Who pays your Broadband bill? Do you have Broadband for free? Do you have anything for free? or should I ask - Do you get everything for free i.e. a freebooter. UKTS do not compel anyone to pay anything - you therefore get what you pay for (or don't). In another month you'll be complaining that you couldn't get all you wanted because of the site being jammed up - I shall cry like a crocodile.
So my local supermarket is closing down so does that mean i can go in and get all my food shopping for free ????????
that is rather rude and an insult to the developers over the years who have created content for FREE to be uploaded and downloaded for FREE over the years. Clearly you are just someone who wants everything in life giving to them on a plate for FREE. let me ask you this what have YOU giving the community over the years.
It's odd how a site in it's death throws is causing such strong views. It's been useful in the past, but it's day is over, which is why it's no longer viable.
Glad i am not the only one who found that offensive and dam right rude to not only the people behind the website but those who have contributed ALOT of free time effort and work over the years.
Here is an idea if you think you could do it so much better why dont YOU take it over then. Matt has even said if someone is willing to take it over and run it contact him so off you go then if its so easy to do and so financially available to offer more than what UKTS does at present.
You can't expect a critic of something to take it on. That seems like a task for a supporter, like you. Would you like to do it?
I think something like UKTS needs to be a full time job for someone, I think Matt mentioned somewhere the running costs were in the £100s per month because commercial hosting charges by the GB in/out. I think the Peddlesdens have got to the point where they couldn't invest the time and money to make the site better and at that point it may be sensible to call it a day.
I agree with this. For the last six months the quality of service has been poor, especially in comparison with other sites of the type. For noticeable periods of time it's been off-line or generating errors. It looks very dated. Download speeds are very slow with sometimes very long waits and you're restricted to only one download at a time. It's come to the end of it's natural life.
I actually essentially rebuilt the entire site at least three times, paid an external agency to come up with a nice new brand and layout for it and a modern feel, got about 80% of the way each time and then the community went mega toxic, blew itself to pieces and I gave up - better things to do than spend my sparse spare time on babysitting the kids on the forums, receiving abuse and all manner of unpleasantness. But you're right, the service on the site has been appalling for a long time, longer than 6 months. I will say, if you paid a modest amount, the speeds are very good and you can download as much as you want with as many concurrent connections as you want *shrug* - my server bills are high because I host with a top tier provider and my server is in racks right next to multiple redundant high speed network connections. However, if you choose not to pay, that's life in the big city. I have fond memories of running UKTS and working with the community to make some really great content, I think we achieved some great things together, and I personally hold the belief that UKTS and TS.COM are probably the primary reason that we have a train simulation hobby today because without them, I am not sure anyone would have developed what came after MSTS. That said, I'm equally as glad to see the back of it as it's brought as much stress and sleepless nights as it has anything positive as well. At this point, it's unlikely FTP will be fixed, it's just not a simple fix (again it's a custom FTP server that I wrote and it simply doesn't have the modern protocol implemented). IF I can get a firewall fix that works with my ISP i'll enable it but, i'm not going to promise anything at this point, there's basically a month left as of today. If you haven't downloaded it yet, whatever it is you're worried about, you probably didn't really want it, I tried to give enough notice. Matt.
Personally I think that the Pendlesons have been responsible for helping to drive forward the knowledge and experimentation ( especially in the eraly days ) by creating somewhere to share the little bits of info lots of folks gleaned that summed to make a huge leap forward in what freeware ( and payware ) developers could do. It didn't make a market but it was the scaffolding on which that market in the Uk was based. I think they should be incredibly proud of what they did and I willing take my hat off to them. That was one hell of an effort on behalf of the team. Thanks Matt and Matt's dad.
Just to ensure Matt has a sleepless night I thought I'd mention the digital traction 4MT and a certain unnamed....
I'm the owner/operator of Trainsim.com and can certainly understand Matt's reasoning behind closing down the site. It's a lot of work in addition to my day job as well. Contrary to some comments earlier in this thread, there's no doubt over our site staying up and running. We'll miss having UKTS as a companion site, and hope that if you're looking for a similar place for conversation or file submissions/download, you're more than welcome to come over to our side of the pond. We are by no means "North America" only as we have one of the larger Indian railway repositories... I've tried posting similar messages for months on UKTS, but apparently nobody is moderating or approving posts anymore.
Yes, I quite understand and that's my choice and I accept the consequences, but the free service is slow in comparison with other free content sites. Thank you for providing the service. I came relatively late to UKTS, but I've found it a useful addition to what else is out there. And it lasted a lot longer than Iron Horse House, whoever they were.
So why are you bringing a developer whom you clearly know had issues with UKTS and bringing them into a discussion which has got nothing to do with them. You are clearly trying to cause trouble
I said it to give Mr Peddleston some encouragement by pointing out his creation has lasted longer. It's not your job to decide what developers are allowed to be mentioned on this site.
"community went mega toxic" sadly seems to be a thing in other gaming communities too. Some very self-entitled, rude, arrogant people out there and it can drive you over the edge. I've been taking anti-depressants since I volunteered to organise a few music festivals in my spare time a decade ago, the pressure from punters, performers, the police and locals broke my brain and I've not been the same since. Again, it was everyone snapping their fingers and treating me like sh*te because they couldn't have their way. I'm sorry to hear that running UKTS caused you so much stress Matt. It was a valuable resource since my days playing MSTS and I really appreciate all the work you and the community put into keeping it going for so long.
Where did I say I was new to TSC? I own some IHH products and I came to UKTS about five years ago, where it's not hard to see the ban on discussing Iron Horse House. Why do you invent things that people haven't said, and why are you being argumentative and contrary? You were doing it in the AP WIP thread and now you're doing it here. Please stop it.
From me personally thank you to yourself and your family as well as the great team you had behind UKTS used to love ordering the CDs for MSTS back in the day still have them in my box up the loft. Loved reciving them in the post and installing them and playing for hours. UKTS has been a golden hub for train sim for years and years. Will be sad to see it go but totally understand why and the line has to be drawing. Thank you for everything over the years.
Sounds horrible hopefully you are on the otherside of all that now and have found something that helps you take your mind of of the negatives you experianced. The TS community is thankfully one of the better ones. Flight sim is really bad and sadly the truck sim is starting to go the same way. If you ever need someone to talk to my dms are always open.
A bit of a shame this thread derailed over what other sites do. I will not get into it. DTG Matt Do we have an idea what the last day will be for the site to be operating? Will the forum survive beyond the site itself, or will that also be shuttered? Assuming it can survive, it gives a chance for people to talk about where their stuff is moving, for instance.
When it's gone, it's gone, everything - it's the server that will be ending service and that means every web site and service on it. I will keep a back up ofc and if I can find opportunity to resurrect bits of it for free I will try and do that, shame to lose the forum history. Matt.
Thanks Matt for all the hard work and effort that you have put into the site over the years. I have been a member for just over 21 years and never grumbled about the cost of premium membership, realising that to offer an online service of storing thousands of files, very quick down load speeds and a forum isn't cheap. Yes, the forum history is very precious and if that could somehow be preserved, I for one would be very grateful. Losing the site at the end of August will be a sad day, but we have to move foreword and keep this great pastime of train simulation alive and healthy. Once again thanks Matt. Keith
One more idea I just had. Might it be possible to set up the site so that an Internet Archive type of backup can be made? That way, though the Web site itself will be lost, maybe the entire forum history can be preserved in this fashion (though it might be impossible to use any search functions). Also a great way to keep information on the items on the site alive even if they can no longer be acquired.
That's what I was thinking. Turn on the ability for everyone to read everything, and thus the bot can archive the entire forum. It even takes requests. Hence why, when protesters got a hold of a Russian pro-Putin site to rail against Putin, the Internet Archive was already on standby to archive the entire thing so it would survive being wiped moments later. I won't discuss Russian politics beyond that reference, BTW. It's just an indication that you can set the IA to archive everything in very short order and have everything preserved.
Yeah, doing that would be a good idea. I was already planning on getting the crawler to download the reviews and articles on the site so I'd better get on that unless it's already been done. I also don't understand the problem with the subscription. ATS is effectively the modern equivalent of UKTS and has a subscription too. The normal download speed is faster, but the subscription is much more expensive as well.
Yes, many thanks to Matt, his Dad and others for UKTS, without it I wouldn't have been so much into train simming for sure. I remember the days when I first picked up Railworks and then searched for new routes. Discovered UKTS. Wales and Borders was an absolute epic of a route, I could get lost in the many branches and mileage of that masterpiece. Still holds up today as being the most realistic and immersive routes for TSC imo. Then came SWW, created by a another real driver I think, another masterpiece. Used to follow other rotue builders, notably gyprbc, for his excellent East Anglia stuff. Motivated me to build my own routes (sadly lost a lot of those in a hard drive failure). Those were great days in Train Simming, there was something about those routes in TSC which just felt so realistic. Great community as well, the UKTS forums were buzzing with people showing off their amazing creations,help and expertise. I just hope we get an editor for TSW, just think about how great it would be to see people on these forums showing off their creative skills, just like it was for TSC. Anyway, thanks again for the hard work Matt and co.
I remember the route building challenges from the early days, some very interesting creations made in such a short length of time. There is/was a lot of knowledge on the site both for TSC and MSTS. I think a lot of the MSTS people went elsewhere. There are some wonderful signal assets by Chaddock, Andi S and others. A lot of freeware routes use these so I hope they will find a home somewhere. I also echo the thanks to Matt and his father and all those who have contributed whether routes, loco's, assets or just advice and humour. I stumbled upon UKTS whilst searching for add-ons for MSTS. It was the North West England route which caught my attention. Like others if I hadn't found UKTS I wouldn't have had nearly 20 years enjoying this hobby and even my love of trains might have died.
Let's not forget Ay Valley, which is probably the custom route with the most scenarios (also on UKTS). You can also find Crouch Valley, which looks more confusing because the branch tracks gets merged together and other tracks are added in the London area for strange purposes (I think it was made before GEML and I'd love to see the branch bit added to the official route)..
There is still a comment on the UKTS Forum A reminder that UKTrainSim in its current guise and ownership will be closing its doors in August. Seems to indicate somebody else might be taking over?
I haven't had time to explore it as an option, i've had a couple of people get in touch, the above statement is simply open ended because I *do* want to get back to these people and see what they are interested in I just don't know when that'll be - spare time to sit and think about such things is hard to come by these days! Matt.
I would be more than interested archiving the forums over at trainsim.com - likewise for the file Library. I didn't buy trainsim.com to turn it into a commercial venture -- I bought it to preserve the 20 years of discussions that were at risk because the new owners of flightsim.com had no interest in keeping it alive. I'm ready to act today. A lift and shift of phpbb can be done to preserve the discussion threading, and if the domain were available to move or be redirected at our server, it could be a seamless process.
That might be a solution. The files that were uploaded are copyright of their owners or UKTS. The forum is a public record so nobody should object.
So deleted my original post as, frankly, I got the wrong end of several sticks. If Eric will need to contact me about hosting my stuiff on his site though as I would like to understand how it might work. I am still thinking about how to do the hosting of my stuff. Bottom line is it will be hosted but how I haven't decided.
It's worth remembering that something like Wales & Borders could only be created with the most minimal amount of assets available at the time. IIRC it was something like the core assets, Isle of Wight and the foliage pack and that's it because that's all their was then! Yet what Shane created was incredible. Great days.
Yes, I need to go and redownload W and B soonish, due to a disasterous HDD failure where I lost most trainsim stuff (and lack of a decent backup). I don't think SWW is available anymore to download which is a real shame. There was something about those routes which were so immersive, i think a lot of it was to do with and usage of differing 2d trees and foliage. The 2d trees were really good imo, but generally people migrated to the 3d assets which made a lot of routes feel v similar imo. I guess the problem was the lack of shadows from the 2d assets. And also I forgot about your excellent routes Darren, I still rate Cresston as a great route, had a very believable route structure and te detail was impressive (as well as great use of those 2d tree assets!). I really need to get downloading the assets/routes from UKTS sharpish I think.
