Angry

[daviday]

I'm pretty angry at 'Trainz', I had a problem and submitted a 'Ticket', well I waited for 10 weeks to get a reply.
These guys are earning lots of money off us, and what do we get back !!
I'm now using 'Railworks', Great driving experiance, pity about the 'Surveyor', wish 'Trainz will amalganate will 'Rail works', then we will have the ultimate simulator

 

[sniper297]

Make sure the computer is plugged in and turned on

I suspect the reason for the jam is tickets that give as much info as this post - you don't say what the problem is, what you tried to fix it, what kind of computer and operating system you have. I've seen tech support, it's not pretty.

POINTnCLICK: Your route don't work.
DOSosaur: How do you mean it "don't work"? Did you follow the install instructions?
POINTnCLICK: I don't see any instructions.
DOSosaur: Have you unzipped it yet?
POINTnCLICK: What is "unzipped?"
DOSosaur: Doubleclick on the .zip file, see what happens.
POINTnCLICK: What's a .zip file?
DOSosaur: Sorry, forgot that Windows is set up to hide file extensions by default. Look for a picture of a C-clamp labeled "portogden".
POINTnCLICK: It opened a window and closed it.
DOSosaur: Okay, now you need to find the directory your files unzip to.
POINTnCLICK: What is a "directory"?
DOSosaur: I mean folder. Find the folder that it unzipped to.
POINTnCLICK: How?
DOSosaur: Open Windows Explorer and look for a folder named "temp".
POINTnCLICK: What is Windows Explorer?
DOSosaur: Good god. Lower left corner of the screen, START, ALL PROGRAMS, ACCESORIES, Windows Explorer.
POINTnCLICK: It says I shouldn't be messing around in here.
DOSosaur: That's right, I forgot it defaults to that, just reset it to allow you to do that.
POINTnCLICK: Okay, I found it, but it says to doubleclick on portogden.rpk and I don't see anything with that name.
DOSosaur: That's right, I forgot it defaults to hiding extensions for known file types, but there should be only one file named portogden, doubleclick on that.
POINTnCLICK: It says use the web service to find the program?
DOSosaur: I don't know why that's the default for that, but select the other option, and browse to the Rail Simulator folder.
POINTnCLICK: I don't see a Rail Simulator folder.
DOSosaur: Okay, START,ALL PROGRAMS, look for the rail simulator shortcut to see where you have the game installed.
POINTnCLICK: I don't have a rail simulator game, you mean I have to buy some game to make your route work?
DOSosaur: *%#&@$#!

 

[perry_weekley]

Sniper, your example is actually inefficient and if any tech support ever talks like that to a user then they are incorrectly doing their job. Number one rule they taught me when learning customer support is that you are to assume the customer has no former knowledge of the program or how a computer works.

You as the person helping them must get them to explain what is wrong and depending on their terminology and how they react depends on how detailed you need to be. The person you indicated needed to be the most basic, as with the first sentence "your route don't work." From that as a computer tech I can see this is most likely either a child or someone who has not had much experience with computers or technical issues. Thus I must use correct terminology.

"How do you mean it "don't work"? Did you follow the install instructions?" That is incorrect terminology and is actually making fun of the customer for their lack of detail. The proper response would of been "Hello sir or Madam, can you please describe in detail what the issue is." After that you would logically try to be as neutral and positive as you could be.

Now Daviday has a good reason to be upset. Seventy Days without response is not a good sign from a company. Even if the ticket wasn't detailed Auran should be replying and trying to get more information about the issue. Even if the ticket is something silly as where to buy the game or something very simple the correct response from a corporation would be to answer the ticket and move along, not ignoring it and creating another dissatisfied customer.

Daviday, I hope you do get your ticket/issue resolved. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors with train simulator games. :wave:

 

[daviday]

answer

I'm pretty angry at 'Trainz', I had a problem and submitted a 'Ticket', well I waited for 10 weeks to get a reply.
These guys are earning lots of money off us, and what do we get back !!
I'm now using 'Railworks', Great driving experiance, pity about the 'Surveyor', wish 'Trainz will amalganate will 'Rail works', then we will have the ultimate simulator

Yes I have a very fast PC, I build them, 'Trainz' uses a lot of 'RAM', 'Railworks' does not, so whats the problem here ???
My PC is: 3GB CPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB pcie card

 

[ct_krogen]

I'm pretty angry at 'Trainz', I had a problem and submitted a 'Ticket', well I waited for 10 weeks to get a reply.
These guys are earning lots of money off us, and what do we get back !!
I'm now using 'Railworks', Great driving experiance, pity about the 'Surveyor', wish 'Trainz will amalganate will 'Rail works', then we will have the ultimate simulator
\what your problem, there a few (( ooo well many)) of us that been with trainz for over 10 years,,,, we might be able to help you,,,right now the
helpdesk is backed up,,,, nv3 is a very small co. there only one person doing the help desk,,,,

 

[mrscsi]

Well unfortunately Auran/N3V isn't a mega-conglomerate. To my knowledge there's only one or two people doing tech support.

I'm pretty sure they have to run triage on all the tickets they get. Now people can say that they should spend more money on this or that, but in reality the money coming in versus the money that went out to create a new version and meet operating expenses probably isn't as substantial as most people think.

People have a tendency to say "well they've made millions" without ever stopping to think of the millions they had to spend not only to create it but to market it and license it and import it as well as support it in conjunction with employing people to create the next version.

If people would actually ask here first, then if we on the forum can't help them, then they put in a help desk ticket things would probably run a lot smoother.

I've been using Trainz since early 2004 and have never put in a help desk ticket. Every question I have ever had has been answered right here on the forum.

To come in and say "I've not had any response in 70 days, so I went to railworks and everything is kosher" is fine and dandy, if you want cartoon type graphics with a very limited surveyor railworks is your huckleberry:hehe:

I have both railworks and railworks2, and graphically they're not even in the same ballpark as TS12. That's not even mentioning the lack of surveyor qualities.

But I'd still be willing to hear what his problem was and work with him to try to get it solved. Now there are some things that we can't fix here on the forum, anything that has to do with the DLS or passwords or logons etc. we can't help. But I don't think there's a hardware or software related issue with Trainz that community members of the forum haven't seen or generally don't know how to fix.

 

[aardvark1]

On May 11, 2011, Zec Murphy clearly explained that the HelpDesk had a backlog of tickets here:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showpost.php?p=795975&postcount=1

Helpdesk Backlog Update

Good Afternoon All
As many of you know, we have been experiencing a large backlog of tickets for some time.

We currently have two staff members working on the helpdesk (myself and Aron Coert), and both of us are working as fast as possible to clear the backlog.

At this time, we currently have a backlog of approximately 3 months, with a little under 1200 tickets currently open (this is due to a number of reasons, however we are working to reduce this - and have been doing so very quickly). However this is being worked down relatively quickly, and hope to have the backlog mostly cleared in the next month or so.

We ask that all be patient whilst we work to clear this. To assist with this, please ensure that you are sending your ticket to the correct departments. Some departments are given a higher priority than others, due to the nature of the tickets for these departments. For example, if you are having trouble accessing a digital download order, or have an issue with your order, please send the ticket to the 'shop and orders' section.

We do apologise for the delays that have been experienced with the helpdesk, and thank you for your patience whilst we work to clear the backlog.
__________________
Zec Murphy

Customer Support Rep
N3V Games (Auran)

Regards,

 

[RRSignal]

Yes I have a very fast PC, I build them, 'Trainz' uses a lot of 'RAM', 'Railworks' does not, so whats the problem here ???
My PC is: 3GB CPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB pcie card

Trainz does not use a lot of memory; how much it can use and how much it does has been covered here extensively.

BTW, for a builder, your CPU has an awful lot of memory! :hehe:

 

[mrscsi]

Yes I have a very fast PC, I build them, 'Trainz' uses a lot of 'RAM', 'Railworks' does not, so whats the problem here ???
My PC is: 3GB CPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB pcie card

Well railworks uses a different graphics engine (hence the cartoon game like graphics that it has)

I'm currently running TS12 with everything pretty much set to max, and I'm running about 1.6 GB used which is about average for me anyway.

 

[JimDep]

I'd be ticked too. Fortunately I don't need a FCT.

I don't believe the Trainz community is any where near computer illiterate as Mr. Weekley is making (us) them out to be.

 

[Beattie]

I'm pretty angry at 'Trainz', I had a problem and submitted a 'Ticket', well I waited for 10 weeks to get a reply.
These guys are earning lots of money off us, and what do we get back !!
I'm now using 'Railworks', Great driving experiance, pity about the 'Surveyor', wish 'Trainz will amalganate will 'Rail works', then we will have the ultimate simulator

No please don't talk of the dreaded railworks. Anyways first off what is the problem? Second I would ask the forms here first before submit a ticket to auran they usually will take a while to get back due to backlog like aardvark 1 said.

 

[perry_weekley]

I'd be ticked too. Fortunately I don't need a FCT.

I don't believe the Trainz community is any where near computer illiterate as Mr. Weekley is making (us) them out to be.

No the community that uses theses forums aren't illiterate but as a technical support a person must be able to deal with all types of people. And what Sniper was insinuating with his very ... Troll like post was that because all the original poster said was he was angry and never got a reply that we should be frustrated and it's the users fault when in fact in Snipers post it was a fault on both parties of the tech not using the right questions.

Do I think that a good deal of the people who actually post here over the past 10 years have degraded to " Get off my lawn" mentality? Oh yeah I do. There are a few really good intelligent ones that keep their wits but there is a select few that are bordering the line of bullying with the insults like Gimmepig and the insulting those who asked a simple question or did something stupid. If it was their tenth time doing it I could understand the above but the first few times you should suck it up and just answer the question or inform the person their answer while telling them what they should do in the future.

 

[JCitron]

As someone who supports over 450-plus people singly at an office location, I can understand the frustration from the end-user here, however...

When the problem is not described properly, this will be the first ticket to be ignored because the technician has to think really hard to solve that problem, and will go on to the easier ones first.

Now stating that I've gone to RW because it runs better, means nothing to me here. It's like saying, okay I solved my own problem, don't bother with the ticket. If I were Zec and read this post, I would close his ticket, and tell him now he can go away because he no longer needs our services.

John

 

[perry_weekley]

As someone who supports over 450-plus people singly at an office location, I can understand the frustration from the end-user here, however...

When the problem is not described properly, this will be the first ticket to be ignored because the technician has to think really hard to solve that problem, and will go on to the easier ones first.

Now stating that I've gone to RW because it runs better, means nothing to me here. It's like saying, okay I solved my own problem, don't bother with the ticket. If I were Zec and read this post, I would close his ticket, and tell him now he can go away because he no longer needs our services.

John

Well I guess I'm just a nice guy because while he might have solved his problem, since he decided to make a post on the forum about it, why not try to dig deeper and find what drove him away. A few software companies have you fill out forms as to why you wish to uninstall an antivirus, or why you are quitting a subscription to a service, so why should a game like Trainz, that relies on it's community, be any different?

Now the RAM issue I can understand. I've noticed it too that Trainz has a tendency to be a RAM hog. Actually I have a feeling it's the Jet 2 engine but that's not going anywhere with it being.. what over 10 years old now? Boy that thing is legacy. Sad fact is you just have to suck it up to play a new iteration of a game released in 2003.

Gonna end my time with this thread here as it seems like anymore and I might just start ranting at those who no longer abide by rule 13 in the Code of Conduct and other issues that have come about.

 

[JCitron]

Well I guess I'm just a nice guy because while he might have solved his problem, since he decided to make a post on the forum about it, why not try to dig deeper and find what drove him away. A few software companies have you fill out forms as to why you wish to uninstall an antivirus, or why you are quitting a subscription to a service, so why should a game like Trainz, that relies on it's community, be any different?

Now the RAM issue I can understand. I've noticed it too that Trainz has a tendency to be a RAM hog. Actually I have a feeling it's the Jet 2 engine but that's not going anywhere with it being.. what over 10 years old now? Boy that thing is legacy. Sad fact is you just have to suck it up to play a new iteration of a game released in 2003.

Gonna end my time with this thread here as it seems like anymore and I might just start ranting at those who no longer abide by rule 13 in the Code of Conduct and other issues that have come about.

There's nothing wrong with your post, Perry. I've done this too in the past, only to have the OP completely ignore the help and continue to rant on and on about the initial problem and never, ever thank any of the help sent his or, or try any of the fixes suggested.

I do agree that the program is a memory hog. In some ways this has to do, I think with the way Windows handles memory management for programs combined with the older Jet 2 engine. Perhaps as things get more and more refined with future versions, the resource handling will get better.

Don't worry about the CoC and Rule 13.

John

 

[sniper297]

It's like pulling teeth!

Well, there you go, I'm a troll, you're a nice guy, go ahead and get him to describe his problem and see if you can solve it. :hehe:

 

[philskene]

Jim --

Very entertaining. And similar to my experience yesterday when I tried to talk a friend through a problem with her PC.

A story was doing the rounds a while ago about the call made to the HP help desk. The caller complained that the screen on his computer suddenly went blank. The help desk talked the caller through the trouble shooting routine, to no avail. Finally, after about half an hour on the phone, the help desk asked if other computers in the building were working. The caller said no because the power was out.

Phil

 

[sniper297]

Best one I saw was on a Naval Aviation Maintenance Action form - in the space for description of the intercom system gripe, the crew chief wrote "short circuit between pilot's earphones".

 

[sparky15]

Don't forget those pilots who complain about equipment not working in OFFicial mode.

 

[mrscsi]

Jim --

Very entertaining. And similar to my experience yesterday when I tried to talk a friend through a problem with her PC.

A story was doing the rounds a while ago about the call made to the HP help desk. The caller complained that the screen on his computer suddenly went blank. The help desk talked the caller through the trouble shooting routine, to no avail. Finally, after about half an hour on the phone, the help desk asked if other computers in the building were working. The caller said no because the power was out.

Phil

You see that would've been one user (back when I was working IT at CIGNA) had I gotten a call like that I would have taken them out a pad of paper and a pen set that on their desk and taken their computer away:hehe:

Because there are just some people that really don't need a computer, that user sounds like one