This is no way to run a railroad

[chili46]

Noticed that there was an update for Midwestern Branch, so I applied it. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Broke almost everyone of my other routes. Apparently the "update" removed a lot of DLC assets which my other routes used. That is not very good planning on N3V's part, now is it?

 

[d_doll01]

Have you tried a DBR?

 

[Tony_Hilliam]

If it did do this, uninstall it and you should be back to where you started.

When you say it "removed" them, it definitely doesn't touch your installed content. It can make existing objects obsolete by installing newer versions, but that shouldn't break your routes either.

Can you provide some examples of what was "removed" and what is "broken" with your existing routes.

Also confirm which build number you are using.

 

[chili46]

SP3 and SP4: 111951 and 114800. When doing the "update" the process failed for "missing some dependencies". I don't have a list of everything that was removed - not obsoleted. A lot of cl Trees and fauna, some boxcars, some YARNish road/intersections and maybe a few other things. None of them showed up as installed anymore and all were available for download on DLC. I have a fast network so not that big of a deal to re-download, but other people with slower networks might have issues.

 

[ZecMurphy]

Hi Chili46
Does the 'Midwestern Rails' route show as having missing dependencies?

The creator has recently submitted several updates to both upgrade the route to newer standards (including replacing a lot of older assets), and to resolve some bugs that were reported after release. As DLC packs will only include the assets necessary for them to function, if a creator substantially updates a route to use new content, then the update may not include some or all of the replaced assets. It should be noted that when an asset is entirely replaced on a route, the route no longer references that asset as a dependency.

For assets sourced from the Download Station, you'd then need to install those assets from the DLS. For assets that aren't on the DLS, then I'd recommend contacting the creator of the route as generally we would prefer non DLS assets to not be removed from DLC packs unless absolutely necessary.

Simply put though, the alternatives for the creator would be to make you pay for the upgraded route separately or just never upgrade the route.


Regards

 

[hert]

So if I understand correctly. If I download a DLC route then use one of its assets in my own route. If at a later date the DLC route is updated and the assets are removed from it by using other assets, and they are removed from the DLC route. Then I will have to redownload the assets I used from the DLC route via the DLS or 3rd party site for my own routes?

 

[chili46]

So if I understand correctly. If I download a DLC route then use one of its assets in my own route. If at a later date the DLC route is updated and the assets are removed from it by using other assets, and they are removed from the DLC route. Then I will have to redownload the assets I used from the DLC route via the DLS or 3rd party site for my own routes?

Apparently it is illegal to clone a route for your own personal use. Illegal may be a bit harsh, so let's say N3V wants to make it as difficult as possible for you to clone a route. It would appear that the cloned copy still has hooks into the original so that when the original is updated, the clone becomes invalid.

I would also like to know if the creators of payware that use assets on the DLC are paying royalties to the creators of the freeware assets? If not, then that's fraud.

 

[G.M.]

I would also like to know if the creators of payware that use assets on the DLC are paying royalties to the creators of the freeware assets? If not, then that's fraud.

-Half of the money received for a DLC goes directly to n3v
-no royalties are payed ever to freeware content creators
-The DLS has a 1-sided agreement, that you basicly forfeit all your rights as content creator
and you cannot share it/upload there without agreeing. so its legally enforced but morally wrong.


Decision made in the past
-a DLC should include all dependencies
reasons:
-the buyer gets it full speed and gets it complete
-the DLS is throttled and daily capped 100mb?, to sell FCT
advantage:
-installing a DLC is fast
disadvantages:
-suddenly freeware becomes payware (the original creator never meant that to happen)
-using any of those items in your own route, requires you and those that download it, to have that DLC
-removing the DLC, ruins other routes (once you accidently used an asset)
-its a slow addiction process, very hard to reverse.
-you end up with the same item many times on your Harddisk(s)


I love Trainz but am careful with DLS and DLC's
if you really make freeware, host your own files
if people don't want it, too bad for them.

 

[JCitron]

-Half of the money received for a DLC goes directly to n3v
-no royalties are payed ever to freeware content creators
-The DLS has a 1-sided agreement, that you basicly forfeit all your rights as content creator
and you cannot share it/upload there without agreeing. so its legally enforced but morally wrong.


Decision made in the past
-a DLC should include all dependencies
reasons:
-the buyer gets it full speed and gets it complete
-the DLS is throttled and daily capped 100mb?, to sell FCT
advantage:
-installing a DLC is fast
disadvantages:
-suddenly freeware becomes payware (the original creator never meant that to happen)
-using any of those items in your own route, requires you and those that download it, to have that DLC
-removing the DLC, ruins other routes (once you accidently used an asset)
-its a slow addiction process, very hard to reverse.
-you end up with the same item many times on your Harddisk(s)


I love Trainz but am careful with DLS and DLC's
if you really make freeware, host your own files
if people don't want it, too bad for them.

Part right, part wrong.

Your FCT is used to support the data services and bandwidth required for the many 100s of GBs of data on the DLS. This has always been the case. It's a bit more expensive now since implementation, but this annual cost boils down to costing a lot less than what most people spend on a cup of coffee costs these days at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts in a week.

DLC is in one single file archive or a few archive files that are decompressed when used. If and when an asset is obsoleted, for example, you are only hit with the downloaded asset. The DLC package remains the same size. The option here would be to provide the route and proprietary content only in the DLC package and have the user encounter large DLS downloads, or setup a separate server to host the freeware associated with the DLC routes. I agree having the package all in one place isn't the best solution, but it's the easiest.

What I don't like is the inability to edit DLC or built-in routes like we did in the past. The problem was there were pirates and in order to protect the copyrights of the content-creators, the DLC had to be locked. This lock, by the way, is optional and is set by the DLC content-creator and not N3V. There's a Cornish mainline route available that is completely unlocked but provided as DLC.

In TRS19 and TRS22 we can clone these routes, but they're only aliases of the original. The problem I see here, and I maybe paranoid about this, is suppose a route is cloned and lots of extra baseboards are installed on that version currently installed. What happens if the original route has been updated and the author decided to expand the route in the same location? Does that break your version?

 

[G.M.]

If you have a company, all costs you have to sell/make your product are deductable before paying taxes
(had my own company for 30 years)
this includes servers, rental or owned and the cost for internet/bandwidth
its part of the (production) cost (at least in my country)
Don't get me wrong N3v deserves income, they work hard, they sell me a lovely product
but I don't like false arguments to milk users.


I see a drastic increase of file size because of PBR, this increases bandwidth 10 fold
and unneeded downloads because the CM/DB system is unhandy. (see thread in general forum)


Think you should not use DLC routes cloned then expand, results can be unpredictable

 

[chili46]

Think you should not use DLC routes cloned then expand, results can be unpredictable

Understand. It was one of those "free" routes pushed from the store, but definitely tagged as payware. No $$$ exchanged hands and I thought it would be okay to clone it for my personal use like so many other assets I have cloned and tweaked. I really liked the route and appreciate all the hard work that went in to it, but... while the creator probably thinks it's the cat's pajamas and other people probably really like it, I had some issues. I expanded the distance between industries and added some extra bling (like an RV park - doesn't do anything, just some eye candy). I probably had over 100 hours in the expansion. Everything was fine until this week when it blew up on me.

 

[ZecMurphy]

Hi All

I will try to answer everyone's questions in order, so this might become a bit of a long post.

So if I understand correctly. If I download a DLC route then use one of its assets in my own route. If at a later date the DLC route is updated and the assets are removed from it by using other assets, and they are removed from the DLC route. Then I will have to redownload the assets I used from the DLC route via the DLS or 3rd party site for my own routes?

Yes. If a DLC pack is updated, and it no longer requires specific assets, then it will no longer include them. Note that 'feature' assets and 'payware' assets cannot be removed, so as to avoid items that are exclusive to that DLC pack being removed. We ask that creators try to avoid removing content where possible, however this sometimes isn't suitable if the creator has done a major re-work of their route and wants to release it as an update rather than as a separate release.

Apparently it is illegal to clone a route for your own personal use. Illegal may be a bit harsh, so let's say N3V wants to make it as difficult as possible for you to clone a route. It would appear that the cloned copy still has hooks into the original so that when the original is updated, the clone becomes invalid.

TRS19 and newer fully support creating clones of payware routes through Surveyor. These are aliased to the original route, and will require the original route to be installed and active for the clone to function. I should note that the DLC pack in question in this thread has exposed a bug where the update has caused some clones to stop working; we have hopefully now resolve this issue.

I would also like to know if the creators of payware that use assets on the DLC are paying royalties to the creators of the freeware assets? If not, then that's fraud.

There's no fraud involved, and making such a claim is pretty serious. The freeware assets are still freeware, and no royalties need to be paid as they are still freely available assets. Creators who upload their content to the DLS do grant N3V permission to include the content in paid releases, which includes DLC packs published by N3V.

-The DLS has a 1-sided agreement, that you basicly forfeit all your rights as content creatorand you cannot share it/upload there without agreeing. so its legally enforced but morally wrong.

Once again you bring up the falsehood that creators forfeit all rights to their content. This is wrong, and to continue to claim this is wrong.

Creators do have to agree to the DLS upload agreement to upload their content. Specifically they need to agree to allow N3V to redistribute the work (necessary to make it available for download from the Download Station itself!), an allow N3V to include the work in paid products (ie new Trainz releases, DLC packs, the First Class DLS server), and removal of the work is at N3V's discretion, and the asset can be updated by N3V if necessary to resolve errors or issues in the content. Beyond that, you still retain all rights to your work, including being able to distribute it how you please through other sites, and even the option to sell it if you choose to do so.

-a DLC should include all dependencies
reasons:
-the buyer gets it full speed and gets it complete
-the DLS is throttled and daily capped 100mb?, to sell FCT
advantage:
-installing a DLC is fast

Also that it means that casual players don't need to play hunt the dependency, as is so often the case.

There's also requirements on some services that DLC packs be actually complete, unless requiring another specified DLC pack. So having users need to download individual dependencies simply isn't appropriate for DLC packs.

-suddenly freeware becomes payware (the original creator never meant that to happen)

As has been pointed out to you multiple times now, this has been resolved for newer DLC packs. If you continue to make this claim, then we might need to take further action.

Yes, some older DLC packs may still exhibit this issue. Over time hopefully many of these DLC packs will have updates processed through the current system to resolve this, but we can't give dates for specific DLC packs.

-using any of those items in your own route, requires you and those that download it, to have that DLC

Or simply install the asset from it's original source.

-removing the DLC, ruins other routes (once you accidently used an asset)

Again, simply install the missing assets from their source. No different to if you give the route to another player to install, your route is not 'ruined' if they refuse to install the dependencies; it simply requires them to install the dependencies for the route.

-its a slow addiction process, very hard to reverse.

Not sure how you can call paying for people's hard work an addiction process, and TBH I think that's pretty unfair to many of the hard working creators in the community.

-you end up with the same item many times on your Harddisk(s)

Unfortunately, yes. However we feel that the trade off is worth it for simplicity for users. Especially after seeing a near constant stream of complaints about payware from 3rd party websites not working because users had to install additional dependencies.

In TRS19 and TRS22 we can clone these routes, but they're only aliases of the original. The problem I see here, and I maybe paranoid about this, is suppose a route is cloned and lots of extra baseboards are installed on that version currently installed. What happens if the original route has been updated and the author decided to expand the route in the same location? Does that break your version?

The 'alias' route shouldn't change if the creator releases an update. Of course, it does mean that the aliased route misses out on improvements, but is also prevents changes occurring that break what you may have changed on the route.

this includes servers, rental or owned and the cost for internet/bandwidth

This depends an awful lot on where you are based. Unfortunately server costs are still costs for us, and especially to provide higher speeds/bandwidth; so we have to offer a paid option for the DLS to cover these costs.



Regards

 

[chili46]

Thanks for the update Zec. I have an update of my own. I was able to get my route back but only on SP4. When installing the payware route on SP3, I get an incompatibility error and it won't install. I guess I can live with that. I still have some personal issues with SP4, but I've worked through most of the really annoying issues.

 

[BummerDude]

If you have a company, all costs you have to sell/make your product are deductable before paying taxes (had my own company for 30 years)

Being deductible, only reduces the tax due, but the actual cost is still there. (Which is why I've never understood 'don't worry about the cost of dinner, it's tax deductible.' Yea, but the company is still paying for the cost.)