Alan Thomson Sim Subscription

Does anyone here have an ATS subscription?

Do you feel it's good value for money, or are there still losts of things you have to pay for to use the routes?

What are the pluses and minuses?

https://alanthomsonsim.com/premium-content/

 

I have a subscription, to me it is worth it. Yes you do have to purchase some DLC for the routes, but the routes are built to such a high quality it is worth it.

Also with a subscription you will get discounts on many items such as the AWS box and the PBC, as well as on routes such as Cambridge-Peterborough.

 

£32.99 to save £26.99, hmmm.

Not saying I disagree (or agree) with Alan Thompsons business model but I just had to pick fault with this particular point..

 

So then you're paying £6 a year for their hosting, web building and then the rest goes as payback to the developers of the routes etc that are down as subware.
50p per month is hardly a huge price to pay

 

Each to their own opinion, I personally think a subscription is worth it.

 

^Yep, that's what I said.

Edit:
Ok I'll elaborate, wasn't going to bother but I will, I have no opinion on ATS's business model, I was picking up on part of a members reasoning (self justification) for paying £32.99, is all.

 

Personally I would pay the £33 quid, pick up a cheap route from JT, pick up AT's OHLE pack for half price, download both main routes which are subware and then think "I just got a couple of decent routes and my OHLE doesn't look the same everywhere I go"
I spent ages making some scenarios for their WCMLs route. Very enjoyable and well worth £33 even without the rest

 

It's worth it, gotta support what you like - endless great quality freeware by the community and some amazing discounts plus some great subscription only routes.

 

Plus - access to some great stuff like the Missing Link routes, ECML merge (the whole damned thing from King's Cross to Edinburgh)
Minus - It's 33 quid, and the list of requirements for most of the routes and scenarios is massive usually, so unless you have a large JT/AP catalogue, there may not actually be much you can use for your 33 quid.

In other words... the usual story with TS in general.

 

At least somebody gets it.

 

The installer alone is worth the price of subscription, great piece of software

 

My personal opinion is that I'd like to see a "per month" option similar to that of UKTS... I know some will shoot me down in flames for various reasons...Sure there's things I want from the ATS site but right now I can't justify shelling out £33...

 

A monthly DD is a great idea Eric.

 

IMO the ATS subscription fee is not a good practice business model, nor is it cost-effective to the average simmer.
The best model is to pay for what you want - nothing else.
However, the free stuff is exceptional and very welcome.
Look at the successful TS sellers, Steam, DTG, JT, AP, VP, etc, they do not require an annual subscription fee to purchase their items.
It would be a much better model if you could purchase what you want from ATS, and with ATS building in a fee (as other sellers do) to cover admin costs.
With UKTS, you can pay monthly or annually or free if you don't mind waiting, Mike Simpson - TS_Tools is free, DPS is free, Backdated trainsim - free, plus other sites too numerous to mention, that offer great addons and either don't charge or you pay for the item that you want to buy.
pH

 

Quite agree with you pH... I'd dearly love the WCML missing link but as I said earlier, I can't justify the cost... My household bills come first unfortunately...

 

Couldn't have put it any better myself PH!
If there was a £2.75 monthly option I'd be all for it but quite honestly there's just not enough content that interests me to justify forking out 33 quid. (But that's the point isn't it, Mr Thompsons not going to make any money off of you lot if it was monthly as you'd download all the content you wanted in the first couple of days whether you're subbed for a month or a full year but he'd lose out on £30.25).

I have an installer, it's free, (well, if I'm honest it requires beer as payment) it's called ReefV1.0 (yep you got it, it's me!) and I install everything without any fancy coding, UI's or lining the bearded one's pocket.

I'm not out to change anyone's steadfast diehard opinion, you like it, great, you have the disposable income, awesome.. Me, personally?... I need a little more than an OHLE kit, a few freeware routes and scenarios hidden behind a yearly sub wall that's all I'm saying.

 

Have I completely misunderstood this?

I was assuming that the subscription content will only keep operating if you have a current subscription.

Is it the case then that you can cancel after a year but keep all the DLC?

I wouldn’t have thought so, as you’d get a lot for £32.

Has anyone had a subscription and cancelled, who can tell us if their access to DLC stops?

 

I wouldn't have thought so... Once you've downloaded it, it's yours for keeps unless there's a piece of secret software in there that deletes the ATS files that you've downloaded when it is notified that your subscription has ended...

 

You pay to access the downloads not to continually use the content thereafter..

Answer me this, how exactly would it work? Would you have to post your Hard Drive to AT once your subscription ended? Thankfully it's logistically impossible for your assumption to work.

 

That would be criminal, i.e. against the law!

 

I didn’t mean ATS remotely deletes it, but rather checks on loading if a paid subscription is active, I guess like Microsoft Office, Adobe, etc.

 

I guess access to "subscription ware" is via log in... "If yer name's not on the list yer ain't comin' in."...

 

Just thinking how much better of I’d be if I could have paid DTG/Steam one annual sub of £32, downloaded otherwise many hundreds of pounds of DLC, then cancelled and was still able to use it!

 

Sorry, I was being rather flippant with my reply.. No there is nothing that ATS can do (nefariously or otherwise) to stop you using content that you have paid for (whether through a subscription wall or not) and installed.

 

Yes but at least with the Steam / DTG DLC you don't need a list of 40,000 extra download requirements...!!!

 

Maybe I should venture into the ‘ATS community’ and ask

 

The difference being DTG have thousands of pounds worth of content, ATS has what £50? plus discount on 3rd party software and hardware.

My car cost me a grand, it's French and over 10yrs old, be nice if I could walk into a Ferrari dealership and drive out in a brand new car for a grand too wouldn't it? Same thing..

 

Ooooh... feeling brave sir...???

 

When I even just look at the lists of all the requirements for things, it is tiring! Would likely have to spend half a day checking and installing stuff, should I have the dosh to throw on it!

 

That place is a hive of activity so I'm sure you'll get thousands of answers..

 

Absolutely, but, that's his lookout, not yours as a customer. I only pay about 4/5 months of the year for a subscription to the UKTS library, so, I can obtain what I want all in one go, the same for any other subscription based membership. UKTS get about £11 out of me yearly instead of £17/18 quid, they get money for offering me a service and I'm very happy to pay for it, but, I save 50% of an annual fee by not committing myself to paying for every month, and I'd use the same ideaology for Mr. Thomson's website, but, as he doesn't offer anything like that to his customers, and many folks ask why, then he's doesn't make a bean out of me, so he loses out financially, that's his decision, let him get on with it.

Cheerz. Steve.

 

Looking closely at the items in the link I first put up, they’re basically all scenarios: I thought there were many routes. So a lot less than I originally thought.

 

Now he gets it..

 

I wasn’t overly observant the first time I looked. Not so easy on my little phone screen!

 

Actually I just snooped around on the ATS site and realised that the ATS installer requires (and checks) that you have an active sub at all times.

I'll pass.

Edit:
You know what, fine, if people want to pay someone and give them unfettered access to software on their PC then that's up to them, It's no skin off mine..
I'll just continue with the tiresome and laborious task of downloading, unzipping and dragging files into my RailWorks folder with the horrific addition of having to click on a .bat file occasionally too.

 

Steve... couldn't agree with you more... It just irks (is that a word???) me when there's something I'd like on his site but aren't in a position to get it...

Eric

 

Comment on the Cambridge route: you might save 50% on it, but you still pay the 50% if you buy it. So in the end, you aren't saving 26.99 pounds, but more like 17 pounds even.

In other words, you have to want to buy the other things to get the savings, in which case there are no savings. If I subscribe, the reason would likely be for subware, and much of it needs a lot of AP stuff. Which I did buy some of during the sale, but despite a lot spent, I am still missing items for many of the things I looked at. Which is tragic. But at least I got a lot of the earlier items, so I can play earlier stuff.

 

There is some good stuff on there no doubt, some very good quality items, I am interested in the payware route Cambridge/Peterborough route. However I don't think personally there is enough on there to warrant me buying a subscription. Almost all the routes are set in the modern day period and most of the scenarios are too.

UKTS seems to cater more for us interested in going back a decade or three or six! Also, on UKTS a months subscription is a pittance and there is a lot of content on there.

 

If ATS did like DTG, Just Trains, RSSLO where I can buy a complete route with a selection of scenarios I would do that but instead I have to buy a subscription and then pay extra for the bits, like OHLE, for the routes I download.

As reskins and scenarios seem to be free for the moment I will avoid the Subscription method

 

Another way to look at it though, is:

ECML full
Missing link (soon to be complete WCML)
Leeds Lines
Cambridge to Peterborough
Plus bundled scenarios

..all for £33. If you already have the requirements, that's not actually a bad deal. If you don't.... well.. perhaps not.

 

That's the problem... IF you have all the requirements...

 

It irks us all Eric, I'm sure, however, it all depends on how important obtaining the route/scenario pack really is to you, I have nearly 15 year's worth of routes to play with in this game, missing one, or, two more, won't cause me any great hardship.

Cheerz. Steve.

 

Isn't it true no matter what you're buying. It "irks" that I'm driving a Volkswagen rather than a Ferrari, but I don't have the money for the car, insurance or maintenance. Not sure Ferrari would donate me one though

 

For the amount of money I’ve spent of TS including 95% of the AP catalogue I’m happy to pay the £33 for the ATS sub.
The whole ECML, soon to be full WCML, Leeds Line and discounted TS Controllers. As stated above I think the installer is brilliant. I’ve previously downloaded 10’s, maybe hundreds of dlc (routes, loco’s, patches, scenarios and reskins) in one go and installed them effortlessly

 

Not sure about the controllers as I play just fine on a keyboard
The installer is OK but not so great that it can install the AP packs in sequence to make them work. It just installs everything in the drop folder in the order it finds them, so on my install it installed the branding patches before the EP or base train, so that's a big fail

 

You may have the whole of the ECML and soon to be most of the WCML as a map but without having to spend the extra money on the routes themselves you don't have anything.
Buy the London to Faversham and the Chatham lines and the combined route is Free - not £33

 

No one is forcing you to buy the sub, I’m just giving you my opinion as to why I was happy to buy it which was the topic of this discussion

 

The impression you give is by having the sub it gave you the whole of the ECML - which it does not.