Wcml South - Not Good Enough

Of course, it is all about money and the more money DTG, the more money DTG because they will expand as a business, more mouths at the table to be fed unless the box clever and looking at the rushed work, they ain't boxing clever.

 

Yes, but I would say DTG need to stop completely and fix what is wrong with TSW4, they are constantly on the back foot trying to patch bugs with this, produce routes, carry out updates and then produce a new product every year, it's too much. Just my opinion, but just look at the state WCML was presented, that just backs up what I am saying, cast iron proof. The brand ambassador (wolf in sheep clothing) will try and lead people into buying a dodgy product, don't listen to them, take the free update and let DTG sweat for a change rather than us "the customer" having to wait for a company. Would you buy a brand new car off a dealer and they had to push start the car, gearbox hanging out it or take an excuse that they will fix the engine for you in a future update...Errr no!!! So, why settle for this?

 

There Are no reasons for it,
Goblin has The correct Timetable every 15 Minute

 

Possible explanations on DTG's silence:

1. They are hoping people will forget about it and will instead try to cover up there mess by either releasing more content, i.e DLC's on new routes, locos etc.

2. They could also be constructing an appropriate response to the reported mass bugs on the West Coast Main Line. Coming from incorrect lighting at stations, tunnels and during night hours as well to the half completed timetable.

3. Another option is they may as well do a NYT all over again by keeping the silence and will come back a year later on the lines 'we've listened to your feedback and we'll fix the timetable and bugs'. To still leave the timetable and the bugs in a state as NYT is despite DTG did a somewhat improvement.

 

Don't forget JT is a small team working route by route when we know for a fact DTG has multiple route building teams. That also has to be considered in the long run with content and quality issues.

 

I would really appreciate some advice here. I am REALLY on the fence with what to do about TSW5. I have always wanted the WCML and have been waiting for years for it to come. It is a special route for me as I spent much of my childhood going into London from the Midlands. I was so excited when this route was announced, yet I am seeing lots of you here raise concerns. I dont own the London Overground route so that timetable issue wont affect me, yet I have seen other issues raised. I was thinking of getting the £53 Deluxe version as it offers the best value for the routes I like as I am also interested in the German route/trains. So do I make a stand to all the issues and get the free version, or pay the £53 before the 10% discount ends. Also I have not bought anything on TSW4 since March so its getting dry now and running out of stuff to do. I appreciate any replies. Thanks.

 

Honestly, reason i’m getting it is cause of 350 and 390. Two most fav trains. Always wanted the WCML just its shorter than i was expecting. But £54 is a bargain tbh.
I can’t wait for it as i get early access

 

If you haven't watched the stream I would do so and make your mind up.

There will be differing views on here, I don't think the route is as bad as some are making out, my main gripe is the timetable which I feel isn't what we expect from DTG now. I watched the stream twice.

However some of the problems raised by others might be deal breakers.

I would never base purchasing decisions from peoples opinions good or bad. I always do my own research.

As said above £54 is a good deal but maybe not if you are only into UK trains.

 

What you said mate! I’m disappointed with the timetable that was shown and mainly my big issue for me is the distance. But scenery looks great

 

Yeah I did watch the stream, It was annoying as there was too much talking but I really did enjoy seeing the Class 390 in game.

 

I would wait for one of the ambassador preview streams as there is less talking generally.

 

Yes I think the scenery generally looked good too. I am conflicted at the moment because of the timetable as realistic operations are something which I find more important, scenery is too of course.

 

I will probably get the route in the Deluxe package, but only because its something I have wanted forever and cant wait for discounts which could take a while.

 

I will download the game on gamepass and buy the 390 separately makes sense

 

I would say be wary. You can still get the free core upgrade and then see how it pans out and add it later if it improves which is what I'm going to do. Also the WCML without the London Overground is just wrong, the 710's are a huge part of that line running every 15 minutes and without them even as ai it's just going to look unauthentic. Add to that the 350 is now minus it's branding and the 390 is going to run out of route pretty quick.
My honest advice would be to run the WCML South on TSC ideally with RW Enhancer to bring the graphics up to current level and rid you of any stuttering from the vanilla game. You can then drive your Pendo all the way to Birmingham. But ultimately it's your choice.

 

See if one thing that would get me to refund it is if it is announced Rivet have had to play a big part with it. As some saying it is a Rivet type product because of gaps. foilage and structures. Also timetable, rivet awful at that.
When I saw the stream it looked decent but hey ho. Rivet just ruin lots of TSW, Fife circle line was just disgusting. Worst product I have ever bought

 

What dont you like about Fife Circle, I was driving that last night.

 

Everything, Timetable, AI timetable, Scenery is awful. ITs pretty lifeless.

 

No one knows what Rivit did on the route so much of it is speculation. It could have been a few buildings or half the route and the timetable I suspect we won't know for sure.

Bare in mind they worked on Cathcart and that is okay. IOW, Edinburgh to Glasgow and Berninalinie don't have particularly bad scenery.

 

Just buy it

Or don't

Only you can decide

 

This is probably the most accurate conclusion that creates such a rift among the most hardcore TSW enthusiasts.

 

I probably will.

 

I think the above is the crux of the argument - I'm not buying it because I don't care enough for the routes, and I definitely don't like the engineering. However, if it's something that you've been waiting for for ages, and it's your favourite, and you've got the money, then that's different, who is anyone to tell you what to do. I guess there's the risk that any potential disappointment you feel is amplified, but that's the chance isn't it.

I like old Land Rovers, I'm sure there's many people who'd tell me that they're overpriced, unreliable heaps of junk, but I like them all the same, so buy them (then moan and grumble about the bills). Why is this any different?

 

I've decided to wait on the early release players to post what the timetable, scenery and other issues raised are really like in the release build before I make a decision. I have to say DTGs silence isn't helping me decide to get it though. I've read Alex's post a few times now and reading between the lines it sounds very much like "yeah nothing is getting fixed till after release then maybe ...". If that preview stream really was a broken build with a load of the issues fixed already I do not in any way understand why that post from Alex wouldn't have just cleared that up instantly.

You definitely need Goblin/Suffragette though to get the most out of the London end of this route.

 

Another £24 to spend. That line barely goes on discount. I think the last time it did was only 20% or something.

 

It's quite recent a release so won't be on a bigger discount for a while I imagine.

 

Most probably performance reasons, or something is awry with the signalling and the disapatcher is struggling giving lock-ups/unresolvable red lights. Surely they would've tried very hard to get all the services running but ran into issues for maybe those issues above? Possibly something else though. Who knows.

 

I got it at a 30% discount, and routes seem to get sale discounts sooner after release than they used to. I'd see what reductions are available on the 16th.

 

As theorganist said, Suffragette is quite recent. Still, not all routes get the discounts at the same pace. Some get bigger discounts sooner than others. If you are a PC (Steam) player I would wait until September 16th. There is a sale event then and it will probably be discounted again.

 

That is what I suspect although I hoped that was a thing of the past. The TSC scenario editor would often throw a hissy fit and create conflicts.

 

I am going to say something that wont be popular. I am glad it has stopped at MKC and not Rugby. One thing I alway used to love when travelling the 390s was going through Rugby non stop. If the route stopped there it wouldn't feel right. Of course I also would of prefered to see the line through to Birmingham NS. Maybe that may be in the pipeline for coming out sometime. Also it would mean not stopping at MKC either and that would be even better in my eyes.

Maybe it's because of how long I have played train sims I just don't expect things being lifelike. Such as with ETS2. I have never driven up to Carlisle and gone through a tunnel on the M6 but in the game you do. I just overlook it and it's the same with TSW routes. I actually just not bother. too much about the scenery in the same way a lot of people would. The actual only thing that attracts me to TSW is the use of timetables. I spawn in somewhere and take the first train I see. So the Watford DC line does sound disappointing. hopefully there will be a patch to add more,

 

On the other hand, if you DO hold DTG to doing reworks instead of new content, you'll get a majority of the base whining about "not enough new content"... it's lose lose.

 

San Bernadino Line: 2 timetables
WCML: 0.5 timetables



(I don't begrudge our American friends at all actually, but San Bernadino looks good so far and the three routes should be made to a similar quality)

 

In a way, DTG has become a victim of its own success. One has the impression the company has grown perhaps too much, and it needs to churn them out at a high cadence just to stay afloat. For all the extra staff they have, the impression from the outside is they are understaffed in key areas, overstaffed in others, and for example lack industry expertise in core areas like Unreal Engine (or is it just poor staff retention?). Let's face it, the game is badly optimised on all platforms with no apparent plans to improve that going forward; the status quo seemingly just fine as long as the dough keeps rolling in.

 

Same! I'm on PS5 and I think it was in a sale with like 15% off once. I've just seen it is in the latest XBOX sale, so hoping when the next PS sales drop it'll also be in that.

 

Before the 700 came to TSW I was under the impression UK trains were mostly electrostars and a fleet mostly old or refurbished trains. UK routes are to me what DTG delivers so I will not notice. To me an overground every 90 minutes means that's how it is in real life. 350 is 4 units in real life for me because I saw it in TSW.

The only thing I will notice is the lighting but I don't play night services so probably won't be that disappointed with London at night.

Driving WMCL I will probably utter that UK players always oversell their routes as the railways in my country look way busier. So I changed my mind and hope DTG never builds a Belgian route or otherwise I have to apologise to everyone and explain that the route looks way better in real life than in TSW.

 

And I'd make a small bet the German route is better again.

The UK/WCML South looking to be the runt of the litter.

 

Marketing, Code, Community, art etc. All needed but who has the railway operating knowledge/experience? The earlier dispatching on red ls for instance should never have made it past the testing in early years. Signalling again on routes such as NTP were you can up to a red with no prior warning. No Ebula on German routes. No brake vehicles on some UK loco hauled formations (that's ok though as we are only doing multiple units from now on). That's without getting into bugs.

 

To be honest, the only scenery I found particularly bad was the section reused from Bakerloo (Queens Park to Harrow & Wealdstone)

 

To be fair the ETS2 dev team hadn't been along that stretch of M6 before making the game, they are also going to "fix" it when they update the UK scenery (though of course are spending most of their time doing new DLC and gradually fixing the older areas) - Promods and their map rework/expansion fix that issue anyway (which I'm sure you know about ) In a way it does draw a similarity to the older TSW routes which have been given new leases of life by modders (NTP, TVL, BML) and hopefully not setting a precedent but the Fife Circle patch too.

 

Well, I don't do XBOX Gamepass, but I just got a 3 month ultimate subscription for £6 from a grey market reseller, which is still £30 cheaper than actually buying TSW5 if the routes end-up being a disaster.

DTG support love it when I spam them with bug tickets anyway, so they'll be happy.

 

Yes and no, there are already third parties creating content for TSW. The core game needs to be fixed, it needs investment into that to give a more stable product going forward, otherwise creativity at DTG will grind to a halt anyway because they will just spend their time fixing bugs, they will add content and it will crash something else. It will just end up a unstable hot mess. Maybe the whole game at this point needs a complete new rebuild? Yes players will moan due to not enough content, but they are getting plenty of content now and they are complaining. Quality not quantity is what is needed. Maybe DTG need to hand over route creation to third party and from them to just concenrate on the core game itself, operate it like a franchise model, so they get a percentage without tying up their resources.

 

Exactly this. Scenery wise past harrow and before Queen’s Park looks good. Scenery is one of the better parts of this route apart from that area. It would be nice if DTG completely redid it

 

As I know Harrow and Wealdstone as it was my local station, I can tell you from first hand experience the station is way off the real thing, just google photos or you tube videos of the station, they even got the platform building upper section above the bricks the wrong colour, never mind the layout and that is TSW2 Bakerloo days, so good luck to DTG fixing it now, the whole route would need a remaster and I don't know if they will do one? Another member on here pointed out DTG got Wilsden wrong.

 

Exactly. Players complain ALREADY there's not enough content. Imagine ONLY third party content meaning maybe 1/3 of what it is now.
Temper tantrums galore.
Plus fixing bugs doesn't sell as well since most "bugs" are relatively minor and over 90% of players don't even notice them.
You say "quality".... but that's what people say about "Buy Local" too and yet how many discount stores are around selling cheap junk imports that break in a couple uses? Society as a whole favors "new" and "cheap" not "quality."

Not saying DTG doesn't have quite a bit of quality, but they are (like most businesses) offering what the customers are buying the most of.
The whole post title says it all to me "good enough" is the standard. Not "perfect."
And I think for DTG's mass playerbase, "good enough" is what they're getting.
If you keep the 80-90% happy, that's enough to stay in business even if the 10-20% are unsatisfied.

On an aside, if you think "handing over building to a third party" isn't going to be criticized too, go look at the Train Sim Classic forum next door. HUGE outcry about DTG "abandoning Train Sim Classic" and the "end times are near" because they aren't building routes and only supporting the core game in house.

 

They got willseden and Wembley very wrong considering it’s one of the selling points of the route

 

They got Wembley wrong as well? Ok, maybe we need to work backwards, what did they get right?

 

The sky?

 

I can confirm that when there have been lean periods of content release, there has been much disgruntlement on here about lack of new content. Then the conspiracy theories start to form as to why!

 

Easily solved; DTG fix the trillion annoying bugs whilst 3rd party devs build new routes and locos for a while. Also "whining" is how you end up with the better game - example free core update this year. So don't shoot the messenger.