MSTS2 E-mail

Christopher125 · Post by **Christopher125** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:56 pm

Hi People

It looks like confirmation that MSTS2 has been pulled, for the moment at least. See thread at Auran forums:

http://forums.auran.com/TRS2004/forum/s ... adid=57048

While the person at MS may be wrong, it certainly seems like TS2 has been stopped for the moment at least.

a saddened, but not really surprised Chris

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 8:25 pm

Wow thats one forum full of quite sad people....and I thought it was bad here....

thenudehamster · Post by **thenudehamster** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 8:28 pm

jbilton wrote:Wow thats one forum full of quite sad people....and I thought it was bad here....

Maybe, Jon, but we have BRITISH trains to run....

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:06 pm

The news seems to have led people to beleive that more users will switch to other simulators whereas the other possible event no-one on other forums seems to have mentioned is that with no MSTS2 coming out, there is now ample time for commercial teams to develop more MSTS1 projects without an 'end of saleability' deadline of an MSTS2 release hanging over them.

I don't begrudge the strength of feeling from the other train sim site at all, it is a perfectly natural human reaction when you are devoted to one piece of software, or company(*) or (say) football team and your opponent gets soundly licked. Human nature is just that way.

(*) remember lots of people are pro-other simulators simply because they are anti-MS and like to see Bill Gates take a tumble.

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:24 pm

saddletank wrote:The news seems to have led people to beleive that more users will switch to other simulators whereas the other possible event no-one on other forums seems to have mentioned is that with no MSTS2 coming out, there is now ample time for commercial teams to develop more MSTS1 projects without an 'end of saleability' deadline of an MSTS2 release hanging over them.

Silver lining and all that....

And as has been said before with the recent quality of stock and routes etc.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:27 pm

I think since MSTS2 was first announced and we had that rotten period of stagnation last autumn, the MSTS add-on scene hasn't ever been stronger. The UK commercial add-on community has stacks of stuff in the pipeline (with new commercial teams springing up almost every week) and the amount of freeware being produced seems to be creeping up again.

I'm sure the non-announcement of MSTS2 is partly responsible for this renewed spring growth we are seeing

In the last month UKTS has seen 3 or 4 routes produced and without trying I can think of about half a dozen more in production that have reached releasable condition.... and the tidal wave of USA stuff available over the pond never seems to slacken (if that stuff floats your boat).

Post by **martinhodgson** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:30 pm

While it's great to see all these new routes, the problem is that slowly MSTS1 is becoming outdated... poor graphics, poor AI, no muliplayer etc, and while addons are sustaining it superbly, there will come a point where MSTS will be obsolete, as it won't work on windows 2010 or whatever.

saddletank · Post by **saddletank** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:40 pm

MSTS1 hasn't become at all outdated. It is being driven to do more clever tricks by inventive route and model authors than ever before. Sure the graphics are not great but they never were even when it was released were they? But since it processes such huge stacks of data I can forgive it that.

And by 2010 I'm sure we will have an alternative to play with

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:41 pm

I've put a couple of responses on Train-sim.com, where the thread originated.

We are assuming the email is genuine (guess no reason not to) and that it has come from someone in MS who knows what they are talking about.

It is very sad if true, I think most of us were clinging to the hope there would be a Version 2 at some point.

Reference V.1, well obviously it won't die immediately, but we have to face reality. There's a limit to how long you can go on developing for what is now a 3 year old programme. The bugs and shortcomings we glossed over at the start are now major irritations which, presumably, will never get patched now either.

I've never been a huge fan of Trainz but it looks like coming round to the fact, if we want to carry on the hobby we are going to need to look elsewhere in the long term and learn to work out the problems that programme has just as we did with MTS.

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:48 pm

martinhodgson wrote:While it's great to see all these new routes, the problem is that slowly MSTS1 is becoming outdated... poor graphics, poor AI, no muliplayer etc, and while addons are sustaining it superbly, there will come a point where MSTS will be obsolete, as it won't work on windows 2010 or whatever.

But thats the whole point Martin....its will not become "outdated"...if there is no new better version...or other simmulator.
Sure its got faults...it always has...but the clever developers mange to squeese excellent results from it.
And personally (as I've said before) unless MS come up an OS, with anything startling different or better, I've no reason to upgrade ever again. Win98SE 6 years old and still going strong.

Post by **martinhodgson** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:52 pm

It will if previous games are gone by... Transport Tycoon. Still great, still enjoyed - but try and get it to work in XP and you've had it! I see MSTS1 becoming like that.

jbilton · Post by **jbilton** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:09 pm

martinhodgson wrote:It will if previous games are gone by... Transport Tycoon. Still great, still enjoyed - but try and get it to work in XP and you've had it! I see MSTS1 becoming like that.

Well I dont know that particular game (as I'm not a gamer as such)...but hasn't that game been updated? to Transport Tycoon 3 or something.
MSTS will run under any Win operating system....its one thing MS are good at...backwards compatibility....well it has to be as basically we're all still using DOS with different front ends.

Post by **martinhodgson** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:19 pm

No - my point is it hasn't been updated and is therefore currently experiencing compatibility issues with certain OS's

brooksy · Post by **brooksy** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:54 am

I usually resist adding anything to discussions on the 'what if's' of MSTS2 or the possibility of ever seeing MSTS2 as most of it tends to lead nowhere.
However, I could not resist adding my 2 cents worth to this discussion.

I for one don't give a toss regarding the appearance of MSTS2 at this stage. Thats not to say I never want to see it, just that I am satisfied enough to bide my time and what will be will be.

I have tried Trainz, like most here, and after building a small route in one evening and watching trains run around in the fog for a couple of weeks stuck it back in the box and returned to MSTS.
No decent track work, a 'toy' like feel to the thing and a terrible feeling of claustrophobia was to much for me.
To be fair it is very pretty and provides some vital competition as well as an alternative for those who want 'instant' results.
Each to their own but not for me is Trainz.

I have had the patience to get to grips with the RE and despite it's bugs believe it is a very powerful tool and provides the creativity I need to be able to produce a rail 'simulation'.
I don't want an easy option for the RE, part of it's attraction for me is the need to be continually aware of it's limitations and the feeling of accomplishment when I find a work around or fix.

Despite the inherent bugs and unfinished nature of the simulator I believe Kuju were well on the way to providing everything we might have wanted in a simulator.
It's very easy to see what they had in mind for operations before being forced to release the sim. e.g. the visual passenger loading and unloading was, I believe, intended for MSTS1. Why else have a need to declare a platform side to the platform markers.

I for one will continue to use and enjoy MSTS in it's present form for quite some time to come. I have enough planned to see me going for at least the next 3 years and I am sure the community both here and in the US will survive and continue to develop the unfinished product. After all we are working with the base model as supplied by Kuju and the possibilities and potential has not been fully realised yet.

The most anticipated upgrade for me will be a decent operating system to provide smooth animation.

Cheers

bigvern · Post by **bigvern** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:34 am

Of course there will be those of us who stick by MTS1 and continue to support it but there is a natural progression to these things. John mentions Transport Tycoon (not to be confused with Railroad Tycoon which is a different game). Yes it is still being played and there is a whole forum devoted to it. There's a third party (freeware) app which has modified and enhanced the original. But on the other side of the coin you can't buy it any more. The old DOS version doesn't run under XP and if you can track down an "abandonware" Windows version you still need aforementioned patch to run it. How many new scenarios are now being produced for what the majority of consumers now regard as a long abandoned title?

MTS will undoubtedly be the same with a hardcore of enthusiasts continuing to support it. However there is a pattern to these things and inevitably the numbers will dwindle. When that happens, those supporting MTS commercially are likely to question the viability of long term complex projects if they're only going to sell a few hundred copies. We have already seen a fall of in route and rolling stock building and are likely to see more people building just what they want, rather than playing to the audience and tackling large projects as an attempt at crowd pleasing. How long can sites such as this (and train-sim.com) which depend on the subscriptions for large scale downloads survive if the support for such content dwindles?

Companies such as Abacus already stated a long time ago that programmes such as TSM would only be overhauled when MTS2 came along. Where does this leave improvements to programmes such as TS Tools particularly if the authors know demand is likely to fall off to less than it was previously?

I was going to add more but at this point I'm just thoroughly depressed by what appears to have happened.