Every time complaints come out about a route, the loudest call of response is "Well, if you don't like it, don't buy it." It is not as simple as that. I grew up in the sleepy little town of St Just, seven miles from Penzance, Cornwall. My first memorable experiences of the railways are from the early 90s, exactly in the range of the West Cornwall DLC. When it was first announced I was massively excited by, as time rolled on, that excitement was tempered more and more. Only as far as Truro (later St Austell). No Swallow HST. No Falmouth branch line. The issues go on. I want to make it clear that this is not a swipe at Rivet or anyone associated. It's a tad unfortunate that both this route and the most recent are both their products, but there have been enough misses in the franchise to spread it around. Either way, despite all my misgivings, I buy the route. I have to, its my home route. And I know I look at these things with rose tinted glasses, but it was dreadful. Major, imposing landmarks like Truro Cathedral and St Michael's Mount not even remotely attempted to be accurately modeled, a poor timetable even after DTG intervention, and more besides. This isn't about the failings of that route. The point is, it's been made now. So it won't be made again. Which means my little slice of childhood nostalgia will never be better than that. I'm sure there's Scots thinking the same about the Fife Circle. It's not as simple as not buying it, a 'good' version of the route will now never exist, because this one does instead. It's hard to Swallow.
This... Was well said. The "If you don't like it, don't buy it" argument is one of the weakest and dumbest arguments in this comment. Why? It doesn't make any route immune to criticism. I'm tired of people bashing on others just cause they don't agree on with their opinions at all. This is a serious problem in this community. The argument is basically saying "Just consume product and then get excited for next product."
Well said. Especially in TSWs case of 4-5 developers actually able to make payware content, this is even more of a point, once it's made they aren't going to do it again "but better" so you might as well just buy the route you've been waiting for all this time.
The TSC stations were nicely done but it had old jointed track in a modern setting, no illumination on the bridge, no football stadium, various position light and part time signal discrepancies and some tiresome in jokes like the football pitches at Murrayfield rugby HQ and a cathedral in Kirkcaldy. So by comparison the Rivet effort might be a large improvement.
I’m struggling to understand a fair bit of your points 1. It’s never “have to” its “want to” or not, then the options of whether you do or not, you can go about your day without it, “have to” only applies to a forced circumstance which has no alternative, definitely nothing to do with personal browsing of a store for games and dlc you may like. As you state you have emotional investment in how you envision the route, this makes it harder to accept reality of you can choose to walk away. It’s a bad situation in that case no doubt, but you don’t control the quality of releases and to you and possibly/probably others they’ve messed up, and it’s your maybe dream route. Now you want to rectify it or alternatively the other option is move on option 1 developers decide whether to fix it (you probably as an individual had not much influence on this alone) answer returns either yes or no, if yes problem resolved (unless that doesn’t work out) if No, well no good for you, your onto option 2. option 2 that option is your out of options as you remember you don’t control development, sorry but that’s the same with all customers who don’t make them decisions. Bonus option, back to the choice of do you want to walk away from this issue. Summary: yep without them fixing your issue your original issue is screwed, they not you are in control. Sorry. 2. It seems like your association with Route “failings” is to do with luck, yes more than one company has quite frankly put themselves in that situation with customers, but the routes what have been “near classed as failings”, they are down to how it’s been developed not luck the only unfortunate part is as you say when the route won’t come again, that part I very understand, it does make you wish they will do the same route twice to rectify it if they won’t fix the original, but that is a bit of different topic on how acceptable that way would be, in relation to the fact there is one for sale and others may have bought what is a “less than ideal route” which I don’t think is acceptable at all really.
Welcome to the real world OP, it's a solid life lesson that what you want and wish for, sometimes never happens. If this is the first time you been kicked in the spuds by this fact I feel sorry for you, but god dam toughen up them balbags son, life is going to just repeatly kick the LOVE out of them.......
Part of the reason we don’t have more people developing for TSW is DTG’s own fault for sitting on the tools for five years. Then when they do release them there is no documentation or real instructions other than a few blink and you’ll miss the point YT tutorials. MSTS, Trainz and Rail Simulator which became Railworks then TSC we pretty much had editors from the start. Any owner who wanted to could start dabbling with making their own content which led to a fairly large talent pool who were then able to go on and develop for the payware market. However none of that really excuses the poor quality frequently delivered by Rivet. For starters they have been part of the inner circle of DLC producing associates since pretty much the beginning of the TSW franchise. Surely they have some sort of interview or screening process to ensure anyone who puts themselves forward as a route builder or asset maker is competent at the job. And as we have seen with the public editor for TSW, just because you think you are hot stuff in TSC, shrivels away in the face of dealing with UE4 and its quirks. We should certainly not be buying the route out of pity for poor old Rivet or because no one else will now make it. At the end of the day, I can live without Fife Circle in TSW but what if this had been a route some of us really wanted like the West Highland, Perth to Inverness or the Kyle of Lochalsh line and they had butchered it? Now that would have been a tragedy. Which is why, in the cold hard light of business day reality I seriously think unless Rivet can demonstrate they are able to pull their socks up and start putting out content to the quality of SHG’s (updated) MML or the JT BPO, DTG should not entertain any further commissions from them particularly if it involves an iconic or popular prototype.
Didn’t want to add to my wall of text above but one further thought… Most of us have so much content in TSW or the other sims there is absolutely no need to rush out and buy every new release, which is why it needs to stand out - for a good reason. I mean I could also go off and play Snowrunner, not need to touch another game for months. Or X3 Albion Prelude, Elite Dangerous or the Mass Effect Trilogy even MSFS if I could find the HD space. So not just Rivet but DTG themselves and the other third parties need to raise their game significantly.
Those faults may be true, though some are quite minor, but at least in TSC anyone can open the route editor and do something about them.
In theory we PC gamers should be able to do this in TSW. A boost to the timetable would be relatively straightforward. Except of course we can’t, because more than 5 months after the editor’s release it’s still incapable of cooking content. I live in hope!
One solution to the problem could be a kind of "fourth party developer", getting their hands on a third party project and enhance/remasters it in the ways which are possible to them. The issue is that this idea is shattering on 2 points, both related to "Money, Money, Money". 1. The third party developer would need to give a commision/ a share to the fourth party. Since already a lot of commisions go to DTG and the distribution platforms such as Steam (I heard they want a 30% commision - Ouch), very unlikely. 2. What's the role of the end consumer in this? Would it make an increase in sales if the product would be remastered? Would it be worth it to do a commercial route enhancement from the perspective of the third and fourth party developer? Building a route a second time also does not make really sense for any third party as long as the interest on the costumer base would be as high as to even buy a second time the same route. For the first time buyers of the better version, I would ask myself as a developer why wasn't there enough interest in people buying the first - even low-quality - route? Do people even have enough interest to buy a better version of it? So, all of these things summed up lead to the conclusion that, yes, OP is right. Once a route is done in a bad way, there is no big chance there will be a better version of it provided/enhanced by anyone else, although I wish there could be made compromise somewhere between all participating parties.
I feel your pain. Every time a route is released I'm saddened to think how interesting it could have been if set in an earlier era when there was so much more variety of locomotives and stock. Even the most exciting development for me, Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe, could have been, should have been, so much more intensive and varied. Even if they weren't going to make any more steam locomotives they could have added a green class 40 layer, green 08, green 101 dmu for example. Not strictly accurate but there aren't many people playing this game that can remember 1958. It would have made the route so much more alive. Rather like the triumph that Just Trains created with the Blackpool route. Nothing against modern routes, young people obviously enjoy them and they sell well but every time one comes out that's another route that we'll never see in the 60s,70sor 80s. Just my personal thoughts.
ratio and ballance is everything, obviously. "then don't buy" might be an ultimate answer, but...personal or emotional factor is not neglectable on using one's own money.
This I agree with. I know it’s a dead horse but it’s the best example I’ve got - Rivet’s 204. While I prefer the West German V100, I just have a fondness for this sort of loco class in between light and heavy duty. The 204 could also be used in many more ways in the sim, especially if got some appropriate cars for ballast or other sorts of MOW equipment. But Rivet screwed up the physics - badly - and now it’s unlikely that a proper 204 will come.
Oh, I can think of at least a dozen dlc which were not done right in the first place, but we will never see again. Just a couple of examples. We'll never see a full- fledged NYT with all the yards and the freight component. We'll never see the 3rd track in Sherman Hill. And we'll never see the full Harlem line to Southeast and beyond. Quite a few lines like FCL leave us with that " what could have been " feeling.
And of course, the cherries on the cake - the two steam routes. SoS with its two locos and handful of rolling stock, then massive acreage of empty yards and stations. Peak Forest running from nowhere to not quite nowhere, no Buxton shuttle though I guess at least the Cass 104 will offer some enhancement but even that took a third party to step in. And while I still have faith, it does seem to be slipping with all we have seen so far a greyscale screen capture from the 3D modelling programme.
