Manchester Airport - Night Running

In general I was impressed by the route as shown on the live stream. However, there was no footage of night running shown. People asked to see the route at night and this was ignored and not even acknowledged.

In my experience, in the past these live streams have pushed the positives, gushing about how wonderful it is and completely ignored any negatives or questions that may expose something not quite good enough, leaving the poor paying customers to find out for themselves.

This begs the question, What is wrong with the route at night? Why were they afraid to show it?

 

The reluctance to show night lighting ( more accurately lack of it ) has been a recurring aspect of preview streams for as long as I can remember.

Sometimes they'll show some night shots of stations to " satisfy " the requests and any night coverage is always the last thing they do ( if they haven't run out of time.)

 

Let the Day One buyers be the guinea pigs!

 

Oh don’t worry, I’ll be buying it based on what I’ve seen. I just wondered why they failed to even acknowledge night running, let alone show it.

 

I don’t think anything is wrong with the night time. I feel that they hadn’t thought of showing it. What was shown was badly planned. They showed two trips out of Manchester both via the Styal line. Like your night time question maybe something is wrong with driving from Manchester to Stockport as why they didn’t show it. No the reason was it wasn’t planned with much thought.

No snow, they didn’t show that too!!

 

Well, at night in Manchester Airport and Alderley Edge, there are rumours that a former developer of ATS haunts the station buildings, muttering what is believed to be the words "b̸̯͑ũ̵͍ǔ̶̧u̸̩͛u̷̯͠y̷̱̔ ̸̝̈́m̷̛̠e̴̻̕e̶̦͘e̶̘̚ȇ̶͕ ̶̖̓o̷͙̔o̶̜̓o̶̰̾ų̸̌u̵͎͋ŭ̵͙u̴̳̾t̸̲͗ť̵̟t̵̛͇t̴̯͘ ̵̪͝a̷͚͆a̶̛̖â̸͜á̴͇a̴͊ͅl̷͚̀l̴͙̊a̴͇̐ạ̶͝a̵̘͝n̶͈̽ň̴̤ǹ̴͔ǹ̷͓", so clearly they couldn't show that on a PEGI 3 rated game stream

Spooky eh

 

Yes, I asked Matt 3 times to show night scenes….absolute silence!
To be honest I wasn’t overly impressed with the stream. The route was fine but there was an inordinate amount of self-praising and general ‘it’s great to see this & that’.
Jamie doesnt have a presence & waffles….Alan was his typical self…not impressed with his use of expletives in all honesty and Matt just drives…
I felt the chat was mostly ignored. The only positive was one of the Mod’s (Kaltmilch) seemed to be answering all the questions!

 

Actually, I've concluded a long time ago, that DTG doesn't know how to do effective night lighting. That's why you see so little of it in preview streams.

We all know that big cities and their environs are always well lit with buildings, street lights and other sources of illumination 24/7. I know, I live in one.

When I first ran Glossop out of Manchester and BCC out of Birmingham, I realized that the coders simply didn't have the correct skill set to show big cities at night.

There have been some valiant efforts. ECML is passable and one of the worst night lit routes, Cathcart, was much improved after its revamp.

But overall I have to give TSW a failing grade in the area of lighting in general and night lighting in particular.

 

Why does it have to be some massive conspiracy that they didn’t show it off? Night driving looks awful on a stream anyway.

 

No one's suggesting a " massive conspiracy ", just something that warrants an explanation, that's all.

 

They have a pre-planned stream, they’re not going to jeopardise it because a few people demand they want the route shown in a different way.

 

Well it didn't seem all that planned to me, wouldn't have hurt to take 3 minutes to show the route at night if that many people were actually asking for it in the chat, doubt anybody is actually expecting them to drive the whole route like it because they asked in the chat. I mean they are not blind and do actually read the chat on streams.
I just... didn't watch the whole stream, so I'm not completely sure if there really was that many messages asking for it, and being intentionally ignored. Or they literally didn't see the messages because there wasn't enough asking for it.

 

I’d put it down to the hot conditions, just looking at Matt and Jamie when they were on camera it looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. Sweat pouring off poor Jamie’s face too lol.
The heat makes us all feel exhausted and lazy. Maybe one of the reasons for the lack of engagement with chat?

I did like ATS contributions to the stream though, it was nice to get some more insight on the company and the challenges they faced making the route.

 

Trying to show something off to people is kinda hard if they can't see it properly

 

Shame about the accidental F Bomb on the stream then . I wonder if they’ll bleep that out of the catchup version.

 

I watched the first 20 minutes or so of the YT version while sweating on the exercise bike and it was still there - muffled but obvious even if you weren’t expecting it!

 

junior hornet Why would they? As far as I’m aware no TOS was broken on TSW’s YouTube channel.
Also the golden rule for any YouTube video is “no swearing/profanity in the first 30 seconds of any video”.

 

And TBH in this day and age, hardly unusual - you would have to have fairly thin skin to be offended. Around the house if I mess up, pretty much normal reaction is to shout “FFS”. And my wife calls me a f…..g moron or idiot at least ten times a day! The F bomb is the new “bloody”.

Now the c word that’s a different matter. If I use that around the wife it’s £5 in the swear box and/or a slap!

 

My advice for any new route is wait and see, unless you cannot help throwing your money around instantly!

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with the occasional F-bomb in a stream, does not shock at all, we’re only human. You’ll hear 10x worse in any school playground, office, or building site. Not keen though when it’s overused for faux shock effect like in certain series (e.g. The Boys) or in certain songs (e.g. Messy).

 

Except that there is a conspiracy here as none of the trains have any kind of illumination; no lights and no instrument lighting!

Coincidence there was no night time run?????

 

Well, didn't know about that. That would certainly explain why they wouldn't want to show night time. ( Also a good reason not to pop for this route right now.)

The stream was very stuttery, maybe that was a contributing factor too.

Overall, I wasn't impressed with the stream. Apart from the video quality, they really need a more polished presentation instead of a couple of guys rattling off like they were in a neighborhood bar. And we really don't need the 4-letter stuff.

If we can't have Sam, there's JD, who at least knows how to finish a sentence.

 

For exactly the same reason that everyone asks for the horn to be blown! In my opinion that’s a complete of time just like the constant “what time is it coming out” nonsense.

 

No-one was demanding anything - it was a a polite request.

 

I'm away at the moment but does anyone recommend the route for when im back or hold off a bit

 

Demanded… Requested… same thing. You’re still asking for something.

 

Can't think of any reason why you shouldn't ask for some nighttime driving. It's a perfectly reasonable request. After all, it's a big chunk of the timetable and there are many routes for which I pretty much have to stick to daytime driving because of the poor night lighting.

So the fact that the route was not driven at night is a major concern.

According to at least one player, I guess the trains were not lit internally or externally, but that wasn't explained either.

 

Not at all unreasonable given the track record even recent DLC has with night lighting.

 

We all remember the night lighting fiasco on the WCMLS out of Euston not that long ago…

 

I never play a route at night if I can help it. Bloody awful experience.

 

Yea I can’t remember the last time I did a night run. Anytime I’ve accidentally loaded up a night service, I immediately go back to the main menu.

 

Agree with the above consensus, night in TSW sucks.

I find it funny that when criticised, DTG defend it, but won’t show it off. Same goes for dynamic weather.

 

Wasn't their excuse/reason that they watched someone's Drone footage of the route at night and just sort of guessed how it would look?

 

That rings a bell. Still rather stunning that no one involved with building these routes hasn’t played other games and realised night lighting and city light pollution just isn’t up to snuff. I mean GTA San Andreas which is now 20 years old had fantastic city night lighting and I don’t buy the excuse about Rock* budget. You bring in a proprietary engine on which to build your game and understanding how it does lighting should be a simple prerequisite.

 

In the meantime, has anyone done some night running on MAC to see what it's like?

 

I done a few in 390, 350,150,66 and 323 and it seemed fine to me.

 

Might have been ok if we’d of been flying high! But on the ground it’s a darn sight brighter.

 

Night time on a big smart TV at 480 resolution.... Naaah.

 

Lighting has never been one of TSW strong points! IMHO it seems to be worse in the latest version (TSW5). Hopefully it will get sorted in TSW6.

 

You can't show everything in a limited stream.
I suspect if they did half the stream in darkness people would complain
"Why are you doing all that night driving? Is it to hide your terrible scenery?"
I already see people complain when not EVERY station and not EVERY piece of rolling stock is used in one stream.
You can't please everyone.
That's why they give it to a ton of streamers to do their own previews isn't it?

 

I ran 3 services post-2100, one each in the 350, 323, and 153. Looks fine as far as TSW goes, IMO.

All the stations are properly lit, it's brighter in the more built-up areas and darker in the countryside. Headlights work ok. Most of the building assets are lit up at night (i thought i saw a completely dark apt building on the right side of the track heading north from Wilmslow towards Stockport but i was going pretty fast tbf). AI seemed to be using lights correctly.

Overall there should maybe be a bit more ambient light in Manchester city itself but i've never been there personally.

I have to give props to the diesel smoke effects in the 153- i know it's not native to this route, but i was waiting at a station stop and noticed it wafting over from a neighboring train and catching the light from the station lights/headlights. It looks fantastic!

 

I personally think the 323 headlights could be a tad bright as my old eyes struggle but thats just me .

 

That's fair. I'd be ok if they were brighter.

 

I can’t speak for the DTG streams as I have only ever done one and it was a very different yet familiar experience for me.

in my own streams I steer clear of night time as it’s just isn’t that popular on streams lots of viewers will actively leave whilst showing night scenarios the feedback I have had I’ve the last 7 years of streaming 4hrs a time 2-3 times a week is don’t do night runs

Personally I love driving at night I find it massively atmospheric and engaging but I like to do that when I am on my own and not streaming

it’s horses for courses we can’t please everyone

and on the note about being ignored on the stream I can only apologise but it’s hard keeping up with the chat with Matt and Jamie as well as the community chat we did try and stick to the “script” as such

I also don’t for one second think we glossed over any faults and I hope we came across as quite open and honest about the issues we had and reservations we had during the routes development and indeed my dislike of TSW
It was also a opertunity for me to thank the team and DTG publicly something I think we all forget to do sometimes
I hope this helps explain some of your queries

ps I do apologise for the swearing on the stream it really was a mistake
I find swearing part of my everyday language and whilst I tried I did slip up one and maybe a half of a second time

 

Thank you Alan for your response to the thread.

This route is absolutely gorgeous. I have never completed all scenarios and done a half a dozen timetable in the first two days. I have all the routes and this is the only one where l have finished all the scenarios.

Can l ask you please to explain the reason for the omission of platform route maps?

Thank you to all your staff and yourself for producing an excellent route.

 

No need to apologise, you’re only human.
I remember when I worked in a call centre back in my early 20’s and I tell you something, it wasn’t easy to un-learn what was already familiar in my day to day life (swearing like a trooper) haha.
I think I’m a lot better know though, but the f-bomb’s will always be there. It’s a force of habit.

I just wanted to say what a fantastic route MAC is, I’m really enjoying my time with it so far. I can tell a lot of hard work went into developing this and it really shows. I can’t wait to hear what new route you’ll be cooking up next. Cheers

 

The problem with night driving is something inherent to the core I think, in that you just can't get that ambient light pollution that hangs over and above most large towns and cities. Some routes get close but until DTG can use the UE lighting systems better we are probably stuck with it. Might even be a UE issue as games like ETS2 or even SimRail seem to get the lighting better.

The one biggie that has come up today is the issue of sub standard track clearances causing passing trains to side swipe and derail. Is that something now being actively looked at and is it even possible to fix without ripping the guts out of the track, signalling and timetable databases?

Anyhow although it looks like a great job has been done with the route, think it will still be on my sale list along with the other bus service routes. Now if you'd done Llandudno to Blaenau Ffestiniog or the ELR...

 

Meanwhile, in Australia, it's a form of punctuation!

 

My wife frequently drops the c-bomb especially when discussing politicians. She's from a posher upbringing than me so it's quite refreshing that we're both comfortable using it when someone absolutely deserves it.....like politicians.

 

I've had no update come through for today's patch im on series x