Reply To: just wondering

Look at the success of Sim City, The Sims, MS Flight Simulator – Combat Simulator and Train Simulator. These and others owe a lot of their success to the fact that the users can freely add and share content to these programs. Its one thing to model a layout and watch the train run the track – it’s another matter entirely to watch a train pull into a station you designed.

Right on target, Paul. That is exactly the point I’ve tried to make here for a while now. Without the ability for users to mod almost all of their game software, Electronic Arts would not be the giant they are today. EA, Sierra, and other game publishers often include software development kits with the FPS and RTS games. They even open up the game engine to a certain degree now. MVPMods http://www.mvpmods.com” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.mvpmods.com is a site that has developed a huge modding community without ever contacting or gaining permission from EA Sports. It is also an example of a three year old game, MVP Baseball 2005, that is absolutely amazing now because of the talented modders.

Rule the Rail is the perfect simulation for user modification. How great would it be to go to the Download section of Littleville Depot and download the latest boxcar or street lamp? Or be able to share an object that you have worked on for hours to perfect. This is what makes software like RtR live on. And continue selling! Let’s all hope we can open this up.

And thank you, Paul. Things are looking a thousand times better since you docked. I am really looking forward to your tutorials.

BTW Tonka, that is hilarious.