Class Action Lawsuit

[Anonymous]

Is anyone else feeling like we should all get together and bring a class action lawsuit against Autodesk for the recent decline in product quality?  It seems as though we are paying Autodesk to be beta testers for their products, creating additional cost for the users in the form of reduced productivity.  

I personally think that Autodesk has begun doing a great disservice to the industries that have relied on its products for so long.

[pendean]

Wait, you believed a salesperson, on a phone call, that told you prices would never EVER go up?
Were you presented with a written contract stating these facts? web-based documentation you can base a legal action to? Did you record the call, inform the person you talked to that it was being recorded, and your recording has her name and a unedited date stamp?

Never EVER take the word of a salesman/woman/person: they are there to make a sale to keep their job, it's a career choice. They do NOT own the company nor have they any control over future pricing.

I feel your frustration as an end user here myself too, but you're not looking at the facts you have (well, you don't have). Join away though if an action does appear, just don't pay anyone anything (or take their word for it they won't charge you) if it happens, I have a feeling this has a making for a sad web scam with lots of folks buying into it.

Be careful.

[JamesMaeding]

@sbrittin

You are right, I did not buy one. I bought 104 perpetual seats through the years.

I'm telling you so far you will be able to renew that by paying maint fees forever.

The cost going up thing is no fun for sure. But on the bright side, you and I have been getting our software at a discount all this time, as it would seem now 

[dgorsman]

---

@pendean wrote:

...I have a feeling this has a making for a sad web scam with lots of folks buying into it.

---

Oh geeez...  Thanks for that idea.  That's something I'd prefer to not even contemplate happening.

[Anonymous]

you are not alone , its 2017 and AutoCAD 2017 still keeps crashing on major project work 

[RobDraw]

Most often these kind of complaints are not a fault of the software but rather a local issue.

---

@Anonymous wrote:

you are not alone , its 2017 and AutoCAD 2017 still keeps crashing on major project work 

---

[Anonymous]

What sort of local issue , well The IT guy at Morrisroe got some setting off the Knowledge centre and it works just fine. If it was a local setting done deliberately it was t their own expense  

[Anonymous]

It did put me off working to be honest

[Anonymous]

this place does seem to be mixing up everyone's login details , I get logged into several different accounts for some reason not sure if that caused it in the first place

[ChrisRS]

I primarily use Civil 3d and find that there is no project to small to crash 2017

[SeeMSixty7]

Most users tend to paint themselves into a corner due to lack of understanding system limitations or exploiting feature abusively, then complain about it. Let's just talk about Layer Names for instance. Not only do users now type entire sentences as layer names, but they will also load up 200+ layers in every drawing, then xref a large number of drawings into another drawing and wonder why the Layer Manager crashes, or is slow. I always recommend keeping spaces and any special chars out of descriptions, and keep them brief as possible. Standards should be designed not only to make it easy to understand, but also to optimize the performance of the systems being used. If your standard is impacting performance or stability of your software system, then you need to re-evaluate your standards. Similar principals should be taken into account on most systems or processes.

There are so many new features now in AutoCAD, and some offer ok ability, but at a performance price. Weight the costs. Just because you can do something, does not mean you should!

Another Case in point is TEXT Vs MTEXT.... Here are my thoughts on that.

http://www.seemsixty7.com/blog/2017/04/04/cad-debate-text-vs-mtext/

End of rant... for now. LOL

[Anonymous]

If you have some solution on how to improve Autodesk, please just drop them a simple email and they will be more than happy to accommodate your ideas into the next release if possible.

Just keep in mind, we are pioneering an evolutionary building design and construction process as opposed to a "Intelligent design," one, that says on the eight day, god created Revit/AutoCAD, version - Infinity.

From my view, the improvements from Revit 2013 to Revit 2016 deserves the highest accolades.

I cannot thank the all knowing, all seeing, MEGA-TWONKS at Autodesk for all great improvements.

[RobDraw]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

If you have some solution on how to improve Autodesk, please just drop them a simple email and they will be more than happy to accommodate your ideas into the next release if possible.

Just keep in mind, we are pioneering an evolutionary building design and construction process as opposed to a "Intelligent design," one, that says on the eight day, god created Revit/AutoCAD, version - Infinity.

From my view, the improvements from Revit 2013 to Revit 2016 deserves the highest accolades.

I cannot thank the all knowing, all seeing, MEGA-TWONKS at Autodesk for all great improvements.

---

Happy New Year to you, too. Enjoy!

[ChrisRS]

@Anonymous. I am glad that Revit is working well for you, and that you have seen a lot Improvement in the past few years.

Looking at the Revit Ideas Forum, there are 3150 ideas gathering support, the oldest being from July, 2014. That's about 900 ideas per year. There were 39 Ideas implemented over the last 2 years; that's about 20 per year. There are 39 Ideas Accepted. 

I few assume that 10 percent of the 3,150 Ideas are good, that is 315 ideas. If we also assume that all 39 accepted Ideas can be implemented in a year, twice the previous rate, the work out to an 8 year back log. Remember ideas are growing at about 900/year.

The ideas were posted on line in a forum specifically set up to solicit Ideas. I think that should be at least as good as just dropping Autodesk a simple email. I know Autodesk is working to improve Revit, but it does not seem that they are able to happily accommodate these Ideas into the next release. Yes you did said "if possible."

Many of the participants in this thread are users of AutoCAD verticals, Like Architecture and Civil 3d. These at mature products that quite frankly seem to be getting a lot less Autodesk attention/investment than Revit and Infraworks. Revit is the AutoCAD Architecture replacement that dumped the AutoCAD based legacy software and started fresh. The same with Infraworks. You are getting lots of resources and seeing added features. The AutoCAD verticals? ... no so much.

A class action lawsuit does not make sense. I know that Autodesk can not meet everyone's desires in one year. But I do think they can do better for the verticals than they have over the last several years. I use Civil 3d; there are performance issues, corruption issues, stability issues and errors that have existed for years. There are AutoCAD deficiencies that have not been addressed for at least 10 years. As users we have talked to Autodesk and the resellers, filed error reports, submitted support requests, begged and pleaded. We have done every thing short of storm the castle with torches and pitch forks. ..........  if only I had known, all I needed to do was drop them a simple email.  

[RobertMansson]

As a dissatisfied customer I would back whatever makes Autodesk fix and improve their software.

If you need tips for the lawsuit you can pretty much take any marketing material regarding pipe network design.

I had high hopes for the "pipe sizing and analysis"-tool introduced in 2018 for my gravity sewage-networks.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/autocad-civil-3d/feature

Turns out it only(!) works for stormwater, which was cleverly not advertised.

In fact, C3D pipe networks are actually just 3d cylinders and rectangled tied to road-design tools (you can set design-speed on alignment for pipe network profiles...). There are no tools to grade gravity pipes automatically and Pressure pipe networks. Pipe inverts cannot be displayed in profile view without specifying pipe flowrates (which can only be done manually on a "per-pipe-basis").

[RobDraw]

As a dissatisfied customer you have the choice to not use the product. It's not grounds for a law suit, a refund maybe, but not a law suit.

Lawsuits are for recovering any loss that you may have incurred because of a defect in the product.

[rkmcswain]

RobDraw wrote:

As a dissatisfied customer you have the choice to not use the product. It's not grounds for a law suit, a refund maybe, but not a law suit.

Lawsuits are for recovering any loss that you may have incurred because of a defect in the product.

Yeah, I think Section 7 of the EULA ("Limitations of Liability") covers that up pretty tight.

The preceding statements are not to be considered legal advice

[asmith.copycat]

Yes we should - I am a freelancer who used Maya 2017 and they completely changed the shader structures in 2018 giving no legacy option and I ended up having to change my files. That and other changes that pull back my production efficiency. 

Anyone who'd like to file a lawsuit please let me know - I will definitely join. 

Tho I think its a good idea to figure out if the user agreement prevent Autodesk from getting sued.

[Anonymous]

AutoCAD has a legal problem in that they have reneged their promise to provide sold customers a  perpetual licenses. AutoCAD is now charging customers a maintenance fees. Customers were not told this when they bought the product. I'm speaking specifically about Architectural Desktop - the program I work with.

AutoCAD has informed us that there will be no further improvements to this program. The company charges a higher fee to perpetual licenses customers.  There is actually very little help available on the help line. Most of the technicians to not know the Architectural Desktop program well and admit it.  The company is abusing long-time customers who have spent thousands on the program, and on training. 

[RobDraw]

I'm pretty sure you have a leg to stand on or should I say platform.

[JamesMaeding]

@Anonymous 

Two problems there:

1) you really have a contract where adesk said they would always sell perpetual licenses of ADT?

I've never heard of anything like that. Adesk does not have to sell anything. They can stop selling all right now.

I do believe while they are in business, they are contractually obligated to provide authorization codes to perpetual products you bought. That is about it.

2) If they did sign a contract with you, about selling future versions of a vertical product, would you believe their ability to fulfill that contract in a meaningful way?

No, they would just release the same program under a new version name to avoid whatever legal penalty was at hand.

You need to explain why you think adesk promised to sell ADT forever. I'd like to see that contract language.

I think @RobDraw would too, to back up his agreement with you.