I have been playing on tsw2 for around 6 months now and have been thinking about the way that I've seen new DLC be released compared to some older routes that I have bought. It seems that in the beginning (preversed collection routes) there were usually one or two locos included in a route, along with (especially for Germany) a ton of layers all of which required different routes and/or loco DLC. However, as the collection of rolling stock has grown, newer routes such as DRA and DCZ are being released including almost all their potential stock, with locos essentially being copied and pasted from other routes. As someone who does not own much of the preserved collection (especially MSB) I have found this a great way to increase the value of new routes while taking little effort from the side of DTG. However, I am also aware that many players feel like this reduces the value of their current stock and routes (for example the DRA 363 is used pratcially everywhere now and the expansion from RSN now seems pretty redundant). I have been thinking of a few possible solutions or ways to release routes and I have set them out below, I would welcome any feedback on these: Option 1: Separate routes and locos completely This is probably one of the most radical changes to DLC that could occur, and would mean that no locos were tied to any route, but instead existed in a kind of loco store. Routes and locos could still be released in a release 'bundle' for players that did not own any of the rolling stock already, but players would also be free to only buy a route if (for example in DRA) they already own all of the locos. There could also be a discount on route bundles depending on how many of the locos a player already owns (something like Steam does for DLC bundles). This would solve (and create) a few problems. The first advantage would be that there was only ever one version of a loco that could be used on any route. Whenever a new route is released the loco in the store could be updated to the remastered version for everyone, helping the game to properly 'progress' in terms of quality. DTG could also sell official loco reskins for something like £1/$1 etc. each, which would allow routes to be realistic in terms of their specific location. One of the problems that could come up here is that this would loose DTG money as people would not be paying twice for locos they already own, but I think that there is also a buisness case here. For exmaple I would like to own the DB BR 182, but I have no interest in the RT route (bugless or otherwise) and I would be happy to buy this as a loco on its own to drive on other routes such as HRR. The other problem involved here would be that locos need a 'home' route for files and tutorials (I remembed Matt talking about it on a thread somewhere). This could easily be solved if DTG released 'training routes' which would be very small routes that could actually teach people things like sfatey systems and how to operate a loco. There could be one for each country such as this one http://bit.ly/2aRBYUQ (google maps link) in Germany which is used to test locos. Option 2: Expansion packs for each route Inspired by the current expansion pack another avenue to solve this problem would be to in future release an expansion pack for each route that contains a new timetable, all (or many) possible loco layers and a new timetable (possibly along with other fixes as money seems to be the only thing that gets fixes though QA). Personally I prefer having fewer routes in TSW2 that I know really well and that I can drive without the HUD. I am going to use HRR as an example of a route I own, but this could be applied to others - where an expansion pack could include a new timetable, a 143, dostos and 185 - just enough to add all the possible services to the route along with a timetable designed for it, with other loco dlc subbing in where appropriate. If priced correctly I would certainly be a customer for these types of expansions as they would add a lot of gameplay and could become the standard way to increase the playability of DLC. This option does rather contradict the first option which aims to solve the idea of paying for a DLC many times, but for me this would not be a problem as it would add a lot to the current routes. For example, I would be much more inclined to buy New Journeys if it included a 146.2 to run the RE services for SKA (albeit one copied from elsewhere) even though I already own one on DRA - I also already own the 101, but I can see that without it this pack's quality would reduce greatly and its addition would improve it for those that don't. I understand that this may not be a propular option for people who own a lot of DLC already (although owned loco dlc could reduce the price of these expansion packs as detailled in option one), but I am always jealous when I see the dev kits on streams of all the rolling sotck they have for use on a route, knowing that I would need to purchase around 4 routes to be able to get that much variety for a single route that I own. I am not going to suggest a price for this, but I do not think that it would take up many resources to produce from DTG's side (expect for the timetable) so they could be competitively priced. These are not complete proposals by any means and probably have many flaws (both technical and otherwise), but I would be interested to see what people's thoughts are on this.;
Ideally routes should be picked based partly on where other locos/vehicles can layer on without needing to duplicate them. This should exclude situations where the loco is in a different livery or of a different subclass/variant. I.e. so we don't get several versions of the same thing but rather one version updated and layered across several routes. The big problem here is then the annoyance of finding out you have to buy another route to obtain a particular loco if the loco constitutes a high proportion of the services on the original route you were interested in.
