Why are these assets not packaged in TRS22?

[JCitron]

So I have heard. In my very few attempts at using Discord I found it chaotic and confusing. In contrast to these forums which have more structure and some semblance of logic to them.

I belong to a few "servers" on Discord. It's not Discord itself and it's how the servers are managed.

Then there's N3V's chaotic mess. These are the youngsters that we've told to grow up and put their big boy pants on when on the forums here. The server is moderated, but it must be awfully stressful and would be in my opinion, be like herding chickens.

The various conversations are the same repeated over and over because no one reads what someone else has posted. When I attempted to do some support on Discord, I was met with some rude responses telling me I dint know what I was talking about. Another time I made the fatal mistake of posting a response or two to some "older" threads that were a few days old which was met with some more rude responses. Then there were other threads where the original poster ignored what I posted and posted the same question again a bit later!

After that, I gave up. If this is what N3V wants, they can keep it.

 

[N3VSupport]

Hi All
To confirm, the Trainz Plus Standard or Gold exclusive DLC packs aren't available for purchase, they are exclusive to the memberships only. The Trainz Store requires us to list a price in them, and listing it as 'free' is inaccurate to most people as well (instead the store very clearly states the DLC is exclusive to the relevant subscription). Due to the way that the Content Store tool was originally designed, it does require the DLC pack to also be present in the Trainz Store to display it's name, description, and preview image correctly.

The creators of DLC packs do get paid for the use of their content in subscription versions (the TCCP website does detail the way this is calculated, so creators can be aware of how it works with their content), and hence the set price also ensure that the calculations for paying content creators for the use of their DLC packs through gold subscriptions can be done correctly; as the exclusive content goes through the same system, this ensures that it is done fairly for all creators.

In regards to the discord server; we do have moderators monitoring this. However it is also, simply put, a discussion area. Sometimes discussions become heated; and sometimes discussions continue with 'breaks', since messages can be replied to/quoted at any time. If another user feels they have something to add to a discussion, they will do so; so long as they don't break the rules then the mods generally won't need to step in. Dissenting opinions may result in ongoing discussions, as that's generally how discussions work.

We do understand that a few people may not be a fan of the subscription exclusive DLC packs, but at the end of the day these are developed for these subscriptions (or potentially future builtin use, or may be included in platinum editions later on), and the development is supported by the subscriptions; so the other option would be that we simply don't produce them, and those who have subscribed would instead not be able to access that content.

Regards

 

[wreeder]

The clue is in the name.
dis·cord
[ˈdiˌskôrd]
noun

1. disagreement between people:

 

[Smileyman]

Necro an old thread!

An updated HST 125 with all the bells and whistles?
Take my £25 N3V! Take it now!!

I have to subscribe first, and then I can buy it, but if I stop subscribing I lose the HST set and my £25?
Err, nah, you're alright thanks.

Regards,
Smiley (a consumer).

 

[HPL]

You can't even buy it (see the store description here).

 

[Smileyman]

You can't even buy it (see the store description here).

I know.
That's the whole point of what I was saying.
(Maybe read my post again?)

I looked at the store earlier, and there's £64 worth of rolling stock that I would buy right now if it was available (it's either locked behind subscription or TRS22 only, and I'm using TRS2019), and another £60+ that I would normally buy for TRS2019, but won't because of the stuff that I really want being locked behind the subscription.

It's a very strange business model, but obviously there's enough people 'locked in' because of the payware they've already bought, which enables N3V to keep going.

You know, I subscribe to a few things, like we all do, but even though I can afford it, I tend to rather not.
It's just not something I like.
But I'll tell you this.
I would be more likely to subscribe to Trainz Plus if all the DLC was available to buy.
And because some of it is TRS2022 only, I'd almost certainly buy that to be able to use them.

I wouldn't need 'rewards'.
I would see it as a way to repay or support the company (I've done that in the past, buying versions of Trainz for other people for instance), and besides, the reward you get for subscribing is getting features early and discounts, and possibly N3V's ear on some things.

Still, it's their house.

How long has that HST been available now?

Wait!
Didn't I see a BR Class 47 on there the other day?
If I did, you can add that to what I'd buy right now.

Never mind.
I'll treat the missus instead.

 

[Forester1]

I would be more likely to subscribe to Trainz Plus if all the DLC was available to buy.

I was under the impression that with Trainz Plus pretty much everything is available to purchase? Possibly with a discount? Or is that only for Gold?

 

[jaredvazquez012]

I was under the impression that with Trainz Plus pretty much everything is available to purchase? Possibly with a discount? Or is that only for Gold?

If I understand this page correctly, Trainz Plus Gold does give you full access to DLC content. Trainz Plus Standard only gives you HD Terrain and Multiplayer Surveyor alongside being the first try new content and features.

 

[Smileyman]

I was under the impression that with Trainz Plus pretty much everything is available to purchase? Possibly with a discount? Or is that only for Gold?

@Forester1 , I probably could have made that line clearer.
What I was trying to say was I would be more likely to subscribe to Trainz Plus if all the DLC was available to buy without having to subscribe.

Basically, I would be impressed that N3V had the sense to make ALL DLC available to ALL for sale, and subscribing got you other benefits, like free DLS, etc.

To put it in even simpler terms:
Locking Locos and Rolling Stock behind a subscription paywall puts me off subscribing 100%, even though I can afford it and really would like that 125.

Letting everyone have the choice of buying quality content regardless, and making subscribing a completely separate choice, would probably make me a subscriber because I would think the company was worth it and deserve it.

Unfortunately, as the community dwindles more, they're going to have to ask for more money from the few to keep it going.
I don't see it as sustainable.
Maybe I'm wrong, and they'll turn it around and Trainz will become as popular as the other sims.
If that happens, their business model isn't going to change because they'll feel validated for their methods.
If only more people shopped ethically.

The UK Trainz scene has almost disappeared. It was the first thing I noticed when I came back.
I would love to see a group of people get together and create UK locos and rolling stock, spreading the time of creating between a large group of people, but as has seemed to happen in the past, at some point the people in the project want remuneration, and then N3V offer them in, and we're where we are right now.

Anyway, I'm just going to have be resigned to the fact that Trainz 2019 is the end point for me, and that's not a bad thing.
It's easily the best version I've played in the 20+ years that I've been using it, and I don't need the extra bells and whistles of any future versions that require me to pay monthly for the rest of my days just to be able to use DLC content that I've paid good money for.

Be happy with what you've got, and don't throw good money after bad!
Take that whichever way you want.

 

[pware]

If I understand this page correctly, Trainz Plus Gold does give you full access to DLC content. Trainz Plus Standard only gives you HD Terrain and Multiplayer Surveyor alongside being the first try new content and features.

There is no "Trainz Plus Gold" or "Trainz Plus Standard". There is only the one Trainz Plus program version (ignoring the beta test versions). The program is the same whether you have the extra "Gold" option or not. "Gold" gives you free access to all DLC packages plus access to special "Gold Only" DLC packages and advanced access to DLC packages that will later be released for purchase by all users. Your Gold access is determined by the username and password locked into your copy of Trainz.

 

[jaredvazquez012]

There is no "Trainz Plus Gold" or "Trainz Plus Standard". There is only the one Trainz Plus program version (ignoring the beta test versions). The program is the same whether you have the extra "Gold" option or not. "Gold" gives you free access to all DLC packages plus access to special "Gold Only" DLC packages and advanced access to DLC packages that will later be released for purchase by all users. Your Gold access is determined by the username and password locked into your copy of Trainz.

How fascinating

What do we call the two options of Trainz Plus listed on that page for someone browsing it for the first time?

 

[pware]

My experience was that I originally subscribed to Trainz Plus before Gold membership became available and then later switched over after it became available. There was no new software download or upgrade. The only change was that my normal login now gave me free access to all the DLC.

As to what you call the two options, I do not know. But if you scroll down to the table describing the features of TRS22PE, Trainz Plus "Standard" (I.e. with no Gold membership) and Trainz Plus Gold the only difference is that Gold gives you access to all DLC without having to pay for each download.

Yes, you do pay extra to get the Gold membership but I once did a price check. I added up the cost of buying all the individual DLC items and it quickly exceeded the extra cost of the membership long before the last item was added in.

 

[JCitron]

@Smileyman

You can purchase everything except for those exclusive items such as the Tornado, HST, and some other things I can't remember offhand as long as they are compatible with TRS19 and up. If you ever "upgrade", they will install without any problems at all from the content store.

 

[Smileyman]

Hi John.
Yes, I know there's a bunch of stuff I could buy, but that's not the point.

With the UK Trainz scene so empty and depleted, with rare UK releases, freeware or payware, N3V had a chance to revive the scene, and get some well needed new customers from the competitors, by showing them what Trainz can do and what it has.
Instead they chose to lock the HST, the class 11, and more behind a subscription.

What a stupid move.

I think that the only thing at this moment that would make me upgrade to TRS2022 is if there were updates to MCM beyond TRS2019 that fixed a certain annoying bug that occasionally forgets the contents of a Stop Zone , but with little to no information on this to be found anywhere, it's unlikely to happen.
(Is @pguy still around, and developing EIT MCM?)

If I did upgrade to TRS2022 because of an MCM fix, I still wouldn't buy any 2022 content that was available on principle.

If I was to buy some of the TRS2019 stuff off them, or upgrade to TRS2022 to get some of the stuff that's not locked behind subscription, I'd feel like I was rewarding them.

I'm a stubborn git, but I'm right!

 

[pware]

With the UK Trainz scene so empty and depleted, with rare UK releases, freeware or payware,

I just did a quick scan of the available DLC. via the Content Store button. and while they (UK releases) are there, they are in a minority compared to other regions (Nth America, Europe and Australia).

I get email updates from N3V on new DLC items available for beta testing. Since early Jan 2026 there have been 14 new beta packages announced, only 1 (judging by its name) was UK based. 3 were Australian, 5 Nth American, 1 Chinese and the remainder from European countries (again judging by their names).

On the DLS, using the region tag as the filter in CM and counting only current (not obsolete) locomotives that are Packaged, Installed (in my system), Built-in (again, in my system) or Available for Download, the following were the results for those regions I checked:-

Australia - 180
Canada - 23
China - 1
France - 0
Germany - 56
Italy - 1
Japan - 26
Russia - 23
United Kingdom - 135
USA - 196

Not all creators include the region tag so the above figures will be approximate only.

UK releases, both payware and freeware, are not insignificant compared to many other regions.

 

[pware]

A point of confusion in your post is that Trainz Plus, not TRS2022 (or simply TRS22), is the subscription version.

Instead they chose to lock the HST, the class 11, and more behind a subscription.

What a stupid move.

"Stupid" from your point of view perhaps, because without the subscription you cannot access them. There have been many posts and threads over the merits or not of the subscription system. The claims that N3V will abandon outright ownership of the software have, so far, been debunked - but if you wait long enough the "mountains will fall and the seas will rise" (an alarming report on the rate at which the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting could see the seas rise worldwide by 2ft or 0.6m in a few years or so - Florida look out!).

I have no doubt that N3V management have weighted up all the options. They would have the annual sales (and subscription) figures, the growth rates, etc to backup their decisions - we do not. They have made a commercial decision based on their analysis. The last time they commented on the subscription sales they were growing well enough to employ more staff and advance several projects that were previously being held back by lack of funds and the predictability of regular funding. If restricting some DLC assets to Gold subscribers increases subscription sales (and again they would have the figures on that) then it has been a good economic and business move - but us "armchair business experts" will always disagree.

In a previous thread on this issue I did an analysis of buying the annual Gold Trainz Plus subscription, with all DLC available, vs having Trainz Plus without the Gold option and having to buy individual DLC items. It did not take many DLC purchases each year to exceed the extra cost of the annual Gold subscription.

If economic conditions change (such as a war in the middle east - and what right minded person would ever contemplate starting one?) then those figures may change and force the need for a rethink.

 

[Smileyman]

A point of confusion in your post is that Trainz Plus, not TRS2022 (or simply TRS22), is the subscription version.

No confusion.
I'm well aware that TRS2022 is not Trainz Plus.
I've mentioned just that in other posts/threads, where I say that I wouldn't subscribe, but that there are 1 or 2 things that might make up upgrade to TRS2022 (fixing certain bugs, added features and stability to TRS2022 versions of EIT and MCM).

"Stupid" from your point of view perhaps, because without the subscription you cannot access them. There have been many posts and threads over the merits or not of the subscription system. The claims that N3V will abandon outright ownership of the software have, so far, been debunked - but if you wait long enough the "mountains will fall and the seas will rise" (an alarming report on the rate at which the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting could see the seas rise worldwide by 2ft or 0.6m in a few years or so - Florida look out!).

What a strange quote.
Using Ad Hominem attacks to try to distort the point, or imply conspiracy theory?
It's a Straw Man argument. What is this? Discord?

The claims that N3V will abandon outright ownership of the software have, so far, been debunked

I have no idea what you're talking about there.
I certainly made no such claims.

I have no doubt that N3V management have weighted up all the options. They would have the annual sales (and subscription) figures, the growth rates, etc to backup their decisions - we do not. They have made a commercial decision based on their analysis. The last time they commented on the subscription sales they were growing well enough to employ more staff and advance several projects that were previously being held back by lack of funds and the predictability of regular funding. If restricting some DLC assets to Gold subscribers increases subscription sales (and again they would have the figures on that) then it has been a good economic and business move - but us "armchair business experts" will always disagree.

I run my own business, something which I'm sure I've mentioned several times over the years.
I'm well aware of how and why decisions are made, but you took my words out of context by being very selective of the text you quoted.
Go back and look at the paragraph that your quote is from.
I am specifically talking about how they had the opportunity to breathe new life into Trainz from a UK perspective, the UK Trainz scene, by releasing UK DLC that showed what Trainz can do.

THAT is what I called stupid, and THAT is the context that you omitted from your quote..

In a previous thread on this issue I did an analysis of buying the annual Gold Trainz Plus subscription, with all DLC available, vs having Trainz Plus without the Gold option and having to buy individual DLC items. It did not take many DLC purchases each year to exceed the extra cost of the annual Gold subscription.

Hmm.
Now take that analysis and put yourself in the position of someone from a part of the World that doesn't have a lot attention from Trainz.
A place where the availability of new, up-to-date Trainz locos and rolling stock are scarce, and of the few that are coming out, some of them are locked behind a second paywall.
Then do the analysis again, without letting yourself get in the way.

What you would find is that unless you're interested in American or Australian locos and rolling stock, your purchases wouldn't exceed more than half a dozen in total, out of everything that's currently available, and then it's not such a bargain.

I wonder if you would be so enthusiastic about it if you were from the UK, wanted mainly UK stock, and had no interest in downloading routes.

.....and what right minded person would ever contemplate starting one?

That, at least, we agree on!

....then those figures may change and force the need for a rethink.

But that wouldn't be an act of generosity or community spirit from N3V, just desperation.

Sometimes in business, decisions need to be more than financial, or at least with an eye on bigger financial gains in the distant future for decisions made now.

The other train-sim communities see Trainz as a toy.
To paraphrase a couple of posts I found around the Internet over the last week while searching for Trainz things, "Trainz is not meant to be serious.", and "Trainz is just for fun rather than anything prototypical or realistic".
That's the attitude that I've found in a short time, and I'm sure it's a common view elsewhere.
I think Trainz has more than enough to compete with the other sims, and in some areas blows them out of the water (and in other areas needs some serious work), but N3V doesn't seem to be brave enough to take them on.

I understand their need to be cautious after almost going under once already, but there's more to business than balance sheets and shareholders.

 

[pware]

@Smileyman, thank you for your considered and detailed response. I can see that we are ultimately after the same thing, the survival of Trainz which has so far lasted about 24 years with only one near catastrophe. We do, however, have different points of view on the best way that that can be achieved.

Yes, I did get a bit off track in my last post but that is a result of often dealing with posters who believe that they have the only way forward for the business and the product, a way that tends to only suit their needs - no reflection on you.

To paraphrase a couple of posts I found around the Internet over the last week while searching for Trainz things, "Trainz is not meant to be serious.", and "Trainz is just for fun rather than anything prototypical or realistic".

I have no idea how other rail sims regard Trainz as I do not use them, and have no interest in doing so. The comparisons that I do see here in these forums tend to highlight the short comings of those sims compared to Trainz with other posts giving the reverse views, which makes one wonder why those posters stick with Trainz if it is so inferior.

Now take that analysis and put yourself in the position of someone from a part of the World that doesn't have a lot attention from Trainz.

There would be a very long list of countries that have railways but very few or even zero freeware and/or payware assets available in Trainz. New Zealand is one such example - 1 item of rolling stock that is available on both the DLS and as DLC. India with its huge population and vast railway network (both far bigger than the UK) - 0 rolling stock on the DLS and 1 loco on the DLC. Just how should N3V go about satisfying the demand for more assets (and not just rolling stock) for ALL those under represented locations?

This ignores the fact that N3V creates relatively little DLS content and most of what it has created was for the early versions up to TS2009. It is the users who create nearly all DLS and DLC assets and that work, especially for rolling stock, requires a great deal of time, knowledge and experience. The ability of ordinary users to create assets for others to use does not happen, as I understand it, in some other Train Sims.

If there is no-one who has that time, knowledge and experience to create rolling stock for the NZR then what can be done? There are almost 500 assets on the DLS which have the region "NZ" in their config.txt file but very few of the creators, judging from their profile, are from New Zealand. A similar count revealed 54 DLS assets for India but none of the creators, most of them well known, do not appear to be from India.

I am specifically talking about how they had the opportunity to breathe new life into Trainz from a UK perspective, the UK Trainz scene, by releasing UK DLC that showed what Trainz can do.

As I pointed out above, what about the New Zealand perspective? Or the Indian perspective which would have a much larger potential market than the UK and that surely means they should be given priority over the UK market.

If there are so few UK assets (and 135 UK locos and 11840 non-obsolete assets on the DLS is clearly not enough!) then where are all the UK creators?