TS2012 SP1 Boycott

[Barry]

I agree to a certain extent, but content creators (especially certain freeware and payware ones) must take part of the blame for this, by failing in some cases to get simple things like making sure all required files are present right.

Shane

Maybe you are fortunate to have all the abundance of free sofware that content creators made over the years.
No I DO NOT TAKE ANY BLAME if an of my old content has so called errors.
When made no errors.
If you make an item and there is no errors shown there are NO ERRORs as how can there be an error when you know nothing about or mention of an error.
If the programming changes and previous object show an error, due to programming changes, then there is an error, but only for the time when the error is observed
I am certainly glad I left Trainz when I did, possibly like many others as attitudes seem very different these days.
Hopefully people may still make free content adapting and changing it to adjust to the continual changing requirements of Trainz.
If not then people will have to make their own content for themselves otherwise you could end up with very little.

Barry
P.S. At least my own Blender content made years ago works fine in the Blender Game Engine when updated to the latest version

 

[JCitron]

Maybe you are fortunate to have all the abundance of free sofware that content creators made over the years.
No I DO NOT TAKE ANY BLAME if an of my old content has so called errors.
When made no errors.
If you make an item and there is no errors shown there is NO ERROR as how can there be an error when you know nothing about or mention of an error.
If the programming changes and previous object show an error then there is an error but only for the time when the error is observed
I am certainly glad when I let Trainz when I did, possibly like many others as attitudes seem very different these days

Barry

Hi Barry nice to see you around these parts these days.

I do agree that big part of the errors we've had at some point are what I call self inflicted. By this I mean that the original developers at Auran worked errors into the configuration files which were then copied into other creator's content. For the most part many of these errors have long been erased from the scene. What we are also seeing is stricter controls on the content. What was allowed to pass through the sieve before isn't allowed before and is now being caught in a finer mesh. This has its good point because it will make the content more consistent and the program more reliable.

With older versions, of Trainz, prior to and into TRS2009, there was very, very little error checking. People introduced all kinds of errors, not including those in the original content. These errors would be ignored by the program as it pushed its way along. This may sound well and good, but it was bad, believe me. Do you remember how many to-the-desktop crashes we used to have? This includes TRS2006, by the way. These errors were caused by faults that the program couldn't overcome and would cause a halt and crash. To overcome this problem, stricter rules were put in place that would force the content to be better compliant. This of course caused a lot of heartache for all of us including the content creators. Many of us downloaders probably have repaired 10,000 or more assets with each upgrade. At this last patch, by the way, I only had 1800 items to repair. That's a far cry from what I've seen previously. Better compliant assets means there is less of a chance that these are causing program faults. By eliminating such easily fixable problems such as these, the developers can concentrate on bigger bugs and new versions without worrying whether a new version will break content, or a major bug maybe the result of bad content versus a program bug.

Now having said this, the current crop of errors is far different than what we had previously. We rarely see any blatant typographical errors in mandatory tags. Things such as desicrptiion instead of description, or catagory-era instead of category-era. I could go on with more examples, are all but long gone unless we've restored old stuff or found it on a third-party site. What we are seeing are now things that were let by before as warnings, but are now required. These things are related to icons missing and thumbnails missing as well as a few other tag-issues. These errors, though a pain to do, are relatively easy to repair. Now should these errors be there in the first place, sure not, but we're all human and errors do happen. Should N3V have forced this issue from day one? I feel they should have and that would have been the end of it. Sadly, we have to contend with this now.

I've pretty much stayed quiet (me quiet??) on this and let the dust settle as I've dutifully repaired what I can. The sad part is, and you're not the only one who says this. The problem is many people really don't understand where N3V and the guys there are going with this. I believe they want to make sure that our beloved program, Trainz TSxx, is the best of the breed and be as stable as possible and the only way to do that is to ensure that the content is error free or very close to it.

John

 

[Barry]

Hello John If at the beginning there was some sort of automatic repair function set up then all would have been well and good. Took me all my time to make content and the configuration files seem to have numerous alternatives. My expertise was drivable ships, etc and some categories could fit into different sections or areas. Vulcan managed to make working locks but far to complex for me.
If there are enough content creators well and good. If there is just criiticism not so good as that just means even less content creators.

Just reading these forums as a bit of relaxation.

Barry

 

[JCitron]

Hello John If at the beginning there was some sort of automatic repair function set up then all would have been well and good. Took me all my time to make content and the configuration files seem to have numerous alternatives. My expertise was drivable ships, etc and some categories could fit into different sections or areas. Vulcan managed to make working locks but far to complex for me.
If there are enough content creators well and good. If there is just criiticism not so good as that just means even less content creators.

Just reading these forums as a bit of relaxation.

Barry

I agree with you on this. There are plenty of excellent content creators and a handful of complainers who scream the loudest. Let's hope it stays this way, and I'm sure once the dust settles down it won't be as bad as people are thinking it is. An auto repair would have been awesome, but sadly many of the errors I've come across in this batch can't be automatically fixed. In some cases the creator has completely boffed the path for the image making this impossible. In other cases the image is referenced but not there. Using some programs that have scripts and batching, I've been able to fix loads of assets that all exhibit the same error, such as a missing preview thumbnail. I open all once, use File Boss and copy the replacement generic thumbnail to all gazillion of these objects. Other repairs aren't so nice which I'm working now. They have broken paths that need to be repaired and then referenced file names that are spelled incorrectly to boot.

I remember when you left for boats instead of trains. That was some time ago. Are you still sailing in your simulators?

John

 

[Barry]

John - only keeping to Blender 3D now both for making my content and maritime simulations in it's game engine up to 12 miles, animations, working locks, moving boats, tides, blender greyscale height map from srtm2 data etc.

Suiits me fine.

Thanks Barry

 

[David111767]

I've updated to sp1 and man was I in for a shock.
All of the speedtrees seem to not be working anymore, as they don't show up. They have no errors in CM though. Same with alot of textures, nearly all of them on a route I am working on don't show up anymore, and are just back to the Grid texture.

 

[Paulsw2]

The only version of Trainz I now have installed is TS12. SP1 is a delight I'm saving for the weekend so I reserve the right to post a completely different point of view on Monday but I've been with Trainz for a long time and so far I haven't seen any good reason to go backwards. TS12 quietly fixed a few things that for me were really annoying in TS10, and in particular the disappearing bogies and trains when viewed through an asset with transparency. It handles eye wateringly high poly counts and texture sizes that were unheard of in the days of 2004 and has materials that can make properly crafted assets look fantastic. In my opinion Trainz is heading in absolutely the right direction, and if more rigorous error checking helps to weed out assets that hurt performance or spoil the game experience in some way then bring it on, I say- even if my own stuff is in there. Assets without thumbnails, or with some generic picture or graphic that gives no idea what the asset is about are pretty much useless when it comes to finding stuff on the dls, so I can't see a problem with this being flagged as an error.

It would be helpful if N3V took documentation a bit more seriously so that creators had a better chance of understanding what might be flagged as a serious error in future versions, but the wiki is a good step in the right direction.

Cheers

R3

Hear, hear! I'm not going to post anything now about SP1 as this is absolutely what I would have said. I'll hold off a little while from installing (just want to know more about the situation with add-ons like SnC and also the situation with Raildriver). But the principle is sound: the game needs to get more stringent to weed out inefficient assets that hold things up.

... The other is the Merchant Navy loco which I need to look at.

That would be great! I got it going in TS12, but it's never been quite right. So it would be fantastic if you were able to update it for the latest build.

Paul

 

[cmburgess]

i havent boycotted/left trainz, im just on a very, very long time away, with UKBL sort of going seperate ways, with Magandy not creating anymore since his loss, Skipper1945 is doing the best he can to keep us UK Steam lovers busy,

the only reason im away from trainz is the fact everytime a new version comes out its all change to creating,, i only have TS2010 and i never really liked it as it would never run right on my pc even though i went out to buy the latest bits it still wouldn't run, but im willing to give it another go in the near future and maybe buy TS2012

at the moment real life things are getting in the way of creating, and i have got to learn it all again with all the changes that have happened,

i promise i will be back one day i did try a brief spell about a year ago, but with work taking most of my time i didn't get much chance to do much, but i wont be just yet as i have alot on my plate at the moment,

Regards
Chris

 

[JCitron]

Hi Chris,

With the newer hotfixes, TS12 SP1 isn't as bad as this thread makes it out to be. There are still some bugs as usual, but the overall performance is much better than it was on the first go around.

Regarding the new methods...

These changes are actually for the better. 99% of older content works fine in TS12 SP1 HF2. In fact I use many, many objects from TRS2004 and sometimes earlier if they suit my needs. What has changed, however, is the reporting of errors. The latest version of Trainz is picky about missing textures, incorrectly formatted config.txt tags and containers and other things. If you haven't seen other threads on this, where I explained the reasoning behind the changes, I'll recap quickly without giving you a book to read.

Early versions of Trainz did not do very much error-checking with the assets. The program would muscle through the errors and continue to load the content anyway. While this may seem like a good method on first thought, it really is not. There were constant stutters and other overall performance issues as the program read through and parsed each line trying to find an a way to make the content work anyway. Eventually, and more often than not, the program would run into a really, really, bad asset that would actually crash the program to the desktop. You probably remember this happening in TRS2004 and even TRS2006. So to N3Vs credit they decided to implement stricter rules for the content. By making the content error free on the get go, there is less chance of the program crashing outright and stuff will load faster making the overall program performance better.

Many of the errors right from the beginning were self inflicted by Auran developers. Sadly, many of the early assets had errors that were duplicated by others that used the original assets as templates. Without any error checking in place, these typos and other mistakes, were never reported in the beginning which only added insult to injury. In some cases, as with textures, GMax and other 3d modeling programs added to the mess with texture slot issues. With the Trainz creator community being the size it is, this snowballed right along very quickly. Other errors were caused by people adding in tags that do not exist, but as said the program ignored those and continued to operate. Now the error trap is tighter and the bugs are being caught right away. This makes things a bit snotty for the users, but the errors are usually repaired quickly using simple text editing and other easy-to-use tools. Today, as we speak, there is a program in place (not a computer program but a community effort) to clean-up older content and make it error free and available once again for use.

I understand life getting in the way! That happens with a lot of us, but step away from the work grind it's much healthier that way. Believe me. I found out the hard way very recently.

Take care,

John

 

[VinnyBarb]

Snip...
Many of the errors right from the beginning were self inflicted by Auran developers. Sadly, many of the early assets had errors that were duplicated by others that used the original assets as templates. Without any error checking in place, these typos and other mistakes, were never reported in the beginning which only added insult to injury. In some cases, as with textures, GMax and other 3d modeling programs added to the mess with texture slot issues. With the Trainz creator community being the size it is, this snowballed right along very quickly. Other errors were caused by people adding in tags that do not exist, but as said the program ignored those and continued to operate. Now the error trap is tighter and the bugs are being caught right away. This makes things a bit snotty for the users, but the errors are usually repaired quickly using simple text editing and other easy-to-use tools. Today, as we speak, there is a program in place (not a computer program but a community effort) to clean-up older content and make it error free and available once again for use.
John

You are so right John, in my early days of content creating I bought the Content Creating Art CDs from AURAN which had among 3DS Max and GMax examples and meshes, texture files etc. also some config.txt files included. Which I, among others copied and adapted for my own created TRS04 content. Nowhere was it said at the time, these configurations were faulty, they showed up WITHOUT errors in TRS and I guess, even some of the old CCGuides might have had build in errors included with their example files.

Had AURAN's error checking when uploading newly created content been more vigorous at that time, many of the errors and warnings for old created content would be a non issue now for TS12 SP1 but as said, this is too late now after the horse has already bolted and gone.

I, as I guess some other content creators, find myself now in a situation of having lost interest in creating (I hope this is only temporary) as I can not be motivated to check content I would want to create in TS09, TS10, TS12 vanilla and TS12 SP1, to see where I might get any hick ups with my content. I am happy to say, all my content created in the last 3 years for TS09 onwards are so far showing error free for the TS versions they were created/made for but I fear the day might be coming, when I might have to rebuild, reconfigure or redo my for TS12 created content, just because the bars/goal posts for creating content have been lifted/moved again.

Content, once created by me for a particular TRS/TS version are working PERFECTLY in these TRS/TS versions they are made for, I certainly will refuse to spend my valuable time recreating/fixing/updating my created content, which as said, had been PERFECTLY working before. I spend a long time creating lovingly, with many details, features and scripting my locomotive content, which on top of it is Freeware, as a hobby but this is now getting to be a chore and a pain in the proverbial.

I now rather watch paint dry or watch the grass grow.

My opinion

VinnyBarb

 

[Mimes]

@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.

I will not install Steam - ever - onto my machines. Bought a copy of Skyrim, but run a modded version without DRM. Once, as it failed to inspire like Oblivion did. Oblivion, one of the best selling games without even a need for a CD key.

People come and go as real life interferes. If Trainz go full DRM ala Steam, as I mentioned in some previous posts, I am going to start knitting. Therefore I will have no need to purchase each Trainz release a couple of times.

Regards, Mimes

 

[BLACKWATCH]

MIMES ..............
Who woke you up ???????

You seem to be doing nothing but opening long DEAD threads, looking at your 'join date' & 'posts', you seem to have
been asleep longer than Rip Van Winkle, if Trainz means so much to you, why have you not 'spoken up' before now ?

If Trainz go full DRM ala Steam, as I mentioned in some previous posts, I am going to start knitting.

Can I put my order in now for a 'Pair of gloves with matching scarf' :hehe:

 

[cascaderailroad]

We should all boycott TS12 SP1 ... Then we can't run the NKP Berkshire ... That would be like: "cutting off your nose, to spite your face".. Besides DRM is here to stay, and we have no voice in the matter ... N3V has made the decision/choice for us !

Support DRM and SP1 ... DRM and SP1 are good for you ... And you will absolutely love it ... whether you like it or not !

 

[BLACKWATCH]

I had no choice, my 'digi download' of TS12 came to me with SP1 + hotfix4 installed, I can't even 'Rollback' to pre SP1 if I wanted.

 

[Mimes]

MIMES ..............
Who woke you up ???????

You seem to be doing nothing but opening long DEAD threads, looking at your 'join date' & 'posts', you seem to have
been asleep longer than Rip Van Winkle, if Trainz means so much to you, why have you not 'spoken up' before now ?



Can I put my order in now for a 'Pair of gloves with matching scarf' :hehe:

Yes, I do fall into a class of original trainz-ers. I am a computer engineer with a wife and 3 crazy kids, which means real life interferes a lot with my trainz life. My "Set Camera Rule" has been on DLS since July 2004 and was downloaded more than 80,000 times. I even have a version now which works mid session. Should really provide that on DLS, as a built in "Set Camera" is great but I have never quite got it working without glitches.

I am also a long time campaigner for implementation of power / fuel management in diesel and electric locos similar way as stam locos are implemented. I believe this should be done via rules. Also steam loco fuel and water consumption should be implemented via rules and be able to be applied to all content e.g. 3rd party steam locos without fuel management.

I have also implemented "fuel" management for electric locos as an "Electric Loco Rule" with some ridiculous scripting but it works: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?32361-Electric-Loco-Rule
and here is the download:
http://www.users.on.net/~mimes/Trainz/Downloads/Electric-Loco-Rule-2k8-10-25.cdp
http://www.users.on.net/~mimes/Trainz/Downloads/ElectricLocoRuleLast.zip

By the above I just want to reaffirm that:
1, Trainz has been my hobby for many, many years now
2, Over the years I send countless hours playing and coding for Trainz
3, Over the years I have supported Trainz franchise with multiple purchases of all versions of Trainz as well as DLC

I used to also be an avid follower of Elder Scrolls, BattleCruiser 3000 / Universal Combat, and Su-27 Flanker franchises. I ceased to follow up and buying all. Skyrim went Steam, UC went Steam and multiplayer, and Flanker went some ridiculous activation DRM, do not remember exactly. Also I have no interest in a multiplayer of any kind. My gaming PC is my evening escape from direct human interaction .

Regards, Mimes

 

[BLACKWATCH]

Looks like you've got your hands full there mate, I don't think you'll have time to do any knitting oh well, I'll have
to see if my missus wants a new hobby, she's got plenty of time now that our kids are all grown up.

 

[Mimes]

Looks like you've got your hands full there mate, I don't think you'll have time to do any knitting oh well, I'll have
to see if my missus wants a new hobby, she's got plenty of time now that our kids are all grown up.

Thank you blackwatch. By the way, how did you manage that nice logo of a steam locomotive next to your posts?

P.S.: Love your "Just say no to DRM". So true, as if Trainz did not sell so successfully without DRM because of DLS and infinite hours of work put into DLC by user for users, who made this good game the best on the planet.

 

[gawpo50]

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!

Finished having a good dummy spit.....!!!!!

 

[Mimes]

Thank you blackwatch. By the way, how did you manage that nice logo of a steam locomotive next to your posts?

Just managed to place one myself - but had to google auran.com

 

[ntesdorf]

Trainz Content

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!

I find myself in complete agreement with Nathan Mallard for other reasons than his own stated. I have TS2006, TC, TS2009, TS2010, and TS2012 on my computer but continue to work in TC as the available content in TS2009 is less numerous and more disappointing. I can run TS2010 but find that loading old versions of Trainz causes bizarre effects that require a lot of work to repair. TS2012 simply won't work on my machine and it will continue so until I am finally forced to replace my machine. As for 'New Era' I am deeply suspicious that nothing old will ever work on it.
I am also sad to see Auran drifting farther from the old crowd-based sourcing. If there was a new product from Auran that worked better and accepted TC Content, I would immediately buy it.
Now when I use content Manager to produce CPD's, etc, after logging in, I quietly disconnect the modem owing to the damage that Auran Content updating does to good old content. If I want new content, I download on another computer to stop Auan damaging my old content. This is a sad situation at which to have arrived.

ntesdorf