A humble request for the staff to rethink how they handled the situation

[jadebullet]

Getting back on topic, here are a few points to raise here:
- please re read the article explaining why the forum was taken down (originally I said two days but the actual time was about 20 hours )
- the reason all users were affected is that I wanted everyone to rethink why they are posting here and what effect their posts were having on other forum users. This is a game/hobby forum and far too many posts were taking things far too serious and were far too insulting
- Several long time Trainz fans had written to me saying they no longer wished to be part of the ongoing vindictive comments that were plaguing these forums more and more
- even more people had posted in the forums how they saw things heading south
- nowhere did the changes mention that constructive criticism should or would be banned
- the main aim was to strengthen the coc to give forum members a better understanding of what was and wasn"t allowed and give moderators better guidelines for what is tolerated
- those moderators are primarily volunteers who work for the most part independently of N3V (although we have the right to overturn rulings)
- sometimes they may name the wrong decision - they are only human
- apart from a few people, it appears that most people would actually like to see a happier environment here
- abusing staff is not a good way to resolve any issues you have with a product
- I could keep going on but let's just end on the point that the team are totally focused on improving Trainz and dealing with tantrums and abusive behaviour do not assist in making that happen

I do thank you for your response. In my admission, I misread a part of the new CoC, which made it much stricter than it actually is.

I do agree with all of your points, though I still stand by my statement that shutting down the forum wasn't a very good decision, since it is very public, and hurts the reputation of your sim.

I do, also, still feel like your defending of the user in question should probably be addressed, though I get the feeling that it is probably a case of making a post without knowing all of the information beforehand. In the future, it might not be a good idea to encourage such behavior.

 

[rjhowie]

The idea of someone wanting to abuse the staff is beyond my ken and immaturely negative. I discovered Trainz (2004) by accident and was taken to it right away as it was a lot easier to be able to build stuff without being a Teflon head. In addition as an aside with intermittent health issues when I am stuck in it keeps the grey cells ticking over then on with life. It is a hobby interest for us all over the world (see how generous I am including people from outside Glasgow?) and intended to be a happy and enjoyable hobby.

 

[cvkiwi]

Hi everybody I have just finished reading these 10 pages
and so I would like to add my 2 cents if that is ok

1 I love trainz and for me it is a hobby however my wife (Vicki) would say otherwise
2 I have bought Tane and I can not find a patch for My copy
so I went and spent even more money and bought to COLLECTORS EDITION and at the moment it is sitting on my book shelf.
until Tane has all the bugs fixed
3 I do not beleave we are a community I beleave we are a FAMILY that loves TRAINZ so lets just hold onto that and
let the other stuff slide away.

Happy Rails everyone
Chris Sullivan

 

[CFL-Fan]

Pretty much all of us here paid a portion of our own hard earned money on this game. We did that because we believed in it. I personally hoped TANE would finally be what I imagined TS12 would be when I bought it. TS12 was a huge disappointment to me. I realize I will be one of the few people to say that. But when I bought it and played it for the first time I was shocked I was still pretty much playing on a 10 year old game engine. I could not believe hardly any work was done on it in between. I swore then that I would never buy nother N3V product again.

And then I did buy TANE! Seriously, am I crazy?

What it does hopefully show: I really wanted (and still want) this to work out great. I don't want to speak ill about a product, a company or individuals to stir anything up, or because I think I have that right. I own a couple of websites and operate a whole lot more, I know an opinion is not your right on someone else's website, not even when you paid them.
This also means that I have no problem with the forum having been offline and I have no problems with the CoC, old or new. That's all within the authority and responsibility of the website owner. I do still feel however, that it was the wrong approach to a much larger problem. It looks to me like someone who tries to put out a fire, when he also has the power to just turn off the gas.

So N3V, please consider the following things that I personally think would help more than what is happening now:

1) You might want to keep your enemies close to you. In fact, you might even want to actually listen to what they say and make them feel heard. Ignoring them will only increase their volume, or they walk away (perhaps even forceful after a ban) and become vocal in places that you can't see or control. You want to minimize that as much as possible. It's called damage control and right now, you need it in adequate quantities.You don't want to have hoards of people who know your product shout it's horrible, while you yourself are largely silent. It reflects bad on you, very bad.
Most of the angry users I have seen on here have a Kickstarter banner next to their username. That means that they probably cared or still care a whole lot more than I do. And if I could be convinced to buy TANE after TS12, they can still be swayed back as well. But a different approach is needed for that. What to do?

2) Give us information and lots of it. Why? See the previous point. But also: right now, especially because you're not really winning over a lot of new users, you need to retain the existing user base. You need time for that. Not to keep someone like me on board, because I will just wait. I have plenty of other things to occupy myself with to give Trainz a rest for weeks, months, a year, I don't care. But others might not be so patient. And as people who do, or have done, customer support, will know: giving plenty of information keeps people on board. It helps them to keep or regain a positive mindset and that is what you want right now.

3) Silence is golden? Nope. Silence is deadly after a largely failed software release. Especially when shortly after, downsizing of the organization is announced. Silence fuels speculation and makes angry people more angry. As long as you have enough funds to survive for a while, you need to buy yourself more time. It can even be cheap! If I were low on funds I would probably try to get some intern to write me up some articles every day, put something on Twitter, Facebook, what have you. Anything you can think of really. I understand that programmers are too busy right now to write something about wht they have done (this is a common problem especially in open source projects I have been involved with) but you might still be able to find a way to report what has happened, if not on a day to day then on a weekly basis.

4) This is the final time I will suggest this, but I think a central place where people can add their bugs, issues, would go a long way. A bug tracker is free. Almost every open source project has one and for good reason. It's a time saver and also shows your users that you still care about your project, what has happened to it recently and where it's going in the near and distant future. Some of the energy that is now spent on disgruntled forum posts can then be spent on the tracker.

5) Be honest! There is no way that you did not know that TANE would have a very rough start as it simply did not live up to the expectations that were painted beforehand. A lot of people feel fooled and as far as I am concerned, for good reasons. If you did not anticipate this largely failed initial release, questioning the level of expertise within the company would be reasonable. If you did know, well, it would have made sense to act accordingly. In that case, releasing the game on Steam in this form was inexcusable. And I don't need to tell anyone that it was clearly a mistake, as can be seen from the overwhelming number of negative reviews there. In fact, one of those open source projects I mentioned has been holding off Steam greenlighting for close to two years now, because even they know, to release on Steam you need an excellent product. And the fact is that this game I am talking about looks lightyears better, perform a lot better, is very stable with very few bugs at any point and plays far smoother on three different platforms than any version of Trainz I have ever played.

 

[RRSignal]

4) This is the final time I will suggest this, but I think a central place where people can add their bugs, issues, would go a long way. A bug tracker is free. Almost every open source project has one and for good reason. It's a time saver and also shows your users that you still care about your project, what has happened to it recently and where it's going in the near and distant future. Some of the energy that is now spent on disgruntled forum posts can then be spent on the tracker.

There is a very prominent bug-reporting thread listed right at the top of the T:ANE forum, not to mention a very prominent Helpdesk button located at the top of every page here.

 

[martinvk]

There is a very prominent bug-reporting thread listed right at the top of the T:ANE forum, not to mention a very prominent Helpdesk button located at the top of every page here.

Not sure what you see at the top of the T:ANE forum but I see:
Pioneer Council and TEG
Trainz Dev
Trainz - A New era + Kickstarter

I'm sure that a bug can be reported in those but it's not obvious from the titles nor the subtitles. Since any bug report would probably get lost in there, a dedicated bug Forum or other reporting tool might keep the complaints of being ignored to a dull roar. Also not sure if the Helpdesk is a good place to report a bug either. Beside having to forward them to the appropriate technical group, others can't see the bug and so will have to create multiple reports, all for the same thing rather than just being added to the original report.

 

[boleyd]

CFL-FAN,
Well put, but most of the damage may have been done. T:ANE is not at fault nor are the employees (7?) of N3V. There is but one person who either disagrees with your analysis or ignores it. I have seen management move in mysterious ways. Almost always my concerns came from not knowing the story behind the story. That is either the case here or it is just a case of bad judgement and sticking to it.

Everyone runs about complaining about this or that issue. I wonder how many of those sore spots would have appeared if sufficient time had been allotted for the project in the beginning. Marrying old code to a new graphics program seems to have been overwhelming.

You hit the nail on the head, but that head is still in charge.

 

[RRSignal]

It's right at the top of the T:ANE-Kickstarter forum in a very easy-to-find sticky:

 

[pware]

CFL-Fan

Firstly let me thank you for one of the better and more thoughtful posts on this whole issue, a refreshing change from some of the pointless rants that we have all read in these forums. I agree with the thrust of all of your points, but have some minor quibbles with some of your details. A large part of my frustration is seeing the same coals raked over again and again, sometimes by the same individuals, even when their issues have been fully explained and, in some cases, even resolved. Some people are simply not interested in knowing that their problem is being worked on - they want it fixed now.

I agree that N3V could have handled the communications side of the issue far better than they did - perhaps that is a classic example of never letting the programmers write the user guides. I understand their reluctance to provide a lot of detail as to what is being fixed, what has priority and what doesn't and when we can expect the patches. Such information would inevitably throw more fuel onto the fire - "why is this getting a higher priority than that?", "Its been 3 whole months now ...", etc. However, Zec is performing a great job as community support but is undoubtedly "snowed under" with help desk tickets.

I don't agree that TANE is a largely failed software release. I have experienced problems with it but that was true of the initial release of every other Trainz version I owned (can't speak for the TC versions as I never bought them). Like other posters, who seem to have been drowned out by those with the megaphones, I find that it is a far better experience, both visually and performance wise, than TS12. My experiences from the earlier Trainz releases (and from the first new releases of a few other software packages as well) has taught me to keep the earlier stuff going for the serious work while they iron out the bugs in the new stuff. Consequently, I don't do any route building in TANE but I am not experiencing any problems importing routes that work in TS12 SP1 HF4 into TANE.

I think that they were too ambitious with the timeline, even after factoring in the two missed release dates. I fully understood that the first release of TANE (whenever that occurred) would be a "work in progress" and I expected that new features would be progressively added as updates and SPs were released - that was how I read the kickstarter bulletins. Clearly others were under the impression that the first release would have all the kickstarter goals and aspirations included in a package that would work perfectly on every computer.

 

[martinvk]

It's right at the top of the T:ANE-Kickstarter forum in a very easy-to-find sticky:

That'll teach me to look inside before looking like a fool. Probably because I tend to use the Quick Links / Today's Posts instead of perusing the forums directly.

 

[nicky9499]

A bug tracker is not the same as a bug report thread where easily-ignored reports and replies are mashed together in dozens of pages with no cataloging, progress tracking or any kind of accountability whatsoever.

 

[wholbr]

Hi everybody.
With regard to communications between N3V and its customers via this forum, I would entirely agree that there is an urgent need for radical improvement. However, I believe it has to be realised that it can be very difficult for any management within a company to openly publish acknowledgement that there are deficiencies within its products.

I am sure forum members can imagine the headlines of gaming magazines, other media and not least among its competitors if N3V acknowledged that there were major problems with regard to a “crash to desktop” in its New Era Train Simulator software. The foregoing is undoubtedly (in my humble opinion) the reason that N3V have advised on little since the launch of T:ane and the “furore” that followed.

The above stated, I do believe that there are many media methods that can be utilised to inform customers of actions being carried out within a company to improve its products without widely jeopardising the reputation of the company.

By example, with regard to the sudden “crash to desktop”, which I am sure is preventing so many of us from purchasing Trainz New Era at the present time, N3V need only announce at the appropriate time that a “free upgrade to the stability of Trainz New Era closedown procedures” will be released on “whatever” date to the benefit of users.

Likewise, a further announcement could be that “an improvement and simplification to the operation of surveyor within Trainz New Era will be made available on whatever date which users will welcome we are sure”. The foregoing would undoubtedly be recognised by users who are having problems within that section and as stated would be very much welcomed.

I am sure forum members will recognise the above as terms being used within many other companies and product producers when addressing problems within their creations without jeopardising future sales and integrity of either product or management.

Without doubt all forum members are well versed in “Reading between the lines” when looking at literature for many things they have purchased in the past. Perhaps there are those on the forum who can think of various statements that could be used when addressing the problems of T:ane? (LOL)

Can I in advance apologise to forum members for taking this thread back a few pages as I have been very busy work wise in the last few days. That stated, I wish to take up a statement that was made in regard to the original offending posting which brought about this thread.

Whilst not supporting or condoning his actions, in the interest of fairness, some people do not believe that is what he meant at all and that his comment had been misinterpreted.

Mike10, with every respect to your views made clear in the above posting, I do however find it very difficult to visualise how the statement by the offending member could be misrepresented. I will not use the entire statement or wording the offending member brought forward in his posting, but when someone states that he hopes a person(s) will “fall on the curb and hit their head”, how the foregoing can be represented in any other way than how it was verbally published.

Again, with every respect to your views Mike10.

Bill

 

[robogo]

At this point in time it will maybe be best if N3V just keep their mouths shut as currently they don't have much of a reputation for keeping their word, can you imagine what will happen if they say that this and that and the other will be fixed in the next update, and it is not.

They just need to deliver the game they promised in the first place, and soon, that's all.

I'm starting to think the whole TANE thing will just be scrapped, and N3V will move on to the next big release, which will still be sort of a TANE, but a smaller, less complicated, more basic version, with a completely different name. They may even end up splitting it in two, a Driver version and a Surveyor version.

 

[pware]

... N3V need only announce at the appropriate time that a “free upgrade to the stability of Trainz New Era closedown procedures” will be released on “whatever” date to the benefit of users... a further announcement ... “an improvement and simplification to the operation of surveyor within Trainz New Era will be made available on whatever date which users will welcome we are sure”.

With respect wholbr this is an open invitation for more trouble. I agree with robogo that N3Vs best option is to not make such promises although I do not agree with his reasoning on why.

I don't think splitting TANE into two different systems (that suggestion had been made for earlier versions of Trainz and, thankfully, ignored) will solve anything but it will generate more heat and flames in these forums.

 

[clam1952]

This seems to have gone way off topic and back to the same old we want some news subject, as Tony said when they have something to tell us then they will, until then life goes on as normal, moaners continue moaning and the rest of us get on with using whatever version of Trainz we prefer.

Constantly going over and over and over the same subject is not achieving anything apart from increasing post counts.........

 

[robogo]

Constantly going over and over and over the same subject is not achieving anything apart from increasing post counts.........

8,862 + 1

This TANE thing just caught me on the wrong time, for THEM. Hunting season is over, fishing season is yet to start, maintenance on all the bikes in preparation for summer is done, it's rainy season down here and the weather is miserable so I'm basically stuck indoors.

I was so much geared up and psyched up for the new era, T12 uninstalled, ready for something fresh, something new and exiting, oh the disappointment was great, but I'm getting over it now, T12 up and running again, now with a first for me update, got some excellent pay ware, busy importing and fixing some old T06 routes, so I'm getting along.

218 + 1

 

[RRSignal]

We're well aware of what bug trackers are, and that few people will use them. You're likely to get far more participation in a forum, since everybody here already participates in (drum roll, please) this forum.

 

[Mike10]

Mike10, with every respect to your views made clear in the above posting, I do however find it very difficult to visualise how the statement by the offending member could be misrepresented. I will not use the entire statement or wording the offending member brought forward in his posting, but when someone states that he hopes a person(s) will “fall on the curb and hit their head”, how the foregoing can be represented in any other way than how it was verbally published.

I do not recall the word 'hope' being anywhere in the post, 'could' was in there. That's the post I read.
"someone could slip and fall" is a bit different to "I hope someone would slip and fall"
Its all rather a moot point now anyway.

 

[nicky9499]

We're well aware of what bug trackers are, and that few people will use them. You're likely to get far more participation in a forum, since everybody here already participates in (drum roll, please) this forum.

Best nonsense I've read all week.
But whatever works for N3V I guess.

 

[RRSignal]

nvm (ten characters)