The Editor. No, Not The Scenario Editor.

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Timmiej93, Aug 26, 2020.

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  1. Timmiej93

    Timmiej93 Member

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    I haven't played TS in a while, and haven't been keeping up with all the news and streams, so I may be out of date.

    Way back when, Matt once said that the editor for TSW (I believe it still was the original back then) would be released to the public some day. Now we've had TSW2020, and TSW2, and I haven't heard anything about the editor in a long, long time. I think I remember that the reason for not releasing it yet back then was that the editor was 'unfinished'. The scenario editor in TSW is an absolute joke, it's just a more limited and slower-to-setup version of Quick Drive. Absolutely no replacement for a proper editor (I know the scenario editor might get updated, but even then, it'll always be the same as an Apple product: Limited, but safe. You can't do anything wrong, because you can't do much. The scenario editor will never be a replacement for the real editor, even just for scenario design)

    Why can't the editor just be released as it is? DTG surely seems to be able to use it to make plenty of routes, how unfinished can it be? I mean, those who will use the editor, are used to the editor from the original TS, which was horrible at best, both UI- and performance-wise.

    Honestly, it's starting to feel like DTG is simply withholding the editor to prevent payware or freeware routes coming out before they get a chance to do so, or to prevent their products from looking bad in comparison. And to be honest, it's working. In TS I rarely bought any routes, I always played freeware routes (to be fair, I was a lot younger back then). By now, I've spent hundreds on TSW.
    To be clear: I'm not blaming them, or accusing them of doing so. It's their stuff, they get to decide what to do, but it does feel very strange to me.

    I think there's many people who would love some clarity about the editor. Is it coming? Will it be free (I wouldn't put it above DTG to make it subscription based...)? Why hasn't it been released yet, even though it seems to be capable of making some lovely looking routes?

    Any reason like "it's not polished enough", or "there's no documentation" is a non-argument. The TS editor was horrible in many, many ways, and we all used that too, I probably enjoyed making a route more than driving routes, despite the crashes and endless searching for objects. The people who would use the editor are not your general public, they don't care about everything being polished, finished, and perfect, they care about making something custom, something of their own. Please give us that option, soon.

    Note: If anything has been made public about the editor recently, I'm not aware of it. I've tried searching, but due to the new scenario editor coming out, it's hard to find info about the main editor. Links or information that I've missed would be very much appreciated.
     
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  2. Trooper117

    Trooper117 Active Member

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    It's not going to be made available for the general TSW user/game player...
     
  3. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    No editor for TSW. From what I can gather there are difficulties between DTG and Epic about releasing a modified Unreal editor to the public, and therefore it’s never coming out. There may be other reasons as well but I think that’s the big one.
     
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  4. SamYeager270

    SamYeager270 Well-Known Member

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    The really, really big problem was intellectual property (IP) along with cooked assets. Out of the box the UE4 editor requires access to the source versions of all the relevant assets used in TSW. This would effectively mean DTG would be giving away all their unique IP and that was just never going to happen.

    The editor produces optimised versions of the source which are known as cooked assets for distribution to customers These cooked assets are much smaller than the original source and crucially, preserve DTG's IP. DTG were then trying to modify the UE4 editor so that it could work with the cooked assets that we receive when we puchase DLC. Although DTG had made some progress with these modications I strongly suspect that these efforts were eventually unsuccessful and/or would expose too much IP. Whatever the reason it seems DTG has now given up on these attempts.
     
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  5. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    Following on from what SamYaeger270 said, Sam was asked about this in the Arosa (TS1) stream last night.
    At 1:00:10 - "I haven't answered the editor question for ages... Train Sim World does not have a full editor, and the reasons are multi-part...
    Its one part technical, one part legal, one part commercial. The upshot is, every step we've taken forward with the editor for public consumption, we've taken 2 steps back as we've discovered more problems. So we've decided not to pursue that any more."

    He also talked about legal issues with sharing liveries at 31:50 in the same video.
     
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  6. Timmiej93

    Timmiej93 Member

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    Thanks for the info guys. This just made this game a whole lot less interesting, sadly. By far the best part of TS for me was the ability to create your own scenarios and routes.I guess now we're down to hoping they make a decent scenario editor one day then.
     
  7. CC Johnson

    CC Johnson Active Member

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    What a shame.
    While I agree with you on the routes part (though I tried that in TS and gave up after a while because it is sooo much work), I am hopeful that the scenario planner will be improved time and again until most of the functions are there that we know from TS.
     
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  8. SamYeager270

    SamYeager270 Well-Known Member

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    This was probably another issue. The TSW editor that DTG use is essentially a modified version of the standard UE4 editor which is quite complex i.e. far more complex than the TS editor. Although are many who would not have had a problem with that complexity they are vastly outnumbered by those who just want to create scenarios for which the TSW editor is overkill.
     
  9. stinkyheadsman

    stinkyheadsman Member

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    The editor IS NOT COMING. DTG made the promise, but it isnt coming nonetheless. Bureaucracy at its best.
     
  10. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    I would imagine that most of the TSW and TSW2 players graduated through the original TSxxxx game. The two big misses with TSW are a) the length of the routes and b) the lack of an editor. Those misses are enough, at least in my opinion, to ensure that TSW never rivals the older game in popularity.

    Yes the graphics are better and its arguable that TSW allows more complex operation. If DTG aren’t going to come up with an editor then they need to look at what other feature(s) they can offer in compensation. Even the difference between TSW and TSW2 are pretty minimal. Most people wouldn’t be able to differentiate between them.
     
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  11. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    Its weird, but I'm not bothered by the route length. Maybe I've got a short attention span, but services and scenarios of up to an hour are about long enough for me.
     
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  12. CC Johnson

    CC Johnson Active Member

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    I'm almost sure you're wrong here.
    The graduation from TS to TSW and now 2 on PC is probably mostly true.
    But what you're totally forgetting is that it has been hinted several times now that PC users are, for this game, in the minority. It seems that through the publishing on consoles the user base has increased by a lot.

    Also, looking at TS routes and their new counterparts, it's not just the graphics. There is much more detail. Which takes work. That's why the routes are shorter. But honestly, and I'm probably not alone in this, I think most route lengths are fine. I never got why anyone wants to spend so much time on a single drive. But sure, to each his own. Only thing is, I imagine that most users, especially newer ones, are fine with the lengths, too.

    What bothers me, and that would help people that like longer drives, too, is that when there's two dlcs like RSN and RRO that share one end point, that they don't just give us a combined version with a comprehensive service mode, too. I'd even pay a little extra for that.
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2020
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  13. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    Yes, consoles will have added to the User Base but I doubt that the size of the base is anything like TSxxxx had. If most users are new, which is a positive, the opposite view is that is suggests a marketing fail of epic proportions in not converting more of DTG’s legacy base to the new game.

    The longer routes, with the editor in TSxxxx gave users almost unlimited options in what they did or where they went in the game. In fact, up until the 64 bit upgrade the only real limitation was memory. With TSW you are limited to services and scenarios. There are limited options in the equipment you can use. It’s a very different game.

    DTG knew what made the old game popular with its users, but then went down a totally different route. Maybe that was the intention. But in route length the number of iconic routes, that are around 30-50 miles, is limited. That’s going to be an issue going forward.
     

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