I caved, and I have a few remarks...

snip edit nvm

My personal opinion of N3V and Tony is that they just want you to buy the flipping game now so they can get more moolah to fund it in the first place. I think they are over budget by a HUGE margin and have no, or very little, funding for the game. That is why it is $70. They just won't admit that they are over budget because what company would? We all know about the Great Depression. The same thing happened there and it ruined the USA economy because very few would divulge their real value and the amount of money they had.

If I am wrong, why don't you tell us Tony? And don't some other lame excuse or marketing ploy! You always seem to be VERY vague, one way or another.

MTH_ELECTRIC_TRAINS said:

My personal opinion of N3V and Tony is that they just want you to buy the flipping game now so they can get more moolah to fund it in the first place. I think they are over budget by a HUGE margin and have no, or very little, funding for the game. That is why it is $70. They just won't admit that they are over budget because what company would? We all know about the Great Depression. The same thing happened there and it ruined the USA economy because very few would divulge their real value and the amount of money they had.

If I am wrong, why don't you tell us Tony? And don't some other lame excuse or marketing ploy! You always seem to be VERY vague, one way or another.

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I think you need to be fairly careful with this type of comment.

If they are are " over budget by a HUGE margin and have no, or very little, funding for the game" then we are all in trouble.

At its most simple, money doesn't grow on trees and if you fall short you have 3 choices.

You can issue new versions of the software at a moderate/ high price point, Sounds a bit like TRS19 to me.
You can look for external funding. Sounds a bit like one of those crowd funding projects to me.
You go bust. Sounds like somewhere I don't want to go.

If I was asked to offer an opinion, and I haven't been, I would guess that the Company is working to a fairly high level of budgetary constraint, running on a shoestring, close to the edge, reviewing (and probably cutting) staff levels and constantly struggling to keep ahead of the curve.

I've always believed that this is why they struggle to make improvements and take forever to fix bugs.
The whole of their techniclal input is, in my opinion quite poor. Responses and customer utilised programming are frequently written in an arcane techno babble which is very difficult for many of us to get to grips with.

On the other hand I think the team have actually struggled through these issues and now have an ALMOST World Class product. TRS18 is streets ahead of previous versions and gives you a FAIRLY strong programming process - warts and all!!

Clearly, it will never , ever be a finished product but, for me, that is part of the fun of using it.

I am content to work around the problems, accept the frustrations and just pray that N3V can survive into my forseeable future.




I

MTH - I'm not sure how to answer you, but the short answer is "of course we want people to buy the product". That's the whole plan of running a business. We make a product, people buy it, we invest the profits into making new products. Rinse and repeat.

Due to previous reductions in staffing (3 years ago), and keeping a tight control on costs, and with the official release of TRS19 (widely acknowledged as our best ever version of Trainz) just around the corner, we're in a better financial position that we've ever been in before.

Pricing is on a par with TANE Deluxe, and plenty of people have already decided to invest in the future of Trainz by upgrading. If lots more people buy the product, we can begin to expand the team and thereby add more features more quickly in the future.

N3V is a small company with about eight full time people, not counting contractors brought in for various projects which is normal in the software industry. They have to watch the budget carefully, pay bills, salaries, rent, royalties, and so on just like any company. Being a small company means they don't have the huge development staff of bigger organizations. The revenue, meaning the promise of money coming in, not cash on hand, gets split between overhead, salaries, taxes, expenses, and product development. This revenue is based on sales, and now subscriptions, and when the cash comes in, the money gets split up to the individual budgets.

Product development in the software industry is budgeted through man-hours, meaning how long something will take in salary. This is why somethings have come out quicker and why others do not appear as quickly. It's about the cost of taking care of the problem, and adding in a feature. With the additional funding now with the early release of TRS19, they are able to put more money into the product sooner. With the subscriptions, they have an ongoing revenue source instead of waiting until they sell a package. This means they can continuously fund development and add features. Tony mentioned this in one of his posts if I recall in a lot more detail.

I've have worked for a few small companies as well as huge conglomerates. The differences are like night and day. The small companies generally work very efficiently while the big companies with all the resources in the world will spin their wheels. I liken the difference to a small speedboat versus an oil tanker. The speedboat can turn around quickly and change course when needed, while the big oil tanker usually hits the rocks before they can recover.

What was N3V before got nailed during the beginnings of the Great Recession with their Fury product. What we have is essentially a reorganization and a new company that came out of the ashes. We are lucky for our sake, and theirs too, that they survived. The fact that we have TRS19 now is a testament to both the hard work of the management to secure funding in any manner necessary, and to the small team being able to pull off what they did. Many other small companies were not so lucky including one I worked for.

MTH_ELECTRIC_TRAINS said:

My personal opinion of N3V and Tony is that they just want you to buy the flipping game now so they can get more moolah to fund it in the first place. I think they are over budget by a HUGE margin and have no, or very little, funding for the game. That is why it is $70. They just won't admit that they are over budget because what company would? We all know about the Great Depression. The same thing happened there and it ruined the USA economy because very few would divulge their real value and the amount of money they had.

If I am wrong, why don't you tell us Tony? And don't some other lame excuse or marketing ploy! You always seem to be VERY vague, one way or another.

Click to expand...

Mate, here's a reality check for you..... You're wrong.
N3V are a business and Tony is the CEO. There is a thing in business called cash flow. It helps to pay wages, utility bills etc. There is another thing in business called commercial confidentiality. Perhaps this is why the CEO gives allegedly vague answers, as that is something CEO's abide by for, well, business reasons. However I have always known Tony to answer as honestly and with as much detail as he is able to give. I don't think Tony wants *Walletworks* et al. to know everything N3V is doing.
Now, a few things we have learnt along the journey toward TRS19.
- N3V have learnt their lessons from T:ANE
- TRS19 is well overdue
- N3V has expanded the beta test program to thousands of people, resulting in thousands of edge case bugs (affects about 1 in a hundred users or less) being identified and repaired making T:ANE far more stable.
- TRS19 shares compatibility code base with T:ANE but uses a totally rejigged graphics engine.
- TRS19 is more successful than expected in the early access stage.
- We're in a better financial position that we've ever been in before.
- There is still a list of bugs to address before full release.
All of the above are examples of answers Tony has given in the forums. Based on that and having been a TRS19 beta tester, I would say that TRS19 has come a long way in its own right - from the early days as T:ANE with PBR and parallax to the almost ready for prime time TRS19 we have today.
Stop moaning about the price, $70 USD is a very fair price for the game (I should know, I managed a computer store with a $5 million p/a turnover and a large gaming section) but I can get it right now for you for only $67.50 USD which includes a one month gold subscription, T:ANE included. Just make sure your hardware is up to scratch before you buy it.
cheers
Graeme

This and related arguments over the "the product" seem to never end. Some people simply do not understand the process of software development and in particular the very competitive and cutthroat world of gaming software development - or perhaps they do not want to understand as it would stand in the way of a good "rant". Some simply want every new feature for next to nothing. There was one poster a week or so back who wanted to know why all the new features and graphics in TRS19 cannot be retrofitted into TANE (or was it TS12) as free SP upgrades.

I was reading recently how the new gaming hit, "Red Dead Redemption 2", took in $US725 million in the first three days of its release. Rockstar, the game developer, admitted that staff worked "100-hour weeks" in the lead-up to the release and, according to industry and union sources, much of that was unpaid. Its predecessor, "Red Dead Redemption", was released 8 years ago. Rockstar Games, based in NY with worldwide subsidiaries, has over 2,000 employees. Compare that with N3V with an office (or perhaps a "home office") in Brisbane with a "shoestring" budget and a very small fulltime staff.

If it was so simple why aren't the critics doing it better themselves.

$US70 can be a lot of money, especially when converted into other currencies, but no-one is forcing anyone to buy the product. If the product is "no good" then you would have saved yourself some money and can have the last laugh when it all goes belly up.

As for having to buy TRS20 in two years time, well again no-one is being forced to. When TS20 does arrive, I will look at it on its merits and make my own decision then. Look at my timeline - I have every PC version since the original except the TC1, 2 & 3 releases. Each version that I purchased was better than its predecessors (with a "hiccup" between TS12 and TANE SP3). I am also a Kickstarter Supporter, and still happy to have done so.

I have been called a "sycophant" and a "fan-boi" for daring to support N3V on this and similar issues (hence my tag line below - the result of one attempted insult) and such labels do not bother me, they just indicate that those who hurl them have run out of factual and worthwhile arguments.

My opinions.

pware said:

This and related arguments over the "the product" seem to never end. Some people simply do not understand the process of software development and in particular the very competitive and cutthroat world of gaming software development - or perhaps they do not want to understand as it would stand in the way of a good "rant". Some simply want every new feature for next to nothing. There was one poster a week or so back who wanted to know why all the new features and graphics in TRS19 cannot be retrofitted into TANE (or was it TS12) as free SP upgrades.

I was reading recently how the new gaming hit, "Red Dead Redemption 2", took in $US725 million in the first three days of its release. Rockstar, the game developer, admitted that staff worked "100-hour weeks" in the lead-up to the release and, according to industry and union sources, much of that was unpaid. Its predecessor, "Red Dead Redemption", was released 8 years ago. Rockstar Games, based in NY with worldwide subsidiaries, has over 2,000 employees. Compare that with N3V with an office (or perhaps a "home office") in Brisbane with a "shoestring" budget and a very small fulltime staff.

If it was so simple why aren't the critics doing it better themselves.

$US70 can be a lot of money, especially when converted into other currencies, but no-one is forcing anyone to buy the product. If the product is "no good" then you would have saved yourself some money and can have the last laugh when it all goes belly up.

As for having to buy TRS20 in two years time, well again no-one is being forced to. When TS20 does arrive, I will look at it on its merits and make my own decision then. Look at my timeline - I have every PC version since the original except the TC1, 2 & 3 releases. Each version that I purchased was better than its predecessors (with a "hiccup" between TS12 and TANE SP3). I am also a Kickstarter Supporter, and still happy to have done so.

I have been called a "sycophant" and a "fan-boi" for daring to support N3V on this and similar issues (hence my tag line below - the result of one attempted insult) and such labels do not bother me, they just indicate that those who hurl them have run out of factual and worthwhile arguments.

My opinions.

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Its good to have a moan every so often (you should meet my wife).

I've learnt more about N3V on this blog with just a couple of postings than I have ever known before about what has been going on within the Company.

For a bear of little brain I have guessed it just right.

Its also nice to see some strong, positive support from users. No idea what a fan-boi means but sycophant we are not.

Robust but supportive criticism is the very life flood of a quality product.

HONESTY is everything for me and I would certainly welcome an update of whats coming next from the Company.

I would like to see continuing repairs ane debugging matched with perhaps 1 or 2 brand spanking new ideas. You've heard from me often enough but I don't remember a list for ages.


Tony please update the wishlist for TRS19 if you could, please. My items should be near the top, of course, if only to keep an old fart happy.

(Now there's a thought------ improvement list to be led by Oldest customer choosing first basis because they are obviously wisest users with greatest experience, and, by the way, get it all done by Tuesday week)


I

pware said:

This and related arguments over the "the product" seem to never end. Some people simply do not understand the process of software development and in particular the very competitive and cutthroat world of gaming software development - or perhaps they do not want to understand as it would stand in the way of a good "rant". Some simply want every new feature for next to nothing. There was one poster a week or so back who wanted to know why all the new features and graphics in TRS19 cannot be retrofitted into TANE (or was it TS12) as free SP upgrades.

I was reading recently how the new gaming hit, "Red Dead Redemption 2", took in $US725 million in the first three days of its release. Rockstar, the game developer, admitted that staff worked "100-hour weeks" in the lead-up to the release and, according to industry and union sources, much of that was unpaid. Its predecessor, "Red Dead Redemption", was released 8 years ago. Rockstar Games, based in NY with worldwide subsidiaries, has over 2,000 employees. Compare that with N3V with an office (or perhaps a "home office") in Brisbane with a "shoestring" budget and a very small fulltime staff.

If it was so simple why aren't the critics doing it better themselves.

$US70 can be a lot of money, especially when converted into other currencies, but no-one is forcing anyone to buy the product. If the product is "no good" then you would have saved yourself some money and can have the last laugh when it all goes belly up.

As for having to buy TRS20 in two years time, well again no-one is being forced to. When TS20 does arrive, I will look at it on its merits and make my own decision then. Look at my timeline - I have every PC version since the original except the TC1, 2 & 3 releases. Each version that I purchased was better than its predecessors (with a "hiccup" between TS12 and TANE SP3). I am also a Kickstarter Supporter, and still happy to have done so.

I have been called a "sycophant" and a "fan-boi" for daring to support N3V on this and similar issues (hence my tag line below - the result of one attempted insult) and such labels do not bother me, they just indicate that those who hurl them have run out of factual and worthwhile arguments.

My opinions.

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Well put, pware. Some people jump to such ridiculous conclusions I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

gch said:

(Now there's a thought------ improvement list to be led by Oldest customer choosing first basis because they are obviously wisest users with greatest experience, ...)

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You forgot to add "also the best looking".:hehe:

I'm going to buck the trend here and say that I really don't mind paying the £56.30 the game cost me (once the exchange rate was calculated) for two reasons:

1. I have always enjoyed considerable pleasure from the earliest version of Trainz to the present 2019 version. When I look at the hours and hours and hours of sheer pleasure I have derived from all things "Trainz" over the years, it has probably been one of the best purchases ever made. To me, investing in the "Early Release" allows N3V to recover some costs, at least, from the development of the new version and, hopefully, to continue to invest in tweaks and improvements.

The number of people who enjoy Model Trains and Train Simming is, sadly, declining year by year as more of us old 'uns go to the "Roundhouse over yonder" so, if we want continued improvements and developments, someone has to pick up the tab and I started putting a few coins away each week as soon as I knew this version was on its way from the development team.. (Do you still call it the "Brew Crew"?)

2. Unlike previous Trainz versions which were seemed to be launched "half-cocked" and needed patience to wait for things to be fixed, this version is fresh, crisp and clean and the graphics improvements immediately noticeable. After some really enjoyable "play" sessions, I was delighted to see an update this morning that addresses some minor niggles. I really think, given that N3V wanted a totally new platform, yet with backward compatibility for the likes of myself where I rely heavily on British Railways content, this is "as good as it's going to get" until the next generation of faster processors with liquid nitrogen cooling and the "Dog's doodahs" of Graphics Cards are launched!

Well thank you for all the well put responses. I didn't completely understand all of Tony's posts, mainly because a lot had overly complex wording which made me angry and frustrated. I also thought about my post and it was very harsh and not all true. I am sorry for this. It was also 11:00PM when I posted it and I probably would have retracted it if I was still in the right frame of mind and not super tired. I have found I can also be one to accuse rather loosely and it is something that I really need to get a hold of too. Others have already mentioned it to me. The other thing I shouldn't do is write anything that late. I am, like probably many of us, much more exaggerated as it gets later and later and it seems to fuel whatever your doing.

That is sad that they had to let people go from the company, but there is a ketch to doing that. You have less people working on the products for the same or maybe higher pay, meaning that, as most of you said, it takes longer to develop it. I know how difficult it is to create almost anything, including video games. I have looked at code, etc, and it is not easy. Yes I do moan about the price, but how many other people have as well? $70 USD is a lot for a game. I can get a real model train, used, with DCC and sound for the same price. The only simulation games I have seen, and thought about buying, that are over $30 are Train Simulator $40-$50, Train Sim World $50 (default game, no addons) and IL2-Sturmovik at $50, which I got for 50% off as well, and it is a combat flight sim with extreme detail and new content. The planes in the game were constructed from real blue prints and it also has a completely new game engine compared to their previous ones.

The one thing with Trainz is N3V keeps doing, which I think is a bad strategy, is keeping the old, horrible looking, content in the game. Yes, we all love backwards compatibility, but not when we still have default junk content from 2004 and 2006. I will say there IS good TRS2004 and 2006 content out there. One example is the Wadalbavale Line's Australian content. That still would look great in TRS19. However, there is a lot of content that your still holding onto that no one has used at all in a while because it is very subpar. I see only 2 options, either move onto new content for the default game or update the old content for the default game. Now I understand that would be a huge undertaking in itself. But I am not asking you to update ALL the old content. Just the old assets that you put in the default game. The one thing I will say is that the new boxcars you made look amazing! Now why can't everything look like them? You could even re-use different parts of other cars on the older ones to make the process a little less daunting, like the freight car trucks for example.

Nick

Who do you think should make all this new content.
Route builders choose what to use not N3V, if there is less to use the layouts would look very sparce.

Ken

Likewise, only the creators of all those older, lower quality asset can update them to TRS19 quality. If they are not able or willing, then don't use them.

The "Kickstarter" thing ruined it for me, T:ANE was the punch in the GUT. Waiting now, years, not months to see what develops on this TRS2019. Probably, another new thing will be coming out by the time I consider it.

MTH_ELECTRIC_TRAINS said:

The one thing with Trainz is N3V keeps doing, which I think is a bad strategy, is keeping the old, horrible looking, content in the game. ... I will say there IS good TRS2004 and 2006 content out there. ... I see only 2 options, either move onto new content for the default game or update the old content for the default game. Now I understand that would be a huge undertaking in itself. But I am not asking you to update ALL the old content. Just the old assets that you put in the default game.

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There is a lot of good advice in there, but also a lot of work! And certainly not everyone would be happy.

I just checked my TRS19 install and, using a custom CM filter, counted 8845 built in assets (excluding payware) that are older than Trainz 2009 (below asset build 2.9). In comparison, there are 1931 built in assets from TS12 and later releases.

pdkoester said:

The "Kickstarter" thing ruined it for me, T:ANE was the punch in the GUT. Waiting now, years, not months to see what develops on this TRS2019. Probably, another new thing will be coming out by the time I consider it.

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Ithink you are wrong and you will find that my schooll motto applies.

"RESPICE FINEM"

I have earned the scars of Beta Testing with TANE and after 2 years on that horrendous task , TRS19 seemed to appear, like magic, from nowhere.

TRS19 is light years ahead of TANE and everything else that went before it. Still an unfinished product BUT there is so much right with it it's going to take even the greatest enthusiast years to come to come to grips with.

2 things, however. Only buy it when you thing the price is right. I think that N3V pitched the price a bit high but that's just an opinion from a British Pensioner not a "fat cat" from California. (Only joking, only joking.)

Secondly you must be clear that you have the beefiest platform you can afford. I've just upgraded to a new PC and it makes all the difference in the World.

And along with "Respce Finem" you might look up "Nil Desperandum". Stick with it, it's much better than you give it credit for.

"Respice Finem" - I like that!

sterrett said:

"Respice Finem" - I like that!

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I had to smile. Respice Finem was my school motto (Taunton's School, Southampton 1960-1067) and yes indeed i had Many a Happy Memory there...​

And yes, my aim is to swamp these pages with inconsequential and nonsensical trivia.

veni vidi vici.
I came, I saw, I conquered

Or, in my case..........."I came, I saw and bought a copy of TRS19 at the top price !!

And if to prove my complete inability to get to grips with reality I am going to try keeping awake most of the night to see what happens in the American election.

pware said:

I just checked my TRS19 install and, using a custom CM filter, counted 8845 built in assets (excluding payware) that are older than Trainz 2009 (below asset build 2.9). In comparison, there are 1931 built in assets from TS12 and later releases.

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Well, I am not saying that the TS12 content is bad because most of it isn't. Although there are subpar assets even from that version. The other 8,000 ish are the ones that could be OK or just complete garbage now. Again, I am not saying N3V should stop using them entirely. I am saying that they should either do that OR that they should go and update them. I can only see it helping their game's overall popularity.