I've been wondering about this and have seen a few comments about it and I'm hoping for some sort of answer. Previously, it was said that extensions are not possible in TSW without rebuilding the route, we got SEHS extended and the route looked pretty much the same. We've also had the Leven extension to Fife Circle, we could count the WCMLS as an extension as the Bakerloo line section is again, pretty much the same. With a North London line extension on the way, are they still not possible? There's lots of ambiguity surrounding this as the answer most of the time is "no, not without a complete rebuild from scratch".
I always thought that this is not necessarily due to technical limitations (well, maybe for a really old route it is) but more so due to sales/marketing strategy - only people who already own the route would be potential customers for an extension. Basically, DTG's finance cans these projects as not profitable. And I think that's why we only see extensions in an annual release, because people will buy the core game anyway.
Well I think with the decision to pluck Dresden to Riesa from the back catalogue and extend it to Leipzig, the oft trotted out mantra about extensions not being feasible has well and truly been debunked. So I hope in short order we now see some far more interesting route extensions on the table... NTP through to York and Liverpool. TVL to Bishop Auckland, Boulby and round the coast to Sunderland. ECW to Hastings/Ore or Ashford. Cathcart into a Glasgow suburban network. WCL remastered and extended to Plymouth and portal to South Devon. PFR extended to Derby and Manchester. SoS extended to Chester from Runcorn and Crewe. As for Germany, many of the existing routes could be given a worthwhile extension starting with RSN to Siegen, maybe even a super merge of all the Ruhr area routes.
In a core bundle it works because Dovetail know they'll make enough money regardless. As a standalone DLC it wouldn't work. Some people won't fancy buying the same route twice and, if someone wasn't interested in the original, chances are they won't be interested in the extended version. The only truly free extension was the Leven extension for Fife Circle but that was down to Rivet, so a different story, and at a large scale it just doesn't make economic sense. Also, this is going to be a distinct route (DRA will still exist, unlike the original SEHS) so it's quite likely that they did strip the route back to the basics and rework it.
LIRR was (allegedly) intended to be a core release but didn't work out due to the licensing or whatever so I'd call that an exception, unless proven otherwise. (I personally believe that, given how long it was stalled for)
I though LIRR was slated for a normal DLC route release, but was stalled a few months due to the safety system issues. This in turn had the SBL line revealed extremely early, despite it being the TSW5 US core route.
The biggest issue with extensions is a financial one, in terms of how exactly does it get distributed? With the extended SEHS, the initial remaster to Dresden - Riesa and now the extended Dresden - Leipzig, the updates were a free entitlement for those who owned the version that came before. That works as a core route as the surrounding new content essentially helps to fund it, but I would also speculate that it's why in both the Dresden and SEHS extension cases, the routes came with essentially zero new trains. Dresden - Leipzig's only real new addition (not counting the deluxe as it is a separate loco pack) is that the ICE-T is coming in a new livery variant rather than relying on the ICE3M from SKA to serve as a layer. SEHS's only new addition was that the Class 66 had new sound work and we had a new ballast wagon. So in those cases the upgraded routes were a free entitlement to those who already owned the old version, which worked because of the surrounding game funding it. But what happens when it's not a core route and just a standalone extension, like LIRR for example? They made it a paid release because they had to. Because if they didn't, then without a surrounding core release, the work put into it would basically reap no reward for the devs, the work to make essentially an entirely new route would have been a near 100% financial loss. And it doesn't matter what kind of company you are, that sort of outcome will never be viable. Their solution was to sweeten the deal with the new M9 and make it a paid release, and that honestly works in theory. In practise, a lot of people were and would again be upset about the concept of having to pay again for a route they already own. So where do they go? Do they extend routes as part of core releases, not including any new trains in the process and upset the community? Do they extend routes as paid second releases, making players buy them a second time and again upset the community? Or do they give extensions out for free and make almost no money whatsoever from their work? Remasters released with a companion loco pack such as Cathcart + 380, Boston + Acela and GWE + HST Pack works for visual overhauls and remasters, but a full blown extension is a whole other ball game to consider and it's next to impossible to find a way to make it financially viable and satisfying for the player on the other end of the deal.
I think the DTG “pets” used to spout this in defence of the company when people used to ask why routes could not be made longer, which obviously they can as we now know, so this argument was flawed back then.
The Riesa-Dresden route looks terrible now, even with the new sky. The plants from the TSW 2 era still look terrible, did they redesign the route or just add a part to it?
so on Sherman hill dtg didn't add third line. but would that be extension i guess it would be. and if they did they could add an up es44ac or ac4400cw and charge 10 to 15 bucks. hey gotta pay the bills some how.
Most of the time, when people/DTG talk about extensions, they don't talk about what happened to SEHS or what's happening to Dresden - Riesa. Because that was always possible and the only reason why it isn't done more often is financial - you're expecting playerts to pay twice for a portion of a route. The extension type that's was talked about a lot, and is the complex one, is where if you own 2 separate pieces of DLCs i.e. San Bernardino Line and Cajon Pass, these then combine into a single (extended) version (LA Union Station - Barstow in this case). This is what was possible on some routes in TSC (i.e. here is a combined route from Innsbruck to Munich https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=904111273&searchtext=route+extension). Matt talked few times that what was done in TSC - merging of sceneries - should still be feasable in TSW, if the routes share the origin point. The difficulty arise after that - signalling is more complex in TSW, so is dispatching (TSC scenarios are 100% static), and the biggest hurdle is timetable.
This is why it's not feasible, because some players are under the impression they are paying for the same route twice. Although in reality if dtg add 50 miles of track and scenery, that's what you are paying for. You are not buying the same route again. The route is now different.
It would be nice then if each time they re-release TSW, maybe it comes with a remaster of an existing route + an extension Yep I heard this one a lot but I'm happy it's cleared up now. I just remember seeing suggestions a while back about extensions and the comments were just "Extensions aren't possible in TSW". Although some big extensions wouldn't be financially viable, I feel like some small ones like maybe a Greenford or Windsor branch to GWE would probably work.
I think that would be very good idea because most of us like the chance to drive a long route, especially in the fast services that gobble up the miles so quickly. I’d like to see WCMLS extended from MK to Brum and ECML Kings X to Peterborough. That would make Pendolino and Azuma runs so much better like those on TSC, then I can uninstall that old game once and for all!
