EB Pick 'N' Mix

[6rdfar90]

On European Bahn's Homepage it says about new routes being under the Pick 'N' Mix option. What does it mean?

[jbilton]

Hi
I don't know........ but years ago in Woolworths it was an expensive way of buying sweets.
Cheers
Jon

[Easilyconfused]

Well I think you will have to wait and see. The actual text on the website says

Pick 'n' Mix is a concept used in the sweet industry, allowing flexibility by choosing the type and quantity contained in the bag! We have listened to many of your needs and requirements, and now are offering our products in a similar fashion.

All EuropeanBahn products, beginning with "West Coast Mainline Express", will be offered under the Pick 'n' Mix scheme!

Watch this space !

So I think you will have to wait and see unless someone from EuropeanBhan decides to add more information.

Kindest regards

John

[Easilyconfused]

At this point I would remind all members that malicious comments and general rubbishing of any commercial or freeware product is not welcome and can be dealt with by the moderators.

Basically - if you don't have anything constructive to say then don't say it and cause this thread to be locked. Given no further details on the "pick and mix" offering are available pointless speculation is unhelpful.

Kindest regards

John

[jbilton]

Ooooh John..... you've got us all wrong...
I would imagine it will be a system where everything will be standalone or work together.
However I would also imagine it could work out expensive to buy all the products. As is the ECML.
However I wouldn't critise EB in particular........everyone's at it...wringing the last few quid out of MSTS......before KRS hits the shelves.
Always reminds me of these twice weekly magazines which build up from fifty parts at £5 each.........makes an expensive book.........but people buy them in the hundreds.
People have choice......so no moans from me.
Cheers
Jon

[Easilyconfused]

Jon,

that was not a specific comment aimed particularly at you but you happened to post before I spotted the thread. There is very little information about the "pick and mix" so speculating is not helpful. I do agree about the weekly magazine type of deal.

Before the EB forums shut down and on the UKTS forums there were comments about liking the route but deleting all the activities and writing custom activities. I would presume EB have taken notice of those comments and have decided to try something different maybe where the route costs so much and then stock is a bit more and activities a bit more again.

There - now I have ignored my moderator advice so maybe I get canned for a week

Kindest regards

John

[lateagain]

Hi
I don't know........ but years ago in Woolworths it was an expensive way of buying sweets.
Cheers
Jon

,

...........

......

[buffy500]

Jon,

that was not a specific comment aimed particularly at you but you happened to post before I spotted the thread. There is very little information about the "pick and mix" so speculating is not helpful. I do agree about the weekly magazine type of deal.

Before the EB forums shut down and on the UKTS forums there were comments about liking the route but deleting all the activities and writing custom activities. I would presume EB have taken notice of those comments and have decided to try something different maybe where the route costs so much and then stock is a bit more and activities a bit more again.

There - now I have ignored my moderator advice so maybe I get canned for a week

Kindest regards

John

John,

To be fair, if you post something announcing a new concept and give no details as to what it is, you are kind of inviting discussion about what it might be.
It's what I'd expect if I did it.

But if you look at the announcement on the rerelease of the Northern TGV route I think it shows that the route and stock are available seperately, so I think you are probably about right in your guess.
If it were me I guess I'd offer, route/stock/route & stock options.
With the route or stock options costing a proportion (maybe 60%) of the combined price. That way it costs the same as it would have before if you chose the normal package option, and you saved if you would not use the stock and only picked the route.
If its not that then I'm confused as to what it might be.
But its not a completely pointless idea.

[Easilyconfused]

Thanks Dave.

It is an interesting concept and time will tell whether it works. Having read a lot of comments on various forums it would appear there could be a market to sell just a route with no stock or activities and a route + stock but no activities.

I have been advised by PM that more information will be available some time after the Bristol Model Railway Show which takes place next weekend.

Kindest regards

John

[NiallGray]

I have been advised by PM that more information will be available some time after the Bristol Model Railway Show which takes place next weekend.

Kindest regards

John

By putting "some time" as two separate words and in bold, are you telling us, John, it will quite a while after the Bristol show, or did you mean to say it would be sometime soon, ie very near future?

Seriously, I will speculate one point though on this initiative. Regardless of the "pick and mix" option, I would be surprised if there was not the normail 'in the box' variety you see on all payware routes, as it would be difficult for the likes of Contact Simulations, Play, Amazon, etc. to sell it otherwise.

Other than than comments about making money (and if you're a payware company, you want to make money!), I don't think you'll find any real complaints at the moment because people don't know what is exactly on offer.

Why not let people genuinely speculate the topic for now, ie predictions of what they might think it entail (only moderating the negative ones)? Then when it is released we can see who was closest to the mark!

[Easilyconfused]

The words "some time" are as in the PM I received. No idea of the exact time line so it could be the week after or it could be the next month etc. As the website said - watch this space. The information will be here when it is here so don't go posting on the Mayday Monday morning that there is no further information

Of course members can offer their opinions but it usually degenerates into a heated discussion with some people stating they would never touch it with a bargepole but then continuing to argue about previous products etc.

I think Dave made some very interesting points in his post.

All threads of this type are watched closely but the moderators do have other things to be doing - my garden grass isn't going to cut itself today and I can lose children and small animals in it now

Kindest regards

John

[seagulls2000]

Welcome to our Newsletter!

The EB Team are still hard at work with many new products - least of all "West Coast Mainline". You may also have noticed a new method of Sales announced on our website, which has received a fair bit of attention on UKTS, and yes like a couple of comments we though "Pick 'n' Mix" was quite a good idea.

"Pick 'n' Mix" - will allow a user to buy just the route or even just one loco or activity.

Yes we are thinking of breaking it down that much, of course we will not be able to break up the route itself, but to sell it without any Loco or activities is a concept many of you have already asked for. You will have noticed we have begun with two activity packs, one from our "London South Coast" Promotion, allow those of you who did not qualify for the FREE offer, the other from "the Leeds Loop". "Northern European TGV" which is a fictional representation of a high speed line for use with both the Eurostar and other European High Speed Trains. It was the very first Commercial product by EuropeanBahn..

We intend to add many smaller products ranging from single activities for as little as £1.00 each to an EMU Set at £6.99. All will come with a professional installer and small PDF manual(only product under construction) , plus you will be able to contact our support staff, through the usual channels http://www.europeanbahn.co.uk/eb_helpdesk.htm should you need any help or advice.

We have said little or nothing about the TP Express, which is still on the drawing boards and will be released later in 2007, possible by download only, but no finial decision, has been made regarding this product.

Should anyone be visiting the 39th Bristol Model Railway Show next weekend, 4th 5th & 6th May 2007 pop alone and say hallo, we are always here to help and listen, and where possible enlighten you in many aspect of EB past, present & future policies, should you have any question.

As always, we are very grateful for your support, as just by the fact you have received this Newsletter, you are a registered user of our Shopping Cart - you will have done exactly that.

Thanks you all

Best Regards
EB Development Team

So there you have it, you buy activites for a quid each as well as the route and stock etc. Guess that would make Thames Mersey cost about 500 quid using that system.

This is not EB bashing as CS are doing similar for the LMS stock pack, but I generally feel we are having the urine extracted from us at the moment by these 2 companies. The addons were quite reasonable at 20-30 pounds depending on the content but we have seen recently London to York via Leeds costing 70 pounds where a reasonable price for the whole route would have been 40 pounds, The LMS pack costing 37 pounds for the 2 parts so far with another 2 parts to come (probably at 12 pounds each making a total of 61 pounds) where Blue Arrow have released stock packs via their own web site with similar content for 15 pounds tops and then done extra locos (ok reskins but still extra content) for free.

I am just hoping this is not the shape of things to come when KRS and MSTSx comes out. This kind of aggressive pricing will only make consumers move away from the sims

Gary

[ajax103]

Pick and Mix could be a blessing, I would say lets wait and see what's exactly on offer before we make criticism of EB.

[lateagain]

Pick and Mix could be a blessing, I would say lets wait and see what's exactly on offer before we make criticism of EB.

Did you actually read Gary's post???

It's a reasonable premise that commercial add-ons keep interest in the simulators alive. It's also, I'm lead to believe, a fact that those who further their interest in the sim from download sites is a small percentage of those that enjoy the simulators (?).

If those points are true then Gary's point about aggresive pricing is bound to be counter productive in the long term.

I'm not a flight sim fan but I think there's been a lot of criticism of pricing for some add-ons in that field and FS is unquestionably better supported in all respects than Train Simulators.

If you look at other PC games, many of which are more sophisticated than TS, they market (can be purchased) for around the £20 mark. Subsequent add-ons are often around £15. Within a year of release the basic game has dropped to under £10 and the add-ons have a longer period of "premium price" before they too drop to bargain bucket levels. Often the different add-ons are bundled together at a bargain price or even sold together with the original.

If commercial add-ons are sustaining the sim at the moment, then overpricing will soon have the opposite effect.

Check the prices of the other Train Sim Commercial developers. They're there to see....

[dkightley]

I would say lets wait and see what's exactly on offer before we make criticism of EB.

Don't you mean constructive comments? I think everyone knows ....or should know....the line re criticism of commercial add-on producers within the forums.