West Coast Main Line: Trent Valley From All Aboard Studios

Yes DTG would probably say we aren’t supporting that in any way shape or form and refuse to release at that price, so yes they have some degree of control, but at the same such a scenario is highly unlikely anyway. Do both parties have a degree of control over the pricing if it’s sensible? Again probably yes, and I will fully admit I have no evidence or behind scene knowledge either way, but I’m not convinced that the 3rd parties don’t have a degree of autonomy when it comes to pricing their routes personally.

But at the same time yes there is likely to be guidelines set by DTG over what they can and can’t charge.

 

QA for Questionably Acceptable. It's a bit sad that it's becoming a running joke though, as I want to support creators but I'm not prepared to part with money until I know the product is fit for purpose. And even then I feel I'm keeping my wallet firmly closed as a sort of "ransom" while I wait to see if DTG are going to fix my past purchases.

I can't think of any other product, digital or physical, for which I find myself having to do this...

JB

 

I'd pay good money for something truely amazing. I'd pay £20k for the right 90% of the UK rail network + stock modelled for sure, i.e. leaving behind whatever the hardest 10% is without screwing the other 90%. I imagine a lot of us would (even if not up front, spread out over a few years by some kinda credit agreement).

I do wonder if anyone has the balls to try this.

(Sober me has the right to retract the above claim)

 

All we need is a rich bachelorette that likes throwing money around. Can’t be too difficult…

 

I'd pay £150 for a portion of the country, the whole of Scotrail, South Eastern or Greater Anglia.

£20K though, no. I've never spent that much on a car let alone a computer game.

 

Same here even if it was all of the UK covering every era of the last 100 years with most of the stock used i wouldn't pay that much. I think it would cost a lot nore than that anyway.

The most expensive car I bought was £3000 and that was nearly 30 years ago!

 

Yet we get less stuff per route now and they cost more which is the problem

 

You are posting this in the thread for the longest ever UK route and one of the longest routes in TSW. The price of a route DLC (adjusted for UK inflation) is the same now as it was in 2020. £25 then is around £32.50 now.

 

An people also need to understand that when pricing goes up irrespective of inflation etc, they very rarely come back down to where it initially started from. only thing that brings prices down is competition and aint much in the train sim game!

 

Was replying to a dude which was using it as a point for all content

anyways I don’t care about the price of this, Preston to Carlisle will still be better value for money

 

Or "Deflation". Though that's a rare occurrence. But generally, yes, when the price of basic needs, rent, utilities and rates go up, so salaries go up, so costs of running a business go up, squeezing profit margins, then product price goes up.

In 1991 my brand new car cost £6,500, it cost £18 to fill-up the tank, it cost £10 to see the Manic Street Preachers in London, £8 to get into a game at Arsenal, computer games were £10-£15 and my home in East London was worth £95,000 which was really expensive, 8 times my then annual salary of £12,000. Then inflation kept happening. Except music compact discs, they're still about £12.

 

The other side of the coin is that entertainment software is not necessarily subject to the whims of inflation. A DVD, Blu-ray or 4K disc broadly costs what it did 10 years ago and you are more likely to find older releases at a permanently lower price, unlike ancient TSW content.

 

Yes. Most things in the grocery store are around the same price point because that's what people want to spend. Companies that go too far above don't get bought and go broke and those that go too low can't pay their bills and go broke. That's how economics works.

I think it's no more complicated than the creators looking at the store and saying "well everyone else is selling for this... sell for that."

 

In software it's the office rent, other overheads and the salaries of those who create the software that go up though, rather than the cost of materials (especially in this newfangled digital age)

JB

 

Do you mean discs themselves or content? Automated factories are making physical products much cheaper in some cases... however, movies are NOT cheaper these days. Have you been to the movies lately? For video games it's not the cost of the "media" (since there is none for downloadable games) but down to how much it costs for payroll. Beyond office space or a few computers, that's pretty much your only major expense. It's often over 80% of the cost of a software company.

 

You really think you are getting "less" in a TSW route now (especially this one) than you were in 2020?
Longest route ever in TSW, two new trains, huge timetable, and every update and add on since 2020 (train announcements, physics, updated passengers, etc) and you still want to say you have "less" than you did?

Even just using the unrealistically low gov't figures, that means all else being the same you SHOULD be seeing 30% higher price just because the value of money is lower from massive currency printing.

So that $29.99 should be at least $39.99 just from sheer money inflation, let alone extra features packed into every route and increased detail of the assets themselves or more content (timetables are just plain bigger)

 

Been a few years since we went to the cinema. Not necessarily the cost, but just because there isn’t much of interest - reboots, remakes or comic book adaptations.

 

What are the the two new trains?

 

The 350/4 and the 807. But I wouldn’t call them new trains. Just a different version of the other 350s and a 7 coach version of the 805 without the diesel engines

 

It's such a niche market now that pricing is no longer market-based. I can't remember the last time I bought discs, I don't see them for sale (except for console games), and I can't even imagine playing a disc, since there's simply no room for it in modern technology.

 

More? Oh please having a reskin/ barely different sub class aka 350

and the 807 which is no different from any other 800 family

compare to quite few tsw 2/ 2020 routes which would give you two completely brand new trains and quite a bit of new rolling stock to the game

Length isn’t anything without interesting trains which effects most routes

also for the same price you get west coast main line Preston to Carlisle with 90 miles and 4 trains by default

 

I don't have insider info or anything but I am expecting £32.99 for this route. it's 108 miles after all

 

ignoring the fact that three of those trains are reused? preston carlisle undoubtedly gives you a bigger stock offering but it’s unfair to argue that TVL will have reused stock, then point to another route which itself has a mostly recycled roster

 

Preston-Carlisle had one new train, not four

 

Said stock was heavy remade and got new sounds and the best part actual liveries and not some fake bs version (I think that was a few of their sub classes)

 

Didn’t say new at that point did I?
But still you get more trains than this route

also you could technically count all the types of class 08, I’m not including it but there’s like 5

 

this is true, but the same could be said for the 350 and 807 to an extent. technically no AT300 is 100% reused, they all differ slightly. the 350s were also reworked for birmingham crewe

 

I suppose hardware costs too - data centres causing prices of computer parts to go up massively, so CPUs, memory, GPUs, storage etc. all costing much more than they used to. I would assume DTG use relatively high spec hardware to develop the game

 

I have made this point on the forum many times, even back in TSW2020/TSW2 days, that the routes that come with more than one new train are generally only the first route of their type in the game but the standard is always just one new train per route for subsequent routes of the same type.

The first UK route came with three new trains. The first vintage BR UK route came with three new trains, the first steam route came with two new locos etc. The same thing happened with German routes and US routes. It still happens now, with the first Dutch route coming with two new trains, the first Czech route etc. It always reverted to just one new train and maybe a reworked train from other routes, plus loco DLC and layers from previously owned content. That’s generally how it is in TSW and has been from the start.

Even with TSW2 Rush Hour release bundle in 2021 there were only two new trains across three routes, the MBTA train and the 387, although that was really just a (big) reworking of the 377. All other trains included in Rush Hour were reused. The Dresden route got no new trains at all. Some trains had some updates. This is all DTG content but third party developers are generally following the same path but with some putting extra value into their reused trains like all the variants and upgrades JT do to any older content included in their routes.

I’ve had to point this out a few times because people started saying “we used to get two trains as standard now it’s only one” a long time ago when one new train was always the standard. Those ‘firsts’ couldn’t really be released with one train/loco and that’s why they got more, the only reason they got more. Reusing trains in future routes is nearly always in the plan as well.

So to conclude, routes coming with only one completely new train is not new, it’s been around since the second route of any type came to TSW and is the norm. It’s understandable with the amount of work involved in making a train for TSW. It’s also why we don’t get multiple train packs like in TSC.

The question of value is an interesting one because I think JT do give the best value in their content because of all the updates and variants they do with reused stock, and because I play their routes more often than any other routes I get even more value out of them but that bit is value that is personal to me. This route looks to have good intrinsic value as well but I wouldn’t play it as often as Shap.

Apologies for longer post but it’s important to present the facts properly and not just as soundbites in an argument.

 

I appreciate new subclasses, as they're nice to have, and I also get that they aren't "just reskins". But I'd never say they're new trains, in the same way that something like a class 730 would be.

 

It's all kind of subjective when it comes to "new" and "value"...to the player. I don't care for most of the trains in TSW, and I don't see a great value in yet another EMU that looks much like the last one. I don't care as much about this route in particular because it's a passenger focused route. On the other hand, another person might be gobstopped by this route and NEED to buy it because it's EXACTLY what they want and they love the content. Concorde wants a 730 as "totally different' but to me it's just another EMU. Nothing unique about it compared to those already in game.
My point is that every player finds "value" different to THEM.

What doesn't change...objectively... is the cost to CREATE things. Even if you don't want the 807 or think it's "close to the other 800 series", it's NOT those models. It's created new and takes as many hours to create new as other models created new. There are several different 66's that were scratch-built but are the same "train" in theory, however many hours were spent on each one recreating it.

So when I say it's two locos... that's the work put into make 2 new locos. Someone sat down and made them. Doesn't matter if you like them or it's the exact loco YOU personally wanted... someone has to be paid because they typed and clicked into a computer for hours (days) to make them.

Now we can get into an argument of the "true meaning of value" capitalist vs socialist etc in a theoretical economics basis, but for the purposes of this forum.... I think we can agree that a guy making something wants to get paid for it, and the company hiring the guy to make it has to pay him for his work. A graphic artist is doing her typing and clicking... she wants to get paid. Across the board.

That takes money because they won't work cheap. Just as you won't work for pennies, they won't either. So, the company can't offer everything "cheap" and still pay those workers. If you want "cheap", wait until it's outside the initial release period, say a year out... then buy it on sale.

If you are saying you can't wait a year for a video game, then you are yourself assigning it more value because you are saying you "need" it so much you can't wait. Video games aren't like food or water or shelter. You won't die without it. It's a luxury. So any admission you "can't wait" means you "want it badly."

Ergo you value it.

 

With regards price, yes things get more expensive and any video/computer game is going to go up in price.

However, for the maker of said games to survive you have to make sure what you sell at the higher price is worth the cost to the consumer.

So, in order to get this vaguely back to the topic…

Make sure it works, make sure the quality assurance is done and make sure you sell a product the punters (us!) will enjoy having paid a bit more for.

 

To be honest I don't really care about the class 730 (I mean it'd be nice to have but theres other units I'd prefer WAY more), if anything i actually prefer the 350. I was just using it as an example that it'd take a lot more effort to make compared to a new class 350 subclass so would be more deserving of the "new train" title.

 

Back on topic and thought we’d get a stream/release date announcement today, but alas nothing yet.

 

I’m hoping for a Thursday release next week. Will see me nicely into the Bank Holiday weekend!

 

and I'm hoping for GP60M release after (or before... who knows...) trent valley

 

Its a relatively new PS5, I`d been using it for a year-and-a-half when I switched to PC, but PC runs it all better so I do not regret my decision, though I have yet to repurchase all my old addons. PS5 is from 2020, its nearly 6 years old, tbf that`s not young in the computer business, graphics develop fast.

 

Double Yellow your profile pic is making me cry.