Train Sim World 7 - Discussion

Just caught up with the German preview.

That absolutely needs a second preview, in better lighting & without the awful screen tearing & whatever that stuttering was. Not sure how I’m expected to have a good opinion of a product when it’s displayed so poorly.

I don’t know if these off-hour timed services are some attempt to show off the new lighting engine, but the quality it gets streamed in is too poor for that to work.

Also Matt has played the ‘hide an issue by obscuring it with weather & darkness’ card too many times now, so when I see something being presented in non-daylight hours, it’s just making me think something’s wrong with the content.

 

I really don’t understand why they do this preview after preview, come on!! You’re trying to encourage people to buy this!!! Transparency after the years of poor quality issues!! You’ve already mislead us on the passenger updates, they’re still terrible despite years of asking that they be sorted, streams needs to be in daylight, clear, no dynamic, no live! Dedicate a part of your streams to clear transparency, two streams in and you’re yet to convince me to preorder, I’m sure I’m not the only one.

This is your annual big headline release and to have parts not accessible and unfinished, is simply unacceptable. It happens year after year and quite honestly is unforgivable and wobbly foundations to start a new iteration off. You really need to closely look at the failings and why this happens because weaknesses should be identified and fixed not repeated year after year. Don’t mislead and overpromise and undeliver. Have a little integrity.

 

Stuttering will be there forever because that's how the game is built.
Overall im pretty happy to see that the 60 fps constant are here thanks of DLSS

 

I will see next week what the preview stream on console brings. But I'm really bothered by the fact an possible lighting update comes after release, so we don't now the end result. Will new lighting, if or when it releases, hit performance for example.

This brings me to the point, they really have to stop releasing incomplete stuff. Finish the whole package, test it carefully and then release it. Same with the updates for the ICE, which are not ready on release.

 

I'm very rarely negative as I am excited for TSW7 and do not nitpick small things but the amount of times "this may come after release", "in a future patch", or "I'll get that fixed" has been said in the last two streams is a bit worrying. I don't understand the premise of releasing an unfinished game. I might actually hold off on this one, something I don't ever do.

 

It's pretty clear they have a deadline to release the game in September, no matter everything has been finished or not.

 

No it won’t, that’s the whole point of it not being on consoles at launch. We need to figure out which elements can come to console and not hit performance. We know that the stuff that was on Medway Valley has no effect, but we need to test the other stuff and figure how much, if any, will make it across. There is also more work planned on this as well, so it makes sense to bundle it all together when it’s ready. Honestly, there’s no big conspiracy, the aim is to give you the very best experience possible as that is in all our interests.

Regarding the weather on streams, it’s a difficult quandary. When we displayed Medway we chose to have a run at night as that looks fantastic when you actually play the game. Does it come across on a stream? Probably not. Did it make good watching? No. Lesson learnt. I guarantee though that if they did all the stream runs in clear skies etc people would be complaining that they always use clear skies because they’re hiding that the game looks bad in any other weather type. That is not the case.

The old adage that you simply cannot please everyone all of the time is so true.

 

This is what I feared. So maybe not “Strike 2” in terms of quality, nevertheless like all the similar German routes it would be drive a few services in each direction then it falls away into the dusted off occasionally category. It also seems a fair bit of bait and hook from DTG with this one. If you really want the best layer experience you really have to buy the ICE4 along with it and the still full price Ingoldstadt route.

So Strike 2 really on the route pack. Oh dear. Well it remains to see if Rivet have delivered something worthwhile on the Leeds Local, but this is looking more and more like the free update for me.

Edit: WRT showing the routes at night, IMHO that is important as with a few exceptions most routes continue to have completely rancid night lighting effects. However that should not be at the expense of a good crisp daytime sunny summer run which is what tends to produce the washed out look and shiny ballast etc.

And yes, very concerning if the man supposedly at the centre of the project, whom nothing should get done in the game without going through him first, is getting caught out by stuff which isn’t right and (may, ha, like the save game slots) get sorted out later after release. For the money the y are charging and the hype they are putting out, this should be releasing in tip top condition with everything working as it should and the content high quality and flawless as it can be.

 

Aaand the ICE 4 doesn't come with train faults at launch, and if you didn't watched the preview stream closely, there is no way for you to know..(1:20:45 into the stream)
Sorry, what? This is so non acceptable on so many level. First, that is a premium loco, which you're asking premium price, and is part of the higher tier deluxe edition, and it doesn't come with all the core features? Which you said, one year ago, should now be standard on all comming content...

Shouldn't there be a disclaimer about this somewhere? So the customer is informed when making the purchase, and make his decision about if it is then worth the asking price at launch?

Yeah yeah, you look to add them post-launch, be we all know how that usually goes. I would be suprised we will see them this side of christmas, based on a previous experience, it will never get them....

 

Does the Class 802 have train faults in the meantime? Or are they still missing after a year?

 

I believe you when you say, we have to fugure out what can come to console and what not. You proved allready on the Medway valley line what is possible.

My point is, why not release a new game when everything is ready and polished. As other already have mentioned, there is to much stuff coming after release or DTG has to look into. This is not an attack on you at all btw, but the way stuff has been released in the past does not give that much trust. I'm not talking about Medway valley, as it seems that's one of the best releases.

I remember seeing a vid or part of a vid of Medway valley, to show night lighting. This was actually showing how well it was done, so I not have an issue to show some night lighting on stream. However most of yesterdays stream was at dawn, so it did not give a good representation of the route.

 

still missing, but don’t worry, they’re coming soon. since september 2025.

 

What really bothered me during yesterday’s live stream was the following.

DTG, can’t you manage not to make parked trains or freight wagons just ‘pop up’ out of nowhere about 20 metres before you reach them?

For me, this ruins the immersion in a way.
After all, parked trains or freight wagons should be visible from much further away, and I find it particularly distracting when they just ‘pop up’ just before you’re right in front of them.

 

Pretty sure they streamed ‘epic’ settings too, which is supposed to have better draw distance (though let’s be honest the draw distance in TSW is just woeful at a baseline).

I’d definitely like some work done in this area, particularly as a console user, the pop in is so bad I just wish I could disable shadows, never mind vegetation and scenic assets.

 

Could you be a bit more specific? Maybe a timestamp in the preview video would help. It’s an interesting point you’re raising here..

 

So, the "popping" of the vegetation has definitely (virtually) disappeared, which certainly looks much better and represents an improvement.

 

The problem with things like mist, is when you’re playing the game in front of you, yes it can be atmospheric & scene enhancing - but when it’s streamed back to us it just doesn’t look great due to various playback inefficiencies.

Its slightly better when you go back and watch the recording after the fact, but still it’s quite compressed & the more darkness & visual layers such as fog there there are, the more crushed the image looks.

I do think that various weather & night runs etc are things that should be previewed, but I think those should be pre-recorded videos that are put up alongside the streams. I also think pre-recorded gameplay will help with displaying the usual list of things people like to see, so yourself isn’t getting overran with various requests whilst driving (not that it will necessarily stop those requests though).

 

They'd never release anything. How are they supposed to make money then?

 

Make them multi platform as well.

 

So am I correct here? Two main upgrades that got my attention for TSW 7. Live weather - doesn’t work properly (shocker!) as the changes are unnatural and too extreme? Passengers haven’t been fixed and behave as they did before?

 

Any livestream in darkness or with heavy fog effects is always going to suffer significantly from issues arising from the compression, so I'll second the idea of taking high quality raw captures directly. I have an external video capture device inline between my graphics card and monitor that I use for this. Much better for giving people an impression of what they can genuinely expect.

 

Yes, streaming videos on YouTube are too compressed.

 

Is it me, or is the trainsimworld.com website not working properly?
After a while you get stuck at the homepage and all buttons doesn't work anymore. This issue was also present last year.

https://trainsimworld.com/

 

Thank you for your in-depth reply. It answered a lot questions and also give some insight why things are, the way they are.

I'm happy to know you can disable the new lighting settings on console, in case it's needed. I hope you can show on the console stream next week, how the new routes look at clear daytime, as this gives the best impression of the scenery quality.

 

What about UI? Distracting yellow wasn't a good idea.

 

They did the ICE 4 service in the daylight.

 

They aren't on console at all.

 

console won’t be getting the lighting at launch, from what i gather it’ll likely not come until the start of 2027 at the earliest. happy to be corrected though

 

JetWash: In Windows 11 on a desktop PC, what settings will be required in NVidia Control Panel and NVidia App for TSW7? Will they differ between routes or will they remain unchanged? Or do in-game settings now do all the work? Or is it too early to ask?

 

Yes, but the ICE service was with the screen tearing and stutters, so it was not really pleasure to watch. I stopped watching and only watched the stream after the ICE run.

 

And speeding ofcourse

 

You joke, but the "UI team" apparently didn't.

 

For speeding it justifiably makes sense as it is alerting you to a thing you should not be doing, just like with signals.

 

Hmmm - lots of stuff that was supposed to be in the release going to be added and / or fixed later. Guess that's what you get for giving yourself only 1 year for a new release. You have to rush everything, finish little and polish nothing.

 

To be fair, they wouldn't have given themselves a year. Release schedules come from publishers, from the top. Yes, I believe DTG used to be their own publisher and used to still release every year, but that would still have been set by the top publishing side of DTG people, not the development team members. Now they have a separate publisher who will make the demands, which may or may not be worse.

Believe me, development teams (even the higher people in those teams, such as producers) are often frustrated by set schedules and expectations. This is me speaking from experience by proxy.

Sometimes the publishing departments will bend and cave in, pushing back release dates, but I don't think that happens very often in the "we can patch it later" climate.

 

By selling a product which delights customers, encouraging them to come back again and again.
The same as with any successful business

 

Such a barmy concept, but it might just work...

 

I also got the impression that they simply can't make 3 routes in the allotted time, and one always turns out to be worse than the others(not that the others shine with quality).
Although with the prices they ask, they must either make these routes perfectly accurate and polished, or make them 3 times longer.

 

You're not wrong.
I think my biggest problem with that here is that in my experience the "we add/fix it later" is often just not happening at all. So I kinda see it extra critical in this case.

 

Yes, that's the biggest problem with DTG (or the publisher, again). Some critical issues seem to get seemingly abandoned.

 

DTG are still the publisher. If you are thinking of Pullup, they are just DTG’s owner and not a publisher.

 

I noticed the slide advertising TSW7 in TSW6 on PS5 says that by preordering I can get a 10% discount. This is not true. Only PS+ members can get that discount. The ad does not make that clear. Maybe it says it somewhere on the slide but it’s never on the screen long enough to read the small print. This is very naughty. I have a feeling this happens every year. I recall posting about it before.

 

Focus entertainment own DTG and are the publisher. The acquisition happened a few years back

 

Focus(Pullup) is not the publisher, they own DTG but do not publish their games.

Go to any storefront & look at who is listed as the publisher.

 

Even if they weren't the publisher, it's not like DTG did things properly before they got acquired by Focus...

 

Either way, whoever owns them also pulls the strings, and my point still stands that the development team themselves (the ones doing the work) won't be setting the release schedules.