Derek & Adam Keep in Touch

[LeicesterCity]

Id just like to echo what sly has written
ok some of you say its not the perfect simulation - true
some of you say its a game - true
but to a man ( even those who moan and bitch about it) we all use it
yes we want improvements - and with steam we WILL get them
i for one appreciate all the hours most of which are voluntary that Del Boy and Adam have put into this massive project
that's what it is guys like it or not its an ongoing project which over the years will be improved massively
some of you will get what you want and require for YOUR own personal needs
some of you wont, but despite that - its a hell of a lot better than anything produced to date
Open BVE will give most of you true simmers out there nearly everything you require

so lets all call calm our skins down
and enjoy it - its fantastic - you all know it is but Britain likes to moan - always has always will
even though half the time we moan for the sake of moaning

Rule Britannia

[paulz6]

Quite honestley guys... you deserve nothing, your attitude is disgracefull, rude ,insulting and immature

I don't think everybody has an aggressive 'have a go' attitude with every other post. There are a lot of members on this board who would happily contribute their knowledge to help RS.com improve their product for free.

You don't NEED to know anything of their plans, until it is announced it is nothing to do with you.. You might like to know but that is a different thing.

General road maps which indicate the direction of a product helps content creators to understand where they need to concentrate their efforts. I once worked as an implementation consultant for a development company. Q. (Developer) Why are you upgrading to this product on this site? There is a new product just being released. A. (Implementation) If I knew a new product was just coming out, I would have scheduled another project in for the last for months and delayed the upgrade.

[nfitzsimmons]

Quite honestley guys... you deserve nothing, your attitude is disgracefull, rude ,insulting and immature

YOU have driven away your direct line of communication for good.
Your constructive input has been poor to non existant, there is no benefit to listening to your inncessant whining and sarcasm or trying to appease you.

The guys are bound by professional conduct that you are not, you are anonymous.. they cannot respond to your sarcasm or insults in a like manner.. if they could you might watch what you were saying.
Don't remember Mike from MSTS2 having to put up with your insults, mainly I suspect because he kept his involvement marginal... these guys tried to become involved.. not anymore

Your opinions count for zero now, purely because a few have devalued them to such a point as to make them worthless.

You don't NEED to know anything of their plans, until it is announced it is nothing to do with you.. You might like to know but that is a different thing.

As for wild speculation and conspiracy theories.. what makes you think you know the first thing about it ? ....
You know nothing period.... and that goes for all the "names" on here with the very loud voices too.

You are now getting what you deserve.... to be blanked

Well Done

Sly

Well said.

[AndiS]

First of all, I need to say that we always have been blanked. From day one, they fed us tit bits that were interesting some times, but when we made conjectures with a positive attitude, we were always mislead. In contrast, those who hollerred, in 2005 or so, that these people have no ideas about railways, were proven right to a degree that was a pain to the supporters. (Can you say signals defaulting to clear?)

If you just like to run trains, and you interest is UK railways, you have little to complain and a lot to cheer, and in fact there are several cheerful threads (about the overall graphics performance, and about the 37).

If you just like to build models and import them into the game, you can only cheer. Most of the information you need is here now. When it was not, you sounded sarcastic, too.

If you want to simulate railway operation, RW is nearly as broken as KRS, and KRS is very broken. It does not help you if boring scenarios do not cause problems to generate, if all interesting ones fail. It is nice to hear that the steam is now in sync with wheel rotation, just wake me when it is proportional to steam consumption, and I can see the steam coming out of cylinder cocks, exhauster, and security valves, and when someone came up with a real documentation of the physics simulation, explaining how to model compounds.

This is where the community is split, and RW did not help at all. What was good in KRS became dramatically better. What was bad stayed saw very little change.

If we are to see ourselves as grateful receivers of the voluntary donations (for pay) of creators, then we should just shut up and be grateful. If we are to see ourselves as creators, who are willing to put in their learning effort to find workarounds to make this a simulator of railway operation, and not just a presentation platform for good looking models, then someone ought to see us as partners.

Of course, you can say that this is done behind the scenes for selected individuals who are worthy of it. But am sure that many post their frustration here because they are not considered worthy enough behind the scenes, right or wrongfully. Also, email communication with individuals is a true waste of time.

[smarty2]

I do believe that a lot of the "negative" posts are i am sure a sign of frustration with a sim/game that people so desperately want to work in the way it has been described, no doubt a lot of errors are caused by users and there has been a steep learning curve, take Riches scenario packs for example how is he banging em out and we are struggling? Take Shane' Wales & Borders route, lovely detail and an accurate description of a route, he manages it but others dont? I have some sympathy with what Sly has said here and giving Derek & Adam an earole bending is not on, and as Sly suspects we have now got what we deserve. Personally my frustration has been evident in some of the posts i have made but i have always been civil and friendly to those two, and i sincerely hope they "dip in" now and again. On another note I have now uninstalled RW's because the proc error has rendered it unusable, but i am not going to be acidic about it as some have, i will give it a while and be patient and wait for a patch or two to turn up then will re download it. Peace guy's

Mart

[sniper297]

Well, personally I LIKE both Adam and Derek, altho I frequently disagree with them and/or don't understand them. I frequently knock them for the cute coy "you'll see later" stuff that says nothing at all, but in their defense a large part of that may be due to paranoic Non Disclosure Agreements, so blame that on somebody else until proven otherwise.

That said, the company really needs SOME kind of spokesman to say SOMETHING actually concrete. "Further enhanced" could mean anything, and from what I'm hearing it means a few more bandaids on something that's already dead. Your Mileage May Vary, Phil Skene said it best;

Many find the eye candy very, very attractive, and just wanta drive High Speed Passenger Trains up and down the British East Coast Main Line. They'll see the odd AI train running in the opposite direction, they will stick to the timetable and all's well in their little world. As a GAME it'll continue selling to this group.

It's just hard core SIMULATION bums like us who want to fuss around in yards or those who want to replicate more complex timetable operations that see the shortcomings.

That's my problem, I'm a hard core SIMULATION bum, not interested in a nature simulator that happens to have trains as part of the animated scenery.

Long time ago, they acknowledge that the AI is a major problem and that they are having a meeting with Kuju to see what can be done. So we are currently waiting for information on item two.

Do tell, when and where and who said it, and has anyone sent the cops into that meeting to find out if they all died? I've been waiting a year and a half for ANY information on intent to give us an actual scenario editor that works, only thing I saw was "further enhanced" on something that needed a major overhaul.

You don't NEED to know anything of their plans, until it is announced it is nothing to do with you.. You might like to know but that is a different thing.

For the casual gamer who just wants to drive passenger trains up and down the multi track mainline, admiring the scenery and watching an occasional AI train pass on a parallel track, that's true. For developers that's dead wrong. For over a year now I'm stopped dead in the water, I can't continue ANY serious development on my route until I know how the AI traffic will work if it ever works. Same holds true for my hard core fans who are still playing with MSTS because the AI traffic WORKS on MSTS Port Ogden & Northern, most of them haven't even bought railsim yet since they're waiting for me to create the same type of route with intense realistic operation potential for RS that I did with MSTS. I can't do it with the current setup, so they're not buying. I'm not buying RailWorks either until I know, I bought a pig in a poke with railsim and I can't afford to waste more money on something that will never do what I need it to do. So yes, I do NEED to know, anyone who has railsim and it meets their standards might LIKE to know but they can buy railworks without knowing anything other than it's railsim with more icing on it.

[smarty2]

Sniper,
"It's just hard core SIMULATION bums like us who want to fuss around in yards or those who want to replicate more complex timetable operations that see the shortcomings.

That's my problem, I'm a hard core SIMULATION bum, not interested in a nature simulator that happens to have trains as part of the animated scenery."

The question is then, if you are not happy then wouldn't it suit your needs best if you developed for MSTS or Trainz? Or maybe open BVE! I do not understand why you continue to entertain RW's if the other sims "do it" for you? Or do they? Or is it a fact that RW's is the only sim out there now that could meet those needs? if everybody stopped what they were doing at Railsim.com and spent time entertaining whingers like us? I know what i would do if i was them. And it appears they have.

Mart

[AndiS]

Long time ago, they acknowledge that the AI is a major problem and that they are having a meeting with Kuju to see what can be done. So we are currently waiting for information on item two.

Do tell, when and where and who said it, and has anyone sent the cops into that meeting to find out if they all died? I've been waiting a year and a half for ANY information on intent to give us an actual scenario editor that works, only thing I saw was "further enhanced" on something that needed a major overhaul.

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 4#p1030704

No further info on police involvement or AI development, but Derek and Adam seem to have survived, or their internet presence was hogged by the Dark Forces who wrote the dispatcher.

(Added missing end of quote)

[paulz6]

I do believe that a lot of the "negative" posts are i am sure a sign of frustration with a sim/game that people so desperately want to work in the way it has been described, no doubt a lot of errors are caused by users and there has been a steep learning curve, take Riches scenario packs for example how is he banging em out and we are struggling?

He is your answer:

Well, the first thing is to make sure every train has a final destination. Secondly, try to avoid any movements from the fast to slow lines in the case of the Paddington to Oxford route, this is just asking for trouble unfortunately so it's wise to keep the local services on the slows and the HSTs on the fasts. That really is about it!

In other words, don't ask the dispatcher to do anything complicated. A flow of animated background scenery works fine.

From the thread:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 21&t=86167

[SaMa1]

Quite honestley guys... you deserve nothing, your attitude is disgracefull, rude ,insulting and immature

YOU have driven away your direct line of communication for good.
Your constructive input has been poor to non existant, there is no benefit to listening to your inncessant whining and sarcasm or trying to appease you.

The guys are bound by professional conduct that you are not, you are anonymous.. they cannot respond to your sarcasm or insults in a like manner.. if they could you might watch what you were saying.
Don't remember Mike from MSTS2 having to put up with your insults, mainly I suspect because he kept his involvement marginal... these guys tried to become involved.. not anymore

Your opinions count for zero now, purely because a few have devalued them to such a point as to make them worthless.

You don't NEED to know anything of their plans, until it is announced it is nothing to do with you.. You might like to know but that is a different thing.

As for wild speculation and conspiracy theories.. what makes you think you know the first thing about it ? ....
You know nothing period.... and that goes for all the "names" on here with the very loud voices too.

You are now getting what you deserve.... to be blanked

Well Done

Sly

Well said.

I agree as well. To my knowledge RSC.com is in no agreement to provide us anything. They could close the blogs, websites and simply vanish like so many other firms before. If you don't like RW don't use it, but please don't post the same whining over and over again to the forums. You have right to call RailWorks as RetroWorks or whatever you please but what kind of response do you expect from the developers after "shooting" them totally down?

[Paul_Boland]

I don't know if I was part of the slap down in Sly's post above, but I don't agree with what he said. I haven't got Rail Works yet and all I've been loud about is the Steam issue. But even so, I think RSDL have shown some bad respect for it's customers. Just prior to Rail Works release they closed their forums leaving the community in limbo and having to use 3rd party forums like these ones here to try and communicate with them. When questions pop us, while i have seen Derek answer some (thank you), mostly queries go unanswered by RSDL and it's down to forum members here to try and muster up some answers.

I, and a few others, have asked for a statement from RSDL about the future, where is Rail Works going? No official response has been given. I've read complaints of folks contacting RSDL with issue with Rail Works and not getting any replies and others being told to go check the Wiki, something that was the case with Rail Simulator that I didn't agree with at all. We ask RSDL questions because we don't know the answers and being told to go check the Wiki is a bit cheeky in my opinion.

Wait till the DVD version ships and the rest of us get our hands on Rail Works, I'm sure we'll have points of view and questions to ask. You can't slap down users of a product for looking for answers after they've paid money for a product.

[sniper297]

if you are not happy then wouldn't it suit your needs best if you developed for MSTS or Trainz?

On my way, Trainz 2009 is about the same price as RW with the discount, and as much as I don't like the look of Trainz it looks like I'll be forced over there regardless. Personally I think I've been patient long enough with the "most realistic train and rail simulation platform for rail enthusiasts and modellers" if they're never gonna say what they intend to do that will give some truth to that claim. Being the greedy type who likes to have my cake and eat it too I'd really rather have both, but if I have to choose one or the other I'll take the one that LOOKS like a toy but OPERATES like the real thing, rather than this toy train set that merely looks realistic in screenshots. All they gotta do is break their Vow Of Silence long enough to make a definitive statement of what they consider important fixes and an approximate timetable for same, is that really so difficult?

[Darpor]

Another thread that points to "Trainz" and how "great" it is! Don't worry, I am not going to slate Trainz in any way, I have had my share of it but have moved on but can you imagine if I kept popping up in a Trainz forum and declared how I was going to move to RS/RW, I would be banned outright!

[Shadders]

I find these posts both interesting and passionate. As the original post was about Adam and Derek I’ll try and stick to the point…

I agree with sly’s posts about how these gentlemen have been treated. You only have to look at some of the time stamps on their posts here to see that they are some pretty dedicated individuals. If I were in their position, I certainly would not be trying to help people here by posting in the wee small hours. Their families must have not seen hide or hair of them for days on end!

By their willingness to help and post, they have “become” the face of RailSim/RailWorks in the eyes of some of the people here. Just because they can help out in some circumstances does not mean they hold all the cards and know exactly how this product is going to progress.

A poster here linked to a post Derek made about a meeting with Kaju with regard to the dispatcher. I expect he had to ask permission to make that post. I expect that the meeting was not successful for whatever reasons and he was forbidden to comment on it. Remember, he’s just an employee, like most of us.

Do you really think his boss would allow a post like “Well Kaju were a waste of time, the amount of hard coded . the developers left in the dispatcher is going to require a complete re-write, we can’t afford to do that, so we trying to pull it apart and make some of the more glaring mistakes go away”?

ANY company hide’s it’s problems, I would not even dream of posting anything company specific on line, let alone any management decisions or what the company intend to do three months down the line. Hell, I’d get sacked and maybe prosecuted for doing so.

I must say that the “presence” of RS.com through Adam and Derek on these forums has been pretty exceptional in comparison to other game manufacturers.

For example, I see smarty2 has a little “Mass Effect 2” graphic on his posts. Bioware, the makers of Mass Effect promised a lot of downloadable content, owners got one. In January, owners were told they would get a patch and they are still waiting with no word as to when it is. Rumour had it that a new DLC would be available this week, not a peep.

The vast majority of developers just do not get involved in forums, preferring the stony silence approach. Honestly, I was quite surprised that any members of RS.com where taking the time to post here.

Ok, that’s the treatment of Adam and Derek out of the way.

On the flip side, I do understand that people want to make routes, models, sounds and a plethora of improvements to RW. And, given the time spent to learn and exploit the features of RW or RS, they don’t want to take six months doing a route, only to find that it’s not compatible with future versions.

Frustration seems to abound amongst some of the posters here and it’s a shame, the majority of these posters are people who are willing to invest a lot of time and effort to produce content for RW, and make it available free of charge to the community at a whole. Getting nothing more than thanks or well done for their hard work. To these people, having to design something in a particular way, only to find that they have to start again from scratch if a patch changes the rules is not something to look forward to.

So I also agree with the posters wanting to know where RS is going, particularly about what features are going to be replaced or amended.

I do however think that the new Wiki is a good step in the right direction. It allows RS.com to update and post about workarounds and methods that can vex makers of content. As long as RS.com don’t get too touchy about posts on the Wiki, it can also be a useful place to post about problems that individuals can’t resolve.

Kind regards to you all, especially Adam and Derek.

Shadders.

P.S. A final thought. RS.com, if a patch makes breaking changes but introduces a much better way of improving RailWorks, DO IT. You may not be popular to begin with, but people will thank you down the line. Just give them advanced warning.

[bigvern]

your attitude is disgracefull, rude ,insulting and immature

Sheesh, well I'm sorry if asking for a bit more information on what is/isn't going to be fixed rather than the snacking habits at RSDL.com falls in the above category. However as the purchaser of both RS and RW (when the DVD turns up) I like many others want to know where things stand. Like Jim, I don't want to invest weeks if not months of my spare time building a complex route if all it can do is run one or two trains through prettty scenery (and let's not get started on all the other issues). Asking searching questions is not insulting, just a quest for the truth. Not everyone wants to wade through Wikis or RSS feeds (whatever the latter is) to try and garner details of what the future holds.

Don't remember Mike from MSTS2 having to put up with your insults

I guess MSTS2 got canned before that became a more pressing issue though ISTR asking several times how "World of Rails" was going to work/integrate which never got a reply.

Another thread that points to "Trainz" and how "great" it is!

Well compared to RS (and by implication RW) it is. Oh be assured Trainz does have its little foibles and I have had a love/hate relationship over the years. At least the level crossings animate and work properly...even on the original content from 2002.

if I kept popping up in a Trainz forum and declared how I was going to move to RS/RW, I would be banned outright!

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was of the view UKTS is an open forum catering for the discussion of all train sims? So which section of the board would you like to see the KRS/RW vs TRS vs MSTS discussions posted? Or are we not to have these debates, just laugh dutifully at more tea and biscuit references?

This board (as in wider UKTS) used to be a good place to come and have a reasonable, maybe sometimes forthright, discussion about our hobby. However lately it is becoming impossible to do so without provoking the attack dog mentality as evidenced in some of the posts above.