Stepping away from Trainz...

JCitron

Trainzing since 12-2003
As my thread title says, I'm stepping away from everything Trainz for an unknown period of time. This feeling has been a longtime coming and not something that has happened overnight.

I'll put it bluntly. I'm tired, annoyed, really, really annoyed, and getting ready to ditch the bloody mess. I haven't done much with it for months, other than a bit of testing off and on for the new beta, and even that's going to stop. I've been Trainzing nearly non-stop since December 2003 and it's time to let it go for awhile. I tried multiple times to go through the routine of downloading new stuff, and then running my routes, but then I'll run a route, or fiddle with mine, but not for very long. I'll instead go off and practice the piano for two hours then use Cities Skylines for the rest of the day, or NIMBY Trains, or something else.

In case you're wondering, there's nothing wrong with the routes other than the usual crap we've been dealing with for decades. It's the same crap day in and day out and this is becoming too much like a job and less of a hobby. It's time to walk away and retire or go into semi-retirement.

With that said, don't PM me because I won't be responding to any PMs and I won't be frequenting the forums for anytime soon.
 
Last edited:
Good luck John, thank you for all your advice and help its always been greatly appreciated. I for one will miss your input and banter, Very best regards, Peter
 
Good luck in your future endeavors sir. I've appreciated the help and feedback you've given me over the years.
 
I absolutely understand you, John. I have stopped my TRAINZ + sub recently for the same reason. I barely use Trainz anymore, there is no need to say more than what you wrote in your post. For now I am kind of 'done' with Trainz. Have fun with your other hobbies, you have been an invaluable problem solver for many of us, I won't forget you.

Ron
 
It is my sincere hope that I will again get to read, learn, and be inspired by you. Enjoy your rest.

Dave
 
Good luck John, yours's has always been one of the common sense and balanced views of the game.

I can certainly sympathise, after the debacle with consists outlined in my thread the other day I think the two model routes I recently put out will be the last for some time. To be honest I'm becoming a bit disillusioned with all the train games, all seem to be stagnant and not going anywhere. Once you've experienced the photogrammetry of MSFS or the beautiful deformable realistic looking maps of Snowrunner, it is very hard to find much enthusiasm for the flat bland worlds of Trainz, the continuing lack of features that could make it really great (like proper autonomous timetable operation under AI controlled signalling we've been asking for many years now). Whole thing just seems stagnant, N3V seem more interested in pushing different versions of the same software than radical new changes to redefine the future, there's no roadmap for the future - even the News section on the Home page was last updated in 2019.
 
Wow I wasn't expecting this to happen but its understandable.
I just want to thgank you for the information and for the answers to some of the problems I've encountered.
Enjoy the other hobbies that are out there.

Cheers
 
Best of luck for you John. If you're ever interested in coming down to Dalton, Georgia for some railfanning, send me a PM and I'll send you my E-Mail address so that we could meet up for lunch and have a nice chat. Dalton, Georgia was featured in Trains Magazine special edition Hot Spots, a guidebook for railfanning 'Hot Spots' across the country, and was published in 2018.
 
I have to agree as well JC, I am sick of all this crap and I myself haven't done much with Trainz for a while now. I'm not leaving per say, because owning 2 active websites kinda requires your attention, lol. But I am just sitting more or less behind the scenes now.
 
Oh dear me, yet another has announced they're 'leaving Trainz'... why announce it all? What's the point in such announcements? Quite honestly it's neither here nor' there to anyone!

Good luck to all!

Rob.
 
Thanks for all the help you have been to me in the past John. I really appreciate it, and I fully understand, as a lot of us are going through the same thing. In trying to be the ultimate sim, I think the level of complexity is just getting to be too much. Hope to see you back after a nice break, it is after all, still addictive! Best wishes!
 
John.

It really feels like mnay are a bit sick and tired of Trainz, considering it's honestly not going anywhere. You feelings are completely understandable, and honestly, I haven't been active in Trainz either.

Whatever you do, enjoy, and happy travels, and thanks for your hard work with Trainz, it's much appreciated.
 
John,
Thanks for being there when I had all sorts of questions and problems. I hope your break goes well. I, as well as others, will miss your guidance and advice.

Take care,
Heinrich505
 
While I think I understand, am saddened to read your post.

Among the many mailings on this forum, yours have always been worth reading. You certainly increased my Trainz knowledge and understanding and your replies to my specific queries invariably solved the problem. Thank you.

John
 
Dependency on customers to help debug problems for which they have no responsibility, except for their own entertainment. It has a downside as we see in the messages.

You DO NOT fix several dozen items in one go. That has been a no-no since the dawn of mainframes. Now volunteers are fixing the fixes. Then we will see fixes for those fixes.

Who allowed staff to work on such a long list of issues?? You prioritize them.

N3V is "wearing out" their customers.

John, sorry for co-opting your message but I think the latest attempt at updates was a debacle. It surely did not help as you continually assisted us, as well as being called on to identify and detail bugs from the mass update.

This is the list of "attempted" fixes. Far to long to manage:

Full SP3 Changelist:

  • Update yo 4.8 Trainzbuild format (making route, session and assets saved in SP3 not compatible with older versions)
  • Smoke now works as expected when running steam engines in AI reverse, half chuff rate w\ AI forward
  • Fix a route merge CTD when merging two legacy routes both having consists.
  • Updates to Login flow and messages
  • Fix a freeze when adjusting terrain height under splines
  • Various updates to portals
  • Fix an assertion loading Sebino (offline) NamedObjectTable::processRegistrationQueue> Registration command failure 3
  • Inserting spline points unexpectedly re-positions trains\trackside objects
  • Update to Vehicle.SetMaximumTractiveEffort()
  • Show Hide MP-d chat window now works
  • Various MP fixes including:
  • MP Client "view driver" not syncing to moving trains
  • Fix stream corruption in the brake data
  • Avoid a case where a corrupt stream could hang the application in an infinite loop
  • Fix a case where the camera fails to focus to a vehicle with a null trackpos, but a valid mesh position
  • Fixed an issue where certain assets would display incorrectly
  • Fixed an assertion loading into Sebino
  • Inserting spline points no longer re-positions trains\trackside objects
  • Several MPS content fixes (Sebino)
  • Resolved an error showing on Mac for faulty content
  • Several MP Driver replication manager updates
  • Fixed a CTD when moving vehicles decoupled in the middle of a consist
  • Improvements to mini-map labelling
  • Remove green highlight incorrectly showing after copy/paste
  • Fix sound not playing on some steam locos
  • Fix assertion loading Content Sample map
  • Tweaks to Driver listing UI
  • Fix brake issue (TNI Physics)
  • Fixes for various Test Track issues (TNI Physics related)
  • Fix brakes bail timing
  • Fix Command dropdown list functionality
  • Fix derailments in portals
  • Fix MP chat window getting stuck open
  • Fix passenger platforms not spawning passengers
  • Tweaks to object height adjustment
  • Fix an issue with pfx display
  • Add full support for Steam DLC in Content Store
  • Updates to MPS to support custom packages (Sebino is our first test case)
  • Add UI for installing missing MPS packages
  • New "high contrast" scroll bar
  • Various UI updates to Driver Select window
  • Various UI updates to Content Store
  • In-game chat now fully native
  • Fixes for new MyTrainz Login
  • Fixed a rare case where loading a map could take 30 minutes
  • Improved handling of object height adjustment (including around digholes)
  • Finalised TNI Physics SDK (programmer access coming in the next week or two)[
  • Steam builds will have proper DLC naming and descriptions (not relevant to this beta)
  • Added an expiry for scripted camera edit requests (to avoid a hang or incomplete route load
  • Updates to low res (minimap) texture cut-off distances
  • Login improvements (prompted to enter details when installing, sign out option added)
  • Map view label improvements (less clutter)
  • Scroll bar tweaks (it's now visible!)
  • Tweaks for Test Track (related to TNI physics)
  • Crash fix when exiting a route with placeholder (missing asset) traincars
  • Crash fix for routes with a script that wasn't loaded when called
  • Fixed a case where loading could be extremely slow
 
Last edited:
Enjoy your break John and thank you very much for the number of times your sensible advice has helped me out of a tight spot.
 
Back
Top