An alarm has to be raised

[Ben1337]

Auran, it is more then apparent that trainz is going to die in the next 3 years if things keep on going as they are.

So please auran, listen and communicate more with your community before its too late. Because of the fact that all I see are users communicating with each other to help... sometimes with big features to do with the trainz engine suits self would be the most suited.

I mean to compare trainz and railworks, I think you would be aware that competition is growing, and competition is growing.

So you should ocncider these things listed here and more:

• Smooth sound stages between throttle notches (not stage by stage).
• Sound controlled by speed of the train, not by throttle notch (For example: Some diesel sounds like in diesel-mechanical and electric trains)
• General GUI editing (If we are going to actually discuss the openness of trainz, why not talk aobut the position of the trainz surveyor tabs? I mean really, who has got tiard of seeing those tabs at the right hand side? What aobut the left side, the top or the bottom? And what aobut the main menu? That can have the background changed, and thee picture as well... The assets of them don't exactly cut the bill, do they?)
• Editing hardcoded sounds.
• General Script editor, allowing users to create their own scripts easily, similer to CCP
• including a built-in DEM (Digital Elevated Map) to enable users more flexibility to creating their maps as well as to create realistic ones with ease and without making the users around buy for something that has to be bought for you to actually create some real good maps only using surveyor, including land height?
• Track blending - Why isn't there a track blending option where you can merge two track types together to get a smooth transition? (Rail simulator has it, why not trainz?)
• Realistic point effects - (really... how many years has it been since Andi06 realised his? but that's not the point (pun unintended), trainz should have this hard coded so that it generates it automatically.)
• Modifying track sounds (Yes, track sounds really do change on every version... but really... who would like their own track sound?)
• A completely re-built trainz engine (Come on... the ECML on trainz 2012 doesn't load on some user's computers? it doesn't come to a big suprise to me... concidering the size... I mean really... I think that someone was going over the top and according to my last thread, someone at auran preswaded them to have more unused baseboards so that the end of the map wasn't noticable... But this made the map very clumbsy to actually load on user's computers (including mine)... but really... hear me out... People don't have so much of a high spec PC to take on routes like that...
  note: Users for that thread about the ECML... I have complained about that before... but really... I've been trying to get the DEM map editor... but no such luck so I still need to get it.... not giving up though it's still in my mind.... a new one will come.
  But... even without a large route like that... trainz is laggy with speedtrees... but really why obsolete the old trees with these speedtrees... by doing that you gave the routes less performance that they had previously... I for one, would like the old block trees back... so I decided to replace them with S&C trees to make the route have higher performance... trainz can't simpally ake the speedtrees... I mean think aobut it, you're talking aobut trainz 1.3 hardware... it can't take so much strain.)
• Trainz database corruption and repair - (Why do we even need this "database", surely it would be better to ahve 1 folder with lots of .CDP files within them, Really, Who has their enire HDD filed up with trainz stuff? It probably might be all fo the assets which you have downloaded taking up that space, reading directly from the CDP would be more benefical for your HDD (After all, why do you think that is you look at the "file formats" in the DLS... all of them are .cdp file formats.), allowing for more assets to be included. By that I mean that Trainz would read directly form there and insert it into RAM... there's completely no need for CMP... I mean really, what do we use it for? To organise your content maybe? But really... Why would you need to organise them within the application, surely you can organise them into folders? Like for example trains, trucks, boats and planes as well as industries, maps... the lsit goes on and trianz would still load them into RAM.... Besides, windows has a serch filter to filter out names of files... I have not herd of any other game that actually corrupts its own database.. and lately... the database has been becomming more and more unstable as well.
  Oh, and What aobut the downloading function? Didn't TS2004 have a download helper before CMP came along? What about you choosing where you put the .cdp files since I've discussed the filing arrangement.
  Just Open your eyes trainzers, trainz is becomming a lag monster because of its outdated tech being overloaded with too many new features.)
• Built-in assets - (Why do we even need them? I eman wouldn't it be benefical to actually have built-in assets uploaded to the DLS, because have you noticed that all of the game files on the DLS are HUGE? It would be better in the long run would be to have users allow what routes they would like (relating to how closed trainz is, it also related to HDD problems that users experiance).)
• (Added,changed) Attachment for track splines are needed so that trackside splines and objects (with the option of having seperate spline points for catenary or parallel wire can be attached to the objects) can be attaches easily to the side of the track.

For more information on improvments see this thread: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=71671

There is only one way to tackle these problems as I should know... as with all tech... some day it just needs to be replaced by a new and better one... It's your choice on how that happens auran.

If you continue to dodge the problem and cover up holes with carpets, trainz will die out in the next few years.

 

[sniper297]

Agree with most of that, and I personally would dump Trainz and go back to Railworks in a New York minute - if they would fix the useless scenario editor and hopeless AI traffic. Not gonna happen in my lifetime tho, since it does multitrack British commuter line operations just fine the way it is, they don't consider it broken and have no intention of fixing it.

Trainz has a lot of faults, but for what I want out of a train simulator it's the only game in town right now.

 

[cascaderailroad]

I don't see any other rail simulator ever surpassing Trainz-Surveyor ... There just isn't the market, and enough paying consumers interested in railroads, for a company to make money developing a new rail simulator from scratch, or upgrading Railworks.

MSTS2 went south through bankruptcy, and will never come back into the railroad simulator gaming world, ever.

 

[johnwhelan]

The post is interesting because it misses so much.

Trainz has a wider range of content than any other SIM simply because lots of people have created content. Most SIMS use content that has been made by professional content creators which often means high quality content but not much of it.

So its the "Free" content that makes the game so valuable and its a barrier to entry against any other SIM.

N3V is interested in making money. People are still buying the game today, and many of the points made are not such that they would be easily understandable to a would be purchaser so they are unlikely to impact sales significantly.

The cost of developing a new game engine is extremely high and I'm not certain you'd see any major improvements. Peoples' imagination fills in a lot of gaps.

Porting the existing content would be a problem just look at the impact of porting the existing content to TS2010.

I don't think you've made a convincing case for the improvements you'd like to see and to be honest it would probably need to be a business case based on dollars and cents.

Cheerio John

 

[fordmercman]

It seems to me the most important thing about a "simulator" is that it looks and feels convincing. I have been a huge proponent of Trainz since the first version. But Railworks both looks better,and runs more smoothly. There is no stuttering when changing to an inside/outside camera view. The list goes on,but that's not the point. Appalachian Coal should have never been released,it is un-runnable. (Unless 5 fps is ok with you) But it is unlikely that a truly new version of Trainz could use any old content. Look at all the complaints about getting old content into 2012. I was so excited way back,when Auran announced a "Pro" version of Trainz. But then it fell by the wayside.
The best feature I can imagine in any Train Simulator,would be a built-in dem-generation utility. Punch in real world co-ordinates,fill in some parameters on a menu,come back 10 minutes later,and your ground has been generated. If it was much easier to make prototype routes, that train simulator platform would have more interest in the railroad/model railroad community. Generating terrain should be no harder than the learning curve for laying track.
I am very thankful for what the team at Auran created. But I hope concerns from the community are considered,for the future.

 

[boleyd]

Agree with most of that, and I personally would dump Trainz and go back to Railworks in a New York minute - if they would fix the useless scenario editor and hopeless AI traffic. Not gonna happen in my lifetime tho, since it does multitrack British commuter line operations just fine the way it is, they don't consider it broken and have no intention of fixing it.

Trainz has a lot of faults, but for what I want out of a train simulator it's the only game in town right now.

I agree with the above. Right now I am messing with RW but this morning I was trying things with Speed Trees. When I want a headache free simulation experience I use FSX with the ORBX Pacific Northwest scenery.
Each customer's satisfaction, in the future, is based upon the perception of the market as defined by the Chiefs of each company. Unless your needs, in either program fit their molds/moulds you will not be served with improvements you believe to be essential. Both programs will continue more toward a gaming profile with a constant stream of addons to make payroll. All the lists of musts and wants will not cause the management to deviate from the path they believe best serves the interests of their company and their own pockets.

In the early days of both programs there was a much more flexible and responsive relationship with the customer base. Then sales began to flatten in one case and mis-management plus poor distribution contracts in the other. The companies were forced to move from the let us together develop the best train simulator to the company acting alone to make a profit at the least cost. You are a passenger on the Commercial Express and it has left the station.

 

[JCitron]

In part I do agree with some of your stuff here, but a lot of this is not controlled by Auran. The content creators are the ones that work on the sound affects relating to track and engine sounds, albeit the point sound and generic track sounds are an exception, but there are ways around that too.

I don't N3V is going away too soon. as Sniper has said, and I'm sure others will agree too, that RW isn't quite there yet and they don't seem to want to improve what they have anymore than they have to. At least the Auran/N3V development team really tries hard to make improvement given the tools they have to work with.

Auran used to communicate all kinds of development ideas with the community, but that has changed and probably because of the change in the structure of the company. The company has grown from a developer to a full-fledged outside-controlled company, and many of the original folks aren't there anymore. Besides when Auran used to communicate development ideas, the community would get into a big snit over it. I'm not sure if you remember the old forum days. Geez my ears would burn from some of the remarks that used to fly. Ask Ed (Euphod) and other "old timers" about this.

The asset sounds is content specific as far as I know, and the content creator has control over sounds.

The interface is Auran's choice and it's no different than Apple using the one for OSx, or Microsoft using Aero and Explorer. I'm sure it is possible to edit it though given that, I think this is possible as I should say, these are HTML assets. But I think the interface is built into the *.ja files so it's hard to unpack them by the end-user for editing. I'll leave this one for Chris and Zec to answer.

Editing hard-coded sounds. There are probably reasons for this, like some people just like to drive, so the sounds are there. This is true with the built-in content such as locos. Some people don't like to, or have the ability to edit the stuff, and can't be bothered. If you don't like the sound, find a substitute by cloning then editing the content. It's possible.

The script editor is an interesting idea, but it may limit what the scripting does. Have you ever looked at the code before? It's not simple code, but more like Java and C++, which is a lot more complicated than you think.

Importing DEM files is an awesome idea, and I couldn't agree with you more on this. It's a pain having to go through multiple phases and steps to bring in DEM-generated landscapes. Way back when Lance was head of the community support and helpdesk, he put out a survey requesting suggested addons for a new version of Trainz coming out. This I recall was one of the asked-for additions that never made it into the code. This may have had to do with the big shakeup during the fury death and rebirth of Auran as N3V.

Track blending is up to the asset developers. There are some track that are in fact blending types that go from rusty to clean, grassy to rusty, etc. made by Bloodnok (James Moody) made some years ago. They work pretty nicely.

The track and junction sounds... This is the way it is for generic track sounds so that people don't have to edit the track to have their own sounds put in. There are ways around the generic sounds like using those from TrainzRO for example. Their tracksounds will actually cause the built-in sound to disappear, and the point sounds to blend in realistically into their track sounds.

Regarding performance of the new version. Sorry I have to disagree here. Many people are no longer using Pentium 3s or Pentium 4s, or worse Celerons as their processors with 512K of video ram and 384 MB of system RAM. A lot has changed in the decade since version 1.3, which I remember very well. Speed Trees is meant for modern video cards, and make use of the GPU instead of the CPU for rendering. There really is a big difference in the performance and rendering of alpha-channel based assets versus GPU rendered trees. Like anything else though, there can be too much of a good thing, so you need to balance the assets with the machines that the route will be running on. With STs, you can have fewer trees do more work because they are thicker with more foliage.

Personally I have no problem loading and running ECML including its newer version. The blank baseboards, according to Chris (Windwalkr) have nothing to do with lost performance. Seriously, if this route or others is causing problems on your machine, I'd look into upgrading hardware and or looking at other underlying issues such as low disk space, disk data fragmentation, lots of temporary files, or worse.

Individual CDPs versus the integrated content manager. Well I'm not sure if you remember TRS2004 and before. The slew of assets, which were listed by KUID only was extremely difficult to manage. With the advent of TRS2006, this changed with the Content Manager, which had its teething problems, but with TS2010 and above, has become pretty stable. \

The only real database crashes I have seen recently have been due to the computer being shutdown before Trainz or CM has had a chance to close out the file handles. This is no different than any other DB based program. I think there should be some kind of message like "Please wait while Trainz is shutdown completely." This doesn't mean there are other problems that can cause this.

The ability to quickly find assets, modify them, and then commit them is a godsend. In the old days, you needed to know the KUID of the asset to find it, or use TrainzObjectz to edit your content. This gave the content a GUI to make finding the assets easier. Now to use the modified asset, you still needed to commit the files to the program, and this was done by manually deleting temporary files. So which is easier? Having a database-based program which is easier to search, or one that is manual.

TRS2004 had the Download Manager, which was a nice idea, and really a lead into what we have today. This utility always gave people heartaches. I'm not sure if you remember some of the support requests in the old forums. This was constantly an issue, but the program did serve its purpose until the new content manager has come along.

I agree that placing the data where I want to put is a great idea considering that on some systems, the system folder, where programs are loaded, is not always the best place to put data. I always wanted to put the Trainz content, whether built-in, my creations, or downloaded on its own hard drive away from the system partition. This I think would have better performance as well since much is written back to the system drive while the data drive is less accessed. Yes there are ways of sort of doing this like installing the program on a different partition, but separation of data from the program is still better in my opinion.

Regarding the size of the data, well this has changed! Today I have 100 Gig of Trainz data. This sounds like a lot, but I've also used the program for nearly a decade, and also the file sizes are bigger. Over the years I have actually deleted a lot of stuff that was never used, and added some new stuff in. The updates are getting bigger since the file sizes have changed, so the net gain in space has actually decreased because of the increase in file sizes.

Features that you want to remove are the things that users want, and this takes code in order to make it work. In the past, programs could easily fit in 64K of RAM, and run from a 360K floppy. Those days are gone with more complex OOPs languages versus the old procedural languages such as Pascal and Assembly. These languages take more memory, disk space, and lots more code to make them happen. I'm sure you don't realize the number of lines it takes to draw a screen, or worse reference the location of a mouse pointer on the screen.

See my note above regarding disk space and file sizes. However, there are built-in assets for a reason. Do yo remember the Classics Series? That was a departure from the regular versions of Trainz as we know it. There was very little content built-in other than the routes that were sold with the program. Surveyor was there, but you needed to download everything if you wanted to do anything with the program other than use what was built-in. The series, although very sophisticated, and in some ways better, was not that successful because of this. The good stuff that came out of the Classics Series has been implemented into the current versions of Trainz.

I'm not a sunflower that shines all the time in Auran/N3V's favor, and I can see your points, however as I said before I don't think they'll disappear in 3 years. They are at least looking at future things happening rather than sitting on their laurels enjoying what they did unlike the so-called competition.

John

 

[deeelare]

My thoughts :

Auran/Nv3 , continue to work their little understaffed butts off ,
the DLS appears to be functioning better lately , the Helpdesk
has/is eliminating the backlogs !
And still some members rather than give kudos , find new things
to complain about ?

It is hard for me to understand , --- ,dlr

 

[JCitron]

My thoughts :

Auran/Nv3 , continue to work their little understaffed butts off ,
the DLS appears to be functioning better lately , the Helpdesk
has/is eliminating the backlogs !
And still some members rather than give kudos , find new things
to complain about ?

It is hard for me to understand , --- ,dlr

This is typical of customers. You put things on sale and it's never what they want that's on sale. You bend over backwards to make improvements, and there's never enough.

I agree there should be more kudos for what we have rather than always asking for more.

John

 

[paulzmay]

Ultimately N3V have to work out what they can acheive with limited resources between releases. They are bound to prioritise things which will make the game appeal to new users, so visual aspects will tend to come to the top of the pile, alomg with anything that enhances long-term gameplay. This is the reason we've seen the move towards normal maped assets with LOD (ability to display more high detail content without too much performance hit), speedtree, and multiplayer.

Unfortualtely, many of the OP's suggestions fit into the following categories:
-Already possible, but not much content uses the feature.
Much of the sound customisation is already possible - it just need implementing in content.

-Minor tinkering that isn't going to generate any more sales.
"Now with surveyor toolbars on the left" - that'll shift some copies

-Mis-understanding of how the Trainz database works (or doesn't)
TRS04 had a database - do you rememebr how long it took to load if you had a lot of content? That was a database rebuild - every time you added more content. I know that CM isn't perfect, but it's a powerful tool - it just needs a little bit more armour-plating.

-Blaming the Jet engine for the efficiency shortcomings of some content.
Much content is used on routes where it is over-detailed for its placement. Most commercial games have whole levels built as a handful of objects, share a handful of materials, and use LOD for distant objects. As Trainz has only had LOD and mesh-stitching (i.e. material sharing) for a little while, there is not a lot of content that takes advantage of these things, so the scenes that JET has to render are MUCH more heavy-duty than those for many other games.

Personally, I think that the integration of DEM terrain would be both a selling point, and a leg up for those who create prototypical routes (and Auran will always need some of them for the next release).

I would also hope to see improvement in the appearance of switches/points, but I think it's hard to see how this can be implemented if you are expecting exisiting tracks to be joined with frogs and moving blades in some future version. The software needs to know a lot more information than is in a track file to generate complete point models. If the switches are objects like those by Andi06, then there are some newer ones exisiting, and its really a matter for content creators.

I think my preference for a major improvement in Trainz would be the proper implemetation of dynamic lighting and shadows. That would be a big job, though...

Paul

 

[sawyer811]

I fully agree with the DEM idea. I think that, honestly, it's the next logical step for surveyor to take. One thing i wished had happened with TS2010/2012 would have been the inclusion of the TS2009 add on routes as standard starting with TS2010 or TS12. I personally don't like the loss of compatibility mode...if you change the way everything works, to the point where much of the old content doesn't work right anymore, you need to give us a way to make all that old content work, at least until we make it work ourselves. Sometimes i wish there was a thread or a forum where we could all get help with this. TS12 makes it a necessity almost.

But i don't work for N3V, and i have no control over their operations. I wish there was more user input...I've always felt like the suggestion boxcar is a bit to tightly controlled, maybe that's just me...but hey, RW is buggy, MSTS is dead and gone, and Trainz is by far the easiest thing to use. I tried using MSTS's route builder, and after 5 minutes i wanted to put the computer in a woodchipper. One thing i think was missed was a built in, universal Reskinning tool. Not Paint Shed, where only built-in content could be reskinned, i'm talking something more along the lines of GIMP. able to open .psd's and the like, for easy reskinning.

yes, trainz may not be the best, but it's all we've got. But i love it and i'll never got back to anything else.

 

[Euphod]

It's fine to raise your wishes and concerns Ben, but it's not so apparent to me that Trainz is going to be crushed by the shortfalls you list. I also don't find the state of Trainz to be alarming at the moment.

 

[rjhowie]

Well it shows what a broad church Trainz is because I think it is roaringly great.

Maybe the thread starter is bit more into the techy stuff than i am. I am not some simpleton as my job was an important one and done my judge in court and a long and impressive community involvement record! However I wanted a train simulator that is relatively easy to use and build has goodly support (which I get here) simply 'cos I am not a techy person! Having a DLS is a great extra and cheap access. I started with MTS and gave that up as too much of a mountain to climb build-wise when I found Trainz by chance and haven't looked back. Looked briefly at RW and thought 'nah'. Trainz gives me great pleasure and I can achieve doing things I want to do. One route is done and a bit of living history of my city tramway which closed in 1962 (around 250 odd Trainz boards) and the other is a modern complete railway in a country I holiday in. Neither could have been tackled outwith Trainz especially building the city of Glasgow (!).

I respect those that will be more into the finer aspects of the cog wheels of operation but for countles others like me it is sheer delight and pleasure having a great sim where we can build without being rocket scientists. We all have our place here but doom and gloom have no place whatever our level wanted. When other more responsible duties of life press in I zip into Trainz and continue my build and overcoming challenges and seeing pleasing results makes my day. I give myself breaks so I don't burn out and although the tramway over a city was huge I had the determination to finish what was a long haul the ease of trainz kept me going. It is the same when I have occasional illhealth interventions then it is u to the pc room and Trainz. It's the nearest I will get to driving a tram or train!

 

[mrscsi]

• including a built-in DEM (Digital Elevated Map) to enable users more flexibility to creating their maps as well as to create realistic ones with ease and without making the users around buy for something that has to be bought for you to actually create some real good maps only using surveyor, including land height?

Well most complain that transdem is too hard to figure out, if it were included (something I have called for many times) it really would just give more people more reasons to complain...

 

[pfx]

Well most complain that transdem is too hard to figure out, if it were included (something I have called for many times) it really would just give more people more reasons to complain...

As a TransDEM user, I can just imagine the DEM thread. Yeeeeuuuuuw!

 

[fordmercman]

Well most complain that transdem is too hard to figure out, if it were included (something I have called for many times) it really would just give more people more reasons to complain...

That is exactly my point. I wouldnt want Transdem 'IN" Trainz. A much easier SINGLE utilty can be written,that can extract,and paint terrain in a matter of mouse-click,and keystrokes, leaving the user to place objects,lay track,etc,etc. This is the reason Trainz is nearly all fictional routes,where MSTS and Railworks had a higher percentage of prototype routes. I have zero interest in any route that is not real. Its not a simulator,if its a fictional route.

 

[mrscsi]

That is exactly my point. I wouldnt want Transdem 'IN" Trainz. A much easier SINGLE utilty can be written,that can extract,and paint terrain in a matter of mouse-click,and keystrokes, leaving the user to place objects,lay track,etc,etc. This is the reason Trainz is nearly all fictional routes,where MSTS and Railworks had a higher percentage of prototype routes. I have zero interest in any route that is not real. Its not a simulator,if its a fictional route.

Well you want something that doesn't exist…

If you think it's so easy, go ahead and write one. You do know you can press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + P and it will build a terraformed map for you right?

TransDem is a very powerful tool that allows you to make it prototypical route is very accurate very quickly. Do you have to learn to use the tool? Yes you do because it's not a simple process.

There's just no simple way to do it and if you don't believe me try to do it in railworks :hehe:

 

[geophil]

Trainz has always been ambivalent. It probably has the most easy-to-use route editor of all railway simulations, mainstream or niche. Getting started is a piece of cake. After that, however, to get to the real stuff, you have to dig a lot deeper. As another example, the powerful and elegant Trainz scripting engine has a bit of a learning curve, too, particularly for those without any IT background.

Lack of prototypical routes? I am not sure. Since Trainz Surveyor is that easy to use, many users try route building, who wouldn't have dared so with a different product. With limited skills and experience, however, a fictitious route for them seems so much easier. Keep in mind, being able to use geo data is only part of the game. You will need much more to complete a prototypical route. On the other hand, there are quite a few TransDEM users who produce route miles by the dozen, for many different projects, without ever "finishing" any of these projects. They simply enjoy driving through prototypical terrain on basic track.

 

[leeferr]

As long as Trainz is around, which I think will be awhile, there will be those that complain. I've been known to complain a little myself, but soon realized that I was wasting my virtual breath.

N3V has done some things that I don't agree with, but I will admit that it seems that they're trying their best to develop a game that will attract new customers while maintaining interest from current customers at the same time, all within I'm sure what is a meagar budget comparatively speaking.

I'm afraid that some of us, me included, are probably going to be left behind. Without the means to upgrade my hardware, the newer versions of Trainz are becoming more and more unplayable. I don't blame N3V for that, it's just a fact, and because of that, I may become a 'former' customer by default. I do although believe that they may be missing out on a customer base in the form of laptop users. We know very well that Trainz doesn't run very well on most laptops and I've seen a growing trend among my acquaintances to only own a laptop. Many of them don't even own desktops anymore and as such, are probably not good protential customers. The world is becoming more of a mobile society everyday and as such, the computer moves along with us.

I still think Trainz has a good future and there will be those of us that will always have complaints and suggestions. N3V will implement some of our suggestions and not others. I don't believe that they're ignoring us. It's just a business decision most of the time, and whether some like to admit it or not, they are in business to make a little profit.

My only real request for Trainz stands. BRING US A CCG. I absolutely abhor the Wiki. Oh, by the way. I also hate those Speedtrees and non-compatability in TS12, but again, I'm probably wasting my virtual breath again.

Happy Trainzin'
Mike

 

[JCitron]

As long as Trainz is around, which I think will be awhile, there will be those that complain. I've been known to complain a little myself, but soon realized that I was wasting my virtual breath.

N3V has done some things that I don't agree with, but I will admit that it seems that they're trying their best to develop a game that will attract new customers while maintaining interest from current customers at the same time, all within I'm sure what is a meagar budget comparatively speaking.

I'm afraid that some of us, me included, are probably going to be left behind. Without the means to upgrade my hardware, the newer versions of Trainz are becoming more and more unplayable. I don't blame N3V for that, it's just a fact, and because of that, I may become a 'former' customer by default. I do although believe that they may be missing out on a customer base in the form of laptop users. We know very well that Trainz doesn't run very well on most laptops and I've seen a growing trend among my acquaintances to only own a laptop. Many of them don't even own desktops anymore and as such, are probably not good protential customers. The world is becoming more of a mobile society everyday and as such, the computer moves along with us.

I still think Trainz has a good future and there will be those of us that will always have complaints and suggestions. N3V will implement some of our suggestions and not others. I don't believe that they're ignoring us. It's just a business decision most of the time, and whether some like to admit it or not, they are in business to make a little profit.

My only real request for Trainz stands. BRING US A CCG. I absolutely abhor the Wiki. Oh, by the way. I also hate those Speedtrees and non-compatability in TS12, but again, I'm probably wasting my virtual breath again.

Happy Trainzin'
Mike

Mike,

You don't have to stop using or creating for the version you have. It's not like N3V will pull the virtual plug on you and disable what you have. This is unlike the CRM-based programs that can go off the air should the publisher decide they no long support it.

I agree, there should be a CCG. In my thoughts and posts elsewhere, I mentioned a user manual. I was working on the outline of that when N3V created a bound hard copy one for TS12, or at least for the Anniversary Edition.

I too am not crazy about online documentation because it really is so hard to find things. There are going to be those here that are going to say, we're nuts, because they love 'em, but I really hate them too! There's nothing worse than following links upon links searching for some information, when it's easier to pickup a book and thumb through it quickly.

John