Is this forum abandoned by N3V as (official) communication channel?

I found this Trainz site a while back with lots of NJT locomotives and coaches but I need a decent NJT route in Trainz to run them on. I started the Port Jervis line which I have DEM from actually Binghamton, NY to below Mahwah, NJ two routes merged together and a DEM of the Hoboken area, and I will build the missing NJ segment by hand. I already created a slope below Mahwah, NJ to bring the elevation down to 0 because the elevation at the Hoboken DEM end is about 0. The only Newark, NJ area routes I could find in Trainz were incomplete ones.
@rwk >>> Interesting project, but this thread isn't where you want to post about it. (y) 🤘 🍻
 
Hey Guys

We are very much still around, but tbh most of us busy working on Trainz. @n3v_laurence is definitely reviewing the forums as possible, but mostly in the beta test threads. Beyond that I try to review the forums every day or so (sometimes a bit longer), but I'm quite busy on a lot of different things, including the helpdesk and support emails, processing TCCP DLC submissions, content development work (some of which is seen on the roadmap site now :) ), and our discord server, and various other tasks. Having a lot of hats means a lot of things to keep on top of these days!

Unfortunately in general forums are not a primary method for the majority of communication, this is mostly through discord servers and similar. That's not to say they don't serve a purpose, there's a reason we do keep the forums alive! But unfortunately with the variety of different 'social medias' (which does include forums!), it means we need to manage/monitor a much wider range of places now...

Regards
 
Hey Guys

We are very much still around, but tbh most of us busy working on Trainz. @n3v_laurence is definitely reviewing the forums as possible, but mostly in the beta test threads. Beyond that I try to review the forums every day or so (sometimes a bit longer), but I'm quite busy on a lot of different things, including the helpdesk and support emails, processing TCCP DLC submissions, content development work (some of which is seen on the roadmap site now :) ), and our discord server, and various other tasks. Having a lot of hats means a lot of things to keep on top of these days!

Unfortunately in general forums are not a primary method for the majority of communication, this is mostly through discord servers and similar. That's not to say they don't serve a purpose, there's a reason we do keep the forums alive! But unfortunately with the variety of different 'social medias' (which does include forums!), it means we need to manage/monitor a much wider range of places now...

Regards
G'day Zec, no time for cricket then?
Best, ess1
 
G'day Zec, no time for cricket then?
There is always time for cricket when the English team is "down and out". Our Aussie lady cricketers are showing their English counterparts how the game is actually played 😄
 
sOUNDS LIKE THE FORUMS CARRY LESS INFORMATIONAL VALUE THAN

Guess I will have to get on Discord. I have always had a very low opinion of that type of forum.
N3V apparently holds it in a higher value than The Forums.
It would be interesting to hear other views, especially those who regularly use Discord.
 
Guess I will have to get on Discord. I have always had a very low opinion of that type of forum.
N3V apparently holds it in a higher value than The Forums.
It would be interesting to hear other views, especially those who regularly use Discord.
Discord, meh.

I belong to a number of servers there, two game servers, a music and one storm chasing.

What I don't like is that it's too busy and difficult to find information.
The text is small - unless I can't find any options to make the text bigger, I'm stuck at ant-sized text.

What I do like is the ability to live chat and quickly set up a video chat. I do that with one of my music friends instead of setting up Zoom unless we want to use that instead due to sharing information being easier in Zoom.
 
Discord, meh.

I belong to a number of servers there, two game servers, a music and one storm chasing.

What I don't like is that it's too busy and difficult to find information.
The text is small - unless I can't find any options to make the text bigger, I'm stuck at ant-sized text.

What I do like is the ability to live chat and quickly set up a video chat. I do that with one of my music friends instead of setting up Zoom unless we want to use that instead due to sharing information being easier in Zoom.
Tut video will get you setup for different fonts sizes in Discord, @JCitron

 
sOUNDS LIKE THE FORUMS CARRY LESS INFORMATIONAL VALUE THAN

Guess I will have to get on Discord. I have always had a very low opinion of that type of forum.
N3V apparently holds it in a higher value than The Forums.
It would be interesting to hear other views, especially those who regularly use Discord.
I don't use it , know what it is and have no interest. I'll stick with these forums as that's what's been here since the beginning.
 
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Commercial Magic​

Staying in business with no customer service department needs an article in Forbes to explain how they survive.
 

Commercial Magic​

Staying in business with no customer service department needs an article in Forbes to explain how they survive.
Call one of your utility companies or your doctor's office and then experience this firsthand.

Thank you for calling Most Doctor's Association Clinc affiliated with the most expensive medical system in the region.
Please listen carefully since our menu prompts have changed (It hasn't but they say that anyway since the menu was put in place 10-years ago).
If you know your party's extension, please dial it now, or wait for other options.
If you want to refill a prescription press 1.
If you want to speak to billing press 2.
If you want to speak to the doctor's office, please choose from one of the following options.
For doctor Splat, press 1.
For doctor Green-splat, press 2
For doctor Fitbit who really doesn't care but likes to collect as much money from your insurance, press 3.

You choose 3.
Thank you for calling Dr. Fitbit. Due to the high volume of calls, the wait time will be more than 90 minutes. (It's always a high volume of calls).

Your call is important to us. Stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order received.

Finally, after waiting 70 out of the 90 minutes, with your phone battery squeaking out its last bit of juice, you get: "Dr. Fitbit's office, please hold", from the admin and then click.

Companies hide behind phone menu prompts, chatbots, and FAQs. There's no such thing as customer service as we remember. If they do offer phone support, it's usually done overseas with low paid help who don't whose language is not native to the one you speak, or they read off answers from the same website you looked at yourself. (This happened to my brother recently!).
 
Call one of your utility companies or your doctor's office and then experience this firsthand.

Thank you for calling Most Doctor's Association Clinc affiliated with the most expensive medical system in the region.
Please listen carefully since our menu prompts have changed (It hasn't but they say that anyway since the menu was put in place 10-years ago).
If you know your party's extension, please dial it now, or wait for other options.
If you want to refill a prescription press 1.
If you want to speak to billing press 2.
If you want to speak to the doctor's office, please choose from one of the following options.
For doctor Splat, press 1.
For doctor Green-splat, press 2
For doctor Fitbit who really doesn't care but likes to collect as much money from your insurance, press 3.

You choose 3.
Thank you for calling Dr. Fitbit. Due to the high volume of calls, the wait time will be more than 90 minutes. (It's always a high volume of calls).

Your call is important to us. Stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order received.

Finally, after waiting 70 out of the 90 minutes, with your phone battery squeaking out its last bit of juice, you get: "Dr. Fitbit's office, please hold", from the admin and then click.

Companies hide behind phone menu prompts, chatbots, and FAQs. There's no such thing as customer service as we remember. If they do offer phone support, it's usually done overseas with low paid help who don't whose language is not native to the one you speak, or they read off answers from the same website you looked at yourself. (This happened to my brother recently!).
Very true John. Same here in the UK.
 
Boy howdy John. Even this famous "Discord" that N3V and everyone else seems to want to use nowadays. Sparklight dropped our email, so I had to switch to gmail. Well, if I want to change my email address on Discord, it wants to send a confirmation to my OLD email. HELLO! IT'S GONE! DUH! I guess it's a good thing I don't use Discord anyway, unless that's the only way to get an asset. I really don't like creators using Discord and Facebook for distribution, because I am really not on them.
 
Boy howdy John. Even this famous "Discord" that N3V and everyone else seems to want to use nowadays. Sparklight dropped our email, so I had to switch to gmail. Well, if I want to change my email address on Discord, it wants to send a confirmation to my OLD email. HELLO! IT'S GONE! DUH! I guess it's a good thing I don't use Discord anyway, unless that's the only way to get an asset. I really don't like creators using Discord and Facebook for distribution, because I am really not on them.
@Forester1 >>> Well, Discord is popular for good reason, especially as a platform for collaboration. That's why it has seen widespread adoption by learning institutions with the majority if users in higher education, some in High School and very few in Junior or Grade schools (high distraction rate, due to young age of students).

I have been using it as a collaboration platform with creators in Cities Skylines, and CS:2. For example: Say you have a group of 4 creators working together on a modeling project. Using Discord allows for real-tine streaming of work, and idea exchange.
Any of the four team members can present images, audio and video, of works in progress, or ask for opinions on a new design aspect, all in real-time. Say for example, I am working on a building model, and I want to show progress to the other team members.
I can do this in several different ways. Live stream to the server channel, with the others watching me demonstrate in my modeling app, or from any other app I may be using. I can run multiple streams as well, allowing for easy and fast idea exchange.
I can record and upload video and audio clips, images, models, textures, CDP's you name it.

Video and audio links can be shared/viewed together. Files can be uploaded/downloaded.

When I was in the Central Europe MP project. Discord was our Collab app. One could very easily jump in/out of the app/Group Channel and share whatever new information one had, or we could run live route test ops for debugging or new track testing.
Back to Cities: Skylines. The modding community use Discord for collaboration. WIP versions of game mods can be shared/tested/reviewed very easily, with group feed back instantaneous. One can type info, conversations etc. There is live voice comms and audio streaming.

It's a great platform for these reasons, with the quality of media exchange formats, codecs ect at a very high level.

I love it ! 🍻 (y) ☺️ 🤟
 
@Forester1 >>> Well, Discord is popular for good reason, especially as a platform for collaboration. That's why it has seen widespread adoption by learning institutions with the majority if users in higher education, some in High School and very few in Junior or Grade schools (high distraction rate, due to young age of students).

I have been using it as a collaboration platform with creators in Cities Skylines, and CS:2. For example: Say you have a group of 4 creators working together on a modeling project. Using Discord allows for real-tine streaming of work, and idea exchange.
Any of the four team members can present images, audio and video, of works in progress, or ask for opinions on a new design aspect, all in real-time. Say for example, I am working on a building model, and I want to show progress to the other team members.
I can do this in several different ways. Live stream to the server channel, with the others watching me demonstrate in my modeling app, or from any other app I may be using. I can run multiple streams as well, allowing for easy and fast idea exchange.
I can record and upload video and audio clips, images, models, textures, CDP's you name it.

Video and audio links can be shared/viewed together. Files can be uploaded/downloaded.

When I was in the Central Europe MP project. Discord was our Collab app. One could very easily jump in/out of the app/Group Channel and share whatever new information one had, or we could run live route test ops for debugging or new track testing.
Back to Cities: Skylines. The modding community use Discord for collaboration. WIP versions of game mods can be shared/tested/reviewed very easily, with group feed back instantaneous. One can type info, conversations etc. There is live voice comms and audio streaming.

It's a great platform for these reasons, with the quality of media exchange formats, codecs ect at a very high level.

I love it ! 🍻 (y) ☺️ 🤟
Discord has its use for such things. Using Discord, members of my music teacher's Patreon can collaborate on projects, show their current work to each other and discuss music related to the channel. Some have used it for live performance, but the audio isn't as good as it is with Zoom which has performance-related settings. I joined when N3V set up the first beta for MPS. After that, I joined the other "servers" I belong to.

The issue with Discord is longevity of links. The links are only good for I think 45 days if I remember correctly. This isn't good for those seeking assets or sharing music and videos because they disappear into the ether.

What really annoys me though are the constant whiny gimmie pig content requests and the whiny nature of many of the support requests by the users. I prefer the mature nature of the forums where in-depth explanations and how-to steps can be posted for future reference and don't get lost in the noise.

It'll be a sad day if the forums disappear because this has been a source of many, many references to Trainz content websites that we stumble upon that have some really beautiful content that would get lost on Discord within hours.
 
Discord has its use for such things. Using Discord, members of my music teacher's Patreon can collaborate on projects, show their current work to each other and discuss music related to the channel. Some have used it for live performance, but the audio isn't as good as it is with Zoom which has performance-related settings. I joined when N3V set up the first beta for MPS. After that, I joined the other "servers" I belong to.

The issue with Discord is longevity of links. The links are only good for I think 45 days if I remember correctly. This isn't good for those seeking assets or sharing music and videos because they disappear into the ether.

What really annoys me though are the constant whiny gimmie pig content requests and the whiny nature of many of the support requests by the users. I prefer the mature nature of the forums where in-depth explanations and how-to steps can be posted for future reference and don't get lost in the noise.

It'll be a sad day if the forums disappear because this has been a source of many, many references to Trainz content websites that we stumble upon that have some really beautiful content that would get lost on Discord within hours.
In my opinion, the best use of Discord for the regular content/route creators would be by setting up dedicated servers for WIP Projects, collaborative route, loco, rolling stock builds, or whatever is needed.

I.e - A server channel for NG route and MRR projects, one for for scripters, one for switch, signal and route marking, one for TransDEM users, one for Modeling in Blender, GMAX, SU or any other modeling app., one for texturing, with sub-channels on PBR workflow/SOP, terrain PBR, building PBR etc. The possible channels are many.
 
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In my opinion, the best use of Discord for the regular content/route creators would be by setting up dedicated servers for WIP Projects, collaborative route, loco, rolling stock builds, or whatever is needed.

I.e - A server channel for NG route and MRR projects, one for for scripters, one for switch, signal and route marking, one for TransDEN users, one for Modeling in Blender, GMAX, SU or any other modeling app., one for texturing, with sub-channels on PBR workflow/SOP, terrain PBR, building PBR etc. The possible channels are many.
Yes, I agree. This would remove the development side from the general chatter.
 
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