Greg Lane on Trainz

As we approach the release of Trainz I thought it time to make a post that details the beginnings of the project, our ongoing plans and how we'd like to get you, the Trainz community, involved in future development and the creation of add ons.

From its inception many years ago in Townsville Australia, Trainz has been a project waiting to happen. At the time, in late '92, a game like Trainz was not possible. The processing and graphics power just did not exist in the home PC environment. Early in 1999 I started thinking about this project again and mentioned it to a number of people here at Auran. Finally, in September '99, I got the go ahead from the Auran board. From the day I received the 'go signal' it was clear that this was going to be a unique long term project and one that needed some really talented people to work on it. So with that in mind I hopped on a plane in January 2000 and set off to England for a number of interviews. I met Steve in London and over a series of meetings and a nice dinner he agreed to head out to Oz and lead the project.

Once he had arrived, he and I set about recruiting the remaining team members and by about June 2000 the project was well underway. Later that year I went on a number of trips to the US and met with many model railroad clubs, manufacturers, press and other interested parties getting their feedback on what they wanted to see in Trainz. In essence Trainz is all about what people have asked for. Perhaps one of the most important points that was decided very early on was the size or scope of the project. It was clear to us that to do everything we wanted was going to take many years and, given that, we felt a much better approach was to break the game into a number of core components that could be worked on individually. This modular approach has worked very well and has also enabled us to be very open about what we are doing and to seek out and integrate a great deal of input from the community.

Trainz is really all about community input and scope. Many of the modules that will be released over the coming months mean different things to different people. Many have commented that they want 'Yardmaster' because they see activities as important. Many have said that 'Boss' or 'Online' are what they are waiting on and still others have commented on the prototypical aspects of Trainz and they want to be able to create layouts of great size and scale. Trainz can do that, but it's not its focus. This leads me to what is, in essence the core of Trainz, what it's all about.

To tell you about Trainz I need to tell you what it's going to be like in the years to come. Imagine for a moment sitting down in front of your PC and powering up Trainz; the scenario would go something like this:

You've arranged ahead of time via email to meet a group of your friends from all over the world, say 10 of them, for a virtual model railroad session. The layout you're playing on is quite large, perhaps a HO layout measuring over 200' x 60' and each one of you have had the responsibility of planning and designing a section of that layout. Some months ago you'd seen an ad on the Trainz website for the newly formed 'ABC Railroad Company' and 10 members were wanted. You'd joined and spent some time planning and designing your section of the layout and now Trainz is about to join all 10 of the layouts together in real time and all of you are about to power it up for the first time. Each one of you has been assigned various tasks. A number are assigned as drivers, one as the dispatcher and so on.

After Trainz is running you connect to the internet and create a game by clicking a button on the interface and assign the game a password. Each one of your fellow modellers knows the password (you sent it to them in an email earlier in the week) and at the assigned time they all join the game. When you're ready you click 'Launch'. Trainz starts up, checks your maps, links them, checks your engines and consists and then launches the game.

What you see when the game launches is a large country station and a train waiting at the platform. You click on it and enter the cab. Soon you hear a message from the dispatcher telling you to proceed and the signal ahead of you changes to green. In the background you can hear other radio chatter as the other members of the club talk to one another. Since you're one of the lucky ones and have a mike attached to your computer you can actually talk via voice to the dispatcher and he back to you! Soon you discover that one of the trains is a little late and the signal ahead of you is red. You contact the dispatcher who tells you the situation just as you look up and notice the sun going down and the rain start to roll in......

This then is what Trainz is all about. One of the most important things that needs to happen for all this to work effectively is to have an accelerated time scale and compressed distance map. Just the thing that a large and 'operating' model railroad club has. Over the past months we have continued to stress to people the model railroad vision for Trainz and the example above demonstrates just that. There is however one very important point in all of the above and that is Trainz must be easy to use. Since designing and building a representative layout is critical to the success of Trainz we have spent a huge amount of time making Surveyor the best editor on the planet! It is our belief that anyone has to be able to jump right in and have a great deal of fun making a layout. Since it's desirable for the layouts to be smaller than prototypical the tools need to be more artistically focused and fun based. Many people have asked why do the layouts need to be smaller and can I make them larger? The answer to both these questions is easy. Smaller because you actually come across other people, a prototypical railroad with only 10 people on it may mean you never see anyone else. Larger? Yes you can but it's not our focus.

We know that some people would like Trainz to be a prototypical simulator however we believe the overwhelming group of people want to be able to make layouts, to drive trains and ultimately do so in a session with other people and friends from all over the globe. This then is the goal of Trainz

So you may well ask 'What then do I get now if I can't play online yet and it's not a simulator?'. Well you do get a lot more than you think. For a start, no matter what your skillset, I can guarantee you will be able to make great layouts and have a huge amount of fun doing it. Second if driving is what you're after you'll be able to have multiple trains running at once and move between them! The graphics, real time 'time of day' and real time weather systems are the best there is. The in cab view is fully panable in any direction, again the best there is. The physics system is certainly equal to anything else on the market and our sounds and environmental effects are awesome! Want turntables? No problem, we ship with one and more will be available soon. What about the ability to exchange maps with others? No problem either, unlike other products, Trainz maps are small and easily able to be sent over the internet. The 'English countryside' map that we use for a lot of screenshots is under 3mb! Can I join maps together now like an N-Trak layout? Yes you can. Can I easily retexture or add new loco's from 3rd parties? Yep, no problem, in fact we are making all of our custom directory file formats public domain. What about the assets Trainz ships with? How many loco's, rolling stock, buildings etc do I get and can use? In short you get at least twice as much as any other product on the market. Finally we also allow you to produce and sell loco's, rolling stock, trackside accessories and layouts that make use of our assets and may even use our assets as the basis for new creations. That's a first for this industry as far as we know!

So as you can see Trainz is about building an ongoing development environment. Obviously our vision is long term, there's no denying that. Over the past year however I believe Auran has demonstrated a desire and willingness to co-operate with the community and many of the features that are in the product are as a direct result of community input and feedback. All I ask of you now if that you continue to give us that feedback.

I hope you enjoy playing Trainz.

Greg Lane
AURAN CEO