The news of some dlc's from trainsimulations.net

[RobGuru]

For the trainsets that SLI/TS pulled for sale over the years, Either upload it here on Trainsim for free or sale or upload it on archive.org.
Just my two cents.

[eric]

Just keep in mind that would be absolute piracy if anybody other than Trainsimulations.net decided they wanted to do this.

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

[pschlik]

There goes a bunch more reskins and activities to limbo. So much for not doing damage to the community.

[cntrainguy12]

I think it goes without saying that contributions of TrainSimulations are very important to Open Rails. It is something that we should appreciate and not take for granted. Personally, their excellent Canadian offerings are the main reason I got into Open Rails and served as my bridge to other content and experiences that make this platform unique and worthwhile.

There has been plenty said about the reasons this is happening. Ultimately though, this is a blow to the community, and creates a barrier to people looking to come to Open Rails, or expand their collections. If access to content is not stable, people will be more hesitant to invest their time and money into Open Rails. Also, having a diverse range of content and experiences to enjoy gives people a reason to want to keep coming back to the platform. This is the reason I enjoy creating and sharing activities.

From a personal perspective several of my past creations, and upcoming projects relied, or will now rely on content now made unavailable. Ultimately, I hope that some mutually beneficial solution can be found to allow for the continued availability of this content. Regardless, I am at least grateful for the many hours of fun I’ve received thanks to the efforts of the TS team. I hope that can be true for others as well in the future.

[yellowdog]

Personally, I'm more interested in the "new product offerings" part than I am the "older products will be removed" part.

[DocTrench]

Open rails already has a massive problem with lost media, exacerbating the issue just harms the sim and its longevity, as well as harming the reputation of a company with its customers. The fact that so many of these now lost dlc are prereqs for various forms of freeware content is just the cherry on top of this whole melted sundae.

[Orbita]

Don't forget the excellent freeware creators we've got that can patch a few of the holes left behind from the discontinued products.

[SD40-2]

First off, I understand how hard it is to develop content, having been a developer for many years now. I would personally suggest that for slow sellers, I would take up Eric's offer to put them in the Trainsim Store so they can continue to remain available. I've been struggling for quite some time now, as other things take away from the money I can spend on payware, so a lot of things I want I have to pass on.

But a big thing with payware, especially download-only payware, is that once it’s discontinued, you can't get it unless it’s re-released. When a TV show ends, you can trade tapes. If it's good, it'll see physical releases and be on streaming. When a model railroad item is discontinued, you can still buy it second-hand or NOS. Video games that had physical releases, you can still buy those.

With download-only payware though, there is no practical way to acquire it second-hand, meaning if you haven’t bought it, you’re now locked out of the loop.

Secondly, the Train Simulations items were some of the best stuff for ORTS, and there's not a whole lot you could improve on. Unless some major graphical improvement is over the horizon, all T-S can really do is make improvements to the mapping and geometry that get less and less impactful as time goes on. Yes, it's better than it's been in quite some time, but it's not quite the quantum leap that we've had in the past.

[ngc427]

Look... I am a massive believer in TrainSimulations and other small train sim devs (and I still am, and always will be), but I am also a believer in that nobody is above criticism and critique. I feel like this was a pretty big failure on the behalf of TrainSimulations, in that this could have been communicated better, also how it was handled, and how they chose which packs got removed first. FWIW, it is also very questionable that a digital storefront would have limited shelf space, but that's an issue between TS and their vendor, not for me to comment on.

First, it would have been nice to have a clear communicated list of what was being taken off sale, so if you wanted it, you could buy it, without just blindly guessing at what is up on the chopping block. It's probably good for business, because it drives up sales of other packs because of the ambiguity, but it sucks now that we have the hindsight of stuff taken off sale and the realization that packs were mostly taken down from poor sales, and not because of their age.

A handful of the content could have been combined into larger bundles rather than taken straight off-sale as well, for example, combining the SD30C-ECOs and GP20C-ECOs into a big "ECO pack". Other trainsets could have been folded into existing packs as well, the CP SD40 Grain & Potash set could have been folded into the already existing CP Rail Trainsets Vol.1. The decision to remove some newer packs because of sales metrics and not their age is a rather strange decision too. The CN SD70M-2s specifically come to mind, those are so new that they had a trailer posted to the TS YouTube channel, and were specifically developed for Open Rails and not MSTS. The ATSF K-Line set is in a similar boat, the C40-8W models from that pack were very modern, and slotted perfectly into the ATSF Seligman route, yet those were also on the chopping block because of sales and not age.

There's also the fact to consider that this decision maroons many reskins in the file library, and also removes many models that do not have clean replacements elsewhere. What immediately comes to mind are the SD40M-2s that were included with the CSX Rock Runner trainset, which had many, many great SD45 reskins and freight animations made for it, all suddenly orphaned with limited replacements.

I apologize if this comes off as brash or unconstructive, though I do mean it in the most sincere manner that I can put into text. I have always been a fan of TrainSimulations, and I will always be a fan of TrainSimulations, but this decision just did not sit right with me.

[Trainguy3436]

I didn't know some of the models in their train set section will be removed. Dang that sucks. I hope some did archived that stuff. Because I agree, some of the stuff like the SD70M-2 and that sd40 cp pack looks great. Because those two were on my list of getting. But oh well. We all have to wait and see.

[Snowman]

I've never understood the idea of creating something and then making it to where no one can access it any longer. The Horseshoe Curve Norfolk Southern Trainset comes to mind for so many repaints. Has anyone thought to ask their thinking on this? Why take money out of your own pocket? This topic comes up ever so often and you used to go around it with the way back machine but I guess swreg is no longer around, so even that's a no go for older stuff. Thankfully I have almost everything they ever put out, that's the only way to keep from having to worry about it.

[Trainguy3436]

Lucky. but also you made a point. It ridiculous that this happening and I won't be surprised it will happen again in the future.


By
Amtrak/Conrail Enthusiast

[CBQSD24]

Honestly? I think this was a major blow to the community, and a failure on the behalf of Train Simulations. Open rails for a good while now has been my escape when it comes to train-simulation. I tried run8, hated it. I tried railworks, but there's such a limited number of HQ things to run, which drew me away. Simrail demo was fun, but there's no US content. And when it comes to trainz, the "sim" I've played for over a decade now, I find myself growing ever frustrated over it's limitations and seemingly staying the same since TRS2006. I was introduced to open rails a few years ago by fellow friend and member Unoriginal, and I have since been hooked. The community here has been amazing, I myself have been slowly learning the in's and outs of modding, and I have enjoyed every run I've had so far.

All that said, this removal of products certainly feels like a punch to the gut here. I love TS and their content. I have probably 70% of their sites' worth now. I've always appreciated that, compared to other train sim games, their products make me feel like Im getting my money's worth. All that said, this was honestly a dumb way to go about things. One of the biggest things that comes to mind is not even giving any of us notice of what was being removed. It feels like a sort of scummy way to capitalize on FOMO. I made some pretty good educated guesses, and 5/7 things I received ended up dying, but things like the K line set I didn't even consider because it was (as NGC said) so new. I was planning to buy that one eventually alongside ATSF seligman, but alas, that is not happening now. I think the same thing goes for stuff like the ECOs, why weren't those just moved into one pack? Why didn't we combine the CSX rock runner with the Ethanol set, and maybe replace the older CSX SD70M with the newer one while we're at it? All in all, I just feel like this was a really poor way to handle things.

This definitely has made me lose some interest in certain things too, especially after the K line C41-8W set was removed. I had plans to do some BNSF skins of those, but I guess I can forget about that. I recall one of the TS devs had said in the discord that the removal of a lot of these models was something that, in a way, benefitted the ORTS community because new people seeing older models would be driven away to other sims. If that's the case, then why did stuff like the SD70M-2 or ATSF C41-8W go? All this does is force the community to use even *older* models now. As I stated previously, yes, I am fully aware some of the removed stuff is redundant and has better freeware models to replace it - but not everything does. New C41-8Ws? SD30Cs? SD40M-2s? Nope, so tough luck I guess. If these models were not seeing many sales, and your store provider only gives you limited space (which I will say, I personally feel one should find a new store provider if thats the case but thats not my stool to stand on), why aren't these models just made freeware? Why can't they be hosted on Trainsim.com? Eric has said hes more than willing to host stuff here. Why does it need to be wiped away forever? For open rails, arguably the most niche train sim in an already niche sim genre, this feels so damn backwards.

All in all, I still love TS and their products, I am thankful for what they do for Open rails, and I cannot express how much I do appreciate some of the devs taking time to share and talk with us about their projects in the discord. I hope this does not come across as me bashing them, because at the end of the day, I will still be here to support TS and what they do - but I seriously question the nature of this product removal, and I really do not think it was handled correctly.

[Trainguy3436]

This here is a perfect of the community opinion on this. I do agree most of their stuff is good. And yes, Unoriginal got me to know of the community too. Which I am grateful too. While it does sucks they remove some of the stuff and the reason well, your words best explain it. But overall will still like TS products regardless and still will buy their stuff. And even if I am not in discord, this decision is questionable. Of course this isn't a bashing message, Just one that question that decision, but still will buy their products at the end of the day.

By
Amtrak/Conrail Enthusiast

[slipperman]

Hi All,
It appears that a very recently uploaded activity pack - CPR Mactier Subdivision Activity 2-Pack, file ID 90692 - has been rendered useless by the withdrawal of two trainsets by TrainSimulations. How many more Trainsim downloads will be affected?
It's a shame we couldn't have been told which products were their withdrawal candidates!

Cheers,
Ged