High Iron Simulations Thread.

after watching the review, it became clear that it's worse than I could tell from exploring the locos for 5 minutes lol

 

Sounds like another blinder all round!!!

Honestly, when are they going to stop rushing out these half finished bug ridden products?

When we stop buying I guess...

 

Same, i giggling a bit when Sean was showing the new hoppers.

 

so my final feedback after watching the review and play the scenarios/timetable services all night long:

the santa fe pack is a total failure... 18 months for this?
I was so hyped for it (as I was for F59PHR and ALP-45DP and both are excellent IMO, kudos to DTG for that) but I was very disappointed, a total disappointment indeed with this pack, not even the C40-8W livery is acceptable
the only thing that saves it is (maybe) the horn (which is the only difference compared to the SPG version and is also the same one used on the SD40-2, which shows a clear laziness on the part of the HIS team)
not to mention the copy-paste of the SPG C40-8W (the cabin is literally the same, meaning it's clearly just a reskin of an existing loco, and that applies to the SD40-2 as well)
I wanted to ask for a refund, but I exceeded the time limit for requesting a refund
anyway, from now on I'll be more cautious when deciding to buy dlcs produced by HIS
that, for the same price, I (as an unconditional fan of diesel locos) could have gotten the DB BR218 (a masterpiece from TSG)

edit: was wondering why DTG, which do preview streams of all upcoming addons, didn't preview this one? well, I think we have the answer now

edit 2: forgot to mention that neither of the two locos in the pack seem to have suspension... which is, once again, disappointing

 

Well, it seems with that along with the appointment of a staff member dedicated to US content and the introduction of HIS into the DLC market, DTG hasn't given up on the American customer.

It also seems HIS has been given a privileged position to provide this market with DLC, just like in TSC. DTG's main subcontractors for the previous decade in US locomotives and cars have been DTM, TBT, Reppo under various guises, all of South American domistice. Route builders are USA based AFAIK, and all now managed by HIS (Gary Dolzall, who I think to remember as a historian and writer for Trains magazine).

But should we expect better from this crew, given their stubbornness in not improving their TSC products despite years of feedback and criticism? HIS, like already remarked on this forum, is known for his arrogance in dealing with non-positive remarks on his own social media channels. This attitude won't help HIS in TSW either, given the negative first day reception of their first foray into TSW.

Now it all depends on the humble will to learn and improve, and not make these mistakes again, doing the cut-copy-paste from TSC or rinse-repeat-forget cycle that already seems to prevail in TSW.

 

Yes, a lot of people are happy to give DTG a pass on these third party releases. Of course the 3P developer has to take responsibility for its work.

But, just like in the literary world, the publisher should look at the product, edit it if necessary and even hand it back to the 3P to be corrected or adjusted if it's not ready for prime time, especially for consoles.

It seems that these steps are not being taken and 3P products are just tossed into the market willy nilly without being run through the testing gauntlet. I mean this particular product has been in development for a year and a half, for goodness sake.

 

but you and I both know that DTG QA is exactly like that, they let everything through, I've never heard of them blocking any dlc release (especially since they get their cut from the dlc sales)

"as long as it loads and the train moves, it works" credits: jack#9468

 

I could swear I remember DTG sending a DLC back to Rivet or someone for more work and even mentioning it in a stream. If I'm not imagining that, there's at least precedent.

 

Im hoping that the GP60M would be better, given it is a Reppo model, but unfortunately, it wasn't his best 3rd party work on TSC and I think it may have to do with influence from HIS. On top of the ATSF version being sold at a later date instead of being included with the BNSF ones.

Not to mention the early modeling on the spine car has this, like come on we cant actually model the springs? (I know its still WIP but....)

 

It would be good if they fitted it with the Metrolink the engine of the EMD Rebuild F59PHR, as the sound is similar. I know how difficult it is to get the sounds, but at least they have a sound that matches the locomotive. The problem is the bell, because the Santa Fe locomotives had old bells, and now that they're painted in BNSF colors, they have an electric bell. At least the BNSF EMD SD40-2 has an electric bell. The horn would be a K3LA. I don't remember hearing Nathan K3LA horn.

 

That part lacks Realism.

 

Given that these are on the cars in this pack already, I expect no improvement.

 

The new public facing staff member (and I mean no offense to them personally) is neither here nor there. If DTG is serious about improving TSW all they need to do is read the many many threads in this forum by paying customers pointing out the game's serious flaws and shortcomings and get to work fixing their increasingly broken flagship product. Having yet another staff member on hand to placate customers with soothing nothings and empty hype doesn't inspire confidence that things are going to get better. I'd rather they quietly hire some additional developers behind the scenes and just get to work fixing the b****y game. An improved TSW with noticeably fewer quality issues will speak for itself.

 

It's worse than that, some of those modifications they made to the C40-8W make a straight reskin of of the CSX unit almost more desirable. The fact bits of the cab are clipping out the roof and that door gasket floating in the air are worse than just leaving it if you ask me. On top of the ATSF skin itself being much lower quality than what the CSX one had years ago. It's ridiculous how decent the weathering on that unit is compared to the Santa Fe version.

It's worth noting is what Hello Games exactly did with No Man's Sky. They basically shut themselves in, feeling no sort of PR response was gonna do anything worthwhile, and just got to work. Took a massive penalty at the time in public sentiment, but it clearly paid off long term with how beloved that game became after said updates.

 

In terms of loco variants and liveries, we have been very spoiled by Train Sim Germany and Just Trains. Heck, TSG even created a free blue/ivory 218 with a period-correct 80s cab!

 

Not only that someone at HIS somehow deleted one of the traction motors from the model

Photos from ngc on the TSC discord, but you can see the middle traction motor is missing on the ATSF unit.

 

So thats whats tsw becomes now..., very very amateurish. Looks like the same mistakes than skyhook did with the cw44.

Rear bogie is still the wrong way around. The hype didnt catch me and wheres the point im supposed to spend bucks for this low quality halfhearted approach??

It looks like he noticed the error and didnt want to start from scratch....

Tsw uses alot of harddisk space by now, so this peace isnt coming in my steam library for sure.
A dev should care about his first release, this one seems to waste peoples time and money.

No thanks!!

 

omg, it just keeps getting worse
18 months of waiting (and hype) thrown in the trash

 

Mind you we all know what a "Lessons will be learnt" speech usually means here in the UK.
Perhaps it is different in the US?

 

That means that instead of adding realism, they're taking it away from the locomotives and carriages. What's wrong with Train Sim World? They started well, but now they're going downhill. It seems like they're doing it on purpose. What's happening? They should update the pack of Santa Fe. The Locomotives sound good with the horn and bells, but they have a problem: the GE C40-8W's engine squeaks and hurts my ears; that's noise pollution. Not to mention that the GE C40-8W's cab is nothing like the ATSF version's; they used the same one as the CSX because the gull-wing section of the cab isn't the same as the ATSF's. I looked into it, and they don't match. The exterior of the locomotives looks excellent, but there seems to be a problem with the numbers.

 

Even the exteriors are sloppy. Pixelated markings, off colors, striping that doesn’t fit the base mass