Attitude Check!

[sniper297]

Subtitle, "Why this community sux". :hehe: Somebody started a "this place is going to the dogs" thread (over in general trainz, that type of thing really belongs here) and it wandered way off topic and got locked. Aside from the usual weenies complaining about the way people express their feelings and spelling, along with the useless humorless prigs that always have something to say to sidetrack and derail the topic without actually solving problems, this place don't seem too bad to me.

Except for one item, my pet peeve, no feedback?! Upload something, put out betas, rarely any kind of comment either way?

What set me off on this was today, testing some cattle cars I added the new sleep script to, which disabled the door animation. While testing this and trying to figure out what I did wrong, I discovered my reefers also had the door and ice loading hatch animation disabled. I uploaded those on the 22nd, 170 downloads, and nobody noticed the animation wasn't working?! Figured it out, apparently these scripts are case sensitive, if the script name is StockCar then stockcar don't work. Uploaded KUID2:2 replacements for the busticated ones;

ChiMet FREIGHT 40ft Reefer A,<kuid2:522774:100058:2>
ChiMet FREIGHT 40ft Reefer B,<kuid2:522774:100098:2>
ChiMet FREIGHT 40ft Reefer C,<kuid2:522774:100154:2>

Should be up in a day or two.

To me the whole point of a community is a pooling of talents, like a model railroad club where everyone contributes what he can, the end result being a much better experience than anyone could have working alone. Those of you who can't create can still contribute by reporting bugs as you find them, if I don't know it's broke I can't fix it.

Gimmee feedback!

 

[paulhobbs]

Did you actually tell everybody that the doors should open?

Paul

 

[Dermmy]

What you are up against Snipe is a pervading attitude in the community that if a users comment is anything other than "Thanks Snipe your content is the best I have ever downloaded" then that user is a snivelling ungrateful gimme-pig sob who should go and learn G-Max and do it better for him/her self. There is at least one recent thread (iirc regarding trees) where a genuine comment got exactly that response and there are hundreds of others just like it. I almost posted on exactly this subject in that thread but thought better of it, but might as well throw it in here.

I think that sort of say nice or say nothing attitude is 'political correctness' gone completely wrong. I agree wholeheartedly that if there is a genuine problem - or even a comment or query - with an asset that it gets reported, commented on, discussed and if necessary fixed.

I know stuff I release is 'nice'. I wouldn't upload it if I didn't think it was nice. And I honest-to-God do appreciate the positive feedback. But if there is an issue however trivial I want to know about it. If we agree I fix it, if we don't agree I don't fix it but this 'No comment except love-it' approach frankly belongs in kindergarten...

Andy

 

[pfx]

I agree. I've seen a few creations where I would like to say "well, it's good but..." and I've stopped myself as it's sure to lead to exactly what Andy describes. A similar thing happens in screenshots. You'll all have seen the blank boards with some track and a consist captioned "a class poopaloop leaving U bend station" but mention this and you generally get flamed.

I'll quickly admit that I'm unable to create an asset though I can reskin to a relatively acceptable standard. Route building is what I concentrate on though and I've accepted 'suggestions' on several occassions where I don't have something quite right.

 

[Thad09]

Well, (not sure how this coment is going to be read but) thank you for the fix. Why some people may have not report the issue was that they thought that the cars were not supose to have the animation.

Yes, I am a gimmie pig (but not a full time like others who lurk in the forums) but I am learning how to reskin and such. Still can't figure out left from right on Gmax, so don't bother trying to tell me to learn it. Some people are gifted with route creation, others with content creation. I am good with the routes but no with the conent. Most of mine are just rekins (with permission of course).

That is what I have to say, don't hate me or ridicule me please. I am just saying.

 

[Euphod]

I'm surprised the OP is bothered by anything that happens on the forums, given his "rhinocerosity".

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

What Andy said is very true. It makes me think of one creator who has been churning out stuff for years. He makes outrageously high-poly meshes but obscures the detail by using dumb flat-colour textures which not only contain no surface detail, but are needlessly huge in size too (2x2 pixels would do just as well as the 512x512 images he uses). And when you analyse the assets, you find 75% of the texture files are not actually used by the mesh! It would be doing a public service to tell this bloke about these modelling crimes, but I've never been able to summon the courage to do it. Such is the environment that we live in.

Sniper, it's quite possible that nobody who downloaded your boxcars has actually got around to using them yet. Every day the DLS is swamped with new uploads. People choose to download some based on nothing more than a title and what the thumbnail looks like, just in case they might want to use them at some point in the future.

I think that between the sheer overload of new assets and the natural reticence people have about knocking freeware creations, there will always be a lack of critical feedback.

 

[sawyer811]

I wholeheartedly agree with with Andy said. I while back someone posted a progress picture of a loco they were working on, and i mentioned that something about the rods didn't look right (I forget why) and i instantly got attacked for saying there was something wrong. It seems that constructive critisism isn't welcome here anymore.

 

[Retro00064]

I agree that some creators' attitude of not accepting constructive criticism is not very nice. I believe that one who offers suggestions/constructive criticism about a project should present it nicely, in a manner that is not very negative and downplaying of the creator and/or his project, but I do not believe that creators should be so resistant to receiving such comments. Now, with less-experienced creators, it might be best to even offer help/instructions on how to improve the project to fit the suggestions or even otherwise, and to be encouraging. But creators should still be open to kind, good-faith suggestions and constructive criticism (rude and/or overly-critical posts may be exempt). As a creator myself, I find that compliments can encourage me in my pursuit to finish the project. I am sure that many others would concur. But being open to kind constructive criticism and suggestions (not rude and/or overly-negative/critical ones) should not be much of a problem, for it not only can help improve your creation, but can teach you new things and help you become a better creator, as well as bringing you even more compliments for an even better creation. If you are only accepting compliments about your project, then what are you seeking? For people to puff up your ego? If so, then I do not want to contribute for such a cause. Why should comments even be allowed if only complements are allowed?

Kind regards,

Retro.

 

[sniper297]

"Did you actually tell everybody that the doors should open?"

No, being the n00b here I assumed everyone would know they're supposed to open since they worked on the originals and also worked on my three reskins before I added the sleep script. Made test clones of all the freightcars and added Justin's script, went thru all the gyrations to test them, then added the script to the originals and made KUID2 versions of those. And apparently class fizzix isclass Reefer { is not the same as class fizzix isclass reefer { because it's case sensitive, took me eons to figure that one out, not helped by trying to get the ice loading track to actually work in a session with no instructions.

Anyway even for suffering sensitive artistes there's a big difference between an impassionate bug report and "bashing" something just to be a jerk, I'm not the most sensitive guy on the planet but even I can figure that one out. If some dweeb has a hissy fit over well intentioned criticism, I just put him on my ignore list, that's why it's there.

 

[Retro00064]

<snip>

Anyway even for suffering sensitive artistes there's a big difference between an impassionate bug report and "bashing" something just to be a jerk, I'm not the most sensitive guy on the planet but even I can figure that one out. If some dweeb has a hissy fit over well intentioned criticism, I just put him on my ignore list, that's why it's there.

How many creators do you have on your ignore list, Sniper?

 

[stovepipe]

Hmm, maybe get some beta testers? Or accept that faults can take quite a while to surface. Just because it's been downloaded doesn't mean it has been used in the way intended.

IMO decent feedback is hard to get anywhere - most companies have to bribe customers to give it.

 

[paulhobbs]

"Did you actually tell everybody that the doors should open?"

No, being the n00b here I assumed everyone would know they're supposed to open since they worked on the originals and also worked on my three reskins before I added the sleep script.

I think you've answered your own question there...

Paul

 

[sniper297]

What, everyone else is a n00b too? :hehe: As for betas, I do put them out and have sometimes gotten a little feedback;

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=74640

But nowhere near the volume I always got from MSTS and Railsim/Railworks betas, those always turned into 20 page threads within a week, and by the time I uploaded whatever it was all the bugs had been found and fixed. People around here seem to be more bashful or something.

Anyway, this ain't all about me, feel free to post your own gripes.

 

[ex-railwayman]

Hmmm, there are a few reasons regarding your feedback question, young Jim, yes, some folks are shy and some are too conservative to even possibly give you negative responses on your efforts, others, such as veteran creators are probably far too busy doing their own content to consider sparing any time to assist others, as well as folks doing there daily jobs / school / university, and household chores, of course, you gotta keep the Missus happy. :hehe:
The kids haven't got a clue half the time, and some are very overpowering in their approach and occassionally you wonder whether requesting their time is of any benefit, or, not. Others probably have no idea what a BETA tester is supposed to do, and subsequently, only give you very minimal feedback and probably miss obvious things, so, possibly don't want to get involved for fear of embarrassing questions being asked of them when the content is released to the community about how they managed to miss any glaring errors.
Finding several people who you can trust to do a good BETA testing job is an art in itself, I suppose. One needs to have a keen eye for detail, and never afraid to offer constructive negative viewpoints and suggest ways to how something can be bettered, of course, in layman's terms some technical stuff can be a bit daunting, I noted what Dean (Dinorius_Redundicus) stated regarding the number of high-poly meshes used in making models, I scratched my head, as I personally wouldn't have a clue regarding such finite details, so, in essence to find a multitude of BETA testers for things right across the board takes time and committment, I'd stick my hand up to volunteer, but, only for the easy jobs, if anybody has any........:hehe:

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

 

[sniper297]

Impertinent whippersnapper, wait til I get my cane!

"young Jim" from a kid who's only 52?

Got a point, maybe I'm expecting too much since the trainsim.com crowd has always been a bit more rowdy and since it's a rebel colonies website I got a bigger pool of people interested in US stuff. There is a Trainz subforum and a Trainz screenshot subforum at trainsim.com;

http://www.trainsim.com/vbts/forumdisplay.php?75-Auran-Trainz

http://www.trainsim.com/vbts/forumdisplay.php?108-Auran-Trainz-Screen-Shots

But neither one gets half as much action as the MSTS forums, and most US Trainz guyz come over here for questions and answers anyway.

 

[Paulsw2]

... It makes me think of one creator who has been churning out stuff for years. He makes outrageously high-poly meshes but obscures the detail by using dumb flat-colour textures which not only contain no surface detail, but are needlessly huge in size too (2x2 pixels would do just as well as the 512x512 images he uses). And when you analyse the assets, you find 75% of the texture files are not actually used by the mesh! It would be doing a public service to tell this bloke about these modelling crimes, but I've never been able to summon the courage to do it. Such is the environment that we live in.
...

I'm dying to know who this is now!

Paul

 

[sniper297]

Not me, I never even managed to get a tutorial cube to work in any of them 3D modeling contraptions. :hehe:

 

[sniper297]

Witless Protection Program

Got a PM from a bashful type who wants to remain anonymous;

Thank you, Anonymous for discovering and reporting the missing doors in this cabview. All fixed now, XP_L_cab_interior_13_v2 has been uploaded.

Runs much better when the motorman don't fall out at the first left turn.