Trainz Feature is Also A liability

[boleyd]

The "rules" available with Trainz allow quire realistic management of the product. However, they are poorly organized and, in some cases, poorly documented. For a new customer this must be terribly confusing. Choosing amongst several rules that have similar functions is asking a bit much for someone who does not have a few years experience.

A similar comment also applies to the Download Station. Thousands of items are offered but many are from an aera of lower quality and function. However, some of those offer low impact on frame rates and are continued in route construction. I would like to see N3V get an expert in library management on-board for a week to look at the very valuable assets (rules and DLS) in an attempt to improve their organization.

 

[shaneturner12]

To be honest with you, this kind of problem is usually caused when a content creator uses the same name as another content creator for a particular rule, and doesn't include the required information (I'm partially guilty of that with my Diagnostic Rule). N3V may not be able to do much about this, as it's the creator that would have to sort that problem.

As for quality, you have to accept this if it was made in say TRS2004 or TRS2006, as the features were not available back then to actually improve the quality. Even with newer assets, it takes time to improve assets.

Shane

 

[bl4882]

Hi Boleyd,

You make two valid points, but I think that, barring some sort of miracle, neither of them will be addressed.

There are many hundreds of thousands of assets floating around out there, on the DLS and third party sites, all of them named in an apparently random fashion, and a large proportion of those on the DLS put there without a hint as to what they are or what they do, much less a good description. By the way, thank you, thank you, to creators who provide good descriptions of your contributions that are available in the "detail" section. Who is going to spend the time going through the subset of assets, probably a smaller number of hundreds of thousands, the natures of which are occult?

A more realistic solution might be to have two DLSes. The first one would be what we have. We can continue to churn that one with a stick to see what floats to the top. A new one would be rationally organized with a standard descriptive nomenclature and requiring details, such as thumbnails and descriptions that are actually informative. Some steps have already been taken in that direction with regard to the old DLS, but nothing like you suggest and it would have to be moderated by human beings, which is something I doubt N3V would be willing to pay for and the kind of mind numbing work few would be willing to do without compensation of some sort.

Bernie

 

[cascaderailroad]

Almost all assets were not even created by Auran, nor N3V ... all these hundreds of thousands of freeware assets were created from generous 3rd party creators, who uploaded their works for free, and donated them to the great repository library called the: DLS

 

[JCitron]

This all goes back to a discussion we had some time ago regarding content descriptions and names. A good example a route up there on the DLS called 'mines' or 'mine' and the description is 'awsome' (sic). It is up to the content creator, route developer, and script writer to come up with some kind of description and explanation. N3V has started to enforce some compliance with the thumbnails, but it would be more difficult to enforce the description since that is a text field in the config.txt.

I agree there are lots of great rules up there as well. What we need to do is spend some time testing them to determine which ones still work as advertised in TS12, and determining what they do. Someone could then publish a list somewhere, perhaps in the Wiki. As rules and driver commands are added, deleted, or updated, the list would have to be modified. The problem we have though is many of the rules are named oddly with no description, and in some cases the actual rule even with an English name, are in a foreign language.

The foreign language issues aside, what would be helpful is the ability to have something more than information in the description field, which is only seen in Content Manager. It would be nice if an information window came up, optionally by clicking on a button, that would contain instructions and information about an asset whether this is a rule, a building, or perhaps a configurable industry or scenery object. Having this information at our fingertips, as route builders, makes things a lot easier because with nearly 100,000-plus items installed in some cases, we can't always remember what requirements some of these assets is needed for operation.

John

 

[bl4882]

@Cascade: I am the last person in the world to question what you say, Cascade, and am more than grateful for all that content creators do, whether for free or for compensation. I should have said that at the outset of my post and apologize for not doing so.

My comments were directed at the idea of organizing the fabulous, chaotic, and creative engine of the DLS. My point was and is that doing so would be impossible. That may be because most creative people do not take well to regimentation, which is what it would take to create the kind of asset repository that would be ideal. I addressed the tangible, foreseeable costs of doing so. What you imply, but do not state, is that many might stop sharing their creations on the DLS if their freedom were so seriously infringed. And you are right, that would be both a great pity and a foreseeable intangible cost, and a major one. It could be, in part, one of the advantages of having two parallel DLSes.

But again, I think that given the practicalities we will just have to take the DLS as it is. It has its deficits, but they are more than outweighed by the benefits, and the cure for its ills may be worse than the disease.

Bernie