Showing Off (Again !)
Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 8:03 pm
Today was another opportunity to show off my Train Simulator work to the public at large, or at least those that have liking for Railways.
Nothing prestigious, just a small Model Railway Show in a local Church Hall which seems to attract more people each time it runs. The good weather no doubt helped to bring the people in and I suspect a few came in to find out where the great smell of bacon rolls was coming from as the ladies in the kitchen tried to keep up with demand.
I have been to this show a few times now and each time more and more people are stopping by to talk about TS2013. Some people who talk to me already have the program but may not have used it for a while, others are regular users and a good few are seeing it for the first time. You can always spot the last group as they are quite capable of watching the completion of a whole scenario whilst standing in the same place for a very long time with a slightly glazed look in their eyes.
Some of those that have the program already but do not use it much, often cited poor frame rates as the problem but after some explanation about the need for a good graphics card, and seeing TS2013 in action as it should be, most seemed willing to try again and sort out the problem. Most under performing PC's seem to come from PC World and probably just had on-board graphics and my conclusion was that this was the core problem.
Those that already have the program enjoyed using it regularly and asked a few questions about this and that and unlike a year or so ago, seemed quite satisfied with the Steam system of distribution. A few did complain that Steam would often not shut down properly and their computers had to be re-started in order to clear the problem. Indeed, both of my laptops suffered this same problem during the day and had to be shut down, but although I was completely offline, the program started up again eventually after sorting itself out.
Making use of my Have-A Go-approach, a pleasing number of people completely new to Virtual Railways had a great time driving a variety of locos and routes and one gentlemen was really pleased to complete a small shunting puzzle.
Another Railway Modeller wanted to know if he could design a layout with TS2013 and after trying to show him that his horizons could extend much further than that, we did set about creating a small layout with sidings and he was quite happy that he could do this for his new project. Unfortunately, I 'lost' the route and never got around to showing him locos actually running on this Model Railway layout that we had created.
At times, when I moved on to demonstrating route building, model creation, scenario creation and more complex aspects of the program I could see that some people were not keeping up, which is understandable as once you get beyond the dead easy Quick Drive Scenarios, this is a complex program with almost infinite possibilities. One gentlemen thought it was a waste of time to spend months creating your own routes when you could buy good ones already made, and I do see his point but fortunately there are many who are hooked by the game, and idiots that we are, thoroughly enjoy spending hundreds of hours creating content for ourselves and others to share.
I hope a few new people are logging in to UKTS tonight to follow up on their experiences today.
So I have seen a steady but definite increase in interest in Vitual Railways, much from Railway Modellers, and I have had a great day showing people what I do as a hobby and letting them share my experiences.
One final thought ... a mother (whose young lad has spent some time playing the game on my stand) asked me if there was a club for children who play the game. I had no answer to that
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PS I wanted to take a photo of a crowded stand as well but the problem was that I was too busy to do that
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Nothing prestigious, just a small Model Railway Show in a local Church Hall which seems to attract more people each time it runs. The good weather no doubt helped to bring the people in and I suspect a few came in to find out where the great smell of bacon rolls was coming from as the ladies in the kitchen tried to keep up with demand.
I have been to this show a few times now and each time more and more people are stopping by to talk about TS2013. Some people who talk to me already have the program but may not have used it for a while, others are regular users and a good few are seeing it for the first time. You can always spot the last group as they are quite capable of watching the completion of a whole scenario whilst standing in the same place for a very long time with a slightly glazed look in their eyes.
Some of those that have the program already but do not use it much, often cited poor frame rates as the problem but after some explanation about the need for a good graphics card, and seeing TS2013 in action as it should be, most seemed willing to try again and sort out the problem. Most under performing PC's seem to come from PC World and probably just had on-board graphics and my conclusion was that this was the core problem.
Those that already have the program enjoyed using it regularly and asked a few questions about this and that and unlike a year or so ago, seemed quite satisfied with the Steam system of distribution. A few did complain that Steam would often not shut down properly and their computers had to be re-started in order to clear the problem. Indeed, both of my laptops suffered this same problem during the day and had to be shut down, but although I was completely offline, the program started up again eventually after sorting itself out.
Making use of my Have-A Go-approach, a pleasing number of people completely new to Virtual Railways had a great time driving a variety of locos and routes and one gentlemen was really pleased to complete a small shunting puzzle.
Another Railway Modeller wanted to know if he could design a layout with TS2013 and after trying to show him that his horizons could extend much further than that, we did set about creating a small layout with sidings and he was quite happy that he could do this for his new project. Unfortunately, I 'lost' the route and never got around to showing him locos actually running on this Model Railway layout that we had created.
At times, when I moved on to demonstrating route building, model creation, scenario creation and more complex aspects of the program I could see that some people were not keeping up, which is understandable as once you get beyond the dead easy Quick Drive Scenarios, this is a complex program with almost infinite possibilities. One gentlemen thought it was a waste of time to spend months creating your own routes when you could buy good ones already made, and I do see his point but fortunately there are many who are hooked by the game, and idiots that we are, thoroughly enjoy spending hundreds of hours creating content for ourselves and others to share.
I hope a few new people are logging in to UKTS tonight to follow up on their experiences today.
So I have seen a steady but definite increase in interest in Vitual Railways, much from Railway Modellers, and I have had a great day showing people what I do as a hobby and letting them share my experiences.
One final thought ... a mother (whose young lad has spent some time playing the game on my stand) asked me if there was a club for children who play the game. I had no answer to that
-
PS I wanted to take a photo of a crowded stand as well but the problem was that I was too busy to do that
-
Recently a local pub in Derby has had a Class 37 diesel cab delivered to it's car park. Imagine that fitted out with monitors and playing TS2013 with a good sound system. 
