The Implications Of Recent Events

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Cael, Jul 24, 2021.

  1. Cael

    Cael Well-Known Member

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    The events of this week have left me more dismayed than I've thought they would, so I'm trying to put my feelings into words in (vain) hope they will be of some use. Please note English is not my first language, so there may be errors in this text.

    I'm sure everyone by now knows of the Rush Hour price increase, the staggered release, and the Dresden - Riesa reduction. There are however some more concerning implications raised by the recent streams in regards to the future of Train Sim World.

    In one of the recent streams, it was revealed that most played scenarios were on average 25 minutes long. The immediate answer to this would be in regards to attention span. But is it even real to have longer scenarios? It would be possible, but the save system is still not 100% functional and still holds only one slot. This has resulted in many people, including me, not using the save functionality at all. My saved file holds one of the Sand Patch Grade scenarios, almost 2 hours in. The scenario cannot be completed due to a permanent red signal that occurs after reloading. The only surefire method to complete the 120-minute scenario is to do it whole in one sitting.
    Also, the scenarios have drastically fallen in quality and originality recently. If I compare two German routes, I have Ruhr Sieg Nord scenarios:
    Storm Trail - passenger service in a storm that disrupts the line, I remember a fallen tree across the track
    Heavy Metal - heavy freight train in a stormy, pitch-black night. You drive a short distance before letting a passenger train through, then follow in on yellows/red, then there are problems on the line and you are diverted onto a wrong way track.
    On the other hand, in Hamburg - Lübeck, I have:
    New to the Area - prepared train, straightforward run. The only difference from Timetable mode is looser arrival times.
    Bargteheide Return - pretty much two Timetable services stringed together into an A-B-A scenario.

    I've migrated to Train Sim World in 2018 from the old Microsoft Train SImulator because it was barely running on Windows 10. There are two ginormous Czech route networks that have 1955 and 1935 kilometers in total length. On one of these, I remember two GREAT scenarios. One was a 10-hour scenario showcasing much of the network by simulating a quite funny fictive hell of a day with switching, rerouting due to a bomb scare, changing a train due to a colleague not arriving at work, etc.
    The other memorable scenario called "Night shift" is a varied 12-hour scenario simulating a complete shift of a freight train driver.
    Both of these were possible to complete and enjoy thanks to a working save system.

    Now let's look into the Dresden - Riesa issue. The reason given on stream was that they are unable to complete the full route in the given time slot reserved for this route. A lot of players were very disappointed by this change because the route was supposed to be the first German network route with a plethora of content and was considered by many players as the right step forward to more complex operations. But now this decision has been made and while DTG says they hear us, the decision has been made with the "take it or leave it" attitude.

    When this all recent info is put together, however, it implies a very concerning question.

    What if Train Sim World is already the best it can be?

    What do I mean by this?
    Each package has allotted development time it can be worked on. Longer and more complex routes mean fewer trains, more trains mean shorter work time done on the route. And what's worse, there is no easy solution.
    More people on the team? This would only mean we would get more content packages faster as the production costs would rise due to more salaries.
    Higher package price? The 30€ price tag on routes is already pushing and I'm pretty damn sure DTG has this very well calculated - a higher price would mean fewer sales, possibly generating less profit and becoming unfeasible.

    Coupled together with the 25-minute scenarios and the long-running save game issue, this seems to imply that 30-60 minute A to B routes is all we are getting in the future. With some small networks like Cathcart thrown in occasionally.

    I would love to be wrong here, I would love to see longer routes, more complex routes, networks. But there is currently no way to achieve this as far as I can see.
    During the Train Sim World 2 days, new and more effective tools were mentioned a couple of times, that would aid in more efficient route creation. This is also part of the large disappointment with Dresden - Riesa. With these tools, we thought it was possible to have the original promised route, including the branches.

    I hope that one day in the future, it will be possible to do more with TSW. Merge routes into networks. Create custom scenarios, with more content than "Drive this predefined route from A to B" (Scenario Planner 2.0?).

    But is there a slot for this in the current time budget constraints that were revealed on the Q&A stream? Does DTG see this as fiscally interesting and thus dedicate resources into researching a solution?
    Or are visually impressive A to B routes with half-baked features like Mastery all we are getting?
    Only time will tell.

    Until then, I will be watching.
     
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  2. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    Great Post! This is definitely a new view point to the issue at hand, while being almost diametrically opposed to my post I found it very interesting and is definitely something that could be looked at more.

    DTG has said the average gaming session for TSW was ~45m/1h long IIRC, but is that due to the player's attention span/free time at hand, or is it caused by the fact that usually one scenario or timetable journey is about exactly that lenght? I don't want to speculate anything because I don't have the data at hand or the knowdlege to interpret them TBH.

    Anyway, I think this argument is not entirely correct, because we have seen (at least somewhat) a push into making "self contained" routes where it's possible to simulate an entire shift, or feature something "more" than just A-B, for example, HHL is self contained, CRR is all about the branches, and older routes that allow for that kind of gameplay are very highly praised (for that exact reason), think of ECW (mainly the Seaford branch) and at least somewhat RSN.

    It's also one of the selling point for BML (self contained) and NEC, where trains turn around in Boston.
     
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  3. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    What’s sad is those who genuinely care about the game have to go online to apologise for the mistakes made by more senior members of Dtg.
     
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  4. rpeterbroughlowe

    rpeterbroughlowe Active Member

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    It's ironic that the success of the DTG business model has put them into a corner which they might struggle to get out of without serious re-organization.
     
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  5. thatleedsguy#8590

    thatleedsguy#8590 Active Member

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    Just to note something about the price increase...
    I found it very hard to believe we'd get 3 routes for £24.99, so the increase didn't surprise me.

    If you think about what keeping the £24.99 price tag would imply about other content, then it's not too much of a problem.
    The usual price of a DLC is £24.99...for ONE. Getting 3 for the price of one would tick off far more people across the board.
    I paid for Cathcart a month or so prior at full price. I got 20 miles (I believe) and one train for £24.99.

    But 3 routes, with 130+ miles of route and 9 trains in total...for £24.99?! No way could they ever charge that. The price increase should have been there from the start. If it had been, nobody would be upset. It wasn't there from the start, so you have the right to be upset about it. But to think that £34.99 is a bad price for Rush Hour is honestly quite daft.

    We know that DTG will charge £24.99 for each of the Rush Hour routes separately. If you paid for all 3 separately, you'd be slapping down £75.

    It makes sense to charge £35 for Rush Hour as a package. Why they didn't set the price this way to begin with is beyond me, but I don't see that price as a problem.

    The part that IS a problem, in my opinion, is what's happened to Dresda. If they fixed that by delaying the release of Dresda, then there wouldn't be much of an issue.

    All this to say: The price increase makes sense. The cutting of Dresda's branches does not.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2021
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  6. Cael

    Cael Well-Known Member

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    By the "package price" in the original post I mean one route + associated trains. One "experience". I don't know how else to call this, since just "route" doesn't always cut it - some routes contain new trains that influence the development cost, some have the same trains with some/none polish.

    Rush Hour Season Ticket falls outside of these definitions since it IS a good value for money compared to other offers on the store.
     
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  7. robbo2k

    robbo2k Member

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    In my opinion, we always got new TSW with 3 routes for the price of "one" route. So it was with TSW2020, so it was with TSW2. The increase will only cause that nobody will buy routes. Rush Hour could come out as TSW3 for the price of one tour. In my opinion, the only salvation for DTG is the solution from Flight Simulator and generating routes automatically, e.g. from CabView and only manual correction. Simrail 2021 will spend 500 km of routes that have been blackened directly from a real simulator for train drivers.
     
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  8. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    I’ve been exploring ts21 now which really when tsw is graphically superior I shouldn’t need to
     
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  9. AhhCaffeine

    AhhCaffeine Member

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    Look, the thing is that I was really saddened when I heard about the message from BRD. I felt the same way, the same way about the network-y feeling and everything, having the IC(E), RE's, RB's and S-Bahn's all on one map and being able to simulate a shift by just jumping into timetable mode, taking over a train, driving as far as you want and getting out into the next train and taking over that one again going to a totally different place.

    The fact that they wanted to do that means that it has to be achievable with the available technology, so the only thing stopping them was time (and maybe money), which in the end made them make the decision to cut out these two branches. I suppose if we, as the community, keep pushing and maybe keep asking (friendly, not in a raging, toxic way) for what we want, they would think about it and might be pushing back another planned project to give the community an updated version of BRD in the future (something along the lines of 3-4 months) with the branches that we all so dearly wish for, redirecting the resources to this one line instead of just carrying on with another new line, as I do think it would bring them in some additional money from people like me, who will wait for updates on BRD until they spend their money on it. I hope, and I really think, that DTG managers that took this decision also realized that it was a mistake, taking away from us what we all were thinking of as the right step for TSW2.

    I might also sound like a complete clown if I say "they might listen to us", so prove me wrong \_(ツ)_/¯
     
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  10. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    It's simple: price increase, or the dead-end Cael forecast. His logic is inexorable: DTG cannot develop bigger, better routes at the existing price point. Instead they have been quietly dealing with rising costs via shrinkflation: each route used to come with three new locos, now we're lucky to get one.

    I had really thought, not all that long ago, that Clinchfield was a breakthrough route, the way of the future; now I am not at all optimistic.
     
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  11. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    For me the disappointing thing was not the price increase or route cut in itself it was the fact they had already announced it differently. I think some might lose trust in DTG when they announce things only to change them further down the road.

    If RH is good and the routes good I'm sure most of this will be forgotten but as Cael said 'we will be watching'.
     
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  12. thatleedsguy#8590

    thatleedsguy#8590 Active Member

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    Reiterating what I said in a few other threads- I would like to see them listen to the playerbase on this matter. In all honesty, I don't know what DTG will do next.

    It did seem like the team wanted to give us everything they promised from Dresda. I don't think DTG writes these plans in order to fail. I think they try to squeeze as much as possible into every release. But given the time and money constraints that were cited to be the issue, I think DTG should look at their strategy as far as development goes.

    I think we should keep pushing for Dresda to be fully realised as it was set out in the plan. In a friendly and respectful manner, naturally. The price increase...we should just forget about that. It'll be worth the price of admission the moment Dresda is sorted.
     
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  13. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    Could it have been possible that the Devs at DTG were shafted by the Bean counters with the Epic store thing? I mean, everything was going great untill the Bean Counters said the Devs had to concentrate on the Epic store with the updated version so crucial Devs working on RH were reassigned and then it was realised there would be a delay?

    I have no idea if that was the case and is pure speculation but could of it happened like that?
     
  14. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    The reason was explained on the stream - it has nothing to do with Epic as the people working on that were none of the people who work on Rush Hour - do it or not do it, there would be no difference here. In fact, we had an external development agency helping on Epic specifically to avoid any impact to Rush Hour from it.

    Simply put, as it was outlined on the stream, for various reasons the original estimates which made it look like it was all achievable were found to be woefully wrong as development progressed in a relatively large way. This led to the lengthy difficult discussions that ended up where we are now. Why the estimates were wrong - various reasons, doesn't really matter (other than that we're learning from it and putting in place better processes so this doesn't happen again), simple fact is they were wrong by a country mile in some cases and that's where the root of the problem started.

    Matt.
     
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  15. bakedpotatos.jm

    bakedpotatos.jm Well-Known Member

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    Perfectly stated Matt. It's not like you personally had final say over the situation and I'm sure it was a painful decision for the staff at DTG. But in the end it is what it is and we will all live and deal with it.

    Its as you and Sam have said many times you guys dream big and sometimes the vision is just too big to accomplish.

    That just proves you guys want to give us the best you can and your ambitions are the same as the majority of us in the community.

    I love this game and everything I have purchased for it I am pleased with. Do not regret a thing. Keep up the good work.

    P.S. where the heck did all this stuff about you being replaced or retiring and Sam being a pensioner come from. I thought you had said this was your dream job and both you and Sam look to young to retire. So I'll just chalk it up as rumors.
     
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  16. Sheldon1000

    Sheldon1000 Well-Known Member

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    My issue in all this is they say "that time slots are allocated for each project." Right so how about the bosses allocated more time to their biggest release of the year? It really shows how the upper management at DTG see their product. Nothing more than a way to make money. The biggest release of the year and they can't allocate more time to get it right and to complete what they already announced to the public? Something just doesn't seem right about all this. Something is brewing with DTG.
     
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  17. bakedpotatos.jm

    bakedpotatos.jm Well-Known Member

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    Its called being ambitious, unfortunately what they want to give the "bean counters" upstairs have the final say on those issues. They do have a set budget and a set amount of releases to bring out to achieve this. Of course its about money they are a business, the very definition is to make money. Otherwise we wouldn't have had this game for this long. They would of packed it up and ramped up TS20XX.

    If they had not been so ambitious and spilled the beans too early, say they announced RH around the same date as they did TSW 2 20th of Jun. They would have realized all three.

    They wouldn't be able to bring it out all three at the same time.

    They need to charge more than last years package and hey 65% three routes is still a great deal.

    And that they dreamt to big for the Dresden route and instead of being able to give a new German route experience we will just get a standard one.

    Now if they just announced the title of the next update as Rush Hour more details to come, instead of buckling under the pressure from this "community" to give them some exact details right now, before they were even 40% done and 100% sure we would have no knowledge of anything being taken away.

    And nobody would of batted an eye at anything they announced last week.

    So from now on they just need to keep us in the dark until they are 100% sure its going to happen and this "community" can wait.

    There is no conspiracy.

    And Community is in quotations because it's more like a family. At least its as dysfunctional as one ;)
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2021
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  18. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    Looking through the routes there are a lot of longer scenarios of 1 hour plus so yes there can be and certainly are longer ones.

    I suspect Unreal and memory usage of consoles is probably the biggest issue. In PC land if we want to use more RAM we go out and buy more RAM, its simply not a big deal but its very different in console land. Unreal also uses loads more memory to represent the route than TS ever did and that is because it provides the great graphic detail we love. Clinchfield and Cathcart give us an idea of what is possible within the constraints. Both of them have some pretty cool scenarios and some decent runs with decent complexity and really nice scenery. This might change as as we draw into the high end and low end market with the next gen consoles getting their own versions. As the balance of player numbers shift from old consoles to new consoles so will the money. This might eventually enable DTG to drop the old consoles or produce for them still with limitations.

    Paul
     
  19. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    I don't think "old consoles" are the limiting factor at all. It's developer time, and the amount of it which DTG allocate to a route project- which is inadequate, at least to build the kind of routes we want. It seems that to build BRD properly it would have taken a lot more dev hours = money, and therefore it could only happen if it were to sell for more than 25 quid.

    Which I'm fine with. I think budgeting to a higher price point is the only way by which DTG will be able to improve the product, else we'll be stuck with Hamburg-Lubecks forever.
     
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  20. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    While that's partly true, I think even in that case Riesa-Dresden would still have been wearily dismissed as "just another A-B German route with no new rolling stock. Yawn."
     
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  21. Cael

    Cael Well-Known Member

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    RAM usage should not be an issue. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, but Unreal only holds active content in RAM and unloads the rest. This means, if you start in Glasgow for example, you have Glasgow in your RAM... but not Neilston. That gets loaded once you get closer. And at the same time, assets behind you would get unloaded. This is a simplification of course, not taking into account line of sight, LODs, and so on.

    But if you want to play a longer scenario, you have to do it in one sitting or play the save game roulette, to find out later if the saved state restored properly or something has gone wrong and prevents you from completing the scenario.
     
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  22. Cael

    Cael Well-Known Member

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    This is why I'm actually happy with the EGS release. Train simulators are a niche genre and this way, DTG can reach a wider audience, possibly generating more sales.

    And "more sales" is probably the only available way to get better content as it could translate into a bigger budget per product.
     
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  23. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    Developer time is certainly an issue, but machine resources are also very likely an issue. There's not just RAM they have to store the files too and if you haven't noticed the paks for this game are pretty big.
     
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  24. pinxtonpaws

    pinxtonpaws Guest

    I think that's a little unfair. As examples, LGV and SEHS may have only three trains between them the A>B routes are considerably longer than usual (and definately longer than pretty much everything from TSW2020) so that, alongside the ability to add in already owned trains for the variety element, strikes me as being a very fair trade off and not something you could realistically categorise as "shrinkflation".

    As for price, well it has always my firm belief that the £11.99 and £24.99 figures we are currently paying for addons is way, way too expensive for what we get. Whilst a lot of other developers create addons/expansions in such a way to entice users into making a purchase to get a return on their product DTG instead choose to approach things in such a way that their content will never appeal to anyone other than the niche audience it is aimed at. Sure, lot of work goes into creating this content but, you know, a lot of work goes into creating content for ANY game. Saber interactive put a massive amount of work into their bargain priced year one (and subsequently year 2) pass for Snowrunner and back in the day SMS put equal amounts of effort into developing ultra cheap content for Project cars. A couple of examples of how small teams on tight budgets chose to develop a niche game in such a way that it creates greater appeal to a wider audience as opposed to the DTG path of creating a "not worth the price" or "wait for sale" culture within their product.

    Just to point out: This isn't a rant, it's just alternative viewpoint from a 'take it or leave it' casual gamer perspective.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 26, 2021
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  25. lukereynolds1

    lukereynolds1 Well-Known Member

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    I agree with you about the scenario quality going down. There have been some really interesting and engaging scenarios in the past. The success of the scenarios is to do something completely different and unusual. However, now there seems to be some boring, generic scenarios that contain nothing new or different than what could be achieved in service mode. For example, "drive this service in the snow", now "drive in the dark".
     
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  26. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    I don't think by any stretch the prices are "way too expensive for what we get". As explained by Devs on this and other threads the time taken to make TSW content is very much larger than you might expect.

    As Matt said above, even inside DTG development took much longer (and hence costs more) than they were expecting.

    I think the good news here is that over time computer power doubles every 18 months, and this means both development and player power will increase shortening development time and raising the ceiling for RAM, storage and processing. Xo it is good that we are already pushing the envelope, that this increase in power cannot come soon enough, that plans have to be downscaled to what is currently feasible. I would be worried if it did not, because the opposite would be unused capacity and power and a shortage of ideas.

    I think that if you went back in time 20 years and saw TSW you would be absolutely in awe. I remember seeing the first video preview for CSX Heavy Haul and feeling like that, and that was just 5 years ago.

    The future path for TSW is there, once power increases meaning it doesn't take weeks to bake in light for the airport station, the tools for making auto-generated content drastically improve, rendering of shadows improves etc and so on. Also once our RAM isn't 8 or 16GB but 128GB with terrabytes for storage on SSDs as standard.

    The key for me is patience and careful pushing of the envelope of what is achievable, using optimisation, new dev tools, new ways of updating and storing the content in a more efficient way. A lot of these items already appear on the roadmap.

    The perfect future for me is something with the breadth and scale of TS and the fidelity and beauty of TSW.
     
  27. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I agree with the op as well. I noticed as well scenarios in tsw2 compared to 2020 (preserved collection) are more boring and less engaging or appealing in my opinion. The Scenarios in sehs for example are ones I haven't played because frankly they aren't interesting and watching class 465 scenarios on youtube only locks in my opinion even more which is a shame. Alot of the scenarios seem to be "drive this service in the snow, drive this service at night then take it back to depot, drive this service from a to b and back to a." Scenarios that can be replicated in the timetable mode. I am curious as to why this became the case recently.

    The whole point of scenarios in my opinion is for out of ordinary things to happen which will catch you off guard. Things that you wouldn't normally see happening in the timetable mode but alot of scenarios are things that can be done in service mode.
     
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  28. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Well, I don't know what universe you are living in but where I am the price of a route ($30) just about buys me a haircut or a tank of gas. I suppose it could be even less expensive if the cost of development were spread out over hundreds of thousands of buyers. But we have to recognize that this hobby is shared by a relatively tiny customer base and, if we want TSW to continue, we have to pay a little bit more than your average Hidden Objects game. Saying that the prices are " way, way too expensive " is, in my view, way, way too shortsighted.
     
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  29. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    With the greatest of respect, not everyone watches the streams.
     
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  30. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    The way I see it is tsw2 isn't expensive for me but compared to what you get for some dlc's compared too other games, tsw2 isn't that great of a value for the money in gaming. Sometimes we may get a dlc with one train with pretty generic scenarios. We may get an extra train in a base route but it's bascially a similar train already in game with a different paint job and some minor improvements that a casual wouldn't really notice.

    Yes developing games is no easy task and yes tsw2 is a complex game to develop but the end product dtg releases doesn't always justify the price imo. Is lgv a route for example that is worth $30. Well when services can be completed in 30 minutes or less despite it being 57 miles long and with only one train it's not worth $30 in my opinion. Compare that to other games at a similar or lower price point by smaller devs such as SCS with American Truck Simulator or Euro Truck Simulator offer much more content and larger maps at a lower cost. Now there are games that cost more than tsw2, but they tend to have more content compared to this game that justifies the price. There are more complex games that offer more value for your buck compared to recent tsw2 dlc's imo

    (This is my opinion and your views may differ but please don't maul my opinion like how the rats in A Plague Tale: Innocence maul people lol.)
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2021
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  31. traingeek241

    traingeek241 Member

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    The scenarios are pointless in my opinion. I've only really played the scenarios on ECW, SEHS and they're no different to timetable services. I remember on TS 2012 on the Brighton Main Line there were loads of variety of scenarios.
     
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  32. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    But look at Run 8, they can provide fully functioning locomotives multiple liveries in various road appropriate configs for 20 bucks. That same amount from DTG gets you a engine with only basic and half baked functionality, often times will be off with various details, and one basic repaint if you're lucky. Run 8 can provide what they do with only a fraction of the player base DTG has, so I have a hard time believe DTG can't do better.
     
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  33. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    The problem with comparisons to ETS/USTS is that they sell roughly 8-10 times better than TSW. Trucks are simply more popular than trains, and therefore trucks will generate many times more revenue for the same development cost.

    Train simming is a niche market, and like all niche products will be rather pricier than mass-market products. Shooters and action-adventure titles can count on making mere pennies profit per sale because their volume will generate huge profits- videogames with digital distribution are a case where incremental sales increases don't come with concomitant production cost increases, because distribution costs effectively nothing.
     
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  34. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    I don't think you can really compare Run 8's barely adequate graphics, almost MSTS-level. A heckuva lot of development savings when you don't mind looking like a PS2 game..
     
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  35. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    Routes sure, but the actual engines look fine from what I've seen, any differences graphically are more due to things like lighting, not so much the actual modeling. Same could be said of things like Smokebox's Big Boy or the various engines made by Bossman, they're still wonderfully modeled, they just don't have the lighting to make them shine like TSW's locos do.
     
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  36. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    In terms of the gaming market as a whole though, it is a fair comparison. While yes a game may have more players, the content they release can at times have much more content and have a better value than this game and better graphics and more features at a lower cost. Sure a game may have more players but some are niche products that offer more value for your buck. ATS is a niche product for example and also it's a PC only game. Games can also attract newer players to expand their playerbase by advertising their game alot to reach an audience that may have never heard of before.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2021
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  37. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    There are niches and niches. ETS/USTS, again has roughly 8-10 times the sales volume of TSW. Ergo, they can invest more in development, charge less per copy, and still recoup far more in profit.
     
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  38. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    And yet a $30 route can still offer less content compared to other routes and games despite costing more. How ironic
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2021
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  39. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    Remember it is a digital good, so all the cost is in the first copy, you can make an extra million copies free of charge. Each extra sale is pure profit, so the difference in sales makes a huge difference in what you can afford to spend. As long as that money gets reinvested you can grow, but again the larger the sales the larger the future growth can be.

    I think I asked on the last stream when they said DTG are always hiring, is that growth in development numbers or replacing people who are leaving. I would love to see the team get bigger but the playerbase needs to get bigger first.
     
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  40. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    It's pretty basic: your sales revenue has to cover your production costs. That's an irreducible minimum. Nobody is in business to lose money. Maik Goetz has said that at current pricing, the two-man TSG will need four years' worth of decent sales to cover the cost of making one loco. As Mr JMB points out, more sales = more profit... and that's pure profit in the software world. Hence an outfit like SCS can afford to pour far more developer time into a DLC, knowing their sales numbers will cover it. DTG, plainly, can't: the accountants ran the numbers and determined that the cost of putting out BRD as originally advertised would overrun its sales revenue and lose money.

    The answer, of course, is to raise prices (with all the attendant forum whingeing). But do have some perspective: even at 35 pounds that's still just a tank of gas or a modest restaurant meal. The price difference is barely more than a pack of smokes.
     
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  41. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    That's flawed.
    1. DTG doesn't recoup the cost from just one copy. They don't profit until they've sold enough copies to cover their development/marketing/operating expenses.
    2. Steam (or other stores) don't just take a cut from the first copy sold, they take a cut from every copy. So none of those "copies" are free, they all have a cost associated with them to sell them.
    3. Royalties to Epic, and who knows who else.
    It's not pure profit. There are per-unit costs associated with each sale (as well as cumulative sales costs).
     
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  42. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Well if dtg wants to increase the player base, this game needs to be marketed better then
     
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  43. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    And the quality needs to be more consistent.
     
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  44. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Which means more developer hours which means more money.
     
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  45. Inkar

    Inkar Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, but certainly they didn't get there creating a community drama every 3 months aprox. as DTG does.
     
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  46. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    Posters here would be bored if there was no recurring drama.
     
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  47. Inkar

    Inkar Well-Known Member

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    That is not different than any other forum.
     
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  48. JonnE

    JonnE Well-Known Member

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    I think TSW has some massive potential to attract a larger player base and maybe even crawl out of that niche market a bit.

    ... however with the product strategy I see no way at all how that could happen.
    And it would need some massive investments and therefore would be of course risky - so there is again no way I see that happen as well.

    (My idea would be a more offensive approach towards the relaxing parts of the product in order to attract more causal players without limiting the 'sim' factor of the game - and because of the more casual players reduce the price of all DLC by a minimum of 75% compared to what is now, maybe even more to keep them attracted. The idea would be that the sales numbers then reach a level where this is still profitable - which I still believe would be possible in theory but I have no illusions that I'd rather win the lottery before. While this sounds great in theory I wouldn't have to fire staff if the plan doesn't end up well in reality as well...)

    It reminds me a bit of the strategy of my local football club - safety first, but the games are sometimes really painful to watch...

    Maybe it would be a first step to keep a certain amount of consistency among the existing playerbase at least. It's sad how many players turned their back on TSW over the years... and that's just what we saw on the forums.
    But I think overall this is an even more severe issue - I can't think of any other game were nearly every available achievement is marked as 'rare' on xbox because only so less players achieved it...
     
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  49. roysto25

    roysto25 Well-Known Member

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    The pricing/resources issue is in danger of obscuring the elephant in the room. The BRD fiasco has removed the emperor's clothes. If DTG cannot find a pricing model which allows them to produce BRD in its originally advertised form, then what future is there for larger, more immersive networks - we are condemned, at least for passenger routes, to A-B. The other smoke and mirror effect is the constant emphasis on 'Timetable service'. There is not much excitement running the same A to B route over and over with the only variable being departure and arrival times. Realistic, I agree, but boring. Overlays which simply substitute locos do not add that much. That leaves it's 10 year+ old sister sim the better long-term proposition, but lops off 66%(or whatever) of DTG revenue. Seems to me the suits have a big problem.
     
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  50. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    It means they need to have a bit more pride in what they do rather than having an "it is what it is" and "if you don't like it, don't buy it" attitude.
     
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