Trainz is at it's biggest cross-road ever!

[Zapata935]

I do believe the next year will see the making or breaking of trainz, as we know it! Unlike most popular computer driven genres, trainz has an audience and customers covering many decades. The guys at Auran must have nightmares wondering whether to go forward or backwards, or both. Certainly a new game engine is desperately required, as we all know in our hearts, the existing one is now tired and flagging and failing. I guess the bottom line is how much is it gonna cost, for them to invest in the new? Despite what people think of me on this forum, I love trainz, but I do think it could be so much better if Auran thought on for future sales and not what they could pocket now!

 

[JCitron]

I do believe the next year will see the making or breaking of trainz, as we know it! Unlike most popular computer driven genres, trainz has an audience and customers covering many decades. The guys at Auran must have nightmares wondering whether to go forward or backwards, or both. Certainly a new game engine is desperately required, as we all know in our hearts, the existing one is now tired and flagging and failing. I guess the bottom line is how much is it gonna cost, for them to invest in the new? Despite what people think of me on this forum, I love trainz, but I do think it could be so much better if Auran thought on for future sales and not what they could pocket now!

Good points made. They already have started an investment, or rather we made the investment in the new game engine and an entirely new version of Trainz currently called T:ANE or Trainz A New Era.

John

 

[Smileyman]

You make a good point about the varying ages of Trainzers.
I think it's important that the new version of Trainz has as many exporters in place (not just promised) when released, because if the community is given the tools to create content without too many hurdles, then most ages will be catered for, and that can only be good for them.

Incidentally, and I don't want to hijack this thread, but can someone point me in the direction of info concerning the current exporters that are available for both TRS2010 and TRS2012?
I have a totally different setup to what I had years ago, and I'm just wondering if I'm going to be able to export to Trainz now.

Everything else that they are proposing for the next version sounds pretty good to me.
So as long as they get the exporters sorted, and fix any remaining bugs in the trainzscript, then they should be onto a winner.

Smiley.

 

[Zapata935]

I do hope so John, but forgive please for being sceptical, stuff like speed trees was up for sale to game planners and IT game industries in year 2005! Simulation is about immersion, the more realism, the more the reality. I just feel that trainz users and fans have been starved of realism for too long and Auran needs to desperately catch up before it is to late. Best Wishes.

 

[Zapata935]

I can only agree with you 100%! I have modded many games, mostly hack and slash stuff from Bethesda, where they give you all, importers and exporters for 3dmax, blender, gimp etc. But above all a construction set that works and is not bound up with anal ties to internal revenue! The reason is the stuff they are giving you is already 3 years out of date? They are working on stuff you will not see for 3 years to come!

 

[gremlin1812]

G'day, I have had MSTS and Trainz but not railworks (because of steam) not long ago an old MSTS friend (whom I had given a lot of assistance to) gifted me a TS2014 which was on special with several add-ons, I was very impressed as even though it is a 32 bit program it has great graphics, great draw distance and really good performance. Sure it has it's differences but they all do (it has a really good AI fireman) and they are working on TS2015 it seems and I would not be surprised if it is not going to be 64 bit.
So I think that T2 trainz will have to tick a lot of boxes to compete as the one thing trainz has going for it is the availability of third party "free" content.
Now before people get on there high horse, I am not saying any one simulator is better than the other, they all have their plusses and minuses and as always there is also individual tastes (beauty is in the eye of the beholder). What I am saying and hope, is that N3V really pick up there game and tick all the boxes with T2 because there is real competition out there, even Open Rails is looming there in the background and poised to take on all the MSTS diehards so at the end of the day there is quite a competetive playing field out there.
Just my view and 20c worth. and all
Regards
Barrie

 

[JCitron]

I do hope so John, but forgive please for being sceptical, stuff like speed trees was up for sale to game planners and IT game industries in year 2005! Simulation is about immersion, the more realism, the more the reality. I just feel that trainz users and fans have been starved of realism for too long and Auran needs to desperately catch up before it is to late. Best Wishes.

I fully understand the skepticism! Sure Speed Trees was available back then, but remember what happened to Auran a short time later... What we have today is a shell of that company known as N3V. There is only a handful of developers that handle a bunch of things while working with a minimal budget. This is typical, by the way, of small companies. I worked at a Polaroid spin-off for over 10 years and we kept everything really tight. The way I look at it, we're lucky to have what we have today, and the new version has a lot of promising things coming that we can't discuss in the forums.

I agree with Barrie. Both Sims have their pluses and minuses. Remember that Railworks is a company that started a lot later and from the ground up. Auran and N3V attempted to keep a compatibility level with the older products. Perhaps in some respects this was a bad thing, yet if you think about it, we wouldn't have the plethora of content, both old and new. We also have a large third-party content creation group making free components. This too affects how a program performs, and again this is unlike RW which sells their content so the company has a lock and a say on how it is developed. N3V gave us the tools and told us to have fun with them and be creative. This can have a negative aspect as well since people make both good and bad stuff, and don't always follow the rules when it comes to content performance requirements.

John

 

[Vern]

My views on backward compatibility into T:ANE are already known - but just to recap I think it was a huge mistake if it has in any way hindered the game going forward. One last patch for TS12 to fix the most shouted about issues, then draw a line and start anew. Of course that is only my opinion and there were others with shock horror if they couldn't run their UTC routes in T:ANE.

Trainz and RW-TS2014 are the main commercial players in the market - even with the prospect of Open Rails, MSTS is over 13 years old now and increasingly difficult to run on modern hardware/operating systems. At least both N3V (via the Kickstarter) and DTG (via their DLC factory) are investing in our hobby and ensuring it has a future - unlike MS who never bothered to fix MSTS and cancelled the sequel... twice.

The biggest issue at the moment is that it really isn't worth starting any major route projects in TS12. If, despite the backward compatibility, T:ANE is going to give us a better track system including correctly drawn points/switches and diamond crossings (which the AI signalman can see and protect) and superelevation I would much rather wait six months and start with the new tools. That's not to say there won't be a shorter route or two from my workshop for TS12 but more likely to be in the model railway style or a scaled up version of a miniature railway (Dobwalls anyone?! ).

 

[Zapata935]

I think you have touched my initial point with a needle! Hyper-speed trains, old coughing, choking steam trains, all that matters is that a simulation feels and looks realistic! I really do take on board JCitron's words, we are lucky to have a computerised railway at all. This smacks of the Settle and Carlisle group taking the line over from the British government in the real world! Maybe this is the way to go, trainz fans buy up NV3 and turn it into the train-world we really want. Food for thought?

 

[barry_bilewitz]

EEP X in English is coming

This was supposed to happen during Spring 2014. I do not know the current status of that project, but this is an excellent train simulator with rather expensive add-on content and if its launch date is close to that of TANE, it may negatively impact TANE sales.
Train Simulator 2014 is also right up there.
Going forward, I think that the company with the most flexible (read: user-friendly) business model will carry the day. I hope the management team members at N3V are doing many "what-if" scenarios with their cash-flow model in determining the pricing of the products and services in their various revenue streams and the expenses that will accrue in generating the revenue.

 

[drphlox]

I fully understand the skepticism! Sure Speed Trees was available back then, but remember what happened to Auran a short time later... What we have today is a shell of that company known as N3V. There is only a handful of developers that handle a bunch of things while working with a minimal budget. This is typical, by the way, of small companies. I worked at a Polaroid spin-off for over 10 years and we kept everything really tight. The way I look at it, we're lucky to have what we have today, and the new version has a lot of promising things coming that we can't discuss in the forums.

I agree with Barrie. Both Sims have their pluses and minuses. Remember that Railworks is a company that started a lot later and from the ground up. Auran and N3V attempted to keep a compatibility level with the older products. Perhaps in some respects this was a bad thing, yet if you think about it, we wouldn't have the plethora of content, both old and new. We also have a large third-party content creation group making free components. This too affects how a program performs, and again this is unlike RW which sells their content so the company has a lock and a say on how it is developed. N3V gave us the tools and told us to have fun with them and be creative. This can have a negative aspect as well since people make both good and bad stuff, and don't always follow the rules when it comes to content performance requirements.

John

My views on backward compatibility into T:ANE are already known - but just to recap I think it was a huge mistake if it has in any way hindered the game going forward. One last patch for TS12 to fix the most shouted about issues, then draw a line and start anew. Of course that is only my opinion and there were others with shock horror if they couldn't run their UTC routes in T:ANE.

Trainz and RW-TS2014 are the main commercial players in the market - even with the prospect of Open Rails, MSTS is over 13 years old now and increasingly difficult to run on modern hardware/operating systems. At least both N3V (via the Kickstarter) and DTG (via their DLC factory) are investing in our hobby and ensuring it has a future - unlike MS who never bothered to fix MSTS and cancelled the sequel... twice.

The biggest issue at the moment is that it really isn't worth starting any major route projects in TS12. If, despite the backward compatibility, T:ANE is going to give us a better track system including correctly drawn points/switches and diamond crossings (which the AI signalman can see and protect) and superelevation I would much rather wait six months and start with the new tools. That's not to say there won't be a shorter route or two from my workshop for TS12 but more likely to be in the model railway style or a scaled up version of a miniature railway (Dobwalls anyone?! ).

Not true. Kuju Entertainment are the developers behind both MSTS and Rail Simulator/Railworks. Its no surprise that Railworks was built from the ashes of MSTS 2.

On May 7, 2003, Microsoft announced that it would be making a sister game of MSTS called Microsoft Train Simulator 2[SUP][4][/SUP] and it was first demoed to the public at E3 on May 15.[SUP][5][/SUP] Seemingly its main improvements were the addition of people to the game (e.g. passengers waiting at the stations, people operating the new locomotive roster, etc.), more realistic crashes and other accidents, and turntables. It was being developed by Kuju Entertainment, the original MSTS creators. Despite restructuring efforts at Kuju, the project was however handed over to Microsoft Game Studios on August 18, 2003.

Rail Simulator (Kuju Rail Simulator) is a train simulation published by Electronic Arts (EA).[SUP][2][/SUP] It was produced by UK based Kuju Entertainment, the company which developed Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS) with Microsoft. After release of the EU version, EA's support and further development of the title was taken over by Rail Simulator Developments Ltd (RSDL), who have continued to provide updates, fixes, official expansion packs and new content for RailSim fans. RSDL has also released a much anticipated sequel to the first game called RailWorks, both online and on DVD-ROM

I think you have touched my initial point with a needle! Hyper-speed trains, old coughing, choking steam trains, all that matters is that a simulation feels and looks realistic! I really do take on board JCitron's words, we are lucky to have a computerised railway at all. This smacks of the Settle and Carlisle group taking the line over from the British government in the real world! Maybe this is the way to go, trainz fans buy up NV3 and turn it into the train-world we really want. Food for thought?

Sorry, I'd prefer that Auran/N3V remain an Australian Company thanks.

 

[JCitron]

Not true. Kuju Entertainment are the developers behind both MSTS and Rail Simulator/Railworks. Its no surprise that Railworks was built from the ashes of MSTS 2.

On May 7, 2003, Microsoft announced that it would be making a sister game of MSTS called Microsoft Train Simulator 2[SUP][4][/SUP] and it was first demoed to the public at E3 on May 15.[SUP][5][/SUP] Seemingly its main improvements were the addition of people to the game (e.g. passengers waiting at the stations, people operating the new locomotive roster, etc.), more realistic crashes and other accidents, and turntables. It was being developed by Kuju Entertainment, the original MSTS creators. Despite restructuring efforts at Kuju, the project was however handed over to Microsoft Game Studios on August 18, 2003.

Rail Simulator (Kuju Rail Simulator) is a train simulation published by Electronic Arts (EA).[SUP][2][/SUP] It was produced by UK based Kuju Entertainment, the company which developed Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS) with Microsoft. After release of the EU version, EA's support and further development of the title was taken over by Rail Simulator Developments Ltd (RSDL), who have continued to provide updates, fixes, official expansion packs and new content for RailSim fans. RSDL has also released a much anticipated sequel to the first game called RailWorks, both online and on DVD-ROM



Sorry, I'd prefer that Auran/N3V remain an Australian Company thanks.

Interesting regarding RW et al. Same stuff as before with a different name. That would explain a lot of things. I too prefer the stuff from the little Australian company we've grown to love.

John

 

[NSWGR_46Class]

Almost the same things were said when we went from 2004 to 2006 - pity that none of that old fourms was kept