Old User Looking to Jump Back In

[trainboy1094]

Hello everyone!

This is quite the blast from the past for me. I started playing Trainz way back when my dad installed either Trainz SP3 or UTC on our home computer for me to play with. I played 2004, 2006, 2009, and gave Trainz 2010 a little bit of play right when it first came out, but for a number of reasons, I slowly lost interest in virtual railroading and moved on to other things. My last post on here was almost 4 years ago!

Just the other day, however, something caught my eye. I saw the screenshots of the new Nickel Plate steam DLC and was completely floored by how beautiful it looked. When I played Trainz religiously, I was using an old, relatively under-powered PC, but I have since invested in a computer that should be capable of playing just about anything. I must say, I am dying to give that locomotive a try. I still have my boxed copy of TS2010 sitting here on my desk, but I noticed that the DLC requires TS12, so I guess my question is, would it be worth the $60 it will cost me to get a copy of TS12 plus the DLC?

Also, I have been exploring the past few days, and it strikes me that there is a lot of "official" payware now. JointedRail seems to have a close partnership with N3V (I have to stop myself from referring to the game's developer as Auran). Has the games content community shifted to payware being the most common form of content, like *insert current name evolution of Kuju's Rail Simulator here*? Another concern off the top of my head: How is TS12 with backwards compatability? I believe I might still have some old payware saved on a drive that was built for 2004 or 2006. Any chances that will work with 2012?

Sorry, I know that I have asked a lot! Thanks in advance for any help! Glad to be back!

Mike

 

[boc61]

Welcome back.

Trainz is just as freeware filled as before if not more. The DLS is huge, and there are many more 3rd party sites making freeware than before. Even the payware sites like JR have a lot of freeware available. that's the good news. Now the bad news. TS12 backwards compatability is spotty at best. New content creation guidelines have been introduced with SP1, the rules have been tightened up and a lot of older content won't work without a lot of fixing. Anything made for 2009 and forward has a better chance, but the 2004-2006 era stuff has lots of problems. I suggest a bit of reading here to get the big picture.

 

[tankbob]

steam have an offer on at the moment you should check it out

 

[nicky9499]

Hi Mike,

As some have pointed out there is a very sweet deal for TS12 and some DLC on Steam. But something to consider, the Steam versions differ slightly from regular ones direct from Auran, so you may face some issues such as obtaining updates or activation. It's not chronic, just that I've seen threads in the past where people had a difficulty with Steam builds.

 

[jjanmarine3]

I like it when someone returns to trainz and the more the merrier, so many good guys have left for stacks of reasons, would be nice to have them all back.
I saw one day there were 140 or so visitors , they should all join us
My problem is there is so much cool stuff around I want them all and I dl stuff that I should not and then sit with red assets and missing deps galore.
I find that there is not enough credit for the trainzers who create all the cool stuff for the game, payware and freeware, they really are cool guys and the goodies in trainz is more than enough for all tastes and characters. Each version has it's own special goodies and problems .

 

[trainboy1094]

Thanks for the replies!

I checked the Steam store, and unfortunately it seems that (at least here in the US), whatever the awesome deal on TS12 was has passed. I have been doing more reading in the past couple of days, and I have found all sorts of things that I can't wait to download and get my hands on. I think right now I will re-install TS2010 before I bite the bullet on TS12. I only wish that beautiful NKP steamer was available for use in older versions!

Something that has become very apparent in my research is that TS12 SP1 is a bit of a hot issue at the moment. Reading about it has me pretty content to wait until N3V releases a new update that helps before making any purchase.

Thanks again!

EDIT I looked at the other thread and found that the sale isn't on Steam itself, it was through an Indie game bundle. I went ahead and picked up the copy, simply because it is hard to say no at $7.