SO tired of stale content and WTF is wrong with your billing department?
Charging me twice, then randomly cancelling my sub?
This used to be a really great resource for blender hobbyists, now anything relevant to anyone beyond "beginner" is locked behind the sub wall.
The level up system is ridiculous too, what's the point? I came to learn about improving MY art, not some half assed bragging rights tracker that wasn't even retroactive to what I had previously watched before the update.
Seven and a half years I've watched this site. In and out of subscriptions. I'll miss it, but it's not worth the aggravation anymore.
Hi alaricmpowell - I'm sorry to hear your CGC experience has gone awry. Seeing as you've been an on-again-off-again subscribing member for 7 years, that means you've seen CGC evolve from its hobbyist blog beginnings to a 80%-free-20%-paid business model to a 20%-free-80%-paid model 5 years ago. We've held true to the latter and perpetually offer free content that's new and relevant to non beginners.
Primarily the weekly livestream archive is full of meaty Blender content with well over 150 hrs of free instruction through:
As someone who has put their heart and soul into this streaming effort for the past year and a half, it really makes me scratch my head that you wouldn't notice and engage in that value whether a subscribing member or not.
I'm not part of the billing team but I've only known them to be extremely empathetic toward our members and eager to resolve dissatisfaction. Have you been ignored or denied resolution by the billing team?
Not really understand everything (sorry for that ^^)
but if i understand you payed and they charged you 2 times instead of 1 ?
perhaps its a good idea to contact the Help desk to resolve this.
With this sentence
now anything relevant to anyone beyond "beginner" is locked behind the sub wall.
do you mean this ?
only the really beginner stuff is for free and if you want to see more you have to pay a month or longer ?
i am still kinda a fresh member (around 8 months i am here now) but i did learned a lot .
if i look back at the start and now everything i payed was trully worth it . That is all thanks to the teachers (instructiors) and the classes(workshops) i followed. i started out with the beginner class and that month i learned trully a lot since each week we had a session where @theluthier showed everything we needed that week and answered all of our questions. Also all the other members where really helpfull too during the other days we worked on our homework.
also just by following learning flows and exercises you get to see and learn so much so even trough we have to pay i think its fair.
i am not sure but the way i read it at the start they had more free content. so if that is the fact i know it can be frustrating but
then again think about everything else . what can you all learn in exchange for the money you give ? what do they have to do and how long do they have to work onto projects to teach us new technieks .
as for the level up system i dont have any idea eighter xD but i dont mind that . in the end i am here to have fun .
i am here to learn about 3D modeling animation sculpting etc . and that is also what is happening .
every moment here i had new experience , fun and learned other great artists .
i feel really sorry to hear you so frustrating and i hope the problem will be solved .
but if you still feel the urge to learn the best way are the classes(workshops) . so perhaps its better to subscribe in the month there is a class youre intressted in and participate then.
Let me tell you this:
CG Cookie has problems on their administrative parts since... always. Accept it, its not their strength. :-)
Contact them, they always fix their own mess ups pretty fast.
I have done so much training on so many topics over the last few years and let me tell you this: Good training for free is extremely rare and has its price. You cant expect to get high quality free training. No one has the time to do this. Everyone has to earn some money one or the other way. Accept it.
Their level system... there is a level system? Couldn't care less about such nonsene. As you said, its about your art. That's what you focus on. If you focus on a ranking system, its your decision to focus on that.
@theluthier I'm trying to give this thing another chance, but once again, billing issues cropped up. First the site doesn't show my last TWO payments, my bank sure does though, and second my account is "active" and I still can't access content. I don't get on here everyday, but when I want to get a few classes in and money has been given, being told that I don't have access is really frustrating, especially when "Support isn't available" on weekends when I finally have time to sit back and just focus on lessons.
alaricmpowell Hello Alaric, we don't typically work on the weekends but since I was available I decided to look into the issue to help you out. I didn't find anything wrong with your account. I was able to switch to your account and view content with no issues. I see payments made properly and the dates for your subscription are setup properly and synced across. I didn't see any tickets from anyone with your name or email in our support system so I don't know if someone else helped you with this. Let us know if you still have issues, thanks!
jgonzalez About the time I submitted this, I sent an email to David Karon, since he's the one who got it going last time. He said he was sending the issue up to the programmers to look at it. It seems to be working now but the billing history on my end still doesn't show my payments for Feb. and Mar.
Hey alaricmpowell I've added your February and March payments, can you check your billing history and make sure everything is correct now, let me know if there are any other issues.