Birthday Live Chat – Transcript

Bruno: Hi, good evening, everybody. I am Bruno, the Game Designer for Rail Nation for almost 10 years. Not from the very start, but I joined 1-2 months after the official launch. As a Game Designer, I am responsible for the idea of the game, for new features or new event servers and also all the calculations in the game; for example, how fast are the trains, how many goods the city requires and stuff like that.

Rowena: So, it’s partly thanks to you that we’re all here now and get to play this game and have such a great big community, I guess. Very cool.

Bruno: I think a little part. [Bruno being humble]

Rowena: Well, without the designer, no design, right? So very cool.

Let’s jump right into the first question, which is all about the greatest memories of Rail Nation. What is your coolest memory of playing or working for Rail Nation? Feel free to share multiple ones if you have more than one.

Bruno: It’s really hard to pick one, or only some because it’s been a long time and there are so many good memories. As a player it’s always the rounds that we play together within our team, so from time to time there are special game rounds that we all play together in an association. I remember one of the first Steam over Europe rounds where we managed to win the server as an association and many of the team joined this association where I scored my best personal result – I was on rank 8 and got my third star and it was very cool. I also remember a PlatformX 2 round where we changed the town during the endgame because in our town there was not much progress, and I think we didn’t win, but we ranked second or third which was also pretty cool.

And as a developer, I can also remember many cool things. For me, the best thing is always if we have a new feature and if I worked on it for a long time, then the first time I can play it on PTR or a live server, this is always a great feeling because you can really feel the feature. All the greater releases – like, I remember the USA scenario, this was the first scenario we made, and also Steam over Europe, and things like winter event, or Platform X, or balancing changes, the new feel for the first time is always cool.

Rowena: Do you have one very specific story that kind of made you laugh?

Bruno: I remember when we played Rail Nation: Clash!. This was very popular within the team. In the morning when we came to the office and you only had five games per day, we started playing and always tried to play against each other. So we started playing at the same time, and then we were screaming in the office because the game was so intense and exciting always. It was always good fun

I don’t know if the following is fun, but I remember in the first days we had many stability problems and our backend developers had to work the whole weekend they even slept in the office, and we brought them some pizza in the middle of the night. I think it was 4 or 5 in the night. It was not really a cool moment, because they had to fix all the server instabilities but… still.

Rowena: But still, such dedication! I don’t think there are that many jobs where people would actually do that. I think it’s a very typical gaming environment thing. I’ve done all-nighters, not on Rail Nation yet, but I’ve done that before as well. Even if they are annoying, they’re still kind of fun because it’s special, in their own way.

When you said that you’ve done Clash rounds, what does that mean?

Bruno: That was a mini game mostly once a year, it’s called Rail Nation: Clash! and three players can play against each other and the first to win 10 points wins. One round lasts for 3 minutes or something like that, and it was always fun.

[Rowena posting the first community bonus code in the #lounge channel’s chat for reaching 100 listeners. The code was valid until 28.01.2023 at 23:69 CET]

Rowena: For everybody who is new on Discord in general, in case you haven’t noticed yet, if you hover over the #lounge channel then you can see a little window there that says Open Chat, and if you click on it, it will open the chat that belongs to this voice channel and you can see everybody who is not allowed to talk today because it would be chaos if 100 people start talking here. But feel free to drop your questions there. We have a few CMs that are checking and replying to you because unfortunately I cannot talk and read at the same time. They will pick up some of your questions and I’m sure we’ll be able to answer one or two during our voice chat. But hey, 100 people. Really, really cool!

So, then, unless Bruno has any more stories that came to mind, I would move on to the next question. Is that fine with you?

Bruno: Yeah

Rowena: Awesome. Then the next question I have for you is: What is your all-time favourite game scenario and why? So feel free to dive deep.

Bruno: Hard to say. For me, personally, it’s Steam over Europe because we collected many features and ideas from the community and myself. I remember that on Sundays I was always at the swimming pool, and I always swam 500 metres and then relaxed for half an hour and always thought about these features. When I came home after, I always had ideas for one new feature and it was really kind of my baby then, and why I still like it the most. Also, I like Platform X game rounds, because it’s always something new with new balancing and you have to change your strategies. It’s always very interesting how the players change their strategies and it’s different from the normal game and this is really cool. So, I would say SoE as a basic scenario, and Platform X as event game worlds.

Rowena: Then I have two follow-up questions: 1. Where are the underwater trains that got inspired by you swimming, and 2. How about you explain the Platform X version? Because I’m a complete noob, in case nobody could already tell. I do plan to change this, but in the meantime, please explain what it is.

Bruno: Okay. We basically have two types of event scenarios. One is a new map and feature set is quite similar like we had for Origin Journey or Orient Express. The game itself doesn’t change that much. We have new goods and then the map is new and stuff like that.

Then we have Platform X which is the opposite of this. We use the old classic map and we sometimes change some little features and especially the balancing. So, for example, the trains are faster or you don’t get so much Prestige for competitions but instead, more for delivering goods to cities, changes for the active player’s calculations and then some of these features make it into the normal game. Because this is also one of our intentions – introducing new features and if the players like them very much, we merge them into the normal games, like the faster trains for example.

Rowena: Cool. That means basically every time you join one of those servers you can’t be 100% sure what you might expect and therefore you have to change your strategy every time.

Bruno: You do know what changed, so you can already prepare yourself a bit, but yeah, it’s different from the normal game.

Rowena: Very cool. Then let’s just go to the next question which is: If you had to choose a favourite train, which one would it be, from all trains that are available?

Bruno: So for me personally, I am not that into trains…

Rowena: WRONG ANSWER!

[Laughing]

Bruno: I mean, I wasn’t that much into trains before I joined the Rail Nation team. But now when I see one of the trains that we have in the game, I get quite excited, and I always have to take pictures of them!

For example, last year I was in Italy and there was the Italo train at the station, and I immediately had to take a picture. This is also one of my favourite trains. I like these beautiful, modern, high-speed passenger trains, like the Italo, TGV, Shinkansen, or the German ICE.

Rowena: I’ve actually been on the TGV. I travelled from Zurich to Paris and back, so that was cool.

Bruno: I think I’ve only been on the ICE so far. So no Shinkansen, no TGV, no Italo…

But for the cargo trains, my favourite train, of course, is the Eagle because I was born in Nürnberg and this was the first train in Germany and drove between Fürth and Nürnberg, so this is a big story in my hometown and this is why it’s my most favourite train of all!

Rowena: Have you seen many of the trains we have in Rail Nation in real life, or are they so rare that you just wouldn’t just happen upon them?

Bruno: Many of the trains are from Germany and our office is near a railway bridge, so you sometimes see them there, and also with the deliveries, and yeah, it’s always cool to see these trains.

[Rowena sharing the second bonus code with the community]

Rowena: A question forwarded by CM Bonnie which I think fits to favourite servers, and we’re not going to go too deep into the answer here, but I’m sure many would want to know the answer to this one:

Will there be a birthday server like last year, and if yes, when and at which speed? So first off, we will not tell you when just yet, but you will find out very soon. We will also not tell you which speed yet because, again, we want to tell you next week. But I think that answers the very first question which is “Will there be a birthday server?” and the answer is yes, there will! So, I hope you’re all already excited. If you have read some of our announcements, you might have already noticed there is a cake-shaped train on the assets, so yeah there is something cool to look forward to.

All right, then I’m going to move further to the next question for Bruno which is:

From all the tasks you have on your desk day after day which one is your absolute favourite one? So one thing you’re like – I get up in the morning and I get to do this today and the rest of the week is like, you know, over the rainbow.

Bruno: The cool thing about being a Game Designer is that the tasks change a lot so it’s not always the same. But my favourite I would say is always creating new stuff like new features and scenarios. Also, I like doing calculations and balancing, so everything to do with numbers. And the worst – hard to say, but after you thought about new features and you have it in your mind and write it down and there’s always this estimation meeting with the devs and then they say it’s too much effort or we cannot do that or we have to cut something out. Then sometimes it’s just not exactly what you wanted in the end. These meetings are always hard cause you don’t always get what you want.

Rowena: I guess that’s just what happens if you’re kind of a visionary and get hit by reality sometimes, right? So you say you like to come up with features. Do you have specific features that you like to develop ideas for the most, or is it broad, any feature is awesome to work on?

Bruno: Always features that affect the gameplay or calculation changes. So I’m not that much into graphical/optical stuff; we have other employees doing that. I’m more into changing the game logic or improving some of the calculations.

Rowena: But do you also impact the graphics sometimes when you come up with new feature ideas? For example, you are thinking about ‘this’ and it could be looking like ‘that’. Do you give them input like that?

Bruno: Yes, of course, sometimes. They start with the mock-ups and everybody in the team can give feedback and I also give feedback then. And this also changed a lot. When I started 10 years ago for Rail Nation, I also did the mock-ups and thought about how the screen could look, or the buttons, the colours and such.

But now we have experts for all these things and I’m happy that I don’t have to do graphic or screen design anymore because I see that they are much better at it than I was or am.

Rowena: Which is fine, right? Sometimes being a jack of all trades is nice, but often it’s just cool to have people that are professional in exactly this one thing and when all these people work together, I love that. I love seeing things get together like that.

Talking about creating stuff, do you have a dream scenario that you would like to create, even if it might not be possible?

Bruno: After Europe, and Switzerland-Austria-Germany map, and we had Orient Express and all these parts of the world, I would love to have one scenario and one map with the whole world on it and different continents cause I think it would be really cool!

Rowena: So, we are getting our underwater trains after all! That’s what I am hearing…

Bruno: Yes, maybe there will be underwater trains then. [laughing]

Or maybe you just cannot connect to America or something like that. So that if you started in America you have to stay in America, or something like that.

Rowena: Maybe we can add like a small piece of fantasy in there and every time you need to go over the pond, you basically drive your train into one of those big blue whales and get… Ok, clearly, I should not be a Game Designer, so I’m going to stop myself. [laughing]

But, I mean, a whole world map sounds really cool. Maybe a future one where you can teleport your trains from one place to another. That could be an idea.

Alright, so basically, we’re at the end of your specific questionnaire, which I think it’s a good opportunity to post a new voucher. Specially since we hit the 130 listeners mark.

[Rowena sharing the third bonus code with the community]

Rowena: I can see that many are disappointed that we’re not telling them when the Birthday server will start. But I can promise you that you will find out fast enough and you don’t have to wait very long. But I’m not going to tell you any more because otherwise, we are going to destroy all our careful planning.

Then, the last question: Is there anything that you’ve always wanted to say to the Rail Nation community? And if it is, go to bed! Then don’t say it, please. [laughing]

Bruno: Now that we have the 10 years anniversary, this is really amazing and was only possible with you, the players, so I want to thank you for your loyalty! I know that some of the times were hard, especially at the beginning, as there were unstable servers and many crashes. Still, you kept on playing and this is really cool, and I hope you will still be playing Rail Nation for the next 10 years. I’m looking forward to the next 10 years with this great community, cool colleagues, and amazing game.

Julien: It’s really a pleasure. I don’t know if you’re going to ask me the same type of questions you’ve asked Bruno but, I can already say that my favourite memories, were these live sessions that we did. For many reasons. With Bruno, once a month, we would do something like that. And it was my favourite part of the job, and I am not only saying that cause Bruno is here and the players are here at the same time. But this is where there was the most fun to be had.

Rowena: I can promise you guys, he is not lying, he has told me this in private before too.
How have you been since we switched games? Have you settled in there already, is everything fine?

Julien: Let’s see, everything fine, yes, because the team was super welcoming. Of course, it takes time to adjust. It’s difficult when you start to work very closely with people and then suddenly you don’t, from one day to the next, so that was the difficult part. But the team is super fun, welcoming and warm and we already did a lot of stuff. At the moment I’m learning stuff in the game; it’s complex. You know that it is! [Rowena: Yeah I know!]
It’s fun to play. I’m doing what I used to do with Bruno – I’m bothering the Game Designer for questions and tips and stuff like that.
Let me ask you in return: How did you settle here in the train game? How do you feel?

Rowena: It’s been a rocky road so far, not because of the game or the team or anything. And guys you’re going to hear a horror story. I actually joined here on Rail Nation at the beginning of December but none of you knew this! The reason for this is that ever since I joined, I first had Covid, then I had vacation over Christmas which I had planned long ahead already, and then during my vacation, I slipped in my bathroom and hit my head really hard. So I was out of action once again for one and a half weeks.
So yeah, I am still feeling very new. I have an awesome team so far. I love all the CMs. I am yet to get to know most of the community, so starting with it this week. But I have a lot of talks with the Game Centre people and they’re all really friendly and everybody is, you know, doing their best to help me find my way around. With this new Birthday server, I’m also officially going to try to play my very first round from start to end! So, I am trying to do my best there. And other than that, just planning and learning things, getting to know the community, because without knowing the community, how will I know who they are and what they need. One of the biggest things I’ve planned so far for you guys is everything surrounding the Birthday, starting with this voice chat which I feel has already been a nice hit.
I wanted to check how many people have joined so far, but I think Discord has just said ‘nope, I’m not going to show you how many people there are any more’, so I cannot count because there are too many. I can count above 100 though, I promise!

Julien: This is great. Something was interesting – maybe they thought that you would give them a whole bunch of details and stuff and that’s probably why so many came.

Rowena: Yeah well, I just told them about the beautiful scar on my forehead!

[Comment from the Community about Rowena trying to impersonate Harry Potter]
Since I don’t know how many people have joined so far, I’m just going to decide it’s time for another voucher code.

[Rowena sharing the fourth bonus code with the community]

Rowena: Let’s go back to our questions. People here will have enough time to get to know me in the future, but this is one of your last times.
So, you said that one of your coolest memories was the live chats. Is there one specific thing that happened during one of those that was really awesome, touching or funny or even stupid?

Julien: There is always the topic, not just in Rail Nation, the topic of bugs in games. There were some discussions during the live talks we had about bugs which actually would be funny. I’m almost ashamed to admit it because it should be a serious matter, but the way it was introduced by a player was just funny. Whether it was about the trains that teleport themselves or the schedule that you cannot copy, I am not sure anymore. You know, we take bugs seriously and want to fix them and that they are annoying. But it was just funny at that moment. It’s just a guilty pleasure, I guess.

Rowena: As annoying as bugs are, sometimes they are just so stupid that you have to laugh. I have encountered many of those also in other games. It happens.

Julien: But the funniest memory – we did work a lot whether our team (Marketing team) or us with the Game team and we laughed a lot. This is probably what gets you to move through the week and the month. You just have a lot of fun between the work sessions etc. But honestly, there is a couple of stuff that happened to me in the game itself. At first, I didn’t think this game could trigger that, but I think it happened in the team play we did, where we played with Bruno. There was probably a mini-map, 2x, International, and what I can tell you is that we had a colleague – I don’t know if I should name him – but he left our team in the middle of the round and he went to another team, but we were really kind of head-to-head with this association. Basically, he just came and said “Guys, it’s not like I don’t love you but I just got this great offer to work with them and I’m going to play there”. And one day I just thought – okay let’s see what happens. They were holding the majority – if I remember correctly it was a silicon factory, and I just thought I’m going to take it from them. And then I started to invest in it. I took it, they took it back. And in a very short amount of time, I invested 40 million in it. And everyone, as well as Bruno himself said “Are you crazy maybe? Do you have too much money?” And I said I just wanted to take it back from them! That was so hilarious. And the old colleague came and said “You know I got all my alliance on my back because they know you were a colleague and they cannot believe that you did that.” And then I told him “I’m sorry, you switched teams, right? That’s what happens!”
[Rowena: You’ll have to tell me who it was, so I can watch my back!]
He was one of the Tech Support. And then I became notorious for doing that. And then we had another round, I think in September, with the Ambassadors and the whole CM team, and I did something similar, and our chair – Lani – very politely said “Uhm, did you know we have a deal with these guys, did you not know?” and I said, “No, I didn’t really pay attention”. I didn’t do it on purpose, but still, I find it super funny. I love doing that.

[Rowena sharing the fifth bonus code with the community]

Rowena: Try not to cry, Julien, but what do you miss most about Rail Nation ever since you changed games?

Julien: On one hand, it’s the team and the people that I worked with because you get close and all, that’s true. But there’s something that I miss even more and I’m sorry to admit – it’s the game. Because I didn’t think at first that I would be so into it. Please, Bruno and everyone from the game team, don’t take any offence at all. It’s true, it’s the game. Because I don’t have a lot of time now to be actively playing it, and I often think of it – the optimization, changing the routes, the trouble you raise when you steal a majority you’re not supposed to, the way the old players would attack and insult you during the endgame if you don’t listen – all that. I do miss that.

Rowena: I can promise you out of personal experience that you will get yelled at in Travian: Legends as well.

Julien: I am sure I will. I can see myself getting into a lot of trouble.

Rowena: Then what do you value the most about Rail Nation community, specifically?

Julien: The level of engagement of this community is something I have not seen in any other game and I’ve been on a lot of games, either personally or professionally over the years, but that level of involvement is unmatched. This is a real challenge because you have to live up to it when you work on it because you are expected to deliver, understand etc. People are into it more than you can imagine. And it translates into the feedback that we get. It’s extremely deep, well thought through, and put together. It took us a lot of time to answer because we get top-quality feedback. That’s definitely where I put the value of this community.

Rowena: It sounds like everybody is well organized and wants the best for the game which is always a really nice thing to have in a community, right?

Julien: Definitely.

Rowena: That calls for another voucher.

[Rowena sharing the sixth bonus code with the community]

Julien: Oooh! [excitement]

Rowena: Yes, of course. I mean I can still not count the number of listeners, but everybody has been listening to you babbling on for so long, they deserve another one.

Julien: Yeah, yeah, to recover from all the stuff I say.

Rowena: To wipe their tears of joy or sadness depending on how they feel about your leaving.

Julien: It is true that in this chat there must be some players that I banned from Discord a while back. They got back because there were a lot of talks and so on, but yes some people remember me mostly for that.

Rowena: This is also rather normal in our job. I mean, not everyone will love us, not everyone will hate us. But I think most people also understand that it’s part of our job that we have to make sure we have a healthy and happy community. People that want to have fun together, play the game, help the game, and help each other. And sometimes the only way to achieve that is to clean the house.

Julien: There’s a great happy ending! Some of those players came back into Discord, because a lot of open issues were resolved, and we speak very openly and friendly in private, which we didn’t even do before, so a nice closure in the end.

Rowena: I kind of have the same question for you that I had for Bruno, which is: Is there anything that you always wanted to say to the Rail Nation community? You’ve said many things about them, nice things, or to just draw the line for the health of the community, but is there anything you wanted to say to them specifically, apart from “be nice to Rowena, please”?

Julien: I do have a few things to say: First, it’s a great relief to know that the community is not abandoned. It’s in great hands. You and I have known each other for many years now. I know there’s you, Yaenara and the whole CM team, some of them I know are experts in the game. The supporters are super helpful, the game team is very dedicated, and I’m going to give another piece of info that not everybody knows: my wife works on the Rail Nation team, actually.

Rowena: Bruno, are you also married to Julien? [Laughing]

Bruno: No, I’m not married and especially not married to someone in the team. But if he were to ask me, I might think about it. [More laughing]

Julien: I didn’t say who, you guys can try to guess. It’s not a secret at all. But knowing that, on top of everything else, I think the community is in great hands.
Another thing which I think this community knows better than most – there’s one reason why we’re here: it’s because we’re looking for fun. We don’t have to play games in our lives. We need to eat, stay warm and be healthy etc. and gaming comes on top of that which is not needed per se, and it’s done for fun. This is why it’s such a privilege to work in this environment and for you guys, it’s the only thing that matters. You have to have fun and whenever the fun starts to go away you got to alert us. Make sure your CM, or Rowena here, knows so they can figure out what the problem is. This is all about the fun. This makes it such a challenge, a passion career in the end, and that is what we should be constantly sharing – us who work on the games and you guys that keep the games alive; we should all be sharing that, the fun.

Rowena: So, I’ve seen some are trying to guess who Julien might be married to. So, some of you know. Those who know, you are not allowed to guess. But for those who don’t know, if you guess correctly, I’ll share another voucher code with you. Whom do you think Julien is married to? Small hint: It’s not me.

[Rowena sharing seventh voucher code with the community]