Who is first?
- Thread starter srude
- Start date
Fair point Bill. But, I would be willing to bet that the amount of 04 users are not as high as everyone thinks. Everyone has their reasons for doing what they do. I have mine, you have yours and Auran has theirs.
What I think does not matter to many of you. To many in this community, I am one of the diehard 04 dregs. I'm an alienator. I'm not a supporter of Auran. I'm this and that. You are entitled to your opinion. Those that know me know differently. I've been with this community for 7 years. I speak my thoughts and feelings. I've had some minor quarrels with some in this community. Sometimes, things I say are taken out of context. Sometimes I take things out of context. That is life, misunderstandings happen.
Yes, it is a business. I've never disagreed with that. But failing to satisfy your customers does not entice them to want to be repeat customers. I do know this as I run a small business of my own.
What I think does not matter to many of you. To many in this community, I am one of the diehard 04 dregs. I'm an alienator. I'm not a supporter of Auran. I'm this and that. You are entitled to your opinion. Those that know me know differently. I've been with this community for 7 years. I speak my thoughts and feelings. I've had some minor quarrels with some in this community. Sometimes, things I say are taken out of context. Sometimes I take things out of context. That is life, misunderstandings happen.
Yes, it is a business. I've never disagreed with that. But failing to satisfy your customers does not entice them to want to be repeat customers. I do know this as I run a small business of my own.
I don't know about the rabbit Chris but I've got one for you. Notice that it uses default auran track, default engine and one of my creations. Now in compat mode, you can see everything through the windows. But in native, you can only see the track through the windows. Any idea why ?
Compat Mode
http://www.mikestrainzcreations.com/temp/compatability.jpg
Native Mode
http://www.mikestrainzcreations.com/temp/native.jpg
Compat Mode
http://www.mikestrainzcreations.com/temp/compatability.jpg
Native Mode
http://www.mikestrainzcreations.com/temp/native.jpg
Uh, because you have a train stuck in a barn?
In all seriousness, the root cause is that we no longer sort alpha-blended objects. This type of sorting is a massive performance hog and the correct solution is to avoid situations where it becomes necessary. Overlapping alpha blended materials is the only serious gotcha, but in practical terms, the issue is exacerbated by the compatibility support code so some situations which you'd normally expect to work don't.
The particular issue you're demonstrating here may already be fixed in SP3 (available now, if you haven't already got it) or SP4 (not yet available) but if you'd like us to test your specific content then by all means email clear repro steps to trainzdev@auran.com, including any necessary content which isn't available on the DLS, and we can check it out for you.
kind regards,
chris
I was just curious if you knew why the track showed through but not the loco. These images were taken with sp3 installed. As for testing the content, it's not important.
I'm confused as to how this will work for doing windows. Or is that what you say about trying to get away from ?
I'm confused as to how this will work for doing windows. Or is that what you say about trying to get away from ?
Draw order. The track is obviously being drawn first, then the building, then the train. In compatibility mode, the alpha polygons are being sorted to the front so that both the glass and the item behind it are visible. In native mode, that isn't necessary- but alphas should be drawn on top anyway so there's something more subtle going on here that's preventing that from working as expected. Probably relating to the fact that the train is a dynamic object and the building and track are not.
We need to specifically avoid overlapping layers of windows. One layer of windows against a solid background should work.
chris
Hi Everybody.
Again I think this technical argument regarding whether content created for Trainz is suitable or not for the Download Station upholds the very point I was making. Being what many would consider on these forums a fairly new user of the game I am completely baffled by the technicalities of your argument. I also suspect that many others similar to me viewing this thread would feel they are in the same position.
Arguments as to whether or not content is of suitable quality for whatever version of Trainz that content is produced for should be held at the time that the content is being placed on the DLS and rejected by Auran if they feel it is not. Any arguments around that issue should be conducted between the content creator and Auran through private e-mail and negotiation.
I suspect that like me many people come to these forums after buying their first version of Trainz or upgrading their versions to the latest one. I also suspect that many people purchasing their first Trainz simulator immediately run the installed routes and then wish to build their own route looking to the forum for support and advice, (something that the forum is excellent at providing).
However, I believe that Auran should be looking at this community (if that is what it is) much more in the light of existing and future prospective customers, because that is what we are "customers", the present and future providers of Auran income.
Most of these customers are not content creators and will not go on to become content creators. They are not looking to generate income from creations, to them Trainz is an interest or as many of us find it becomes a hobby. So what are we looking for from Auran as customers in support for our interest or hobby.
Speaking for myself I would like to see a dedicated 24 hour helpline set up which supports and advises customers who have just purchased the latest Aurran products and who may be having problems in downloading and setting up the software. This helpline would only be available to the above group of customers and only for a limited period of time following the purchase. This would show company care and commitment towards new purchasers which always go down well with prospective returning customers thinking of buying future products and upgrades from Auran.
Of course things like the above helpline have to be paid for, but as I have already said earlier in this thread Trainz is a niche market, and customers of niche markets are normally prepared to pay a little extra to see their market maintained in a stable and satisfactory manner. I also believe that Auran could generate income from payware content creators by allowing them to place their products on the download station at an advertised price. Obviously this would be a big change but it could have reciprocal benefits for both Auran and the content creators from the enlarged advertising platform it would provide for both of them.
Obviously, much of the above would involve radical new thinking but as many companies have found in the last two years of recession radical change can bring about a better company with better products and through that better customer satisfaction
Bill
Again I think this technical argument regarding whether content created for Trainz is suitable or not for the Download Station upholds the very point I was making. Being what many would consider on these forums a fairly new user of the game I am completely baffled by the technicalities of your argument. I also suspect that many others similar to me viewing this thread would feel they are in the same position.
Arguments as to whether or not content is of suitable quality for whatever version of Trainz that content is produced for should be held at the time that the content is being placed on the DLS and rejected by Auran if they feel it is not. Any arguments around that issue should be conducted between the content creator and Auran through private e-mail and negotiation.
I suspect that like me many people come to these forums after buying their first version of Trainz or upgrading their versions to the latest one. I also suspect that many people purchasing their first Trainz simulator immediately run the installed routes and then wish to build their own route looking to the forum for support and advice, (something that the forum is excellent at providing).
However, I believe that Auran should be looking at this community (if that is what it is) much more in the light of existing and future prospective customers, because that is what we are "customers", the present and future providers of Auran income.
Most of these customers are not content creators and will not go on to become content creators. They are not looking to generate income from creations, to them Trainz is an interest or as many of us find it becomes a hobby. So what are we looking for from Auran as customers in support for our interest or hobby.
Speaking for myself I would like to see a dedicated 24 hour helpline set up which supports and advises customers who have just purchased the latest Aurran products and who may be having problems in downloading and setting up the software. This helpline would only be available to the above group of customers and only for a limited period of time following the purchase. This would show company care and commitment towards new purchasers which always go down well with prospective returning customers thinking of buying future products and upgrades from Auran.
Of course things like the above helpline have to be paid for, but as I have already said earlier in this thread Trainz is a niche market, and customers of niche markets are normally prepared to pay a little extra to see their market maintained in a stable and satisfactory manner. I also believe that Auran could generate income from payware content creators by allowing them to place their products on the download station at an advertised price. Obviously this would be a big change but it could have reciprocal benefits for both Auran and the content creators from the enlarged advertising platform it would provide for both of them.
Obviously, much of the above would involve radical new thinking but as many companies have found in the last two years of recession radical change can bring about a better company with better products and through that better customer satisfaction
Bill
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Hi Bill,
Thanks for a thoughtful post.
Exactly
All very true
I'm not convinced that this is the case. It is my experience that a great many users wish to get as much as possible for as little as possible. I don't mean that to belittle anyone, it's simple human nature and common sense.
Ideally, we'd sell Trainz at, say, US$3000 per edition - maybe one new version every two years. We'd include professional-level tools, all new content. We'd provide live support and discounted training courses. The product will blow the socks off any enthusiast. Sound like it will work? Sadly, I don't think so. Most people have a very limited "budget" for entertainment. So we're stuck with selling an average-priced game to a niche market.
Okay, so maybe the above is a bit of an exaggeration, and there's some middle ground - say we raise the price by only 50%? What will that get us? Expectations will be waaay up- since if we're charging that much, it must obviously be massively superior to our regular product, right? Except it won't be. We'll be spending it all on that live helpdesk, and the product will be just the same as it would have been anyway.
That's not to say that we don't consider such things- but there needs to be a big shift in how we do business before we could consider any alternative to the current business model.
This is certainly a direction we've wanted to explore for a long time. It's incompatible with the way the download station works at the moment, so we'd have to change how the DLS works and of course that will break compatibility with older products. Oh, sounds familiar?
While we're talking hypothetical business models, here's another curve-ball: the subscription-based model, like a magazine. We charge a yearly fee for access to everything- the DLS, the game software, everything. We use the money to update the software and to sponsor additional content creation. This one is something that I personally think makes a lot of sense- but whether the 'average joe' agrees with me is another question altogether.
chris
Thanks for a thoughtful post.
Exactly
All very true
I'm not convinced that this is the case. It is my experience that a great many users wish to get as much as possible for as little as possible. I don't mean that to belittle anyone, it's simple human nature and common sense.
Ideally, we'd sell Trainz at, say, US$3000 per edition - maybe one new version every two years. We'd include professional-level tools, all new content. We'd provide live support and discounted training courses. The product will blow the socks off any enthusiast. Sound like it will work? Sadly, I don't think so. Most people have a very limited "budget" for entertainment. So we're stuck with selling an average-priced game to a niche market.
Okay, so maybe the above is a bit of an exaggeration, and there's some middle ground - say we raise the price by only 50%? What will that get us? Expectations will be waaay up- since if we're charging that much, it must obviously be massively superior to our regular product, right? Except it won't be. We'll be spending it all on that live helpdesk, and the product will be just the same as it would have been anyway.
That's not to say that we don't consider such things- but there needs to be a big shift in how we do business before we could consider any alternative to the current business model.
This is certainly a direction we've wanted to explore for a long time. It's incompatible with the way the download station works at the moment, so we'd have to change how the DLS works and of course that will break compatibility with older products. Oh, sounds familiar?
While we're talking hypothetical business models, here's another curve-ball: the subscription-based model, like a magazine. We charge a yearly fee for access to everything- the DLS, the game software, everything. We use the money to update the software and to sponsor additional content creation. This one is something that I personally think makes a lot of sense- but whether the 'average joe' agrees with me is another question altogether.
chris
Well $3000 is a bit steep, but as it is now Trainz is just about the cheapest form of entertainment I know of measured in cost per hour of entertainment. Would there be room for a "professional" edition containing some of the things you mention above such as really good content creator guides and tutorials that might sell in the range of say Photoshop's cost, ie in the hundreds, but not the thousands. I for one would be interested in such a product. You could still sell the current version at it's current price, it just wouldn't have all the professionl features (whatever they turn out to be).
Well, firstly, due to the high cost of producing such content, we'd need to sell nearly as many "professional edition" products as we currently sell standard versions of Trainz. So no, having a handful of users wouldn't cut it. Otherwise, this would be a great move.
Secondly, Photoshop CS4 costs more than AUS$1000. Professional software features really do come with with a professional software price-tag.
chris
Annual Charge
Hi
I'm an 'average Joe' who wants to see the Trainz series continuing well into the future and I can see significant merit in your last point in helping to enable this to happen. A nominal annual charge for the DLS and Forums could go a long way to making Aurans operation sufficiently profitable to encourage them to continue to develope the improvements we all want to see. If the charge was pitched around £10UK a year I think many if not most members would react positively particularly if it was linked to a commitment from Auran to continue to support and develope the product for not less than (say) five years. I would!
Ken
Hi
I'm an 'average Joe' who wants to see the Trainz series continuing well into the future and I can see significant merit in your last point in helping to enable this to happen. A nominal annual charge for the DLS and Forums could go a long way to making Aurans operation sufficiently profitable to encourage them to continue to develope the improvements we all want to see. If the charge was pitched around £10UK a year I think many if not most members would react positively particularly if it was linked to a commitment from Auran to continue to support and develope the product for not less than (say) five years. I would!
Ken
I can't see much of a benefit/improvement for Auran if the annual cost is less than the price of a FCT is now, which this would be. Sure, they might have a few more people buy the annual DLS access, than buy FCTs, but I wouldn't risk a company on it - many would just resolve themselves to using other sites to get their assets.
Realistically, I imagine it would need to be somewhere more around £25-30/year, ie not far off the price of buying a new copy of trainz every year (yes, I know he said 'new releases every 2 years' in the hypothetical situation presented, but you'd also be abolishing FCTs essentially).
I don't think that'd fly with a lot of people, to be honest.
Hi everybody.
Well at least on this thread we seem to have everybody thinking of the future rather than as in other threads on the same topic payware content creator vested interest undoubtedly hold sway. (Let's not move an inch because it wouldn't suit me thinking)
With regard to the excellent postings by Windwalkr, he makes strong argument regarding the position of Auran in a niche market and how the company sees the future and sets itself up in that position. In that I would return to my earlier posting on this thread regarding the company that produces the text to speech software that I am using at this minute. As I said they to are working in a niche market and have always maintained close contact with new and returning purchasers of their products.
The 24 hour help line I mentioned is available for all customers buying their products for a limited period after purchase. I have never had any cause to contact that line but its continued availability after quite a number of years just proves that others must have used the services somewhat extensively. Further to that, after every purchase a customer makes we always receive an e-mail linking to a tick box form asking various questions about our use and satisfaction with the software and what further developments we would like to see.
It would seem that the above has brought about a number of versions of the text to speech software dependent upon the requirements of the user. The basic version costs around £80 (UK currency). After that there is a wireless version which enables the user to wear a cordless microphone allowing him or her to move around while dictating to the software. This version costs in the region of £160 which is what I am using now.
Following that there is a version for legal people such as solicitors costing I believe in the region £300-400. There are Medical versions for professional healthcare customers costing around the same price and a special version for software developers which includes all the technical jargon they use which I believe retails at around £700.
These specialized versions are providing for a niche market within a niche market. They have come about by the company providing and developing the software always keeping close contact with its customer base and providing what they wish. As stated the various versions come at a high-cost, but the development and marketing must have been successful because several of them have been on offer for several years.
It is my firm belief that if Auran were to develop the same relationship with its customer base then specialized versions would be viable or at least it would be known whether they were viable in advance of any expenditure on development being made. As Windwalkr advised Auran are a company operating in a niche market. To many who read these forums it is obvious they also operate at present under the weight of supporting older products with at least a sizable minority of those users reluctant to upgrade as long as they can still find support for those older versions.
On top of the above they also have a large number of payware content creators who rely on these forums for their marketing and yet contribute nothing directly to the company that they derive their income from. Many of those would argue that their content creation contributes a large amount to the viability of the Aurran product so they should not have to contribute further as far as money is concerned. That I think may well be a separate debate.
However, without doubt if Auran are to be successful into the future it has to get closer contact with its most recent and new customers. In a niche market you have to be aware of exactly what your income providing customers require and target your products to that requirement. That I believe is the way to Trainz\Auran success and to long-term customer satisfaction.
Bill
Well at least on this thread we seem to have everybody thinking of the future rather than as in other threads on the same topic payware content creator vested interest undoubtedly hold sway. (Let's not move an inch because it wouldn't suit me thinking)
With regard to the excellent postings by Windwalkr, he makes strong argument regarding the position of Auran in a niche market and how the company sees the future and sets itself up in that position. In that I would return to my earlier posting on this thread regarding the company that produces the text to speech software that I am using at this minute. As I said they to are working in a niche market and have always maintained close contact with new and returning purchasers of their products.
The 24 hour help line I mentioned is available for all customers buying their products for a limited period after purchase. I have never had any cause to contact that line but its continued availability after quite a number of years just proves that others must have used the services somewhat extensively. Further to that, after every purchase a customer makes we always receive an e-mail linking to a tick box form asking various questions about our use and satisfaction with the software and what further developments we would like to see.
It would seem that the above has brought about a number of versions of the text to speech software dependent upon the requirements of the user. The basic version costs around £80 (UK currency). After that there is a wireless version which enables the user to wear a cordless microphone allowing him or her to move around while dictating to the software. This version costs in the region of £160 which is what I am using now.
Following that there is a version for legal people such as solicitors costing I believe in the region £300-400. There are Medical versions for professional healthcare customers costing around the same price and a special version for software developers which includes all the technical jargon they use which I believe retails at around £700.
These specialized versions are providing for a niche market within a niche market. They have come about by the company providing and developing the software always keeping close contact with its customer base and providing what they wish. As stated the various versions come at a high-cost, but the development and marketing must have been successful because several of them have been on offer for several years.
It is my firm belief that if Auran were to develop the same relationship with its customer base then specialized versions would be viable or at least it would be known whether they were viable in advance of any expenditure on development being made. As Windwalkr advised Auran are a company operating in a niche market. To many who read these forums it is obvious they also operate at present under the weight of supporting older products with at least a sizable minority of those users reluctant to upgrade as long as they can still find support for those older versions.
On top of the above they also have a large number of payware content creators who rely on these forums for their marketing and yet contribute nothing directly to the company that they derive their income from. Many of those would argue that their content creation contributes a large amount to the viability of the Aurran product so they should not have to contribute further as far as money is concerned. That I think may well be a separate debate.
However, without doubt if Auran are to be successful into the future it has to get closer contact with its most recent and new customers. In a niche market you have to be aware of exactly what your income providing customers require and target your products to that requirement. That I believe is the way to Trainz\Auran success and to long-term customer satisfaction.
Bill
amigacooke
Well-known member
Spiffy and Zec Murphy don't count then?
It would appear that Zec is employed by N3V or Auran Games....
Note his sig here: Community Assistant and CSR for Auran Games. But I do think that he is not based at the office.... think he works off-site.
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showpost.php?p=571601&postcount=4
Thanks and have a good day,
amigacooke
Well-known member
Announcements are communication too I think.