Koln Aachen Tod 4 Remaster Discussion

Forum is functioning as usual then I see.

 

It's great to see yet another remaster! Here's my take on it:

The weather and otherwise lighting (both night and day) of the route itself are much better, it has significantly improved my experience with the route. The night lighting especially is such an upgrade! The light bounces well off of most stock on the route.

However, the 442 does not take to this new lighting well in comparison to Dresden-Leipzig's 442. It simply doesn't fit lighting wise. Additionally, the 406 ICE train has a distracting reflection on its windscreen which affects vision and the view.

I feel as though the GWE remaster set the bar so high that this remaster is simply underwhelming. A remaster usually means that the route will be brought up to the latest game specs. (now being TSW6). The route does not currently have announcments (of any kind), suspension physics, upgraded sounds, or proper lighting on the rolling stock.

All in all, while I hugely appreciate this remaster as it comes as a free update, I believe there needs to be a consistency between DLCs and remasters alike. If the resources weren't available to do a remaster as outstanding as GWE, it should have been given more time so it could fulfill this standard.

I am grateful for the update but do wish a bit more effort could have been put in rather than a sort of 'half' remaster.

 

Can anyone who's played the remaster tell me if any there are any drivable services with stock that has the new suspension? I know the included trains don't but maybe from a layer? I honestly have lost track of what does/doesn't have it at this point lol

I wanna try out the new lighting but i can't go back to the old suspension model

 

There are a few on here who live in total denial unfortunately.

 

You should at least be able to drive the dostos services with the 146 from Leipzig, I think that has suspension. You could also drive most of the freight runs with the Vectron from FTF or the 185 from Leipzig.

 

Are we playing a different version? I think the night lighting is still terrible. Köln is a ghost town during a blackout at night. Honestly I can't remember the old version being much worse

 

Same for me. I struggle to see much difference in the city at all.

 

It does, because like it or not, the management and CM's are gallivanting around like a bunch of excited kids over the game that has faces on the locos, but over in the Feedback and Troubleshooting threads, with the exception of Candace there is little to no acknowledgement of the massive tech and content debt stretching back years (like the broken G6 Journey) let alone any fixes forthcoming.

 

But what's different? We had tons of not fixed issues and newly introduced issues even during times were they completely focused on TSW. Some of this issues are a decade old so how are the two new games the issue? It's not like without them everything was fine and released bug free or got fixed fast

 

It seemed really good for me on the s bahn run I did yesterday.

 

Exactly what i was looking for- thanks!

Gonna run some Vectron services tonight after work

 

Come on that seems a little unfair- there's like 1 post from Matt over in the Sodor forums.

I wish he (and/or other Devs) were more active in the TSW forums, but from your post i was expecting a whole different ecosystem over there lol. Il

I can't begrudge the devs who are excited about the Sodor game tbh- it's probably not for me but that's OK

 

It just grinds the niggle a bit, that’s all.

 

Just had a quick go doing an end to end run in the Flixtrain Vectron and thought it was perfectly acceptable for a smaller scale remaster. Much prefer the new lighting and the new timetable from last year was already excellent.

Blurry textures on Xbox but won’t hold that against it as that’s virtually every newer route now.

 

Don't get me wrong I love that the older routes are now getting upgraded to TOD4 but that's exactly what it is an upgrade much like SEHS & SoS got for TSW3 they aren't full remasters like WSR, GWE & CCL. I was hoping that there would be suspension added to the trains, faults and events, announcements and even the new rain materials but oh well, just nice to see SKA with TOD4 finally! Hopefully the other stuff will get added in the future!

 

I did a full run and I can tell the update.

A year ago, we had very few services for Köln-Aachen. Now we have plenty of services and visually looks better. And all for free!

I was not touching this route until the new timetable. Now for sure I will run even more. For me taking the 2 things together, timetable and graphical refresh, it is a clear remaster. I do not understand why many people is complaining about a FREE upgrade.

Thanks to DTG and all the people that worked hard on bringing this remaster to us. Looking forward to more to come.

 

i think mainly the issue is that no tsw 6 feature like station and onboard announcement got added with this remaster but GWE and east coastway will/do have it

 

I had a look at this last night and honestly, I really can't tell the difference from the original, I seriously wouldn't call it a remaster, I'd call it a very minor tweak.

 

It’s because it’s made some aspects worse and some things that would be reasonably expected in a remaster have not been done. It doesn’t really matter that it’s free. I think people are right to complain if they want to. I rarely complain but I felt I needed to on this occasion because the new bright lighting has emphasised lots of the things that should have been improved but weren’t.

 

Just watched the TSS review of it. He was a tad over generous with his scoring but not afraid to point out how it was not really in the same class as GWE. The one positive I can throw in as regards SKA, is that unlike GWE (for me) it’s possible to load into a save game without the game locking up either straight off or after a minute or so.

 

I’m happy with the update, but I do think they made a mistake calling it a ‘remaster’. Calling this a remaster is putting this on the same footing as GWE, and that’s clearly not the case: this is a purely a TOD4 update and nothing more, whereas GWE definitely *is* a proper actual remaster. Whether they did this on purpose, to make it look more meaty than it actually is (even though they have actually been very clear in other communications what this is and isn’t), or because of other reasons, is anyone’s guess.

 

I felt the same way looking at screenshots etc, but as i posted in the feedback thread, i started a service on SKA thinking it had been updated, but it actually hadnt due to some Steam weirdness (fwiw i had to verify files to force the Feb 13th update, which i've never had to do before).

I ran the exact same service again once it actually updated (with the same date, time, and weather) and the difference was DRASTIC. All the awful inky shadows on the scenery were gone and it no longer looked like gloomy twilight at 12 noon on a sunny day. It was much closer to the current TSW6 standard imo.

Naturally most people aren't gonna experience a direct comparison like that, but i just wanted to point it out cause it made such an impression on me.

There are still things like announcements and suspension that i hope they add in a further update, but for now it's a big improvement, and the remaster lets the enhanced timetable really shine- well worth playing now!

 

The only drastic thing is the lighting change from TOD3 to TOD4, what make everything much brighter. But as you can see on the screenshots in this post (https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...red-feedback-thread.96669/page-2#post-1092839), trees and bushes are exact the same and not updated to newer ones. This makes trees and other vagitation looking weird color wise and I really can't stand this. So I prefer the old darker look over the unrealistic looking vegetation, also a monitor with good contrast make it less dark then the screenshots in my experience.

 

It’s generally good but not as good as the UK remasters, sunlight during the day has washed out the grass like there is a frost on it and night lighting is pretty poor.

 

Night lighting seemed non existent on the run I did. Even the stations, the CIS screens are kind of glowing but the platform lights look worse than on some of the younger TOD3 routes.

 

After a few test runs I'm of the - probably unpoular - opinion that in combination with Joes timetable remake the wording 'remaster' for this is absolutely accurate.
I had a run on BML in similar conditions earlier on - starting February 14th, abput 9.30 - 10.00 am, light clouds, no dynamic weather. While BML had its usual insanely crowded timetable SKA was a bit quieter but nonetheless still realistic and busy. But the difference the lighting made honestly shocked me a bit. I hadn't played any TOD3 routes for quite a long time and obviously forgot how bad it really was. During my BML run the trackside vegetation was basically one black mass, even on the sun-facing side of the bushes and trees. Over all it was as dark as during a solar eclipse, no chance to spot any details while driving in cab.
So yes... I think a full TOD4 in combination deserves the 'remaster' branding. The difference might not be as much as in GWEs passion project, but still worthy.

 

I agree. There's an amount of subjectivity going on in this thread, but technically a remaster is creating a new master of something. So by any objective view, SKA is a remaster; it's been moved to a newer lighting system and other updates have been made.

Whether it's as good a route update as any other remaster is another matter, and entirely subjective. But that doesn’t stop this being a remaster.

 

I think too many people have been watching Train Sim Society and actually buying into it.

 

The literal definition of the word really doesn't matter all that much, it's how people actually use it in conversations. And frankly in gaming circles, yeah, remasters often are more high effort than the equivalents are in other industries. When there's high profile projects like The Elder Scroll's Oblivion Remastered or the new Halo remake with that stupid subtitle that are complete overhauls graphically, it does create the expectation for other remasters to be similarly high effort.

To compare it to a similarly corrupted term in music, I think of remix, which used to only cover pretty simple edits, like swapping or removing instruments from a song. But it's been "misused" so much that effectively it includes way more now, including effectively entirely different covers that use almost none of the original "mix" it's based on. And I think people generally expect the latter moreso than the former nowadays.

 

There’s a lot of misunderstanding going on re night lighting. Adding TOD4 to a route does absolutely nothing to the night lighting. In fact, unless the lighting sources that exist on the route are then setup with correct emissive levels then changing the skylight to TOD4 will unquestionably make everything worse.

 

That's the same as saying people watch too many preview streams and are actually buying into it. Train Sim Society is making TSW look like an important game with a professionally looking channel discussing it. I think Train Sim Society is a refreshing take on reporting on TSW. Not refreshing as a gaming channel as it is basically the same format as every other gaming channel, but finally TSW has got one.

 

The issue is that a company that uses marketing terms like "Remaster" needs to assure consistent quality. Usually you would have checkboxes for things to do until it is considered a Remaster and ready for release. I can remember a time DTG talked a lot about such checkboxes to make sure the "inconsistent quality" problem gets resolved

 

Agree. Of the various YT presentations I watch, his tends to be the most balanced. Not sure if he is an actual Ambassador but at least he isn’t reading from the DTG approved script and not afraid to be critical.

 

Agreed the route is transformed. They did say foliage had been replaced too so it isn't just a TOD4 makeover.

I do agree that the night lighting isn't great.

I don't think your opinion is unpopular.

 

I never played the updated timetable when it first came out, but I am wondering if I am missing something.

I have half the available layers enabled, all of the ICE ones, but I never see any AI running on the tracks, there are quite a few of them sitting outside the station at Koln, but none of them ever move.

And yes, I am running the updated timetable.

 

Earlier I mentioned about the trees looking weird in this remaster. After watching some footage of this remaster on youtube, played on pc but also PS5, I noticed the trees look darker and not have that strange low res and weird color thing. I'm playing on Xbox Series S on HD mode, trees on old routes with TOD3 lighting are looking normal, also trees on TOD4 routes do look normal. However, also the trees on the Dresden - Riesa remaster has the same weird look as on the SKA remaster. So I got the idea, when old trees are used but the lighting is updated to TOD4, on HD mode you get those weird looking low res trees.

Can someone on Xbox test this remaster on HD mode to confirm the change of the trees. I'm also curious of this happens on PS5 in HD mode too.

 

If a refreshing take is just regurgitaing what people like you and I have already said on these forums the day prior.

All his channel seems to be just making people feel validated because he is repeating your thoughts you already posted.

But I guess he knows best since he has only been playing since TSW5.

Sure his editing is great but his script is all right here on the forums the days/weeks prior.

I have a great AI program that will search TSW info from all the social media sites and come up with a script on peoples thoughts too.

 

While yes this remaster may have room for improvements, I must say that in my own opinion I prefer the lighting now overall and makes me want to play this route again - especially with the timetable revamp. It literally makes this route night and day - no pun intended - compared with before. As stated though, I'd like to see a few updates and improvements though regardless such as the lighting at Koln Hbf and Talent 2, plus the ICE 3 window reflections etc. But, overall I'm just glad finally another non-UK route has gotten TOD 4 at least, more please!

 

The problem is Liam with the GWR remaster has set the bar very high, so when we’re presented with a sub-par remaster then we’re going to criticise it. I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate the effort from the dev who remastered Koln. It’s just there has to be an expectation bar line set. Is that GWR or Koln?

Koln to me has the improved lighting and all, but none of the assets have been updated so they’re going to look weird with the TOD4 lighting as you said.

 

They said they had replaced foliage!

I think subpar is being a bit unfair.

 

I find TSS insight very helpful and he discusses most of the concerns that I’m also thinking about. He doesn’t hold back, he tells it straight. If it’s good he praise's it, if it’s bad he’ll say it’s bad and what needs to be improved. TSW ambassadors will just flat out lie to their audiences as not to offend Dovetail. One of the reasons I’m very picky when it comes watching TSW content. TSS and DadRail are my favourites though.

 

No point sugar coating it, it’s not good.

We both have eyes, do you think it’s been replaced?

 

Well, I think you're right here, after the remaster of Dresden - Riesa, I was not able to enjoy this route anymore. I also have SEHS, I do not have an issue with this route, maybe the trees on this route are replaced as part of the overhaul and extension, or I did not play enough to notice. Liam has indeed done a perfect job at GWE, this is a job as it should be.

 

It looks a lot better to me.

 

No denying that I just don’t think there has been much done on the foliage, even if they say it’s been updated.
If it’s been replaced/improved then it shouldn’t be overexposed in a lot of places. That would indicate to me it’s still using TSW2 assets.

 

I saw some screenshots on here of the same spot on the remaster and pre remaster, the trees are exactly the same, so those are not replaced anyway. Also a lot of other vegetation looks identical as it was before, so agreed they could have done a lot more.

 

Thank you for confirming too. I knew I wasn’t exaggerating when I said “sub-par”. Those overexposed assets look worse!

Even if it’s not to my expectations, I still think the remaster is okay and the TOD4 makes a huge difference, but like you said “they could’ve done a lot more”.
It’s making nervous now about the upcoming ECW remaster. I hope that doesn’t fall into “sub-par” territory.