Lirr Commuter - Why Did They Make A New Route?

I think that this is the root of the problem. DTG has both fixed and extended the route. So even if you were happy to continue with LIRR 2020, but just wanted the fixes, then you are out of luck. I think the fact that this new version took so much work, also speaks to the fact of how much people were missing out on, who bought it the first time. Is this really what DTG are trying to communicate? "You know that DLC that you wanted fixed? Turns out it was SO TERRIBLE that we had to rebuild it from scratch. Feel free to buy the new version at full price!" I am in complete agreement that route extensions and other new features are good candidates to be paid DLC. However, I do not think that fixes, when available, should be held to the same standard of payment. I think it's the conflation of the two here that is giving some people pause.

 

Because many among us wanted an LIRR route that did the railway justice. We finally got it. And the signaling was done by Brandon. As a native New Yorker, whatever the cost, I’m buying.

 

I am most likely buying it since it’s my home route. Been waiting far too long to tell myself not to get a route that brought me to TSW. But I definitely understand everyone’s point of view of LIRR 2.0. Hopefully the preview stream on Thursday is really good.

 

Hmm I’ll wait to Thursday to see if I’ll pre order the route or wait till a sale.

 

If it's for a price of a new route+train, it should contain that much of new trackage. They have only added one small branch and not-so-different train + fixes they said they were making back in TSW2 days. I think the reception would be a lot better if there were at least the other two branches in the area - Far Rockaway and West Hempstead. It is not a whole ton of extra track and would complete the area. For LIRR owners the asking price doesn't add as much as it should. The SEHS comparison is a valid one here.

 

Yeah, I think they should have extended it farther in to Long Island.

 

But the thing is, I'm not entirely sure on this, but DTG may have copied and pasted the old one, added some improvements, and made a new route out of it.

 

Different to upgrades however

 

I completely agree.

 

made up by a 5mph into Atlantic

 

You don't know pain until you hit long beach... That area has a 5 MPH Speed Limit

 

Yeah, I can see why people like to have routes in their area. Like I live near York (UK) and I would love to see a York route.

 

Yeah, I can perfectly see your point. And I hope the stream on Thursday is good.

 

I will as well.

 

I've been to New York, but not to Long Beach, but still, I believe you.

 

I really like the extensions ideas as well

 

Much appreciated Matt and ultimately this is the principle Run 8 and indeed Simrail seem to be working on too and you don't hear people complaining (too much) about the cost of adding another section to SoCal.

We already have another thread started to discuss the merits of and which UK routes would benefit from extension and a rework and I see similar threads have popped up now for Germany and USA. So long as it's done sympathetically and ideally the route gets a new traction asset (Class 56 obvious choice for TVL, not so sure about GWE - maybe a 165 or especially if it went to Oxford a 180) then it complements the new routes coming out.

Mentioned in other threads that for me personally I have so much content still to explore it can be hard to justify buying every new route, but if an old favourite gets a buff and extension then that's more likely to see my Steam Wallet empty out a bit.

 

Hang on OldVern; Is that the voting for extensions thread I made today?

 

Yes.

 

Cool!

 

You can never win with some people unfortunately...

Ever since I saw the preview of SEHS extended I was super excited. The update really brought the route to life, and is still to this day one of my favourites.

Alot of people put throw away comments without knowing how much it costs to develop a route (I'd happily pay for any redeveloped route). I always feel with this community it can sometimes be "damned if you do, damned if you don't!"... (just my personal opinion).

 

Lirr 2.0 message is clear: don't buy old routes, because we are going to improve them slightly in the future and we sell it again to you, so...

 

Appreciate the insight and i, personally, really hope LIRR2 sells well, and leads to more extensions.

So many routes would benefit from the addition of a new train and a new branch, etc.

 

I'm amazed at some of the stuff I read on here, constantly putting the boot in on pretty much anything released. Are they perfect, no far from it, but the entitlement to want free upgrades, or heavily discounted prices on day one, or the exact stock you believe should be in the game, is ridiculous.

If its a revised route, it's going to cost money.
£20 happy chappie, but £30 its a cash grab and daylight mugging.
No, it's approx two pints of beer in today's money, which gets me about and hour and a chat with the locals. The route will give a fair few days of entertainment minimum, so pound for pound, not a bad outlay.
It also allows development for future routes and expansion which benefits us all. Its already been explained why it's not just a face-lift and what they have put into the revised route to justify the cost.

End of the day, they are a business who's workforce and daily output needs paying for.

The only item i agree is fair game, is the releasing of part finished products (FCL rings a bell), with missing scenery or game breaking bugs.

Maybe a thread called enough is enough of having enough is needed.

 

Or they'll wait till the price drops to what they deem acceptable for it. Which is what I feel like some people will do, and how the preview goes will effect how much that value changes (Whether good or bad)

 

I’ll have to give LIRR2 a wait personally, like every other route and dlc I’m waiting on something related to Xbox and TSW before continuing, apart from that i would have been looking into the stream and giving LIRR2 a pick up, extended upgraded and new train, and a better timetable would have been great to get hold of, especially considering I’ve been getting a want to use the M unit trains a lot on these kinda routes lately, this would have been perfect for all that.

there safety systems is no problem for me aswell, they’re one of my favourite types in the game for safety systems, very fun to use.

 

Matt you should have Extend it to Grand Central for This Price

 

Well, I'll take it because I'm interested in the new branch.

I already have the LIRR and the m3 dlc of course and I don't mind paying to have a clean remaster with today's features plus a whole new branch.
Personally I don't see the problem.
I've had Final Fantasy 7 since the PS1, I had to buy it again when it came to Steam (PC in HD) and now I've just bought it again in remaster.
When you love something, I think it doesn't pose a problem, and all work deserves work, it seems to me?

Personally, the remaster that I am looking forward to the most is that of La Rhur Sieg Nord with a few additional km.
If they do of course!!

 

I think in the end, all what matters most to get people purchasing an extension is the enhanced possibilites to drive on it and the amount of expansions of the route network, which improves quality for players. Not quite sure how much LIRR 2.0 is extended in comparison to LIRR 1.0, but the south branch to Long Beach seems to be the biggest plus and indeed it offers much more route and playground with it to the DLC.

For future extension plans, I maybe would recommend extending the route network maybe with a second branch in any other direction to enhance the value of the extension DLC even more.


LIRR 1.0:

LIRR 2.0:

 

Thanks for the insight Matt, I was one of the people kinda dissapointed when SEHS extended was revealed as it meant no new train for the UK that release. I do think the extension was great and all the post launch updates and dlc really made it into the best modern UK route (in my opinion). Think it would be best for future extensions to have a new loco and be added to the already existing product. LIRR2 was a special case but I dont think its a good idea to have 2 different quality versions of the same route on the store. it will confuse new players and upset the players who've already bought it (in this case). I personally dont mind paying again as I see all the work put into this release. Still would have been better to have it set in modern day with all the track upgrades

 

The problem with that thinking is, if LIRR 1.0 wouldn't have been sold well enough, there would be no LIRR 2.0 now. Yes, it's angry for the customers to buy the same thing twice, but at least we got an extension, better than no extension or not even having LIRR at all in TSW.

For me what matters most is not particularly the price tag as rather the improvement to old unextended version.

 

What a superb network. Preorder going in once live on Steam.

 

I very often come across dissatisfied statements on the forum, after which DTG may lose the desire to move forward and improve their old products. And I'm scared that some of my favorite routes will never receive improvements.
I turn to DTG and ask you to pay more attention and love to the old routes. I will always support such decisions financially by paying a new price for advanced DLC. After all, only the developer can evaluate how much effort was made and time spent on modernization. And accordingly, he can fairly assess the amount of monetary compensation for his efforts. Many of us sometimes cannot understand how much effort was spent on development and express our protest. Personally, I trust you on pricing. From personal experience, I understand what titanic work the team does, and how difficult it can be to change or improve an already released product. I know that in some cases it is much easier to build a route from scratch than to make changes to an old product. Anyone who has never created anything will not understand how difficult it is.
A person who independently builds his own plot of at least 2 miles from existing assets will understand what we are talking about. I'm not even talking about the complexity of creating your own environmental assets, which requires crazy amounts of effort and time.
I assure you that in our community, in addition to dissatisfied writers on the forum, there are a large number of happy silent people, and they are the majority!
I wish the DTG team good luck in their work and look forward to a large LIRR 2,3,4,5,6 network in the future with exciting gameplay and a complete package of rolling stock.
Onwards to Port Washington, Ranconcoma, Babylon and further, further, further!!!

 

We did the gamut of VHS, to Laserdisc, then DVD, Blu-ray and finally 4K. Not to mention the double dipping some studios like Lucas Arts with the Star Wars movies were fond of doing.

Anyhow as I noted above this looks really good and busy. And I agree, as regards further makeovers and extensions lots of discussions in the other various threads. Though of course GWE probably not going to happen due to the licensing issues. But I will be following with interest where this goes and in the meantime enjoying LIRR.

 

This is a great idea imo. Give older routes a second change while adding more stock is really nice. There are some routes in the game right now which have good stock and a good route irl but have aged pretty poorly (like HRR and RRO) that i would love to see upgraded and extended.

This does beg the question as to what is happening with HBK and GCC when their respective loco add-ons are released. No word yet on upgrades to these old routes? They could benefit from TODv4 and scenery upgrades

 

I'll say, that sounds exciting. The thought of going back to some of the all-time greatest routes and breathing new life into them is really enticing. Like vuurkip#5765 above me, I can think of some early German routes that would benefit immensely from such a treatment.

 

That is true but it seems weird to add new loco's in the old TODv3 settings. especially when routes like sherman hill get TODv4 for a reskin pack but GCC apparently not for a whole new loco when the rest of scotland is in TODv4. HBK I can understand since its a TSG project and they might not have the ability to upgrade that route to modern standards

 

When you know Joe is doing a timetable for a route you already know it’s going to be awesome! Can’t wait for the new timetable to come to Cathcart Circle Line. Always loved that route it just didn’t have too much variety and not much traffic.

 

Ah that’s a shame as I guess some of us would like to see it in the BR era, with an eclectic mix of HST’s, loco hauled services and the Class 117 DMU’s running up and down. Though I can see the appeal of an ultra modern version too, especially if we got Oxford and (some of) the branches.

 

You have the diesel legends of the great western already

 

Just a bit of fun but I want to ask: Do you considered the Airtrain to the JFK airport from Jamaica? Having this would have been a lot of fun. But yes yes, I guess the (re-)usability of the Innovia Metro ART 200 would be pretty limited as it's an automatic train, but would be fun for passenger trips to the JFK.

I guess a new loco attached would provide sigificantly more value to the new extension yes. But I think even a vastly improved timetable with rolling stock - which in the meantime came to TSW - could make the route extension a lot better.

There was a suggestion quite often raised in the Forum, in a way you could "merge" routes but in fact is not a real merge. For example if you would have like a black or loading screen at the end point of the original route, then loading time and coming into the new (extended) DLC at one starting point. In this way, you could do extensions without reworking the original map. I guess in this way, extensions would not only be better doable but also you would have the ressources and capacities to make longer "extensions" being more attractive for customers. I use quotes because these "extension" in fact rather would be something like a new DLC, but appearing for the user to be an extension (just disrupted by a short loading screen). Would this be possible?

I think with the idea of loading screen extensions, there would also be more possibilites for route extensions to newer routes as in fact wouldn't be the same route.

I think what he means is why for example Hamburg-Lübeck will not be remastered to TOD4 when the BR 218 DLC will be layered on it.

 

Dresden Riesa should be Extended to Leipzig and Dresden Airport and add the IC2 and ICE T as new Trains

 

I am looking forward to LiRR and have no quibble about the price apart from the discount for original users. Please correct me if l am wrong but I believe the 10% discount is only available to those who buy via Steam. If this is the case, why isn’t the discount applied to console and epic players. Is this fair?

 

I understand the concern but imo this only works in very specific circumstances. DTG doesn’t have the assets and devs to just recycle the same route quickly. This is a once every 4 to 5 year situation. They generally hope to deliver a good route first time around and then forget about it so they can move onto another.

LIRR is the exception…. It is really old now, it’s the busiest railway in the US, it’s NYC based, it comes with marked improvements, and a lot of people were clamoring for it. It came with a new EMU and an extension.

The only other comparison I can see is TVL with an extension but would it sell? BML with a 700 would be nice and would probably need to be redone to accommodate the timetable but that’s a monstrous project just to get a 700 on there. Great western would be a candidate if not for licensing issues.

 

But not the correct era to run them in. The Class 50 was also a true legend of the Western as were the Class 117 DMU’s. The Class 101’s were not common, a few being allocated to Reading primarily to run Gatwick and Tonbridge services alongside the 119’s.

 

This is the sadest explanation Ive allready read on this forum, sumarising Matt:
- M9 (imho: M7 with face and maybe simugraph lifting) was a huge effort for dtg (it seems customers should expect more of bullet trains 2.0, taurus 2.0, br185 2.0 or m7 2.0... ).
-sehs 2.0 was not free so is not lirr 2.0 (sehs 2.0 costed 1/3 of the tsw3 price pack, practically about 10 bucks Matt, and this should be the price for upgrading lirr 1.0, and inside your good heart, you know im right .


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