track record would agree unfortunately, if it ain’t working at launch with rivet it probably won’t ever.
The scenery is worse than that of the freight line to Fresh Pond Yard in TSW2020s NEC:New York. Quite impressive that Rivet made a route with scenery worse than that of a route that was abandoned and not carried over to newer TSW titles because of a lack of polish. What a dumpster fire.
The fact that this is following a week after Goblin suggests to me this is a financial year end thing and it has been rushed (very clearly) to satisfy some accountant. It’s ridiculous and at some point we, the customer, have to push back against this. DTG have to step in and stop this release. They’ve done it before and they should do it now. We can’t keep having these wild swings in quality…there needs to be a level that every DLC has to hit to get released, 3rd party included.
I too have requested a refund. Will DTG and Rivet ever learn! Why do DTG accept such awful products from this 3rd party, I mean, those buildings, eugh!
i will judge this´route when i see it i guess this was not the final version like rivet told us today and the best is the free extension which was announced later this year on june 24
You don’t really think they’re going to add the extension do you? They’ve done this before when people call them out for unaccpetable releases. They promised to fix the 150. They didn’t. They promised to go out and get the 385 sounds. They didn’t. There is no shot they are going to revisit this route in 3/4 months for a free extension. They’ll be doing another route by then. Best bet here is that we get a small patch within a few weeks that fixes a few things. Then they’ll move on. They have a track record of. Way shady practices.
Who knows, this might have been the F-up kick up the butt Rivet needed to sort themselves out. Nothing motivated companies more than the threat of removing financial support.
As long as dtg continue to support rivet and their questionable practices then this will never change
But Mr. Krabs would never get it if crabby patties would not taste that good and Spongebob wouldn't cook them with love. That's the core issue here as well. Money? No Problem! No quality? Then the citiziens of Bikini Bottom could eat in the Scum Bucket instead. No need for Plankton to steal the recipe.
Exactly what I’ve been saying! DTG are ultimately the publisher and are responsible for the final go/no go on whether something gets released. I just get this impression that DTG is just too much nicey, nicey, don’t rock the boat company. Far too laid back when it comes to professionalism, that and a tad arrogance that they know best and nothing else matters. We have caught a glimpse of that with previous quality issues, such as Peak Forest not going to Derby or the Class 700 sounds (both of which are relatively minor compared to what Rivet are trying to fob us off with for £30) almost a “FIFO” mentality to the customer.
I gather its also more of a "there aren't dev studios lining up out of the door", so while they are producing content and making us money, we're not going to stop them.
I think you are bang on I think exactly the same, they are essentially running a franchise but some partners are making the product look really poor. I am surprised they are letting them push through releasing further routes as it's dovetails name attached to the product.
Ultimately if there is a silent majority snapping up every release then this level of quality won't improve. The route looks worse than the TSC one which is good enough for its time. I wouldn't even take this standard of DLC for free same as Edinburgh Glasgow from Rivet. Maybe its time to accept this as high as the Rivet bar gets and as per previous when some forum noise is made a patch appears which makes the route moderately better.
It’s still one of my go to routes if I want a bit of a relaxing run. Maybe because it’s a route I know well but overall, for such an early route, it is very playable. It did get some updates as well which helps.
If Rivet can replicate the impressive Forth Bridge so impressively, why is the rest of their work, shambolic, childish and amateurish. It makes me think they had another company to design the bridge for them!!! Rivet haven’t properly produced a decent route yet. Bernina was ok, the mountains looked good but I know the line from being there and there is so much missed and wrong, compare it to a cab ride video, what’s more, like Fife Circle it finished in the wrong place. After their poor attempt with the loW and upon hearing that Rivet were designing the WCL, I contacted them and asked them to please design St. Ives well and realistic. Living there, St. Ives is a popular and beautiful seaside resort and Rivet never responded to me. I was deeply disappointed with how they portrayed St. Ives and the sounding area. It looks possibly like it did in 1066. Since then not one of their routes look remotely accurate. The scenery and buildings are completely wrong and I don’t want to see Rivet ever produce another route. Locomotive yes but routes no. What really annoys me is that they never do anything to correct their appalling work and Jasper sits in the stream showing, looking so smug and proud of Rivet’s diabolical achievements. I am not surprised that the TSW community are up in arms as their work is laughable and certainly not good enough. Save your money DON’T buy a Rivet route!!!
Don't be too harsh, guys! It's Easter Weekend after all, and that's why we should look at things from the bright side: Rivet don't design cars, trucks, busses and airplanes. Or nuclear power plants! Rivet design stupid little addons for stupid little video games. And that's just great! There, Happy Easter!
Happy Easter Pipe and everyone. You say said Rivet design stupid little addons, that’s the problem with Rivet, that they only dabble at designing. They just don’t do it well!!! That’s what we are all complaining about.
I noticed at the start of their facebook page that they develop the highest quality for simulation games. If that was true, where is the evidence to back it up? And if that claim was true they would not be churning out DLCs that are often low quality and unplayable
Still relevant, nevertheless. They still haven’t fixed that wrong speed limit on the St Ives branch. Jasper was quick enough to pop his head round the door for the Class 170 reskin launch, but is silent on every other issue raised with every single product they have released or been involved in. Plus there’s still the awful sinking feeling that DTG will have given them the lead role for any UK route and content in TSW6, even after the (still largely unfixed) horror that WCMLS was.
It’s that statement alone that makes me wonder why DTG still continue to have Rivet as a third party contributor? Also it seems DTG find it perfectly acceptable for Rivet to continue to give us the middle finger year after year with no consequences.
So relevant that nobody posted in this thread for 15 months. We all know what Rivet's faults are (I, for one, hate the St Ives speed limit issue) however, at some point, people need to move on. I doubt if DTG could produce TSW without Rivet these days. Strip everything out of the game that they have produced so far and you'd probably find absolutely nothing would work. So be careful what you/we ask for. Anyway I'm now contributing to a pointless and very dull thread so I think I'll go away and have a strong word with myself for being taken in
Completely agree with this... Although Rivets most recent product was surprisingly good, I am going to put that down to the individual Tyler who seems to be a talented lad, rather then a blanket statement praising the rest of Rivet which I still hold the same views about for now. I also find it absurd that Rivet with all its track record of very poor quality, is the 'go too' developer when DTG outsourcing is concerned. To me it just suggests they were the cheapest of all the third party developers to go to. It is also surprising that DTG isn't naive around Rivets quality, so I completely agree about the middle finger analogy. I believe DTG could probably produce their own content if truth be told, the only reason they'd need to outsource work really is if they are working on a larger internal project but need to continue producing TSW at arms length. Even so, even if DTG did need support from third party developers to develop the flagship routes and base game, with the vast amount of established high quality developers, why settle for the one with the worst reputation and evidence of shoddy work standards? It really doesn't look good from a customers perspective. I think if DTG aren't careful they will taint their own image and any future products and when they finally do get back to producing their own content the damage will have been done. I honestly don't think people care about the outsourcing situation, but to chose the developer with the worst quality content, with little post release care is a really bad choice... And questionable one at that. I agree with Vern it does feel like a middle finger to players... I feel that this years release of the next title could potentially be a turning point for a majority of players. If the same situation as last year reoccurs, it will not be good for DTG. We will only know if the failures from last year have been listened to and learnt from... I genuinely hope that TSW6 will be everything TSW5 wasn't. I'm sitting on the fence this year and won't be pre ordering but will be watching very closely at any previews or articles... If it wasn't for the third party developers this year TSW5 would have easily ended up going down the drain. Let's just hope TSW6 has learnt from last year's catastrophic quality issues. I was playing the GOBLIN route yesterday, and I was taken back by the quality and detail in it, which goes to prove DTG is perfectly capable of producing top tier content in house. You know, to then decline to the shambles that WCMLS was in its original state, and still is to some extent, is just odd. You can't set a benchmark on quality and then suddenly decline the quality quite substantially. Let us all just hope DTG have worked hard to prove they can produce top tier content and have pulled their socks up!
or... you know just not buy bad rivet products?? then again i am not shame of myself for buying WCL because i want penzance. But the 150 is kinda bad ngl and TSW have lost all my interest because of how the routes are short and my desired train isnt in the game. Back with Rivet though I heard the wales route is quite bad. And their "DTG products" dont really fare well either. i have mentioned this before in someone's TSW review on YT. But honestly I think its better to get rid of Rivet because they arent really competent to fix their own bugs in older routes. I hear even their recent 170 add on is another dud. Though fairs on a lot of the interior details.
Yes, there lies the problem, they take no accountability for their sloppy work. If only they respected their customer base and took the time to fix past bugs and shoddy work then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Ikr the 170 still isn’t in a great shape, not just the BCC, but also the FCL version. I’ve only watched a handful of gameplay of BCC pack, but decided not to buy it in the end. If they can’t be bothered to improve the FCL version than it doesn’t inspire confidence when buying the BCC pack. I will say this though, I really enjoy FCL it’s just the 170 is letting it down right now. I really wish the 158 timetable will hurry up though, as that train will replace the 170 for me on that route.
tbh theres not much you can do anymore with FCL. I think its... good enough for a focus as it is otherwise it will have to extend to another major station pass Markinch and add another train to add more traffic to the line. Thats what I think it could also improve the route but that would kinda have to add another "line" into the mix and it wouldnt be called fife circle anymore. Oh yea the issue i still remember having with the 170 is that for some reason you cant sit in the solo seats in the first class sections which really grinds my gears. Oh and also none of the DTG developers never really comments on rivet involvement nor its poor performances... not at all as far as I know or remember.
Historically I've felt DTG has been accountable for their work to some extent, and they've certainly communicated quite well in the past too... I feel more recently (and only speculating here), that with the outsourcing situation they tried defending Rivets UK routes, but after a while it becomes to indefensible so the silent treatment was the only option. If DTG openly recognised that the Rivets outsourced work was quite shambolic it would have eased some of the resentment. But they are unhealthily keen on defending Rivets shoddy work whenever it is necessary and aslong as they are keen to defend them, I feel a level of accountability is lost. I'm hoping with the release of TSW6 that DTG will at least learn from the mistakes of the last 12 months, including more accountability for poorly developed outsourced work, or at least acknowledging clearly poor work and trying to move in the right direction by going to other third parties to help out. But I think it all comes down to the price and Rivet are probably the cheapest option.
No company in the world is going to openly condemn their partners like this. It would destroy relations between the two companies and wold cause damage to their relations with other third parties - especially new ones to the ecosystem. Why would you work with a business prepared to throw you under the bus at any moment (potentially to the point of yours collapsing entirely) because your work isn't up to scratch? Especially when that company is supposed to be the guiding hand in helping you learn how to get the best out of the editor...
That is a very valid point. I think the best way around it would be to indirectly acknowledge it, such as "we are aware that the quality of our recent products was not was the community deserved or expected and we sincerely aim to improve this going forward and want to acknowledge the communities quite valid resentment" or words to those effect. That way it would not be shaming, or name dropping particular developers, but would also acknowledge poor quality control with an aim to improve going forwards.
This is exactly the point. Both WCMLS and Cardiff City should have been thrown back to Rivet when subject to QA and play testing revealed the extent of the deficiencies. You don’t do the dirty washing in public, but by god there needs to be accountability behind closed doors. But it’s this publish and be damned that means DTG are complicit in accepting Rivet’s shoddy work, whether second or third party, that rankles.
If memory serves me well, DTG have gone back on multiple routes to improve them. I can’t remember a single time Rivet have gone back and improved them, apart from FCL. Their only reason behind that was they had the Leven branch to build, i couldn’t imagine we would’ve gotten any improvements to the route otherwise. Even after they supposedly went back and made some changes (which were minimal) the route still doesn’t look and feel right in some areas. I forget the station, but there’s some Roblox looking building assets near the harbour area that always rub me up the wrong way. Do some devs not know how to model realistic looking windows/buildings in 2025… I’ll say no more
Rivet games did get back to routes to improve stuff, the sound of the Stadler on S-bahn Zentralschweiz has been improved, the timetable of the Arosa line has been improved, just to name a few.
Minimal effort though quite frankly. Why not bring the S-Bahn and Arosa routes up to today’s standards? At the time that was probably TSW3/4 though. Also how many people have been asking Rivet to fix the WCL? Everyone was completely ignored.
I genuinely wonder if the rather consistent poor quality of Rivet products is due to a lack of care or a lack of talent. I'm not quite sure which. From DTG's perspective, I doubt they're concerned about "Brand Reputation" as that's been poor for quite a long time anyway. I'm sure they get a nice cut of every copy of a Rivet route sold while they didn't need to do any of the dev work, so they're getting "free" income regardless. I'm not sure the total difference DTG stands to make between a poor selling Rivet route and a good selling Rivet route is enough for them to take much of a stand on the matter. I usually just cross my fingers that whatever Rivet makes next isn't a route I am interested in.
It would seem like most people here can't survive unless they have something to hate or obsess over, so on that front Rivet are the most successful company ever, which in turn keep DTG in the forefront of people thoughts and interactions. It's 6D chess, and the residents of these virtual halls are all being played like pawns........
By the same standard, the same old people, defending Rivet with the same tired old statements, but not offering a counter argument for why they believe Rivets work is so great... I don't know if it is a sincere belief they have (which, they are welcome to, but an opinion that they've made no real arguments for outside of a few brief words or trying to belittle those who taken the opposite stance), or whether it is just fashionable or seems slightly edgy to try and be a contrarian.
Or just hiding their disappointment by staunchly defending their purchases and ignoring the bugs, omissions and faults still uncorrected after all these years?
As someone who's bought everything for the game from every development party that's attached to the franchise. I'm not going to defend or criticise any of it, namely because it all does what it says on the tin, you drive trains, everyone's expectations of that part will be different, but the core point of driving trains has been delivered. So nobody technically can realistically argue about Rivet and their output......
