The future of Trainz

M

Mordachai

New member
With the riskt of getting flamed to hell I'd like to ask a quite important question since I'm a big fan of the Trainz series going back to UTC.

What is Auran doing that is taking them so much time that they can't even make any official statements regarding the state and heading of the game?

In respect to the changes and delays that have been poped up since last summer you really begin to wonder what they are doing and planning for the future. Any serious company would be keen to keep their customers by keeping them posted on the current the devlopment.

The feeling I'm getting at the moment is that Auran slowly is turning Trainz into a dying program by not keeping the community posted. I don't know what their plan is anymore, big words a year ago, pushed TRS2009 out the door and since then they've slowly slided away...

Now it feels more like they want the users to develop the program for them and then turn some stuff into packages that they'll call expansions which they can charge for. It will be absolutely impossible for the to make a program with just a few hundred die hard fans(the people that usually post on this forum) so I really hope they are up with something really good! A few hundred regular posters on a forum won't be enough to support a program like Trainz.

Real shame if a game that has got such great potential goes down the drain!

So let the flaming begin, but remember I love Trainz and would really hate so see it disappear, I'm just very concerned at the moment due to the lack of information.
 
Mordachai said:
With the riskt of getting flamed to hell I'd like to ask a quite important question since I'm a big fan of the Trainz series going back to UTC.

What is Auran doing that is taking them so much time that they can't even make any official statements regarding the state and heading of the game?
Click to expand...

Valid Question! Your guess is as good as anyone elses.

Mordachai said:
In respect to the changes and delays that have been poped up since last summer you really begin to wonder what they are doing and planning for the future. Any serious company would be keen to keep their customers by keeping them posted on the current the devlopment.
Click to expand...

It has been a while since I last visited Trainzdev, but that is where they are attempting to keep us informed of progress / challenges.

Mordachai said:
The feeling I'm getting at the moment is that Auran slowly is turning Trainz into a dying program by not keeping the community posted. I don't know what their plan is anymore, big words a year ago, pushed TRS2009 out the door and since then they've slowly slided away...

Now it feels more like they want the users to develop the program for them and then turn some stuff into packages that they'll call expansions which they can charge for. It will be absolutely impossible for the to make a program with just a few hundred die hard fans(the people that usually post on this forum) so I really hope they are up with something really good! A few hundred regular posters on a forum won't be enough to support a program like Trainz.
Click to expand...

Quite frankly, they have left the development of routes, scenery and rolling stock to the community. I believe it is what they are waiting for. The drawback, of course, is it can take a considerable amount of time to make a locomotive to the standards of 04/06 let alone learning the new techniques "required" for 09 content. Until we learn these processes the content will continue to trickle.

Mordachai said:
Real shame if a game that has got such great potential goes down the drain!

So let the flaming begin, but remember I love Trainz and would really hate so see it disappear, I'm just very concerned at the moment due to the lack of information.
Click to expand...

Trainz definitly has potential and Auran is working it - albeit, slowly. Development always takes time. If we the community member continue to support Auran through further development of content and recommending the product to our friends, family and collegues, then Auran stands a chance to continue the "saga".

I admit 09 has problems. Yes, it was released too soon. Yes, there a lot of complaints from the community. Just imagine, if you will, what you as the developer would do with a product if everyone, or at least the "squeakiest" number kept calling you down. Perhaps it is time we provide a bit of voice to the strengths of the product instead of the negatives. Maybe it will help..... Maybe not. Who knows.

If you're listening Tony, it could be a good time to speak up and be heard.

No flame intended to anyone!

Bricey
 
TRS2009 is more complex than they thought it would be. Trees especially are much more of a issue than was first thought.

It turns out from a content creation point of view that making content for TRS2009 isn't much different than any other version of Trainz. Normal mapping for example has been available since TRS2004. So there is new content going up to the DLS using normal mapping but currently more has a version number of less than TRS2009 2.9 than there is for TRS2009.

Also by releasing it very shortly after TC3 which took about two years to get out the door they didn't get all the content creators on board that they might have. By the way Locos for many people are what they are after. It can take two years to turn a good steam loco or route out from scratch so not seeing much in the first few months doesn't mean things aren't happening.

Their assumption was that if they said how wonderful normal mapping was people would use 3ds to do normal mapping. Currently this is far too expensive for many content creators so other methods had to be found.

Remember also that most content on the DLS is reskinned, if the original didn't have normal mapping then the reskin won't either.

Generally speaking it takes a programmer about two years to become proficient in a new language. To do the normal mapping thing generally speaking you need Blender.

So the content creators have had to learn a new complex tool Blender and it will take them time to come up to speed. The Blender exporter was built by Torsten and in the light of experience possibly there are other ways of using Blender which might have made more sense especially for steam loco animations. Unfortunately Torsten doesn't have as much time available these days to rewrite parts of the exporter and also people are used to the way it works now. Sort of messy.

It took an American artist who knew Blender very well to document the process for normal mapping in wikibook Trainz. This happened after TRS2009 was announced.

It took more experimenting to find that nVidia's Photoshop plug in for normal mapping worked with Paintshop pro and ATI cards provided you don't hit the preview button. Again this was fairly recent.

Then you get into the beta testing and bug fixing on TRS2009. This has meant that TRS2009 isn't stable for building routes, for example on one release it wasn't possible to bring in a route created in the previous version of TRS2009. So if its not stable and you can lose everything many people have held back from building a route only to see it disappear and all their effort wasted.

It's coming, there is much more information in Trainzdev about what is happening. Trainzdev is very big by the way probably for me the biggest change I've seen with TRS2009. There is a lot more detailed information available to content creators than there has been in the past. Trouble is the sales department find it's difficult to describe the impact this has the things that the end user sees.

For example they are now looking at routes to upgrade to TRS2009 standards.

Technically it's not a bad program unfortunately its difficult to explain how good it is when there is very little it can do that TC3 can't. It does need less hardware to get the same frame rates though.

It does pick out faulty content which helps and there is a new way of doing lod but that is about it from the content creation point of view. Oh and they still haven't as many trees as people might like.

Does that answer your question? TRS2009 is more evolutionary than revolutionary but the sales department likes the word revolutionary, it sells better.

Cheerio John
 
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Finally I currently building blocks of 48 houses with front and back gardens up to 4,500 polys using a 6 mb texture file. They might say TRS2004 as the version but really they are aimed at TRS2009 with its texture compression so big texture files have much lower impact.

So TRS2009 is having an effect on content but perhaps not in the way that was first thought of.

Cheerio John
 
I can't fault Auran, it's one heck of a business model!

A Mahogany paneled room somewhere, filled with august gentlemen smoking cigars and drinking fine brandy:

"So Byron; I understand you've made a windfall with your beverage company..."

"Yes, the fools drink the pop I bottle, then they...get this...RETURN THE BOTTLES! I pay them each five cents, which it what it costs me to fill the bottles again and sell them for one dollar and seventy five cents!"

"Brilliant!"

"That's nothing Byron, I rent movies that last practically forever for four dollars each! I buy them from the distributor for less than that! What about YOU Anthony, how is your little software company doing?"

"Well, we've had some setbacks in some areas, but one issue shines brightly in my portfolio. Believe it or not, we sell the sheep basically the same software package every couple of years, and the fools make all the content themselves!"

"Oh bravo, Tony, bravo!":o
 
I too am glad to see some positive thoughts on 2009. I didn't rush out and buy it because of the troubles I had running 2006.
I think that people should go into it with the idea that it is really 2006 SP2. (I am not putting it down by saying this) If you look at it realistically though, that is what it is.
From what I have read on the forums the sound problems have been overcome, the CMP/CM2 seems to work much better and more reliable and the 5m grids in Surveyor are a much needed improvement. The Normal Mapping ability is also a forward move ( though I don't really understand it fully). The ability for 2009 to use Dual Core technology is also an improvement.
What we need is more people like John Whelan showing us the good points of 2009 ( often hidden), because there seems to be many.
Broken content has been with us from day one and I think that most people have become used to chasing up problems and getting things to work. We must expect imperfect content, because Trainz relies on so many varied third parties for it. I have had a go at making content and building routes and enjoy this side of Trainz. Unfortunately I have never uploaded anything because I don't feel it is good enough yet do so. I say hats off to those who do and I think they deserve a lot of praise for what they do.
I see many creators unhappy because they can't upload their content as it has problems. This is really a good thing, it means that a line has been drawn, so that from now on we can expect content will be without faults. There is nothing more dissapointing than doing a big download, then find it wont work because of a small mistake in the config file.
I started in Trainz almost 2 years ago when I found a copy of the Original Trainz SP3 in the bargain bin for $10 at EB Games. I was hooked immediately and this for me was a natural progression from Transport Tycoon, then Locomotion, now Trainz.
With the help of Robin Hoods (another unsung hero to many noobs) I was getting much enjoyment from the simulator. I bought the Ultimate Trainz Collection with UTC, 2004, 2006, Paint Shed, and extra routes for 2006. I started out slow with 2004 and had a great time with it. After a few months I moved up to 2006 and was really disappointed with all the problems so went back to 2004. When 2006 did work I was impressed with a lot of the things it could do, especially the way the view was improved.
After reading John's post, that if a computer can run an earlier version it should handle 2009, I am biting the bullet and getting 2009. Approaching it with an open mind to it's foibles I think it is now worth the effort.

So let's see more positive comment and as time go by, with a few SPs we will have a simulator that will equal 2004's enjoyment with updated ability.

Cheer,
Mike.
 
Mordachai said:
...snip..Now it feels more like they want the users to develop the program for them and then turn some stuff into packages that they'll call expansions which they can charge for. It will be absolutely impossible for the to make a program with just a few hundred die hard fans(the people that usually post on this forum) so I really hope they are up with something really good! A few hundred regular posters on a forum won't be enough to support a program like Trainz.
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt that you will be flamed for your post/thread ?
My opinion , for what it might be worth , creators are trying to work with a program that is continually being changed by Auran ! Until they ( Auran ), finally decides if the sim can be saved , and releases SP2 , the creators , you , and myself will have to wait ! And wait and wait some more .
I am seriously believing that TS2009 will be dumped !

Simply my thoughts --- ,DLR
 
I am worried about the future of Trainz. I tried RailWorks and found out that it has weird problems. I still want to use Trainz but Trainz 2009 has some problems.
 
Guys

Despite all the nay-sayers and the same old negative aspects that people drag up all the time, TS2009 is the best. It has an almost totally new code base and even though there are the problems that always arise with new code, it is a substantial improvement on any previous version.

I have worked with it from the beginning and have had no regrets about doing so. Initially I had reservations about CM2 thinking that it would be like CMP which I hated. CM2 is a vastly improved program and a joy to use. CM2 is very effectively integrated with Surveyor making content selection much easier.

Finally, if TS2009 is dumped as DLR suggests, then Auran Trainz will fail and if they go, so will this forum and the DLS. I strongly suggest we display a more loyalty to the company, I think they need and deserve it.

Peter
 
Well said narrowgauge CLAP CLAP. There is problems with every program just because they,ve become so damn complicated. I remember an old computer I had baulked at loading a 2.5 meg program . Now we get programs in the gigabytes. Some computers can handle it, some can,t
baz
 
Euphod said:
"Well, we've had some setbacks in some areas, but one issue shines brightly in my portfolio. Believe it or not, we sell the sheep basically the same software package every couple of years, and the fools make all the content themselves!"
Click to expand...
It seems to me that Auran aren't the only ones that recycle the same content.:)
Of course if Auran did launch an entirely new product then somebody would be popping up to say what fools there were for ignoring all that existing content.

Much easier to be a critic, it takes so little effort or expertise. :D
 
amigacooke said:
Much easier to be a critic, it takes so little effort or expertise. :D
Click to expand...

Yeah, and I've got little of both!:D

If 2009 were to break the suckers back, at least there would be codelock. That might be the best thing that ever happened to Trainz. Loyalty is earned, not commanded. Nothing you or I say will influence a buyer's decision anyway, if a buyer were to even read these words before making a purchase. 2009 is the current version, and the one that will be gracing Wal Mart's shelves soon enough, and that's the one the majority will buy. Yes, we have some real heros here on the forum, where only about 1 % of owners frequent. That's not going to affect much!

Most buyers will buy the game, load the game, and then notice what they like and dislike, (because, in the end Amigacook; everyone is a critic!) and if they dislike the trees enough, or the engines that don't work, or the sessions that don't work, or the languages that don't work, then they will add the game to the circular file and count themselves lucky it didn't cost more. Few will come here for answers, and fewer still will take the time and effort to fix broken content.

For all the enjoyment I derive from the forums, I never let myself believe that participating here is anything more than spitting into the maelstrom as far as influencing the marketing success of the game. For all who puff themselves up in their righteous support of the latest version, I've been there and done that, and now I'm past it. I'll try to help those that I can, and have a laugh whenever I can, and that's about the extent of my own importance here.

All the creators that live at Trainzdev and lord 2009 over our heads as the best TrainSim...ever (apologies to the comic book store guy on the Simpson's), well; I'm real happy for them! In the end a dozen geniuses tinkering to no end isn't going to make the program any easier or more desirable to those that pick it up off the shelf. It just means they'll be doing most of the heavy lifting for no benefit except maybe the gratitude of Auran, who is grateful they didn't actually have to hire anyone to help iron out the problems in their product. Oh, maybe Auran will send them a free copy of Trainz 2010, but will they be compensated for the work they've done? I think not.

You guys go ahead though, you have my utmost respect and admiration. I'm sorry I have not the talent nor ambition nor intelligence required to help, but rest assured I'll continue doing what I do best, (which is lazily typing posts to amuse myself and basically hanging out on the sidelines.):D
 
Euphod said:
Few will come here for answers, and fewer still will take the time and effort to fix broken content.
Click to expand...

I know we don't really want broken content, but I find it an enjoyable experience when I manage to "fix" something by sorting out a config file error, or swapping kuids around to replace old or dodgy dependencies. :)

But sadly, Euphod has a real point there, because a vast number of buyers do not know these help forums exist.
In TRS2004 we have "Trainz Exchange" that does not exist, maybe Auran should have replaced it on the launch screen with "Trainz Help Forums" & made a 1 click link to here, then more people would find us. (forgive my ignorance if they did do this with 2009, I don't yet own a copy).
 
BLACKWATCH said:
In TRS2004 we have "Trainz Exchange" that does not exist, maybe Auran should have replaced it on the launch screen with "Trainz Help Forums" & made a 1 click link to here, then more people would find us. (forgive my ignorance if they did do this with 2009, I don't yet own a copy).
Click to expand...

That's a fine idea!
 
Sorry, 2009 is the best Train-sim out there. I am new to train-sims. It tried them all and 2009 is the best. Everyone said 2006 was better and I tried that and 2009 in compatability mode beats it hands down.

Sure there are warts but having to carry content that is five years old is a heavy task. Imagine if the ID company had to carry the original Doom shooter content in each iteration.

It sure beats Railworks and it's constant crashing. The user friendliness of Trainz makes the other train-sims really awful. I have yet to move a train around in MSTS, "Which way is that !@#$$% switch thrown", "How do I lay tracks these sims".

Harold
 
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