Hi folks For many years, we have enjoyed a vast range of third-party content available from sites. Unfortunately, we had some third-party websites disappeared in the last year, with 3DTrains.com gone last year. We also have Sound Packs being discontinued from Armstrong Powerhouse. Many reskins require Armstrong Powerhouse Sound Packs (but I think there are more reskins that now require AP Enhancement Packs). Reskins of Class 47 and 57 locomotives from Vulcan Productions, released in 2020, are victims of AP Sound Pack being discontinued. And of course UKTrainSim will be closing down at the end of August, which means more freeware content will be discontinued, which makes matters worse for the Train Simulator Classic community. Also to make matters worse, TrainSimDev.com has account suspended, meaning that it is no longer available. So, with the above discontinuations, are we facing the end of the freeware era? At the end of the day, Train sim is just a hobby. Alistair Cowell
People and companies come and go. We all hate to see people leave and hope a lot of the material is saved somewhere, however there are new talent coming on line regularly. Relative recent additions include DieselWorkshop,DSGDDR,ironhorseproductions,MachineRail just to mention a few. I think the sim is in good hands at this time.
I think we were always a bit lucky when we had the booming freeware era. People willingly spending hours and hours on things for just the enjoyment of it, and potentially a lot of negative feedback. Why weren't they charging for their time? Because they enjoyed it and could afford it. It's a very privilidged position to be in. But in the past decade or so, wages have stagnated, everything is more expensive, and people rightly put a higher value on their time. You may still get people who love the sim and are retired, or just not counting the pounds, able to give stuff away but it does not surprise me that this is becoming less common.
also, over on the what used to be very lively MSTS/OR scene at Elvas Tower for instance, the 'old gaurd' that used to create for this sim are dying without inheritors. Seems the younger folk don't play with trains (either in scale model railways or in virtual scale) and are also less willing to apply themselves for the benefit of others. Which is perhaps a sign of the current times we live in. Plus, one must not forget, creating for TSC is already lots more difficult than for MSTS and perhaps Trainz also. Then, creating for TSW is even more difficult. Few hobbyist will invest the time in researching a prototype, applying themselves in 3D modelling, texturing, sound editing and scripting. Even for pro's there are quite some hurdles, and going commercial with recreating a specific prototype comes with pitfalls in licensing, their costs and requirements that might quickly kill your desire to create this wonderful train.
Hmm. Honestly - I'm having quite the opposite problem. Too much content already . Enough for a lifetime.
I think there was a strong enthusiasm by people towards steam and other old types which the younger generation doesn't have any emotional attachment to. Exceptions apply, of course. I do have a couple relatives and friends (ages 10-20) having a merry peek at my collection. As for TSC, there may be several factors, but requiring registering in various places and hunting down dependencies certainly doesn't help. Sometimes the authors still don't want to make their stuff public domain even upon retiring. (Like TS Tools or whichever it was.) The term "freeware" actually describes it well - it's proprietary, licensed. Pretty much everyone these days gets educated on online security, regarding both malware and phishing. Not to mention hacks. That's among the reasons why I simply stick with Steam. Basically the internet is like walking the most dangerous areas of your city, or roaming the wild west. Imaginary freedom.
Playing only Steam content, you're missing out on a lot of good stuff. As freeware developers have more time on their hands and do it because they love it, much stuff is of higher quality than DLC which is restricted by deadlines and needed revenue, so you can't invest too much time or the DLC would be too pricey - which is very obvious on DTG stuff (and even worse for TSW as you can't fix stuff yourself easily) Being in a comfortable positions of having collected a huge amount of freeware assets over the years, I can play almost anything as most assets are already present in my library. Wouldn't wanny miss those freeware routes / locos.
In the old days people put their reskins and the like on a common forum - like UKTS and others These days a lot more creators are placing DLC on their own website or a shared one https://backdatedtrainsim.weebly.com/ https://www.dpsimulation.org.uk/ https://www.vulcanproductions.co.uk/ https://www.major.wales/home https://superalbs.weebly.com/train-sim-reskins.html
when we get a dx12 version of tsc then we start all over to a new era this game deserves it so much ! and i dont think that other developers are leaving because then they can create big new thinks
I think quite a lot of freeware now looks rather poor when compared with commercial offerings. There is still some excellent freeware, but standards have gone up over the years, so it's not surprising some has fallen by the wayside.
To put it bluntly, freeware is dead when it comes to complete models. Building a quality model including the scripts is just too much time and effort-consuming so I totally understand people who need to make it worth their while. However, I don't think one can live without things such as freeware reskins and I doubt these will go away anytime soon.
You best not tell the Czech simmers as they are continuing to release locos and stock for TSC. And a number of developers release locos and stock for other european countries.
I dunno, the Backdated Trainsim folks seem to manage, both with their Class 85 electric loco, their Orient Express coaches and their London Underground route+stock...
And the Virgin 47 reskins. Which sadly require the Virgin pack. Which is retired. That was a good grab from Humble while I could.
Nonsense. Where do these can't live without re-skins come from the freeware guys - that's where. There will always be freeware - the only thing that will kill it is constant complaints from people without any talent themselves expecting Rolls-Royce standards at zero cost. If I think Freeware can be improved (especially routes/scenarios) I tweak them myself and I am self taught at 74. As long as TSC has an Editor there will be people willing to have a go some will be better than others as it has always been.
I suspect you could edit the Class 47 from the Manchester - Leeds route as I think it is the same base model
Many of us do this as a hobby, as a release from the pressures of daily life, or just for the sheer enjoyment of it - we have no intention of making any money. The routes that I have worked on have had payware routes as dependencies to get a kick-start, anything that I have added has ( and always will be ) completely free of charge to anyone who wants to download it. So for now, you should be quite ok for freeware unless nobody is creating just what you are looking for. Oh, and you need to be patient.....route and asset creation is a time consuming process. Andy
There’s a ton of german freeware. And other countries that have no payware content at all, have freeware developers.
And if you make something to sell, there is also that added expectation by what is now properly the customer, of course, of fixing bugs etc in a timely fashion, a pressure which the freeware maker may well prefer to be free of.
I think they [BackdatedTrainSim, who reskinned the Virgin multiple times] were not going to do it themselves as there was not a demand for it. That said, if someone takes it on, that might be something that gets their support if it works. I cannot speak for them though.
Exactly. I do not like the title of this thread. The closing of sites has nothing to do with less freeware being developed - there is zero evidence for that.
It is. Not checked if one is available for it, but if there isn't I bet it won't be long before there is.
If you are refencing DTG in that comment then you would be wrong. The previous virgin pack got removed when VT stopped operating services THUS the DTG license would have ended hence the removal so i very much doubt DTG were goin to do it themselves as you say as they wouldnt have had a license to do so.
My error then. I thought you meant the Virgin somehow. Guess we are saying the same thing in different ways. I am implying one can try to revise a reskin to use Huddersfield instead of Virgin. There may be a couple of issues to sort out, but it may be similar and work similarly.
Was thinking the same. But as usual it will drag on. Best just to move on for your own peace of mind lol.
It's done by dedicated team AFAIK, still my point was that the vast majority of the rolling stock, at least, seems to be custom-made from scratch.
I wouldn't say that. I have friends who play many different games and so I could risk a comparison: There's a lot of people creating a lot of free content for all sorts of games. Looking at Cities:Skylines" or "Planet Zoo" or "Mount & Blade" I can tell you that there's a lot of very talented mod creators who create free products which are better and more polished than what the game developpers themselves do. Having said that, there is one big difference between say "Planet Zoo" and TSC. The latter is a simulator and there is a lot of scripting and physics modelling involved in creating a vehicle for any simulator. So if we compare TSC and TSW to something like OMSI2 or Microsoft Flight simulator - you won't see much differences. There is less freeware content and more 3rd party payware involved in simulator games than say in "Planet Zoo". All very valid points!
I'd say the concern is valid, especially with UKTS closing down. But I do not think it is the end of the hobby as such, even if there is less freeware being made now than 5 years ago.
I'm not sure there's less freeware. There's so much new stuff like scenarios, reskins etc. appearing on ATS that I wonder what makes you think that. Then there's all the stuff on OTS, Superlabs, Vulcan, Backdated, Major Wales etc. Seems to be quite a healthy amount of freeware development around. It's a shame about UKTS, but just scrape as much as you can from it before it goes, particularly the freeware packs which seem to form the backbone of many freeware routes, and keep them safe, or upload your own copies to your own cloud storage. I'm not unduly worried about it. The title of this thread is a bit overly dramatic if you ask me.
True, there are sites that are quite active. I guess that is a subjective perspective depending on what you look for. UKTS and Traction Studios did not have a lot of new content for quite some time. I agree, the title is a bit too dramatic for my tastes. However I'd say the general concern is not an invalid one: TrainSim does have a ratio of a lot of payware vs much less freeware than most games. However, I think a lot of that can be explained through the fact that it is a simulator.
That is like the bloke at work who said "shame about Debenhams closing down - but they did not have much for me."
It's got nothing to do with the work required. It's a difference of culture. There are mods for games like Skyrim that took thousands and thousands of hours to create, yet the creators would never dream of charging for them. It's something that is Not Done.
Well, to be fair - I said: UKTS and Traction Studios did not have a lot of new content for quite some time. I do love some of their older content. The "MID NORFOLK RAILWAY PHASE 1" from Traction studios was nice... but that was released in mid 2020 and nothing moved forward from there. I still run their Class 04 tramway version on my routes, it was great that they did that version! Nicest class 04 in all of Train sim imho. UKTS has a lot of content scenery packs I use all the time because a lot of freeware routes use it. Then there's great reskins like the BR green version of the Class 24 which is amazing. But again - that is from spring 2020. So I like both sites, but truth to be told - there was far less going on in recent times than in 2017-2020. The end of the pandemic lockdown might have left people with less time on their hands.
I think part of the problem is that since the original routes were ditched from the base game there hasn't been a core of assets developers can be sure players will have. Perhaps a new Freeware Pack along the lines of the old UKTS ones could be beneficial.
Well at one point they were using Forge Digital who went sour a couple of years ago - going upmarket, removing the Control Panel for your site, not replying to correspondence - but still taking the money. Surprised it lingered this long. There is always Steam Workshop but DTG really need to look at some way of relaxing their self imposed rule of no content included in a route other than built in or official DLC assets. You can't even include custom station name boards so people know where they are on your route. My own drive to rescue my UKTS routes and rebuild for the Workshop went into hiatus after the first one. Might get revived later in the year but TBH the only sim (if you can call it thus) that really supports and encourages third party freeware is Trainz with N3V's own in house Download Station.
Where you people get the custom station name board from? I don't think it would be part of the Scenario download If you gave a link to a third party site people might not know how to install it.
I meant you can't bundle such items with the route upload to Steam, even if it's your own work. When I updated my Sulitjelma Railway from UKTS and put it on Steam, the first complaint was, where are the station names (which I'd knocked together using 3D Canvas and an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro). I can kind of see why DTG are taking this stance as neither they nor Steam want to get involved in the inevitable disputes if a route builder uploads assets from someone else without permission, maybe even a third party off Steam payware route, breaching someone's EULA or T&C. And you are correct Peter, the whole point of putting it on Steam Workshop is to eliminate the scavenger hunt and install headaches for assets on other third party sites (which are also just as likely to disappear). If DTG are serious about continued hobby level route building for TSC then they seriously need to consider an arrangement like the N3V DLS where a central repository of assets are stored and downloaded if the route requires it - even if this requires changes to how the editor works. Sadly I don't see them being interested in going down that road, even if the library required a small subscription to use. So as I said, TSC is pretty much end of the road for me so far as route building is concerned, other than - if I CBA - modding and updating the remaining routes of mine off UKTS to go on the Workshop.
There are other groups that host files https://www.wotawallysbits.net/ - that is Colin Green who used to upload to UKTS And there is a Facebook group for recreating old railways in the UK https://www.facebook.com/groups/1070113816378979 Peter
I frankly do not see why they do it. A lot of other game developpers allow and promote mods on their site and steam workshops. Pradox games is infamously money-grubbing and cheap, but they allow very entensive mods of their games on their steam workshop and on their official forums etc. That's always been the saving grace for Paradox - all the mods It is DTG's decision to do it a different way. It is their right and I respect it. But It does leave me a bit puzzled as to why.
