I'm Done - My last say.

[robogo]

You'll have to pay for new map packs with SC2. Blizzard makes a killing off of their WoW subscriptions as well. Having customers pay for services outside of the actual game is very common these days, in fact Auran is kind of behind on this concept.

This is exactly one of the points I'm trying to raise, I am willing and even in favour of paying for new content, ie. a new Map Pack, (Route, Loco or Speedtree). Question is, will they also charge a premium for actual bandwidth to download this map pack.

Is it all right if I have some of that popcorn?

 

[johnwhelan]

Thank goodness I do not have to pay Activision for all my CoD bandwidth, id for ETQW, UBISOFT for WiC, Capcom for DR and Blizzard for SCII, not a single Dollar for Homeworld or Celestia, OpenOffice or GIMP, Blender, 7ZIP or Winamp.

Just be grateful for the group of people who got together in 2002 and and purchased Blender for 100,000 euros so it could be put under GNU General Public License.

OpenOffice is older commercial software that was released by a commercial company in order to limit Microsoft's market share. Commercially companies provide support and training which is not available for free. Marginal cost of the software wasn't that high as its market share wasn't that large.

The business model of Winamp from AOL simply hopes you'll upgrade to Winamp Pro and to limit the market share of competing products. AOL has owns its own servers and pipelines so the marginal cost of providing these resources is not significant.

I could go through the others but I'll leave them for you to work through as an exercise in being more cynical.

The sites that offer Trainz downloads for free, some one in the background is usually paying for them one way or another.

Cheerio John

 

[mcguirel]

This is exactly one of the points I'm trying to raise, I am willing and even in favour of paying for new content, ie. a new Map Pack, (Route, Loco or Speedtree). Question is, will they also charge a premium for actual bandwidth to download this map pack.

Is it all right if I have some of that popcorn?

Well, check Rrmods for my content and especially for Series Two content which will wow most of AURAN and those who find Speedtree "Toy Like" as posted in a popular post I am not hijacking.

I can't share my popcorn with the feature presentation. You will have a full mouth and then we will not understand the dialog (Lol)

 

[timberdv]

I have just completed my last downloads from the DLS, some of the Work Cars by bendorsey and the D&RG 2-6-0 and Rolling Stock by elvenor. I am really glad that I got on the wagon in time, over the past months I have managed to collect 20 Gb of the finest Content available.

Now that you have this 20 Gig of content, what do you intend to do with it???

You have filled your game with things that you will never use. You must love waiting for your program to load. I'll bet it takes two to three minutes just to get the flash screen. And if you need a database repair, good luck.

In it's time 2004 was and is a great program. But its like watching movies in black and white compared to color. An you know something, pretty soon 2010 will become obsolete. Its going to happen. Bet on it.

If 2004 is all you can afford then so be it. I used to have a 53 Chevrolet that was like a tank and I loved it.. But I like my 2010 better.


To each his own.


Have fun with your 20 gig.

Dave

 

[wholbr]

In it's time 2004 was and is a great program. But its like watching movies in black and white compared to color. An you know something, pretty soon 2010 will become obsolete. Its going to happen. Bet on it.

If 2004 is all you can afford then so be it. I used to have a 53 Chevrolet that was like a tank and I loved it.. But I like my 2010 better.

Dave

Exactly, it's been said so many times on these forums over the last few months " everything has to move on".

To me the future for content would seem to lie in payware. I for one do not expect people to spend many hours in the development of content just to give it away for free.

On the recent news item here in Britain there was an item on how in some quarters moves are afoot to actually charge for using the Internet. This would be outside what you already pay to your Ips provider and would be designed to restrict overall use of the Internet.

To me the above would be nothing short of a crime. However unfortunately it would seem to be the way that things are going right through society. Have not the world's bankers proven that the richest and strongest will always survive at the expense of everyone else.

All my life I wanted to see something different, but that dream at this point in time seems further away than ever.

Bill

 

[bendorsey]

Paulzmay:

I figure to make something small and simple. Perhaps an outhouse or line shed. I have to learn how to get stuff into 2010. My idea is to get it into 2004 and working then export that into 2010 and edit the config as (and if) required. Dunno if I'm on the right track or not but I gotta learn sometime (somehow, lol).

I did notice something odd. Over 3700 of my items are included in 2010 but because they are I can't look at the config file. I had a good Trainzer friend send me the config file from one and and other then re-wording my license (it still says the same thing - just worded differently) the description is also in what appear to be Polish. I like kilbasi but I certainly don't speak Polish, lol. Wonder whwre that came from.

Ben

 

[Dylan6191995]

Could someone clarify what is going on, I'm still a bit new here. No access to DLS without FCT or what?

 

[22alpha]

I think $20 for a year is certainly a great price for the FCT. Just look at all of the available content there is to DL. I'm pretty sure you can still D/L for free however there is/was a 100mb limit per day. You are not forced to buy an FCT, it certainly helps however if you plan to download a lot of stuff.

$.02

Keep the change....

Mike

 

[BLACKWATCH]

Thank goodness I do not have to pay Activision for all my CoD bandwidth, id for ETQW, UBISOFT for WiC, Capcom for DR and Blizzard for SCII, not a single Dollar for Homeworld or Celestia, OpenOffice or GIMP, Blender, 7ZIP or Winamp.

Those are all applications or games that don't have thousands of free add-ons to download.
Try MS Flight Simulator, every new plane you want to fly, or any new route you want to
add, will cost you £14 or more.
Me thinks you whinge too much sir.

 

[leeferr]

Could someone clarify what is going on, I'm still a bit new here. No access to DLS without FCT or what?

You're okay. You've got 2010, so the changes don't impact you. Without going into a lot of theatrics, Auran is stopping support for older versions of the game on an announced timeline. There are lots of threads about this issue, but as long as you've got a supported version (which 2010 is) you will still have access to the DLS.

Mike

 

[mcguirel]

Does not effect you as you own Ts2010.

Just get your favorite snack and beverage so you may be entertained without going hungry or thirsty. lol

 

[robogo]

Now that you have this 20 Gig of content, what do you intend to do with it???

You have filled your game with things that you will never use. You must love waiting for your program to load. I'll bet it takes two to three minutes just to get the flash screen. And if you need a database repair, good luck.Dave

You are not serious are you. 2 to 3 seconds to the flash screen, rebuilding asset database in less time it takes to pop some corn in the microwave.

20 Gig is not that much, 20 highly detailed Routes, a whole bunch of old English Steam and Rolling Stock, an equel amount of NG Logging and Mining, lots of D&RGW, some European content, Spanish, Portoguese, Italian, French and some bits and pieces from East Europe (mostly 3rd party). Add to that some horses, planes, ships and boats, a little of this and a little of that, and well that is it, 20 Gig.

 

[robogo]

Just be grateful for the group of people who got together in 2002 and and purchased Blender for 100,000 euros so it could be put under GNU General Public License.

OpenOffice is older commercial software that was released by a commercial company in order to limit Microsoft's market share. Commercially companies provide support and training which is not available for free. Marginal cost of the software wasn't that high as its market share wasn't that large.

The business model of Winamp from AOL simply hopes you'll upgrade to Winamp Pro and to limit the market share of competing products. AOL has owns its own servers and pipelines so the marginal cost of providing these resources is not significant.Cheerio John

I am very gratefull to all I mentioned (and many others), I am also gratefull to Auran and everybody whose Content I'm using.

However I am also afraid because I do not believe Auran's business practice is self sustaining. I guess that the money they generate through the selling of FCT is not even enough to pay the Employees their monthly salaries.

Another point I am trying to make is that Trainz can be so much more. In order for them to succeed in a huge way (and we all want them to succeed and make lots of money, do we not ?) they need to do what the other Gaming Companies are doing, and not try something which will leed to failure, because if they fail we all lose.

 

[Mike10]

Over 3700 of my items are included in 2010

No there aren't. You keep saying it but there are only actually 27.

Mike.

 

[JRT]

I am very gratefull to all I mentioned (and many others), I am also gratefull to Auran and everybody whose Content I'm using.

However I am also afraid because I do not believe Auran's business practice is self sustaining. I guess that the money they generate through the selling of FCT is not even enough to pay the Employees their monthly salaries.

Another point I am trying to make is that Trainz can be so much more. In order for them to succeed in a huge way (and we all want them to succeed and make lots of money, do we not ?) they need to do what the other Gaming Companies are doing, and not try something which will leed to failure, because if they fail we all lose.

In my professional opinion (what ever good that is), I think N3V Games (Auran) is doing the correct thing.

The DLS should hold its self up, and not be supported by the companies main income. They have started selling add-on packs for TS2010EE witch I think is a smart move to generate more income and will buy more time for the next version. Another point I would like to make is that DLS has become out dated while the game it self has grown. I do believe that this is a step to moving foreword.

Graham Edelsten is the new CEO, and I have all my faith in him. I am glad Tony left. He put the company into what it is now.

Cheers,
JRT

 

[amigacooke]

1. Look at what other business in the same field are doing and copy them.

Good idea. Neither Microsoft nor Railsimulator.com provide a free download service of third party content for their rail sims.

 

[pommie]

they need to do what the other Gaming Companies are doing

Other gaming companies hire a few servers here and there to get their product sold, once the game has penetrated the market to a certain point isp's will pick up on it and host in on their servers and the gaming company will stop hiring server's, at best they will set up a forum for customer service, why do the isp's use their own servers for nothing, I hear you ask, well it makes them money, you are using bandwidth, most isp's are resellers and have to pay the big isp's that own the network for that bandwidth, so its in the interest of the big isp's to get you on the net consuming bandwidth.
Believe me when I say that there is no such thing as free bandwidth, someone somewhere pays.

Cheers David

 

[robogo]

JRT - selling add-on packs is indeed a smart move, and definately the way forward.

amigacooke - exactly.

This brings us back to the beginning and my initial question. If selling content, like Microsoft and Railsimulator.com is the norm, then why is Auran selling bandwidth.

pommie - it seems you understand a little about servers and the way their costs are structured, a 1000 users with FCT will use exponentially much more bandwith compared to 10 000 users who are limited to 100 Mb/day.

Those 1000 users with FCT will probably end up using much more bandwidth than they payed for. This in return will cost Auran more at the end of the day.

If whe go on reasoning like this whe will soon come to the conclusion that Auran will probably make more money by just limiting everybody to 100 Mb per day.

Selling bandwidth, is a very short term solution in creating extra capital, it will not sustain itself.

 

[pommie]

pommie - it seems you understand a little about servers and the way their costs are structured, a 1000 users with FCT will use exponentially much more bandwith compared to 10 000 users who are limited to 100 Mb/day.

I do understand that the 1000 users who pay for a FCT are also paying for the 10,000 users who download for 'free'.

Auran have stated that the DLS is a break even exercise, that means it is the money from the FCT that is paying for ALL downloads from the DLS.

Sorry I cannot think of any simpler way of saying it, so if you are still confused, I cannot help you.

Cheers David

Edit, oops missed this bit

Selling bandwidth, is a very short term solution in creating extra capital, it will not sustain itself.

Optus, Telecom, Vodaphone and a lot of others are making $millions selling bandwidth, did you not pay for the bandwidth to post here ????

 

[alanti]

I'm can't understand how somebody who can't afford $20 a year for a FCT can afford to buy a computer to run the game on.