• Welcome to the Community Forums at HiveWire 3D! Please note that the user name you choose for our forum will be displayed to the public. Our store was closed as January 4, 2021. You can find HiveWire 3D and Lisa's Botanicals products, as well as many of our Contributing Artists, at Renderosity. This thread lists where many are now selling their products. Renderosity is generously putting products which were purchased at HiveWire 3D and are now sold at their store into customer accounts by gifting them. This is not an overnight process so please be patient, if you have already emailed them about this. If you have NOT emailed them, please see the 2nd post in this thread for instructions on what you need to do

What happened and where we have been ...

LisaB

HW3D Vice President & Queen Bee
Staff member
Co-Founder
Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

We certainly do wish you all well, and hope you've enjoyed creating wonderful holiday memories with your family and friends.

As we begin a new year we do so with gratitude for all we have to be thankful for in our association with you, our valued contributing artists, friends and customers. We recognize that we wouldn't have a business if it wasn't for your continued support and encouragement for what we're doing. So, again, we thank you!

The past couple of months have been a challenge to say the least. We would like to share a bit of where we have been, where we are and where we wish to go.

On Friday, November 13th our entire site was taken down by an Islamic group looking to garner more support for their cause. They uploaded an image via our forums that contained a malicious script that deleted everything on the server. The server logs show that nothing was taken off the server and there was no attempt to gather information from our database. It was all simply deleted.

Thankfully, we had been in the process of upgrading our store installation to the newest version and had a copy of it on another server. The new copy of the store contained all of our product and customer data, however, it did not contain images or file attachments.

Two of our team members, Alisa and my husband Jeff, worked day and night to restore thousands of images and product files to our store. The bulk of the restoration has been completed and we are working on wrapping up some remaining loose ends when it comes to images and download links.

Our HiveWire forums were also deleted from the server and our backup copies did not contain images. We DO still have the original forum available in read only mode, however, without images it's essentially a skeleton of what it was. We do not feel this skeleton is a good representation of who we are so we decided to start over with a new forum solution.

Our new Community at HiveWire 3D is built on the XenForo framework which is installed on a secure server that is separate from our store installation. We are very excited about the features this new forum offers. It's pretty robust in its default state and we have already installed some really nifty add-ons that are giving us some of the customization we have been looking for. It's fairly easy to administer and doesn't require having to know programming-speak to set things up. We are finding this new solution very exciting and very doable.

We had planned to open the new community forums to the public on December 14th, when on December 13th I went upstairs and found my brother not breathing. My husband did CPR but it was too late. My brother passed away at the very young age of 43.

The stress of everything sent me to the hospital with chest pain that night. I was there for a few days, had a 100% blockage removed with a laser and a stent placed in an artery in my heart. I came home to a funeral and then before I knew it, Christmas was here. As you might imagine, it's been a challenging month.

With the holidays behind us now I've been doing my best to do my part to finish getting things ready for you. We have a bunch of really cool tools installed with a bunch more coming as we go along. Our Community Volunteers and Beta Teams have been testing things along the way and are excited as well.

If you're reading this and have come with us thus far, you might know that we have had many ups and downs since we opened for business in the summer of 2013. We have experienced a sort of "trial by fire" with all of the challenges we have faced over the past two and a half years. We started with seven partners, then five, then three and now two - Chris and me. We are two very dedicated and passionate people who are determined to continue to create a growing and thriving business here. We have invested everything we have and we are here for the long haul. We know we do not do it alone. Our Hive is, and will continue to be, buzzing with an abundance of bees, pollen, nectar and honey.

Thanks to Jeff and Alisa for their specific efforts to resurrect the products on the store. Special thanks too, to Paul Lessard for keeping existing products that are in the production pipeline moving forward. Thanks also to Ken Gilliland, Laurie Prindle and many other artists that have so much trust in HiveWire to represent their products appropriately. Thanks to our QAV Team, Beta Team and Community Volunteers who have so generously given their time and support to keep products moving and get our forums buzzing again. We wish to also thank so many of you that have emailed your well wishes and supporting comments, thoughts and prayers on our behalf, and to me and my family specifically.

We are honored and ever-grateful for your continued support.

:love:
 

Chris

HW3D President
Staff member
Co-Founder
Lisa has certainly been through a rough December. Let's all look forward to a great 2016 with no hacks on HiveWire, the new forums taking off and performing well, and lots of very cool HiveWire product releases, followed up and supported by some fantastic CA content.

These forums certainly do have some intuitive features and many options. I really missed having the notifications on posts being made with our previous forum. I do enjoy receiving those email notices again.

I too add my thoughts to Lisa's post here, and support her as she moves forward each day to a new future. So grateful also to Alisa and Jeff for righting the ship with the store content. Thanks to Paul, Ken G., Laurie, and everyone else for your patience, support and understanding, and keeping things moving the best you can.

HiveWire has some pretty great friends!
 

Miss B

Drawing Life 1 Pixel at a Time
CV-BEE
I second that Alisa. The forum (and store) feel like we're back in business 100%. I can't wait to spread the word elsewhere that the forum is fully open again. ;)
 

Lorraine

The Wicked Witch of the North
It has surely been a testing time for you and Hivewire, Lisa. One thing that stood out to me during the period was how people stepped up to help and support both you and HW. One more indication, if I needed it, of what a great bunch of peeps we have aligned ourselves with. Really looking forward to the public opening of the forums :applause: :inverted:
 

3WC

Engaged
Contributing Artist
Wow, I'm very sorry for your loss and your own health problems. I hope you have found some comfort from friends and family and now also from positive comments in the new forums. I personally love what you and Chris are doing with Hivewire, the positive environment is what made me want to try commercial content creation in the first place. I hope the journey will be a bit smoother from here, but of course there will always be challenges.

Love the new forum, and I hope I can contribute to the hive for a long time to come.
 

Lyne

Distinguished
HW Honey Bear
This store/forum... all the people here... have become my FAMILY! I came in "late" but then I fell so in love with Dawn, then Dusk and now especially our darling baby Luna... to say nothing of HARRY.... when we "lost you" all for that bit of time, I was so traumatized, it surprised me... but it really showed me just HOW invested I am in all of you, and all your efforts for 'the little store that could'.... When I started MY on line store, doing it MY way, years and years ago, it too, was a real "trial by fire". It took 4-5 years to really settle in and provide a true profit as we proved we were not going away (it only ended when my health and personal life situation changed radically and I made the decision to close)..... But from my experience, I KNOW how much determination it takes, how many LONG hours of hard work it takes by dedicated people... And you all sure have what it takes!! I admire you all so much, and I LOVE the FAMILY atmosphere that is so abundant here!

May 2016 be the BEST year yet for all of you, and MAY THE HIVE THRIVE!!!!!!!! :)
 

Sunfire

One Busy Little Bee
QAV-BEE
Contributing Artist
I found myself in a similar situation as Chris. I missed the notices telling me someone had posted something new.

And then I heard of Lisa's loss and health issues and I stopped worrying about notices and started thinking more of Lisa and her health. As much as I wanted the forums back, I wanted Lisa healthy and well, more.
 

AetherDream

Breathing Life into Characters
Contributing Artist
Yay!! I am so happy to see everything getting back to normal. I love the Hivewire family of figures and I am looking so forward to all of the upcoming additions like the cow, deer, elk, elephants, big cats, little cats, maybe fat cats, (pretty much hoping for cats of all sizes:).
 

Luminescence3D

New-Bee
Contributing Artist
It is so great to see Hivewire moving forward despite all the challenges. I love the Hivewire figures, they are the only figures I use and I am really looking forward to the cat.
 

Sunfire

One Busy Little Bee
QAV-BEE
Contributing Artist
I must admit, except for a bit of work to make things for V4, that my Gen4 figures are starting to gather dust. I like Dawn and Dusk and Luna, I would love a pre-teen/teen figure that could do 8ish to say 16-17ish both male and female, I put it on my Christmas List every year, have been doing so since before the Dawn of a new Era. (Don't much like Luke and Laura. )
 

Chris

HW3D President
Staff member
Co-Founder
Yay!! I am so happy to see everything getting back to normal. I love the Hivewire family of figures and I am looking so forward to all of the upcoming additions like the cow, deer, elk, elephants, big cats, little cats, maybe fat cats, (pretty much hoping for cats of all sizes:).


For sure!!!
 
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