Messy sales

Harmony Harmony General Discussion
1

Hi,

I spent an original amount of 2000s for a harmony license.
A) 28.02.2015 My support and maintenance for v11 ended
B) 21.04.2015 Had to pay 500s for a v12 update
C) 20.11.2015 Had to pay 400s for a maintenance support so I can get cheaper updates.
D) 27.10.2016 I was asked another 400s for maintenance support.

The problem is, In step “A” no one informed of the upgrading process (at that time there was no info online, the sales representative told me “we will talk about that when the time comes”), neither reminded about the maintenance. I got no bill to continue the maintenance contract.

The problen in step “B” is that I was sold an upgrade from “Toon boon Animate” instead of an upgrade from Harmony. (Just noticed it now).

The problem in stem “C” is that I negotiated with the sales to join “silver” support. however the online payment billed me for “gold” support.

After my girlfriend payed I said oh well… tried to use the gold features but tehre were none:
-Toon Boom scripting support goes like this: there are no extra manuals, or extended info about it.
-Toon Boom provided no access to beta preferencial pre release treatment or any of those gold promises. I told them by written that I wanted to participate in beta, well, got the last upgrade supper supper late with apology message for support.
-Toon boom provided no older versions since according to them I alrready have those and wanted a detailed explanation of what I was doing (I had no clue that the sales guys screwed up in point “B” and my v11 serial was still valid, anyway could make no sense of it).
-I do not need 24/7 support, I simply dont.
So I payed more for no service.

The problem with “D” was the same than “C”, fortunately I noticed so they corrected and send me a 300s invoice…

I complained a week ago, no one answered.

2

Quoting:
“At that time the cost to upgrade from Harmony 11 stand alone to Harmony premium 12 was $1.185.
(name of a person) charged you the upgrade from Animate pro to Harmony to get you the best price possible.”

If you want to put a price in an invoice, you put a price in an invoice, you write the correct product description and the correct price. If you are selling it cheaper, you write a cheaper price or you specify a discount. Selling me an upgrade from Animate instead of a upgrade from Harmony is somehow crappy, I would cuestion if it is legal.

The old serial I payed with the first 2k is still valid, and the new one I am using is from an upgrade from Animate pro… ummm maybe I shall be happy I got 2 working seats from the price of one! Pity I did not realise it earlier! well, this might go beyond giving me “the best price possible”. I do not think it was supposed to work like this… I have friends in the industry… nooo, if they bought 1 product they have 1 valid serial.
So, no, I don’t buy that explanation, this is a mistake, not good will. I still think that guy was paying 0 attention to what he was doing. This time was in my favor even thought I do not care any longer.

In the law if you write down a list of services in the description of gold you have to provide those services. Period.

3

TOON BOOM:
"Like I said, I’m really really sorry you feel disappointed, or that we were not clear.
I’m gonna open my self and be honest with you. At this point I seriously don’t know what else to do for you.
I already gave you the explanations your were demanding. After that you still feel bad for having 2 licenses when you were supposed to have just one.

I’m kind of lost here, what exactly would you like us to do for you?"

ME:

"Who said I have 2 licenses?. I have 2 serial numbers which work because of a mistake of your colleagues. I just figured it out on my own after being here finding out everything you guys did is wrong.

Who told me I have 2 licenses?. Is it written anywhere? Do I officially have license to use this in 2 computers? How do I take you seriously?

I demanded an explanation so you look trough an understand what went wrong, and how wrong it is, not just for you to invent whatever story and come back to me pretending it is all fine.

Who is your boss?"

Form here I just quote a few line to save the pain:

TB
“you said “I have 2 serial numbers which work because of a mistake of your colleagues.”
Would you like us to cancel one of your serial numbers?”

“You paid for an upgrade. You had your upgrade. You purchased Gold Support. you had your Gold Support.
I don’t understand why you think you were billed more than you were supposed to”.

A complete joke.

4

“At that time the cost to upgrade from Harmony 11 stand alone to Harmony premium 12 was $1.185.
(name of a person) charged you the upgrade from Animate pro to Harmony to get you the best price possible.”

So if this would be true why did I spent 2k in the original harmony license? If to upgrade from harmony 11(2000s) to harmony 12 was 1185s… and the upgrade from Animate pro (way cheaper) to harmony 12 was 600s… it means harmony users were punished paying more. this is ridiculous, Animate to harmony is both a crossgrade and an upgrade at the same time, from harmony to harmony just an upgrade.

This makes no sense. Either I am told something which is not true, either the pricing policies are completely unfair. People who invested a big amount of money in Harmony are charged more than those who invested just a little in Animate, everybody ending up with the same product.

Sorry but I have lost all respect I had left for this house.

5

Just as a note: None of the features in the last version really benefits me, the software is developing in areas which does no improvement to my work. Maya only features are of no use.

I am not happy, Toon Boom seems to care very little about small studios, they dont even have time to read the bills they send, they made mistake in every single order so far.
I ended up paying lots more at the end for things I don’t need. This does look like a subscription very very much. For a small studio this road makes no sense.

As well no asnwers after I complaint to the sales shows a total lack of respect.

I do not think I want to give Toon Boom a single dollar more. How can I grow the studio like this?.

Moving on.

6

Very valid complaints, not really much else say. There have been also bugs in harmony which have been there since old versions that are yet to be fixed (enabling snap and align causes the whole thing to glitch out and zoom in and out if you move the screen or try to zoom in with it enabled). But alas, the problem is toon boom realisticly doesn’t have any other competition in regards to 2d. For rigged animation mixed with nodes and FBF, there isn’t anything as easy to use with that many time saving features. TVpaint is only for frame by frame, and mohos anime studio is just not up to the level comparable to toonboom for full production animation yet. Flash is just ungodly to use after harmony (although the lack of keyframde in toonboom is a big minus).

7

Harmony has very strong competition, Opentoonz (free) or Toonz premium (349 euros) and Moho Pro 12.1

Moho 12.1 (anime studio pro) is certainly studio production ready, and has many features that are better than Harmony’s especially when it comes to cutout animation.
http://my.smithmicro.com/animewebinars/making-puffin-rock-moho-in-a-TV-series-pipeline-webinar-replay.html

Harmony 14 was definitely a lackluster update, nothing at all for me there either. Had I known in advance what the new “features” were I wouldn’t have bothered renewing my silver support contract, and stayed with Harmony 12.

Don’t get me wrong I use Harmony 14 premium and find it a useful tool, but it’s not the only one in my toolbox, and it’s certainly not the best.

8

I took a look at opentoonz, but the lack of an actual timeline and only being an xhseet is a real bummer, sadly not something i could really work with. Interesting to see that moho is gaining some traction, i should try looking into it again as an alternative and seeing what it can do. And yeah harmony 14 really didn’t add much for animators, it was all just game related stuff. The lack of thumbnailview for drawling layers is a huge pain when it comes to lipsyncing or other symbol view like, dragging a slider 30 frames is not a good solution. Does anime studio have something compatible to that? And does it allow you to draw within the program or do you have to import pieces into it only?

9

No thumbnail sheet in moho either, similar single thumbnail and slider to harmony has been introduced.
However you can organize groups of switch layers (drawing substitutions) in folders. e.g. happy mouths, sad mouths and neutral mouths and select from the shorter group of phonemes for that particular mood or expression.

10

Hi,
I played with Moho’s trial version a while ago (when it was Anime Studio), I found it too similar to 3d rigging, a bit not too nice for my taste, I do prefer 2d workflows since they are less rigid… and actually talking about x-sheets… the lack of x-shet was a problem too me, I am just the opposite, I find it way more comfortable than a timeline…

I tried Opentoonz and cannot really complain neither in pose to pose handrawn, neither the compositing side (which I was able to combine with the free fusion), need to check out the paper cut features thought… one of my big frustrations in TB is the lack of a proper scripting documentation, thing which would be solved in open source, probably toonz is my way out… not sure yet…

Thanks for the suggestions…

What I really don’t understand is how this kind of corporate wannabes can grow so arrogant just because they have bigger customers, I believe I am protesting for good reasons and no one took the interest to neither apologise or ask for further information and check what went wrong. They did many mistakes. This is like “take it or leave it”… I don’t know how can they live mistreating the small studios.

11

Good evening Gabriel,

We sincerely apologize that you had this experience. This is not what we wish for our customers.
We care about all our customers and wish for their success.

On our side, we are going through the past activities and are looking at what we can do.

Please know that your feedback is noted.

We will send you an email with additional information.

Our apologizes for this experience,

Marie-Eve

12

Hi,
Your colleague contacted me, and what he did is trying to justify the unjustifiable.

My original support expired while doing just what your sales told me to do when I asked him months earlier how to upgrade

“As for renewing your annual support and upgrades contract, you don’t have to worry about that yet. Lets wait until Harmony 12 is out and then we can work out a deal for you”.

no one explained me the upgrade pricing in advance even if I did asked.

There is no way I could had chosen gold support instead of silver on my own, your website provides no link other than the one provided by the sales. You have no web interface for me to chose wrongly.

About the beta program you have no right to sell a service you don’t provide PERIOD, thats on the law.
" Unfortunately, for Harmony 14, there was no Beta issued"
Well, gold says there is a beta program.

Do I have to be thankful for a 600 upgrade instead of 1k? After the service just expired in the circumstances it expired. Sorry your sense of perceived value is all twisted. A 1k upgrade for a 2k software… It is all screwed up and it is all messy. Pricing and product descriptions, shall be all clear in an invoice. Sales advise is not suppose to deceive customer’s interest.

So, no I do not think having to read through justifications is fun neither it is pleasant to answer them.

All I can do is to post this here so people is careful and reads things properly.

Congratulate your colleages for loosing a customer.

I am selling my license away in order to reduce the costs of moving away.

If any bigger company with enough margin in the budget not to mind this kind of recurring mistakes wants my license, please send me an offer:
gabriel.delacruz (at) gmail.com

I think I have wasted enough time and money with this.

As a favor to TB I am sending the link to this forum to the board of shareholders. Hopefully someone up there understands this is by no way how to deal with things.

13

I finally decided to update on this topic:

In December I was promised a refund, which until the date I did not get.

Don’t have the nerves to keep exchanging mails begging for what.

Just signing a deal with another vendor.

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