 Thanks Pulsar Coder! This really frees me up from having to make programmer art skyboxes. =)

@Dreamer: The coffee was only made hotter by the Xist conspiracy!

#35 The customer is always right.

Any customer who actually thinks this is true is an asshole.

I would rather die a bum on the street than kiss someone's ass for $7 - $11.

Only 1% of the customers out there are assholes. I never give an asshole customer what they want. I refuse to do business with them. Period. Some people say that if you lose 1 asshole customer that you actually lose more due to bad word of mouth. Not true. At all. Total bullshit. The truth is that assholes don't have any one to give bad word of mouth to. Even if they do tell someone that you suck, they are always telling people that everyone sucks, so nobody listens to them. AND when they are being an asshole to you, they drive away business because they make other customers uncomfortable. If you refuse business and tell them to leave, other customers are relieved and appreciate that you are ensuring that they don't have to do business in a hostile environment. If you don't, they don't come back for a while or ever because they don't want to do business in a shitty environment. That's the truth.

If a customer can't behave themselves because they can't get what they want... f*** them. Or... I should say that they can go f*** themselves, cause nobody else will do it.

Now, if we are talking about $7-$11 thousand dollars... I'll put up with an asshole. But not for pocket change.

#36 Amen Anton!

#37 @Pulsar, thank you for providing the product in a format usable, by those you are attempting to sell to.
You will notice in a few moments that I have removed all previous posts.
You will also notice in a few moments, that I have chosen to purchase.
This is because you now appear to be trying to meet the needs of the customer, and my purchase is reflective of my appreciation of that fact.

@Anton, Thank you for letting everyone know in advance how you feel about your customers. I couldn't disagree with you more, but if you really feel that way that is your decision. Personally I try to accomodate my customers, and defuse the situation as best I can, because one disgruntled customer can in fact cost you in the end. Maybe not millions, but always alot more than you lose by trying to accomodate them. Also the most powerful form of advertising is word of mouth. If a customer believes that they got a good-deal and had a pleasant experience, they are much, much more likely to recommend you and your services in the future. They may not go out and preach to the world about you, but when asked it does stand to reason that a customer who is satisfied will make a recommendation, one who is not satisfied will not make such a recommendation, and may even warn the inquistor to stay away.
My belief is the customer is the reason for my job. If they are not taken care of properly, I will not have a job.

#38 @Dreamer

I agree with you 100%. I am not talking about your run of the mill grumpy or disappointed customer. I am talking about the assholes who think that you owe them something. You are selling them something. They owe you money if they want to buy it. You want anyone to buy it of course, so, if you can do anything within reason to accomodate a sale, you do so. I draw the line at abuse. I draw the line at customers who think that they can use some mega giant's lame ass marketing slogan 'the customer is always right cause we make a 300% profit and what does it cost us to put in something extra and only make a 299% profit' as an excuse for being a f***er. These people are just plain assholes and they abuse business people by tangling a sale in front of their nose. These people abuse people. I don't want their money if it means being abused. And I don't want their money if they are just going to jerk me around either.

And I think it was pretty plain that I wasn't saying that I don't care about customers. I was pretty specific that I was talk about abusive customers. I don't think it's fair to switch abusive customers for all customers and say that that is how I feel about everyone. That's just not cool at all. I am just stating my opinion. I have some passion about it after watching co-workers be abused by customers. I stopped putting up with it a long time ago. I am sure that you don't think that abusive customers are entitled to anything. So, we don't even have a disagreement here.

#39 I guess the only difference of opinion is that you appear to make some distinction between an abusive customer and a calm one.
A customer to me, is a customer, abusive or not doesn't even factor into the situation unless they get physical.
You are right however it is incorrect for me to extrapolate from a "potential" customer, to an "abusive" customer, in the sense that you are speaking about. And I'm sorry for reading it that way. However to my mind at least, you seemed to imply that an upset potential customer is the same thing as an abusive customer.

Eitherway, I think we can drop this whole thing now. I have purchased and I purchased evidently everything he had for sale.
I did this because Pulsar appears to have become accomodating, so therefore I made it worth his while, and since it is the type of thing that only needs done once, he should now have a revenue for his actions.

I encourage everyone else who is likewise looking for skyboxes or music, to purchase these as well.
It is reasonably priced, and now appears to work well with Torque (assuming I can get the zips unzipped but thats probably a configuration issue on my end)

This will be my last post on the matter.

#40 Well, you can thanks Midhir ... his faith motivated us to reassign some attention/effort to accomodate the files for TGE ...