hi just wanted to know if anyone has thought about a meeting up venue so that people could discuss stuff e.g the past, the present and the future of bve etc.
hope to hear from u.
I'll discuss those examples without attending a meeting.....
The past; some bright Japanese bloke going by the name of Mackoy developed a great cab view train sim, which although it has some serious limitations, is possibly now the best cab view sim in the world.
The present; a few dozen developers worldwide have taken what Mackoy gave us and have used it to build trains to drive and routes to drive them on.
Using coding skills which are mainly self taught, the developers have been able to create driving experiences superior to any other train sim but their time is limited and the number of routes and trains available remains small.
And here is the important bit....
The future; the BVE developing community needs to grow or it will wither and die. The number of completed (BVE4 UK) routes remains small and the general quality of the routes not as good as it could be in terms of appearance and choice. Put simply, more developers, of both trains and routes, are needed so that a wider audience is captured.
But here lies the problem; the message I get is that a lot of people try their hand at developing routes or trains but soon loose heart at the time and effort it takes.
Failure of route development may be caused by lack of support but equally as often (if not more so) by attempting something overcomplicated as the first effort. Indeed, my personal experience was similar - the first project I undertook was Westbury station - not exactly in the same league for complexity as Paddington, Cardiff or Leeds but almost enough to put me off route development. Fortunately, I had the foresight to admit I was not up to the job and practiced my coding skills on fictional routes instead; I now feel able to tackle 'real routes' after a couple of years coding.
One thought which has crossed my mind more than once is that a preserved railway would make an ideal route to start out on the route development path - imagine a few miles of route which would not have all the signalling complexities associated with main line running, would have decent traction and should be easily accessible in terms of obtaining not only photos needed for object construction but also line diagrams, gradient profiles etc.
I can easily imagine a symbiotic relationship between a preserved railway selling virtual drives on their line (which would improve the BVE audience) and someone developing their coding skills by producing it (and hopefully leading to more 'mainline' runs in the longer term).
Removing the rose tinted specs.....help is available on the forums; just ask questions and yes, BVE developers (and fans) have been known to attend meets - we do like to escape from the keyboard occasionally even if only to photograph brick walls (
lovely texture:-P ).
