Other Railroad Program - Big Announcement - hmmmm

[boleyd]

The RW3 railroad game has announced version TS2013. It will sell more addons and improve some driving functionality. However, serious railroad activities continue to be lacking.

I only mention this since Open Rails seems to be the only program that is not badly tainted with gaming functionality. Serious "real-to-life" simulation is hopefully possible with Open rails since it/they are not tempted by the lucrative gaming market. Once signaling is working a major milestone will be achieved toward simulation. Please keep up the good work!

[neyland]

Agree, that is me completely finished with RSC & RW.

I have far more faith in OR being something that will hold my interest in railway\railroad simulation.

[seagoon]

An unqualified "Ditto.".

[Shortliner]

Ditto for me as well, I'm digging through my stuff to find my copy of MSTS, I'm done with the other simulator and is looking forward to OR.

[boleyd]

Once Upon A Time - rail simulator addicts had a golden goose called RailWorks2 (RW2). It was obviously a development project and the vendor staff had considerable interaction with customers. Alas, the company executed a bad distribution agreement and nearly failed. It was picked up but swiftly things changed. Technical development slowly ceased and only addons were produced. Minor visual changes were also made. Now for those who held out hope for RW3 to be as envisioned that vision has ended. The vendor has adopted a pure game business profile.

The moral of the story is that in the golden days of RW2 we had input that was often adopted into the product. That same opportunity exists now with Open Rails. One of the additional things that changed the business character of the vendor was the very strong criticism from some customers who could never understand that RW2 was a work in progress. They paid good money and they wanted a finished product. Well, we now we have Open Rails. Let us hope that the almost demented behaviors we saw with RW2 do to arise here. The developers are working for free and should never be subjected to strong criticism. Such people are almost an endangered specie and should have some degree of protection from the small rabid crowd that assaulted the staff of RW2.

[seagoon]

....Well, we now we have Open Rails. Let us hope that the almost demented behaviors we saw with RW2 do to arise here. The developers are working for free and should never be subjected to strong criticism. Such people are almost an endangered specie and should have some degree of protection from the small rabid crowd that assaulted the staff of RW2.

Good words, Dick.
The OR team are to be admired for the way they are going about this project and particularly for their lack of hype.
The old saying of "speak softly and carry a big stick" (Teddy Roosevelt?) must be on a placard on their walls, I think.
I'm sure that, with this approach, OR will eventually be a big stick in the world of train sims.

BK

[geekman]

..... I'm sure that, with this approach, OR will eventually be a big stick in the world of train sims. BK

Are you sure that it already isn't? From what I hear about the upcoming release, it sounds pretty darned impressive already, if I do say so.

[seagoon]

Are you sure that it already isn't? From what I hear about the upcoming release, it sounds pretty darned impressive already, if I do say so.

Larry, I wasn't denigrating OR or the team behind it, not by any means!
It IS impressive - I love using it and am waiting as patiently as possible for the next update, and that is what I intended when I typed "....will eventually be a big stick...".
But at the moment it is moving along the development path and if that continues at a steady rate then, in my humble opinion after more than a decade around train sims, OR has the capability to be the best of the bunch.

Bruce

[eric]

Dare I say that the beta versions of OR already offer more functionality and realism than some commercial products?...

[lindsayts]

Dare I say that the beta versions of OR already offer more functionality and realism than some commercial products?...

Yes you can, and I am much anticipating the next release....................

Lindsay

[seagoon]

Dare I say that the beta versions of OR already offer more functionality and realism than some commercial products?...

I certainly agree with you on that point; the physics and operating requirements (e.g. hose coupling and brake release, just for starters) that are already functional in OR leave a couple of "train games" (no names, no pack drill) for dead.

But until we have functional AI with operational signalling OR sits as a solo-operation.
Like Charlton Heston in "The Omega Man", the player is the only one alive in an otherwise dead world....except for the oddly-behaving AI, of course.

Bruce

[twpol]

But until we have functional AI with operational signalling OR sits as a solo-operation.

Although by no means "done", both are much improved in the development versions and you should find many more activities are playable in the upcoming release.

[cwhense]

I been holding off until the AI and signals were working, looks like its getting closer now. Good work, I have seen to many projects(not train related) like this start out strong then seem to slow down and then stop and fade away, glad to see this is still going strong :-)

[seagoon]

Although by no means "done", both are much improved in the development versions and you should find many more activities are playable in the upcoming release.

Thanks for that info, James.
Like many others, I have been hanging out for the ability to run AI and whether "done" or not, just to have the assurance you've given goes a heck of a long way to improving the functionality of OR.

Bruce

[kox]

I hope some day openrails will handle the traffic as dynamically like openttd does (where you just set the destinations and everything other according to traffic, is done by AI).

http://cl.ly/0U0K3e390m2R/openttd.mkv

Things like this are impossible in that "Other Railroad program" it can't even handle a single crossing of trains.