So my comments and thoughts of what Run8 should be has been met with the sound of crickets both here and on Train-Sim. Any time I've offered my reservations about the direction I'd like to see things go it's met with very little debate, or seems to be only an opinion I share.
Run8 is the best train simulator on the planet in my opinion. If I could do what these guys do, I would not only do what they've done in my own way but expand. When you make a world bigger as they've pointed out in the latest release notes of the update it causes issues. As mentioned here by Quincy constantly adding stuff also brings in more resource issues experienced on mid grade machines.
So they are adding the ability to have more AI. The issue here is unless your simulating a super heavy route with no yards and just lines it's going to take humans. Humans are needed to dispatch, switch, hump, run locals. This is where the disconnect comes in for me.
Over a year and a half ago in my opinion my experience with Run8 V2 peaked. it was so young also so MANY people where into it and key players in California that hadn't yet expanded to LA and Seligman. It was already pretty big but yet we could run a full schedule with enough dispatchers and it felt real. But eventually that demand wore on people including myself. It began to feel more like a job than a hobby as I've said. Since them I've been trying to see where Run8 is going next with little to no info to convince me to continue to invest in a product I may wind up giving up entirely.
The worlds need to be less quantity and more quality. In other words smaller regions that have less traffic with a bit of AI influence and co-operation possible with limited numbers. Not even the biggest most popular server out there can run at full capacity because everything is diluted. Yet we are only at 3 regions still.
So I've begin exploring other sims that have my interest as well as my sons. This is where I'm going to be spending more time despite risking losing views. I don't get paid for anything so I'm not worried.
As for RTS it's not dead. I want to learn more, and be able to craft something in my own vision. But right now it's summer and I like to be outside (today is not a great day for that). I have more time with my son right now. But there will be times where I want to dive in to something creative. That will be when I finally start to get back to coding RTS again.
RTS will be different this time. So yes RTS is not dead, it's under construction. I think about what I can do all the time with RTS. I still love trains, but sadly nothing on the market fills that stimulation any longer.
Stay tuned for more if your interested. But if not I appreciate all the support through the years. I'm not done with trains, run8, or at the very least RTS.