LAST EDITED ON Sep-16-02 AT 10:07 AM (EDT)
Is something you do outside of your usual occupation you do for pleasure. I'd forgotten that. Nels reminded me of that in an email. I think a lot of us need to be reminded of that. This is a hobby and this is a hobby forum. Not that its a hobby but that its for pleasure. Yeah we enjoy it, but oh lordy, all the stress that has been added to it by ourselves. By wanting things now, by getting upset because some object, train, wagon, route wasn't done and available when we wanted it to be. The posts of "vaporware" that have been made. A hobby is something you do in your spare time, it's not your main occupation. Sometimes with a hobby, you can set it aside for weeks, even months because of other hobbies or life in general. I've been online since 1992-93. For a year or so it was just to get information for things for classes. Then I got interested in roleplaying, a hobby chosen more because I could write stories with other people interactively. Words are my thing, nothing is so enticing to me as the written word. I'll read anything once, even twice. I'm not good at nintendo/atari/playstation type games because I'm bipolar and something about the visuals can send me into a manic. Possibly because of the games I chose, Phoenix (my favorite), Asteroids, Centipede, etc. When we got train simulator, I stayed away from it at first, I love trains, but I knew in the past what games tended to do to me. You learn the triggers and you avoid them. Like certain foods setting off allergies. I saw Darkfyre/Troy one day simming. He had taken in several SD40s and hauling a whole lot of cars. I stood at the doorway watching him, then I moved closer. This was not what I thought it was. This didn't have the type of graphics that sent me into a manic, and this was a train, oh a train. I could hear the sim sounds softly, and the sounds of the train yard out back clearly. As I got nearer, he turned his head towards me and grinned, "Wanna see me crash?" I wasn't sure about that, then he unhooked the cars, took the lead engine up a hill quite a ways and then put it in reverse with sanding on and came down hill (he was in Marias Pass) and slammed into them. I just stood there blinking ~chuckle~ I was disappointed watching him because I didn't see any other trains going. He opened an activity and then I was happier and sat watching him sim. Then he went into Test Track and took a Dash 9 out and it went flying off the end of the track. He was clearly more than just enjoying it, the very real pleasure and the way it relaxed him was all over his face and in the way he was sitting, his body language. He left to go to a friends and I sat down. I used the steam tutorial, which I wasn't too satisfied with. There weren't too many steam engines on here, I took out the Scotsman. I was in heaven ~chuckle~ when he came home five hours later, I was still in Marias Pass exploring. It was a week before I took out a diesel. I had an odd thought it would be more complicated than steam and I was very comfortable with steam. I did the tutorial and sat here thinking "Is that it?" It was nearly two months before I came near the forums. I tried to stay clear of them because they were Darkfyre's. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. He convinced me to join.The friend who got him into train simming, he had told Darkfyre that he ran trains online with other simmers, that a dispatcher had made him wait for another train to go through and he had to sit there for hours. That he'd taken the train out in the rain and crashed, there were flames everywhere and they had to bring cranes in the put the cars back on the tracks... Well, what he said wasn't making sense, I never saw that in train sim when Darkfyre crashed trains. Darkfyre went to msn where he said he ran trains interactively with other simmers, he spent several days there trying to get answers. He went all over the web to different places the friend told him that he simmed interactively with others. As you know, its not possible with the way MSTS is set up. A bit later Sea View came out. I was in love with that route, still am. The very real pleasure I get from taking trains and even helicopters out in Sea View is incredible. I was telling the friend about it one day. He said that he had the route and loved to take trains across the lava. I thought he meant the track near the lava, the bridge, but no he meant on the lava, through it. He said there was a way to take a train right across it and through it. I sat thinking to myself that about the only way that would happen was with invisible track. I was getting a kick out of him back tracking to cover himself when I'd point out that it couldn't be done any other way. The man is knowledgeable about trains, though, perhaps not about train sim's capabilities, but he certainly knows trains. He ended up fixing the airport in Marias Pass, put planes in the air, fixed textures, etc, then going into NEC and making it like NEC looked in the early 1970s, he had some problems with doing them. Darkfyre and I helped him with some things. But I noticed we were all getting tense and stressed.The pleasure was less than the stress. There has been pleasure, but not relaxing pleasure for the most part until I started doing a few things for Bill's SV route. I started to relax doing those things. I first started with 3ds max, I was starting to get a bit of it and did a simple iceberg. I couldn't get the "viewable distance" set or figure out how to set it. I heard good things about TSM and tried it, so much easier to understand, I just found it difficult to do some of the things I'd done in 3ds max. That was okay, I could apply textures so much easier in it. The joy was coming back, the very real pleasure. I didn't even mind that the route I wanted to make wasn't being done. It will be when I get all the objects needed for it made, but now I'm in no real rush about any of it. I am simply going to enjoy the things I like doing now with train sim and when it gets frustrating turn off the computer, do something else that relaxes me and come back to try again and if I still have problems, ask in the forums.
I still would like to see a forum that has nothing to do with train sim or railroading, either here or somewhere else but connected to train-sim.com. This is a hobby forum, not a news forum, a book forum, a remembrance forum, or any other kind of forum. This is about a hobby, a specific hobby. And it should be an enjoyable place to come, it's not up to Nels, Brian, JC or any other moderator to make it that, it's up to all of us to make sure it stays like that. We are responsible for our own posts and our own behavior.Now that I've gone long winded, bored the hell out of anyone reading this and had you wondering what the hell I was getting at, look at the top line and remember, it's a hobby... for pleasure...
"When you are with me I'm free
I'm careless, I believe
Above all the others we'll fly
This brings tears to my eyes
My Sacrifice"--Creed
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RE: A Hobby..., concaddy, Sep-16-02, 09:52 AM, (1) RE: A Hobby..., UPnut, Sep-16-02, 11:58 AM, (4) RE: A Hobby..., zhivago47, Sep-16-02, 11:22 AM, (2) RE: A Hobby..., DarkestRose, Sep-16-02, 11:36 AM, (3) RE: A Hobby..., zhivago47, Sep-16-02, 03:24 PM, (6) RE: A Hobby..., amiekowski, Sep-16-02, 12:38 PM, (5) RE: A Hobby..., CSX_Jim, Sep-17-02, 08:15 AM, (7) RE: A Hobby..., DarkestRose, Sep-18-02, 11:22 AM, (8) RE: A Hobby..., Railgirl, Sep-18-02, 11:50 AM, (9) RE: A Hobby..., DarkestRose, Sep-18-02, 12:06 PM, (10) RE: A Hobby..., geekman, Sep-18-02, 01:02 PM, (11)
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