I use two simulators more than any other games or computer tools. Trainz and MSFS.
I am a content creator in both realms, likewise a retired railroader and pilot who uses these platforms to recreate true to life settings of times gone by. Assets, videos, imagery and stories.
Attention to detail is important to me and I've chosen these platforms because they interface the tools needed to accomplish this.
As of this moment, BOTH are unusable because of buggy patches. All that money, no products.
To Tony Hillman's credit, he's been engaging the community. I appreciate his presence and thank him for his candour. Very often, issues are a result of something in the client's equipment, but many times these are genuine bugs needing fixes at the compiler itself. Clearly, there are several issues in this patch that cannot be fixed by the customer by reinstalling or rebooting.
One thing I take exception to are the condescending fanbois in this forum who live to wag their fingers at those who are experiencing difficulties by talking down to them about things they already know or have already done. What's worse are their psycho-analytical superpowers they seem to diagnose out of thin air insults about the state of mind of those affected by broken software the most. It's demeaning and only frustrates the issue. It fixes nothing. It's TOTALLY out of line.
I have been a member of this community for a very long time, but under 100 posts. I have created and uploaded hundreds of assets. I've helped dozens of others at no charge to create assets for their sim experiences. Many are obsolete now and I'm okay with that. It meant better meshes and issues fixed. Yesterday, another long standing, highly respected content creator started a thread stating why he was "upset" with the last patch. I get that. I don't blame him one bit. I made a comment about the expectation of a statement from Tony. Yet was met with by one of these online trolls and their insulting comments. The thread was titled with an honest opinion about the OP's emotions, yet mine were attacked for no good reason. I was singled out for this abuse as a complainer and emotionally disturbed. I take exception to that. It was a deliberate personal attack, yet it was allowed to stand. That same person is back today, talking down to everyone in the community that it's just a game and they have no complaint for a 49 dollar product that's broken. It's none of their business what I or others choose to do with this product, no less using it the manner they expect.
I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not flush. I am a coder. A lead coder in one group. Never in 35 versions since 2018 have I signed off on a mess like this. I never had to consider a rollback, ever. The expectation we must follow a protocol for debugging is nothing new. It's understood. However, there is NO burden to do so and it's very frustrating when it's insisted upon, lest we get nothing done. I get paid poorly to do this at work. I am in no mood to do it for nothing when I get home. It abuses volunteers and customers. It looks bad on the dev team, no less the managers that order these released without adequate testing across various systems.
Spending money on a product comes with the expectation it's operable.... irrespective of the cost. Trainz has been good to me over the years. It does not have a reputation of buggy failures in my experience. It deserves the benefit of the doubt from me. I will make this post, comment if need be, then lurk as before.
Again, I thank Mr. Hillman for acknowledging the issue affecting many of us and moreover, for allowing an offline installed rollback. It's becoming obvious, the Kickstarter route is problematic. Kickstarter. The place where crowd funding is canvassed. Will it be fixed or deprecated I don't know? However, the optics of this isn't good. Asking for public money to provide a product, then taking it away does not bode well with building trust. It's the only route I've been using since TANE. Almost everything I've created either depends or suits this route.
Even though stuff is broken in Trainz, it pales in comparison to the clusterf@@k at Asobo with MSFS 2020 going on right now. It blue screened me on the updates and I have not been able to get updates since.
I have lost trust in online dependant servers, especially ones with mandatory patches. I'll favor standalone products only and look upon online dependant ones (or Kickstarted for that matter) with a jaundiced eye from now on. I'm sure I'm not alone in that view.
I am a content creator in both realms, likewise a retired railroader and pilot who uses these platforms to recreate true to life settings of times gone by. Assets, videos, imagery and stories.
Attention to detail is important to me and I've chosen these platforms because they interface the tools needed to accomplish this.
As of this moment, BOTH are unusable because of buggy patches. All that money, no products.
To Tony Hillman's credit, he's been engaging the community. I appreciate his presence and thank him for his candour. Very often, issues are a result of something in the client's equipment, but many times these are genuine bugs needing fixes at the compiler itself. Clearly, there are several issues in this patch that cannot be fixed by the customer by reinstalling or rebooting.
One thing I take exception to are the condescending fanbois in this forum who live to wag their fingers at those who are experiencing difficulties by talking down to them about things they already know or have already done. What's worse are their psycho-analytical superpowers they seem to diagnose out of thin air insults about the state of mind of those affected by broken software the most. It's demeaning and only frustrates the issue. It fixes nothing. It's TOTALLY out of line.
I have been a member of this community for a very long time, but under 100 posts. I have created and uploaded hundreds of assets. I've helped dozens of others at no charge to create assets for their sim experiences. Many are obsolete now and I'm okay with that. It meant better meshes and issues fixed. Yesterday, another long standing, highly respected content creator started a thread stating why he was "upset" with the last patch. I get that. I don't blame him one bit. I made a comment about the expectation of a statement from Tony. Yet was met with by one of these online trolls and their insulting comments. The thread was titled with an honest opinion about the OP's emotions, yet mine were attacked for no good reason. I was singled out for this abuse as a complainer and emotionally disturbed. I take exception to that. It was a deliberate personal attack, yet it was allowed to stand. That same person is back today, talking down to everyone in the community that it's just a game and they have no complaint for a 49 dollar product that's broken. It's none of their business what I or others choose to do with this product, no less using it the manner they expect.
I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not flush. I am a coder. A lead coder in one group. Never in 35 versions since 2018 have I signed off on a mess like this. I never had to consider a rollback, ever. The expectation we must follow a protocol for debugging is nothing new. It's understood. However, there is NO burden to do so and it's very frustrating when it's insisted upon, lest we get nothing done. I get paid poorly to do this at work. I am in no mood to do it for nothing when I get home. It abuses volunteers and customers. It looks bad on the dev team, no less the managers that order these released without adequate testing across various systems.
Spending money on a product comes with the expectation it's operable.... irrespective of the cost. Trainz has been good to me over the years. It does not have a reputation of buggy failures in my experience. It deserves the benefit of the doubt from me. I will make this post, comment if need be, then lurk as before.
Again, I thank Mr. Hillman for acknowledging the issue affecting many of us and moreover, for allowing an offline installed rollback. It's becoming obvious, the Kickstarter route is problematic. Kickstarter. The place where crowd funding is canvassed. Will it be fixed or deprecated I don't know? However, the optics of this isn't good. Asking for public money to provide a product, then taking it away does not bode well with building trust. It's the only route I've been using since TANE. Almost everything I've created either depends or suits this route.
Even though stuff is broken in Trainz, it pales in comparison to the clusterf@@k at Asobo with MSFS 2020 going on right now. It blue screened me on the updates and I have not been able to get updates since.
I have lost trust in online dependant servers, especially ones with mandatory patches. I'll favor standalone products only and look upon online dependant ones (or Kickstarted for that matter) with a jaundiced eye from now on. I'm sure I'm not alone in that view.