Trainz Plus Gold

assets that can only be accessed for a sum of money
If you want the optional extras in a new car, the benefits offered by a club membership, to fly business class, etc , none of which are necessary, then you have to pay extra. You can buy the basic model car, not join the club, fly economy (and still arrive at the same time as the business class flyers) without the extra costs.

DLC assets are not vital for running Trainz (any version). You can buy Trainz (the retail version) and not have to spend any extra money.

There is a free (in the true sense of the word if you ignore the ISP and electricity charges) DLS full of routes, sessions, rolling stock and other assets that you can download.

So what exactly is your issue? Don't you want N3V to offer benefits (and increase their cash flow) for those who are prepared to pay extra?
 
Yes, the DLC that is exclusive to Plus is, you have to keep paying a yearly subscription to continue using it or your access to it ends until you subscribe and pay again. It's DLC that you have to keep paying a yearly fee in order to keep using. If they would also make it available to non-Plus users, I would be fine with that. All non-Plus DLC you pay once and it's yours. This is almost like renting, how you rent an apartment and keep paying in order to stay there or paying for a hotel room. I want the RDC's but not if you have to pay for a Plus subscription. I'll settle for the free ones on the DLS by magicland and pweiser.
 
You are a lot more lucky than we are in the states. No free healthcare here. All Obama did was mandate you had to buy insurance with co-pays and limits.
Correction. It was Joe Lieberman, who lobbied strongly for CIGNA, AETNA and all the other insurance companies in Connecticut for that. The initial plan was for something similar to what the rest of the world has. Gotta love the special interests especially those with lots of money.

Anyway... back to DLC.
 
How about ...

"Included in your monthly/annual Gold subscription is unlimited access to all DLC as well as exclusive Gold member only DLC items - all for no additional charge while your subscription lasts"

... which, while it would cover all the bases, reads like it was written by the legal department instead of the marketing department who would no doubt replace it all with "Free" (which is easier to read) accompanied by a small * that leads to a very small font T&C in a difficult to access part of the web site.

After having written the above, somewhat satirical, passage I decided to search the Trainz Store site for the word "free".

It occurs multiple times when describing the new 3rd party PlantFactory software which is actually free (and is not from N3V) and is going to replace the current licensed SpeedTrees(tm) software.

It also occurs elsewhere (once only) to describe the limited MPS (MultiPlayer Surveyor) option that is available in TRS22 and TRS22PE while the full unlimited version is available only in Trainz Plus. You could argue that it not "free" as you have to purchase TRS22 to be able to use it - in the same way that you could argue that car air-conditioning is not free because you have to buy the car to get it.
 
You could use the same argument to say that the DLS is not actually "free" because you have to buy a copy of Trainz before you can use it.

So what exactly are we arguing over? The semantics of the word "free" or the fact that N3V want non-Gold members to pay for payware content?
 
Then the question I ask is where did this claim come from that N3V are using the word "free" to describe the extras that are available for Trainz Plus Gold membership?

I went back and looked at the Trainz Store site again, and in particular the Trainz Plus Gold section. Nowhere does it state that access to the DLC is "free" for Gold members, nor did it ever use the word "free" in relation to DLC, Trainz Plus standard or Trainz Plus Gold.

Some example - from the web site.
  • "Full DLC Access (over $4000 worth of DLC value)"
  • "Preview Pass to explore new DLC packages before they get released to retail"
Gold members can even purchase and keep DLC outright even if they cancel their subscription. This is despite already getting full access to it all.
  • "25% off all DLC in the Trainz Store"
  • "3x Trainz Rewards accumulate pointz to use on the Trainz Store!" (I don't know what that actually means)
 
"3x Trainz Rewards accumulate pointz to use on the Trainz Store!" (I don't know what that actually means)
Login in to the Trainz Store and on the right with be a orange button labelled Trainz Reward Pointz. Click on it and it will explain how to earn them and how to spend them.
 
Then the question I ask is where did this claim come from that N3V are using the word "free" to describe the extras that are available for Trainz Plus Gold membership?
Has anyone claimed that? I was replying to this post

 
The first post, as you pointed out, that incorrectly used the term "free" when referring to DLC with Gold membership was

Free DLC is only available to gold subscription users.

The discussion then, unnecessarily due to the above error, went into semantics over the meaning of "free" with a following post

DLC that you have to be paying for constantly if you want to use it is really stretching the definition of ‘free’.
 
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This thread has devolved into the equivalent of your wife asking you if this dress make me look fat. There is no answer that will make everyone happy.
 
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