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Article: Help take Trainz to the top!
- Thread starter Tony_Hilliam
- Start date
What Trainz Desktop Needs to Compete with Trainz Mobile
Perhaps if the development team were actively making more meaningful changes to the Trainz desktop ecosystem to better attract new players to Trainz PC and Mac sales would be better. Let's be honest, if N3V is already of the position that the mobile sales are better and the income from mobile is that much superior, it is only a matter of time before someone at N3V comes to the conclusion that continued development of the desktop offering is throwing good money after bad. N3V has made some progress along these lines in recent years but we're still a long way away from mass-market appeal and all of the fancy graphics in the world won't help a bit if your game isn't fun.
I'll probably catch some flak from people here who have their pet issues with TANE/2012/etc. that are unresolved for suggesting that the development team turn an eye to expanding the game over simply maintaining that which is already present and fixing long-standing issues. I want to be clear, I appreciate, understand, and agree with the position that long-standing issues need to be resolved, frankly the fact that some of the issues that I've seen are unresolved scares me, and I can't help but wonder what N3V is doing with their time and money. (besides funding mobile app development) With that said, the reality is that Trainz is not going to grow as a desktop product and earn the right to have time dedicated to it if it can't pull its own weight on the income side of things, and, frankly, I suspect after 15 years of sales I think it's probably safe to say that the enthusiast market is probably all on board by now, or using other products they prefer. Either way, the enthusiast market is a niche market with a hard limit on the number of copies it can support the sale of, whereas things like these mobile apps appeal to a casual market looking for something fun to do while waiting for their plane, train, or doctor's appointment giving them far wider market appeal. If they're selling 100 times as many copies of their mobile apps as they are their desktop simulator, this speaks to the overall appeal of the product. If they can't make new sales, eventually support for the product will taper off.
To N3V, take a look at the psychological sides of the product lines and learn from your mobile sales to better enhance your core product. Games like the Trainz Driver Journey work for the mass market because there is a defined goal for players to work towards. While this is true of the driver missions in Trainz for desktop the depth of content in terms of the number of missions available is severely limited and, because of the way fan-created content is structured, expanding this for the non-technical end user is a pain in the butt. First they need to find a map they like, hope it has driver scenarios set up, and then go through all of the hassle of tracking down its dependencies. If they're lucky all of those dependencies will be available on the DLS... if.
Trainz is great as a sandbox for train enthusiasts to run around and make their dream layouts, railroads, etc. but has very little to appeal it to the mass market. It's a pretty sad thing when a game about farming exceeds the Steam sales of a game about driving trains by more than a factor of three. Maybe I had a strange childhood but I played with toy trucks and trains as a kid, not toy combines and tractors. The Trainz development team could learn a lot from their fellows in the simulator scene, but the biggest lessons to learn would be to provide the user with goals and progression.
Driver scenarios provide goals, to some extent, but there's no progression, no greater picture to work towards, no competition, and god are they punishing if you so much as miss a signal by a foot's length. An idea off the top of my head that probably wouldn't cost much in terms of development time is to implement a more complex scoring algorithm for driver sessions. Calculate a maximum score based on overall length and optimal time to complete the mission, then implement time-based penalties to the score and add in penalties for things like speed or signal violations (penalties, not scenario ends), and bonuses like additional loads you can opt to pick up or efficiency bonuses for clearing checkpoints by a certain time. Once you've got that in place, you can then implement global leaderboards where a player can compete for score and be ranked against his friends and everyone else in the world adding replay value to the scenarios by motivating competition.
Another, more complex, idea could be to implement a 'Driver Sandbox' mode. Think of it as behaving similarly to Euro Truck Simulator 2 (Outsold Trainz 12 on Steam by a factor of 16) wherein there are various industries that produce goods, other industries that need those goods and consume othere goods, and you're responsible for choosing what goods to pick up where and deliver them to their destinations. You could implement progression by pitching it as their being the owner-operator of a new independent railroad and as they deliver goods their railroad earns money which they can then use to upgrade from their base locomotive to a more advanced locomotive, hire additional drivers to dispatch on delivery jobs, etc. This is obviously a much more involved development task, but one which I think can pay real dividends as, like ETS2, it carries all of the appeal of a simulator game and combines it with the appeal of a tycoon game. The possibilities are endless and most of all, it adds appeal to Trainz for the mass market as something fun to play. Such a mode would give players freedom of choice and progression and engage them leading to increased potential for DLC sales.
There's no question that the mobile offerings are going to carry with them much appeal, they're cheap and casual fun for players on the go, it would be implausible for the desktop edition of Trainz to compete against the mobile apps with the larger pay wall in front of it, but if you broaden the appeal people will come and embrace it. If you can get 2 million copies sold on Steam I'd hazard a guess that your overall income from the desktop edition of Trainz will be more in parity with your mobile sales, if not in excess thereof, and I daresay that your desktop customer base will be far more interested in supplemental purchases like paid DLC. If you build things properly, the driving sandbox/tycoon mode I suggested would support the development of the simulator and surveyor sides of things because that side of the product produces content for consumption by the other side creating a symbiotic relationship. Mass market sales fund development of the building tools which provide the content for the mass market side.
Best Regards,
Jon
P.S. - 1999 called and wants its password system back. 20 character caps put a hard limit on how secure a password entered into your system can be, the latest studies (and logic) demonstrate that the single greatest factor in password security is length. 'Diesel_Locomotives_Are_Spectacular' is a far more secure password than '3$sd!13-AkjC63&fbxf(#' and a far sight easier to remember for the end user. Don't even get me started on the fact that you're not required to re-enter your password to confirm the password change, or even accept it via an automated email authentication. If you can't change it due to the need to support legacy products (an excuse in my book) keep the current password system as a secondary for those applications to authorize against and implement a new, more secure system for current and future supported products, or, at the bare minimu add support for something like Google 2-Factor Authentication. (preferably as a supplement to a modern and secure password system, not a replacement for one!!)
There is no Z in the new series. This is based upon research we have done with the current Apple search algorithms. Trainz is included in the "keywords" but not in the title. This allows more people who are searching simply for "train" or "trains" to find our products on the Appstore.
For those PC users concerned about us losing focus on those products, don't be. The content is created externally by 3rd parties and we create the products ready for release on the store. This does not involve much involvement at all from our core development team.
Also, as a point of interest, our App Store sales exceed our PC sales in total revenue, and in terms of actual volumes, iOS generates over 100x as many unit sales. This means that the mobile apps actually help us finance the PC and Mac development and without these products, there would be no Trainz at all - so even if you don't like these products, it may be worth trying not to discourage others from trying them!
Perhaps if the development team were actively making more meaningful changes to the Trainz desktop ecosystem to better attract new players to Trainz PC and Mac sales would be better. Let's be honest, if N3V is already of the position that the mobile sales are better and the income from mobile is that much superior, it is only a matter of time before someone at N3V comes to the conclusion that continued development of the desktop offering is throwing good money after bad. N3V has made some progress along these lines in recent years but we're still a long way away from mass-market appeal and all of the fancy graphics in the world won't help a bit if your game isn't fun.
I'll probably catch some flak from people here who have their pet issues with TANE/2012/etc. that are unresolved for suggesting that the development team turn an eye to expanding the game over simply maintaining that which is already present and fixing long-standing issues. I want to be clear, I appreciate, understand, and agree with the position that long-standing issues need to be resolved, frankly the fact that some of the issues that I've seen are unresolved scares me, and I can't help but wonder what N3V is doing with their time and money. (besides funding mobile app development) With that said, the reality is that Trainz is not going to grow as a desktop product and earn the right to have time dedicated to it if it can't pull its own weight on the income side of things, and, frankly, I suspect after 15 years of sales I think it's probably safe to say that the enthusiast market is probably all on board by now, or using other products they prefer. Either way, the enthusiast market is a niche market with a hard limit on the number of copies it can support the sale of, whereas things like these mobile apps appeal to a casual market looking for something fun to do while waiting for their plane, train, or doctor's appointment giving them far wider market appeal. If they're selling 100 times as many copies of their mobile apps as they are their desktop simulator, this speaks to the overall appeal of the product. If they can't make new sales, eventually support for the product will taper off.
To N3V, take a look at the psychological sides of the product lines and learn from your mobile sales to better enhance your core product. Games like the Trainz Driver Journey work for the mass market because there is a defined goal for players to work towards. While this is true of the driver missions in Trainz for desktop the depth of content in terms of the number of missions available is severely limited and, because of the way fan-created content is structured, expanding this for the non-technical end user is a pain in the butt. First they need to find a map they like, hope it has driver scenarios set up, and then go through all of the hassle of tracking down its dependencies. If they're lucky all of those dependencies will be available on the DLS... if.
Trainz is great as a sandbox for train enthusiasts to run around and make their dream layouts, railroads, etc. but has very little to appeal it to the mass market. It's a pretty sad thing when a game about farming exceeds the Steam sales of a game about driving trains by more than a factor of three. Maybe I had a strange childhood but I played with toy trucks and trains as a kid, not toy combines and tractors. The Trainz development team could learn a lot from their fellows in the simulator scene, but the biggest lessons to learn would be to provide the user with goals and progression.
Driver scenarios provide goals, to some extent, but there's no progression, no greater picture to work towards, no competition, and god are they punishing if you so much as miss a signal by a foot's length. An idea off the top of my head that probably wouldn't cost much in terms of development time is to implement a more complex scoring algorithm for driver sessions. Calculate a maximum score based on overall length and optimal time to complete the mission, then implement time-based penalties to the score and add in penalties for things like speed or signal violations (penalties, not scenario ends), and bonuses like additional loads you can opt to pick up or efficiency bonuses for clearing checkpoints by a certain time. Once you've got that in place, you can then implement global leaderboards where a player can compete for score and be ranked against his friends and everyone else in the world adding replay value to the scenarios by motivating competition.
Another, more complex, idea could be to implement a 'Driver Sandbox' mode. Think of it as behaving similarly to Euro Truck Simulator 2 (Outsold Trainz 12 on Steam by a factor of 16) wherein there are various industries that produce goods, other industries that need those goods and consume othere goods, and you're responsible for choosing what goods to pick up where and deliver them to their destinations. You could implement progression by pitching it as their being the owner-operator of a new independent railroad and as they deliver goods their railroad earns money which they can then use to upgrade from their base locomotive to a more advanced locomotive, hire additional drivers to dispatch on delivery jobs, etc. This is obviously a much more involved development task, but one which I think can pay real dividends as, like ETS2, it carries all of the appeal of a simulator game and combines it with the appeal of a tycoon game. The possibilities are endless and most of all, it adds appeal to Trainz for the mass market as something fun to play. Such a mode would give players freedom of choice and progression and engage them leading to increased potential for DLC sales.
There's no question that the mobile offerings are going to carry with them much appeal, they're cheap and casual fun for players on the go, it would be implausible for the desktop edition of Trainz to compete against the mobile apps with the larger pay wall in front of it, but if you broaden the appeal people will come and embrace it. If you can get 2 million copies sold on Steam I'd hazard a guess that your overall income from the desktop edition of Trainz will be more in parity with your mobile sales, if not in excess thereof, and I daresay that your desktop customer base will be far more interested in supplemental purchases like paid DLC. If you build things properly, the driving sandbox/tycoon mode I suggested would support the development of the simulator and surveyor sides of things because that side of the product produces content for consumption by the other side creating a symbiotic relationship. Mass market sales fund development of the building tools which provide the content for the mass market side.
Best Regards,
Jon
P.S. - 1999 called and wants its password system back. 20 character caps put a hard limit on how secure a password entered into your system can be, the latest studies (and logic) demonstrate that the single greatest factor in password security is length. 'Diesel_Locomotives_Are_Spectacular' is a far more secure password than '3$sd!13-AkjC63&fbxf(#' and a far sight easier to remember for the end user. Don't even get me started on the fact that you're not required to re-enter your password to confirm the password change, or even accept it via an automated email authentication. If you can't change it due to the need to support legacy products (an excuse in my book) keep the current password system as a secondary for those applications to authorize against and implement a new, more secure system for current and future supported products, or, at the bare minimu add support for something like Google 2-Factor Authentication. (preferably as a supplement to a modern and secure password system, not a replacement for one!!)
bro774843884738
New member
Pls release TDJ,Trains Driver 2 and Trains Simulator 2 for android PLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TDJ,Trainz Driver 2 and Trainz Simulator 2 should already be released for Android pls release em
PLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:'(
TDJ,Trainz Driver 2 and Trainz Simulator 2 should already be released for Android pls release em
PLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:'(
Last edited:
TheGoodGamingDragon
New member
on apple but not android?
I'm annoyed that trainz driver 1 was on Google play but trainz driver 2 wasn't
I'm annoyed that trainz driver 1 was on Google play but trainz driver 2 wasn't
Leverettrailfan
New member
As an iOS user, running Trainz 2 iOS, here are my comments and interests:
there really isn't quite enough variety of trains, and the graphics are a bit tiresome on some models like the PRR boxcars and flatcars, where it is harder to get by the illegible lettering, though I understand that it's not easy getting stuff to "look good" in game without glitching everything up. Still, I was overjoyed when I discovered that along with the Queesland Mobile route, was a few additional dependencies which updated the QR200 locos to have working cooling fans, reflective paint (catches the light), and a custom cab interior, plus the original QR200 has trucks with turning wheels now. If you could release a free dependencies update to add cool stuff like this yo already existing items, that would really improve the look of the game. Also, turning wheels are a big part of what makes a good simulator. Even if they aren't super detailed, having turning wheels on all the railroad equipment is so much more realistic. Sound is another issue. With the Iberia Interior route came a dependencies update which allowed all trains using the traditional EMD engine sound for GP38-2s and SD40-2s to have smooth transitions in sound when throttling up and down. The OBB habbins cars also have great sound effects. They make a "whooshing" sound with gentle rumble and all that, and they really sound like a proper train should when they roll past the camera. If you could give all the other rollingstock sound (and it doesn't have to be specialized to much, just a sound for American frieght cars, Australian freight cars, Brittish wagons, and a sound effect for all passenger coaches) would make everything just that much more entertaining. Honestly, I only bought TS12 because it was affordable enough for my budget (I got it on sale for $9.99 USD) and it allowed me to do a lot of cool stuff you can't do on iOS, like the DLS, which I can understand is not possible to do for iOS, at least not right now. iOS still needs more of the following (generic categories of) trains I will list below, if you could make a "bulk train content pack" that would be pretty cool, or even just a route with a bunch more content to offer, for the usual $.99
the categories sure as follows:
narrow gauge, transit and city (trolley/streetcar, subway, "el" train, commuter rail), steam ("Mikado" class, "Berkshire" class, "American" class, "Atlantic" class, etc), industrial/switcher (H.K.Porter, "Plymouth" switcher, ALCo "S" series, assorted "4 wheel" shunters, 0-6-0 shunters, and so on), modern diesel (EMD "dash"s, GE "AC" series).
here are some scenery items needed:
relatively crisp "American" telegraph poles (Marias Pass ones are really not good, though the ones from Iberia Interor are quite nice, just not good for North American routes), substations, American switch levers, more house varieties, moving road traffic (which currently does not seem to work, at least for me), ATLS stuff, animated trees
I know this is a lot, and you are very busy with T:ANE and all, but it would be REALLY great if you corrected these things. I honestly think it would make for a much more satisfactory product, and truly make people feel like they could "create the railroad of their dreams", and not have to contend with a lack of scenic and train items. I know I haven't hit all the bases, but I think you can see where I'm going. We're I more acquainted with foreign (non-American) trains, I would have suggested much much more. There's a lot of great Brittish steam locomotives still un-represented which deserve to be on the iOS version of trainz, for example.
there really isn't quite enough variety of trains, and the graphics are a bit tiresome on some models like the PRR boxcars and flatcars, where it is harder to get by the illegible lettering, though I understand that it's not easy getting stuff to "look good" in game without glitching everything up. Still, I was overjoyed when I discovered that along with the Queesland Mobile route, was a few additional dependencies which updated the QR200 locos to have working cooling fans, reflective paint (catches the light), and a custom cab interior, plus the original QR200 has trucks with turning wheels now. If you could release a free dependencies update to add cool stuff like this yo already existing items, that would really improve the look of the game. Also, turning wheels are a big part of what makes a good simulator. Even if they aren't super detailed, having turning wheels on all the railroad equipment is so much more realistic. Sound is another issue. With the Iberia Interior route came a dependencies update which allowed all trains using the traditional EMD engine sound for GP38-2s and SD40-2s to have smooth transitions in sound when throttling up and down. The OBB habbins cars also have great sound effects. They make a "whooshing" sound with gentle rumble and all that, and they really sound like a proper train should when they roll past the camera. If you could give all the other rollingstock sound (and it doesn't have to be specialized to much, just a sound for American frieght cars, Australian freight cars, Brittish wagons, and a sound effect for all passenger coaches) would make everything just that much more entertaining. Honestly, I only bought TS12 because it was affordable enough for my budget (I got it on sale for $9.99 USD) and it allowed me to do a lot of cool stuff you can't do on iOS, like the DLS, which I can understand is not possible to do for iOS, at least not right now. iOS still needs more of the following (generic categories of) trains I will list below, if you could make a "bulk train content pack" that would be pretty cool, or even just a route with a bunch more content to offer, for the usual $.99
the categories sure as follows:
narrow gauge, transit and city (trolley/streetcar, subway, "el" train, commuter rail), steam ("Mikado" class, "Berkshire" class, "American" class, "Atlantic" class, etc), industrial/switcher (H.K.Porter, "Plymouth" switcher, ALCo "S" series, assorted "4 wheel" shunters, 0-6-0 shunters, and so on), modern diesel (EMD "dash"s, GE "AC" series).
here are some scenery items needed:
relatively crisp "American" telegraph poles (Marias Pass ones are really not good, though the ones from Iberia Interor are quite nice, just not good for North American routes), substations, American switch levers, more house varieties, moving road traffic (which currently does not seem to work, at least for me), ATLS stuff, animated trees
I know this is a lot, and you are very busy with T:ANE and all, but it would be REALLY great if you corrected these things. I honestly think it would make for a much more satisfactory product, and truly make people feel like they could "create the railroad of their dreams", and not have to contend with a lack of scenic and train items. I know I haven't hit all the bases, but I think you can see where I'm going. We're I more acquainted with foreign (non-American) trains, I would have suggested much much more. There's a lot of great Brittish steam locomotives still un-represented which deserve to be on the iOS version of trainz, for example.
santafe8643
New member
these games held me over until the content was added on iPad. So the feeling is mutual.
santafe8643
New member
Hello add gp9 to trains simulator two
If you're talking about a CP GP9, they have one labeled 'CP9' (not sure why).
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