The overall biggest reason why it's like this is simply because of time and money, but there's a whole lot more to it than just that. Longer routes obviously means that more time is spent on recreating the scenery and making it look just about right. The route artists also have to make the stations and various other route assets...stuff like special landmarks and buildings. Things like this consume a lot of time, so there has to be a point where DTG has to decide what would be a natural end point for a route, whether it be a big terminal or an intermediate station. If they can make the route from end to end, then that's great! Bakerloo is a complete route, and so is Penninsula Corridor (technically it isn't, but there aren't many trains that go past San Jose anyways). Otherwise, what feels like a good middle point? On GWE, this would be Reading station, which is a rather large station along the route, and feels natural to end there. It's worth mentioning that in TSW, the map is loaded in via a tile system (as the player moves in the game world, a large square chunk of scenery is loaded and unloaded depending on where that player is). In theory this means that the game world can be a million miles/kilometers wide, and your system should be able to handle it just fine. Longer routes don't mean worst performance. They also have to factor in how long a player would end up playing for. Generally, most people who play TSW tend to play it for around 30 minutes to an hour. Of course you can play for longer, but on average, that's how long most people sit down for a single play session. A service can last for 20 minutes, some can last past 90 minutes or even 2 hours. But the vast majority of services are somewhere in between, and this is to accommodate for how long a player is willing to sit down for in a single play session. Not everyone is going to be playing for more than a few hours. The save function should make this problem negligible...buuuuuuuut the save function in TSW isn't exactly perfect anyways.. I'm sure they don't like short routes anymore than you and I do. Given the time and resources, anything can be done. But for the most part, long and boring routes don't sell as much as shorter, but more fun routes!
Yes , it is intentional. There is no technical limit, but a financial one. They simply have a budget and need to stick to the budget and they just try to potimize gameplay variety withing the budget.
Historically we have had routes that operate over far longer distances, and there's no technology intrinsic to Train Sim World that prevents us from doing the same. However, there are two main facts that mean that while it may sound desirable to have much longer routes, it's not necessarily the right approach. The first is that more time may be required to create a longer route. Not in itself a dealbreaker, but it would result in a compromise between the route length and the amount of gameplay within it (more on this below) if we're to complete route-building within an acceptable timeframe. The second is that over the course of both Train Simulator and Train Sim World we've learned that the average player session ranges between 20 and 35 minutes in length. The number of players attempting longer scenarios and services is significantly lower than the number who stick to shorter experiences. We want to get the balance right between length of experience and desirability to play which is why our routes are the length they are. Every kilometer of track takes time to create, the more going on in that kilometer, the longer it takes with stations and other gameplay-oriented areas taking significantly more time. Will we do longer routes? Certainly. As our backend tools continue to evolve more options open up to us. Our focus, however, will always be on the most rewarding play experience on a given line.
Thanks for the answer, I hope that if for example the ECML (wink wink) is considered, it would be a longer portion of track than a 30 minute drive. For the sake of the die-hard rail fans aswell as the casual SPAD-er. If I gave you my kidneys would that pay for that development time?
