Do you think that as we explore around the island or do a mission as our chosen engine, we'll see in real-time other engines and vehicles roaming around and undertaking their tasks as if it's like a living and breathing world?
That sounds like RPG territory, I doubt the game will be that advanced. Any interactions between characters will all be scripted in a form of scenario’s. This game has potential though, I hope to see more characters from the show added to the roaster eventually. Endless possibilities to create story driven content.
Yes it will be like those unrealistic scenarios on PFR or ECML where you had to speak to Emily whatshername or take operational railway instructions from the farmer trespassing on the railway with his cows!
I mean like scripted things happening when free roaming around. Like say if you picked Emily then Gordon will be automatically made to pull the express and stop at certain stations, and Diesel will be automatically made to randomly shunt trucks at Vicarstown etc. Great.
So in the timetable it'll probably be like any other TSW route. You'll have certain characters running on certain services and different movements throughout the day whether it be shunting, hauling freight or running a passenger service and that timetable is for a 24 hour period. There may be options to use substitution to give some dynamics but it'll be interesting to see how DTG do it and then as new characters are released they'd be added to that timetable
Will be interesting to see what they do with five engines at the start ,will it feel a bit empty as you can't have two ,three Thomas's running around to boost life on the rails Sure it's got to start somewhere and there's tonnes of potential with dlc for this title but I'm guessing it needs to start with a bang with plenty going on and plenty to do with regards to gameplay
At the risk of reading too much into it... they have said 5 PLAYABLE characters. Thus far I've seen nothing said of how many non-playable characters will be featured, including other rolling stock. A lot of the lesser-known "NPC" characters that won't sell well or are problematic could be used to be doing things off-tracks or to fill up the routes. (How much call would there be for the stationary crane for example, and they won't let you fly the helicopter I'm pretty sure as it's not a flight sim) Having said that, from the few episodes I've seen there isn't a TON of "busy traffic" on a small island like SODOR. It's usually just the characters involved or they say "hi" in passing once. It's a cartoon RURAL island, not a "real" urban railway so I don't expect a lot of traffic. That would kind of seem weird to be honest. I'm not expecting a "realistic" TSW experience.
