Should NV3 just draw a line in the sand ???

[meatloaf747]

I applaud any initiative by NV3 to UPGRADE/IMPROVE/REPLACE the current tired old "game engine" and giving us some additional eye candy as well. A & B or C & D all sound great to me. Hopefully in time, there"ll be an E & F etc... I'm really looking forward to seeing the end results of these improvements late 2014.

While all this sounds and is great, my immediate concern is the "here & now". My concern is that the current faulty & error ridden content on the DLS is still only being sorted out at a snails pace. Ok, I can here you say that "Rome wasn't built in a day" and it's being sorted. It's been getting sorted for years & years now!!!

The question I would like to ask is should NV3 just draw a line in the sand and say something like; Any content on the DLS that is STILL showing up as either faulty/error ridden (or missing dependencies) in 09/10 & TS12 on say the; 1st June 2014 will be completely deleted from the DLS. Could be any date in 2014. (early, mid or late, whatever)!!!

Hey, I know that would p_ss some Trainzers off, especially those that are still stuck in 04/06 era, but do we really want faulty content continuing into the next version of Trainz??? (one old add-age that I firmly believe in; "garbage in, garbage out")...

I personally don't profess to know the answer/s, so please give us your thoughts !!!

I'm still holding out hope for some sort of automated answer to the faulty/error ridden contents problems. Guys like; Pev, Ian Woodmore, Andi006 (& others) have been working hard to help come up with a solution... Maybe NV3 could "invest" some money their way to help get the problem/s sorted !!!

Lastly, I would like to sincerely thank all those involved in repairing & upgrading these faulty/error ridden assets and are helping to bring them up to the "current standards". (that also applies to the contents creators that are bringing their old non-faulty contents up to 09/10 & 12 version numbers/standards).

I know a lot of you have been working tirelessly in the background, for no praise or reward. Many thanks to you all, from all of us. (you know who you are). Your helping keep the dream alive...

Cheers, Mac...

 

[bentrain14]

I see where your getting Mac, now think, though. There will still be faulty assets, missing dependencies forever to come! YES this wold clear stuff up but for how long. This is like world hunger, you can help lessen the effect but you cant solve it completely. This would require N3V to completely re-do the DLS practically and still as newer versions of Trainz comes out, more assets ad the such to be faulty and missing deps. Do you have any other thoughts on how this cold be accomplished? Trust me, I love the idea of being able to download non faulty, error free content and I love where your getting at this and how you thought the idea through.

 

[RRSignal]

A lot of people would rely on those assets, faulty or not.

If you download a faulty asset, and you don't want to bother fixing it, you can just delete it. No need to screw over everyone else who might need that item.

 

[simulatortrain]

I'd be good with a content purge- anything to be used in the new engine gets set up with some new format, and the quality of the sim goes up as a result. The good stuff will be ported over, no one will bother with the bad.

 

[martinvk]

Faulty is a rather broad brush. Not all errors or warnings are created equal. Now we must have a thumb-nail, back in TRS2004 it was not needed. If an object is made for version TRS2004 and someone uses it in TS12, is it user beware or creator must update? Missing dependencies because the creator referenced something from an obscure website and / or doesn't provide a clear link to it is one thing but if you are clearly told where and how to get it ... . It would be a lot easier if they were all on the DLS but that is another story.

The DLS provides filters for objects made for the different versions of Trainz so you can already avoid the version mismatch errors.

I agree that no errors or warnings would be ideal but in an open game like Trainz where everyone can contribute , that will remain an ideal.

 

[Vern]

I think a line should be drawn under TS12 but as noted it's unfair to forcibly delete content which was, at the time of its creation, perfectly compliant with the requirements but subsequent changes have rendered it faulty.

Besides we don't know what sort of line N3V themselves will be drawing as regards supporting all the old stuff. While many people will still holdout with legacy Trainz products, could TANE accelerate the support life-cycle of products such as TS2010 and indeed TS12 as N3V primary interest is going to be getting a return on their and Kickstarters' investment in the new version? We have already seen the company rather disparagingly refer to owners of older versions as "previous" customers. Will TANE even use the DLS as we know it? Given the product is moving over to Steam it may be they see (as RSC have done) that Workshop is the way forward with greater control over what is uploaded and route builders/users buying asset packs or DLC to supplement what might come with out the (virtual) box, TANE.

 

[mikeaust]

If the faulty assets were removed there would not be a lot left to use on the DLS. Who decides what is faulty? Because it could depend on what someone has or has not on their computer. What about false faults that appear often as well?
Why not just split the DLS between Pre SP1 and Post SP1?
cheers,
Mike

 

[shaneturner12]

I would say it depends on the severity of the fault. For example, missing textures or ones in unsupported slots should be fixed as they can cause performance degradation.

Other errors depend on the trainz-build.

The DLS Cleanup project is helping to deal with most assets that are actually faulty, as N3V's systems can pick up true faults (unlike Content Manager, which has been known to pick up false positives after a database repair).

Shane

 

[johnwhelan]

But how do you distinguish between faulty content because of a bad script and something that isn't faulty as such but has 50 texture files. The latter passes all the tests and the former there is nothing wrong with the mesh its all in the config.txt file.

Cheerio John

 

[cascaderailroad]

A lot of people would rely on those assets, faulty or not.

If an asset is faulty, and hasn't been fixed, why not just delete it?

If it ain't broke, Don't fix it ... If it's broke, why not just fix it yourself ?

 

[oknotsen]

If it's broke, ...

... Lets fix it one time and one time only and store the end result on some central location, like the DLS.

That whole "fixing" program should get a serious boost.
We got about 1 year to fix a lot of broken stuff. Lets do it one time, get the updates on the DLS, save a lot of people doing the same action over and over again and get the DLS ready for the next Trainz.

 

[bl4882]

I hope I am misunderstanding the original post, but don't think I am. The above criticisms of the "line in the sand" idea is, IMHO, spot on, but there is one more thing that should be considered. No one ever made a good beginning by despising everything he already had.

Model railroaders, including V-scalers, have a long attention span. For them the hobby is a multi-year enterprise of world building, with a mix of new and old pieces and techniques. How many HO scalers, say, threw their collections of hand-made brass locomotives in the trash can because someone developed DCC? I think the answer is approximately zero. Instead, if they chose, they fixed their old locos by installing DCC. If there is a faulty asset a V-scaler wants to use, he can fix it. If I, personally, can't do it I move on, but I don't tell someone who has the ability to fix it and wants to use it that he is not allowed to do so and throw it away for him.

As for DLS junk, I don't see how that does any harm whatsoever so long as it does not move from the DLS to one's machine. If that happens, deleting it seems to be the preferred remedy.

Bernie

 

[bendorsey]

I just did a DLS search for meatloaf747 under username with all boxes checked and turned up nothing. Either meatloaf747 is not your DLS username or you have nothing on the DLS. Its easy for someone who is (apparently) not a content creator to say "Should N3V draw a line in the sand:" since it has no effect on them. Try looking at that statement from a content creators point of view.

I have at least 4000 items on the DLS that are considered faulty since they have no thumbnail. They were not required when I made them (and I didn't even know what a thumbnail was). At the advent of TS2009 they were and I have made them ever since but if anyone thinks its possible for an individual content creator (including myself) to go back and make 4000 of them just to make N3V happy they need a dose of reality. I'm 70 years old. I wouldn't live long enough to complete the task and its a task that isn't really necessary. What harm does a lack of a thumbnail do to the items appearance on a baseboard, the operation of a train passing it, the frame rate, etc.? None! There is a kindly Trainzer who has been updating my older items with a thumbnail a couple dozen at a time but even at that rate it will be over 30 years before they are all corrected.

A far easier solution is available to N3V: Modify the thumbnail detection code so that if no thumbnail is detected and the approval date of the item is before TS2009 then it generates a warning but is allowed to stay on the DLS and be uploaded as desired. Any item without a thumbnail post TS2009 should have been rejected when originally uploaded.

Arbitrary statements are easy to make if you don't have to comply with what's in the arbitrary statement.

Ben

 

[kin3]

If it is marked bad then delete it. Lets move on.

 

[bendorsey]

kin3 = another username that generates no hits on the DLS.

Ben

 

[clam1952]

A far easier solution is available to N3V: Modify the thumbnail detection code so that if no thumbnail is detected and the approval date of the item is before TS2009 then it generates a warning but is allowed to stay on the DLS and be uploaded as desired. Any item without a thumbnail post TS2009 should have been rejected when originally uploaded.

Ben

From a lot of experimenting I think I have worked out what's going wrong here.

The thumbnail is only an issue if you download via ftp and import an asset without one.
Imported content from anywhere, that's Black pages, third party site, backed up local and original on your hard drive, gets installed as locally modified.
Download as we should presumably be doing now with content manager, unless you open the things for edit there is no warning or error as its suppressed.

This also become a problem if you import a backed up local and original folder, imported becomes locally modified and thus shows suppressed warnings etc, copy and paste and run an edr does not and the warnings are still suppressed.

This is probably the main reason why people are having loads of faulty stuff after patching and restoring a backup by the import method and others are not as they either just patched their copy as is, or copy and pasted their data back.

Plus Whatever method anything that was locally modified in a previous version of Trainz will not have warnings etc suppressed in a later version.

 

[obirek]

Stop kidding yourself!

There will be no such thing like fault-free content. Not even in hundred years. So, the problem is not to remove erroneous assets, but to provide tools and set procedures to remove errors quickly.

 

[meatloaf747]

I just did a DLS search for meatloaf747 under username with all boxes checked and turned up nothing. Either meatloaf747 is not your DLS username or you have nothing on the DLS. Its easy for someone who is (apparently) not a content creator to say "Should N3V draw a line in the sand:" since it has no effect on them. Try looking at that statement from a content creators point of view.
Arbitrary statements are easy to make if you don't have to comply with what's in the arbitrary statement.
Ben

Ben, my original post wasn't designed to upset you (or any other contents creator). It was designed to try and get some healthy discussion/debate going about the "on going" problem of faulty/error ridden content on the DLS. I'm the first to agree that it's not any contents creators fault that the original goal posts got shifted and tighter rules came into play. Some view this as the price of progress. Others, maybe a backward step!!!

Me personally, progress, particularly if it makes the sim run more smoothly, and enhances the experience. ("as the saying goes, it is what it is")...

If you have taken offense by my original post, then I apologizes to you (and any others that maybe offended)... Offend anyone is the last thing I would won't to do. But I'm just not one of those people that can continue to keep his head in the sand, say nothing, hoping the problem will just go away!!! Unfortunately, it's not going to just go away anytime soon!!!

That aside, in some cases somethings that were built for say TRS 02/03/04, were incredible in 2002/2003/2004, but not so incredible in 2013. (Eg; freight cars with cut out cardboard looking bogeys, etc, etc). Progress helps the world go around!

I fully understand in your case with 4000+ great contents that those that are showing up as faulty/with error/s, would be impossible for you alone to repair/fix. And no one would expect you to try and take on such a mammoth task like that. Maybe others will read this thread, and offer to help repair some...

As I said in my original post, maybe NV3 can invest some money in helping to get the problem solved. After all, they tightened up the rules. (I've still got my fingers & toes crossed that some sort of "automated solution" can still be found)...

As for meatloaf747 having nothing on the DLS, your right. Tried "contents creation" back in 2005/2006 & sucked at it. Got laughed at by a few "fly by night Trainzers t_ssers". That knocked my confidence & haven't tied content creation since. (I've stuck to brain surgery instead).:hehe: So yes, it is easy for me to "ASK THE QUESTION" if I don't have to comply with what's you see as an "arbitrary statement".

I can see it from a content creators prospective and IMHO, discussion/debate/help/suggestions can only be good in trying to get the "whole issue" resolved...

Please keep your creative work going as I luv ya bridges and trestles and regularly use them in my routes/layouts.

Have a good one.

Cheers, Mac...

 

[dricketts]

I just did a DLS search for meatloaf747 under username with all boxes checked and turned up nothing. Either meatloaf747 is not your DLS username or you have nothing on the DLS. Its easy for someone who is (apparently) not a content creator to say "Should N3V draw a line in the sand:" since it has no effect on them. Try looking at that statement from a content creators point of view.

I have at least 4000 items on the DLS that are considered faulty since they have no thumbnail. They were not required when I made them (and I didn't even know what a thumbnail was). At the advent of TS2009 they were and I have made them ever since but if anyone thinks its possible for an individual content creator (including myself) to go back and make 4000 of them just to make N3V happy they need a dose of reality. I'm 70 years old. I wouldn't live long enough to complete the task and its a task that isn't really necessary. What harm does a lack of a thumbnail do to the items appearance on a baseboard, the operation of a train passing it, the frame rate, etc.? None! There is a kindly Trainzer who has been updating my older items with a thumbnail a couple dozen at a time but even at that rate it will be over 30 years before they are all corrected.

A far easier solution is available to N3V: Modify the thumbnail detection code so that if no thumbnail is detected and the approval date of the item is before TS2009 then it generates a warning but is allowed to stay on the DLS and be uploaded as desired. Any item without a thumbnail post TS2009 should have been rejected when originally uploaded.

Arbitrary statements are easy to make if you don't have to comply with what's in the arbitrary statement.

Ben

I agree Ben. Without your content and others this Trainz experience wouldn't be the same...

 

[RRSignal]

If you have taken offense by my original post, then I apologizes to you (and any others that maybe offended)... Offend anyone is the last thing I would won't to do. But I'm just not one of those people that can continue to keep his head in the sand, say nothing, hoping the problem will just go away!!! Unfortunately, it's not going to just go away anytime soon!!!

I've fixed thousands of DLS items as a part of the DLS Cleanup, all by my lonesome. People do put tremendous amounts of effort into it. There are a number of factors of which you are probably unaware, not the least of which are the ever-moving goalposts of content standards set by N3V and the fact that they half-arsed the first round entirely.

Although I have little involvement with Trainz anymore, I did make an effort to upload some previously-made repairs for the second-round cleanup several months ago. However, repeated problems with the upload process on N3V's side resulted in my deleting hundreds of repaired assets that checked out perfectly fine in the latest Trainz. This was (and may still be) an ongoing problem. Needless to say, the current round of cleanup is moving at a snail's pace as a result.