A Talk About Scenery (tsw2's Biggested Problem Hiding In Plain Sight)

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by WonterRail, Jul 24, 2022.

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  1. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    Introduction

    Hello everyone, I've been wanting to write something like this for a long time, but could never find time to actually get round to it. But now we are in period where nothing is coming out, I wanted to share light on something that has been bothering me about TSW2 for over the past year. I know a lot of people have been writing 'open letters' to DTG about their problems with the game lately, but this is going to be a little different. Put simply, I'm not going to sit here and talk about it, I'm going to show you the issue first hand, as I have plenty of images that I will drop through this thread. I won't lie, I'm pretty nervous about how this will go down, as I will be stepping out of my comfort zone compared to what I would usually post on this forum, but I will give it my best shot, and hopefully this will bring light to the issue and get a discussion going about how to not only address it on the routes we've had, but also how to prevent it going forward. So with that said, let me go into what I think is the biggest problem facing TSW2 right now (one hiding in plain sight).

    The Issue in Question

    So you might wondering what exactly is the issue in question? Well, picture a scene here, imagine you're driving along you're favourite route, you're having a good run, you haven't come across any red signals and you're making good time, and then something in the distance grabs you're attention. It's not a landmark of the route you're driving along, but there's something about what you're looking at that... doesn't look right.

    You get closer to this thing and you begin to fear to worse as it gets closer to you and when you actually get up to it, you're worst fears are realized as it's something that looks like this...
    [​IMG]
    ...yes, it's another set of floating trees, and all you can do is take a deep sigh and headbang the desk in front of you (whether that be you're desk at home or in the cab of the train) at the sight of what you are seeing.

    Now I know what are thinking 'but what's the problem here? This doesn't seem too bad compared to many of other issues that has faced over the past year or two'. Well, the problem isn't actually the floating set of trees you see here, but it's the fact that this is not issue of it's kind along this route in particular. Go a couple miles further on and you might find another issue like this, except it's not a set of trees, but a set of houses, or cars, or buildings, etc. You might also find several areas that are just poorly made to the point you wonder how did anything look at it and say that's good enough for release. Then you go to another route released around the same time as this one and you might find the same issues you found on that route, but even worse and this cycle continues again, and again and again and again...

    But talking seriously, over the past year, I have seen a massive rise in scenery related issues like the one you just saw. In fact, that one set of floating trees really is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to general scenery issues across the various routes we have had since TSW2 launched back in August 2020, and after several months of trying to flag these issues up on various platforms here (whether that would be with the technical reports part of the forum or with DTG support), I've gotten bored of constantly having to flag these issues up again and again thought that it's time to finally shed light on this issue and hopefully get a discussion going about how to fix these issues and what can done to prevent them coming up on a constant basis on future route releases.

    But before I go further, I just want to make this absolutely clear...

    ...I do not think the scenery of TSW2 is terrible in general.

    In fact, there are areas of certain routes that can actually look pretty good when it's done right and the whole point of why I am doing this is that if all these issues that I'm about to bring up are addressed and fixed, then it would help make these routes just look a whole lot better than what they are now. So with that said, I guess we can put this off no longer, let's properly get into this.

    The Early Rumblings

    I'm not going to lie, I wasn't originally all that fussed about the scenery of the various TSW routes in it's early days, you might have the odd area of one route that looked pretty questionable and I'll admit there are some routes those scenery may have not aged particularly well (Great Western Express being one), but for most part, the scenery of the routes we where getting around that time was pretty good and many of them still hold up well to this day. Even if these route did have scenery issues, they were usually insignificant and won't notice until years later.

    But I'm not here to talk about the routes that came out pre-TSW2, this is all about the routes that came out post-TSW2, and even early in that games life, the rumblings were already present. Take for example, Schnellfahrstrecke Köln – Aachen. For the most part, the scenery of that route was mostly okay. Not great, as it could have been much better, but not a bad attempt for the most part. But there was one area that took my attention at the time, and that was this section right over here.
    [​IMG]
    It was a dirt road that it's end was floating upwards towards the sky, along with a bunch of other floating buildings, that could see at the point where an old railway line diverges off just east of Düren, like I've just mentioned. I'm still amazed this hasn't addressed to this day, as it's clearly visible from the tracks if you are passing through this area and later when I actually went to report it, I actually found tons of other scenery related issues in the area leading up to it like floating scenery and what not.

    But what you see here is just a taste of what was to come, a foreshadowing for the fact that the scenery quality of TSW2 was about to go completely off the rails (pun intended) as things would only get worse from here.

    If I was go through every scenery issue every routes that came out since TSW2 launched, we would be here for about ten billion years. So to keep this thread mostly under control, I will keep the discussion mainly around 5 routes in particular. 5 routes that I feel that when it comes to scenery issues, are the worst offenders and the ones that need the most attention more than anything else we have. But most importantly, they are 5 routes that I already done massive reports to a certain extent on, and I have plenty of images to share with you of the issues these routes face in particular. But if anything does want to flag up scenery issues with any other route that came out around the time as these ones, then feel free. I should also mention that I won't be covering the third-party routes here as they there own beast entirely. This thread will just focus on the routes DTG have made themselves.

    So with that said, let's get into these five routes, starting with the one that I argue was the beginning of TSW scenery decline.

    Southeastern High Speed (Cracks begin to form)

    Now I know what your thinking. You've probably seen think and already though 'Oh, think will about the HS1 section and the fact that the fences are too high/wrong in places and the catenary is wrong along here, right?'

    Well... that's true to an some extent. You see with the HS1 section of that route, the fences are clearly much higher and wrong in place than compared to what they would be in real life and the catenary along here is inaccurate, especially with the c2c section alongside it, as that has the same catenary as the HS2 section your on, when in reality, they are completely different. I should also mention that at certain points here, the catenary is literally shared between the two lines when they never do in reality, as seen below.
    [​IMG]
    But being honest, I actually think the HS1 part is actually not as bad as many people claim it is. Admittedly, It could have been done better in places, but there are some parts of it that do look decent. Plus, exploring the likes of the Dagenham car factory and the c2c line on foot is actually quite a nice surprise. I just think in the end, it's really the fencing and the catenary that make it bad.

    It might sound strange that I say this, but for reason for so is simple. When it comes to general scenery problems with this route, the HS1 part is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots more scenery problems as you travel further east towards Faversham. I would argue that the scenery only gets worse from this point on, especially after travelling through the Thames Tunnel. The issues in question range from lack of distance scenery, areas that lack detail (especially around Gillingham Depot as seen below)...
    [​IMG]
    ...areas that have been poorly done and lots and lots of Scenery bloopers. The biggest of them all being this entire floating town that can be viewed between Rainham and Newington.
    [​IMG]
    I believe this is where the town of Hartlip would be in real life, but it still amazes me that this ended up in the final product. Plus the fact that it's still there to this day. Next time your driving towards Faversham between Rainham and Newington, look out from it on your right (or left if your are driving towards Rochester, Gravesend or St. Pancras). What's even crazier is this isn't the only issue of it's kind not only on this route, but even in this general area, as there's some floating objects on the opposite side of the tracks to where this is located...
    [​IMG]
    ...and some located on your right departing Newington heading towards Sittingbourne.
    [​IMG]
    So I think this route clearly sets the tone for what's to come here. I admittedly at the time was wondering what on earth happened during the development of this route to get the end result we see here, especially we've had relatively nice looking routes like East Coastway, just over a year prior to this route coming out, but little did I know how much worse things would get from this point on.

    Which leads us to our next route, and a big moment in the context of this thread as this was the moment where scenery related issues really got out of control to the point of really hindering the overall quality and how the route turned out. Or as I should put it correctly, a trio of routes...

    ...and I think you can guess what I'm about to bring up here.

    The Rush Hour Routes (when things truly blew over)

    Yep, these routes had to come up at some point here. I mean, what would a thread, talking about the big problems of TSW2 be without mentioning these routes, aye?

    But in all seriousness, regardless of your opinion of the whole thing, regardless of whether yo like the routes or not and regardless of how DTG handled the whole thing, every single one of these routes had scenery issues to varying degrees. Some worse than others, but none of these routes where able to get away without having any major issues with the scenery. To break this part down, I will go through each route starting with the least affected and then ending with the worst affected and talk about some of the more key issues that these routes suffered when regards to the scenery.

    Nahverkehr Dresden (The least affected)

    This was the least affected route of the three, but that doesn't mean it got away without any scenery issues, it's just from what I could see, this one doesn't have that big one that the other two Rush Hour routes have. The issues here mainly comprise of floating objects, some areas that could have done better and dodgy placement of some objects. Now some issues were addressed when the Meißen branch update came out, like there pair of buildings down below

    At Release
    [​IMG]
    Post Meißen branch update

    [​IMG]
    but there are still tons of issues lurking around to this day here. But if there was one noteworthy issue, it would have to be this one around Dresden Hbf.
    [​IMG]
    You see, each one of these Rush Hour routes seem to have that one area that is a section of track leading away from the route, but that distant area has been poorly made. On this route, it's the areas leading away towards Friedrichstadt Yard, which I don't think a very good job was done of trying to make it look respectable from the distance you are looking at. But then, I don't think there was a way to make it look respectable for an inaccessible area, unless that area was fully done and part of the route.

    So yeah with this one, while it did have scenery issues, I didn't have any that are worth talking about here. It's the other two routes in the Rush Hour Season Hour that I want to focus on more specifically, starting with...

    London Commuter (Reigate wasn't the only bad station

    Now like Southeastern High Speed earlier, you've probably already seen this section and thought 'Oh this is about Reigate and how the whole area around there is poorly done, right?...'
    [​IMG]
    ...and again, that's true to an extent. When we first saw Reigate in the preview articles, it was clear that something was wrong with this area, as the station building was represented by an apartment block and the whole area around it looked nothing like it does in real life. To be fair, the station building was addressed before the route came out (unless you where on consoles in which it came in a day one patch) but even still, that was just putting an band-aid on a massive gunshot wound, as the whole area around just looked terrible.
    [​IMG]
    The big thing for me regarding this area was that it looked like this wasn't supposed to be part of the route originally, but was thrown in late in production in order to A: get the full London Victoria-Reigate services, rather than just ending at Redhill and then heading out as AI, even though they only go one more stop and B: To justify putting the Class 166 from GWE on this route, so you now have the whole Reigate-Redhill-Gatwick Airport service. But even still, the whole area could have been done so much better, as the Reigate station area was so poorly done and filled with scenery related issues, and I would say that for the most part about the entire branch line heading down to Redhill aswell.

    Which leads onto the fact that, once again, Reigate was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to scenery related issues here. In fact, I would argue that when it comes to station quality, Reigate wasn't the only badly done station on this route, as there were several other stations on this route tha also had problems aswell. Some of these stations include:

    Clapham Junction, which lacked details such as fencing and is home to it's badly done area leading away from the route (In which BML's case is the tracks leading towards Richmond).
    [​IMG]
    Part of Streatham Common's Platform 1 you can fall through.
    [​IMG]
    Merstham's Southbound Platform has a too large of a gap between the train and the platform, to the point you can fall into it (click on this link for more info).

    Balcombe has some platform bit stuck onto one of the platforms, even though I don't think a platform ever existed there to begin with.
    [​IMG]
    But there's one station on this route that would argue is actually even worse than Reigate and that's Purley. Why may you ask? Well firstly, like Clapham Junction, the station lacks details like fencing. But then for some reason, the station is lined with these ridiculously high brick walls which are not there or are nowhere near as high as they are real life. Same goes for one of the station buildings, which I thought from the preview streams was another Reigate station is just using a apartment block for it. But no, it's just that the building is way taller than it should be.
    [​IMG]
    Also, if you go round the back of both station buildings, you will find that they are floating to varying degrees. Especially, the one on the northern side, which is really badly placed on big lump. I know you don't see these areas to an extent, but that's besides the point.
    [​IMG]
    As for the rest of the route, it did have it's fair share of scenery issues, ranging from floating scenery to areas that either were poorly done or lacked details. Some of the more noticeable ones include the poor craftmanship of the general area around Redhill...
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    ..and this motorway bridge going over the railway just south of Three Bridges that looked like no effort was done into making it look respectable.
    [​IMG]
    It's clear that DTG was trying to bit more than they could chew with this route, not only with the fact that this is quite a long route (roughly 50+ miles in total) but also with the fact it has so many stations (29 in total), plus all the scenery that needed doing alongside that, it just looked like in areas they just slapped it together without actually polishing it out, and that goes way beyond the area around Reigate. But what makes it even worse here is that this route has such a great timetable (the best in TSW2 by far, with thanks to Joe) and it's such a shame that the scenery doesn't quite live up to the same standard as the timetable (regardless of the issues that might have), and it's kinda why, even though I rank this route as one of the, I feel a little hesitant to put this as the best because of it's scenery quality as there are routes that, even if I rank them lower than this one, even though they are not as busy as this route, I would say the scenery on many of those routes are a lot better than what we have over here.

    So this route many have suffered worse than Nahverkehr Dresden in regards to scenery issues, but it's nothing compared to the next route. The last of three Rush Hour routes and not only the one that I really want to revolve this thread around, but also the one that inspired the thread you are reading today and that route is (on the next post)....
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
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  2. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    Boston Sprinter... (Ugh)

    Where do I even begin with this one???

    Out of all the routes featured here and out of all the routes I have ever played in TSW, this one was easily the worst route when in regards to scenery. Admittedly, there are some areas that look decent, like the two end stations at Boston and Providence, but when this route did have scenery issues, they were dreadful. There was just so many of them all along this route that I will get to eventually, ranging from those that are relatively minor to those that are utterly unbelievable to the point where you wonder how it was ever able to released as a final product

    So you might be wondering by now 'what do you mean we you talk about scenery issues? What should I be looking out for when find one?'. Well, since this route has quite a lot of them, I though it would be a good to run down what I look out for when finding scenery related issues, not only on this route, but also any other route in TSW. So when talking about scenery issues, I break them down into the following:

    1. Floating Scenery

    Probably the most common type of scenery issue and this can be pretty much anything. It can be as small as a bush, to a tree, to a car, to a whole house. Anything that is meant to the stuck to the ground, but is seen hovering above the ground, can count as a floating object. I would even count tracks that are floating as one. As for what are the worst types of floating objects, you have floating roads, which I think is pretty self-explanatory...
    [​IMG]
    ...and floating house-sets. For those who don't know what that is, lately, DTG is using sets that contain multiple houses, roads, cars, fences and much more in an attempt to boast the distance scenery. This is the sort of thing that I'm not particularly bothered about if it's done well, but it's be responsible for some of the worst scenery issues I've seen. The floating town you saw on SEHS was several floating house-sets and there's lot's on Boston Sprinter, including these weirdly placed ones around Attleboro.
    [​IMG]
    2. Areas that are poorly made/lack detail

    This again should be pretty self-explanatory, but it's basically an area that doesn't have much when it comes to detail, or there's been a botched attempt of making a certain area of the route. One example of a area lacking detail is at Canton Junction with this high platform section.
    [​IMG]
    ...and an example of a poorly done area is this area on the Stoughton Branch that is a combination of a floating building and road.
    [​IMG]
    3. Major route landmarks missing

    This is kinda the same thing, but a little different, where a whole recognisable landmark of a route is missing. Boston Sprinter has two of them in particular. One is the Fairmount platforms at Readville that are missing, despite the area being accessible on foot.
    [​IMG]
    ...and the other, which is pretty big one, is the absence of the old Pawtucket/Central Falls station building, despite it still being there to this day, even after being closed for just over 40 years.
    [​IMG]
    4. Distance areas lacking scenery (but still have the textures for where scenery would be).

    This is an interesting one that has really popped up in the era of auto-generated textures. It should be self-explanatory about an area that doesn't have any scenery, but sometimes, you might seen an area that has no scenery, but and texture markings for where scenery would be is here and this just looks horrible and ugly. There are plenty of examples on the routes that I've already done, but I'm gonna save showing images for the last route, as that has some pretty good examples.

    On the subject of lack of distance scenery, you might find sometimes that there's an area that appears to have no scenery, but on closer inspection, there is. It just the LOD/draw distance can't pick up these pieces from so far away. I have two examples from the routes I've already talked about. One on SEHS around the western end of the Thames tunnel regarding this industrial/city area seen in the direction of the Dartford crossing on the other side of the Thames.

    Seen from the route.
    [​IMG]
    Up close.
    [​IMG]
    ...and on the subject of the River Thames, London Commuter also has one around London Victoria. If you look north when crossing the Grosvenor Bridge, you can an area where the scenery just stops and there's not much else beyond that.
    [​IMG]
    But get up close (as I was able to) and there actually a lot more there than at first glance.
    [​IMG]
    So I just think issue is a problem with TSW being seen scenery that's much further away from the route, as being able to see these items would actually areas like these a lot better than they are now.

    5. Holes in the Map

    This is basically when two of those big squares that make up a TSW2 route meet up, sometimes you will see tiny holes or tears appearing where they join. Boston Sprinter has a few of them, but there are some even worse ones on others route, including this one just north of Horley.
    [​IMG]
    How bad they get depends on the size of the hole. Sometimes they are tiny, while other times (like in the example) they can stick out like a sore thumb.

    6. Glitched Railjoints

    One last one for now, and while it's not specifically scenery related, it is still worth bringing up here. But basically, you might sometimes come across a glitched railjoint that looks like the rail has stretched like a piece of spaghetti. I think this has been a thing since Boston Sprinter, it might have already been a thing before then, but it's certainly come up a lot more since that route came out, and there's a lot of them may I add. They mainly on this route show up in the Southampton Street Yard area to varying degrees, as seen down below.
    [​IMG]
    Those are just some of the issue types that I've found on many routes lately in TSW2 and there's more types out there that are not listed here (but I will add to this list if any other type comes up). Back onto the subject of Boston Sprinter, many of those issues I've just listed show up quite a lot on this route, to the point that you could barely go a few hundred yards down the before running into one. But when it comes to specific ones, this route has two really bad ones. Two that really make you question what on earth happened during development to get the result that we ended up with, and they are...:

    Issue No. 1: The fences

    It would like to presume that the fencing nowadays (specifically referring to those like wooden fences or small brick walls) are auto-genned. This again isn't something that I have a problem with if it's done right, but you do end up with scenarios were they can seen either floating or sinking below the ground. Why do I make this presumption, well in the context of Boston Sprinter, let me ask you...

    ...What on earth happened with the fences here????
    [​IMG]
    Not only do you find them floating here, but it's seems like DTG forgot to render them properly, as they appear either untextured or falling to pieces.
    [​IMG]
    It's already bad enough that the route is filled with scenery issues, but the fact that you have fences looking like this just makes it look even worse.

    But this nothing compared to the other major scenery. Let's just say that what have seen here already is nothing compared to what to show you. Remember when I said each route had one area that's some tracks leading away from a route that's poorly done? Well this route has easily the worst of them all. So I guess I've held this off no longer, let me bring you the worst scenery issue I have ever seen on any TSW route ever...

    Issue No. 2:... Mansfield Yard

    For those who don't know where this is, it is a yard that branches off to the west of the main route located just north of Mansfield station. The area isn't accessible, but you do see stock from Sand Patch Grade placed here in timetable mode.
    [​IMG]
    So the fact that it's inaccessible area is already a red flag, as it's the kind of area that could offer some fun exploration opportunities and a bit of freelance shunting using the SPG stock.

    But wait till you see what this area looks like in game, it is truly unbelievable how DTG handled this area.
    [​IMG]
    I remember first seeing this while riding a train bound of Boston and I was just shocked about how this area was done. To say it's bad is an understatement, I even think the image above doesn't do justice to how bad that area looks. The whole area is completely unfinished, and it still amazes me that this was able to slide through into the final product. I honestly think this was missed during QA, because there is no way anyone could look at this and say this is acceptable, and keep in mind, this is not an area that have to go miles out of your way to find it in some area that no-one will go to any ways, this area is visible from the track-side. Next time your driving towards Boston, look out to your left when passing through Mansfield and you'll see it in all it's glory (or right if you driving towards Providence).

    Far to say that the state of Mansfield Yard is the perfect metaphor for, not only the state of the scenery on the route, but possible the state of the scenery in TSW2 in general. Some might even argue it's the perfect metaphor for how TSW2 has because, as it's looks rushed, unfinished and unpolished. Words that have often been used to describe TSW2 in recent months.

    So that's Boston Sprinter and the Rush Hour routes in general and it's fair to say they all suffered to varying degrees and from what we have gone from. Some certainly suffered worse than others with the later two in particular having big noteworthy issues that make you wondering how anyone could say that's acceptable to release.

    But we are not with this thread yet, as I have one more route you all, and it's one that you probably won't think of for a thread like at first. But believe me, this route has just as many issues with it's scenery, if not more some, than the other 4 routes we've already covered.

    Tharandter Rampe (The untalked about one)

    You didn't expect to see this route here eh? Well, there's good reason for that, and it's the fact that this route surprisingly, for something that is suppose to be a scenic route, actually has some really badly done scenery elements, to the point that I would argue that this route scenery is worse than Nahverkehr Dresden's. Some of the more scenic elements I'll admit are quite well done, like the section around Plauen and Freital, but there so much about this route that just doesn't feel well polished.

    This route does have a few floating scenery elements, the floating trees you saw at the being was from this route, but there's also roads, buildings a new one that i want to add...

    ...Floating Rivers!

    Yes, I did not make that up, there is a literal river that is floating above the ground on this route and it's located off in the distant view at Muldenhütten station, as seen below.
    [​IMG]
    It's like again that we seeing more river set pieces in the style of how roads and tracks are laid in a TSW2 route, which is again something that I don't mind if it's done right. Plus, it also solves the occasional issue having two water pieces stacked on top of one another if it's done with just a single layer of water that stretches way beyond the edges of the riverbank, as seen in the example of Boston Sprinter below.

    ...and to be fair, that's the only floating river that I could find on Tharandter Rampe, it was just that one had issues of being floating. On a side note, even with the rivers that aren't floating, some of them like incredibly shoddy along this route, ranging for poor riverbanks to the occasional set of trees that can seen in the river. Again, se below for a good example of both just further on from the floating river.
    [​IMG]
    Maybe this is how things are in real line, I don't know. But it just looks incredibly poorly done with how some of these rivers look.

    ...and it's that settlement that I would best describe a lot of the scenery along this route. It is really poorly done with several areas looking like they were just squabbled together with no effort put in to polished them out. But I also think this has the best examples of the issue of areas that have no scenery, yet all the textures for where scenery would be are there, and this route quite a few areas like that, as seen in the example below.
    [​IMG]
    As you can tell, it just looks ugly having all those textures laid out, despite no scenery being there. It's the sort of area that would have look better if it there was either scenery, or the area was left with just a green texture.

    That I think perfectly sums up the scenery of Tharandter Rampe, just incredibly shoddy and a real let down for something that is suppose to be quite a scenic route and while so of those elements are well done, there is so much else about this route that it not up to standard and needs addressing.

    Conclusion

    I'm not going to even speculate about why these issues keep happening as there could be wide variety of them. From an overuse of auto-generation tools, a lack of QA testing, the list can go on and on. But you might be wondering at this point 'Why does this matter? Why should I care about these issues as much as much as issues like red signals, save button, PS5 download limit, Xbox jack hammer sound and much more?' and in the subject, the question of 'What do you ultimately want to get out of all of this?'.

    To answer the first question, I would easy for me to just say to that 'nobody could look at these issues and say, that's accept for release'. Which is why I have thought of two reasons as to why these issues should taken note as much as many of those other issues that fact TSW2 right now.

    The first is the fact that scenery is an incredibly import part of a TSW route. It's the thing that's a route, a route. Without scenery, there wouldn't be anything interesting to look at, and throughout TSW's life, we have had lots of route that vary in terms of what scenery they offer, from the mountainous backdrop of Sand Patch Grade & Clinchfield, the rolling valleys of Ruhr-Sieg Nord and Main-Spessart Bahn, the city environment of Long Island Rail Road, a mix of both city and country life like Great Western Express to even routes that recreate long lost eras like Northern Trans-Pennine, Tees Valley and more lately with Liverpool–Crewe. When the scenery is done well, it can truly what a route is like, whether it's set today, or over 60 years ago. If it's not done well, then questions are going to be asked about whether these routes were properly polished or not. Which is one of the reasons why I made this thread, because these issues are addressed, then it means that the routes covered there, as well as many other in TSW2 that have scenery issues can truly live up what they truly have the potential to be scenery wise.

    On a perfect segway, the second reason why you should care about scenery related issues is simple. Out of all the problems TSW is facing right now, this might actually be one of the easier things to fix (or even on of the easier to catch). I won't go as far as say it's the easiest or that's it's dead easy to fix as some of the issues brought up here and that I have seen will require a lot of work to bring them up to spec. But in hindsight, like I said earlier, someone should easily be be able to look at a lot of these issues and say 'something's not right there'. Plus, it's not something that the moment you touch, you run the risk of breaking everything like with issues with the dispatcher (unless you make a right botch of fixing a scenery issues). So surely, DTG could easily spend a bit of time to try a clean up a lot of the scenery issues seen across various routes in TSW. Especially the floating ones, I know stuff like roads, fencing and house-sets will require a bit of re juggling to trying and make them fit in better, but stuff like sole houses, cars and trees are so easy to fix, that you wonder why they haven't been fix incredibly quickly. But here's the problem, issues like this are never going to be brought up as much as say the red signal issues, the save button problems, PS5 download limits and much more, because they don't impact the gameplay that much unless your talking about it being an immersion breaker. Even if a scenery issue is picked up, it's usually alot of backlash over one specific area (HS1 part of SEHS or Reigate on London Commuter) and the every other scenery issue that route may is left out in the dark. Now I expect that to some degree, as gameplay is of course is most important aspect of any game out there, not just TSW. But what this means is that issues like this will just sit there and get even touched or fixed and because of that, issues like this will continue to pop up again and again and again and again, with no chance of it ever getting the proper polish that it deserves.

    On the subject of what you want to ultimately get out of this, turning to DTG specifically, and whether I have any message for them, I have 3 question that I want to ask them.

    Question 1: Why do these scenery issues keep popping up? I remember when I reported a few scenery issues with Cathcart Circle to the support site that the reason is because of the Auto-Gen tools your using, but I want more. I would love to know exactly why many of these issues keep popping up regularly on so many routes in TSW2.

    Question 2: Can anything be done to fix these issues? I have already report hundreds of scenery issues with various routes in TSW2, includes with the routes featured here. But it's one thing to report an issue, but is there any plans to fix them? and more importantly, can they be fixed? As I've mentioned earlier, some scenery issues on Nahverkehr Dresden were fixed when the Meißen branch update came out, but there's still plenty lurking there waiting to be addressed, so there's quite a bit to do when regarding that route.

    Question 3: What can be done to help prevent issues like this popping up more in the future? I know we will never be able to have a route that's fully 100% free of issues regarding it's scenery (that can go for any issues with TSW), but when can always to try to stop them popping up so frequently. As someone who's a frequent player of Forza Horizon 5, I have even seen scenery issues pop up there, despite that game having probably 10x the budget that TSW gets. But the difference between that and TSW2 is that Forza's scenery is so well done that it pretty much outweighs any issues it might have. Plus, the issues there are as minor as a weirdly placed tree or a small floating fence. Not a whole floating village. So even if a routes biggest scenery problem is anything on the level of FH5, that would still be a great improvement over what we have now (and probably would be an amazing looking route may I add).

    So that's what I ultimately want to get out of all of this. Even if I been writing for over 35000 words now, I feel like it's been worth every single of them, and hopefully, this can get the traction that i think this thread deserves so that light can finally be seen one of TSW's biggest unseen issue and finally get it addressed once and for all. Because honestly, I never want to have another situation were I have to report something like this ever again...
    [​IMG]
    ...or not, let's see how this goes.

    Thank you for reading everyone.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2022
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  3. IsambardKingdomBrunel

    IsambardKingdomBrunel Well-Known Member

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    Simples, slapdash workmanship and a couldn't careless attitude.
    At least in TSC and Trainz, i have access to editors to fix things.
    This dead end game, doesn't even give me that choice.
     
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  4. CK95

    CK95 Well-Known Member

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    ...I do not think the scenery of TSW2 is terrible in general.”

    This is what DTG aims for, as long as nothing is ‘terrible’, it’s good to go.
     
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  5. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    I only said that just in case people thought I hated everything about the scenery in TSW2 routes, which I don't because I do think, when it's done well, I can actually look very good. It's just there are some many problems that I have found with it, not just here, but also stuff that I haven't shared here because I can only post 20 images per post.

    ...and that's the thing to remember with this thread. The images you see throughout are just the tip of the iceberg as I have found so many more scenery issues with not only the 5 routes covered, but also with various other routes in TSW2 that I wasn't able to covered.
     
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  6. CK95

    CK95 Well-Known Member

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    The issue is most likely down to the route generator they’ve been using, with artists going over only places that are more ‘prominent’.

    This is likely why distant scenery isn’t great, and other bits you’ve displayed above are the way that they are.

    For me the worst singular piece of scenery in TSW has to be Reigate, like what even happened there?

    Then there are routes like LGV & SEHS which are pretty poor.
     
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  7. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    Thanks WonterRail for another detailed and on point post.

    A point I'd like to discuss is to what degree is this caused by the autogen tool? AFAIK this tool was first used on LGV, so a comparison between routes before and after LGV would be very interesting. I couldn't help but notice all the routes you mentioned are quite modern.

    Something else I want to talk about is that IMO, apart from the "errors" (which are not as intended) the biggest TSW scenery related issue that is not a bug or a mistake is the cookie-cutter feeling and lack of finesse in trying to blend different objects in the environment they find themselves in.

    For example, the completely urban environment in Harlem is excellent, so is the entirely natural environment in CRR and SPG, but suddenly you have a small country road in a more natural environment and it sticks out like a sore thumb, this is one of the reasons IMO the SEHS scenery looks mediocre, particularly around Gillingham and Strood it just looks like some city pieces and roads placed on top of a green dirt and grass pile, there was no attempt to make those city piece fit into this more rural environment at all.

    The same is true for some more built up areas in LGV near Avignon (which look awful), a lot of small German small villages and motorways that happen to run near a railway line.

    I still struggle to understand how good TSW is graphically, there are moments of brilliance, where everything lines up to really give that "oh that looks good" moment, and there are other times where I think I could have done a better job using the Trainz editor.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
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  8. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Strange to relate, but I bought the Berlin S25 route for TSC last night. Haven't run the whole length but it just looks far better and more lifelike than TSW2. Everything is nicely placed too, no grass or shrubs straying over the track, nothing out of place. I guess that's the difference between something that's made as a labour of love (though still payware), as opposed to something built by committee or individuals to whom it's just an eight hour a day job and more interested in checking their social life on Facebook or their phones than spotting a tree in mid air or a gap under a building. Perhaps that's a little harsh but SoS is an example. You can see where the love has been lavished, stations etc (though Crewe still looks a bit odd to me, sort of off scale, too low like as if someone used a TT gauge building on a OO layout) and the bits that aren't - the swathes of empty countryside with not even lineside fencing.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
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  9. pinxtonpaws

    pinxtonpaws Well-Known Member

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    If you pan the camera out to it's max altitude or go on a mission of discovery to the game's far borders then every single route is going to be in trouble, but not a lot of people are going to do that and in fairness to DTG what you see from a 'normal' perspective really isn't that bad. Sure, certain areas could be improved upon but generally speaking the scenery within that much narrower viewpoint does a more than adequate job of maintaining levels of visual immersion. The only real ongoing gripe I have is regarding the far distance scenery because the horizon pop-in can be pretty extreme and from the driver's seat it often looks like the lines are heading towards the edge of oblivion before those details start popping in.
    I'm sure many will disagree but from my side of the fence the bulk of the op's observations do come across as a bit, erm, nit-picky and/or bordering on the obsessive....
     
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  10. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    That maybe the case for some of them, but there's plenty of issues that aren't in the distant scenery which are highlighted, some are even at major points of interests like stations. To add to those I know Clinchfield has a portion where for a mile or two the grass at trackside disappears, and you're just left with plain textures, it's rather noticeable and jarring from my experience. Another one I can think of is that the crossing next to Dante's Church (which is a very notable landmark along the route, and in the bounds of a yard to boot.) has this badly made crossing.
    20220725112558_1.jpg
    No excuse for this, especially considering the crossing in the TS Classic version looks much better.
    20220725113319_1.jpg
    I don't know who on Earth thought having a narrow road leading up to a wide crossing was a good idea...

    Edit: And having just looked at them side by side I realize there's parking missing across the street from the church. And that for some reason nobody thought to put down cars next to the church in TSW. For the record this isn't something that was done to be more accurate, checking the maps app I have on my PC the TSC version does indeed seem to be more accurate here. On the other hand TSW does put a parking lot where there wasn't one in TSC, and indeed that should be there, so that's something I suppose.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
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  11. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    That looks like something we might have done in MSTS 18 years ago, when you couldn't quite get things to fit.

    Sadly I think Clinchfield has joined the "fired and forgotten" pile where product over 3 months old seems to end up. So all these visual glitches on whichever route probably don't stand a cat in hell's chance of ever getting fixed. It's sloppy route building accompanied by the lazy mindset of the company who would rather move on to a new project that will make them money than fix up something that (from their POV) has already achieved 90+% of its anticipated lifetime sales.
     
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  12. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    That road on them pic. Sheesh
     
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  13. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I think saying that the urban scenery on Harlem is excellent is a bit of a stretch. The manhattan skyline on Harlem for instance looks terrible . The northern part of the route north of fordham looks nice though in my opinion
     
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  14. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    My word that road looks terrible.
     
  15. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I do wonder if these scenery issues have something to do with the autogen? The scenery on lgv isn't great either probably due to the autogen. Maybe that tool has affected the way the scenery is on some of these routes.
     
  16. Thelonius16

    Thelonius16 Well-Known Member

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    While you make a ton of meaningful points and obviously put in a lot of effort to post this, I feel like you would get a better response if you left out the editorializing. (Use of terms like "ugh", for example, or pointing out that something is "the worst".)

    Granted, you have dialed back the rhetoric considerably compared to the usual discourse on this forum.

    But you're not doing your cause any favors if you are essentially insulting the work of the people who have the power to fix these issues. They aren't going to listen to your signal -- in which you point out some valid issues -- above the noise of your personal opinion. If you have criticisms of their professional work, you'll get a lot more traction if you provide it in a professional manner.
     
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  17. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, I meant excellent compared to other attempts at building a city (for example Essen in HRR), and was talking mainly of close scenery, which IMO looks very good.
     
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  18. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    I am not insulting the work of the people who have the power to fix these issues, I am being perfectly honest with my opinion, and I feel like alot of the community will share similar views to mine aswell.

    Plus, I have already reported alot of these issues already, both on forum and it DTG support (Sometimes making multiple tickets in order to report the scenery issues of just one route) and I do try to be more professtional other there than compared to here.

    Also, many of the 'open letters' that have written to DTG over the past few months have been of a similar tone and yet DTG have ended up listening to the point we are now in this 'extended period of downtime' (totally not because of TSW3). So if they can listen to those people, there's every chance they might listen to this (guaranted that it get's enough traction). You have to have some level of exaggeration if you want to get your message out there.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
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  19. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    Well... out of all those "campaigns" the one that IMO was the most successful was the SEHS HS1 commotion caused by the lack of fencing, and that was far from professional and respectful of their work.

    We are not beta testers (hopefully) that do this professionally, we are just customers sharing our opinion on a forum.

    At the end of the day seems like the only things that matter are popularity and how easy it is to change, because that's what affects profitability the most.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
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  20. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    Don't forget Reigate on London Commuter...

    ...and to be honest, even despite the pre-release commotion and the changes made to both of them, neither of those areas ended up turning out great in the end, whether it would be HS1 with it's too-high/wrong fencing and wrong catenary and the area around Reigate being poor in general (Like I said i the piece, correcting the station building was only putting a band-aid on a massive gunshot wound).
     
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  21. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    The earlier routes in TSW, like MSB, RSN and ECW are by far much higher quality than more recent routes. These routes aren’t perfect, but it’s clear, even to Stevie Wonder, that more of a personal touch was added to these early routes and they benefit immensely from it.
     
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  22. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    That's what sucks in my view. DTG are capable of making some good scenic routes. TSW2020 routes felt like they had a consistent level of good quality in terms of scenery. Granted it wasn't perfect but it was pretty good which is why I don't understand why in tsw2, there is so much inconsistency in terms of scenery quality.

    You think if a company make a mistake in a certain part of development, then the company would try not to repeat it and improve but DTG are just inconsistent and keep making mistakes in scenery in my opinion
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
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  23. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    You are right with this ...
    IMHO those routes were made with love and got me into trainsimming almost 6 years ago in the first place.
     
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  24. LT586

    LT586 Well-Known Member

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    Sorry to ask a stupid question but why use a game engine that doesn’t allow the use of an editing function; since MSTS we’ve had it. Epic dazzle everyone with cinematic looking gameplay but the editor I have no idea.

    Unity3D however with SimRail looks and offers what we’re all used to. TML have never let anyone edit or make maps, hence why titles fall under or stop being played.

    DTG seem to combat this by churning out route after route; their artists are talented but give them time to create a route; we can see what they can do when Adam’s team get involved; why this can’t be done initially I don’t know. I know JT fit their method of building because it’s the same standard just in TSC currently, although improved on a couple routes, it’s not consistent.

    I stopped playing TSW after London Commuter because I realise this isn’t going anywhere, whereas TSC for all it’s faults has AP, Major Wales Trains, ATS, Vulcan Foundry, DPS etc and it’s so much content that is quality because there’s no business KPI to meet to hit a release deadline.
     
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  25. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Lack of hindsight would be the simple answer.
     
  26. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Or they don’t want part time hobby route and asset builders doing a better job than their “professional” studio and associates.
     
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  27. Floating scenery is a common sight on tsc.

    I would imagine things get to the stage where the command comes down to the development team to not spend anymore time on it.

    Honestly I don't even think they are allowed to drive a route in development because if they where, these problems with bugs... derailments, red signals etc wouldn't be in the final release.

    I think some of the talented folk rolling out mods should make a guide on how to get the unofficial editor up and running so more people have the option to go and correct things they don't like?
     
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  28. IsambardKingdomBrunel

    IsambardKingdomBrunel Well-Known Member

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    It's called greed, protectionism and lack of imagination.
    Plus the inability to provide editors, using the game engine they thought was all singing all dancing.
    I won't be buying anything else for TSC or TSW2. Just biding my time until the scenery update is released for DRS.
    It has editors for both route and timetable creation. Also supports a 24 hour timetable mode.
    So DTG can keep their TSW2 without editors. This game will slowly die a death with real enthusiasts.
    Because it offers nothing but buy ever more DLC and lacks any meaningful user expansion. In the true sense of a hobby, which is what gives a pc game longevity.
    The console users will not sustain it for 20+ years, like MSTS and Trainz on the pc.
    TSC has more chance of being around in the future. Even if it's editors are a bit lacklustre.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2022
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  29. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    If DRS had something like Trainz Surveyor as an editor (with DEM and mapping import) I would certainly have a crack at doing something for it.

    I just struggle to see sometimes what DTG's vision is. TSC seems to teeter on the edge of being "end of life" with a mixture of really good content and some lacklustre but can give an excellent experience as I've found with the Konstanz route and most recently the Berlin S25. Not surprisingly, both those made by third parties. As regards TSW well just at the moment they seem to have lost the plot, the rumours about TSW3 started by their own personnel are not being confirmed or denied. The considerable work that SoS needs seems to have entered hiatus along with all the other routes and core that needs fixing. Hardly any meaningful information or participation, on their own forums.

    As I said the other week, would just need a new Fallout or Elder Scrolls game to come out and both TSW and TSC would be in the hibernation box for me.
     
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  30. Jamy

    Jamy Well-Known Member

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    Its the tree branches coming into the cab on BML that gets me. There is simply no excuse for that
     
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  31. IsambardKingdomBrunel

    IsambardKingdomBrunel Well-Known Member

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    They are definitely in the "to do list", Vern. Meanwhile i will be more than happy, just knocking up something fictional. based on Wales, like i did about 2 years back.
     
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  32. LT586

    LT586 Well-Known Member

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    Foresight but I know what you mean
     
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  33. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    The water penetrated the mp15 cab when you go through the train wash on peninsula too
     
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  34. paulc

    paulc Well-Known Member

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    In SOS The missing bridge and pub at Hartford annoys me.
     
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  35. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    I have to say I don't know where to stand on this issue.

    Maybe a bit off topic, but since this slowdown in releases, I have taken a little bit of a break from TSW, and the IoW 2022 release is making me reconsider DTG as a company somewhat, and I am starting to lean more on the the cynic side.

    Regarding an editor there seemed to be a stage were they talked about about opening more the third party application system, not to everyone, but at least some established or more talented modders, I think this was around the time Sam (DTG Protagonist) was part of the community team... sadly it seems that this was never brought forward, as it seems to be the case for a lot of promising things coming from DTG.

    I truly can't decide wether they figured that they make more money this way, or are unable to release the necessary tools because licensing issues with Epic (and the Unreal Engine).

    I believe that "the truth often lies in the middle" so I think what is happening is something along the lines of, an editor would be possible, but it could require significant time and effort and things are going perfectly (from a monetary point of view), so why bother changing it? If you don't like the fact that TSW doesn't have an editor you'll probably fall back to TS, another DTG product, they win in both cases. So why bother?

    The question that always comes up in my head when thinking about "why is DTG being so bad at X" is "why would they bother?"

    • The TSW franchise must be generating a good amount of profit, so much that they are able to bankroll a dedicated team to look at older routes, which generates 0 profit.
    • Some routes that here in the forum are widely considered bad or mediocre are best sellers, HHL, LGV, SEHS, the average consumer doesn't care the 112 is awful, or that the scenery is mediocre.
    • They have a de facto monopoly on PC, and an actual monopoly on consoles, many of you are complaining about TSW, so you go back to TS... they still win, even if ever so slightly less if you buy from third parties.
    Why bother releasing an editor when TSW is generating a lot of profit? why bother doing better DLC if the awful and mediocre ones are selling as much as the good ones?

    The question I have to answer now is, why do I support a company that can't be bothered to make something that is better than satisfactory?

    See you in the ZuSi forum.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2022
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  36. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I think there is a similar issus on the Harlem line as well
     
  37. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    People unfortunately just like mediocre products it seems and products that aren't delivering what is advertised. No matter how many times we point out issues, the products sells anyways unfortunately.

    Sometimes I wonder what would happen if there was a boycott of TSW2 for a while. Not a permanent boycott but a temporary one.
     
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  38. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Re editors, it should be remembered the TSC one isn’t that greatly supported by DTG. There have been numerous requests and suggestions over the years for improvements, easier terrain painting/import of textures, wire frame view to name just two but it hasn’t seen much love for many years. In fact it might even have been Matt himself who once stated the company (might still have been RSC then), did not regard spending staff and developer resources on the editor as giving a useful return on investment, for the small number of people who use it. This despite a working, functional editor pretty much being the heart of most train sim products (similar to the SDK for a flight sim). So with that insight into the company mentality, which presumably carried over to DTG, little surprise they have no intention of making a useable editor for TSW available to the masses. Heck, unless scenario editor 2.0 will be announced as part of the TSW3 reveal, they can’t even give us a decent activity/timetable editor. Oh yes, TSC one of the most requested features was a set of generic renameable station signs so that routes for the Workshop which can’t utilise outside assets, could at least have nameboards on the platform. But no, that went down the rabbit hole too.

    Which is why, even though the driving experience is junk, these days I do my route/layout building in Trainz.
     
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  39. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    MSFS seriously opened my eyes when it comes to third party content.

    I won't stay here talking about my "train sim history" but I started train simming with MSTS, then "left" about the time Rail Sim became Railworks (or TS2012 IIRC), then came back in 2018 with TSW on Xbox One. So, I really had no recent memory of a good environment thriving with third party mods/add-ons. But seeying the community around the creation of MSFS, both payware and freeware really has brought me back to reality, TSW is seriously missing out, and if MS has found a way to make money via third parties using consoles (the only way to get your add-on on consoles is selling it via the official store, and no doubt Asobo/MS get a cut), I really think TSW should move in a similar direction.

    Obviously the editors will be PC only.

    I think blaming the customers is not the solution, and I'm sorry if my previous post led you to believe I feel this way.


    The first party DLC offer good value for money, they are ofter of satisfactory quality for their (relatively) low price, but what if I wanted to pay more for a pro range? I need to do some introspection, because perhaps the bad DTG route are not bad per se, they are just not what I want... our only hope for a better train model (of a sort of pro range level) now for us is to either pray that Maik Goltz was involved in its creation process, or it happened to be someone else's pet project, or someone spent their free time on it, etc... if third parties were allowed to create things for TSW, I'm sure there would be more devs creating for our "pro range" niche, which is exactly what is happening with MSFS.

    MSFS without FBW, Headwind, PMDG, Fenix, etc would just be decent/mediocre Asobo/MS products.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
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  40. VictoryWorks

    VictoryWorks Well-Known Member

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    This astounds me, it's such a short sighted point of view. "Only 100 people out of our 10,000 customers use the editor so it's not worth it!"
    Completely missing the point that those 100 people producing 25 new routes a year add SO MUCH value to the main product that then pushes people to buy more DLC (routes for scenery components, locos and rolling stock to fill the routes, etc).
    An editor/workshop isn't about making sure 75% of your customers use it, it's about giving the very small number of creative users the chance to massively increase the depth of your product at (after the tools are released) ZERO ongoing cost to yourselves.
    Oh and sometimes those users then become 3rd party producers (and/or employees) and make you a metric crap ton of money as well :o
    But hey, not worth making editor tools for those few *eyeroll*
     
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  41. Half of the dlc I own on tsc was just for assets. But then again are the assets in tsw usable? I thought once it's been cooked or what ever it can't be used?
     
  42. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Interesting point. Of course not all 3rd party TSC routes make the assets useable, they render them non pickable in the bin file (though there is a workround) but generally most DTG routes and the older RSC/RSDL content do. So far as TSW is concerned the way round that would be to offer asset packs for the various structure and texture types (hopefully included with the editor).

    Actually interesting to recall that when Kuju first released Rail Simulator, it initially shipped without any form of editing package. This only came some time later and you actually had to specifically register and request the gear from Kuju themselves. Only when it turned into Railworks did things moderate a bit.
     
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  43. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    Now in the piece, I covered the fact that Reigate wasn't the only badly made station on London Commuter. But I only just remembered that there was one station that I didn't cover there that I think is also worth bringing up here. Or more like, two stations that both share one issue in common... there is a massive gap between the train and the platform (on the southbound platforms at least).

    One is at Coulsdon South, where as much as this could be how the station is in real life, the gap does look a little questionable.
    [​IMG]
    But the gap there is not as big as the next station heading south, and the real target of this post, Merstham.
    [​IMG]
    Maybe again this is how the station is real life (it probably isn't) but that gap is just way too big. So big in fact, that's the easy to just fall into the gap between the train and the platform, as seen in the next image.
    [​IMG]
    I've also seen passenger having trouble boarding a train here on this platform as they also fall into the gap as they board.

    What makes this worse here is that I cannot see an easy fix for this. This would bascially require the whole station to be rebuilt so that the gap isn't a massive here as it is now.
     
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  44. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    My goodness, I hope that's not how it looks in real life. Small children and the physically-challenged would not be able to board the train!
    Another example of very obvious errors allowed by QA to enter the game without so much as an " Oops, sorry ".
     
  45. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Looks like that station needs a moving platform ;)
     
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  46. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I didn't blame customers but was simply pointing out that the product will still sell regardless of the quality of the product. Whether that be bad or missing sound, scenery or performance etc, it will still sell regardless
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
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  47. cloudyskies21

    cloudyskies21 Well-Known Member

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    Very informative WonterRail - thanks for taking the effort to post.

    Make that three. The furthest Southern platform (platform 8) at Victoria also has the same issue.
     
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  48. WonterRail

    WonterRail Well-Known Member

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    Is this the one you mean?
    [​IMG]
    ...and to be honest, London Victoria has quite a few platforms loking like this. Platform 13 also looks quite similar (and get's worse the further down the platform you go).
    [​IMG]
    But it's really the Southeastern platforms that are the real kicker here. With those platforms, the gap between the train and the platform is either massive to the point you would have to make the leap of faith into the train in real life...
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    ...or so small, that the train clips throw the platform (particularly on the curves).
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    What's I find ironic here is that the platforms with too big of a gap are all right-hand platforms and those with such a small gap are all left-hand platforms (if you walking down towards the end of the platform).

    I know not many people would walk over to these platforms anyways, but come on, they could have been done so much better than how they ended up here, and to be honest, I feel like Victoria station would need to be completely remodeled in order to, not only sort these issues out, but also those other platforms issues and to make sure no other pop up while sorting the existing one out, which is why I left Victoria station when discussing badly done stations on London Commuter.
     
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  49. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Not to mention the missing Gatwick Express Advertising on platforms 13 and 14. I mean they have the license so it's odd how they didn't put the GX advertising on the platforms that GX use.
     
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  50. cloudyskies21

    cloudyskies21 Well-Known Member

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    Yep. Also, I noticed as well that Purley Oaks also seems to have a bit of a gap too.

    Just to add, my other highly frustrating issue with platforms on London Commuter is platform length, some seem to be slightly shorter in game compared with real life I've noticed.

    And finally, I'm surprised it's not been mentioned more, but as someone who plays TSW 2 without the hud, a majority of stations on London Commuter are missing quite a few stop markers, mostly seem to be the 8-car stop signs though. Again, not sure how these weren't included.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2022
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