Hi guys,
Thanks for your comments. As others have noted, we're trying to keep the trainzdev thread clear for questions relating specifically to this project rather than general discussion. Feel free to discuss whatever you like on this Auran-forum thread, however if you're thinking to submit a route and need clarification then please direction questions to the trainzdev thread or to the email address listed on the trainzdev post.
A couple of quick replies to queries from this thread:
Maybe you need to sticky this Chris as it had already dropped off the page...
It's a sticky on the content creation forum and on trainzdev. This post on the general forum is just here to attract attention from people who may not frequent our content creation forums.
With respect Chris I think you need to clarify that only routes fitting a very narrow criteria would be eligible, in particular they need to be routes that are almost ready and not previously published.
I think the trainzdev post is very clear about our criteria. If you have any details that you'd like clarified, please post in reply to that thread. The criteria is not particularly narrow, however the timing is relevant.
If you make this type of development contribution call, it really needs to be with a few months notice to give the route builders time to work...
Tony's initial call for content must have been stickied for nearly a year now. It should not come as a surprise that we're looking for content. It has taken longer than we hoped for content creation on TS2009 to get up to speed, so we've delayed the final cut-off by six months. We're now in a position where we're ready to call that cut-off. If the routes that people were talking about when we set the original deadlines are still not finished, then they're not going to be ready in time - it's that simple.
I always wondered what the criteria for a "high quality route" were
It's subjective; we're looking for routes that the majority of people would agree are of high quality.
And of course, without sounding rude, if they are PAYWARE layouts then they are already of an exceptionally high standard, and I hardly think they would need any improvement by Auran to fit into the next installment of the game.
The current crop of content (payware or otherwise) is typically built for TRS2004 or TRS2006. While it may well have been tested on TS2009, it is certainly not built to TS2009 standards and does not come close to stretching the TS2009 graphical capabilities. We are looking to take existing routes and help the creators bring them up to the next level.
Also, would the creators of PAYWARE layouts allow you to include their routes in the future, legally.
That is completely up to those content creators. We have put out the invite, it's up to the individual creators to determine their response. For a content creator who has quality work and would like to bring it to a significantly wider market, there is an obvious benefit to this approach.
..with some sort of financial compensation for lost sales, which we, as Trainzers in general, would have to stump up for through a higher price on the retail value of future releases
You present somewhat of a false dichotomy, as customers will have to pay for the product regardless of who creates the content. Someone still has to do the work. While we have been able to rely on contributions for some past versions - in fact, we would not have got to where we are today without this - it seems that more and more of the higher-end content is moving to payware. Even where a route is contributed gratis, there is still a significant cost to Auran to include it (including QA, management, localisation, and so on) so it's not like we've ever had a free ride.
Can you please advise why, after I have personally purchased many PAYWARE layouts already, I would have to buy them again if they are included in a future Trainz version ??
We're not talking about taking existing content and bundling it as-is, so it's not a simple case of "I already have this content." See above comments about route updates.
If the product is attractive to you, you will buy it. If it is not, you won't. We believe that only a small minority of our customers buy third-party addon payware at the current time. This means that most of our customers have never been exposed to the content in question. It's advantageous to the route creators and to our customers to have the content bundled.
A final note in closing:
If you wish to submit your route for inclusion, please read the trainzdev forum post (linked above) and contact us on the email address specified in that post. Posts made here may quite possibly be missed during the reviews.
chris
