Enough Is Enough!!! The Ongoing Saga!!! It's Almost The 3 Year Anniversary

I already live in a region with low prices. But there is a mechanism for transferring an account to another region. Typically, you'll need a VPN for the desired region and a local payment card. Either handle these matters yourself or use a third-party service. Steam's most severe "punishment" is that you'll be returned to your home region if you top up your balance with a card from the wrong region.

Vern, you're judging a third-world country by the realities of the first world. But who will be harmed by the DTG if such a situation arises? The game isn't a blockbuster with hundreds of thousands of daily players. Restricting sales in such countries is a self-defeating act. If people can't buy it on Steam, they'll go to the "green store." And everything there is "on sale" with a 100% discount. Okay, so the DLC appears with a couple of days' delay and updates with a delay, but that's not a big deal. It's good that DTG understands this, honor and praise to them for that.

Gabe doesn't care about your IP address as long as you top up Steam using a card from the correct country.

 

We all know Clinchfield needs a remaster. All the routes before TOD4 were a bit sloppy or simply looked different. It's silly to compare it to, say, Frankfurt S Bahn.

What if I want to drive trains? I don't want to run through indie game levels or drive a truck. I want to ride a train. If I want to drive a truck, I'll launch a snowrunner.

 

Clinchfield was only five years ago, old by this game's standards, but it ain't exactly a N64 game, games in 2020 had way better standards than that. Bare in mind the TSC route's even older, yet has noticeably better scenery placement. TSW on the whole has always looked terrible compared to other games on the market, there's a reason many say TSC looks better once you get a good lighting mod for it.

What if you don't? What selling point does this game have to someone but, being a bit self-deprecating here, train addicts that desperately needs their fix in game form? Great games attract more than those beyond the intended target audience, which sims like ETS2/ATS, Farming Sim, and even MSFS all due to great effect, while TSW feels like it's struggle much more than those sims have in that regard.

 

Okay, it looks worse. Why play it then? Just install a lighting mod in TSC and play? What could be simpler?

Perhaps it's because trains have a much smaller audience. My small Snowrunner community has 20 people. And only one of them tried TSW, but he didn't like it. Too many Too many regulations, too few gameplay options (you're going from point A to point B). That's it. All gameplay. Return Returning to the snowrunner, we play this same game completely differently. I was thinking about how to drive more efficiently, how to use less fuel, what vehicle to choose for a specific task, and so on. Most people just drove around for fun, driving whatever they could find. No goal, no plan—just hauling. If a car doesn't move, we'll bring another one. Logistics chains and congestion in the middle of the map? Why bother? It's no fun. As a result, I traveled 2-3 times fewer kilometers on one map. Was my driving boring? Probably. But I have so much fun and I have fun on trains because there are regulations, there are safety systems, there is a banal route from point A to B. My wife also doesn't understand what could be fun about this game, and I don't understand what could be fun about running around in Hogwarts Legacy. It's normal. We have a niche game. Piloting a plane is fun. Driving a truck and looking at the scenery is fun too. But how many people are interested in driving into the plant's industrial zone on a small shunting locomotive, moving cars back and forth along the tracks, and then driving back? Of course, only a small number. Because railways are boring.

 

I set my level of expectation to reflect the capability of the device I'm using.
That's why I accept that 1440p/30fps (with a few graphics tweaks) is as good as I'm ever going to get when playing ETS2/ATS on my docked Steam Deck....and that's why I refuse to accept that TSW is as good as it could possibly be on my XSX.

I know I've already said this before but at the end of the day Dovetail Games have had SIX opportunities to present a decent game over two generations of consoles, yet here we are....arguably having to lower our levels of expectation even further than ever in order to accommodate a game that is becoming increasingly more apparent that the developers don't know how to make it a better game.

I'm sorry but no, that is not the way it should be.

 

Because it has better engines, more interesting routing due to the branches that TSW choose to model, and one of the most interesting timetables in the game. Heck, part of the reason I'm so critical of that route in particular is because I've put more time into it than other routes. Routes I don't actually like I don't play, and thus really can't make detailed assessments of, like NEC New York. I remember that it sucked, but I also haven't played it in years, I can't in earnest give a critical eye to it despite not liking it.

Small than planes and cars? Sure. But I'd argue that hardly matters, the more important question really is "Are DTG leaving potential customers on the table?" And think that's a fair assumption to make frankly, lot of people are actually casually aware of TSW & TSC if you go digging around long enough, people just choose not to engage with them. I mean heck, look at Simrail, TSW's player numbers have remained largely the same, which would suggest to me it didn't really "steal those players" from TSW. Yet it's still gotten its own chunk of the player pie in its Polish multiplayer niche. Who perhaps could've been picked up by DTG if the game was in a better state to allow for things like development of a polish route and multiplayer.

FYI I think you quoted the wrong post, you quote the one below the one I think you meant too.

 

Haha, well spotted.
The two posts kinda blended into one another and my old eyes must have gotten a bit confused
Amended.

 

I understand it's frustrating when you like a route, but it has its flaws. Often minor and annoying. But! You either like it or you don't. I really like Clinchfield, but I'm waiting for the remaster and don't play it because it feels outdated by today's standards. If it were bad, would you play it? Unlikely. Personally, I've come to terms with the sloppiness of the routes and am simply waiting for them to be fixed.

And who said that these 500 people online every day don’t have one or another version of TSW? The fact that the daily online simrail remains in one place means absolutely nothing. It seems to me that the demand for such niche games is relatively static. Growth can only come from completely new users who haven't played yet. And DTG is doing everything it can to attract newcomers, often by simplifying the game to the detriment of existing players. Trying to pull players away from other train games? It reminds me of Epic and Amazon trying to take on Steam in the game store market. And from a consumer perspective, I can say: why do I need another launcher? And this also works in the opposite direction (remember the story with the launch of TSW 6 and additions to the EGS). This may work in the case of Battlefield & Call of Duty. But not with products like TSW and other train simulators.

 

The graphics of both games look quite dated. TSW's lighting is much better. In any case, the situation on PC is not so tragic, judging by the number of complaints. And it seems to me that complaints should be addressed to Microsoft, asking why in 2020 they are releasing a console with less memory (RAM and video) than I had in my 2012 computer. Yes, it could have been better, and I would have been happy to play with +120 FPS on any route, not just the times before TSW 3, but we have what we have.

 

Perhaps when I ask Microsoft, should I also ask them why I only get problems with TSW yet I'm able to play stuff like FS2024, farming simulator, snowrunner, GTA, kingdom come, expedition 33 and so on, all of which seem to have much higher graphical fidelity and require much more computational power to run especially in the case of fs2024?

 

But that is not the case, not even nearly. That is what lots of people here don't get in their minds when complaining. Do researches how those other games work, what exactly they do, and then come back with clear evidence and complain. All i can say, from my knowledge and experiences with game engines, those games are all way cheaper in terms of performance than TSW can be. A train simulator does soo much more behind the scenes than such 'simple' games, except maybe FS2024 what is at least heavy on the avionic simulation. But even avionics are not nearly that complex (on the computational side) as 100 trains on tracks with dispatcher code running.

 

I have to say I am doubtful that 100 trains come anywhere near as close as computationally expensive as 100 enemies in most games. Do you have experience with development for these other games?

 

That heavily depends on how it is implemented (BehaviorTree,FSM or DecisionTree (or other systems)). But even the relatively heavy BT can handle 100 NPCs with ease. FPS drops are gained when you have 500 or more active NPCs with BT running, and also depends on how those NPCs are implemented (mainly how the animation and physics system works on them). If that comes to a problem you would then try to use FSM or DT, or whatever those AAA games have then. But nothing of that comes near to having 100 trains with wagons positioned on the tracks each frame, without physics and one trains with wagons with physics simulation (SimuGraph) on + all the functional scripts and the audio + the rest of the world.

 

You know, all I seem to hear from everyone at Dovetail Games is a constant blame game of reasons as to why this and this and this no longer works properly, yet older versions of the game never had performance issues on the scale of what we're seeing today.
If timetable intense routes like SEHS or London-Brighton looked great and performed well (even on GEN8 consoles) back in the days of TSW3 then there can be no excuses for under-performing routes in a game that has supposedly had the benefit of 3 extra years of development time under it's belt.

 

Maybe it's because these are different games on different engines? My Hogwarts Legacy on UE4 always hits the FPS limiter and the graphics card isn't fully utilized. And the video memory consumption is only 12GB. although TSW on some routes consumes +15 GB of VRAM.

Is it big there? I haven't played there much, but the express lane is pretty empty. By modern route standards.

 

I'm still of the thought it has something to with the suspension physics. The blurry textures started for me towards the end of TSW4's cycle.

It started when the Scotrail 380 came out which is when they finally added the suspension as well.

 

I repeat my question about whether you have experience with development for these other games?

 

I guess you really want to hear a "No" to not believe in what i say. So, i will give you a No to stop the discussion for me. Saves me lots of time.

 

In fairness to DTG, any route that utilises a London station does create a sense of 'busy' pretty well so I'd say yes, SEHS is no different. I still play TSW3 (although I have just received TSW4 for free so that might change) and tbh, the only route I own that suffers with performance issues is HMA (framerate drops around Munich are pretty brutal), but that's just one out of a cast of many so Dovetail Games must have been doing something very, very right in the years prior to Matt taking charge of operations.

Which kind of beggars the question as to why standards have been allowed to slip in more recent (and considerably more expensive) TSW's.

 

The old routes are visually simpler in terms of vegetation, and the number of flights is significantly lower. But we're chasing flight volume and won't tolerate a standard timetable. Like on the same Frankfurt S Bahn.

 

Well, I think you can't say "You can't understand how complex TSW is if you haven't worked with it, it's much more complex than AAA games" if you don't have experience with working with AAA games.

 

I'm still putting my hat on the V2 of the map, which was a TSW4 launch feature.
We had issues from launch on TSW4 and the suspension is one of the features that failed to make it to launch. It came in well over 6 months into its release.

Go back to V1 map and bin of conductor mode for me. One I can live with if it improves performance and blurry textures, the other I've used once. Alternatively, take conductor mode out of the main game and have it as a DLC add on.
Fear is that every version will have more features which will only add to the game performance. Maybe time to have an opt in on which one people want.

Suspension and announcements, yes please, a few of the others are just fat on the bone, put em on tick box opt in.

 

So, when I fly in an IFR route in an A320 on fs2024 with real-time weather including updrafts, downdrafts, turbulence, a fully working MCDU, FCU with working autopilot etc, ATC giving me directions, other real-time players, the fidelity of graphics that FS2024 brings (that blows the pants off of TSW), the physics simulation of the aircraft and so on is comparable to a train driving from A to B in TSW? Okay.

 

The problem is that people (players) want more and more updates and better graphics, and then they wonder why a game runs poorly.

I don't even want to know how many people play Train Sim World in 4K resolution, even though their potato PCs can't handle it at all. Just use FullHD and the game will run better. Everyone is clamoring for TOD4 and Remasters of Routes, but they forget that it requires additional hardware power and then complain when it stutters and Train Sim World doesn't run well.

On the TSW2 and TSW3 routes, I have almost 60 FPS throughout, but when I play on newer routes, I can't achieve that number anymore. I don't have the best hardware, but I know how to get the most out of it in terms of graphics and performance. And some players here should think about that too. Remasters and new routes are not always good, especially from a technical point of view.

I'm already seeing threads complaining that the remaster of Great Western Express runs much worse than the original... Yes, of course, more objects are placed and new weather is added. So you can't achieve the FPS of the original.

So before you start complaining about the game, you should first think about what your hardware is capable of and if necessary, lower your graphics expectations a little.

Of cause XBox One/PS4 Players thinks that that hardware can run TSW smoothly... Tzzzz *never ever*

 

Thanks for the lecture.

 

Exactly. Real-time weather that is also linked to the volumetric cloud simulation, which is notoriously expensive itself, along with the rest of it, plus the aircraft equivalent to a dispatcher system with both real and AI players; plus water physics; etc.

Whether something is a simulator or a game (which often simulates things anyway), behind the scenes it is all floating point number calculations.

You also have to consider assets. In TSW the trains are not going to use as many polygons as a host of characters, each model with for example 30,000+ polygons and hair and cloth physics simulations running, plus complex animation systems. And often environmental simulation, and the rest of the game systems varying in complexity.

Effectively, TSW and Flight Simulator might be as resource hungry as other types of games, but in different ways.

And then there is the fact that some developers are just far better at optimisation. Optimisation is essential on console. That's why many games are ported to consoles by separate studios who have a reputation for excellent ports. For example, Xbox is inferior to PS5. Someone out there probably scoffing at that now, but it isn't about "my console is better than yours"; from a developer viewpoint, Xbox has more issues to overcome, such as the operating system using up a huge portion of RAM compared to PS5.

 

I don't see why you shouldn't buy it.
If you really want something, you should go for it.

 

Too many variables

 

Oh yeah, this thread exists. Time to revive, no?

What should we discuss this week, the current state of the game? The future? 3rd parties?

 

Maybe post some links to the numerous threads with the same nature. They seem to be everywhere

 

its the same old same old and the dev refuses to listen. We need to stop letting Rivet touch anything related to TSW.
They have ruined the 377/3 and I doubt they will fix it.

 

I really thought ‘how could rivet possibly mess up a 377 variant’ well they managed it somehow.

 

Let's take stock of the situation:

• Long load times, crashes, and poor frame rates even on capable hardware,
• Persistent bugs and blurry textures,
• Saving the game doesn't always work.
• Many routes or locomotives are released with missing features,
• Overpriced DLCs
• Slow or Poor Communication from DTG
• Rivet games
• And many more issues.

Maybe we should get mad, maybe enough IS enough, maybe we should demand better.
At the of the day, as consumers we hold the power to stop all this through boycotts, open letters, and discussions like this.

 

Lets get realistic here, DTG, or any other company for that matter, don't care one single bit about open letters and discussions on some forums as long as the money keeps coming in.

There is only one way that will get companies attention and force change; talk with your wallet and STOP buying the cr*p DLC and rip-off yearly "new" TSW game.
That will never ever happen so people will keep crying for changes and improvements while the other group of people is lining up to be able to throw (more) money into the lap of DTG.

 

I'm "lining" up to buy content I like for a game I enjoy, when I feel it is worth it and I'll use it. It's nothing to do with throwing money at DTG, there is actually a middle ground.

Still I'm surprised that anyone would bother with the forums if they thought that DTG's content was utter rubbish.

 

It gives them an outlet/something to do.

 

The list on PC can be shortened to this. And the saves work pretty well in most cases, even though I don't use them often. It seems things aren't all that bad.

 

It's a somewhat complicated matter, this business of trying to please everyone...

I'm satisfied with the game because it offers a huge variety of routes and trains, in addition to the timetable.

It certainly has its problems, like any other game, but they aren't solved quickly, and they drag on for years.

Now, with the end of the fiscal year approaching, they're releasing content galore because, like any company, they need to make a profit; there's no other way.

There will always be people who are unhappy with the game, and those who are content with it because it's playable in a certain way. I fall into one of those categories, as I use the game to relax and unwind from the daily grind. If I want something more realistic, I have to leave the house and look for the trains and routes I want to travel on, haha.

Now, one thing I've noticed lately is the negativity in forums in general. People are being overly critical of everything that's released, looking for flaws in the smallest details. Of course, constructive criticism is always welcome, but what we see is a hate speech directed at developers, criticizing the delay in releasing something or finding it incomplete when it is released. Perhaps that's why even those who used to interact a lot with people here on the forums (Matt, Candance, among others) no longer speak up, because they are constantly bombarded with non-constructive criticism.

As consumers, we have the right to suggest improvements or corrections to the game, but in a polite and peaceful manner, because on the other side there are also people who need to earn their salaries to survive. Remember that it's just a game and a hobby. Do other things in life too, don't get stuck to a PC screen...

 

I'd argue DTG very much made their own bed, reason a lot of people get worked up is frankly DTG have shown they often won't respond to anything less than that. Look over at TSC you have dozens of frankly pretty broken DLC's, but often not broken enough for them to cause outrage. Then you have a few like Donner Pass & WCML South, which were absurdly broken and had mass outrage, those actually got major bug fixes within months, if not weeks or release.

To pick something more recent, the fact HIS are actually going back and doing their patch isn't normal for them. I don't think their packs in TSC get patches often, if at all, but obviously the outrage over the ATSF pack was enough to make them act on it this time.

Better that it happened, but I do wonder to what degree the community would be claimer if DTG & Co. didn't take as much to respond in the first place.

 

But it's not just a PC game.

 

So, list the flaws based on your gaming platform. On PC, of course, everything is not perfect, but there are no catastrophic problems.

 

oh yea, the whole big bag of "TSW is meant for console but everything is tested on PC and console players keep getting so many bugs"
in this day and age, consoles are so bad honestly why do people even play on console nowadays... not that I blame them for it.

 

As a console player I accept that I’m a glorified beta tester. If I really cared I’d start using my PC a lot more.
My PS5 Pro is like my second GF, she gets all my attention.
On winter nights I unplug her at the mains and take her to bed with me, to keep her warm

 

It's just like reading Jilly Cooper novel (well I assume it is)

 

“The man who made husbands jealous”(1993).

I’ll have to contact Jilly and see if I can request a title change “The PS5 that made wives jealous”

 

Sadly she is no longer with us but you could carry on her work.

All her novels featured horses if I recall so you'd have to work one into the story.

 

Sorry, let me just find a spare £400 for some ram for my top end PC.
How about you get off your high horse and remember not everyone has had the advantages you had.

 

Never said that. The issues are based on what I've seen/heard in this community. It's universal, not specific.

 

Blurry textures are a console-specific issue that PCs don't suffer from.