Nah, they gotta finish working on T:ANE Service Pack 12 Hotfix 8.
Trainz "Next" is announced...
- Thread starter Tony_Hilliam
- Start date
Let's take it a nach down, Chris --- Here you go: TANE SP1 HF4 - Beta 2 Now Available :wave:
This is thread is about the Next Trainz, which they are working on already ... it's all on the Trainz Dev forum, in software language tho ...hopefully we get some lame terms on this thread, so anything new out there beside Multiplayer Surveyor which was briefly discuss on this thread a while back?
Just wondering!
Ish
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Keep in mind that support and maintenance happen concurrently with new product development. While the service packs are coming out to address issues reported by the community and those that N3V is aware of internally, Trainz "Next" is in the works.
This isn't unusual either for any industry and this is why Windows 10 is at one version while support is still maintained for Windows 8.x by Microsoft all the while they still developing another version of whatever. This support and development process includes automobiles, prescription drugs, computer hardware, new food recipes by your favorite frozen food snack company, and so on. In the automobile industry, we may have Model year 2017 cars in the dealer's lots for example, but should they no longer maintain last year's models or those a few years before, and should they too be working on Model year 2018 and maybe 2019 and 2020 as well?
If companies stopped developing and only fixed their currently released product, they go out of business. This happened at a company I worked for. Their flagship products were old in an industry that was shrinking. Instead of focusing on a new product path or even sprucing up their current products to meet the new market demands, they stopped production, laid off their engineering department, and focused only on support. After doing this for three years, the company shutdown in 2009.
John
even though i love tane, its like
oh, you dont like it? well dont worry its not done! it will be improved! we are even adding a christmas engine!
You do like it? Well, better start saving for another over priced game, cause trainz next is coming soon!
Whats that? no cloning engines? no support for reskining? dont worry! be cause in the next dlc pack, reskining will be added! only $80.00!!!!!
for god sakes, make the original game perfect before you announce another one.
oh, you dont like it? well dont worry its not done! it will be improved! we are even adding a christmas engine!
You do like it? Well, better start saving for another over priced game, cause trainz next is coming soon!
Whats that? no cloning engines? no support for reskining? dont worry! be cause in the next dlc pack, reskining will be added! only $80.00!!!!!
for god sakes, make the original game perfect before you announce another one.
Nope you've missed the point of what this is all about.
Trainz Next is going to support what you have, and it's going to be T:ANE as you know it now with many other improvements, however, with an additional feature an online versions of Surveyor that works optionally and on a subscription basis when you want to work on a collaborative project.
To take this last point further as an example, suppose you want to build a large portion of the Holidaysburg, PA division of the PRR. As an individual, working on this kind of project, it'll take forever and then some. You can do it, but to do it right will take years so you recruit some Trainzing friends to help. Under the current system, you work on the route to a certain point then upload it to a file sharing server somewhere like Drop Box. One of your friends puts the trees and stuff in because that's what he's good at. He then puts his version up on Drop Box for you, or someone else. The route gets bounced around until it's done and you've had your go with this final version. At this point you've uploaded a new version that includes everything up-to-date. This sounds good so far and works fine in the ideal world. The problem is for some reason one of your collaborating friends grabs the wrong version, spends days fiddling with it only to find out there's a newer version he could have started with in the first place!
With the Trainz "NEXT", you and your friends will be able to build the route all at once with some people putting in trees while others are laying tracks, or everyone could be laying track in this big open world.
Now since you're not going to build huge 100-plus mile routes and big projects all the time, why pay for this kind of addition to the program all the time. Remember there's going to be additional network and server support for this, and just like the DLS, we're going to need to pay for it somehow and somewhere. So like the First Class Ticket, this will be a subscription. How expensive? Don't know that's a question only Tony and Paul O would know. Since we only use this on a one-off thing, we pay for it when we use it, otherwise, it's business as usual as we've known forever.
Also did you read my post regarding product development?
Apparently not according to this:
New products are always in development while the current products are being sold and supported. If a company were to stop selling new products while they support their current product, they shutdown and usually pretty quickly. As I said I saw this with a company I worked for. They were a small company that had an array of similar products, with consumable supplies to go with them. One day they decided to discontinue R&D and focus only on sales so they laid off R&D and kept a small handful of sales people and field service. They were shutdown, and out of business in three years as their product pipeline, as its called, diminished.
To add to this, having multiple product offerings, even if based on the same technology and designs, is better as well because various features are available to people at various prices. Think of the automobile industry, for example. You have Toyota Corolla and Camry, which are both based on the same chassis. What would happen to Toyota if they only sold the Corolla, or only the Camry? How about those new Lexus sports cars coming out? Way cool huh! Without R&D, and product development, Toyota (Lexus) wouldn't have those cool cars. Instead we'd only see the upscale Camry style cars they sell.
Where would they be today? It's the same with any industry, but I'm not going to explain all this again. The problem is if a company that's too specialized it usually finds its self with a very limited market, and Trainz its self is a very small part of an even smaller niche market so having as many different products to offer is an advantage.
So you are wrong... Think and read before you make comments.
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Hot_Box_Detector
Member
As an analogy:
All this reminds me of my recent encounter with our local telephone land line provider. We had DSL service with them. It was failing multiple times per day. After several calls to customer service and an actual on site visit from a technician, they said we needed to increase our DSL speed, at additional cost per month. My reply was this: " you are telling me that if my car isn't running well, the solution would be to drive it faster on the turnpike for a toll charge? Let that sink in...
We dropped our DSL service provider...
All this reminds me of my recent encounter with our local telephone land line provider. We had DSL service with them. It was failing multiple times per day. After several calls to customer service and an actual on site visit from a technician, they said we needed to increase our DSL speed, at additional cost per month. My reply was this: " you are telling me that if my car isn't running well, the solution would be to drive it faster on the turnpike for a toll charge? Let that sink in...
We dropped our DSL service provider...
It's not like this at all. It's a new product, still in development, still has a long way to go, and it does not affect what you have already. The major and important part of 'Next' is the ability to access a multi-user Surveyor package to work on collaborative projects. This will be on a subscription-type basis, as we were told, and you don't have to always subscribe to this.
Given that some of us have been involved with collaborative projects, having this ability is a welcome addition. At the present time, building a collaborative route project requires passing copies of routes back and forth with the risk of something getting out of synch, corrupted, or lost due to being overwritten in error. With the route located on a central server, multiple users can access the route building project at once and work on their specialty. Once the route is completed, the end results can be shared in the same methods we do now.
Hi John,
Just curious, have you guys practice (beta-testing) collaborating on working with sessions?
(If you're allow to reveal that answer -- if you can't it's find if you don't reply, sir ... I understand
)Ish
Hi John,
Just curious, have you guys practice (beta-testing) collaborating on working with sessions?
(If you're allow to reveal that answer -- if you can't it's find if you don't reply, sir ... I understand
Ish
Hi Ish,
We really did and we can talk about it!
We were given a test server to play around with the initial stages of it so the server was more apt to crash unexpectedly. The test required we use built-in content and the work on the server could disappear at any time, which was a bit disheartening when your work was gone the next time you logged in.
But... outside of the test issues, it worked fine. The purpose was to test performance and the interface. We were fooling around so there was no set route, however, when the map was viewed from afar, you could see other people's work and could then go to that area.
The performance was no worse than Surveyor is now, and working on the server versus the local machine felt about the same.
So in summary, it's going to be a good direction to go in when we get there.
John
Hi John,
Wow, that sounds cool ---
You know, sir, it's beyond me why folks post their negative views about a product that they have not seen, or really read about -- Thanks to you, John, who have given us a glimpse, and like myself, have not passed judgement until Tony really lays it all out!
For now on a glimpse, from what you have been reporting, Trainz Next has the possibility to become very successful, especially from a collaborating point of view! So, I am going to assume that Trainz Next could store some new features for the singe-user who might not be into collaborating.
Take Care now, John
Thanks, Ish. I do just that. Let the product speak for its self before passing judgement on it.
The full 'next' version wasn't part of our testing and only the multi-access surveyor part was. I'm sure the single-user features will be interesting just the same.
Thanks John for heads-up, sir
Tony have said that Tane iSP2 is a prelude of what to come, and hopefully something is share!
It's a just curious thing for me since it makes for good conversation!
Ish
hiawathamr
DLC developer for Trainz
Hi all,
Just have a quick question about this next game: will there be an option to build/modify routes on the local machine or are you required to have a subscription to use Trainz?
Just have a quick question about this next game: will there be an option to build/modify routes on the local machine or are you required to have a subscription to use Trainz?
Hi there,
subscription appliesonly to multiplayer surveyor --- let's say you and your buddy want to work together on a route, but he lives on a different continent, then will paid a fee (yet unknown how much) so you two can come together in multiplayer surveyor to build that route at the same time, in real time.
Other then that, trainz Next will function just like TANE .. you buy it, and it will work out of the box! LOL
Kind Regards
Ish
hiawathamr
DLC developer for Trainz
Ok, thank you so much for the info and the example. Sounds like its something that I don't have to worry much.
Looks as though NEXT will be just another bolt-on to TANE like TMR. No harm in that, of course, but it confirms my own suspicion that TANE is a kind of Trainz "plateau" that may not be advanced for some years to come. I assume that SP2 will establish that plateau, so that we can expect no further significant development of TANE.
amigacooke
Well-known member
I don't think so. NEXT will have additional functionality rather than a different content set like TMR.
True, but most of that new functionality will have to do with the MP element, which in my view is what will differentiate NEXT. MP is the bolt-on, the money-machine in this case. No doubt some fixes will be applied to the TANE base, but they will not be substantial. In other words, if you are happy with TANE, and don't want a sub'ed MP, then there will be no good reason to buy NEXT.