Trainz purchased on Steam - advantages/disadvantages

Thank you Pommie,

I really needed that, having a bad morning it was so refreshing, so funny, so great!!!

Really ROFLMAO

More of that, I need to loose some weight, and Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Ass Off is helpful. LOL

with a big grin on my face, a little sore on my back though :hehe: I can meet the day and all it has to bring with such a joy in my heart I can't say it enough.

THANKS

Linda
 
Pommie that's magnificent, there is another one similar to that in existence, equally as funny, but, somewhat rather rude, and certainly not fit for the family forum on here......

I would answer to the original poster's question, but, the major queries seem to have been replied to, my 2 major personal gripes, are that you have the option of turning on and off the automatic updates, which is fine, however, if you need a patch or service pack it gets installed straight onto your C;Drive, which can bugger your system up, if there is anything wrong with the SP's, from NV3, I would personally prefer a patch being provided and you can install it, or not, at your own convenience, and having the knowledge of what content is exactly on there.
The other thing is that Steam are a 3rd party which you need to have an account with, if anything untoward happens with your account, they just freeze it, so, you can't access any games at all through the Valve database, and from stories I've read, it took several weeks of hassle and e-mails, to get the account re-instated, so, you loose all that leisure time.
Steam, as a website, is fine, I've downloaded some other PC games and their demo versions of things like Mafia II, it was quick and easy, so, I have nothing against the service they provide the community, in fact, it's rather good.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 
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fattymoon said:
Finally, are there any advantages to purchasing Trainz via Steam? (There's one I know of... apparently Trainz 12 is automatically updated... I noticed the build number jumped from 46957 to 47103.)
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Lucky you! I bought TS 2010 via steam and it hasn't got a single update since it's release. Now Auran/N3V just sits beside EA on my "do not buy" list.
 
I would love to take credit for that gif, but I grabbed it off the net ages ago and forget where I got it.

Cheers David
 
That was freaking hilarious! I had to put it on my blog.

As to why I grabbed Trainz off Steam is because, quite frankly, I didn't know any better. I'm saving my pennies for a boxed copy from the developers here.

This Steam stuff started with me when I bought the Orange Box in a retail store. Darned if I could play it till I hooked into Steam. (I just bought Portal 2 boxed locally and I imagine the same thing will happen.)
 
Capharnaum said:
Lucky you! I bought TS 2010 via steam and it hasn't got a single update since it's release. Now Auran/N3V just sits beside EA on my "do not buy" list.

duh youo will have to bug steam for the updates for trainz,,,, there version of trainz is diffencet rom the one you but from nv3
Click to expand...
 
Update on the disappearing Duchess add-on from Steam... It appears that, perhaps, there was a glitch that caused The Duchess to show up even though it's not ready for prime time... "Hello Jeffrey Field, Thank you for contacting Steam Support. It's possible there was a mistake within our system, causing the content to be advertised early. The page for this content will be available as soon as the content is released. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Meanwhile, although I would dearly love to throw all my assets (OK, not ALL MY ASSETS) at Auran, for now I shall bide my time and try to get Steam and Auran to cooperate in the spirit of, um, cooperation? (Besides, I am such a noob that I have hours and miles to log on to what I already have without messing with downloads/route creation, etc. I admit, I'm somewhat intimidated by it all. Hence my purchase of Crazy Machines 2 Complete... http://www.crazymachinesgame.com/ Stella and I are working together to solve the cool physics conundrums.
 
cascaderailroad said:
Why would anyone digital download, from a secondary suppier ... when they could have gotten the "real deal" hard disc, directly from the manufacturer ?
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Well, sorry to be the bearer of unpopular news, but ... in the future you're going to see less and less software distributed on optical disks. Digital downloads are the shape of things to come, like it or not. You can hide from "The Cloud" but I don't think there will be any escape from it. It's already less costly for businesses to sell software via download, and broadband internet makes it possible. At the university where I work, we're at the point where we don't really need DVD/CD drives in the workstations any longer. And, as has not been mentioned here, a digital download of Trainz like NV3 is offering can easily be burned to disk or stored on hard drive(s). Not so with Steam, which is truly "from The Cloud".

I purchased TS2010 via Steam. The advantages: being able to run it on my laptop or either of my home desktops. Disadvantages: As mentioned before, no patch control and late updates. For me that's not been a problem. Not yet anyway. I bought TS2012 directly from N3V via digital download. No disks to get scratched, degraded, or lost. The installer files are stored on two separate external hard drives. Good enough for me.
 
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ftldave said:
I purchased TS2010 via Steam. The advantages: being able to run it on my laptop or either of my home desktops. Disadvantages: As mentioned before, no patch control and late updates. For me that's not been a problem. Not yet anyway. I bought TS2012 directly from N3V via digital download. No disks to get scratched, degraded, or lost. The installer files are stored on two separate external hard drives. Good enough for me.
Click to expand...

FYI, another advantage to buying from Auran: All the same as Steam, with none of the disadvantages, including the major one that Steam can turn off your game if they decide they don't want to support it.
 
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According to Steam, you can "backup and restore games" ... the option is under "Steam" far left top screen. Haven't tried it yet. Also, I see that The Duchess is now for sale on Steam.

FYI, these are the games I have on Steam - Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth found it easier to play than the xBox version), Cargo! - The Quest for Gravity (cause you can build crazy machines), Defense Grid: The Awakening, Empire: Total War (which I gave up on since grabbing Rome: Total War, which I love), Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2:Episode One; Half-Life 2:Episode Two, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Portal, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress 2 Beta, Trainz Simulator 12 (but you knew that), and The Void (a truly bizarre title).

Maybe I'll buy a cheap external drive and see if I can back them up.
 
I couldn't help myself!

Railworks 2 half price... $17.49... via email notification... so I went to the Railworks homepage, figuring I'll grab it there, but, instead, I'm directed to Steam.

I pause... thinking... I don't really need this... but then I see the clincher - included in the deal is a DLC of the BNSF diesels. Yikes! Those are the trains that run through my town!

Yeah, so I'm posting this via iPhone while downloading the deal. At best, I'll be able to offer an unbiased look at Railworks 2 and Trainz 12 as delivered by Steam. At first, my comments will be quite basic - graphics, sound, etc. I don't know how long it will take me to begin creating my own routes... maybe never. As in chess, I'm just a patzer.
 
I have another question... Trainz 12 runs (almost) unacceptably slowly on my PC. Specs are here... only upgrade is a larger power supply and an NVIDIA 8800GT.http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/12132708-12133156-12133158-12133158-12133158-80631744-81110304.html

By that I mean, depending on the route, it either runs OK (30 fps I'm guessing) or in fits and starts. Map view is extremely slow to redraw. Draw distance is poor, like seeing tracks magically appear ahead of you instead of already there!

Before I start the game I use task manager to shut down all non essentials and then I start Game Booster Premium.

I've played Crysis on this set-up (minus Game Booster) and it was fine. So... my question...

Is the slowness possibly due because I'm tethered to Steam when I play Trainz 12? (Remember, that's where I got the game.) Would I see a performance difference if I wiped the Steam version off my drive and downloaded Trainz 12 from Auran?
 
No, I think you would still be disappointed. My rig is not that far from yours and I consider it bottom rung for Trainz these days. It's frustrating to be able to run most games with settings maxed, then Trainz runs like a stain in your shorts! I have 12, not from Steam, and have learned most every trick over the years to squeeze a bit more out of an aging system.
 
It could make some difference. You'll wring a good bit of extra performance out of a system by running it offline - meaning no anti-virus, firewalls, even the network connection itself terminated, etc. That's not an option for Steam users. Interestingly, your system's almost the same as my internet machine - you have a far better GPU though, but I run XP - which also has a copy of TS2010 on it I rarely use. I can pretty much maintain 30 fps on any route with that with all settings except AA maxed out (AA at 4.) On that machine, though, my AV only runs on demand and my firewall is a lightweight packet filter.
 
Actually it IS an option for STEAM users, once you have a STEAM game updated you can set it to run in offline mode, unplug the cable, take a fire axe to the modem and the game will run forever.

I bought Half Life 2 in 2004, lost the disks, changed computers, operating systems, IP service and email, even moved to a different state but can still download and install Half Life 2 from STEAM any time I want to play it again.
That said, altho I've always had no problems with STEAM and there are a few advantages to it, given a choice between a game that will install with no DRM and one that has DRM I'll choose no DRM. Choice between a version that you have to register online and a version with no DRM I'll choose no DRM. Choice between a game like Silent Hunter IV where you have to register online ONCE, and Silent Hunter V where you MUST always be connected to the internet to play it at all, I'll keep playing SH IV and you can keep SH V.

Main disadvantage I see with the STEAM version of Trainz is that the patches for the "normal" version are usually available for download here long before the STEAM version updates are even on the horizon.
 
Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. One thing I forgot to mention is I jave all the video options maxed out, so before I do anything rash, I'm going to take them back by half and watch the result.
 
Steam Trainz12 can be run without steam, if you start trainz12 from within the folder steam installed trainz in, it starts without any steam in the background just like the regular boxed Trainz.

Biggest downside of steam version is, it takes ages for steam too get a patch online, still on 47103 while there are 2 more patches released for trainz resently wich arent working for the steam version.
And there is no eta when steam desides too put a new patch up..

Steam has a backup option too backup too CD/DVD in a self-unpacking backup wich works great (used it when i replaced my HD) even all my DLC and downloaded assets and self created assets where backuped on that Steambackup..

But still it was my first and last purchase on steam for trainz, because i like too keep my trainz up-to-date with the latest patches, something wich seems impossible with steam to do due too the buildnumber crazyness with Trainz, seems every distribution version has a different buildnumber :S
 
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