Hopefully in a few days we'll have the RSA forum running up again but as Railworks America. Ed's been working on the situation and as soon as he gives the go-ahead RWA we'll be back up to speed.

Rich Garber

Good news, looking forward to it
Thanks for all the effort.

Great news to hear

Yes, indeed. I have missed RSA, and look forward to RWA.

What will the Railworks America site be all about? I never saw the RS America site.

Rail Sim America was a site devoted to Rail Simulator. I took it down before Railworks was released because it didn't seem right to have the new site named after the old version of the game. So I purchased a new domain, railworksamerica.com and Ed Hawkin's (hawkdawg.com) is in the process of moving the old forum posts to the new forum so there's coherency; he's also adapting the site text to the new Railworks too. I was hesitant to put up the new forum too soon while the Railworks hysteria was at its peak.

Rich,

Will there be a section devoted to RS-1 included in RWAmerica for those of us not going the RailWorks route? Regardless, much success in your new venture.

Glen

Glen,

You got to be kidding me. Why wouldn't you go the Railworks route?

Rich

Rich,

I experienced prior misfortune with 'Steam' and do not desire to be duped again or donate additional funds to their coffers. It's a personal situation mostly, and should RS eventually fall from the wayside there is always the Z route, unless MSTS makes a miraculous come back. Only time will determine the outcome, and I've got plenty of that.

Thanks Rich, for your talents so gracefully given to the Train Sim communities all these many years. I know RW will continue be another success for you.

Glen

Oh, the Steam thing... well... I'm new to it and I personally don't care for the extra time it takes to load up RW (activating Steam to activate the wrapper to finally getting to load up RW). Plus I reinstall these train programs all the time especially at release to make sure things install properly and I'm obviously going to get the DVD version which I'm pretty sure will be faster at installing than downloading. So I'm more in agreement with you on Steam. And if you've had problems with them in the past, all the more reason you got reasonable reasons to, at least, be suspicious of these guys again.

This is a market decision by RS.com that, and I've heard some of it directly from them, where I can see their point but to me adds another player in the more difficult aspect of releasing product. With enough things that can go wrong, why add more? And that's apparently part of the early problems with RW was that something did go wrong which I gather from emails put the good folk at RS.com in frantic mode. Personally, I like the Direct2Drive purchasibility over this Steam stuff. What worries me is let's say you can overnight fix issues, okay? Well, does that mean in that same overnight you can break everything in one fell swoop as well? At least with patches you get a staggering effect in which the earliest venturers (Bless their hearts!) act as psudo-beta testers and take the brunt of the hit versus everyone all at once. And RS/RW are unlike the typical releases from other game companies where there is a strong relationship between vendor and the company itself. I see very few simulations being offered through Steam and I wonder if the reason might not be because the longstanding relationship between user and game.

One of my concerns since learning of RW and that it was always meant to be RS repackaged is for us, that was obviously going to be a tough sell. Steam should've been added in a future hardcore improvement rather than a lateral improvement like RW is meant to be. Or really, maybe a midstream or incremental change but now, IMO, was not the best time to implement this kind of feature. For us. Let me clarify that. RW is mostly for new users, not previous users though we get the benefit of a consolidated platform. I prefer to go into this more indepth at Railworks America than here.

Not to sound like a nay-sayer I just have concerns about the Steam aspect and I have received emails that if the Steam thing doesn't work RS.com will gladly shed themselves of Steam should it be necessary. This is just one of those issues where my own self-interest override my desire to see RW succeed.

Rich

Rich,

Appreciate your honest and accurate evaluation of RW/STEAM. Your main points hit home and I
shall re-consider a future RW DVD purchase, providing early reports prove only minimal problems.

I recall the old cliche 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me' , so I will proceed slowly to avoid any mistakes. Perhaps I'll see you soon on RWAMERICA.

Thanks.

Glen

Rich,

Will our old logins from RS America work on the new site?

Ken,

They should. Ed's got the reigns on what will happen and I believe he said that should be the case. He's still pretty busy with other interests but he's taking care of this while he has some time. All kudos go to Ed, I kinda hit him with all this at an inconvienent time for him. I'm hoping he can have it ready to go by Friday.

Rich

Hi Glenn,

The reason I was curious for your reasons is because RW is simply RS repackaged. There's a little bit of a difference but that was conditional because of the agreements signed between EA and RSDL so RS.com could re-release RS (as RW) with themselves as the distributors. There's quite a racket out there that RW is supposed to be something it was never meant to be. AT RSA we discussed this enough that those who participated knew this. But I see a couple carrying on elsewhere as if they never heard it before.


Railworks alleviates the problems past agreements before RSDL came into existence caused. It also alleviates the scarcity of RS in Europe. The main thing is RS is continued as it is but in a new name, new company but everything else is the same. What the screaming that's going on elsewhere is all about is the version of RS that hasn't been announced yet. I mean that they're all spouting off on what would be Railworks 2.

What could be the mistake of the noisey types elsewhere is they misconstrued the press releases as if they were written for them. They were written and aimed at new purchasers and were purposely not advertised on the forums so there wasn't the confusion. But folks outside of RSDL did promote those advertisings on the forum which is why at RSA we went into high gear to dispel those notions.

And it only makes sense. I was working with an early variation of RW for the Castlerock route so I knew the hoopla was a misunderstanding. But I did this at RSA and not elsewhere. And so, why is the next question. First, I'm not a spokesperson for RS.com. Second, I was working on a route that had to get done really fast. Wanna know the truth? I did it in 15 days. Ya gotta love this game! I digress. But I still had scenarios and other things to do so it took 15 more days and I was done. However, the point that I really want to emphasize is if you want to learn the ins and outs of Railworks the best place to go to is a forum where the treatment of the game and its parenting company is fair. RS/RW and RS.com is not getting a fair shake at these other forums. They disallow bashing of other members but have no compunction whatsoever if the personnel or product of RS.com take a beating. That wasn't allowed at RSA and won't happen either at RWA.

The best way for RW to catch on for those of us who prefer it is to provide a stable and civil backdrop for people to ask and answer the issues that arise. So much is misunderstood about RS/RW that I felt the forum had to be away from every other train game. We got people who haven't ever tried the game putting in their own 2 cents what's wrong with the game or how accurate is and its endless. And some people, like myself, learned that after giving it a second chance that it wasn't the game that messed up, it was us (i.e. me).

Let me say something I've been saying for a long time. I was against RS as anybody could be if for no other reason it hadn't caught on. But when I saw Marc Nelson talking about RS I knew either he lost his marbles or something changed. So I called him and said, what are you doing!? Now only in America when your mentors switch direction that the pupils suddenly know better than the teachers. Fortunately, not always so I took up RS again. And this time whatever it was that buffalo'd me the first time, I licked soundly the second time around. Well shazzam if I'm going to stubbornly stick to something just because of my pride. And so in 30 days I finished my first route and released it and now it's published and it's one of my best sellers and it's been reviewed by some pretty good guys AND IT WAS ONLY A BLASTED TEST ROUTE!!

I love it. It's hard not to laugh. I only wanted to know what an American route would look like with American objects and I thought it be a miracle if I sold 100 copies in a whole year. It's funny because Rascal and Cotton are my daughter's pets (guinea pig and rabbit). Mostly pet names, foxy was a rabbit we had as was TC a guinea pig.

I sorry, I keep digressing. It's just so funny to me that so many people are screaming that nothing can be done with RS but those who really give it a go and exert some patience as well as restraint do pretty well with it. Look at Dick C. Same thing. I gave Dick my original copy of RS and he didn't care for it either. But after I got myself into RS the second time I asked him to give it a go again and see if it works better for him as well. My younger brother who never did anything with RS builds his own routes, models and doesn't know anything of the forums gets along fairly well and better than most on the forums. And no I don't help him either. He's my little brother, my lot in life is to beat him up, not help him!

I'm not saying there aren't issues. RS made me look pretty stupid today but I'll lick this thing yet. It's just being patient remembering there is a tomorrow and most things don't happen overnight. The trick to doing RS is real simple. Just forget you did anything else and just work on it and you'll do fine.

Rich
PS I'll proof this later. In fact, when you don't see this, then you know I've proofed this post!

Rich,

Wow! What a comprehensive review of RS vs RW.

Each time I read it I glean even more. As long as I know you are determined as ever I'll ride the rails with you. You have changed my attitude and I'm now thinking of taking the plunge. I did not mention earlier I have both of your routes and they will be the first additions I'll make to RW. I'm sure you'll will produce many more great routes in the future, meanwhile you''ll find me hanging out on RWA. Thanks for being there and the very best of everthing to you.

Glen

It's hard to encapsulate what is known about the whys of what happened into a short post. Unfortunately the complaining folks got it all wrong about what RS.com is doing. What RS.com is doing makes perfect sense. But then somebody will ask me then why don't they just say it? Like who wants to stand down a huge mob bent on hanging ya?

So there's this terrible confusion over what's happening. At RSA things were quite dull cause it was explained. I'm not saying everybody was happy because of it, of course we all would like to see RS/RW move along at a faster pace. But it's a small company of 8 people (not the 5 you keep hearing about), they really do have their own coders (not what you hear) and these are real people behind the names (not unlike the Pirate characterizations you get from the other place).

They freely admit mistakes have been made if you talk to them and treat them like human beings. But they also point out that correcting the legals from early on takes more time than they would like and at times is like stepping through a mine field. Again, those who complain make it all sound so easy that a kid could do it.

I feel pretty confident that in time folks will see the product moving along in the proper direction and order, getting things fixed as they would like. Only since Railworks can that happen, it couldn't happen with RS. But then again, remember that RW is simply RS but the legalese is now fully in the hands of the proper owners.

Mind you, let's cover my tracks again before the complainers catch wind of what I've been writing.

I'm not saying the complainers are wrong in what they see as issues with RS/RW. Their biggest mistake is they think that by beating a dog with a stick they'll get better results than a good dose of kindness. If you're familiar with Aesop's fable the best example is the story about the wind and the sun competing who could get a traveler pasing by to take his coat off first. The wind blew as hard as it could only to see the traveler clutch with his very life to the coat. The sun then tried beaming brightly and off came the coat.

The end result of what the complainers are doing with their absurd vitriole is RS.com isn't listening to them. RS.com is convinced there isn't anything they can do to please that gang. But unfortunately the ones who are listening are guys like yourself who see the ruckus and think Railworks is a bad way to go, run by a bad company that doesn't simply 'get it.'

It's the complainers that don't 'get it.' But from what I see, you can't tell those guys anything so why bother? If we get the RWA going, come join us. Here I prefer to talk about All Aboard stuff and keep the two things separate. And thanks for checking out my routes!

Rich

I think you sum it up quite well Rich. Even on the UKTS forums you are getting the I am not doing anything until I know where its going attitude and RSC talk to us and give us back the official forum etc etc etc. It is as though lots of people want there hands held for reassurance before they will do anything. For a game/sim it is a very strange attitude to have considering the history of trains sims where users were thrown in the deep end and told to swim.

I do believe RSC could communicate better but that is no different to most other software companies. Derek has said there will be improved support coming soon ( though I don't know what form that it will take ) but if I was them I would perhaps consider some sort of developer diary as a means of communicating to users. Whether that would mollify those users who just want to vent is another matter though.

John

Thanks John. The way I see it is we have a few that are resisting change. Back when it was just msts, the online community was in charge. With a company around, now they are in charge. And we either buy into their philosophy or... and there really is no or except to go back to msts, or whatever. And that's just how I see this playing out.

Rich

Ed's got Railworks America up and going, this is kind of a beta test, give a look, register... we'll see what happens...

http://www.railworksamerica.com

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

Same rules as Rail Sim America, be sure to read the rules post and what behavior is expected. Thanks. Be sure to give Ed a big thanks as well.

Rich

Thanks guys. (British understatement)

Dick

Rich's link in the above post to the forum isn't quite right.

Here's the right link which will take you to the forums main page.

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/