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History lesson needed.

As a newcomer around here (TRS19-Early release was my first purchase) would someone kindly tell me the "story" of the Kickstarter program? I've read some Wiki pages. It sounds similar to TRS-19 Early Release perhaps. Or was it more than that? Did "supporters" support simply by buying "pre-release" versions of Tane? Thanks.

The Kickstarter was crowd funding towards finishing the initial version of TANE, backers got rewarded with various things depending on how much they contributed. Pretty much how any crowd funding works.
 
The Kickstarter was crowd funding towards finishing the initial version of TANE, backers got rewarded with various things depending on how much they contributed. Pretty much how any crowd funding works.

Thanks for the info. I appreciate that.
 
I'll just mention that not everyone who supported the KickStarter decided to keep the banner saying so.

I'll also admit to thinking that rehashing a list of aspirations from 2013 was not necessarily a wise thing to do. Actually, at the moment, I'm not thinking beyond the patches that have been just around the corner for months.

However, as it's Christmas and N3V are still trying to do the best:

'Yay, Trainz!'
 
It's all very subjective anyway, for example multiplayer - whether driving/operating or in Surveyor holds no interest for me. However a MSTS or TS2020 style timetable and schedule builder most certainly does. There are other items which are not on that Kickstarter list, such as a long overdue overhaul of the tunnel system (including the ability to get under the terrain in Surveyor) or making changes in the advanced post processing settings saveable. Heck even the oft requested rgb field inputs for the environmental dials.

Then there's the whole issue of cabs and sounds which I've mentioned at length previously, although chicken and egg applies here - get the simulation aspect to the point where the die hard MSTS/OR and TS2020 fans will consider Trainz as a viable option and they will come across bringing their talents with them.

Most important though is stability. Don't keep breaking what was previously fixed (like splines detaching from fixed objects as rumoured in SP4 of TANE) for the sake of a few cosmetic changes.
 
I'll also admit to thinking that rehashing a list of aspirations from 2013 was not necessarily a wise thing to do.

I understand where you are coming from here but no matter how they presented it without using that image, someone would "dredge it up" and accuse them of deliberately ignoring "past promises" (they weren't promises but why let facts get in the way of a good rant?). Putting it out in the open was probably the safest option, IMHO.
 
Not sure I can add anything that the majority of sensible people have already said. The original post clearly ignores the facts and you'd wonder why bother with Trainz if you don't like it? Is it perfect, no. Is anything? No. I'll go back to making routes and sessions and enjoy what the positive and very helpful people have to say. Toot toot :D
 
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That's correct. The list isn't "this is what we will do right now", it is "just some of the stuff we;d like to do".

Kickstarter raised $191k, development on TANE was well in excess of 10x that amount.

Kirlbe, it's a shame that you spilt your coffee, and a shame that pretty much every post you make bashes us over the head (or claims we're shot ourselves in the foot :)).

Have you considered why these items aren't completed yet? Do you think we're happy with progress? Do you think we think users are happy with progress? We're not, and we're doing all we can to make things better than they are.

We work long hours week after week. We do all we can to make the game as good as we can. We never sit down and have a meeting and say "now, how can we annoy everyone today?".

If things are so bad, there's no need to hang around here, but since you are, I guess things aren't really quite as bad as you make out.

So, rant over, back to the post, the whole point is to get a fresh look at the things we wanted to do years ago and find out what priorities people have today. If we're to be admonished for asking our fans what they'd like to see us work on next, then I really do give up.

I mean, you couldn't even spell my name right, and it's directly in front of you...

I don't mean to be ultra critical. I know most of this user base is well older, and I am almost 30 for crying out loud now. The reason sometimes my blood boils, is just reading the choices you guys make. It's polar opposite of how the industry works at times, even with you guys being a smaller, niche studio. Which is not crazy that you guys don't follow norms. Just when I read that e-mail, and all those items are still not in, I just thought to myself. Great! Thanks for really asking! But... You sorta have your own roadmap right there of future updates. Not just random updates either. Most of those are solid QoL updates.

I think lot of you also missed one key sentence,

Goals or not , milestones or not. You have a list in front of you.

It's a darn good place to start IMHO.

Yes, we been over this before Tony. But the world is not full of rainbows and happy flowers. Having checks and balances of all types of people are good for the community. It sparks discussion and raises questions that may not be answered on the regular, because nobody attempts to be the 'other side' of the discussion. Almost too afraid to speak up at times.

If things are so bad, there's no need to hang around here, but since you are, I guess things aren't really quite as bad as you make out.

Now you get it. If a person like me still stays, and still enjoys the product, but still voices his 2 cents on how it can still be improved. That's a solid customer. One who cares about the product, uses it, but also realize everything is not all peachy and rainbows. If there is never any push back, how do you know you are doing things wrong or right?

Remember, at the end of the day, the people on the forums will always be the 1%. The other 99% are launching the exe, playing, closing the exe and going about life with never knowing a forum existed. This applies to not just Trainz, or games in general.

It's all goodie :)

EDIT: Oh, and before people wonder why still here. Because it's in my blood of Trains just like rest of you. Either from your father, grandfather, hobby, etc etc. Being a IT nerd as well. Trainz fits the bill the best. The other products in our sim list? Meh. Garbage and worst devs who don't listen at all. So that's why I care , even if sometimes seems I do not about good ol Trainz. Still remembering getting my 2004 copy off eBay long long ago and had it shipped from Aussie land to states because it wasn't found here at the time. Almost 15 years ago now...
 
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At least we are asked what we would like. Sure the list is a few years older now but asking our thoughts on what we would mainly wish presently for in trainz is not a crime. Content can only be implemented when able to be done. I personally would love to see realtime lightning and thunder storms and animated passengers boarding etc but if need to wait as not what majority of people voted for then so be it. Sure it can be bit of a downer not seeing things implemented yet which we/I would really love to see in Trainz, but at the end of the day it is down to prioritising.

Every week we get a newsletter (which I look forward to reading), it may not please everyone with the content but at least it is a newsletter giving information, surveys, video clips, screenshots. Sometimes it is nice just to say a thankyou..so from myself - thank you!
 
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Given that there is no way they can fulfill every wish in one year, or even maybe several, I am thinking it is very nice that they come back at year end and see what everyone's priorities are for the year coming up. I have not seen the results of the survey yet, but I am assuming the items with the most votes may get more resources in the coming year...
 
It’s nice that the N3V team is very open and engaging with their community, you don’t often find that with other communities. Obviously not all the items will be seen soon but it would be interesting to see which ones/categories had the most votes.
 
Heres the thing.

N3V caters to a very specific audience, who generally fawn over whatever they come out with. Trainz is a unique program. No other sim has the same functionality, content, game play, etc. As such, N3V can release stuff like T:ANE, an unoptimized mess which was released as terrible, got worse, got better, then worse, then awful.

Because N3V has such a large stake in this market, they can pretty much release anything they want and do what they want with the sim. Do they wanna make it great and add all these features? Sure. Will they. I don't know, depends on how much money they can make off of us by doing that thing.

Just my 2 cents as someone who has been with this game for 10 years since I was in 1st grade.
 
Heres the thing.

N3V caters to a very specific audience, who generally fawn over whatever they come out with. Trainz is a unique program. No other sim has the same functionality, content, game play, etc. As such, N3V can release stuff like T:ANE, an unoptimized mess which was released as terrible, got worse, got better, then worse, then awful.

Because N3V has such a large stake in this market, they can pretty much release anything they want and do what they want with the sim. Do they wanna make it great and add all these features? Sure. Will they. I don't know, depends on how much money they can make off of us by doing that thing.

Just my 2 cents as someone who has been with this game for 10 years since I was in 1st grade.

Not necessarily. If they worked that way, they wouldn't be in business. Think about it. It does take money to make a product, thus, the sales and they are a business and pay rent, employees, taxes, utilities and everything else.

It's a bit more complex than you think... When TRS2006 and TRS2009 came out, Auran was flailing about and going under. That Fury thing killed them as it sucked out the resources they badly needed for their Trainz products. This sunk the company, and when N3V took over, they continued on selling the older products until they could get on their feet again. The newer product then was TRS2009 and that lead to TS2010 and eventually TS12. Even then like the others, TS12 was still a product of the very past. It's underlying code dated back to the mid-2000's and before. There are parts in that code that dates back to TRS2004 days, aka ca. 2003 or a bit before. With many iterations and versions in between, it had seen many updates and changes, but it was still the same technology based on the Jet Engine.

By the time 2013 came along, computer and operating system technology changed. Things were no longer in the 32-bit world any longer and moving ahead to better faster things with bigger and faster processors and video cards. With TS12 being a 32-bit application, it had limitations that kept it in the past, and it was at a point in its life where no matter how much Bondo, tape, and glue you put on the old car it ain't gonna hold together any longer. There were many things that they wanted to do, but couldn't due to the limitations of the Jet Engine that was being used along with this 32-bit technology.

The Jet Engine, developed originally by Auran, was already 10 year's old when TS12 came out and definitely showing its limitations. There was an update at some point, but then that still made the engine about 7 years old by then. With the age of the game engine plus the older code in TS12, fixing or updating things, such as moving it on to 64-bit as we have with T:ANE and TRS19 would be impossible. There were also code libraries and such that were not compatible, such as the Speed Trees from IDV, and some other code libraries from Microsoft that would need replacing without any backward compatibility, and there were most likely some licensing reasons as well meaning they bought the 32-bit versions, therefore, they couldn't cross over directly to the 64-bit version for free.

Facing this issue, they had no choice but to develop a product from the ground up. A search was done to explore commercial game engines, but none were found to be suitable so their own new game engine was built and that's what's used today. TRS19 (TRS 2019 if you wish) is based on the underlying code used in T:ANE, however, it's taking the program further.

Yes. They made mistakes when releasing T:ANE. There are many reasons why that only Tony and the crew know. They know they made these mistakes and have learned from them. The current releases are done at a different pace and in a different fashion. Service packs aren't rushed out the door as they were in the past and then require 4 hot fixes to make them sort of work. They work quite well now right out of the gate. Testing methods are different and there are other controls in place.

The thing is our wish-list, if we want to call it that, costs a lot of money to implement. I think Tony said that each item on the list cost $30 million AD to produce, or $20,520,836 USD. That's a lot of money for a single thing that we would like in our simulator. Just imagine what the complete package would cost to finish up. Do you have a hefty Powerball winning ticket to cash in? This is why they choose carefully those things that please the majority of the folks and not on some of the more esoteric things we might want. Sure I would love to see all those things implemented and then some, but being the realist I am, I know it's not going to happen and I'm happy to have what we've got.
 
Well, I'm a relative newcomer at about 2 years and only T:ANE. But in that short time I have noticed very little fawning over new products and considerably more criticism over what doesn't work over what does. They certainly appear to have long bouts of beta testing, so it appears it would be everyone's opportunity to try out everything they can think of and report the defects, and yet when they finally do release anything it gets whole forums worth of issues. In a way they are almost in a no-win situation. whatever they do or don't do, they are going to hear about it from someone. Fortunately, I think they are fully aware of it and keep several grains of salt around to take it with, and they specifically know who's voices are going to be the loudest.
 
.......

I don't mean to be ultra critical. I know most of this user base is well older, and I am almost 30 for crying out loud now. The reason sometimes my blood boils, is just reading the choices you guys make. It's polar opposite of how the industry works at times, even with you guys being a smaller, niche studio. Which is not crazy that you guys don't follow norms. Just when I read that e-mail, and all those items are still not in, I just thought to myself. Great! Thanks for really asking! But... You sorta have your own roadmap right there of future updates. Not just random updates either. Most of those are solid QoL updates.

I think lot of you also missed one key sentence,

Goals or not , milestones or not. You have a list in front of you.

It's a darn good place to start IMHO.

Now if the above (minus your opening line - anyone can make spelling mistakes and typos, I do all the time) had been your first post in this thread, then the responses would probably have been much more muted. I can accept that your first post was in anger.

I don't know about others but I did not miss that one key sentence, but I also noted an earlier sentence ...

Here is a idea, finish the list!

... and the sentence immediately before the one you quoted ...

Just amazed someone in the office thought it was a good idea to post that, and then shoot themselves in the foot when haven't even delivered.

It was not so much the content of your post (and its core inaccuracy) but the way in which it was expressed that got my blood boiling. I have no issues and much agreement with rest of your second post.

Remember, at the end of the day, the people on the forums will always be the 1%. The other 99% are launching the exe, playing, closing the exe and going about life with never knowing a forum existed. This applies to not just Trainz, or games in general.

It's all goodie :)

EDIT: Oh, and before people wonder why still here. Because it's in my blood of Trains just like rest of you. Either from your father, grandfather, hobby, etc etc. Being a IT nerd as well. Trainz fits the bill the best. The other products in our sim list? Meh. Garbage and worst devs who don't listen at all. So that's why I care , even if sometimes seems I do not about good ol Trainz. Still remembering getting my 2004 copy off eBay long long ago and had it shipped from Aussie land to states because it wasn't found here at the time. Almost 15 years ago now...

Believe it or not, but I have made posts in these forums critical of N3Vs decisions as well as the suggestions of others, but I have always done my best to make my posts factual, respectful and polite.

Have a Merry Christmas - it looks like it will be a hot one down here!
 
Sorry about the typo Kilrbe3. (Killerbee makes it fairly clear the order the letters should be in.)

Again, back on track for the reason for making the post in the newsletter and using the Stretch Goal list - it's a list of "like to have" items, it is an old list, and the current question was "what ONE thing" do you most want to see in Trainz.

We can't finish the whole list instantly, so we need to do things one at a time. We're trying to ensure that the current active users have a say in that process and that we make the right decisions on which things to focus on next.

I think we've all calmed down now, so we can move on with processing the information, which on first pass indicates the tops areas (in current voting order) are:

Auto-world building + terrain import tools
Advanced animated industries
Advanced animated passenger loading
Prototypical Timetables
AI System upgrade and Tools
Collision Physics and Destruction
Improved Trainz Physics
Advanced catenary support
Dynamic Point Light Sources
Multiplayer surveyor

There's still a few hundred more votes to put into broad categories so the final results could change. once gain, as with the original Kickstarter vote, it's pretty evenly split. Also, some categories are bigger than others, so that also needs to be taken into account.

Clearly anyone who doesn't get their item done first will consider that they have been hard done by, but we can't please all of the people all of the time (or even most of the people some of the time :)).

One final comment, John, I'm not sure where that $30m figure came from but it is a long way off the mark :)
 
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Clearly anyone who doesn't get their item done first will consider that they have been hard done by, but we can't please all of the people all of the time (or even most of the people some of the time :)).

Or, according to the "doomsday" posters that lurk in these forums, "any of the people any of the time" :hehe:

One final comment, John, I'm not sure where that $30m figure came from but it is a long way off the mark :)

With Trump in the US, Macron in France and Johnson in the UK (or what will be left of it after Jan 31) the "M" in Million has now been officially downgraded to an "m", meaning "mini-million" or what we used to call "k". So John was referring to $30,000AUD as the development cost of each new feature, not $30,000,000 AUD. :hehe:

My opinions.
 
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