Train Sim World 7 - Discussion

a lot of people seem to think that completely moving away from US routes is the best bet, but i for one disagree. on the one hand, the safety systems are different to european ones which adds good variety if i'm bored of aws and pzb. and from a business perspective, american routes are much more costly to make for obvious reasons; it’s not a coincidence that stamford is set at £33 a copy. by making less american content, dtg can save costs; if there were, say, 2 US routes in a tsw yearly cycle, i like many others would probably buy both, just because it’s different to the majority of dlc. however, if there were 5 US routes in a tsw yearly cycle, then i’d probably still only buy 2, maybe 3 as the cost of all 5 would be unaffordable. maybe i only speak for myself there, but i also suspect that many people are in the same boat as me. in a franchise that is constantly trying to push out as much as possible, america seems to be an anomaly where dtg understand that less is more in this case

 

20:00 UTC is 21:00 BST and 22:00 CEST.

I don't think that is what they really want to do. Probably a mistake.

 

Seems like it going to be a late night for this direct.

 

I think the profile of a DLC aimed at the European market is difficult as well. Most players are European, which means the range of suitable content you can release is very limited. As a result, you often end up with NJT and LIRR routes, because these have many characteristics that appeal to European players. US freight is basically a dead horse DTG won’t return to it, again because the largest part of the player base is European.

So you’re essentially building a DLC that mainly has to be “good enough” for Europeans in TSW. That’s obviously very complicated and massively restricts your options when you look at content that would actually fit. In my view, you might as well stop altogether at that point, right?

 

That would mean, the strean in the UK begins at 9pm BST...

This logically doesnt make sense..

Unless...

3 hours of teasers...

Each hour. Could be a teaser for one of the core routes.

Three hours of teasers could equal 3 teasers for the three core routes.

 

Very strange... Its 10pm German time... Way to late....
3hrs a countdown.... Waste of time.
Don't forget the special created music.... Sorry but for me little bit useless..

I also don’t think this is very appropriate for a younger audience. They have school the next day, and watching a stream until 11 PM simply isn’t an option. So to me, this is actually quite a questionable decision.

 

i doubt it. it’s usually a 3 hour countdown consisting of noise and constant spam in the live chat saying ‘make this’ ‘when’s x y z coming’

 

i see your point, the european market is larger by nature so it makes sense to tailor to that. however, it leads back to the point of, is the US playerbase much smaller, because of the shortage of american content? and would it be bigger if dtg weren’t scared to venture beyond new york, seeing as they haven’t since san bernardino?

 

I can assure you that the vast majority of players are European. Simulator games simply aren’t very popular in the United States. Someone else already mentioned this a page back.

 

They showing FSK 16 Content

 

It's a bit like election night... go to bed at 2230, get up normal time at 0700 and put the news on to see who won - not sit up all night!

 

Looks like the existing routes are updating for TSW7.

On SteamDB.

 

Similar screenshots were posted a few hours ago but were removed by DTG.

Not sure why. Not a big secret.

 

And its not showing anything new thats coming just the title has changed on some old routes that we know would move to the new iteration anyways.

And we all know whats coming anyways just not the details.

 

Yeah, it’s hopeless from DTG. SteamDB is just public data that anyone can look at, so it’s not leaking information or anything like that.

 

Say what?

 

9pm??? Seriously??? That’s pub quiz time

 

Dammit, its on a Tuesday too. pubgoers are going to miss out

 

They aren't wrong 45% of the US population doesn't have access to public transportation.

Which is alot of people when you look at how many people live there and how big it is.

In comparison almost 100% of the UK population has access to some form of public transportation.

 

This even applies to SCS's truck simulator games as well.

ETS2's current player count is more than ATS has ever peaked.(Which is funny because of how much SCS focused on the US in the 2000's with their truck games, despite being based in Europe)

 

9PM start? Wonders of Sodor announcements? The kids are going to love that.

 

I don't disagree per say, I do believe simulators are more popular in Europe, but it's worth noting Euro Truck has way more factors in its favor than region. It's both had more time, and has more content with greater variation than ATS does. The states are very well done to be clear, but they're smaller and don't have the same variety of things going on ETS2 expansions do. Also if you're dealing with things like the multiplayer then you're going to often gravitate toward the more active game. I can attest I know someone who owns ETS2 that isn't even into sim games, he got it because of a friend wanting to play with him. By extension if I wanted to play with him I'd play there, that's just the game that's spread more.

Don't forget just how viral ETS2 was early on too, so many YouTubers covered that game, and random corners of the internet loved gifting it as a joke, only to generate unironic fans of it in the process. ATS by virtue of being a sequel just never had the same excitement, and it never was going to when it's effectively a American skin of the same base simulator. Iterative sequels that don't change the core gameplay much rarely do as well as their prior installment.

 

Meaning 55% (a majority) of the over 340M people in a giant country with tons of open space have access to public transportation. There are also, according to the APTA, 1,218 rural and 1,020 urban public transportation agencies and 99 (as of 2024) rail systems.

"Lack of public transport" is ludicrous.

 

Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, UK, Japan, South Korea, all have over 90% of the population have acces to public transit.

I don't know how 55% comes even close those numbers 35% is a big difference.

Lets look at passenger numbers between the US and UK.

In annual numbers, the UK rail network records roughly 1.8 billion passenger journeys per year, whereas the US national passenger carrier Amtrak logs about 34.5 million passenger trips, showing that the UK carries over 50 times more rail passengers despite its much smaller size.

Its no comparison the US is not even in the same league as most European countries or the major Asian ones.

And asides the major cities the rest of the country is seriously lacking compared to alot of other countries.

How about Rapid City South Dakota? No Amtrak or Greyhoubd service.

Some key cities with no Intercity Rail service Las Vegas, Phoenix, Nashville Columbus.

I'm Canadian and we are even worse for public transit.

 

This is a awful comparison, Amtrak is one carrier that only carries a fraction of the passengers in this country. The only area they run serious traffic in is NEC, and even then that excludes state level traffic from places like NJ Transit. They otherwise only really haul the notoriously unprofitable long haul sectors, most of their ridership is just from the NEC. And that on the whole is actually fairly comparable to other single rail corridors.

From what I gather, if you factor in everything US passenger ops it's roughly a bit over double the UK, which is about right considering half the population has poor rail service. The percentage doesn't matter as much as the raw numbers, and those still indicate there's around double the amount of people who use US transit compared to UK transit. Not to mention that freight's a way bigger deal over here, you'd be hard pressed to find people who haven't seen a SD40-2 or a GEVO once in their life, even if they never realized what they were. So number could be way bigger factoring in people only into freight ops, which is also a under-served market in this game.

Other sims show there's a lot of interest in US stuff, MSTS/Open Rails, Trains, & TSC have plenty of content there, there's US only sims and games like Run 8 & Railroader too. I find it much easier to explain all of this with DTG's US output just being so poor it lost the crowd, as opposed to the mental gymnastics needed to insist it's not that big a market. I remember prior simulators, US was a consistently larger content block than it's ever been in TSW.

 

The numbers you are giving are inaccurate looknup any stats you want and ridership numbers in the US are 11th place in most categories against the world.

I recommend you read up on it there are lots of things that have handcuffed public transportation in the US between the years of 1946 up until the 2000's and they are still playing catch up.

I recommend you read The Great American Transit Disaster by my professer I had when I got my PhD in Urban Studies at McGill University and worked for the Canadian goverment researching such topics for 15 years.

If you think that public transit is better in North America than Western Europe or even Japan you are sadly misinformed as it is not as efficient, well run, as frequent or government support as other countries have.

Not saying there aren't a few cities that are exceptions but outside tne NEC and Chicagoland Areas there is not much. So if ypu look at the country as a whole

New Yorks is great but Los Angeles has a garbage public transit system compared to it. It seem the farther west you go the worse it is.

Anyone from LA will tell you you need a car to get around New Yorkers don't.

You should go visit and see for yourself.

And its already proven that simulators are bigger and sell more in Europe as well in a thread we had a few years ago.

The player numbers don't lie.

But there is a good question for the next Q and A. What continent has the most player base?

 

I'm waiting for an announcement of a TSW 2 remaster or a remake—I've lost track of things in this industry.

 

My gut is telling me that DTG could announce something on their socials today, as it is exactly 7 days until the direct begins.

maybe, like TSW6, we could get some sort of message in the hashtag.

Last year was #expecttheunexpected, which hinted at random faults and events in the timetable


What could this year be?

 

Now if we get a cryptic image with what appears to be a Class 26, blended into an Alco, blended into a V200 I might revise my stance on not paying £70 for the Deluxe Pack. Or maybe the cryptic image will be a single handle, standing proud… ooo er, missus.

 

Probably they’ll stick with their current look and it’ll be a plague of black squares covering various cab buttons etc.

 

nice *tips brim of hat*

 

If any of the teasers contain a Class 390, Birmingham, Crewe or Preston stations. I'm going to bed with the hump.

 

Say a seven-digit number

 

This seems like prime real estate for a game of bingo. Does anyone who uses AI slop want to get it to do that for us?

 

I haven't said word one comparing U.S. to UK (or European) public transit, so I don't know where all this is coming from. I'm saying the claim of a "lack of public transport" in the U.S. is ridiculous.

I think that an us vs them comparison is pretty apples and oranges anyway, as these are completely different countries with different cultures and needs that have grown their own transit systems to meet those needs.

 

There's a huge culture difference between the UK and most mainland European countries too. Most small cities across the Channel have tram and/or metro systems.

If you come to the South East of the UK you'd be in awe at how many different modes of public transport options there are, likewise a big cities around the UK, but in between those cities there are large towns without railway lines, small towns and villages that have bus services that run so infrequently that anyone who can will use their car. That's before I mention how expensive public transport is. It used to be a cheap way of getting around the country, now it's a baffling mess of ticket terms and conditions and a trigger-happy penalty procedure. Passengers should not have to be experts on ticket rules and regs, but that's the attitude of most rail operators.

It ain't perfect here and we're in no position to be lecturing other countries on their public transport systems.

 

What if it's Tinsley Yard and a Class 13 shunter?
Will you still go to bed with the hump then?
Cos if you do then none of the rest of us will be able to use the route

 

TSS video is coming soon, about the leaks and speculation around TSW7.

Im featured quite a lot in this

Most of my messages are the scaffolding for this upcoming video, and i trust TSS, that itll be explained well.

 

Is that a hint that we can expect a 'Pole to Pole' route with TSW7?
If so then that really is expecting the unexpected

 

More steam DB stuff, this message might end up deleted.

the total number of DLC packages for this is 167.
there are 159 in TSW6 already.

That leaves 9 DLC packages.
3 routes, 3 deluxe locos for TSW7.

That leaves 3, maybe 4 counting Tadami, for releases after TSW7s launch.


CHECKMATE!

 

Class 70, Cumbrian Coast, maybe that route by FolezzWorld

 

VIDEO IS OUT

 

That HIS US short line freight route.

 

the 420 (joking, tsw will move to ue5 before the 420 comes out. and this game will never be ue5)

 

One of my main memories from history class was the rapid expansion of Interstates during the Federal Aid Highway Act and how it pretty much killed off train transportation (significantly more than airplanes did/would do). As I got older, I learned how much automobile and oil companies impacted lobbying for it. So I think a lot of people don’t take into account just how much interstates ruined train traffic (amongst the negatives to other parts of society).

I grew up in town that had a decent sized train station back before the 1960s on the Northeast Corridor. The more I’ve researched, I was shocked just how much rail and physical tracks were removed that fed off of the NEC where trains could go through central NJ and stretch to additional towns. Thats why there are so many “junction” towns and old depot buildings with no tracks anywhere near them anymore.

Now we do have plenty of rail enthusiasts in the US and that number is growing because of all of the people that now want high speed rail across the country, but we’ve been a driving country for over 60 years now so it’s not surprised our public transit percentage is much lower.

Oh, I also learned how much Robert Moses ruined NYC (and Penn Station mind you, with some help from Penn Central) and if you’ve ever had to drive through Manhattan or the Bronx, that gets proven more and more every day.

 

And the German steam route.

 

What if it's like TSW 5? We then only got two loco DLC's, with Cajon Pass as an extra in the deluxe to supplement San Bernardino. That would free up yet an extra slot

 

Why is Dovetail Direct at 9pm UK time thats very late ridiculous time

 

Here in Switzerland, Dovetail Direct shows at the bottom left that it starts at 7.00 pm.
Something can’t be right there.

 

nope that's right, the countdown begins then but doesnt truly begin until 3 hours after that.