I know it's totally OT, but I will NEVER go back to the Luxor. I went there on my honeymoon and it was awesome (in 2005). Back then they still had the Egyptian theme. Went back a few more times and each time it got worse. Last time was a couple of years ago and it was awful. Room was in a terrible state with peeling drywall and the smoke from the casinos at floor level went right up into our non-smoking rooms. That was in the pyramid rooms. In the two towers it is much better. But the whole Egyptian theme has been replaced by that magician from cable TV, Chris Angel.
BTW...on the strip there is one place that has HUGE hot dogs. I need to go there next time
Okay...back to Trainz. Another gripe I have is the internal online updater in TS2010 doesn't work. It keeps repeating over and over that it wants to update, and then it keeps crashing. Has this been fixed in TS2012?
Same problems with this program that were in the first release!
- Thread starter Apollo43
- Start date
G'day.
That was the first model, and was years beyond any puter on the market that time. I had a couple of 500 models, still got one dloating around somewhere.
When the devil had his big media presentation for windoze, all the graphics for that presentation were actualy produced on an Amiga.
Talk about deception on a big scale.
I do agree to a certain degree with people who have issues with certain aspects of trainz and that this supplies input to the programmers. However most people loose sight of the fact that we are dealing with a computer program with all its restrictions.
Just look at microsoft, they have been at it for more than 20 yers, and they still can't get it right.
Have a good one,
E.C.
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Yes but....Windows is a complete operating system that is under contant change and development and improvement (and attacks by hackers) on a daily basis. Trainz is just a program and hasn't really gone through any major changes since 2004. What has been done to Trainz has been more in the realm of tweaks and upgrades, rather than major changes. I am still using Windows XP. It's a pretty reliable system IMHO. And many Vista and Windows 7 users have "downgraded" to XP because it simply works better with less compatibility problems. As of June 2011, Windows XP is the most widely used operating system for accessing the Internet in the world with a 39.7% market share, having peaked at 76.1% in January 2007. Considering XP support and patching will continue through April 8, 2014, I will be staying with XP right up to that time and maybe even longer.
The problems that exist with Trainz are not new and have been around for quite a while. I don't know why they aren't being addressed. But we see so many of the same compliants, that when they are reposted, the person posting them usually gets jumped on by an old user and told to "do a search".
So the "input to programmers" doesn't seem to be heard BY programmers.
Just checked out your site. Excellent work! Beautiful art! Very nice.
I mentioned earlier that there is a program that will shut down background programs. I finally remembered the name of it. It's called End It All. LOL...sounds like what the politicians in Washington D.C. are doing , but it actually works pretty well. Here's the link to the FREE Download.
http://enditall.en.softonic.com/
Note that it's not perfect. It gets MOST of the background programs that are running. I had a problem with Railworks 2 constantly crashing, and after installing End It All and disabling AVG anti-virus, no more crashes. Give it a try...can't hurt.
, but it actually works pretty well. Here's the link to the FREE Download.http://enditall.en.softonic.com/
Note that it's not perfect. It gets MOST of the background programs that are running. I had a problem with Railworks 2 constantly crashing, and after installing End It All and disabling AVG anti-virus, no more crashes. Give it a try...can't hurt.
G'day,
About windoze VS Trainz, microsoft is a multi bilion dollar ompany with an army of programmers working for them whereas N3V/ Auran is rather more modest.
Don't know from personal experience since trs2010 is my frirst exposure to Trainz, I was using Rule The Rail for quite some time, but ftom reading the posts in the forum you might have a point about the programmers not listening.
I was using XP for a number of years, and had no end of problems with it, I found it very unstable. Then a few years ago bought a new puter that had Vista installed, and although most ofthe changes were just cosmetic, I found it to be much more reliable, although the OS was a lot more memory hungry, as is Windoze7. Compatybility is a problem with some oolder games, but I am still using programs like Pagestream, the versions of wich date back to the 90ies, without problems.
Have a good one,
E.C.
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I mentioned earlier that there is a program that will shut down background programs. I finally remembered the name of it. It's called End It All. LOL...sounds like what the politicians in Washington D.C. are doing
http://enditall.en.softonic.com/
Note that it's not perfect. It gets MOST of the background programs that are running. I had a problem with Railworks 2 constantly crashing, and after installing End It All and disabling AVG anti-virus, no more crashes. Give it a try...can't hurt.
G'day,
Thanks for the link, will try it out.
Have a good one,
E.C.
By that definition, you could say that Trainz is 95% tweaks and upgrades. There's very little left of the original Trainz CE codebase. Almost all of the money earned from selling Trainz goes back into improving the Trainz codebase, and always has. Just because all of your particular favourite bugbears haven't been addressed doesn't mean that the product is not substantially improved.
Or did you want to go back to 5-baseboard routes?
kind regards,
chris
By that definition, you could say that Trainz is 95% tweaks and upgrades. There's very little left of the original Trainz CE codebase. Almost all of the money earned from selling Trainz goes back into improving the Trainz codebase, and always has. Just because all of your particular favourite bugbears haven't been addressed doesn't mean that the product is not substantially improved.
Or did you want to go back to 5-baseboard routes?
kind regards,
chris
And you would be correct. 95% of Trainz IS tweaks and upgrades. Trainz has been "re-inventing their own wheel" over and over again. I don't know from squat about codebase. What I see on the monitor is what I am talking about.
And don't tell me Trainz is some kind of non-profit charitable organization that exists only to make their buying public happy. I just shelled out $150 for the 2012 Collectors Edition. The other versions I bought were paid for at full retail price, which is quite a chunk of change in any economy or for any simulation. Somebody, somewhere is making a profit, or this sim would have gone belly-up a long time ago. The routes coming out on Trainz are mostly done by 3rd party makers. You can see that by the glaring errors on some of them. It's not MY favorite "bugbears" I'm talking about. It's the COMMUNITY"S bugbears that have been under constant complaint since TRS2004.
Look, I've purchased pretty much all of Trainz stuff since TRS2004. I am not a newb that just has one version. I've been with this sim since it first became popular. The only major change has been an increase in computer power needed to run it. I can crank up 2004, 2006, 2010 and even 2012 and see the same basic thing on every one of them. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But I would like to see the same basic complaints everyone has, fixed on at least ONE of these releases. Go into any of the individual forums for each version and you will see the same complaints in all of them for pretty much the same things. There's no excuse for that. And when these same complaints continue from version to version, it does look like they are pushing out minor upgrades just to pocket more profits. Even if that's not true, it appears that way. I mean face it, what is being marketed as different versions could easily be sold as an upgrade to an existing version. Nothing revolutionary was changed from 2004 to 2006. And the same goes for 2010 to 2012. People (including myself) buy these new versions in the hopes we will see them finally adress what's wrong. What we end up with is just more routes and the same old problems still there.
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Never suggested it. We've very much a standard for-profit privately held company.
That's the goal at least. It doesn't always work that way. My understanding is that the first few versions were made at a significant loss. It's only more recently that we've been more successful, and even now I don't think it's making anyone rich. It is keeping us salaried, which is a nice benefit for us.
Only if you pick and choose which bugbears to talk about. Many things have been added or fixed with each version. Some things will always be bugbears, because they're not practically solvable. Some might be solved one day, but are considered less important than other ones that we have solved.
In terms of programming alone, Trainz CE had two programmers for one year. TS12 had three programmers for more than one year. So while I certainly agree that TS12 is not a full rewrite of Trainz, more programming work has gone into it than went into the original version of Trainz.
But we have, that's my point. Yes, you can certainly name some things that haven't been improved, and we can probably name some things that we'll never improve. But there are also thousands of things that we have improved, and you're completely overlooking those in favour of saying 'yeah, nothing's changed'.
So, if we sold exactly the same thing, for the same price, but called it an "upgrade", you'd be happy?
kind regards,
chris
Chris: I'm not trying to be an a-hole (although it may apper that way).
Let me say I am glad if your company is making a profit and also glad that the employees are making a good wage. I am a big proponent of capitalism
If my criticisms seemed harsh, it was because I want to see the sim improve to a higher level than it is. Heck, I get just as tired of reading the complaints as you guys do
Perhaps my big complaint is that things like moving trees seem to take precedence over relatively minor problems that could be easily fixed. An example...in TRS2004 and 2006, cars stopped for lowered crossing gates. I have run some sessions in 2010 where they drove right through the gates and the train and went on their merry way. So evidently a bug was actually introduced in the sim that didn't exist previously.
On the routes...I drove one last night where giant pine trees were growing right out of the middle of the tracks!!! LOL...it might have been fun to see a train knock one down, but again, the train drove right through it.
This never occured in TRS2004. It's what happens when you use 3rd party routes. But that isn't much comfort when you are paying for those routes as part of the whole package. While the errors in the routes can be corrected by the consumer, we shouldn't have to do that. I didn't buy the sim to correct errors. I bought it to drive trains.
I will most likely continue to be a loyal customer to Trainz. Spending the big $$$ for the Anniversary Edition pretty much shows that. Would I be happy if Trainz sold the new editions as upgrades? Well it would be more honest. But you could probably call them "2012 dog poo" and I'd probably buy them in the hope something good would be in them. A rose by any other name, etc
Let me say I am glad if your company is making a profit and also glad that the employees are making a good wage. I am a big proponent of capitalism
If my criticisms seemed harsh, it was because I want to see the sim improve to a higher level than it is. Heck, I get just as tired of reading the complaints as you guys do
Perhaps my big complaint is that things like moving trees seem to take precedence over relatively minor problems that could be easily fixed. An example...in TRS2004 and 2006, cars stopped for lowered crossing gates. I have run some sessions in 2010 where they drove right through the gates and the train and went on their merry way. So evidently a bug was actually introduced in the sim that didn't exist previously.
On the routes...I drove one last night where giant pine trees were growing right out of the middle of the tracks!!! LOL...it might have been fun to see a train knock one down, but again, the train drove right through it.
This never occured in TRS2004. It's what happens when you use 3rd party routes. But that isn't much comfort when you are paying for those routes as part of the whole package. While the errors in the routes can be corrected by the consumer, we shouldn't have to do that. I didn't buy the sim to correct errors. I bought it to drive trains.
I will most likely continue to be a loyal customer to Trainz. Spending the big $$$ for the Anniversary Edition pretty much shows that. Would I be happy if Trainz sold the new editions as upgrades? Well it would be more honest. But you could probably call them "2012 dog poo" and I'd probably buy them in the hope something good would be in them. A rose by any other name, etc
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X2. Although you STILL won't get a gold ticket. ROFLMAO.
No worries, I don't take it that way.
Seconded. I think my main point in commenting here is to distinguish between rightful criticisms of particular points of the sim (for example, as you list above) and generalised criticisms which don't help anybody. I don't find that it's reasonable for you to say that there has been no improvement.
Sometimes that's true. At the end of the day, to stay in business we have to weigh up each feature and fix in terms of how important it is to our cash flow. Graphical elements may have no effect on the sim but make the difference between having a saleable product or something that looks a little too dated.
Or content was used that didn't provide that functionality even though the game does. Or the route creator used it in a way that exhibited problems which already existed but which hadn't been seen up until that time.
Yes, it's still a bug. No, it's not particularly surprising that these bugs crop up. And yes, they do go onto the list to be fixed- either in a service pack or in a subsequent game release.
I think you may be wearing rose-tinted glasses there
We had plenty of bugs in TRS2004. The trick here is to note that it was 7 years ago, and that a lot of the bugs that were there have either been subsequently fixed in service packs, have been accepted as "that's just the way it is" in the interim years, have been fixed in more recent versions, or even form part of your "things that we don't ever fix."
Yes, that's true. But so did TRS2004.
It's also what happens when you are working to a budget. The tighter the budget, the more flaws you'll encounter in the result.
It's also what happens when you try to provide new features while simultaneously try not to break any existing content. Sometimes the old content relies on particular bugs or quirks of behaviour and can break in really unexpected ways.
It's also what happens when you have an absolutely massive product that needs to be tested before release. A change to a single asset can mean retesting large parts of the product- which isn't really feasible, so it doesn't ever get done completely. If we find a problem with a tree, adjust it slightly, test it in two or three places- who's to say it doesn't cause problems in one or two of the remaining ten thousand cases where it's used.
I'm not trying to make excuses for having bugs- but I would like to give you some appreciation of the scale on which these bugs occur and how impractical it is to find and fix every one.
True. Did driving through the tree ruin your gameplay experience? I bet it gave you a surprise the first time, but that's probably about it. If we patched it tomorrow, would you even remember it in five years?
Software has bugs. We try to avoid them, and we try to fix the ones that we find- but it will not be any other way in the foreseeable future.
Anyway, it's getting late here. Thanks for the chat,
chris
Chris,
Let me first say thank you for your support of this board. Your handle seems like you were the one who help me out allot when I first started with the original Trainz (though I’m not sure why my registration for that version is not showing). Let me also say that Trainz is an incredibly fantastic program that I believe allows simulating real railroads even more than it simulates model railroading. Trainz is truly and amazing and outstanding sim but it is an extremely fussy program to deal with and that often leads to frustration, discontent, followed by a loss of interest in the program.
If you made exactly the same thing that had no new features but fixed the existing issues, and removed any features that are associated with bugs that as you say ‘can never be fixed’, I’d pay three times the amount for that release and I could care less what you call it. TRAINZ FIXED might be a good name.
I agree with Dep about new releases. I don’t like when a company comes out with a new release before they fix all the bugs in the previous release. And features that have bugs that can never be fixed is just poor design planning and should not be tolerated by sales or the community. If you have features that are creating bugs that can never be fixed then you should remove those features. For example: if you (and not you personally) know of bugs that can’t be fixed in release 2009 caused by feature X, then feature X should be removed in the next release. Accumulating features with bugs that can never be fixed will make a big mess out of this program.
Hypothetically:
Release 1 = 45 features 10% bugs
Release 2 = 57 features 14% bugs
Release 3 = 65 features 21% bugs.
Release 20 = 500 features but too many bugs to use any of them.
You just can’t leave bugs in the product especially if you are going to have new releases.
I’m all for Auran making money but jeez lets not add features that will have bugs that can never be fixed. You said there were three programmers working on 2012. How many of them were from the 2010 team? I’d bet the whole team of 2 was moved over. Honestly, how many programmers are currently working full time on 2010 bugs? Anything less than 1 would be unacceptable.
I understand that Auran is not the only company that puts out new releases instead of upgrades and that has bugs in their s/w and that is part of why the user community’s frustration level is rising. Everyone is now ignoring bugs in order to speed up the new revenue generating releases. I can remember when it never was that way; when companies felt a moral obligation to fix ALL the bugs in a product before moving on.
I guess the slow moral decline of civilization may be finally reaching the programming world and we users will just have to PROGRAM ourselves to accept this. Well, I’m working on that PROGRAM but forgive me because it still has some bugs and I’m not sure if they can ever be fixed. J
All of the above is written with a friendly, calm, and conversational attitude and no offense is intended towards Auran, its programmers, or the route developers, and especially not to Chris who has been kind enough to remain supportive of this board through thick and thin. And no animals were harmed in any way during the creation of this post. Good day!
Very well said Apollo!! Much better than I posted. We all agree that Chris is doing a fantstic job helping folks out with their probems and trying to explain the situation at N3V/Auran or whatever they call themselves these days. For that all of us can agree and we appreciate it.
And also thank you for the chuckle when I read "TRAINZ FIXED" as a version suggestion. And I am with you in paying 3X the normal cost if it adressed and fixed all the bugs in Trainz. Heck, I wouldn't even ask for any new routes in that version. Of course, that version will only go on sale in Utopia and the dang Utopians will end up with a perfect version of Trainz
Chris: "Did driving through the tree ruin your gameplay experience? I bet it gave you a surprise the first time, but that's probably about it. If we patched it tomorrow, would you even remember it in five years?"
I am 61 years old. I will be 62 August 5th (a gold train ticket WILL be accepted as a birthday gift ). I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday, much less a bug fix in Trainz. If you patched it tomorrow I would go into immediate cardiac arrest. So be careful about that stuff :hehe:
Dep
And also thank you for the chuckle when I read "TRAINZ FIXED" as a version suggestion. And I am with you in paying 3X the normal cost if it adressed and fixed all the bugs in Trainz. Heck, I wouldn't even ask for any new routes in that version. Of course, that version will only go on sale in Utopia and the dang Utopians will end up with a perfect version of Trainz
Chris: "Did driving through the tree ruin your gameplay experience? I bet it gave you a surprise the first time, but that's probably about it. If we patched it tomorrow, would you even remember it in five years?"
I am 61 years old. I will be 62 August 5th (a gold train ticket WILL be accepted as a birthday gift
). I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday, much less a bug fix in Trainz. If you patched it tomorrow I would go into immediate cardiac arrest. So be careful about that stuff :hehe: Dep