Trainz Chat closing....

[bchester]

I've been sitting back biting my tongue but finally caved in.

I for one I didn't even realize there was a chat room - never used one and don't know how to set it up. Had I known how I probably would have accessed it. I can say one thing for sure though. If the Forums are removed from the general community and placed in-game then I for one will drop Trainz all together.

Tony, have you been reading any of the posts? No one wants an "all-in-one" product. An extremely large number of folks only launch the game to test the items we have created before forwarding them to community or to play it for (in relativity), short periods of time. We like to access "features" such as the forums from outside the game and even away from home all together. I frequently access the forums from work, internet cafes, libraries and even hotels when travelling. I'm not going to purchase a $2500.00 laptop just to access it on the road. Are you out of your mind?

OK, I've vented - IF AURAN PROVIDES VERY SMALL MODULES THAT CAN INSTALLED SEPARATELY ON LIMITED EQUIPMENT OR CAN BE DOWNLOADED FREE OF CHARGE to any equipment, any where, then I appologize for the out burst. If however, it will be required to have the whole damned thing then - GOOD BYE!

My two cents

Brian W. Chester

 

[pommie]

Tony, why didn't you state that there is going to be a utility to access the chat outside of the main program at the start, all this would of been avoided

Might be an idea to pop into chat and let them know in there, it will also settle a lot of animosity towards Auran at the moment.

Cheers David

 

[ZenJiriki]

im an extremely casual trainzer however my best mate who is a diehard fan i saw tonight how disappointed he is. im a gamer at heart and i can tell u its disgusting what you're doing. its GREED. u're removing a very popular chat choice and making it mandatory in a game that, quite frankly needs a massive overhaul. do you not think that the backlash here is enough proof you are making a wrong decision? you could if you wished code an in game chat client to 'co-exist' with the mirc chat...or, did all the intelligent programers go when auran went bust. shame to admit ur an australian company, didnt realise we were capable of screwing over our own customer base.

 

[Tony_Hilliam]

Whoa there Brian. We're not forcing people to log on to Trainz for anything and the forums will remain as. What we are doing is providing more information and communication in-game to expose the amazing world of Trainz to a wider audience. This is all done with minimal overhead.,

Tony

 

[johnwhelan]

Just a comment, to me the problem with chat is the information disappears very quickly. Whilst I accept "instant" answers are what many people expect these days and chat does give an instant response if you get one I personally didn't find it that useful.

I must confess I've set IRC up twice to access the Trainz forum. The process was not simple, the recommended software required $ to acquire although I did find a solid open source bit of software that did the job eventually.

If I post in chat it seemed I was dependent on the knowledge of a few people available at the time. If I post in the forum I quite often get a reply within minutes which is quite fast enough.

I think anything that makes Trainz easier for the masses is a good thing. I'd hate to lose all the information available in the forums though.

Cheerio John

 

[Ferrous]

*sighs*

So, just for clarification:

The irc.auran.com server closes tomorrow, yes?

The Chat will be accessible from the 09 start menu, yes?

09 isn't released yet, yes?

So why is the chat closing down when its replacement won't be available for some time?

*suspeces budget cuts; that's what killed off all but one Amtrak through these parts...*

 

[OMG_internet]

Wow. There's no doubt that passion runs deep in the Trainz community. Is there something special or unique I am missing about the Trainz chat that I have missed? We have not taken away people's rights to chat outside the game, just a piece hardware that is easily replaceable. And we're replacing that with something available to every Trainz user.

forgive me if i missing something here, but im pretty sure you said it's only gonna be within 09, now what about all of us who wont get 09, or wont get it straight away? what will we have?

i may not use the IRC channel (i have a deep rooted hatred for IRC, personally, but that's not for here) but having seen the reactions here you seem to be doing something a little stupid.
Firstly you're taking away the IRC channel now, even though 09 hasnt even been released? what happened to succession? a car manufacturer will rarely take a car out of production before its successor comes along (bad analogy, i know), so why get rid of this before the successor?

Also, your argument for having it within trainz doesnt work, it may use similar memory to Firefox, but id guess that when people are on the IRC channel, they're also doing other things online, now i cant run firefox and trainz at the same time on my computer (even firefox and CMP struggle to work together), so if i wanted to use the chat feature, i'd have to stop what i'm doing on firefox, close it and then open up trainz to use that one feature of it. Would i do that? No, of course not.

You say that not that many people know about the IRC channel. well, there's an extremely simple solution to that, you could simply have stickied thread in one of the main forums telling people about it, no?

if you just answer one question, then answer this: why are you getting rid or the IRC channel before it's replacement is here?


yes, a rant from me, that most rare of things

 

[Remilliard]

As I have said, we're not taking away people's ability to meet and chat on traditional chat channels, but rather we're adding a new mode that is far more accessible to the masses. Hopefully we'll see a much larger community sharing their experiences as a result.

Tony

:wave: ... no TS2009 no chat. For me: no Auran products anymore ... :wave:

 

[Smileyman]

Tony, why didn't you state that there is going to be a utility to access the chat outside of the main program at the start, all this would of been avoided

Might be an idea to pop into chat and let them know in there, it will also settle a lot of animosity towards Auran at the moment.

David, I think you have misread Tony's post.

I don't see him saying that there's going to be a separate program/utility outside the main Trainz program.
In fact, I see him saying that it will be accessed within the game.

I find the reasons Tony gives for placing the new chat in-game a bit weak.
Each one could have had a solution outside the game.
This is definitely more to do with getting things in place for in-game advertising somewhere down the line, rather than for the sake of the community.

You could say that I'm being a bit cynical.
You could say that I'm completely wrong.
I could say "We'll see"

Smiley.

 

[pommie]

Yes there is an overhead for opening Trainz and running the chat system, but it takes less than 10 seconds to open the launcher and uses a similar memory footprint to this Firefox browser I am typing in right now. Whilst in the 3D game (driving or route building), it still uses a small footprint. The difference is that this system will be a mouse click away from all Trainz users.

Tony

"It STILL uses" I take that to mean that it also works outside of the main game.

OK I admit I am cheating :hehe:

copy and paste from the chat tonight


[22:55] <pommie> ok, is there going to be a chat client that we can launch from the 'launcher' without the main program ?????
[22:57] <thilliam> right now it launches from the Main Menu - I timed it as 8 seconds from clicking the shortcut


Tony really needs to explain things a lot better.

Cheers David

 

[freightcar2]

The irc.auran.com server closes tomorrow, yes?

The Chat will be accessible from the 09 start menu, yes?

09 isn't released yet, yes?

YES!

 

[Jampiter]

Bad move Auran, bad move.

Seriously, the idea of an in-game chat is terrible. I don't even have TRS installed at the moment, yet I still use the chat because I know everyone there and they're old time Trainzers. An in-game chat will make the IRC go the way of the forum - chaotic and full of noobs.

This really is a terrible idea. I like the way you assume I'm going to buy '09 as well.

-James

 

[Wessex_Electric_Nutter]

I believe that the key element of a chat channel is not the hardware that hosts the channel nor the software that runs it, but rather it's about the people that use it. It is about making the chat channel accessible to all Trainz fans and building a community. The current channel is probably not even known about by the vast majority of Trainz fans. We need to change that situation.

No, the current channel IS adequate IMHO, but what you could of done, is linked Trainz directly to the channel in one click, than reinvent the wheel every bloody time. Theres going to only be one room everyone is interested, right?


Therefore, if you used the existing protocol and just added Trainz in, the chat is accessible to those who are using Trainz and those aren't.

 

[-Basti-]

I am scared about this decision...
In the IRC-Chat, there mostly meet a part of the core of the community...
now you hit them into their face... in mine too.

Thanks Auran... sometimes I think, you don't care about the community...


Stupid question:
Why haven't you built that "special" ingame-chat IRC-based? Technically no problem, even ICQ Group-chats are based on IRC...

 

[WileeCoyote]

Hey all:wave:

A "replacement" for Auran's IRC network, yes, #Trainz channels and all, is currently in the works.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=32025

I hope to see you all in IRC again soon

WileeCoyote

 

[aardvark1]

While it is sad to see the the original Trainz Chat sponsored by Auran ending...I am sure that other (WileeCoyote) IRC channels will come to life in the very near future.

I want to take a moment to say farewell to everyone I have met in Trainz Chat and thank everyone for the fun and enjoyment that I have received by being in the Chat Room.

Hope to see all of you again in the very near future.

Regards,
Ron

 

[insulfrog]

I hate to see the Auran Trainz IRC network go down since I became a regular user there. It is very sad to see it go :'( . I think because of this closure of the IRC Auran network, we could do with ideas where the commuity of IRC #Trainz channel could live on (such as oftc.net).

 

[K4driver]

just to give me 2 cents in the matter.....WHAT A DUMB IDEA :'( I MEAN IT DOES NOT COME OUT IN THE USA TILL DECEMBER...so it seems the USA will not be able to chat untill then,. what about those you cannot afford TRS09 either money wise or computer powerwise. So it seems the corperation is colapsing in upon it'self....sign of the times

 

[K4driver]

sorry for the double post but i am telling you this is a bad move.....look at the forums....you want this to happen on the chat...The chat is fine the way it is...dont mess with a good thing. I forsee a lot of violence and kicking and banning on the in-game chat.....how are you going to handle banning someone every 5 seconds

 

[Wessex_Electric_Nutter]

I thought I'll quote my favorite quote of the chatroom:

[13:24] <thilliam> Hi all. I thought I better come in here to make sure a few boilers don't expode

Fine, except, when we found out the chatroom was being closed at rather short notice, our safety valves lifted, higher and higher.
Then we look on the forums and then the boilers explode. If we had a reasonable explanation on the forums, without having to look back at the logs, then fine, our safety valves would of actually shut up.