PC Class 90 Announced

For the first time in 10 years, it is starting to feel that the stars are aligning for a GEML release. I understand ATS are doing a passenger/parcels version, I assume with a DVT.

Absolutely agree with OldVern Dusty bins (321s) are essential and could be converted to 320s for Scotrail and 321/4s for a backdated WCML. I've not heard anything but I think they are the most obvious choice for a TSW Mk3 EMU. Hopefully Armstrong Powerhouse kept their recordings.

Given the era of the Class 90s maybe 360s using the very similar 350s for sounds and physics but hopefully with the correct cab & interior (which will also be useful for GWE airport services!). Though late 2003 during the transition from 86s to 90s and 312s to 360s would be the dreamland release for me.

We also have a very useful Class 86/2 that's a DBSO away from making-up an Anglia push-pull set. So it'll be set somewhere between 2003-2020, when it happens. We've got 150/2s and 170 in game too of course.

If anyone is developing it and needs any assistance with development (in particular testing and/or fleet data), please do DM me. I might be looking for work later this year and my wife is encouraging me to get out of insurance and do something I actually enjoy.

 

I'm looking forward to door faults if we get the Class 321.

You're not a true Great Eastern commuter until you've experienced an emergency stop from 100mph due a passing train causing a door interlock failure on a Class 321. I hope they include that startling "bang" that those doors made whenever they passed another train at speed.

 

Another big Fat F for Failure DTG!

 

Calm down... Jeez. I wouldn't say the Class 90 is a failure. It works, it runs. What we really need is DTG to say sorry, but we won't get that.

 

When people moan that DTG are abandoning the forums, do they see posts like this and ever think, well maybe it isn't surprising?

Unless I've missed something are the problems solely DTGs fault?

They have just cancelled the release of one DLC so they clearly can't win with some users.

Is it a failure as some are enjoying it? I will be getting it most likely when the first update comes.

 

At least somebody has the balls to be honest, while DTG staff hide under their desks.

 

Is this the same DTG staff who have been working after hours trying to get things fixed, according to Alan Thomson.

Surely TSS is just giving an opinion?

 

I don’t know how I can believe he wants to create an ecosystem, when he can’t be bothered to take pride in his existing work on TSW. That’s not a positive future.
The player base have clearly expressed their desire for a MAC extension to Crewe, and this has gone completely un-answered.
Is this the silly on-going beef with AAB stopping him? “I can’t have my route being semi connected to a AAB route via route hop”.

 

ATS yesterday:
"Sorry for the poor TSW class 90 release"

ATS today:
"Here is our new class 92 for TSC... Oh wait, the marker lights don't work?!"




You couldn't make-up a story like this.

 

2nd that here, never recall seeing a 45 next to a 90 ever nor one anywhere before 89. In their infancy they started on the Southern WCML first with Crewe and Euston crews iirc.

 

This has been answered, in a Stream but also in these forums. It's not going to Crewe.

TSS is entitled to his opinion, just as you are entitled to agree or disagree with it. Neither mean that opinion is necessary based in fact and therefore "honest". An opinion can be disingenuous, ill-informed and/or ignorant. It can be all or none of those things.

And it would be wise to approach everything you see on social media with a healthy dose of skeptical critical thinking. Especially when clickbaity words that game the algorithm, like "Brutal", are used.

The above is advice and should not be construed as an indication of my opinion nor is it challenging your opinion. Unlike some videos I've seen online that tell you what to think.

 

To save myself 20 minutes watching the video. What was his reasons behind not extending to Crewe?

 

C'mon you really going to believe that BS from him?

He spends about 5 minutes describing how bad the the Textures look, then pops up with a "unless they have made them look like that to help with the blurry textures", Knowing full well that they have and he's just spent the last 5 minutes pointing it out and rubbing his "fanbase" into an anti DTG frenzy, with his so called brutally honest review. Kinda reminds me of Honest Dave, the dodgy car salesman from down the road.

I seem to recall it was because All Aboard Studios were doing the Crewe to Brum route. But I may be wrong. At the end of the day its upto him what they decide to do regardless of what the playerbase demands.

Hentis

 

I don't think any reason was given. I'm not owed an answer from anyone. Sometimes the answer is just "no" whether we like it or not.

 

Just bought this but after attempting one run, I agree with the people posting PS5 problems. DVD randomly put me into emergency brake with no visual warning on the HUD - I'm deaf so I need that yellow indicator on there.

 

Hmm I don't really buy that, it would have been easy to duplicate the existing Shap timetable and add their own class 90 services in there in the same way that Skyhook did with their Military cargo DLC. I understand JT not allowing another developer to mess with "their" timetable but they can't stop one from duplicating the original and tweaking that.

With regard to the era of the route, well this particular Class 90 pack was freight only so they would have needed to put the RFD liveries in there for it to be era appropriate or close enough, the fact they didn't do that regardless is a bit of a sore point - freight loco without half of the freight liveries :/

 

The original TT would still be JT’s though?

Also, out of all the problems with the 90, a lack of liveries isn’t anywhere near being one. Especially freight liveries of which there are 5.

 

I feel if this was released under Rivet there would be way more criticism.

 

Then you’ve contradicted yourself. You told me it had been answered.

Whether I want an extension or not is irrelevant to me gathering information or being influenced by a YouTuber. I can make up my own mind.

What is relevant as a consumer is to appeal to projects that I feel fall short on the spectrum of overall satisfaction. I’m not happy that the current dev team can’t appeal to the masses. There has been plenty of demand for Crewe extension and it’s not been stated why. If you want to get into the good graces of the people who are being your products, that is not the way to go about it.

 

The community love to attack TSS, but he always speaks the truth.
I wouldn’t have known about any of the on-going concerns of the Class 90 if it wasn’t for him. The was no chance of me buying the add-on currently anyways since it’s only limited to WCMLS as of now.

 

There has been a S tonne of criticism. Some of the reviews on YouTube from numerous train simmers are particularly damming.

 

Well of course compared to the current list of issues, the lack of certain freight liveries isn't a massive issue, it is still an issue in the eyes of some however considering it's supposed to be the freight loco pack and it's missing one of the most important freight liveries, the first freight livery carried by the type, as well as the Freightconnection selection. I do sort of understand, it's made for the present so those old liveries wouldn't be relevant for WCMLS however they would have nicely fitted onto both Shap and Preston-Crewe.

As for the timetable, yes the original would still be JT's however I think they would allow it to be duplicated as it had been done before for Skyhook (or maybe they were compelled by DTG I don't know), failing that ATS could have made their own fresh timetable for the route, there is nothing stopping them from doing that from scratch.

 

I was going to buy this day 1 until I read that the only timetable was going to be a new sub standard one created quickly just for the 90 on the WCMLS and not even be intergrated into the new busy one. Then I read that we could use it in free roam to our hearts content. No not good enough. Stop turfing out dlc so fast and pay attention to each and every release to bring it up to the standard of the route produced by the modders group namely Firefly.
I don’t want to just drive a 90 up and down an half empty WCMLS and nowhere else unless I free roam it. There are no ai 90’s in free roam are there? It’s a cop out.

It’s not good enough, what is the point in producing new trains to the game if we can barely use them? I thought the attraction we all have for layers in this game makes that very clear.
My wallet will remain closed until I see it properly integrated into the game like other rolling stock is. I mean for FS the 66 is the classic example - how many of those damn things riddled through the game now?
Crazy sales pitch.

 

But most of that criticism has, to my mind, been misdirected: at DTG, rather than ATS. Heck, Thompson himself made a video addressing issues and owning that the problems were with the build they sent toDTG, yet TSS and others continue to want to blame Dovetail for what are clearly a third party's errors.

 

I think considering this pack was intended for use on a current (2018-2025?) WCML, they did the right liveries. I mean we’re lucky that A) we didn’t just get a DB one & B) we got Freightliner at all, spanning 3 of their liveries & then to top it off we get 5 in one go.

Personally I’d rather have a proper BR era pack for it, with relevant cab layout & liveries, also keeping in mind that as a separate pack we’d likely see multiple liveries for that period.

Even now there are iffy substitutions with mixed liveries you’d never see, imagine you’re pulling up shap supposedly 30+ years ago & a DB red 90 comes past you. They can’t force certain locos onto services already, it’d be a headache for using a modern pack layering into a BR route.

 

This is the 5th release in a row across multiple releases where DTG have uploaded the wrong file to certification processes.

Anyone who saw the ATS and DTG streams will have noticed that the build in those versions was massively different to the version that got released, as the sound was fixed in the build submitted after issues on the DTG stream.

 

AT himself stated that they sent DTG a "bad build"

 

It depends really on what goes where. Audio itself for example yes I’d say that’s an ATS issue, but issues with builds? Gets a little more grey there, especially depending on who’s done what & how much of that has been communicated back to ATS. I do think though that as the developer of the 90 I’d be very much onto DTG if they told me “we found this problem but fixed it”, I wouldn’t blindly trust them & let the product launch.

I think a massive issue is how console testing is happening. I don’t expect the likes of ATS, Firefly & JT to have dev kits & open lines to Sony/Microsoft, especially if DTG is telling them they’ll handle the console side of things. At the same time though I think by now all developers should be more vigilant of what DTG is (or isn’t) telling them, because AAS, ATS & Firefly have all said they weren’t informed of issues by DTG, or had been told something was corrected when it hasn’t been.

 

Is the conversion and testing being done in house at Chatham, or is it being outsourced to India/Romania/Philippines etc. and done by people who barely know what a train is, let alone the features and quirks of a unique piece of UK traction?

 

Whoever is doing it, no one’s taking responsibility for it. It’s just ‘we didn’t do that’ , ‘we didn’t know this’ & ‘that only appeared when we put it on sale’.

Ultimately though DTG are the ones who will be setting the process for it all & even they keep trying pass the responsibility for several major issues to Sony & Microsoft. Not saying certain issues aren’t the fault of those companies, but DTG are most unfortunate to be the first publisher who seemingly runs into these sticky situations, several times a year.

 

Not doubting that, but we've seen some absolute clangers being blamed on 3rd party developers, when DTG are the ones submitting builds to content stores.

While ATS sent a bad build, DTG clearly didn't test it before sending it to the content publisher's stores. That's outside of what ATS can control.

Alan also said there were lots of builds flying around from everyone, so no wonder things got muddled.

 

The reason why there is no extension to Crewe after people asked for it is because that would involve ATS working on extending the route for practically no money. There might be a few extra copies sold with it being longer but not enough to pay for the work to do the extension. ATS is a commercial company and not a charity. I don’t think they have to explain it to anyone as it should be obvious that they aren’t going to work for free. The landscape gardeners who remodelled my mother in law’s back garden did not then do her front garden for free even though she asked very nicely. They would have got daily cups of tea and a few biscuits if they had but that wouldn’t have covered their wages and costs.

 

Just to help clarify the position on Crewe and route scope, there seems to be some misunderstanding.

Originally the route was designed to go to Crewe. Issues along the way caused its scope to be scaled back. However, the route and its scope have been explored a number of times internally, including options around extension and how best to deliver it to the standard players would rightly expect. Those discussions involve development time, cost, commercial considerations and existing stakeholder arrangements, so it isn’t always as straightforward as “just extend it”.

Where work has been reviewed in the past, additional time and investment has been required to bring elements up to the quality level we wanted, and that naturally affects what is feasible going forward. However, this being said, we are exploring some new technology which may enable an extension to be created in the future, but I stress that nothing is confirmed.

On the current Class 90 release, a build was provided and there were some final items that were understood to be addressed as part of the release process. Our understanding was that these fixes would be included, so it has been frustrating to see issues remain in the live version.

There's a speculative blame game that seems to be developing in some corners of the community and online commentary. That doesn’t help players, and it certainly doesn’t help get the product improved. We've had lots of positive communication with DTG since release and have agreed a strategy going forward.

Our focus remains on working constructively with all parties involved and getting the issues resolved as quickly as possible for everyone who has supported the release.