Trs22

[NorthernWarrior]

...and in response to my slight criticism of the pricing at the N3V forum a right old roasting
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...2-from-the-CEO
with even Tony Hilliam himself sticking up the finger and saying if you don't want to pay the price, foxtrot Oscar elsewhere.

[rgarber]

I'm going to stick my own 2 cents into this because I'm still borderline... I did do a small route in Trainz... let's see if I can get the image in here...

trainzroutepic.jpg

Well, I hope it opens up into something bigger...

And I did finally get used to Surveyor, somewhat, though I still don't understand why these train game companies don't take their editors more seriously than they do. It's like an after thought and yet most of their customer enthusiasm comes from the folks who make the add-ons.

In defense of Trainz, I do remember their initial goal was not to create a train simulator but a train game. And I do see them trying to add elements of realism into the game and that I think is to be applauded. Hard core rail enthusiasts are generally out of luck and I'm like Phil there's much more to like about the usual train game than not. Having said all that I don't get what these people do all day who make train games like DTG and Auran.

DTG, well, they're thing is the code from Kuju was never documented so they can't make 'real' fixes to the game. And then they come out with a bust with TSW and you can't help if there was ever a company so tone deaf to their consumers it's DTG. DTG was definitely better to their 3rd party add-on constituents for sure but that had limits too. Since they nearly destroyed their own 3rd party developing corp back in 2012 you can't say they ain't so tone deaf to them either.

With Auran their biggest mistake, to me, is seeing the big guy, DTG, stumble like they do continuously, what better example of a company not to follow is DTG. Right before their eyes and yet Auran, I think maybe more than any other game company historically, plays like it has a stupid customer base. I seriously hope they have a upgrade path than that $70 hefty price tag on the newest version. The best we get is $10 off on a pre-order? But I do think Auran, or the game actually, is moving in the right direction. It would be nice if the users could have more input in making the editors more usable. For instance, I still cannot believe after 20 some years we still can't select objects in smaller lists by category. It's always one HUGE list to draw from like we have nothing better to do than scroll through a huge listing of objects while trying to build something that takes months to complete. How hard would it be to create a... never mind....

Now I'm going to say something to you guys... mostly the critics... I said in my time back then to be careful that believe it or not you got humans on the other side of the wall making this stuff and these guys got some thin skins and if you push them too hard they'll take it personally and for them it's only about releasing a product and nothing to do with railroad enthusiasm. For them, most of them, it's not about railroading, it's only about doing what they do, graphics. Just graphics. It could be a boat, a plane, anything, but its graphics. They don't read books on railroading. It's not their thing.

I saw it happening, I could hear them saying it way back then. Criticism is one thing but relentless criticism? I opened up that Railworks America thing, if anyone even remembers back that far, just because the criticism was ridiculous. Having been an insider with DTG I could see, talking via Skype to them back then, that the backlash against them was causing them to hunker down.

I doubt any of them even care about this stuff any more I would imagine none of them reads the forums. It's just that we had a really good thing back then from 2001 to 2004 and it's a shame it's more of a hatefest than the great thing we had going where anything anybody came up with about the game, MSTS back then, was shared with the community. We all had to be developers back then and it caused a tremendous growth of developers that I don't think even the flight sims experienced. They had more people of course but I don't know they had a literal community of developers like was here.

I remember being in arguments with people over the right to criticize. And this is what we got for it. Not that I'm going to defend any train game developer either because to them, it's a job, they were pretty tone deaf then too. And ever game that has a fan base has this same exact problem. So there is no solution that's for certain. My point is it doesn't hurt to turn down the criticism.

Phil is right. You are better off having something to criticize especially something 20 years old. And here's hoping that someday one of these two companies will figure out something that enhances game play and editing better than what's out there now. There must be something about train simming that's off because look at last effort by Justin Cornell that disappeared into oblivion without even a whimper. Pretty rude I thought to get folks all excited and then disappear without a trace. Like that one airplane company that was pretty big into selling us stuff and then suddenly disappeared without notice.

Well that's my take and time to go on account of FOOD!

Rich

[rgarber]

Well... one thing hasn't changed, I sure can be as long winded now as ever! SORRRRREEEEEEEEYYYYYY!!!! - Rich

[NorthernWarrior]

Thanks for your input Rich.
Strange thing is, if N3V had included Surveyor 2.0, there's a good chance I might have folded, even as I grumble about the price.
I take your point that there are real people involved in the process, but these people are also taking cold hard commercial decisions which potentially alienate part of the potential customer base.

[rgarber]

Potentially Vern?? Are you kidding!? They've done it! And did a very good job of it in 2012! It was one of the big reasons I got out of building routes back then was because DTG literally killed the 3rd party payware market with that bit about in their EULA statement they could take our efforts, reverse engineer it and keep it for themselves. I don't know if they ever did it or not but one developer we all know and love said they did it with his F3 (hint hint). It was a bad time of it in 2012 and I thought literally I was aboard the Titantic with the ice berg just up ahead. All I'm saying is there's plenty of blame and mistakes to go all around. In the end they are taking compensation for their work and so there is more accountability on them than our usual suspects. It would be nice if one of us could make our own train game and see if that works out better for us.

[rgarber]

One more thing to add to this if you'all don't mind. I find it particular that most who try to do a train game, don't end up with one. - Rich

[seagoon]

...and in response to my slight criticism of the pricing at the N3V forum a right old roasting..

I read through Tony's opening post....three times.
I am still trying to make sense out of what he wrote; it's the type of thing that politicians say when making (what they think are) deep and meaningful announcements. There's a lot of words but very little straight info.

Twenty years have passed since I sat in Auran's studio helping to draft their very first User Manual.
That's two whole decades and yet even though they've had umpteen updates during that time, there's an element of "same, same" about their approach, which is sad.

Oh well......

[seagoon]

....and for them it's only about releasing a product and nothing to do with railroad enthusiasm. For them, most of them, it's not about railroading, it's only about doing what they do, graphics. Just graphics. It could be a boat, a plane, anything, but its graphics. They don't read books on railroading. It's not their thing....

Rich, you are one hundred percent correct.

My son (37) is a 3D animation artist...has been since 2004...and that is exactly what he has said to me on several occasions.
It doesn't matter whether he is charged with developing a talking potato chip, a T-Rex, an army of charging WW1 Turks or a Boeing 737 taking off......to him it is simply the animation of an object in the correct manner.
He doesn't need to eat a potato chip (or even like them!), nor have an interest in paleontology, or know the command structure of the Turkish army at Gallipoli or even care about aircraft spotting in order to do his job.

That is why graphic artists love their work.....there can be so much variety.

[rgarber]

It is fun. It's what I've been pursuing for the past five years and now game development. Check out my site at https://rgarber.artstation.com/ where I display my own stuff. In my route building days I never had the time to dwell on any one model for hardly a moment for the hundreds of models that needed making, the research, like that steel mill up in Massillon I built, or the thousands of objects that needed placing in the route. One of the worst feelings was staring at all that green when starting a new route and placing a few objects that hardly made a dent in the miles of scenery to populate. Back in those days I wouldn't even attempt to try my hand at making rollingstock I thought it would be too difficult and time consuming. Not to mention the animation and learning the variable names to make the things move in the sim. But what I was eluding to is I felt there's been quite a lot of false representation to make the community think there was real railroading enthusiasm in the make-up of these train game developers. Even some of the failed attempts we at least knew there was a real spirit of enthusiasm as we knew the participants. On some of them, not all of them. But I don't want to end on that note because nobody said they had to be railroad enthusiast. It would be nice...

[NorthernWarrior]

One of the worst feelings was staring at all that green when starting a new route and placing a few objects that hardly made a dent in the miles of scenery to populate.

That much is still true today, which is why I now try and drag myself off track laying and start work on the scenic side otherwise you look at the 30 or even 50 miles, have a brain meltdown and end up deleting the route!