Interesting development?

[rosschris10]

Those that don't subscribe at all could be seen as the 'losers' Peter, as some content is *exclusive* to subscribers.....though I can see that content very quickly making it's way onto various file sharing servers.

Very good point you make.
Also correct me if i am wrong but if certain freeware content is going to be exclusive to subscribers then surley that is going against certain infringements. FREEWARE has to be just that FREEWARE making it exclusive to members who have paid a £29,99 subscription and not making it available to non subscriptions is technically charging for a product.
I for one will not be purchasing a subscription UKTS has served the purpose of the community excellently for years and long shall that continue.

[smarty2]

I'm sure Ross may well faint with shock at this... But I agree with him, and with Gary's point.

[jpvdveer]

This is what Alan has posted below one of his Youtube videos: (

This video is hosted by YouTube, a site which is outside of the editorial control of UKTrainSim and as such Parental Control is strongly advised.
To view the video, click on the PLAY button.
If you click anywhere else on this video, you will be taken to a YouTube page, where you may find yourself subjected to content that you feel is offensive.
If you feel THIS video is inappropriate, please report it to a moderator immediately for prompt action. )

Just to make it clear the freeware on the website will be just that FREE you will need to make an account that is also FREE if you would like the extras that come with a subscription you’re more than welcome to PAY for that

You’re FREE ACCOUNT will 1. Give you access to the freeware content 2. No download limit 3. No download speed limit

The SUBSCRIPTION PAID account will give you 1.early access to new routes 2.early access to new stock 3.early access to scenarios 4. A new easy install software tool (no more copying goes) meaning reskins and routes can be installed super simply 5.shhh I can’t say the rest just yet but you will be told on launch day

Against that background, it is indeed a bit odd that the current alanthomsonsim.com website lists a total of four forthcoming routes as "subscriber-only specials". In line with Alan's earlier comment, I am assuming and hoping that subscribers will merely obtain "early access" (ie they become beta testers?) and that the routes will also become available as genuine freeware afterwards

[rosschris10]

I'm sure Ross may well faint with shock at this... But I agree with him, and with Gary's point.

Not at all smarty. It just seems to me that people will look down any Avenue these days to make a few £££
Freeware is freeware. Looking for a loop hole to make money from it is just wrong.
I wonder if mr Thompson will put his hand in his pocket and give some of this money he plans on making on his subscription to the freeware developers as a donation for all of their hard work. Somehow I very much doubt that.

[johnrossetti]

Interesting times indeed. We shall see over time if anything "free" on the internet survives for long, who would have thought YouTube would ever offer a subscription service.
As someone who used Google on its first day on the internet, I have to remember nothing is actually free on the internet, everything has to be paid for, even if it’s only by the few for the many.

Early access is the last reason on earth I would "join" anything. I like and have always liked, tried and tested.

I wish anyone starting a fresh enterprise, good luck, but at the moment I do so as an interested bystander. For now.
John

[smarty2]

I too will wait and see, I doubt any but one extra person will be receiving any share of the proceeds from that venture?

[jpvdveer]

I'm also not planning to subscribe. But on your question - he does in fact seem to be planning to share some of the proceeds with developers (see https://alanthomsonsim.com/?page_id=996)

The developer subscription programme

On alanthomsonsim.com there is the option for users to take out a yearly subscription. This gives them premium benefits over other free users and access to more content.

We feel that it is appropriate to give something back to the people who invest their time in creating great content for the simulation series. Therefore we have created a subscription system which means people can invest in the future of the simulator knowing they are helping out those who create content for it.

Not only do we use some of the profits from the site to invest in new content and tools for the simulator we also return some of it back to the people who host their content with us.

If you would like to participate in that community payback scheme then we offer a platform where users can subscribe to download your content.

We run this site for the benefit of all. Yes there are hosting costs and administration issues and the time spent creating things and running things but ultimately we all run the simulator as well and so want to see the very best content. Freeware is great but sadly, not everything in life is free. We feel that if you are getting something back from investing your time then that’s good for everyone surely?
How does it work?

When content is hosted on the subscription part of the site we are able to generate figures telling us how popular that content has been. We know how much was downloaded by people who have paid a fee for the privilege. We allocate a proportion of everyone’s yearly subscription as ‘payback’ and then split this over the 12 months of the year. We then proportionally allocate all of those twelfths across the most popular subscription downloads in the month.

For example;

Say 100 people have active subscriptions to the site in January then that is 100 x community payback portions allocated from their subscriptions.

We then divide those 100 portions by 12 to give a monthly allocation.

We then work out what proportion of the unique monthly downloads any given download has as a percentage. (e.g. If 500 downloads were made in total and 50 of those downloads came from one product then that product would account for 10% of the monthly download count)

We then distribute the monthly allocation across the developers in proportion to the popularity of their downloads. (e.g. in the example above the developer would receive 10% of the monthly allocation)
How do I receive my payments?

We distribute payments to developers using PayPal
How much is allocated from the subscription?

This can vary as the costs surrounding running the site and it’s administration vary. Typically we would allocate no less than 30% of the subscription.
Can I just charge for access to my files?

Yes, we also offer a payware / dontationware’ option for developers – please see here for more information
Do I have to host files on the subscription part of the site?

No, you can host your files totally for free and offer them as freeware with no download restrictions or limits. You would not qualify for the community payback scheme however.
How do I participate?

To participate please get in touch – we can manage the uploading of all your content and give you a complimentary 10GB cloud storage for it.

[749006]

I notice from the quote in the previous post

This gives them premium benefits over other free users and access to more content.

Which means Non Premium Subscribers will miss out on some content

I will await the Launch and see exactly what people are getting before making any decision.

Peter

[rosschris10]

I notice from the quote in the previous post

This gives them premium benefits over other free users and access to more content.

Which means Non Premium Subscribers will miss out on some content

I will await the Launch and see exactly what people are getting before making any decision.

Peter

Thanks for pointing that out Peter.

So that means that certain freeware is going to get locked into the subscription servce. Wonder what TOCs will think about that ie there branding on freeware getting locked into a paid service.

[749006]

I noticed on his website a bit more info

Subscriber specials – coming soon!
Subscriber special products are complete, finished products, available exclusively to premium members for a period of time before general release.

Which is OK

Certain products will remain available to subscribers only indefinitely.

(My Underlining)

Depending on what I might be missing out on will make me decide whether to join or not

One of the routes that is "Coming Soon" is the WCML London & the Midlands V5.1
Does that mean no more updates on UKTS?

West Coast Mainline (WCML) Northwest and Scotland is available
The Railways of Devon and Cornwall plus the Atlantic Coast Line are also available

There are reskins on his page by different people for Free Download by just opening an account.
Maybe the Authors have their work on his site which means they don't need a personal site.

Peter

[jpvdveer]

Puzzling indeed. The subscription page itself states as one of the advantages of subscribing the following:

Full access to every download on the site including the ECML merge.

That might suggest that the ECML merge could fall into your underlined category Peter. But still to be seen of course.

[TheCatOfWar]

I wonder if mr Thompson will put his hand in his pocket and give some of this money he plans on making on his subscription to the freeware developers as a donation for all of their hard work. Somehow I very much doubt that.

This is very much the idea, Alan has stated numerous times that he's doing this both to cover costs and give back to the community and developers.

[TheCatOfWar]

Each to their own.

Yeah, and we're sort of veering off topic a bit now but just consider this: Those using the "old fashioned, stay in control' version of "their own" are usually those having the least bother with the game.
There's nothing inherently *wrong* with using automated routines to do stuff, but if those routines fail (most usually because of local security/account control/permissions conflicts) those without the very basic file and folder management skills (wrong word really, there's no skill in right clicking and choosing either 'copy' or ''paste') are absolutely stuffed. Providing 'magic bullet' installers is a laudable idea, but isn't closing/removing that gap between those-in-the-know and those-who-don't as readily done with instruction? It can be done...if between us we can get an octogenarian going from absolutely clueless to being able to create scenarios in a week or so, then we can surely show folk how to go about simpler tasks. The middle path of providing tools/routines that cater for both viewpoints/methods is possibly the best approach.

As far as the installer goes, I think a large part of it is convenience, even for an experienced user. Sure, you could extract everything, paste it into your railworks install, find the instructions so you know what geos to copy, extract them from the ap file, copy them to the right location (possibly several times for MUs etc) and hope that neither you or the instructions forgot anything, then repeat for every next reskin, route, scenario you want to install- or, you could just tell the installer program to do it and it be over in 10 seconds with zero effort.

[TheCatOfWar]

May have been vague, but it peeked members curiosity, and the video, in general, was interesting about the new route also yes, so a case maybe Chris, of killing two birds with one stone? And telling people to skip to 07:30 would imo have been discourteous to Alan.

But I am interested in signing up to his site, and the idea of that software that is in development regards installing routes and or reskins automatically placing files in their correct folders and copying geo's over really interests me, even "if" it only works with the freeware hosted on his site! I have quite a number of re-skins that don't show correctly even though I have followed the instructions in the readme.

Who knows, it might put Gary out of a job in those respects?

The installer is not specific to content from Alan's site.

[gptech]

The installer is not specific to content from Alan's site.

Is that 'insider information' or just a guess?

find the instructions so you know what geos to copy, extract them from the ap file,

Reskins…. we're looking at extracting a single .GeoPcDx file from a .ap archive, please don't try and make it seem like there's a difficult sequence of actions to perform.

If Martin has reskins that don't show despite following the instructions *to the letter* there are only two reasons why:
1) the instructions are a load of bóllocks
2) Martin can't follow instructions, or bóllocks