nathanmallard
Active member
A poll would be interesting, to see how many support subscriptions and how many are opposed. Why not implement changes the democratic way?
Trainz "Next" is announced...
- Thread starter Tony_Hilliam
- Start date
A lot of the upset people here did trust in Tony for TANE and when that came out being well under any expectations of what was promised; and still is. He lost the trust.
Actually in the Q&A he said:
Nothing about new patches, etc. For all we know "updates" could be new DLC, or multiplayer server-side problems.
One other thing: people should have the option to host a server on their own computer instead of paying for an N3V hosted one. This would work great for, say, a small group of friends who just wanna kick back and play a little Trainz. Select one person (with the most beefy computer) to host the server for everyone. If you can fix the framerate issues and make the game more efficient, then a decent computer should be able to host a server for around 5-10 people just fine.
A for profit company can't operate in a democratic way, at least where their customer base would be directly involved in product development. It's one thing to elicit feedback and consider suggestions but using a poll, which would never reach a majority of users anyway, to decide on where the product should go next won't work.
We are customers, not stockholders.
We are customers, not stockholders.
PerRock, that is just playing with words. Updates would include patches and hot fixes (both of which Tony has listed in other posts as part of the future of TANE). I would also welcome a new DLC and new multiplayer server side technology as updates to TANE. The Q&A section was not a legal document designed to navigate its way through a labyrinth of legal jargon.
And without customers how much dividend do the stockholders get paid ? minus 100% seems about right.
Any business that ignored what its customers wanted and just produced what they (the business) wanted would be unprofitable.
After all if you went shopping for a kettle and got told "we only have 2 gallon saucepans because that's what we like to make" would you spend your money in that shop ?
Just to say, don't ignore the comments made in this thread earlier:
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...e-What-is-the-%93next%94-big-thing-for-Trainz
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...e-What-is-the-%93next%94-big-thing-for-Trainz
... and considering that the features list for Tane is to be frozen next week, how much effort can we really expect on features, compared to big fixes.
Of course not. I have the choice to spend my money somewhere else. We have that choice with Trainz as well.
I should have said "investors" instead of "stockholders" since N3V is a privately held company, but that's not important.
I didn't say customers concerns should be ignored, my response was to the idea that TANE should be developed via a poll or other "democratic" devices. Of course customer feedback should be considered, but customers tend to think selfishly with their emotions, which is perfectly normal. They have their interests at heart, they care about the game they paid for, which is natural, without a lot of times being aware of or even understanding the business concerns and economic realities that the company has to take into consideration. None of us know exactly what shape N3V is in, what sort of staffing they have, what profit they may or may not be making, etc. It's easy to say "This sucks, fix it". Sometimes it's not as easy to do for a variety of reasons.
I won't say TANE is a flop, but it is a disappointment, it hasn't lived up to it's hype and promises. We can choose to stick with it and hope it is made into something near what we envisioned or we can ultimate vote with our feet and wallets.
Personally, I see this as the end of the line for me, I don't see anything big being done with TANE. there will be some small fixes sure, maybe a big bone here or there will get tossed our way but I don't see myself "subscribing" to what was posted about TrainzNext.
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I am fine with T:ANE, and not going to roll into multi player subscription base surveyor for route building. Besides, I have another simulator, formerly Railworks, and American Truck Simulator, not subscription based, to fall back on. Just keep updating T:ANE and I'll be happier.
Please re-read the news release (especially the Q&A session) and these forums.
The ability to allow others, "every user from every corner of the globe randomly", to edit your routes is NOT what is being offered.
You will have the OPTION, if you want it, to allow SELECTED individuals to view or edit SELECTED parts of the route you have created. You, as the original creator, will have full control to cancel, alter, reassign their access and to rollback (i.e. remove) any changes that they may have made. While this will not suit everyone, there have been a number of enthusiastic responses to this proposal. I, for one, would have found this very useful on a collaborative project I was recently involved with - it would have saved a lot of time and frustration.
Likewise, the subscription is also a possible option. If you buy every new version of Trainz that comes out then it may be to your advantage. If not, then, it seems, you may still be able to make an outright purchase of each version that you want. We will have to wait until the pricing, conditions, and other details become available.
A poor analogy. I presume you are basing that statement of the fate of Google Glass, which I will point out, is not the only smart glass product on the market or coming onto the market. Other companies seem to be pressing ahead with their smart glasses projects.
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Oh, I agree that a better-organized team will have an easier time than a disorganized one - and all the tools in the world won't help a disorganized team
Well, on the software development tangent: I've seen multiple people working on the same source code together and it tends to work pretty well. I think the buzzword is 'pair programming.' Buzwords aside, though, if the people are working together instead of off by themselves, it seems to work fine.
However, I don't know that creating / editing a route is directly compatible to editing source code - while there are some logical dependencies (track and signalling, perhaps), much of the work is merely visual.
The off-the shelf repositories I've seen don't seem to do a very good job of merging binary files - in this case, I don't think they would be much of an improvement over just mailing the route files back and forth. You'd still be limited to making the changes one at a time - if someone started making changes on an out-of date version, someones changes are going to be overwritten.
I haven't used Zusi, so this might make sense. Having the scenery match across interfaces might be a little challenging if the modules only get merged at runtime, though?
Curtis
I think this would be my preference as well - to be able to run our own server instead of renting one from N3V. I'm expecting this would be a standalone server that doesn't render any graphics, but would want to be online 24x7 so teammates could work when they have the time?
I'm not sure how many people would be set up to run such a server versus how many would just end up running on N3V's servers anyway, so I don't know what would make more sense to develop. Something end-user friendly would cost much more to build than some custom app that only the devs know how to run.....
Curtis
We called it "egoless programming" back when I wrote code for a living. But that was in the last millennium.
I'm starting to feel rather old.Sharing a route cdp via a cloud can work depending on your role within a group. But Trainz is not strong on version identification. In fact, it doesn't have any. I've often wondered why you can have versions of assets such as bridges, but not routes. Maybe this "new hope" will address this issue.
amigacooke
Well-known member
I was surprised that N3V went ahead with that vote as it seemed pointless at the time. We hadn't funded any stretch goals, so why vote to see the order of stretch goals we hadn't funded?
To summarise, Tony's said that was a KickStarter thing and we're out of the KickStarter phase now.
Kennilworth
Active member
Hi
This thread reminds me of my time as a union rep. A very bare announcement is made and people immediately assume the worst case. There were two things that my time as a rep taught me.
a) Read what an announcement says carefully so that you KNOW what it says and not what you THINK it says.
b) Don't lose any sleep over it until you have all of the fine details.
From my understanding of what N3V says so far most of this is optional. At the end of the day if you don't like what's being proposed don't buy it. I can't see any reason for all of this hysteria at this point in time.
Regards
Brian
This thread reminds me of my time as a union rep. A very bare announcement is made and people immediately assume the worst case. There were two things that my time as a rep taught me.
a) Read what an announcement says carefully so that you KNOW what it says and not what you THINK it says.
b) Don't lose any sleep over it until you have all of the fine details.
From my understanding of what N3V says so far most of this is optional. At the end of the day if you don't like what's being proposed don't buy it. I can't see any reason for all of this hysteria at this point in time.
Regards
Brian
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I can't remember if I posted it as a suggestion, but some time ago I had a thought that it would be good if a layer could be saved to a cdp, as a simple way of allowing collaboration on a route project. A project could then be managed by, say, assigning track and signalling to one user, texturing to another, etc. Alternatively, a user could work on all items within a complete geographical area. Users could add multiple layer cdps to a basic route, and use the existing version controls with cdp2s to manage updates. I guess you could do a basic version of this with sessions, and merge them into the route file, but it would be good if it could be done in a way that allows multiple layers to be added in a reversible way.
On the subject of NEXT, I'll reserve judgement until we've got clearer idea of the product. I can't say I like the idea of a subscription model, but first class tickets are already a step on this road (glad I picked up a lifetime one a while back). I'm happy enough to part with a few quid each month for a music streaming service, but the idea of a 'rent to use' approach for my favourite models makes me uncomfortable. Trainz content somehow feels much more tangible than music, and something that I'd personally prefer to own outright.
R3
On the subject of NEXT, I'll reserve judgement until we've got clearer idea of the product. I can't say I like the idea of a subscription model, but first class tickets are already a step on this road (glad I picked up a lifetime one a while back). I'm happy enough to part with a few quid each month for a music streaming service, but the idea of a 'rent to use' approach for my favourite models makes me uncomfortable. Trainz content somehow feels much more tangible than music, and something that I'd personally prefer to own outright.
R3
As another former union rep, I could not agree more. Why is it that ex-union reps seem to be the only ones who have the ability to "Keep Calm and Carry On"?
I'm not in a union, but am most definitely remaining calm and enjoying T:ANE in the meantime...