Atomic Systems

Will RailWorks take us in the direction of commercial route add-ons and abandoned personal routes that no one else sees or is there still a desire for Train Simulator Communities (all over the World) to have a library of routes produced for all to use, mainly for free?

I think there's many reasons why routes get abandoned and that's something which afflicts the other sims too. I'm still trying to get into producing another freeware route for RS/RW but keep getting the equivalent of writer's block.

I think what we will see are more freelance/fictionalised routes and maybe shorter more focused projects than done for MSTS etc.

It's also the wrong time of the year at the moment, too hot to really focus particularly this week when I'm on Nights and trying to sleep in the daytime!

I don't really understand the question since only countries having payware routes are UK, USA and Germany at the moment. Why would freeware die?
I have had idea of building my favourite route even before MSTS came out, not until now has the technology,reference source and skills advanced enough to develop such route.

SaMa1 wrote:I don't really understand the question since only countries having payware routes are UK, USA and Germany at the moment. Why would freeware die?
I have had idea of building my favourite route even before MSTS came out, not until now has the technology,reference source and skills advanced enough to develop such route.

Hi Everyone
Geoff is merely posing the question.....Do Community created routes still matter, and will they still be produced in the future?
I think this will depend on how many developers adopt RW and produce routes for it
Or is there going to be a more commercial side which is yet to emerge?
This indeed is a difficult question to answer and is probrably something that will only truly be answered over time.
Kind regards Stephen

I don't see why the freeware routes have to get shelved just because RW has been released, and also it would seem, a couple of new payware builders have entered the scene or are entering.

Any Payware I may buy depends very much on what appeals to me. I would have said community routes are just as important as ever - not everyone has the money to be able to afford "the latest payware offering".

Basherz wrote: Any Payware I may buy depends very much on what appeals to me. I would have said community routes are just as important as ever - not everyone has the money to be able to afford "the latest payware offering".

Agreed - I'd personally love to see more "DonationWare", that is if you can afford to give an amount (any) then you can give a donation for the piece of work. However if you're strapped for cash at the time you can still use the product with NO restrictions and when you've got the funds, donate an amount no matter how small further down the line.

I do believe a well known pop group have done this recently and it worked out pretty good for them, so if it works for music why can't it work for other "Digital" downloads

There is this little community venture under way of course:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 04&t=95247

SaMa1 wrote:not until now has the technology,reference source and skills advanced enough to develop such route.

The irony is of course, now resources such as Google Earth, Streetview and DEM etc. are available it does put more pressure on the route builder. 7 years ago in MSTS you could fudge it, but now the rivet counters can load up Google Maps and in a lot of places follow the line from the adjacent roadway. Good in some respects but a nightmare to capture all that detail.

In specific answer to the original question I would like to say "yes" but actual experience with RS/RW after nearly two years and the relatively low quantity of "community" routes and other material does seem to indicate otherwise. Obviously we have had this debate before and it did take a bit of time for MSTS and TRS to get going, but by mid-late 2003 there were a good selection of freeware routes (including Mid East and several other longer routes) and - just as important - a growing collection of static items to use in our routes and of course motive power/rolling stock items.

It is all very well for some on other forums to argue that RS.com have given us the tools and it is up to us to learn how to use them. Not everyone has the ability to produce good 3D models or a complex locomotive or indeed the skills to assemble a convincing route. You can't force people to learn new skills particularly if they are doing this in spare time. With MSTS there was a cross section of mutual support which resulted in a relatively high output of community work. Would be interesting to hear RS.com's views on this - are they really bothered about the freeware scene or do they see the future as payware that they can "encourage" developers to sell through Steam? I ask this because, while not expecting RS.com to spoon feed the end users, the fact remains that if the community are not providing the items needed to populate routes, then maybe they should be considering more packs - residential/commercial/industrial buildings and clutter, more water features, river lofts, docks etc. Would give their artists something to do and could be sold over Steam for the usual £4 to £5.

In conclusion, to survive and grow RW needs both community and commercial content, really, as let's not forget most of those involved with the MSTS payware scene cut their teeth on freeware first of all.

I think that is a very good post Vern and summarises the situation well.

A quick check over at the download section shows 137 routes listed for MSTS and 41 for RS, which means that RS is averaging 50% more routes a year despite a much smaller user base. Don't see any problems there.

Interesting point but don't forget to include all the routes available for MSTS exclusively on community CD's (Five of mine for starters). It's also not really like for like. A few of the RS/RW routes are still essentially WIP's, very small or expanded model railway style. Even considering my own input, 2 freeware routes for RS in 2 years vs 7 in total for MSTS over 5 years seems like a good balance but fails to take into account the total mileage of my MSTS routes clocks in at around 600 miles while my RS efforts total just over 40 miles.

I guess we could argue semantics all night but there's nothing for RS/RW that compares to being able to run fully scenicked Perth to Inverness or Thames-Mersey in MSTS. Additionally, that's just UKTS. I wonder what the proportion of MSTS to RS routes would be in a similar survey on T-S.com or Train.de?

Anyhow not my intention to be negative. The key issues as per the original question are 1. Are community routes still relevant to RS/RW and 2. If the answer is yes, how do we go about getting more people building them? More items and rolling stock is one side of it, distribution is another. Many new users of RW are going to be Steam (as in the distributor) orientated. They might not even look further than Steam to get their add-ons. Not something Matt probably wants to hear, but I wonder if in the long term RS.com are thinking about Steam to distribute freeware stuff too? Could possibly solve the issue of getting the payware dependencies in there as Steam could presumably flag up that you needed the foliage pack or (say) IOW in order to run a particular route.

Seems to me the problem most of us have isn't starting routes, it's getting them finished.

Maybe we need a "Pimp My Route" team.

While agreeing with much of what Vern has to say, we certainly have a lot more decent scenery items available for RailWorks after a couple of years than we ever had for MSTS at that time. We had no decent trees like the RSDL pack and the 3D trains foliage pack, and a lot of the buildings from the default routes plus the IOW allow for really decent routes to be built.

My gripe is that we are really short of freeware rolling stock. A handful of UK steam locos and a thousand reskins of Class 47s are not really enough. Hopefully this will be corrected in time, then perhaps the freeware routes will appear.

In around 2003, I produced my Australian Blue Mountains route, and had plenty of rolling stock to set up realistic scenarios, now 2 years after RS appeared, there is not a single Australian locomotive or piece of rolling stock available for download anywhere. I would assume that this holds true for virtually every country outside UK/US/Germany

Mike

similar survey on T-S.com

Hard to do, you would need to look at all of them individually for MSTS, since some routes are spanned across a dozen files and some have a choice between one megazip or the same route broken down into smaller sections. So out of the 1274 files in the train-sim.com MSTS route section, there's probably about 400 to 600 new routes there. RS is easier, not enough routes to even have a separate routes section, so all eight are stuffed into KRS Miscellaneous. Of the eight, four are European routes made by guys over here, some don't work in the plain vanilla US version since they used tracks or other assets from the York Newcastle route. One isn't really a "new" route, it's a mod of the default Cajon Pass, and the other three are mine, also available here uploaded by Glyn Phillips.

History of RS, when the original version came out it didn't have a complete scenario editor, no way to see what potential the AI traffic had. Some of us Yankee Doodles bought the original, then the US version when it came out, but when the US version was released we found out the two different versions had different sets of "default" assets, and the only way to make a route that was compatible on both sides of the pond was to install the plain vanilla US version, delete the \Assets\Kuju\RailsimulatorUS folder, and work with whatever assets remained. Not much of a selection. Consequently most of the US freeware route developers never bought it in the first place, those who did dumped it in the garbage and went back to MSTS after what they considered fatal flaws were discovered. That's why you don't see many US routes.

Railworks is a HUGE step in the right direction, with everyone having the same extra large set of default assets to work with, it makes it much easier for a route developer on either side of the Atlantic to find just the bridge, bush or building he needs in the defaults, without worrying about someone "over there" not being able to use it. Most of my fellow US route developers feel the same way I do however, if they replace the imbecile AI dispatcher with Matt's chimpanzee who randomly stabs things, maybe we could WORK with the chimp to create routes that we can do realistic AI traffic on.

Bottom line, I think you'll see more routes for RW than there were for RS simply because they're moving in the direction that will attract more route developers.

While agreeing with much of what Vern has to say, we certainly have a lot more decent scenery items available for RailWorks after a couple of years than we ever had for MSTS at that time.

In terms of quality yes, perhaps but if you look in the UKTS library for RS/RW scenery items the range is very limited. Most of the additional items to populate routes has come about via the payware - RSDL foliage pack, the IOW route, Rich Garber's routes etc. 3D Trains foliage pack and road system do have the option of a free version which is commendable but there is quite a gap in the "quality" (not meaning any offence to the author) between the free and paid for versions.

And I agree whole-heartedly about the rolling stock. Some time ago there was a poll about what should come first - the routes or the stock. At the time I recall the verdict was split about equally but now I think the balance is tilting in favour of more trains before more routes. After nearly two years there still isn't a single tram model (not sure what happened to the one Richard Scott was working on). Little point in starting a tram or rapid transit route if the only motive power to run on it is the DB electic loco! I think this approach does work - although I abandoned my attempt at a short section of the WCML, since release of the Class 86 a number of people seem interested in having a go at various parts of the route.