This is really exciting! Thank you for this information. I'm also pleased to see that they are not including old consoles as this has been a particular bug bear for TSW. I feel it's time to move on from the TSW franchise now, particularly with their view on the future, which is to ignore their community and customers.
I wasn't particularly amazed by SR Prologue years ago, but my friend convinced me to give it another shot and it definitely is a worthy title with great potential. A lot of progress has been made over the last year, and they are still polishing the core as much as possible. And the variety - one loco in a bunch of liveries, all with their own details applied even to the 3D model (e.g. AC units, different radios, tap controllers, etc.). Definitely not taking shortcuts with this.
To be honest, TSW0 or TSW1 had the same worthy entry, with lots of new features. Unfortunately, after it became more - or now even mostly - console market oriented, the focus ( here is that word again ) shifted. And I for one don't like this direction with more trains cast in plastic from the same mold and repetitive stop-and-go routes to keep the thumbstick player happy.
Unfortunately, but true I think. Trundling along at 25-35 MpH through canyons of red rock isn't exactly appealing after the first run.
I hope not. It inevitable leads to cuts in features and performance for all, dumbing down of controls, and when interoperability is demanded by the game studio, any sizeable railroad won't fit in the console's limited memory and specs anymore. Plus you get a different kind of player on board, vandals wanting to mess around in multi player when there is no access control at the server.
As a North American fan, I'd always groan if I heard DTG was doing anything with steam (Wasatch grade, for instance) as it would always be some eigth-baked model. But everytime I heard Smokebox chime in with a new loco, I'd always click my heels, eager for more. I figure if NA steam is coming to TSW in any form, it'll be through him. DTG knows better than to bother with the NA market, they don't understand our preferences like Smokebox does. Yeah. A lot easier to copy/paste the same equipment on a new route than actually spend time building any sort of new trains. A new train requires models, research, textures, sounds, and simulations, whereas a new route is the same assets across a new square of map.
A bit of competition could kill TSW off entirely. Especially if DTG continue to let obvious errors and bugs outside.
I kinda agree, but after seeing the region in-person, they did do a decent job of representing what it really looks like there. Ironically, when I was there, they could have had passenger service on the line in the form of the Rocky Mountaineer... I do agree that there isn't much variety, though. But still a good effort for an extremely amazing, under-represented area in the US.
Smokebox is just one person I believe so it wouldn't be financially viable for him to develop for tsw. I remember watching a stream and he mentioned how the amount of effort and hours he put into tsc was much more than what he actually earned so he was at a loss really. It also took him a really long time and most likely in his own free time. For him to develop for tsw, it's just too much work on his own.
That's going to be most people that develop with the fidelity that he does. When you include every nut and bolt into a project, it's a labor of love that you'll never recoup the cost from. There's some projects I'm working on, like 3D prints for HO scale, that I know that I will never turn a profit on, no matter the cost. But that's fine, as my actual day job is a mechanical engineer, where I get to use those CAD skills in my daily job. Of course, this means that it'll take ages for anything to be created, but I'd rather have someone with soul and passion working on the project than a 9-5'er that needs another project for the timeslot in the next two months.
The Rocky Mountaineer wasn't running on the branch at the time. Route Release: July 2021 1st RM Red Rock trip: August 2021 Not to mention Skyhook didn't bother with the correct cars for the Uranium Tailing trains, so they wouldn't even bother to model the correct RM stock.
Especially at the moment. Because it seems like DTG have been digging their own grave with TSW4 imo so far? It doesn't feel like they've come back from Christmas and feels a bit like they're avoiding the community and forums with a 10ft barge pole lol I think they need to start listening to the community of dedicated players and actually following through on stuff or they're gonna dig the hole even deeper and burn the ladder to keep warm.
The only problem is it backfires even when they do say something. But I'd rather that than nothing at all.
Unless it's unpaid leave or the software industry do things differently (annual hours contract or something) it's almost unprecedented for staff to take an entire month off and who would want to use a normal annual leave quota up in the darkest winter period? (Unless you're going very, very south). I think there was a vague reference that Matt might finally resurface on the stream for the (yet another) Class 66 livery pack for Edinburgh to Glasgow so maybe some questions about steam need to be headed in that direction.
I wonder if we'll get something a little more substantial from the next roadmap Q&A? Or festival of rail. But I'm trying not to get my hopes up
My main hope with Festival Of Rail is that the TSC items on my wishlist will be getting a nice discount.
I played about 10 hours of SimRail over the weekend. You know what I haven´t seen during this time? A single stutter. 3440x1440 resolution, maximum details, with or without DLSS, it´s running smooth. I have the Polish lights and signs guides printed and I am so far enjoying the experience. I liked it in the early play test, I like it even more now. They´ve just had an even bigger discount than in the Christmas sale to celebrate the one year anniversary over the weekend. It´s normal for people to get enthusiastic about a new product but this time I know it´s more than a ¨hype¨. I would love to say that TSW is the more mature product but it´s not. It´s just more popular. While one announces the introduction of steam engines, the other says it´s not on the roadmap anymore and that third parties are potentially interested in steam. Not clearly responding to the rumors which of course can have a negative impact if left vague like this at least on a part of the player base and fuel up speculation. Or perhaps no one high enough is around to formulate a proper answer... I don´t know about you but I have a fairly small collection of model trains. 12 engines out of which 10 are steam. I purchased West Cornwall Local and Steam Railtour Add-On in the Christmas sale. I gave up after 2 attempts to enjoy these that ended up with the engine going by itself to full throttle and getting stuck there with wheels slipping until it lost all traction while I wasn´t applying any power. The sparks made a good show but I haven´t tried to play it since. As I said, I am playing with other toys now. I don´t want any of them to fail. I love trains no matter who builds them and competition is damn healthy for any market so I hope they both find a way to success.
SimRail runs terribly for me fwiw and until there's some content outside of Poland and an actual single-player experience, i'm not too keen on revisiting it. Hopefully DTG have something exciting to share once they break radio silence, but i'm not optimistic- seems like they're just trying to wait out the Steam-cancellation outrage as long as possible. Par for the course for them.
Yes you're quite right Vern. (See below). Thursday, January 25th: Burns Night Celebration Stream (Matt and Alex) However there is a problem. Possibly a bigger problem than the future of Steam. What could it be??? (Drumroll) 'Rabbie Burns' is blocked by TSW4's Profanity Filter (Don't tell the Scots)
These sparks you speak of, I've not seen those? One effect that would be nice, is sparks from the chimney in twilight or night time. And the shadow silhouette of steam from the chimney along with the shadow of the loco.
Just wondering what route/scenario/train were you trying to run, I also have not seen sparks if it is with the steam locos. -- OldVern that is if you have not seen this yet. The full list of what is going on and what will be displayed, as of today. Monday, January 22nd: Engineering Express Early Access Showcase (Ambassadors) Find a range of ambassador-created content across social platforms ahead of the release of the Engineering Express pack from Rivet Games. What I saw was all Class 66 stuff with different couplers I just scrubbed through ONE video I saw, after searching the Net. -- While I know that I'm still the New Old kid, "I'm no spring Chicken, just ole Hen " on the block here, I actually started on my XB1X with TSW3 when I found it literally by accident prior to its release, checked out a few videos, did the bare minimum research due to family matters and time & then I got TSW2 on Disc, it was the only way I could get it at the time for XB that is. I then purchased both for PC and now TSW4. As for the future of Steam and what will not be or will be, IMHO, actions speak louder than words, and in this case, it's been the lack of action, as for what was done to patch/fix/update issues with what we have now with A couple of scenarios and timetable scenarios were made shorter and easier to complete with the Jubilee and the LMS Stanier 8F, before the TSW4 release. The days of promises of manual firing all that has not come about is well before my time with TSW as a whole, after all this time it should have been done already, but that speaks to the inaction/limited action. And the more I think about it, It feels like this was a long time coming, With my daughter's help in editing and research, we spent close to a month, if not an entire month, putting together a couple of videos showing what required fixing, and what did not look right. Our hope was the Devs and DTG would take a good look at the video(s) and make a proper fix. "NOT" I believe this goes much deeper, it actually shows in The Flying Scotsman with the AI fireman... what was touted as a "selling point" is the way of getting around the coal hopper and water tank while crouched so you can get into the coaches from the cab, while the whole issue with the fireman was swept into the firebox. At least that is what it looked and felt like to me, and I'm one that calls a spade a spade, from the handful of fixes with the steam scenarios, the Scotsman it all leads to making things easier, what little complexity that was in the Jubilee and the LMS Stanier 8F scenarios that were "fixed" was more of making them into a straight run. backup pull forward that is it, I do understand that most routes are points A to B, too many are now looking more like yard shunting. Where someone with almost zero knowledge can complete, turn the key, push the pedal and go, push the brake, and stop. Even many of the newest trains, take almost zero to no effort to recover from a PCS lockout/emergency braking incident, now maybe I'm looking at from days of what I learned with the training center with TSW3 and reading doing my best to understand, there were days that I spent more time learning how to recover from an emergency braking scenario with European trains from the UK and Germany, as well as the US, I did it many time just to see and learn. Now I can do that with some trains by simply releasing the brake and pedal to the metal in a matter of seconds, I doubt many of these trains are that easy to recover, but I will be doing more learning still. It just seems like they are making things easier and easier to bring in more people, and get more people playing, why else would they put TSW3 and TSW2 back on sale on Steam? I'm actually waiting for the day that TSW2020 goes back on sale on Steam. With the amount of funds I spent on TSW products, the last thing I want to see is DTG and the old Roto-Rooter jingle, I enjoy TSW, I have fun, and there are many days my special needs older daughter just watches and asks questions makes comments and we have fun. But what I'm seeing and feeling is not good, attached are just a few images of what I see and found just by sheer accident in SoS, and just one of the older trains to be added to TSW4, there is just so much that needs to be fixed in just SoS, as well as the Scotsman now, I would be very surprised, Gobsmacked to see any of the issues fixed before any new Steam locos came out.
looks like the best competition to TSW so far (including console as-well that’s a rarity and a open and good market to go for) hopefully has a knock on effect what can make the TSW position as the lone option not a thing anymore. Maybe just maybe TSW on console will the get the attention it needs before it’s too late for it.
For me TSW4 for it self was a great release. Not delivering formation designer and the suspension rather as a one time fire and forget feature is nothing than the usual dtg approach ( manual firing remember?) No what really killed the franchais for me is: - so much of the older content broke with tsw4 - substitution broken (as s customer this is my basic expetation because i spent a lot of money to get the variety) - mods broken (again again and again again, i choose my platform to not get across any (performance) problems of other platforms. So if you desperatly "solve" the ps4 dlc limit with addon manager, then do it without spreading major bugs / restrictions over all platforms. With Tsw 4 i realised how rubbish the business of DTG really is. And they will never ever see me paying a single cent again. Im sure the programmers and matt are reslly passionate people, and they do all to make the sim better, but DTGs management decisions stinks upnto heaven which isnt justify my support for the franchaise any further.
completely agree, the crazy part for me is how they don’t come across as realising that. So many times has this kind of thing been pointed out but it’s that feedback what seems to get the dismissal as false, when all it and others have wanted to do is see TSW be all it can be and more.
If that's the case, then it would only confirm the poor TSW management. If the potential was used correctly from the beginning, we'd be looking at a rail simulation titan by now.
I mean DTG's entire mantra seems to be along the lines of "Minimum Viable Product". So many routes have bugs that are never fixed, sections cut out, illogical starting and end points. Not to mention the overall lack of any polish. Do slightly above the minimum acceptable ammount of care, and people will buy the stuff cause they are starved for alternatives seems to be their MO.
My younger daughter was looking for some info on DavinciResolve and how best to do something, when she ran across this video. This was made in Blender, it looks really well made and a bit funny, I chose to start the share link as you see it, it's only a 2-minute clip. This same person made this, Train Disaster in London Paddington Station CRASH ON VIDEO - Made in Blender by Landon. There was no crash. Nice train station though. Maybe, just maybe DTG should have a talk with this person, and help them get back on track with the steam locos. If the person or persons can do this kind of work, what other talents do they have and are not being shown?
This video of Flying Scotsman could of been made as a metaphor for simulated steam physics, and the passenger is the last person buying steam loco dlc content. Also note there was no footplate crew because of the automatic firing settings.
Minimum Viable Product is actually a real concept in project management. The trick is that it's supposed to just be a foundation that you can complete in some fraction of the planned timescale of the full project, and then expand on incrementally until you run up against the limits of the schedule. It makes adjusting the scope of the project to fit the available schedule easier to do and reduces the overall project risk. You are not usually supposed to actually ship the Minimum Viable Product, especially not for full price and without adequate testing. Testing is one of those things you're supposed to allow for in the schedule - together with enough time and manpower to actually fix the problems that testing will inevitably find. Exceptions to that rule do exist, however. Early Access games often start with something quite close to the Minimum Viable Product, but then the idea is that development continues as planned, so that when the game leaves Early Access, it has all or most of the features that were planned to be built on top of that foundation. It also sometimes happens with bespoke business software, with a phased rollout and changeover from some older system occurring as features to support it are completed. Unfortunately, TSW seems to be built in such a way that a Minimum Viable Product strategy for DLC development just does not work.
Seems to be spin based now. That engineering thing with Edinburgh Glasgow is a bit out on the accuracy for example. Seacows have been off the mainline for years, should be RT autoballasters. The rescue scenario is very unlikely also. The lowest hanging but most PR friendly content is wanted. They are probably choosing routes now based on names such as GOBLIN. Full dull is the way forward.
As I just noted in the Live thread. You do not send a loco out as the first course of action to assist a failed unit and in the unlikely event that did happen, with an emergency coupler attached you would not be dragging at line speed.
Yes, but the animation will be broken, the numbers will be wrong, and it will have lights on it that are brighter than the sun shining into your face.
This was actually a thing in TSC, first as one of rewards for joining Dovetail Live, but then, some couple of months later added to the base or free packages available for anyone who got the game anyway. There was some competition or an event with recording a video using it as I remember. Even without services/scenarios it could be useful for console players for example to ride along the routes to find all the collectibles (who can't have the godmode/console enabler to increase the character running speed). Of course it would probably need to be released similarly to how it was in TSC, i.e. free of charge, or otherwise as a part of some bigger package.
Train Simulator: The Pump Car Add-On on Steam (steampowered.com) It can still be added to your account separately. TS Rewards FAQ : Dovetail Support (freshdesk.com) It was part of TS Rewards, a scheme for owners of TS2016 (...who bought the game, so it wasn't for all players who were upgraded to the 2016 engine, seemingly with the exception of the pump car). The codes would all be sent via email, although I don't know how players were meant to sign up. The content was: Union Pacific 50-foot Insulated Mechanical Reefer (October 2015) Union Pacific SD60M (October 2015) Double Chimney Castle Class (November 2015) The Pump Car (December 2015) GWR Early & Wartime Castles (January 2016) US Military Flat Cars and Real World Scenario featuring the Flat Cars for Sherman Hill (February 2016) PRESS BR 155 & UN Military Wagons (March 2016) DB BR 155 Scenario for Cologne - Koblenz (March 2016) While they are meant to be included with Riviera Line in the Fifties, Cologne to Koblenz and Sherman Hill I didn't get some of the TS Rewards content. While I wouldn't have needed a TS2016 license in theory, I was asked for proof of owning a key for it. I bought TS2016 after it had been withdrawn as a route bundle. (General information) If you don't have everything in the list and you are owed it, please contact DTG support and they'll send the keys over.
I think Dovetail Live was introduced with the release of TS2016. Signing up to it was/is available through the game and it requires providing an email. That's why I thought it was a reward for joining the Dovetail Live. I also didn't get all of the key codes, but only some part of them. They stopped coming after the first few.
Well in a way this is a yes and a no answer, while there was the post by Alex stating that Steam Locos are not on the roadmap for the foreseeable future. This could mean a lot of things, but considering the state of Steam Locos in TSW as it is now, it's leaning toward Oh Well. "Que sera, sera Whatever will be, will be The future's not ours to see Que sera, sera What will be, will be"
It might be worth sending a request for the remaining content if you're entitled to it. It's simple stuff but it's quite nice.
No worries, they all have been added to the TS2016 subscription package (likely because the majority of people had problems with receiving keys through email): https://steamdb.info/sub/78707/apps/
Womp Womp You really are aiming for the most extreme Console scenario, just chill it won't be that bad.
I just signed up on the forums, just to be able to chime in here as the whole steam journey with TSW was a pretty huge disappointment for me. Well before the original TSW got released I was already driving steam locos in Train Simulator / Railworks or TSC as it is now called. My memory might be fooling me, but as far as I recall steam locos in vanilla TSC were already more hands on simulated than they are now in TSW. For example, in TSC I was able to manually control coal shoveling and the injectors which still isn't possible in TSW now, not even if the fireman is set to manual. That in itself is a huge disappointment, but that's just scratching the surface... For TSC we eventually got some really great third party steam locos, especially the ones from Smokebox. Through their custom scripting, which went even deeper than the vanilla TSC steam simulation, they really created a steam experience that was thoroughly enjoyable and really immersed you into operating such a steam powered engine. When TSW was announced I was really excited to read about the possibilities that the new Simugraph system offered and how it's component design opened the door to a true in-depth simulation of a steam engine. Well, at least that's what I thought. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any DTG articles from the original TSW release, but this later one gives an example of what I'm talking about: https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/train-sim-world/articles/article/steam-technical-considerations (It even talks about playing as a fireman with an AI driver!) So there I was, getting really hyped for TSW and its new simulation engine and even though there were no steam locos in the beginning I bought into TSW to support the devs on their journey, hoping to eventually get in-depth simulated steam locos. Fast forwarding to 2024 and here I'm still waiting for that. Granted, we do have two and a half steam locos in TSW now, but their level of fidelity is extremely shallow and disapointing. Like I said, even with manual fireman enabled there is still no control over the fire and water to manage steam generation, which is the very thing that makes steam locos so thrilling to operate! Even worse, apparently you can't even run out of water (and coal?) as consumption isn't even modeled either! To hear now from DTG Alex that the devs aren't even working on steam any more is just adding insult to injury. I gotta say, I regret having supported TSW for so many years, hoping to pave the way for a proper steam train simulation, as this was clearly a false hope. Maybe 3rd parties can (once again) come to the rescue, but for me TSW has died for now. I will not invest in this game any longer as I was fooled by the devs thinking they were comitted to use their Simugraph system to create a proper steam simulation eventually. Luckily there are others that might make this dream come true (looking at you SimRail and Century of Steam).
