DTG is definitely a master of spin. It can spin any LOVE into silk. Unfortunately, we all keep falling for it, so they know they can get away with it time and time again.
The trouble with little snippets of information that get shoved around as facts is this, depending on the persons bias to the company and products they produce, they will always use it to validate their views, while not knowing in what context it was ment in, the only people that definitely know, is the one person who said it, everyone else is running on full assumptions, not hard facts....
Why would an employee lie? Then again, we get told bare faced lies on the live streams so there’s nothing new.
Regardless of the true/false OSINT, variety is nice and route after route of modern image EMU is just plain dull. TSW has more UK EMU's than locomotives now if you list all classes. I agree steam and diesel co-exist well and there is the Class 104 coming for Peak Forest. Too many routes lack the layers to make a route feel truly alive and it is third parties like Skyhook and JT who have proven how to do it well. On the upside there won't be that many EMU's left soon so they will have to go to diesel unless we then go seventy flavours of DMU...
Haha this forum never disappoints when it comes to outrage. It's a shame it can't be put to better use. Have fun howling into the void. We all know the tune will change the second a shiny new DLC is announced. You can set your watch by it. Have a great weekend!
The person I quoted basically made it sound like we shouldn't speculate or say anything here since it's unsportsmanlike due to DTG not responding because of the holidays.
Please, take a look at the post history of DTG staff members. First, look in the timeframe of the first TSW 4 announcement until around the end of October. Then, look in the timeframe from November until the start of DTGs holidays. You will notice that activity from DTG was highest around the TSW 4 announcement and release, answering many questions around it, the Editor and so on. Activity began to stagnate around beginning/mid of November, ESPECIALLY around the Editor. Look at how many times they have said "we cannot provide an timeframe", "currently no info" and so on.
Of course activity would be higher at TSW4's release. Would be pretty poor of them to stay silent when they want to also promote their new product. Also, not everything can be given a time frame. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Now, this is not what I wanted to read on here after getting home. I do hope, like most, this is not the case because again, like many, I do really want to enjoy steam in TSW, however for it to be enjoyed it needs to be put in a somewhat accurate state. FS is a total abysmal mess, in honesty, and I were looking forward to it so it would be a shame if DTG give up on steam. I suppose all we can do until the new year is speculate and argue on the accuracy of this but not a good look for DTG at all. Yes, it has a constant supply of electricity, never runs out of water and even when you open the lid has a large amount of steam pressure in the top. I absolutely love the BR diesels and also steam both in real life and certainly in game, however essentially saying driving an EMU doesn't take actual brain skills is total nonsense, even if in game it doesn't feel engaging.
They probably don't have much updates or they're busy doing their own jobs and people on break. If dtg are working on the editor and they don't have much to share or aren't allowed to share, then they won't have anything to share to the community. If they had something new or significant enough to share, then they would say so
The DTG CEO had a dream of standing on Crewe Station watching steam trains passing by in the 1950s. It wasn't so much of a dream as both a memory and a vision. He had been there, he had seen this before. He could remember it. But he wanted to experience it again. So he instructed his devs to make it happen in TSW. They hadn't done this period before, they hadn't even made a steam engine in the UE4 world, but this was a very particular vision and it had to be just so. I guess it would have been so much easier to do this in TSC, maybe they offered this as an alternative, but he wanted to be on the platform, watching, wander around the station exploring, experiencing, remenicing. So that is why Paul Jackson was the person who not only suggested the Spirit of Steam DLC, he actually ordered it, from the top down. It was his last wish before retirement, once he could stand on Crewe station and watch the steam trains passing by he could step away with a sense of closure, of fulfilment. Actually, take it from the man himself: "I've talked a lot in the past about what my perfect train experience would be. For me it would be standing on Crewe station in 1953/54 when most of the privations of the war were over. Services were reasonably back to normal but for all intents and purposes modern technology hadn't started to encroach on the steam trains that were running. Just being there and watching things happen naturally where an unexpected loco might come through the station is my idea of an perfect experience. For me, that would be the epitome: to see the train in its natural environment; perhaps it's dirty, perhaps they had to put a different engine on at the last minute. It pulls into the station and maybe the fire's run down and the crew might be tired but they set off again, heading north. When I think about steam trains there's preserved or heritage rail which are superb, but what I really want is steam in its natural environment." https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/train-sim-world/articles/article/bringing-steam-to-tsw2 ------ Fast forward to where we are now. Steam still doesn't work properly, the details in the resolution thread paint a picture of three different locos which all have the same basic and faulty physics, the same basic simugraph issues. No manual firing, no, because it seems the simugraph workings don't match real life or what we see on screen. Steam isn't ready, despite being out since summer '22. It shouldn't have been announced until it was ready, but it was. It was a vanity project, not a sensible first choice of route, but one that was chosen for a particular reason by a particular person. Who isn't there any more. It didn't sell very well, particularly Peak Forest, small wonder given we were waiting for it to be fixed having been burnt the first time. And anyway, it wasn't made in the first place because of mass market demand, it was made because of the demands of one person. Who isn't there any more. It's a bit of a mess...
By railway I take it as a given that the Underground doesn't count. Point is Standedge tunnel hasn't been the longest tunnel in Britain for a long time, and I bet most of the general public have at least heard of the Severn tunnel unlike Standedge, which is a name for the most part only railway enthusiasts will recognise. The channel tunnel doesn't count because it's mostly in the English channel, not the UK. Getting back on topic... I really hope DTG give steam another crack. Their alleged reasoning for not wanting to continue with steam (if true) sounds more to me like they can't be bothered to continue with it. What gets me is that it seems they've more or less cracked it in TSC. Is there no communication at all between the two teams?
I mean the underground should count, I don’t see how stations in it makes it not a tunnel… and the channel tunnel is still in the U.K. so yes it’s in the U.K. I only know Severn as I think I’ve seen a YouTube TSC video with it but thats it tbh, I also didnt know standledge tbh until watching a stream on TSW NTP as it’s name is not written in the game I don’t think but yes back on topic
I mean they’re last U.K. dlc had steam so I don’t see why people think it’s cancelled to be fair. edit: I know it may seem a while but routes do take time, I think if they aimed at one steam route and one BR route every 2 years it would provide the break between modern routes and stop them becoming tiresome at the same time not ruling out those types as they don’t sell as well (apparently)
Worth saying that while PJ may have been the one to have gotten the ball rolling, there had already been many requests in the forums for steam, and there was much happiness when it was announced.
Anyone working in an office on a computer will be replaced before train drivers. It´s further off than you might think. Subway systems like the tube in London might be automated, but mainline rail will take a while!
Sounds all like the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma: DTG won´t develop steam content furthermore because it doesn´t sell to the steam passionates? Now, that PR stunt they pulled already with BR content...... and then there was Blackpool Branches. Or: Steam doesn´t sell to the steam passionates because it´s the usual half arsed, bug infested, corner cutting DTG DLC? Yaaaaaah, but do we remember the fanfare at SoS launch ..... the new era in TSW, as authentic as it can get and all that??? But then again: If DTG tells me today Earth is as sphere, I wouldn´t believe them before checking other sources. Plus causality was never the strongest of DTG´s PR department. And of credibility, nobody at DTG seems to ever heard of, let alone cared about. So what now? Will this thread, even from one of the forum´s most respected OPs, change that course? Hmmm, that would be great, but I don´t see it coming. Too bad. This game should be the source of entertainment and joy, not of irritation and angriness. Otherwise, what´s the point? That being said: Happy New (TSW) Year to Everyone!
Nail. On. Head. The other thing about SoS is this is a route which should have received several enhancements, loco packs, coaching stock packs, freight packs. Maybe even an extension to Chester, Manchester or Stafford. It should have been the route you could never drag yourself away from playing, exerting a pull and power like those old complex model railways that department stores used to have in the 1960’s, to sell you the rather more mundane train set packs. Instead it really did fall off the DTG Flywheel. Not even a layer or additional services for the flawed 4F. As said it took over a year for the SPAD/derailment bug to be fixed and then only because the EP worked on it in his spare time. Which of course is where the problem seems to lay. Full credit to Matt for sorting it but what should really have happened is he, or whoever has managerial or even disciplinary power should have lit a fire under the person responsible and left them in no uncertain terms that either they fix the mess or they will be collecting a P45 at the end of the month. And so it is with steam physics. Someone should be firmly tasked with sorting it rather than what seems to be a rather wishy washy approach to problems which need solving. I do wonder also if it hadn’t been for PJ’s vanity project whether steam would even have been a thing in TSW at all. Or we would have received a more iconic route to start with like Riviera Line or the S&D. PFR likewise, it’s a lovely route aside from the end points and I love the fact it recreates a now partly closed or greatly rationalised section of railway. But to someone thinking of British steam it doesn’t stand out like the aforementioned routes, or something like the S&C.
True. I feel like SoS could have been steam’s DRA or SEHS if it had been built up to with more stock available from previous routes and/or loco DLCs.
We could have had Jintys and Crabs shuffling about on trip workings and shunting the yards. 2-6-4T tank locos and non corridor stock on local passenger workings. A 9F to complement the 8F’s on freight. Another main line set with a Black Five and perhaps a Royal Scot on LMS P3 coaches. It would have been a magnificent recreation of a bygone era, kind of a digital Miniature Wonderland of late LMS/BR steam.
Riviera in the 50s was a great add on. Lots of engines and a decent variety of services. Not the longest route but definitely iconic with the Sea wall. Something that I am not sure all seem to grasp. Standedge tunnel is an important pice of railway engineering but if I asked someone with out a railway interest if they had heard of it....? DTG seem content to plod on with WoW shiny new unit DLC for some reason and leave steam in its dormant state. Unless they absolutely can't fix it in which case its probably time to look at a new game engine. We are 7 years in after all......
Can steam and diesel fans try not to have a problem with people who are less interested in those type of trains? Yeah this is a sad situation that DTG seemingly have given up on steam but there really no need to have a go people who like modern traction, like can we really not have these types of discussions without it boiling down to the argument of steam/diesel vs everything after? Even with automated trains it’s a lot more than just sitting and watching. Seriously the way people talk about modern traction here is the same way people who know nothing railways think trains are driven, we all know it’s not simple at all!
Stay calm. Any irreverent reference to “one handled” trains is meant in jest and plenty of those have issues with sound and physics too. The Japanese sims I’m currently playing have modern EMU’s and are quite fun to drive.
Ultimately this could be said for most historic routes featured in TSW. NTP, TVL and Clinchfield were pretty much also made because of someone's memories of them. Maybe it'sa similar with other routes like Blackpool Branches too?
I don't know anything about the Discord server but I question why a staff member would say something regarding "development decisions" publicly, unless maybe it was to start this debate! Steam seems very popular in TSC so I can't see why TSW is any different! Bossman, Victory Works, Caledonian works, Steam Sounds Supreme and Digital Traction all produce plenty of steam content, much of CW content is quite obscure but still seems to sell. JT and DTG/RSC have themselves produced steam in the past There are several "communities" producing freeware steam routes. I think the problem with the two steam routes in TSW is they are unfinished. SOS has a poor timetable with local services missing, therefore you have decent stretch of mainline with plenty of yards and yet it feels like a backwater line about to fall to the Beeching axe. PFR was an odd route choice with its start and end points and again with a poor timetable with many services missing. I wasn't going to purchase it, I only did because Matt made promising comments on the stream about looking into a add-on pack, which is now coming to fruition with the class 104 pack. If PFR sold poorly, maybe it is for these reasons, plus that steam physics still seem to need work? If we want to send a message to DTG then I don't think arguing about what trains are interesting, or should be interesting, or what we think DTG should be producing or not be producing, is going to help and drowns out the purpose of this thread. I much prefer BR steam and diesel and electric however I enjoy driving all types, including modern EMU's, as for me it isn't just about the train but the experience of driving a train, using safety systems, carrying out duties associated with the particular train, basically the closest I can to be a actual train driver. As said many times we all have preferences and it isn't helpful starting a my train is better than yours argument, no-one is right or wrong it is a matter of choice of what trains they enjoy. Personally I feel it would be good as much as possible that DTG and others end up with a catalogue of content which covers as many interests as possible, which of course means that there are always going to be releases which some section of the "community" will not be interested in. Belittling others likes and dislikes is quite petty though.
Morning folks This is for all steam lovers, i found this little gem on youtube, not sure if its been posted or talked about before: if they pull this off and offer more than just US locos and routes, i am getting very excited Take Care & Happy New Year all Gary
One steam and BR Diesel route every two years is way too unbalanced, I wouldn't be happy with this at all. Just alternate eras between each release so everything gets an equal amount of attention. They should have the same amount of releases as the modern era per year at minimum. The game would stagnate fast having two years worth of only modern stuff and the tiniest bit of historical content. The problem is the quality needs to be there, a lot of steam fans still stick with TS Classic because of the great content they can get over there from third parties. If a steam era route came out with the quality of Blackpool Branches, I'm sure some of those still only playing TS Classic would be tempted over to try TSW's steam offering out. If this is proving too much for DTG alone, they should try contacting these third parties that focus on steam traction and seeing if any of them would be willing to assist with getting the core steam physics right. If you try any Bossman Games locomotive in TS Classic, it gives you a good idea on how it should feel to drive one in TSW.
The narrator sounds a little like a younger Mr Rogers but MAN this gets my money on the first day. They appear to have taken the opportunity to fill the void of US historical steam trains.
I hope you know it took several years to get all the locomotives you mentioned to be represented in TSC. And just as many years to get the fidelity and quality up to what it is today. Many if the early kettles in TSC where rather basic with the more indepth system rich locomotives coming from 3rd party developers. I find it rather amazing how many are getting all riled up over an unsubstantiated rumor from a third cousin who heard from his mate that was sitting in a bar overhearing a conversation while in the loo. Says a lot for these forums
Yet that rumour is the only thing we've heard from anywhere near to a close to official source on the subject for months if indeed it is from a DTG dev
sounds unbalanced at first, but their is usually about say 5 or less DTG uk routes per year, meaning BR/Steam would count as about 20% (or more if less than 5) at 1 per year, any more and it’s near 50/50. they ain’t looking to be equal to modern for DTG for multiple reasons to be released equally. only talking DTG here aswell, meaning it would be an improvement to releases since their last BR I think was TVL
I'd say a better split would be 33/33/33 as technically steam and diesel are their own separate eras, with a brief crossover between the two during the end of steam. One historical route per two years just isn't reasonable on those more inclined to that content. Take these examples 1. Modern > Steam > Diesel > Modern > Diesel > Modern > Steam > Diesel > Modern > Diesel 2. Modern > Modern > Modern > Modern > BR Blue > Modern > Modern > Modern > Modern > Steam Example 1. sounds a lot more interesting than example 2. It has a nice variety, and is nicely split between Steam/Diesel/Modern eras whereas example 2. is rather boring with too much modern content, one after another. Steam and Diesel are both wide topics too with things like Pre-Grouping, The Big Four, BR Steam, BR Green, BR Blue, Intercity, etc, there's so much ground to cover within them.
