Enough Is Enough!!! The Ongoing Saga!!! It's Almost The 3 Year Anniversary

[If you don't believe Rivet had a significant hand in WCML, ignore this post]

It was shocking for me that DTG would hand over significant parts of the route building and timetable to Rivet for WCML. It's a flagship route, the most requested in the game by DTG's admission, and the quality of the timetable was always going to make or break the product given how busy the real-life route is.

Who signed off on outsourcing the route (or at least the timetable) in that way? Sorry to say but the person or people involved simply did not think adequately through what implications this particular bit of outsourcing would have for the final product.

Very worrying when I thought we had left that kind of thing behind - DTG's in-house TSW4 content was generally of an excellent standard, particularly compared to previous years. Why take the flak for a substandard Rivet product now?

 

Well they want to get paid for their work..

 

Give them 1 Euro via Paypal and you'll get the one file highspeed download.

A huge project like this is likely better maintanable via your own servers than pushing updates to Steam. They'll have their reasons. Download, throw the files in the mod folder and you're set up.

I'm usually waiting for ProMods to finish their updates before updating ETS2. I couldn't play without - especially the UK and Scandinavia are awesome in Promods.

 

Absolutely they should be paid for their work if one wants to, no disagreement there. The last time I used Promods there was a paid option, but at the time it still used the exact same download system in place for the leechers, except that you were permitted concurrent downloads and no speed cap (this is a long time ago, probably pre-Covid I'd say). I'm glad its improved by the sounds of it, but unless and until they make it a one-click download on Steam Workshop so that it can easily be used on the Deck, I won't be revisiting it, no matter its quality

 

Well, your loss then.

 

But oh no DTG don’t have the dev time for that /s

 

Just find it so funny and a bit weird that 5 games in asking for a route to run to rugby is asking for too much and people on here just accept it. JT are way smaller than DTG and chunk out a 100 mile route

 

I will only say that the DTG route has almost 3x the stations and is a lot of city area, which can be a huge difference on development route length and all. I do agree though if DTG route builders were not being forced to get the route out in time for TSW5 we probably could get a bit of a longer route...

 

There are only two stations between MKC and rugby btw.

 

So basically you just completely and totally missed the point.

The extra stations take up the development and budget where it could instead be put into extra route length instead.
Why do you think ECML was 80 miles and not only 50?
And that's without mentioning to Rugby its another 30 miles, the same length of some TSW routes.

 

I think the reason overshap is even achievable is

A. It’s mostly very dense countryside scenery with not much buildings around, as it goes over the Lake District

B. I think there is only about 13 stations on this route. Not as much as for say WCML S.


if overshap had more challenging scenery with more buildings, it would definitely be shorter than it actually is.


But yeah, I see what you mean. I’m getting a bit bored of DTG going routes less than 60 miles sometimes. More 70+ mile routes are definitely needed.

 

Thank you!!! It’s a shame that DTG still do this at this day and age. And people constantly lap it up it’s like we are 5 games in and a route longer than 60 miles is “asking for too much”

 

I'd have thought that after 7 years, we'd be past the point where minimal distance is the norm.

 

I make it 8 stations,

Preston
Lancaster
Bare Lane
Morecambe
Carnforth
Oxenholme
Penrith
Carlisle

Preston and Carlisle are big stations. Morecambe also if its done right is very much bigger than today's terminus. But yes very open on the remainder. The Lune Gorge is spectacular so hopefully it's done justice to.

 

It's the executives at Focus Entertainment. Regardless of Matt (I think it was) saying that Focus are leaving them to their own devices, I've never known release dates and ultimate product control not being in the hands of the publisher. Especially release dates.

It shouldn't be too much concern so long as issues are patched quickly. But new suspension was a core feature of TSW 4, and here we are still... Etc.

 

I’m convinced what we were told was, well, the party line for public consumption. Behind the scenes I suspect Focus are very much in the driving seat and no doubt getting costs down at the top of the list. Which is why the TSW5 WCML route (probably) outsourced to Rivet as the lowest bidder and the only programming talent they could muster for the core changes, made a couple of cosmetic and insubstantial alterations.

 

Possibly, but only with general strategy not hands on I doubt, they have too many other things to do. Of course it suits DTG to have people think that whilst they smooth talk us with their PR machine and groom us for the next dlc.

 

WCML on TSW5 is way too short for a Pendo run, nothing but an excuse to sell it to the masses. Answer is to fire up TSC and drive from London to Birmingham the way it should be. Thank goodness for that simulator and the good old days. Nothing can beat it.

 

Yeah. Since switching to Linux I abandoned all the TSC mods that either use external executable or executable installers, instead of simple archives I'm either able to install with TSC utilities (via Steam Tinker Launch) or extract directly into the game's directory.

As for ETS2 ProMods, I've been stuck with an old version for a couple of years, as I don't have all the required map DLCs (since Iberia onward), but also I haven't launched ETS2 since December (and ATS for more than a year), so it doesn't matter much whether I have either the newest version of the game, or play with ProMods on the old version.

Mods in TSW are simple to use, as that's just extracting or copying pak files into the game's directory, like in plenty of other games, that only require extracting the stuff into their directories.

 

You just cant beat TSC.

 

Well yeah I agree, I said in my post above that if DTG route builders were not being forced so much by time constraints because of TSW5 we probably could get a longer than minimal distance route. I'm not trying to defend it in any kind of way because, well, It's not good enough but that's the reality of it. I just try to understand the reasoning being things, and 28 stations is a lot but yous just seem to be glossing over that fact.

 

No one's glossing over anything, we just expect more from 7 year old game.

Short routes were acceptable at the start, but now they are just laughable.

 

28 stations is brilliant for the 350 and 710 (to Watford Jct.) But when it comes to the 390 it's a bit of a joke in all honesty. Such a shame to give such an iconic unit no stops to MK (excepting the odd service that stops at WJ). It's a difficult one for DTG because it's going to be a top seller but they almost need an extension such as from MK to B-ham (1 hr 24 mins) just for the Pendo, or it's going to be a bit frustrating driving them.

 

Sorry but I don't really buy into the time constraints excuse. This is supposedly a professional software house and even at the whiteboard stage a timeline for project production should be sketched out. If it can't be done, then move on and do something else. The people DTG employ, whether in house or sub contracted, are one would hope chosen for proven skills in building routes, assets and all the paraphenalia that goes with it, not like me sitting down in front of the TSW_UE editor and going, "Oh gawd, where do I begin?" These people should be consumate experts now, even at outfits like Rivet.

Obviously hitches and snags can occur but that's why you build a bit of slack into the schedule.

It absolutely gobsmacks me that here we are, just over a week from early access and it doesn't look as if any of the content has been declared gold, yet.

 

Just don't buy the route then and vote with your wallet, its as simple as that.

 

Here's hoping the German route is of a better quality, don't really care too much TBH about the US commuter effort (Antelope II). Still hanging to to the Deluxe purchase, but have the option to bail at the last minute depending upon DTG showing some integrity.

 

Most of the “built up part” of the route is done by MKC. But idk I just find it a bit appaling that asking for rugby is seen as too much

the most painful thing is that the pendolino is genuinely the best UK train DTG have made since they released the 465 loco dlc and we only get at most 40 mins runtime

 

Not really, the sounds are pretty bad.

 

In terms of modelling and tbf apart from run sounds the pendo pretty much is really good

 

I'm starting to wonder whether this was a missed opportunity for a 'route extension', the 350 only going to Milton Keynes makes a lot of sense, but I would have happily then paid the price of a full route to get the 390 and extension to Rugby.

 

*yawn emoji*

 

I would have been more than happy to pay more for a longer route and better timetable but oh well. It really is a shame the route ends at Milton Keynes

 

Exactly, most of us would be willing to pay for the extra work taking the route at least to Rugby. I'd hand over 50 quid for a "super route" to Brum no worries. They should consider that sort of thing as an option a Pro Route maybe.

 

Hopefully the WCMLOS makes up for this route, there’s so much wrong but the worst part of it all is the endpoint

 

I don’t care what it is 50 quid for a route is stupid money

 

I wouldn't either.

 

Well, I would say that they are also creating 3 routes, 2 loco addons etc. I wouldn’t complain much; better than nothing am I right? JT focus on one route and one route only. Their turn out rate for routes is considerably less than DTG (even though their quality is superior)

 

£50 quid for a single route is a bit steep. I’d maybe stretch to £40 for a single route, but the quality would have to be right up there.

 

Fair enough, but I'd deffo pay £50 for London to Brum as it's a fair old way. I'd save by ignoring all routes except UK and US freight, just my personal choice. Can't see me spending much on US freight more's the pity.

 

I'd gladly pay it for London to Birmingham, but I understand some wouldn't. You couldn't expect the devs to sell a 2 hour route with all that work and detail for £35 could you?

 

I know it’s not as far but JT are making a route over 100miles with considerable more detail than dtg would and that is only £30 so there is no way i would pay anything north of £40 for a route.

 

Vern hits the nail on the head here, again. It’s totally baffling we’ve managed to get here AGAIN, another core route in an unfinished state so close to launch. Time management seems somewhat in need of improvement across the company.

 

An alternative take on what Vern said is that it is, at best, naive. Software planning is complex and notoriously inaccurate. As soon as you've come up with a plan, you can pretty much guarantee that it will need to be thrown in the bin within days. None of this is good but it is an unfortunate fact that hasn't really got any better, no matter what Agile advocates might tell you. This all competes with budgeting because software companies can't afford to have an infinite amount of resource on a project. Inevitably, this leads to compromises. You can then try to optimise ("last time was a disaster, so let's restrict route length to 50 miles") but that just leads to budgets being squeezed ("you blew the budget last time for a much longer route, you're delivering less this time, so you've got less money and less time to do it in"), and so the perpetual, broken circle of software development continues. I'm not making excuses for DTG at all, I'm sure they can do better, but I'm just pointing out that the software industry is rubbish at this because it's hard and no one has found the magic bullet.

 

I take exception to that. Have been around these games a lot longer than many on here and have developed routes for all three of the big sims - MSTS, Trainz and Railworks (TSC) including two payware routes for MSTS. For the latter there was a clear idea of how long it would take. As I said DTG and the people they use for route and asset building are not beginners at this. If they are not fluent and professional users of the tools by now, then why do they put themselves forward? Once you master the tools, route building is a fairly straightforward process and yes snags can arise, not denying that but again why you budget your time accordingly.

And DTG must have known having WCML South only going to MKC would elicit essentially, “Er, okay meargh”, responses rather than Rugby or going flat out for Birmingham would have generated high fives and triple yippiees.

 

Show 'em how it's done then. Apply for a little part time job.

 

No thank you. Been there, done that. Which is why I pay companies like DTG to produce quality content and become disappointed when they fail to deliver.

 

You're a masochist, Vern. I genuinely don't understand it, and I'm sorry about that, but I hope that, one day, you get what you're looking for in terms of train simulation. I honestly think that DTG will never deliver on that dream but I don't necessarily think that's a failing on their part, it's just how it is. Yours and their goals and priorities simply don't align.

 

There is plenty to enjoy on TSW and there are also plenty of other products out there which hit the spot too. TSC, Run 8 even SimRail from time to time. So I’m actually quite a content little train simmer really. And there’s always Snowrunner to amuse me when the train games start to founder (or the satisfaction of unaliving someone in Sniper Elite 4, Fallout or similar).