Train Artisan

qzdcg8 · Post by **qzdcg8** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 12:44 pm

NeutronIC wrote:Looks very good indeed doesn't it

Matt.

...certainly does! Matt, I hope you are gonna upgrade your servers to host a Virtual Railway for us all to run trains on in the future...

Christopher125 · Post by **Christopher125** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:23 pm

Hi

Anyway, on a plane you can crash it, its and inherrent risk of something that can go anywhere, however with trains, especially UK ones, trying to crash one while driving is practically impossible accidentally, trying to do it deleiberately would be impossible. If people want to do damage to railways, then there'd do something to the track or the signals etc, as taking over a train would be completely pointless, therefore I dont see the realism in train sims as being any trouble at all.

Chris

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:25 pm

Christopher125 wrote:Hi

Anyway, on a plane you can crash it, its and inherrent risk of something that can go anywhere, however with trains, especially UK ones, trying to crash one while driving is practically impossible accidentally, trying to do it deleiberately would be impossible. If people want to do damage to railways, then there'd do something to the track or the signals etc, as taking over a train would be completely pointless, therefore I dont see the realism in train sims as being any trouble at all.

Chris

Except of course that there are already several examples of ToCs in the UK and railroad operators in the US forbidding commercial use of their liveries, not just for reasons of anti-terrorism but simply because they don't want their copyrighted logos etc used in a home simulation where the crashing of trains is commonplace.

LucaZone · Post by **LucaZone** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:29 pm

maybe as previously discussed, some form of 'crash/no crash' switch can be built into the eng file.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:30 pm

and if one player in MP has it enabled and another doesn't?

Backfoot2002 · Post by **Backfoot2002** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:08 pm

The host should be the one to choose if to enable or disable it.

Post by **NeutronIC** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:29 pm

Matt, I hope you are gonna upgrade your servers to host a Virtual Railway for us all to run trains on in the future...

Rest assured that whatever capabilities the next generation of Train Simulators offer for multiplayer (and non-MP facilities) I will be doing whatever is necessary to provide full use of them - if that means buying another server and sticking the server software on it then that's absolutely not an issue - I can have new servers up and running in 3 days at Verio

That said, the machine that runs the database server is practically idle at the moment anyway so there's more than enough capacity on there for it to run any multiplayer servers, all it might need is the network card capacity upgrading to 100 megabit as i've only done that upgrade on the web server at the moment.

Matt.

Post by **NeutronIC** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 2:32 pm

and if one player in MP has it enabled and another doesn't

In all other MP games things like that are server configurations, any client configuration in such an instance is overridden.

The problem of 'too much' realism is certainly one to be aware of though and yes, it's a risk that some companies will back off scared however the UK companies are quite open to train simulator these days although they require payment and contracts etc to use their likeness commercially - I've still not got anywhere getting a formal permission for freeware use though one person has just suggested that nobody has a problem with it but they can't say that formally, shut up and stop asking questions

Matt.

Post by **martinhodgson** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 3:12 pm

Backfoot2002 wrote:
LucaZone wrote:It truely is awesome to look at. the detail is immense. But because of this im also worried.

Are we still feeling ripples of 9/11 when it comes to simulating real life operations? will companies be reluctant to allow certain things to be produced in such a realistic way. Remembering that only once people saw how different MSTS controls were to real trains did they allow us to contine with modern stock and liverys.
Doesnt seem to stop Flight Simulator..

Im guessing it wouldnt trains either. To be honest i never even thought about it that way.

It has, sort of. In the same way GNER are unwilling to lend their name to MT's ECML project, real world airlines are also unwilling to do the same for FS - hence we see the default airlines 'Orbit' and similarly bland names.

The same has happened with Virtual Airlines. Many airlines have succesfully shut down their virtual counterparts - they see it as detrimental to their brands without realising truly how realistic it is. BA Virtual has BA's permission to simulate their operations and use their logos - however we appear to be an exception.

FuNky2k · Post by **FuNky2k** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 3:18 pm

multiplayer!!!! There is a god!!!

Backfoot2002 · Post by **Backfoot2002** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:24 pm

martinhodgson wrote:
Backfoot2002 wrote:
LucaZone wrote:It truely is awesome to look at. the detail is immense. But because of this im also worried.

Are we still feeling ripples of 9/11 when it comes to simulating real life operations? will companies be reluctant to allow certain things to be produced in such a realistic way. Remembering that only once people saw how different MSTS controls were to real trains did they allow us to contine with modern stock and liverys.
Doesnt seem to stop Flight Simulator..

Im guessing it wouldnt trains either. To be honest i never even thought about it that way.
It has, sort of. In the same way GNER are unwilling to lend their name to MT's ECML project, real world airlines are also unwilling to do the same for FS - hence we see the default airlines 'Orbit' and similarly bland names.

The same has happened with Virtual Airlines. Many airlines have succesfully shut down their virtual counterparts - they see it as detrimental to their brands without realising truly how realistic it is. BA Virtual has BA's permission to simulate their operations and use their logos - however we appear to be an exception.

The first thing id like to point out, is that im sure its EB doing the ECML.

Secondly, the only reason why you see 'Orbit' in MS Flight Simulator is becuase MS dont fancy paying airlines for there names on their game. This opens the market for add ons. E.g FS Traffic 2004, has lots of Branded airlines on there, and im sure there are more FS add ons which use Branded names.

Post by **NeutronIC** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:41 pm

Secondly, the only reason why you see 'Orbit' in MS Flight Simulator is becuase MS dont fancy paying airlines for there names on their game. This opens the market for add ons. E.g FS Traffic 2004, has lots of Branded airlines on there, and im sure there are more FS add ons which use Branded names.

Actually I doubt in many cases that permission is ever obtained for the use of brands... It's just that many of them don't know or aren't that bothered by it - those (such as GNER) who consider their brand to be a considerable part of their assets will chase it vigorously. Who here even knows that there are owners of the British Rail brands such as Railfreight and the 'there and back again' logo and as such permission must be obtained before their use in any form? (don't worry, I've got permission on behalf of all people uploading to UKTrainSim).

Matt.

Backfoot2002 · Post by **Backfoot2002** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:59 pm

NeutronIC wrote:
Secondly, the only reason why you see 'Orbit' in MS Flight Simulator is becuase MS dont fancy paying airlines for there names on their game. This opens the market for add ons. E.g FS Traffic 2004, has lots of Branded airlines on there, and im sure there are more FS add ons which use Branded names.
Actually I doubt in many cases that permission is ever obtained for the use of brands... It's just that many of them don't know or aren't that bothered by it - those (such as GNER) who consider their brand to be a considerable part of their assets will chase it vigorously. Who here even knows that there are owners of the British Rail brands such as Railfreight and the 'there and back again' logo and as such permission must be obtained before their use in any form? (don't worry, I've got permission on behalf of all people uploading to UKTrainSim).

Matt.

Well as that BR no longer exsits, I thought that they people dont need to ask permmission to do do commercial products with it included, as it no longer a company. But then again I might be wrong

I was under the impression that if I was to produce a commercial add on that I would have to go to all the companies based in my route, for example let say Virgin, Central trains, etc, and then ask for there permissions to use there train liveris in my add on. The I would expect they would either day yes or no, and probably ask for a percentage share of the profits (i.e 10%).

The only "Loophole" as I was aware of, is by changing the name or livery a bit so that it does not come in conflict with that livery. For example on the new game "Transport Giant" they have used trucks, trains and buses from around the world, and just changed one letter or two, therefore avoiding the copyright. So instead of a truck named "Volvo" its named "Valvo".

johndibben · Post by **johndibben** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 9:38 am

You can own a brand name even if it's not being used on a product. It can then be used in the future. An example is when taking over another company, the brand name can be kept to avoid someone else using it and aviod confusion between the two companies.

As for TOC's, I can only speak about one with any certainty and that's Virgin Trains. They love publicity and welcome anything (as long as it's seen as a quality product in it's field) with their name on it. I doubt they'd be any problem with a 'not for profit' item. They've heard of MSTS but it isn't uppermost on their minds at the moment. Trainsimming may be be big here but in the scheme of things, it's very small beer. MS approched Virgin while in the development stage.

'For profit' is another matter. Someone builds up a brand name at considerable cost and they're likely not to take kindly to someone having a free ride with it, particularly without permission.

Model railways are the closest example. VT have good relations with quality model railway manufacturers.

A lump sum could be requested for a product bearing their name. They'd be unlikely to request anything which would scupper the project but it would reduce profits.

Should anyone believe this is unfair, VT couldn't use the Thunderbird logos and names on their loco's without a similar arrangement with the owners of the copywrite of Gerry Anderson's TV shows.

The approach is all important. If it was to appear unprofessional or odd, they'd probably ignore it. They no doubt get plenty of strange mail

Preservation societies and museums have been close allies for trainsimming as they exist in the same mixed 'volunteer/not for profit' and 'professional/for profit' environment. They work well together for that reason but it's severely limiting the present day scene in the commercial sector of the hobby.

I'm not a spokesman for anyone but I've some knowledge of Virgin Trains at the level at which licences are issued.

Other TOC's probably differ but I'm sure they're all open to proposals which they perceive as busnesslike and mutually benficial.

Sims may be more realistic but I really don't see a problem as regards train crashes or terrorism when weighed against good publicity. Shedding the 'oddball' Internet image would help. The people you're dealing with in TOC's are likely to live in the real world have have little time anything which associates them with something the public are often deeply suspicious of.

If we want to be taken seriously and break into modern day railway operations, it's time to 'up the game' on forums to a point where their customers would feel comfortable reading them. Their customers are the prime concern, believe it or not

and what they're comfortable seeing associated with their companies

thenudehamster · Post by **thenudehamster** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 12:47 pm

Nicely put, John.
I had a quirky thought regarding BR, though - as BR (from the days of British Railways and the British Transport Commission onwards) were a Nationalised, and therefore government owned, business, it was actually owned by the people, so we all owned the copyright to the logos. That being so, why couldn't we give ourselves permission to use the logo anyway???