Hi
Is it just me....but the forums seem very quiet ....fewer posts...and most are either questions from newbies, requests for stock or just mind numing total drivel.
I had thought it might be just christmas....buts its been like it for 6 weeks or so now.Loads of regulars seem to be keeping away.
Shame
Jon
Last edited by jbilton on Mon Jan 31, 2005 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
There's still us oldies around - into our 5th year of MSTS'ing (2001-2005) - some of what used to go on here has of course migrated to Blue Arrow and Making Tracks but this is still THE place to be for UK freeware
Steve N
Retired Modeller and Route Builder - now playing with big boys toys!
Still here but been busy servicing the release of the Swedish route and gathering info for the next project. Plus I have a backlog of jobs around the house and garden to do having spent the last 4 months glued to the laptop - including re-laying the front path before poor old postie trips and breaks his neck.
Off to Homebase on Thursday for some gravel and cement, bom di dom di dom di dom...
There's always been an ebb and flow of traffic and nearly 4 years into the life of the programme it's not going to be as hectic as once was. There's only so many times we can debate the same issues.
As the quality of the freeware continues to rise and both new and existing authors strive to improve on the previous offerings, it would seem inevitable that lead times for new postings will increase, with a subsequent reduction in opportunies to discuss?
I take your point, Jon, and there's no doubt things have, erm, matured recently (think of the word in the context of smelly stilton, not sensibility!!!). I think that there's no doubt that some have drifted away and some have put things on the shelf until the next-gen sims.
As Vern says some of the most talented/active are involved in payware and although they are still on the forum (eg Vern just above) if your time is split between the payware project and the forum, you're bound to be about slightly less.
You also get a big newbie intake in exhibition season, but also MSTS is getting harder to find on the retailer shelves and that is probably reducing the 'churn'. I think there were fewer copies of MSTS in Christmas stockings this year.
I also think that the download front has been relatively quiet of late - not to denigrate those who have uploaded recently of course. However I know some cracking stuff is being worked on - in payware you have the BATS Southern Pack, White Rose (? - saw your other post) and CTRL. In freeware you have Yorkshire Coast, Derby/Burton, LMR Stoke Division and Manchester Metrolink all looking very promising.
Overall I'm now much more optimistic than I was six months ago that there is enough momentum to keep the sim and the site in good health until the new sims arrive.
I've been off the site for just over a week, My motherboard failed so I now have a new one and due to the loss of the Win2000 disk WinXP. I like reading some of the posts, and I like to help others, so the site is not preisely dying, It's just getting quiet for a short while, it'll get busy again soon
I hope that people feel I've posted enough in the last 2 months to prove that there is no kind of UKTS 'boycot' in effect, but in a way I feel that this is partly an expected result of people wanting commercial talk limited (certainly by people involved in creating it).
What I can post here is certainly restricted to an extent, I cannot talk about anything non freeware I'm doing. And don't forget, I'm also not really supposed to post in any thread related to any commercial product, for fear of someone suggesting a secondary motive to my post.
The bottom line is that some of the most productive and experienced users have now been semi 'gagged' in what they may post and a side effect of that is that we now appear to have less to say.
But from the MT models we have uploaded it also appears that download numbers are not what they were.
Yes, I think MSTS, despite the stunning new stuff produced recently, is feeling its age, certainly in the form of consumer durability. But at least it's still mainly in a double figured sales price. I must admit, that despite all the stunning new stuff released, MidEast UK is still one of, if not my favourite route to have a bash around on, even though I have slightly updated the stock in the activities.
Alex
Honorary Citizen of the Independent Peanut Republic of Rushey Platt
I occassionally drop by to look at a few things...but I rarely post anymore.
I'm just waiting for the day when we can start making TtTE stuff again. heh
Well I have drifted away from MSTS and onto other things (mainly looking for careers I may want to go into for college and stuff like that)...but if anybody needs a Thomas know-alot-of-it, just drop me a line
I miss the ol' days,
Evan
"It's better to give than to receive.......but you need to receive in order to give!"
MSTS uploads have certainly come a long way, some of the new stuff like LSE is amazing, but I feel that it's just about pushed to it's limits now.
TMTS is one of the next-generation trainsims coming sometime in the future. I think there's two, but I might be mistaken. They are both designed to be a lot more processor-friendly than MSTS, which means better framerates for lower end computers, and also bring in some long-awaited features such as swapping between cabs (and even working turntables ) I might be wrong here; can anyone point me in the direction of the TMTS website?
