Enough Is Enough!!!

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).

 

As someone who works in an (imperfect) Agile software delivery environment, I would argue that it can be a help, but like anything, should be done properly, not just the bits that sound "cool". Predictability is key - DTG must know by now how long a route takes, the landscaping, the track laying, the scenery placement, it's all recordable from previous jobs and can be used to predict. I can't believe for a second that they're not doing this at planning, so there must be other issues. And if I were guessing (which I clearly am), it'd say it's the amount of underlying tech debt in TSW as a thing that costs them time and thus quality. I have to advocate hard for a split of time between new features and fixing tech debt, and I'm just about winning after years of people saying "well it's working today, just build on top of it, it'll be fine". Until it's not, dev slows down, workarounds galore, testing takes forever, there's a point where you need to either accept that it'll be like this til you decommission it, or you spend a lot of time refactoring/rebuilding.

You're probably right about no magic bullet, but the nearest I've come to it is accepting there's a balance between building new shiny things and looking after the underlying platform, and prioritising accordingly and honestly.

 

I can't disagree with any of that. As you say, there's all the other stuff going on - tech debt, improving the platform, etc. - that we have no idea about, which is what I was alluding to really.

 

Wow getting personal, classy!

 

You really need to cut out the foul language and personal comments. I encourage cornetrunner to report you.
We don't need this on the forum.

 

Being called a masochist is not very nice either, just to be fair.

 

He used that word in a completely different context and not an insulting one.

 

people like you really bring out the worst of these forums…it’s incredibly embarrassing watching you crawl in here. Go find somewhere else.

 

...but calling someone "poo" in an insulting way is just that, something you agree with.

Again, it's a one-way street, just like last time.

 

I swear people look for drama on here, their addiction to it must be that strong if they can't find it, they attempt to start it in any way they can. Humanity is truly something that's for sure......

 

What exactly makes a route pro vs not pro. Are short routes not pro and long routes pro according to your statement

 

Most normal Tuesday Afternoon on the forums

 

Ordinarily no I don't. But attacking two people in a reprehensible manner, because you don't agree with them and using that awful word, is far worse and I can understand his response, Maybe he shouldn't have said it but it pales into insignificance over the original post.

 

Don't worry dude, some people just can't understand context, it's the key to all this mess, and in the context of what I said I never named or pointed the finger at anybody, it's them that's making the assumption that I did......

 

Well you could call it "longer than the normal route" if you like but it would be a bit of a mouthful!

 

We had all this nonsense with the Myron post allegedly bad mouthing DTG (Oh shock horror) with that parody video of the direct stream, several people got their knickers in a twist about it and ganged up on the OP, and then funnily enough DTG intervened and said the OP's post was fine but many following it were not. Perhaps we are all adults and don't need to be quite so sensitive all the time?

 

Wow, you're quite the raconteur.

 

on a side note, San bernadino is looking great so far

 

I think you're choosing to take that completely and, dare I say, unreasonably out of context. Vern can only speak for himself but I think he understood what I meant, which is what I took from his good-natured reply.

 

I agree to a point but attacking individuals and using language of that ilk, considering we don't know that all are adults, is overstepping the mark, in my view.

 

I have reported it. Thank you. I'll just about survive his devastatingly clever mutation of my username but it's bad for the forums.

 

Our's was a fair debate and even my comment about taking exception was in the spirit of debate.

Anyhow as I've said before, this place is like a petting zoo compared to the official Elite Dangerous forum, or Speakers Corner at Overclockers UK (tread there only if you dare).

 

Considering the "poo incident", I highly doubt that is the case.

 

It's more so the people "agreeing", and defending said comment. But then again, you did call someone "poo", and I'm also criticizing that, and you clearly agree that it is incredibly childish since you were quick to delete it.
Now, I understand why you are replying to me, and I'm not taking the bait, unfortunately.

 

This would be a good way to get this popular thread finally torpedoed. Is that what people want?

 

All words should be banned because their various formations don't align with ideals or beliefs of modern society any more...we live in a world of equality and inclusivity so why should hymn be not allowed to have any vowels or 'I' always have to be before 'E' except after 'C'? 'I' has every right to be where it wants to be and anyone who thinks otherwise is creating a gross act of wordism.
The world will be a better far better place if we instead don technicolour dreamcoats and say "neigh neigh" to each other whilst considering what our Ginster fluidity will allow us to be tomorrow.

Erm, I like trains

 

Well I respect you for that, anyway.

 

Never in my life did I think I'd be reading all of those recent posts on a train sim forum...

 

Tension always rises on the forums when we are waiting an official answer and not just a looking into it statement it seems.

 

Folks lets keep this civil otherwise there is a risk this historic thread might get locked.

 

Not only are DTG not responding to concerns over WCML South, seems they have given up moderating the forum too!

Anyhow getting a definite vibe that my Steam Wallet needs to be £54 richer again later today. It’s not the quality issues per se, it is actually the total lack of any response or admission from DTG the route could be better. Take the free update and wait for the one TSW5 route that actually matters - JT WCML Shappie.

In the meantime I have rediscovered the joys of Florida and Georgia in Run 8, which should tide me over for a bit.

 

Got the Azuma (one handled EMU) going from Peterborough to Grantham without a tutorial . Just as I was waiting for a path and looking at francis bourgeois class 37 poster , aaargghh blue screen crash aaaarrgh.

 

Can't blame them for ignoring the forum considering they're probably not interested in grown adults getting upset that a depicted train wasn't built in the 80s from asbestos and has a more ergonomic control surface which apparently makes it a toy.