am slightly confused can anyone tell me that will have to wait til after tsw6 is realsed before we get caltrain back including if we already own it
It'll still work on TSW5 and before if you already own it. It will not be available on TSW6 at release, but DTG should have the unbranded version done shortly after.
The fact that just before they removed the Caltrain content, they had a sale on the locos from that route so you could buy and keep the branded locos, means possible legal issues when they then refuse to allow people to bring that content to the next version. I know there will be an unbranded route and locos soon but that doesn't address the issue.
What legal issues? You purchased a DLC for TSW 5 and no one has taken that away from you. You got what you paid for.
It's worth mentioning that, at least on PC, you can copy your branded TSW 5 Caltrain files into TSW 6 and they work just fine
The license has nothing to do with changing game numbers. The license expired back in February, not because of TSW 6, but because the license was for five years and time was up. Unlike Great Western, Caltrain was uninterested in renewing, probably because with its new FLIRT fleet it wants to erase its diesel history. My, the keyboard lawyers have been busy! Sorry, that's all nonsense. Somebody got wind of the fact the works by Federal agencies are not subject to copyright, by statute, and somehow confused trademark with copyright, and Federal with non-Federal governments. Nope: state and local agencies are not subject to the public domain law, nor does it affect trademark (so, no, "Amtrak" and its logos are not free to use).
I It's almost like this yearly release nonsense is a pointless endeavor since nothing much with the core changes.
With that logic you could also justify removing the entire preserved collection and not having any DLC carry over to the next TSW version.
They had a sale. Because it was about to cease to be available. In the hopes of making it easier for everyone who wanted it to pick it up to keep for older versions of TSW, and picking up sales they had not before. This was entirely within the terms of the licensing agreement with Caltrain. They sold a product for TSW up to 5, on the understanding it will continue to work with those games, but not with TSW6. Where exactly would you imagine this would raise legal issues? They did EVERYTHING entirely within the law.
Exactly. I bought it in that sale, probably wouldn't have done otherwise as it wasn't top of my wishlist. Some people moan about DTG being all about the profit, but then conveniently forget the times a route goes on sale when there’s a push on it (a remaster, an additional loco, that sort of thing).
Technically they havent guaranteed us anything for the next iterations only the current ones. As per DTG Chris on the thread https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/compatible-addons.93405/ Purchasing a Train Sim World 6 add-on comes with no backwards compatibility. If you were to purchase the TSW 6 version of Northern Trans Pennine, it would only be compatible with TSW 6. The amount of entitlements this takes to set up was breaking the platforms we work with. Therefore, from TSW 6 onwards, new purchases will only be forwards compatible where stated. And he followed up with Backwards compatibility was never an advertised feature on store pages. It was an added bonus that unfortunately is no longer feasible. And honestly what do you expect eventually they are going to uograde the engine to UE5 and we will have to start again anyways.
Also what they're describing there is "Retroactive entitlement", not "Backwards compatibility", two different things. The former, what they describe as having changed, is purchasing something for a new platform additionally granting entitlement to use it on the older platform. The latter describes a newer platform being capable of running, or "compatible with", older material originally designed for compatibility with a previous platform. TSW still has a form of Backwards compatibility. Retroactive entitlement is indeed an absolute LOVE to set up the more SKUs are added to your back catalogue, especially when you essentially add an entire individual catalogue's worth every year. I was quite surprised to see them go the extra mile and do it at all, it's exceedingly rare, but I imagine with that many SKUs it was initially seen as a necessary evil to avoid a lot of their customers potentially mispurchasing the newer version of a route in the store, which would not run on their version of the game.
