TS2012 SP1 Boycott

[nathanmallard]

Hi,
TS2012 SP1 appears to have been a major fail. I have never seen as much excellent content broken by any other patch, in fact, it's not a patch, it's just making TS2012's OCD error checking worse. I saw today a post claiming a well-known UK payware creators content came up broken because it had no thumbnail. Yup, It's actually this bad now. Even built-in content seems to be broken in some reports. Not only this, but N3V has put in an intergrated payware DLC store and automatic patching. This is why Railworks went down the drain, to much control from the producer. Creators are abandoning the Trainz ship rapidly now, even USLW has gone! It's worse for users that are in to steam era UK stuff like me, with loads of creators going. Lielestosbrat, Cmburgess, MichealWhitley to name a few. Even jayholland hasn't posted in a while, although this more likely to do with personal reasons. Skipper1945, PaulzTrainz and Camscott carry valiantly on, but with every user-phobic patch released I fear they will give up too. So I call for a boycott of the new 'patch' until N3V understands we want a return to the old, community-based Trainz that worked so well until N3V messed it up. In TS2014 I hope for a product more like TRS2006, but with all the cool features in the newer versions like seasonal change, LOD, advanced engine scripting and such-and-such, but with plenty of combatibility with older content and none of this error checking rubbish which persists in Trainz 2009-onwards. I can only hope that N3V will listen to us, and return the nice, friendly community-driven Trainz of yesterday, and hopefully more users will join and Trainz will be become the definitive, user-driven, train simulator. So come on, join the revolution!

 

[Davie_UCF]

How has Steam made Railworks go down the drain? Surely just your opinion, steam is great, one of the best things to happen to PC gaming.

Don't forget the N3V team is small and work very hard.. Sp1 has been a long time coming and I fail to see what a boycott would do.. N3v aren't obliged to keep updating your software.. People need to be grateful and give them a chance.

 

[masonup]

Try to fix the faultiness. Some stuff may be not faulty.
By the way, who was the UK content creator? Was the stuff with the no thumbnail faulty before?

 

[Steamdemon]

After reading that Content Manager could become strict on those missing thumbnail warnings...Hmmm, yes. I'm not going for this one. We needed the bug fixes, not the additional stuff.

 

[nathanmallard]

@Masonup: Camscott
@Davie_UCF: Your kidding me! Steam does all sorts of bad stuff to your PC, like installing defective updates behind your back, taking up CPU when I'm not using Railworks and hijacks Internet searches. I only use it to play Railworks anyway.

 

[BLACKWATCH]

After reading that Content Manager could become strict on those missing thumbnail warnings...Hmmm, yes. I'm not going for this one. We needed the bug fixes, not the additional stuff.

You'll be lucky, they're too busy making updates to content that ***** up 2010 at the moment.

 

[socalwb909]

Hi,
I saw today a post claiming a well-known UK payware creators content came up broken because it had no thumbnail. Yup, It's actually this bad now.

-First, I'm not joining anything.
-Second, I just finished updating to SP1. Yes I have a lot of faulty content and Before I updated I knew I had no missing deps and no faulty content. Of my own assets, I only had one faulty asset, cause I was missing a thumbnail. What an easy fix it was.
-Point is, don't get mad at Auran. This sim is pretty much 3rd party based. If all asset creators would follow the guidelines in creating their assets, there would be a lot less faulty content. Build it and do it right the first time and there shouldn't be any future problems. My .02c.

-Joe

 

[LieLestoSbrat]

I can assure folks that I haven't left Trainz yet and I am still creating. I may even have a new loco for you all to play with this year. I just don't get to spend as much time on Trainz as I used to and I also now don't show WIP pictures, I prefer to just release something when it is done. Regarding thumbnail pictures I've always been lead to believe that they have been required for a number of versions, if a creator hasn't been adding them on recent releases then in my view that is a mistake on their behalf, although it is an easy one to fix. Stricter standards with regards to content has been required for a long time and I applaud Auran for getting around and introducing the tighter standards. Yes their is pain for content creators used to the old ways bringing their content up to scratch but the benefit is their for everyone. Remember faulty content slows down the game and no-one enjoys slow running games.

Rob

 

[Swordfish]

@Nathanmallard
You forget one thing, one of the important reasons for TS12 SP1 is not only fixing TS12 but it is obviously a sort of public alpha or beta for the next version TS1x.
It is something as TS 2010 compared with TS12. In TS 2010 you had the compatibility mode, that is why old trainzers are keeping TS 2010 on their hard drive. Then came TS12 with the multiplayer mode, and now another completely new TS12 SP1.
I see, I will have three versions on my PC, TS2010, TS12 and TS12 SP1. Thats why I will install in the next days a new hard disk with 3 TB. After that I will put one by one assets and maps from TS12 to TS12 SP1, looking forward to the new tools made by ianwoodmore and PEV, which will helping convert older content.
My 02c.

Regards
Swordfish

 

[BLACKWATCH]

I can assure folks that I haven't left Trainz yet and I am still creating. I may even have a new loco for you all to play with this year. I just don't get to spend as much time on Trainz as I used to and I also now don't show WIP pictures, I prefer to just release something when it is done. Regarding thumbnail pictures I've always been lead to believe that they have been required for a number of versions, if a creator hasn't been adding them on recent releases then in my view that is a mistake on their behalf, although it is an easy one to fix. Stricter standards with regards to content has been required for a long time and I applaud Auran for getting around and introducing the tighter standards. Yes their is pain for content creators used to the old ways bringing their content up to scratch but the benefit is their for everyone. Remember faulty content slows down the game and no-one enjoys slow running games.

Rob

Rob, I've sent you an email regarding the 9F tender update (kuid2:101839:1043:6) It doesn't work, it has a warning, as 2010 does not recognise aliases.

 

[JEB114]

Yesterday is gone, If you don't go over the speed bumps. you get left behind.....

 

[BLACKWATCH]

Yesterday is gone, If you don't go over the speed bumps. you get left behind.....

Meaning what ???????????/

 

[LieLestoSbrat]

Rob, I've sent you an email regarding the 9F tender update (kuid2:101839:1043:6) It doesn't work, it has a warning, as 2010 does not recognise aliases.

I have that kuid on an email of faulty content from Auran. My gripe with the email it would have been nice it they told you what the errors are. Still I'll find out once I'm patched up.

 

[samplaire]

Don't forget the N3V team is small and work very hard..

So why oh why do they put their hands on such little and stupid things like 'no thumbnail, oh it's dangerous'?

Sp1 has been a long time coming and I fail to see what a boycott would do..

Reading the update list I can't see anything regarding trainz halts once in a while for no reason, why opening a surveyor tab takes so long even on an SSD disk, and so on. These are the real problems not 'the browser window not showing properly'.

N3v aren't obliged to keep updating your software..

Nobody isn't obliged to anything but there is such thing as good manners.

People need to be grateful and give them a chance.

I would be if they respect me.

Thank you.

 

[JCitron]

I can assure folks that I haven't left Trainz yet and I am still creating. I may even have a new loco for you all to play with this year. I just don't get to spend as much time on Trainz as I used to and I also now don't show WIP pictures, I prefer to just release something when it is done. Regarding thumbnail pictures I've always been lead to believe that they have been required for a number of versions, if a creator hasn't been adding them on recent releases then in my view that is a mistake on their behalf, although it is an easy one to fix. Stricter standards with regards to content has been required for a long time and I applaud Auran for getting around and introducing the tighter standards. Yes their is pain for content creators used to the old ways bringing their content up to scratch but the benefit is their for everyone. Remember faulty content slows down the game and no-one enjoys slow running games.

Rob

Hi Rob,

I just fixed one of your assets, I think this is one. It was pretty easy. Check that the thumbnail referenced is the name in your art folder where you put it. I just made the change in the config.txt file which took about 2 seconds.

John

 

[LieLestoSbrat]

Yup, had a few of those on the N2's, sent the fixes to Auran for uploading. Just need to check all my S&C kit now, job for the weekend I think

Rob

 

[Steamdemon]

Which part of the N2's needed fixing?

 

[mjolnir]

The idea of a boycott of SP1 is laughable; it will accomplish nothing.

While I agree that the upgrade could have been handled better by N3V, for example, by announcing that as a result of certain aspects of the upgrade, some content might be broken for a while, and certain other aspects that one might have reasonably assumed might cause issues with the community, such as the change of DLC from add-ons to packages, the fact is, some bugs are going to take a while to find, and will not be fixed until after the release. This is a standard part of software development, and in the final analysis, TS 12 is software and will be subject to the same problems as every other software developer. So you boycott SP1; how do you think this affects N3V? Not the least. They are not charging you for the SP, so no revenue loss, unless you also decide to boycott the next version to be released for which they will charge you money. That could hurt them, but not at the moment.

And the whole attitude of those complaining about broken assets seem to me to be misdirected. Some of the things that are now giving warnings and errors have been part of the standard specifications for several versions.

Frankly, those griping about N3V and the upgrade remind me more than anything of my daugher's maternal grandmother. The lady, may she rest in peace, was of a temperament that if she didn't have something else to complain about, she would complain about having nothing to complain about.

The release occurred less than 100 hours ago. Be patient, friends, and give it time, and it will work itself out.

ns

 

[jointedrail]

USLW is being rebuilt, it's not going anywhere.

 

[ZecMurphy]

I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way Nathanmallard. However, a few corrections to what you have said...

First is that there has been a warning regarding thumbnails for at least 2 years (can't remember exactly when that warning was added, may even have been TS2009...) not being present at all. This is now an error, and we've stated many times that warnings will become errors eventually (note, some may be content build number specific, others will apply to all content).

Now, as to the errors where the thumbnails container is present but directs to a non existant file (e.g. the file has a different name), this is an error in the content, pure and simple, the file is missing. This does consume resources, as Trainz will attempt to locate the file. The DLS has been detecting this particular error for a few months, so new content won't have this issue. However, there has been a delay between the DLS being updated and Trainz being updated with the most recent error checking.

Please note, this error isn't so much targeted at 'thumbnails'. It's targeted at any image referenced in the config.txt that is not present in the asset (e.g. the 'icon' for commodities, the icon for a driver command, images referenced in the string-table for use in the properties menu, images referenced in a texture group, etc). A couple of my texture groups referenced non existent images, and threw up the same error.

Again, this is a situation of the content has always been faulty, just Trainz couldn't detect it until now. With the DLS clean up in process, and authors hopefully updating their content to repair the issue, there shouldn't be too long a delay before the issue is resolved. I know I fixed the random scattering of my own items with this (and other missing image errors) last night, and will be releasing them when I've finished a few I don't have installed...

Regards