A sincere request to everyone who's using a ZHAO to sell your animations

First, let me say that I am honored that you use the ZHAO to sell your animation bundles. Francis Chung deserves all the credit for her Franimation script, but I feel I added at least some value to it with the ZHAO, so I can say things like "I'm honored blah blah"

Anyway... here's the problem. I get IMs every few days that go something like "I bought your XXX AO pack and I don't like the ground sit animation I want my money back", or "I bought your XXX male AO pack by mistake and I want the female version", or something along those lines. In my profile I clearly say "Read my Profile Picks for AO info before IM'ing me". In my Picks I explain that I only make the AO, which is free and has no animations in it, and if you have questions about the animations, contact the person you bought the AO from, because you didn't buy it from me. I believe I have done everything I can to make that clear. However, some people still don't get it. Either they don't read (quite likely), or they don't understand the distinction between the AO and the animations in it (possible for newbies), or something else. These discussions usually end up with me saying "I didn't make the animations" and the other person saying "I right clicked on it and it says you're the creator" and me saying "You need to right click on the animation inside the AO's inventory and check the creator name there" and them not understanding what the heck I'm trying to say.

So anyway, my request - I would really appreciate it if you guys could include a short notecard with your AO package. Name it something like "Please read this before IM'ing with questions". And inside the notecard, say something like "If you have questions about the animations you bought, IM <insert your name here>. If you have questions about adding/changing animations in this pack, IM Ziggy Puff." If you could do that, I would be most grateful. I try to help everyone who IM's me, but I'm clearly not the one making money here, so I think it's fair to ask that the customer service burden be distributed a little more evenly

Thanks for reading.

Ziggy

Well the AO I recently released uses ZHAO so I'll double check that the instructions card included with it specifies I am the creator of the animations. Thanks for the heads up.

Yes, a reasonable request. Coincidentally I'm working on an AO package and plan to use a modified ZHAO as it's bar none the most convienient to use. I'll be sure to clairify who created the animations, and who created system for playing them. Thanks to Francis and yourself for your respective contributions to saving so many from the horrors of shuffling.

This is one of the reasons why I sell mine seperate. That and the coolest part of the zhao is you can have multiple sets. Its easier to put the anims in your current zhao instead of having to take it out of a new one first.

Even if there is a notecard in it, not many would read it. An absurd number of people IM you wanting help before reading any instructions.

I've only used the zhao as a user, but I have a quick suggestion. Have you thought of adding a button marked 'Q/A' and either it contains your default notecard that says 'don't IM me, ....' or the person selling the thing can replace with their own?

It might help people understand who they are supposed to contact and the people who are selling it could put advertising, etc in it. It won't help the ones already out there, but it might help future ones.

Its a great item BTW, I love it.

I agree ziggy, as a business owner I place notecards in majority of my products stating that in case of any problems questions should be directed to me as the creator,

It only takes an extra 2 minutes

Nat

That might be a great idea for Ziggy to implement in the future but since Ziggy released it full perms there will always be copies that don't have the note card out there unless animation pack creators who sell copies switch to it!

Just Create a small prim alphaed and then link that last to the AO, it will show th person who made that box the creator.

now thats a nice idea, Dim.

Hi guys

That's a great idea Ziggy I get the same sorts of requests all the time on my animation overrider.

In my base animation overrider, there's actually a list of volounteer AO helpers in the notecard. I ask that anyone making a profit distributing my AO send me a message to add themselves to this volounteer list - it seems like a fair trade.

I've noticed that there are several AO sellers who aren't on that tech support list - if you see this sort of discrepency, maybe you can suggest to the AO sellers that their help would be appreciated.

I just found out that Gwyneth Llewyn - who's helped document and support the AO from the beginning - spends about 3-4 hours a week helping people. This is incredibly kind of her since she doesn't sell AO kits - she's doing this just to be nice.

If you get a chance, please send her a thank-you IM, just because she's so awesome

..


Edit: Forgot to mention: Just today, I got an IM:

[Random Person]: Hello, there. I asked Live help and then told me to come to you. My animation just randomly stopped working... I have the Reverie-Male Ultimatre AO 1.6 I was just wondering what happened and if I could get another one, it is transferable so If you want my one I could give it to you.. Well thank you!

If anyone figures out which live helper suggested that someone come to me for support on their AO, please find them and shoot them. Thank-you.

Thanks for the support everyone

I like the idea of an FAQ or About button that could display a notecard when clicked. I'll see what I can do.

Francis: Apparently I'm guilty of not reading all the instructions XD I use the Franimation package for the AOs in my avatars, but I haven't requested my name be added to the list. Since I always use part of the av itself to house the AO, people probably don't bother you with questions about my animations, but add my name anyway I get a lot of IMs about my quad tiny avatars from people who don't know how tinies work, or anything about AOs, so I understand that answering the same questions can get tedious. Especially for you guys, who didn't make the animations being asked about!

I recently got a free LostDog Designs AO (ZHAO Variant) and now I'm wondering if there are instructions anywhere for the completely clueless on how to operate it?

LOL, I thought by the title that you wanted us to all sell our ZHAO animations!

LOL, yes, that could have been worded better I guess

Kaimi,

Check my profile in-game.

What's funny, and I thought you'd be pretty chuffed that you've become so famous, is that
I had the OPPOSITE thing happen to me!

I have a SEVERELY tweaked out AO (based on Franimations, of course!) that a friend redid for me, for my products. Various and sundry other things added to it, different features, etc. It's pretty specifically designed for my stuff.

Anyway, for a long while, I was receiving IMs saying "Your (product name) is broken, Give me my damn money back."
Of course, I didn't neccesarily respond well to this, but my reply was civil and professional, asking what happened. After about an hour of talking through it and getting nowhere, they said (In all caps, which I won't subject you to), "Look, I took all the animations out of your shitty AO and put it in a ZHAO one and now I can't do X or Y (things that I had added to my ao). Why would you put out such a crappy AO that doesn't work in ZHAO?"
I tried to explain that I had had to customize mine to work with the AV it came with and that it had pretty specific added features.
I kid you not, they said this...

"Why would you do this? Everyone knows ZHAO is the best."

Needless to say, I was howling at the keyboard.

I told them that yes, ZHAO was, in fact, the best, but it wasn't suited to my needs and that I used pretty much the same technology, only different directions.

Well, the conversation went on, them gushing and lauding you, singing your praises to the world and vilifying me for... well, I'm not quite sure.

I ended up just shooting them another AO and telling them that it was a customized ZHAO, which seemed to please them.

So congrats, well done and long may you reign!

lol

Reminds me of a story on this page:


The place where a friend of mine works was going through the process of upgrading all of their computers. On one computer in particular, they had determined they needed more memory. One of the senior partners got it into her head that they needed more "Meg." My friend tried to tell her that what they needed was RAM, but she insisted that the machine had plenty of RAM and that they needed more Meg -- specifically, about 16 megabytes of Meg. He got tired of arguing with her and said to go down to the computer store and buy some Meg.

She came back with an envelope with RAM in it -- on the envelope was written "16 megabytes of Meg."

"The salesman tried to tell me the same thing you did," she told my friend, "but then he went and talked to his manager, and he set him straight. Now go install this Meg."

Mickey,

I'm sorry. That is funny and sad at the same time. Sometimes I feel like I've unleashed this monster on SL or something.

I just woke up, so I'm allowed to be a little melodramatic

Zigs,

It's no problem. If they didn't have that to complain about, they'd find something else.
Some of my products end up being pretty intricate and weird and, thus, things are pretty specific, attachment placement, body shapes and sizes, etc, in order for different animations etc. to work.
At least once a week, I get IMs saying "I (modded or edited something or other). How come it don't look good no more?" or the like. I've even had to add a notecard to some of them, explaining this. Ah well... that's the price we pay.

Be proud of yourself for putting out a good product with the ZHAO.
As my grandpa would say, "Y'done good"

Tell me about it. My wife sells wings. I did the scripts for them - flapping, opening/closing, flexi changes, etc. - so they're obviously designed to work with the specific way the wings are built, right. And we sell them no-mod so people don't accidentally move a prim and end up breaking the wings. Every few days someone will IM my wife and say "I bought one of your wings to take the scripts and put them in these other wings. That didn't work, and now I can't put the scripts back into your wings. Can I have my money back?"

*shakes his head*