PC The End Of Tsw?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Digital Draftsman, Aug 28, 2018.

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  1. metr0p0litain

    metr0p0litain Active Member

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    Can you give examples for this?
     
  2. hightower

    hightower Guest

    The argument always was that the routes were shorter because they were so detailed, and because of that detail the development time for longer routes was prohibitive.

    That detail is going out of the window rapidly with every DLC that passes, NTP being the worst to date in that respect. There are properly big issues with the lighting and weather, and a lot of the texturing is borderline PS2 era stuff.

    It’s doubly frustrating as the sounds and locos are demonstrably good.
     
  3. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    West Somerset Railway and North TransPennine have some fine examples of poor texturing.

    I don’t have the routes myself however you’ll find various pictures from other posters if you look around of how poor they are.
     
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  4. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    It’s the same for GWE, as there are moving vehicles in it too.

    It seems very odd it was removed in later DLCs as it doesn’t seem to have any noticeable FPS hits.

    Maybe it’s because of how ‘hidden’ the roads are in GWE so the player can’t see the cars spawn and despawn when in normal view, as most of the roads are elevated and well hidden by scenery.

    I can get why motorways/freeways can be hard to model traffic in an acceptable way, however.
     
  5. Gascan

    Gascan Active Member

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    Definitely no surprise to see another flop as skepticism grows exponentially while older titles lay stagnant and newer titles are introduced with many of the same issues. The future is mirrored by the past and many people are starting to see their reflection.

    "I bought that content on the pretense that it would be gradually upgraded and improved." But that content didn't improve. Nothing was added... Except new content with many of the same issues.

    Now, instead of confidently saying "I'm going to weigh in on this title since DFG has a record of regularly updating and fixing it's old content and even though it'll be buggy I know it'll get fixed eventually" people are instead saying "Nope" and from the looks of it just downright lost any trust in them pulling it together.

    I suspect we'll see the editor released at some point and people will start having some success in taking some measure of control over the ambiance of each map and people will start buying again... but until such a time that we start to see the enthusiast community doing what DFG refuses to my credit card is in the freezer.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2018
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  6. hightower

    hightower Guest

    Of course, that will only work if DTG can figure out a way to let people edit the existing content. If they can’t, the time it takes 3rd parties to get some decent content might starve the product of life.
     
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  7. Alex01

    Alex01 Active Member

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    .
    .....
     
  8. hightower

    hightower Guest

    Thanks once again for your valuable contribution.
     
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  9. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Alex01 I genuinely think you are are troll. Do you have nothing better to do other than constantly downvote people’s posts and fail to provide any explanation, constructive criticism or feedback?

    Your posts are about as good use as a chocolate teapot, and that’s putting it lightly.
     
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  10. Alex01

    Alex01 Active Member

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    bruh im just a child
     
  11. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    Digital Draftsman always appreciate your insights.

    Some thoughts

    These were clearly released for the holidays so I do wonder whether there might be an uptick closer to the end of the month. That missing console data might be particularly important there

    The bit that I don’t get is why, as more and more routes are added player numbers aren’t moving up. Adding new DLCs, of different flavors, doesn’t seem to be increasing the pool of active players. It’s almost as if there’s established ( but decreasing) group of players who buy each new release, increase activity for a short while, and then it settles back down. Shouldn’t the number of users generally be increasing as each new release brings new people - in the latest case BR Blue fans? And what does that short burst of increased activity suggest about repeat playability? People play it for a few days and then put it down?

    Of course it may be going gangbusters on consoles and we can’t tell that. But if that’s the case wouldn’t the argument be that it’s clearly better positioned as a console franchise than a PC one?

    Usually much of the blame comes back to the development team because of the bugs and other issues. My theory is that there’s also a big problem on the marketing side. Who does their upcoming release notices reach? Certainly existing users, certainly members of this forum, but those groups have already been marketed to. How do they expand that reach?

    Even the format of the release statement bothers me. A big chunk of what looks like C&P out of Wikipedia about the line, 90% of which doesn’t apply to the actual release (it’s interesting to know about the route in 1915 but if the route is set in a more modern period where’s the marketing angle?). Are they creating excitement about the route? Is it clear for a casual or new user exactly what they’re buying and what it does?

    Then there are the dev streams again focused on the forum members and other ITKs. It’s like marketing your new car model only to people who’ve bought the brand before and who joined the Owners Club.

    Now, I’m hardly in the geographic center of the TrainSim world but I do subscribe to several UK Railway magazines, presumably for people who like trains! Some of those magazines, like Traction, have articles on Model Railways. Why aren’t DTG pushing articles about Train Simulation? Traction is an obvious example of a magazine focused on BR Blue fans. There are plenty of ads in there for model trains. Where’s the one for TSW - particularly as you go into a holiday buying season (‘what do you want for ‘Xmas dear? Socks?’)
     
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  12. GothicMatt

    GothicMatt Active Member

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    Im glad im not just the only one who think Alex 01 is annoying he was rude and downright disrespectful also abusive on a Xbox One topic that a new member had posted
     
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  13. Gascan

    Gascan Active Member

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    Moderators appear to be the only people who are less interested in dealing with problems than the dev team.
     
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  14. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    If things were going better on console than PC I think we would see DTG releasing DLC on consoles first. We can also extrapolate from gaming statisics that PC will still be king. Across the market in general, excluding mobile/tablet games, there is a 50/50 split between PC and Consoles. So if the average across all markets is 50/50, it's safe to assume that in a market which has been dominated by PC players for nearly 20 years, the PC will still be the dominant platform, as a 20 year trend isn't going to be reversed in 5 months.

    DTG are not especially strong at marketing; They produce 'articles' which as you say are often Wikipedia copy/paste, and to me it comes across as a lazy attempt to obfuscate the fact it's actually nothing more than an advert. You then have an example here of a recent article which is actually interesting and would make the reader ask 'where can I get these locomotives'. This article has links to the console preorders for the NTP at the start of the article, before the reader has even read the article, so if they like what they read they have to scroll back to the top of the page to find the links. They also fail to provide links to the PC versions of the NTP and Class 33 DLCs, which are on sale now, which is a big missed opportunity. I have fed this back in the announcement thread, so hopefully they'll update the article and generate a few more sales.

    You're also correct with adverts. Just Trains advertise on UKTS; I was just browsing the TSW sub-forum there a moment ago and Just Trains have a big banner advert for their Chiltern Main Line route at the top. There's also railway modelling forums like RMWeb, highly active, with many railway enthusiasts who may have yet to venture into the virtual world. RMWeb is owned by Warners Group, who also publish British Railway Modelling magazine, so there's an opportunity for an advertising deal involving both digital and traditional media.
     
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  15. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    Digital Draftsman on what console sales are we can assume, but we can’t be sure. Looking at it from another angle on PCs TSW has a competitor and established community in TS1. On consoles TSW pretty much has the market place to itself, there is no competitor. Potentially there could be a pent up demand for a train simulator on consoles. Who knows? As to DTG releasing first on PCs, yes that could be an indicator that they see that as their primary market, then again it could just be their workflow or that the release process is quicker on Steam than the console providors.

    Now do I believe that console sales are great? No I don’t but it has to remain a guess as we don’t have any data.

    One clue about how the console community is or isn’t growing is the number of new contributors on the console section of these forums. That sort of presumes that this is the natural forum/utility for new console players to head to. Is that the case?

    If you follow that logic, and use the number of views threads are having PCs do seem to be dominant. For example this thread has over 14,000 views, PS4 views are in the hundreds whereas XBox has some threads with 2,000 plus views. Again not concrete evidence but the PS4 vs. Xbox comparison is interestIng.
     
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  16. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Which ones? There are two pics of locos, the first marked "Some examples of Train Simulator add-ons that were developed with assistance from Ed Fisk form MeshTools" (despite the spelling error these are for TS1), the second marked "Above: The Class 45/1 and Class 33 in Train Sim World, the first TSW add-ons to be developed with assistance from a 2nd party."
    So I don't see where it's confusing as to where to obtain these locos
     
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  17. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Other than that, except for here, facebook and most recently YouTube I don't see much of DTG, but then they're a tiny company comparitively
     
  18. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    All of them, though the issue isn't confusion about where to get them. There are no links provided to the PC DLC anywhere in the article, which is a basic oversight. In marketing you want to make it as easy as possible to bring the customer and product together. If someone reads that article and is inspired to purchase one of the locomotives, they want a link right there to the product page. Otherwise they have to search Google or Steam, or scroll back to the top of the article and trawl the DTG store for it. It's well known in online marketing that for every additional action required to get to a product, the more customers you lose.

    It doesn't matter if it's TS or TSW content, it's Christmas, DTG needs the sales, so they should make it as easy as possible for potential customers to purchase content.
     
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  19. Alex01

    Alex01 Active Member

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    IMG_2073.JPG
     
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  20. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    This is probably true, no matter how sad that makes people sound.
     
  21. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    Tiny company? Two locations and 120 plus staff? Millions in revenues.

    They’re not Google, but they’re not Armstrong Powerhouse either.

    Company board, private equity investors, a marketing department and the best they can do is a forum (which they struggle to provide a moderator for), a bit of Facebook and YouTube?

    Guess I’m getting old and cranky but it seems to me that a company of that size a) is hardly tiny and b) ought to be leveraged to a far higher level of performance.

    I’ve no doubt that many of the developers are working all hours but it does make you wonder about the rest of the company. This is a niche game and let’s be honest many of the community aren’t exactly mainstream (we’re kind of electronic train spotters). Marketing to that community needs people who understand that community, knows how to reach them and what excites them. To be honest, people like us.
     
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  22. raildan

    raildan Well-Known Member

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    I've seen one or two steam ads for upcoming TSW DLC, too. There was one for NTP. (You know, the stuff that pops up when Steam loads.)

    Overall, though, I've always felt that their marketing team was terrible not because of how little they advertise but on how but on how much unnecessary hype they build up sometimes. Sure, it's largely unnoticed by people who don't already have the game, but they make a big deal on the release of each DLC... and let us not forget the "exiting news" a few months ago that was just a console release. Making this stuff seem like a big deal makes it more disappointing when it is actually released/announced.

    As for advertising, they should possibly do even less. Sticking to social media and the forums is fine. After all:
     
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  23. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    raildan the problem with the forums is that it doesn’t get new blood in. The problem with social media is that while it’s attractive to younger demographics older people are less active - and there are a lot of older train enthuasists.

    Rather than less advertising where’s the smart advertising? Where’s the video of a retired Class 101 driver from the NTP route ‘driving TSW’ and talking about his experiences? Where are the demo booths at the big model railway exhibitions? Where are the ‘contributed pieces’ in the relevant area newspapers about how you can ‘drive’ your local route? How much of a tie in is there with WSR; is there a demo booth there? How about some posters at LIRR stations? How about some donation to a Class 40 preservation society and the attempt to get some local TV time out of it?

    I’m sure some marketing department will say it won’t work and perhaps that’s true. But equally DTG’s present efforts aren’t working so why not change the formula?
     
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  24. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yes. Number of locations is irrelevant, 120 staff isn't many in corporate terms (especially development), and millions in revenue / turnover doesn't mean that they're huge profit wise.
     
  25. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    Discord
     
  26. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Thought that was Matt P rather than DTG?
     
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  27. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    We have a couple others too.
     
  28. raildan

    raildan Well-Known Member

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    Some great ideas there- I'd love to see that class 101 driver, lol. This was kind of my point, also- less "advertising" in the traditional, hype-up-everything sense, although I guess I didn't really make that clear or mention other ways they could advertise.

    Though, now that I think about it, they have actually done some of that- on WSR's release, I can swear I remember something about giving away copies on-site with a demo or something. And weren't they at a "big model railway exhibition" a few months ago?
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2018
  29. AlexNL

    AlexNL Well-Known Member

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    And let's not forget that DTG aren't focused exclusively on Train Sim World. They've still got TS1 going for them (although for many recent things they're only the publisher), they've got Fishing Sim World and they're somehow involved in Microsoft's Flight Simulator.

    This means they'll probably have lots of people who are involved in artwork, modelling, sales and marketing. Then there's people working in roles such as HR, finance, support and management which means there are bums filling office chairs, without directly generating income.

    I would not be surprised if there's maybe 50 people involved in development work (which includes 3D modeling) split across the various games DTG make. As TSW work requires rather specific knowledge, you can't just take a developer from the Fishing Sim World team and expect them to build a great locomotive in a week. While a FSW modeller is probably able to build a good looking loco, it won't feel like it because you need to know how the loco should feel and work, and you've got to get it all set up in SimuGraph (see the recent article with Ed Fisk).

    If DTG were solely involved in Train Sim World, and would not be publishing it as well, I would say that "with 120 employees they could do better" but that is simply not the case. They're a relatively small games studio.
     
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  30. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    I think the point being made is that the presence of devs on discord who might be disseminating information there is not the official DTG line of communication, and that to be disseminating information in an unofficial channel while ignoring your branded communication channel is odd to say the least.. but Im sure you thought that too.
     
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  31. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yup
     
  32. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    @ruscoe how much profit they make is irrelevant in terms of the size of the company. Your point that ‘that they have lots of people...sales and marketing’ is exactly my point. How many people do you need to C&P Wikipedia?

    As to their other activities it seems to me that on TS1 they’re effectively a publisher. How much do they actually develop these days? On the fishing simulator I’ve no idea how successful it is but in terms of a niche I would have thought it’s even small than Train Simming, but I could be wrong.

    There may well be lots of non revenue people, but again how many do you need to support a company of this size, and that’s their choice. If you were running a company like this you’d focus on development and marketing/sales wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t that make up 80% of your company numbers?

    Yes there are bits and pieces like Discord, official or not, but how much resource does that use up?

    In the end they’ve been growing, have a fair number of bodies and seemingly able ones if you look at LinkedIn. But the bottom line is TSW doesn’t seem to be selling that well and my argument is that’s because the marketing isn’t reaching the new players that it needs. They should have enough bodies in marketing to do a better job.

    One obvious thing is to start moving over the TS1 crowd who so far seem reluctant. They know who those people are from Steam. Have you ever seen an offer like ‘spend GBP 25 on TS2019 DLC before March and get a free TSW with GWE’? TS1 users sitting in the fence might be willing to give TSW at least a try if they had some carrot dangled in front of them. You never know, if it’s any good they might then go and buy another DLC.
     
  33. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    The trouble is that although TSW is on a next gen engine, its actually a bit rubbish compared to ts2018 in terms of immersion, replayability, available routes, rolling stock, signalling, physics.. crikey now that I list them TSW has a bit of improving to do. Im not sure Id advertise it too much at the moment until I got my products metaphorical poop together. But thats just my almost tongue in cheek opinion of where the two products lie. Ts2018 is just a better product at representing the world we seek, despite being really old. Its worth unpacking that to try and figure out why then pack those answers into a corrective strategy for TSW.. but Im not holding my breath.
     
  34. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    Puffing Nora I think they tried that approach with FSW with a pretty obvious result...
     
  35. AlexNL

    AlexNL Well-Known Member

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    The lack of content is also likely to hold people off from buying TSW. TS2019 has a vast catalog of trains, routes and assets from DTG and third parties. TSW doesn't - not yet at least.

    It will get better when the tools are released and people find out ways to build and distribute routes and assets, but it will take time to get there.
     
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  36. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    Kind of related to the above. I hope they have a graphics option in the editor to actually exploit the UE4 engine. On that note i hope they dont hardstop the capabilities of editing to enable cross platform functionality. The lowest common denominator of performance shouldnt be the limit of what can be created.
     
  37. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    What’s wrong with the physics?
     
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  38. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    People were pronouncing the demise of Rail Simulator and Railworks in their early days due to lack of content and look at it now, of course there is a lack of content it is a new simulator and the tools are only about to be released, do people expect dozens of routes and stock after two years?! I use both but there is far more to TS so I use it more but slowly over the coming year or two I will move more towards TSW more as more content comes out (I wonder if this thread will still be with use then), as with MSTS to RW. I won't ditch TS completely. People have been pronouncing the demise of DTG for a since they were formed, and they are still here.

    It is as if some are just intent on finding problems, yes it isn't perfect, I agree the routes need more life especially the WSR. However, in my opinion the graphics are great, the stock we have had so far is excellent and with service mode there is plenty of immersion in most routes. I would like to see DLC for older routes particularly RT and GWE but unless I am too easily pleased I don't understand the doom and gloom in this thread. The physics seem pretty good to me and the stock is much better physics wise than a lot of TS content.
     
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  39. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    200mph class 66 sound normal to you?
     
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  40. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    Could be better. I dont condone excusing mediocrity as a path to future excellence.
     
  41. LastTrainToClarksville

    LastTrainToClarksville Well-Known Member

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    If you don't have the route, you don't have the right to condemn it. DTG almost always states that the screen shots they post, especially before the route is released, do not necessarily depict the final release version of the route. Bazz fazz.
     
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  42. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    I havent got a history of criminality. Do I not have the right to condemn it using your logic? Im confused how ownership of something grants you exclusivity in the complaints department..
     
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  43. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    But I don't think it is mediocre so that is not what I am doing?
     
  44. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    Of course not but it makes it rather more valid if you actually have experience of the product you are complaining about!
     
  45. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    Do you believe it is fulfilling the full potential of the UE4 engine?
     
  46. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    Well thats handy because I do ;) Complaining is probably the wrong word in my case. Exasperated is prob better..
     
  47. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    I wouldn't know as I have no experience of the UE4 engine. It is early days but I believe it has a lot of potential, the graphics are more lifelike, the models are very detailed with good functionality and sounds, service mode is an excellent idea and the stream of the editor means scenario creation is going to be a lot more powerful and intuitive than in TS. I am looking forward to what the future holds I certainly don't see a mediocre product, you may want to, I don't. I am particularly enjoying this new route and look forward to the next lot of DLC.
     
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  48. Puffing Nora

    Puffing Nora Guest

    Well I certainly wouldnt want to discourage your enjoyment of it. I wish you many happy hours of fun.
     
  49. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    Thank you and I hope you feel less exasperated with it in the near future.
     
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  50. LeadCatcher

    LeadCatcher Well-Known Member

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    Wow, after reading through this thread again after some time away, I get the vision of the cranky old muppets in the balcony that had an opinion on every aspect of the show.... great entertainment l must say.
     
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