question about addons

[jains15]

before i start i want to make sure that every1 understands i am i no way dissing freeware authors. All credits goes to the people on here who make msts stuff for free, the majority of stuff is very impressive and 95% of my msts content is freeware from this site. so thank you.

But why are there no commercial addons specifically for the british market? i dont pretend to know everything about this but i have never seen or read about a british equivalent to German Railroads or TGV or something? sure british stuff appears on things like round house and euro loco but there seems to be few 'profesional' products for british rail fans.

sure mideast, talylyn are products that we all pay for, but in my opinion these are semi-professional, the £4 charge covering costs alone and little profit being made, although tim court probably has liftime membership by now!

did i read somewhere that there is a product called engine shed or something that has some steam locos on it? is this purly british stock or am i thinking of something different?

my theory is that the freeware available for the british market is such high quality that there is no point making commercial products for us because we can do it all on our own? i dunno its possible

your thoughts are appreciated

i would like to reiterate again that i am i no way 'complaining' about this, i enjoy freeware locos and routes as much as the next person, and the quality of addons from this site continues to impress me. the fact remains that this question interests me and im keen to hear other people's views on this.

finally, im risking sounding like a real arse licker, but here's a message to all you freeware peeps out there. keep up the GREAT work.

regards jon

phew, its over at last!

[Goingnorth]

Simple. Because the people that produce them (or will produce them) are on this site. And for some reason the UK scene has always been very freeware based. So obviously if those persons are doing free software, there is little or no time to produce commercial stuff.

No games studio is going to take up the task of producing add-ons. For one there isn't enough profit involved (about £1000-20000) and secondly most don't have the railway knowledge. Even some of the commercial stuff produced (or in production) has errors. The anorak factor is a big problem.

Of-course there are British add-ons. Chris Longhursts Euroloco pack has a couple of UK trains.

And 3d trainstuff produce an excellent add-on with lots of steam, coaches and wagons. I really wish they would put that one in the shops.

There is at least another 6 UK addons on the way:

Cambrian coast line
Connex Express (London-Brighton)
East coast main line 1992/1948
Classics of steam
and there's at least a couple more...

[saddletank]

http://www.railwaves.com comes to mind. But agreed, while there are numerous USA and Europe payware routes around, the UK commercial market has been very slow to arise. But it's getting there. Perhaps the British desire for perfectionism is making it slow but very good when it does get here?

[Timcourt1]

I Personally Know of 3 companies that are producing British railway addons for MSTS, they will arrive pretty soon some of them at least

There are a couple of bigger products in the pipeline and also some nice Hardware from a few miles up the road from me (I know because I have been testing it!)

I have also just posted in here about it too!

Keep your eyes upen since there are some interesting developments on the Horizon.

Tim

[mikesimpson]

www.railwaves.com comes to mind. But agreed, while there are numerous USA and Europe payware routes around, the UK commercial market has been very slow to arise. But it's getting there. Perhaps the British desire for perfectionism is making it slow but very good when it does get here?

Hi Martin,

I think you will also find that the UK market really does not want to pay for software. In the old days of the Amiga computer, I wrote a genealogy program which was distributed through the Public Domain libraries with limited functionality and for 5pounds could be upgraded to the full shareware version.

In the U.S. and Australia, around 10% of users registered, whereas in the UK where one PD library alone distributed some 10,000 copies, only about 1% registered. The main complaint I received was that the users had already paid 1 pound for the PD library's floppy disk, so they should get the upgrade free

[EuropeanLoco]

As a commercial developer, I thought a view on this subject, from a member of the opposition: as some of you see us, would balance this discussion! I would first say I admire those who spend absolutely hour upon hour, creating some excellent routes and other add-ons for all of you to enjoy. I cannot understand why they give up so much of their spare time, for no reward.. I would ask anyone out there who makes good use of the FREE add-ons, what they would say if their boss asked them to work for FREE, I suspect the response would be unrepeatable either in words or speech. And my feeling regarding this is only affirmed, when I read just how critical some postings are, you get it for FREE, and then complain!

On the other hand, a posting above asked why commercial developers have to date not created a British Route – well possibly it is because of the general feeling toward paying! I cannot think of any other hobby, yes hobby, you get for FREE, I have been a European Railway follower for over 30 years, and at no time did I get anything for nothing, ask Horby, Fleischmann or even any Model Railways Club, of which there are literally hundreds around the UK, they charge for everything!

And yet because it is on a computer and especially on the Internet – for some reason it has to be FREE! It still takes as long to produce as any other product or service, and very often reaches the same quality.

Well, I for one would not bother, unless I receive some kind of reward, I spend most of my FREE time achieving the objectives, and my family suffers from this commitment!

However, after a lot of persuasion, I have embarked on a Project, many of you will already be aware of: “London-Brighton Expressâ€

[bigvern]

The other issue is the amount of time it takes to produce a route to a standard where people will part with money for it. I can't discuss my commercial work in detail due to NDA but for starters everything from the track texture up has to be done from scratch to comply with the MS EULA. I have recently taken to asking myself how I finished the Far North route in 3 - 4 months. Well the answer is, it's *not* really finished! I'm in the course of preparing some new activities to upload here and what strikes me now is how bare I left things in some places. No telephone poles, no fences in places just the track weaving through the terrain. Default stations and bridges... the list goes on. Of course, back then we didn't have TSM or many of the other utilities such as Route Riter that are now available. We were also still at the lower end of the route building learning curve.

My entirely personal view is that I'll continue to balance the commercial work with the freeware route building. The former helps towards the cost of research and buying material, while the latter puts something back into the community. Whether I attempt something as massive as the Far North again is something I'm still debating. However I can say the Far North is up for a re-work in the New Year and will continue to be my "flagship" freeware route.

[JohnKendrick]

Europeanloco wrote

However, after a lot of persuasion, I have embarked on a Project, many of you will already be aware of: “London-Brighton Express”, and will hope to achieve around a 80% authentic route, 100% would in my view not be possible, but screenshots that have already been posted to my site – in the words of some of you - meet with approval. So its completion is anticipated around Feb/March 2003 .

Looking at the screenshots, this appears to be a very exciting project, and eagerly wait to purchase it.

I am curious to know what the view would be of a commercial developer when objects they have built and included in their routes, such as stations and other buildings, get used within a freeware route.
Would it be similar to the position with the default routes, where a batch file can be used to extract objects from them? Obviously in this case, the person installing the freeware route would have to have purchased the commercial product containing objects and have it installed.

John

[EuropeanLoco]

I will attempt to answer the last two posting in this one section

bigvern wrote:

but for starters everything from the track texture up has to be done from scratch to comply with the MS EULA.

I sorry I don’t, know your name just your user name bigvern, but the MS EULA, state you cannot include any of there objects, which mean just that, it does not mean you cannot use them. So it is perfectly OK to use those object just not supply them on the CD. Most commercial route are using track and many other objects especially trees and the like. Which are part of the basic program, providing you do not supply the s & sd or texture files on your distribution disk, you brake no conditions of use.

I would say all commercial developers are using and I do emphasis using default objects – they just don’t supply them. The installer is programmed to copy the files from the user default installation of train sim, and that the reason, many state you need a full default installation of Train Sim.

Hope that clear that one up !

JohnKendrick wrote:

I am curious to know what the view would be of a commercial developer when objects they have built and included in their routes, such as stations and other buildings, get used within a freeware route.
Would it be similar to the position with the default routes, where a batch file can be used to extract objects from them? Obviously in this case, the person installing the freeware route would have to have purchased the commercial product containing objects and have it installed.

Well what can I say – after my explanation above, there would not be much one could do, providing the user did the same as commercial developers are doing regarding default objects, copy them and NOT SUPPLY!

Perhaps there is also a positive side to this – if other wanted to include any of my objects in their creations – I think I would consider it a compliment. But again I stress providing it was copied from the user hard drive, and NOT SUPPLIED ON ANY DOWNLOAD OR CD-ROM, which would mean that both the developer and the user of the developer creation would had spent their hard earnt cash, supporting the commercial developer and as I am one of those developers, my efforts.

John I am please you think, my work is worthy of a “exciting projectâ€

[3DRailHound]

Regarding running batch files in commercial projects, that physically move one or more of Kuju's objects and textures into a route folder that you created goes against the SPIRIT of their EULA. So IMHO, you may want to get their permission first before doing something like that.

Best regards,
Brad Brown

3D Train Stuff, Llc.

[joncole]

I need your help.... have just received Northern Rail Routes V5.0 in post.

There do NOT appear to be any sort of installation notes.

Basically there are 2 zip folders on the CS
one is the route - that is now installed onto my MSTS program menu.
But tyhe other zip file is Train5 consists / wav etc etc.
How do I install this file ????
Any help gratefully received.
Many thks.
John - Harrow, Middx