Question About Scenario Planner/livery Designer

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by GrigoriRasputin, Apr 7, 2021.

  1. GrigoriRasputin

    GrigoriRasputin Member

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    Hello good people

    My question is: Is the time and effort DTG are putting into developing and maintining those two features well spent?
    With the release of TSW2 they were presented as this big thing that the "community" was clamouring for but Steam achievements say that:
    20% of players on Steam have done at least a single scenario in scenario planner
    16% of players have done at least a single livery
    I for one will most likely never touch either of those features.
    Those percentages seem to show that most people are of the same mind.
    If both of those features require very little effort on DTG's part then I'd of course understand, because it doesn't hurt to cater to 20% of the userbase in this case.
     
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  2. fabristunt

    fabristunt Well-Known Member

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    To be fair, I also was expecting far higher numbers due to all the fuss about these two tools. I personally don't care for them, but I still think they should be there since we won't have access to a proper editor.

    Moreover, since we are looking at Steam Achievement stats, we should also consider the following: the "
    TSW2: Operator" is awarded for reaching level 10. That is incledibly low, yet only 39% of the playerbase has it. It's incredibly easy to reach level 10, so if 39% of users played long enough to reach level 10 and 20% used the scenario planner, then almost half of the users like it!
    I know that the 20% inlcudes also people like me, who used only once, but it's still much higher than it would otherwise seem if we consider that only 39% of the people who have TSW 2 on steam used it long enough to reach level 10.

    Basically, 20% is apparently a low number, but all things considered, is actually pretty high.
     
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  3. GrigoriRasputin

    GrigoriRasputin Member

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    You raise a good point.
    Only 39% have made it to level 10? Considering how easy it is to level up that statistic is absolutely baffling.
    I have absolutely nothing against either feature, DIY scenario or livery. If people like them, that means they're playing the game and that is good in my book. I was just wondering about priorities and the effort that's put into it. But as you said, 20% of 39% is actually a substantial amount of people that has at least tried those two tools.
     
  4. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    This is not uncommon in many games, even "blockbusters" like Assassin's Creed Valhalla- you'll see that probably half of players never get more than a third of the way through, judging by the achievement percentages.

    Quite a few people, I'm sure, start TSW but quickly decide train sims aren't for them.

    To evaluate the percentage of the *actual* player base who use LD or SD, you would have to compare those stats with the number of people who have the achievement for reaching, say, Level 50.
     
  5. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Not really. There are likely three type of people who get the game in the first place
    1 - those who like trains, love trains, play trains and get hours and hours of enjoyment from trains (in a game)
    2 - those who like simulation games and will try the game out and maybe get a few hours in here and there
    3 - those who buy it on a whim, find it's not for them and play only a few hours total

    So if the 39% is made up of the first two categories that means 60% of people who BUY the game aren't users of it, so all other percentages applied should be offset against this.

    I mean personally I will never use the designer, but the planner I would use, if it was properly functional, ie you could shunt, marshal etc.
     
  6. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    I already knew that and asked a question on it for the end-of-year Q&Q. The answer was this is normal. Personally I do not consider it very normal you spend a lot of money on a game to never play it (to be honest, for some games I was disappointed after buy in them and I did not play much with them), but let's accept their sponsoring. I did not yet do a lot with the scenario planner, except finding out how the data are stored, which gives a good insight. Into my opinion this is a dead end route and they probably need to start over again to make something that works nice, so I do not want to waste a lot of time in creating my own stuff for now. The livery editor is less appealing to me, because my skills are more technical and that is OK. I will give it a try for the Arosa line, though to recreate the wonderful blue livery with alpine flower motives. Just see if this will work.
     
  7. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    In today's gaming world it's definitely more normal to buy a game (especially on sale) and not really get much from it. I pad about £15 for Nimby rails last month, got to the point where I couldn't lose money if I want to and haven't touched it since. Did similar with Simsig...
     
  8. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    I did that with Run 8... Spent a fortune gathering most of the routes, burned out on doing the industry thing and haven't been back on in about six weeks now.
    Derail Valley even longer, but that is mainly due to getting bored with the same map and the fact the tasks seemed very repetitive after a while.
    The one I probably have shamefully neglected is Diesel Railcar Simulator.
     
  9. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    Personally, I quite like the livery designer, it's relatively easy to use and while it could come with more stuff, you can still create some pretty good liveries.
    However, for me, the scenario designer is nothing short of a torture device (and this is from someone who spends most of his TS1 play time in the scenario or route editor).
    I'm one of those 20%, I made an ICE scenario on Rhein Ruhr Osten, and went "this is alright, if very limiting, maybe I'll use it again". I tried a few months later to make a scenario on Northern Trans Pennine and was beyond frustrated after just 20 minutes and 3 services and was left thinking the game would've been better without it - if you want to make a realistic scenario (as I do) it's borderline useless.

    Many (including myself) have been wishing for an editor akin to the TS1 editor, this was described as a step towards that when TSW2 was announced. Two weeks later Sam told us this is basically all we'll be getting without going commercial - while I can understand the issues regarding licensing the UE4 editor, we've been asking for one for a while and describing it as a "first step" it felt like being given a massive, lovely cake you want and as you go to eat it it's taken away. The silent majority, however, probably don't care that there's no editor - I believe only 10% of TS1 players have even opened the editor, even if by mistake.

    As for if the time was well spent, I'd say on the livery designer - yes, however for me, the scenario planner feels like it was built (or at least designed) on a weekend after having eaten far too much pizza on the Friday night, so I'd rather they'd spent more time on making something less limiting or they invested the time in expanding the livery editor.
     
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  10. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Not going to look at how much I've spent on Train Simulator stuff, but I have everything UK related from the major suppliers. Got annoyed with it an now use TSW exclusively... maybe one day I'll go back
     
  11. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I think a lot of the problem is that there are players who can’t do what they want to do with the tools yet. They need to be more useful.

    I’d like to make liveries but I want to see those liveries only where I want to see them. At the moment liveries will pop up anywhere the train does at random. I don’t want to see that so I haven’t made any liveries yet. Without being able to put your liveries in appropriate places the feature is pretty useless, in my opinion.

    With scenario planner you can do A to B runs only and adding AI trains is difficult because they have to start at the same time as you or after, and when they get somewhere they stay there. It’s also difficult knowing the paths on a route without putting in hours of trial and error to find out what paths go where and which conflict with each other. Just knowing what platform to start with is a difficult choice. There’s no documentation or visual representation of the available options you can do or have done, you only find out by driving a service. That takes a prohibitive amount of time to set up anything that you would actually want to play.

    It’s early days for the features and it may be a long time before they are evolved into truly useful tools.
     
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  12. Jinoss17

    Jinoss17 Well-Known Member

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    I have 300+ hours of gameplay on Steam and I'm one of those who never even opened the scenario planner or the livery designer. I'm totally not interested in them.

    However 20% of players unlocking the achievement is a pretty good number. It would be interesting to have a poll on the forum.
     
  13. LeadCatcher

    LeadCatcher Well-Known Member

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    With over several thousand hours in TSClassic and several hundred in TSW2, I am in the majority it seems of never having used the Livery or Scenario designer in TSW2.

    I have attempted to make one scenario in TSClassic in all those hours so safe to say, I am not a fussed one bit about their current state FOR MYSELF. I do enjoy the workshop aspect of sharing ones skills and have found those scenarios to be some of the better made and enjoyable to run.

    Since the ability to share ones work with the community is severely constrained in TSW2, I do not see many getting on the bandwagon to use these tools without the ability to easily share with the community. Just my opinion.
     
  14. GrigoriRasputin

    GrigoriRasputin Member

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    Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer. It has been really interesting to read these different takes on it. I'm still new to these forums so I really appreciate it.

    One more thing that's been bugging me a bit, concerning that livery designer. They make a big stink about licences and how it's next to impossible for a single train to have many different liveries from different eras (not even mentioning different regions, they want to be authentic, i get it). So how are Armstrong Powerhouse not being sued to high heavens, aren't their enhancement packs equipped with tons of liveries? Or are they exempt because they work independently from Dovetail?

    They can't have people sharing what they made in livery designer is the same reason they had to remove Virgin Trains and Arriva?
    Those Armstrong packs notwithstanding, it really saddens me that we can't have those classic trains in all sorts of classic liveries from days long gone. Even if it's not necessarily authentic for the place or era. Just a bit of fun and nostalgia. I guess the only workaround is the Livery Designer they've provided?

    The community would probably be really upset if they did this, but I'd in all probability buy a livery pack if they released one. I some aspects that "diesel legends of the great western" was also a livery pack (if you owned the trains already).
     
  15. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    The thing is, people like AP and JT in their TS1 packs tend to run fast and loose with licensing. AP will license current operators (and if they can't, will release the livery unbranded) but not defunct operators and will release the fully branded livery. Dovetail go on the side of caution and try their best to follow copyright laws to the letter and licence everything (including defunct operators because someone will still own the copyright) - it also helps them to build better relationships with TOCs, and I imagine they get the feeling if a train company tried to sue them, the community would have a field day, but also it'd probably harm their relationships with other TOCs.

    Virgin did try to sue AP, but AP backed down almost immediately (I imagine they knew they'd never win the case), hence why the red/black livery remains unbranded even with the branding patch, and all other VT liveries are not included in other packs (even the promotional image for the 390 sound pack, which is an image of the real train, has had the Virgin logo photoshopped off). As for why other companies haven't sued, I imagine they either feel it isn't worth it, or they just don't know - and no one's going to go to richard brandson and tell him JT is using his logo possibly without license because JT would probably get a C&D like AP, and it'd probably result in the removal (or at least significant modification) of the popular Voyager pack.
     
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  16. GrigoriRasputin

    GrigoriRasputin Member

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    I see, it's basically still the wild west when it comes to AP and JT. This goes for much of the modding scene probably. I hope they can keep it going because authentic liveries add so much flavour. As long as they remain small fish in a big pond. I guess it also makes sense that AP sells these packs in their own site not through Dovetail or the Steam store page, that would immediately attract the wrong kind of attention I presume.
    It's a shame that this is the world we live in, brands need to be "protected", from what exactly in this case, not sure. For anyone wanting to reminisce or just a bit of nostalgia, they're out of luck.
     
  17. Dinosbacsi

    Dinosbacsi Well-Known Member

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    Judging by the achievements is pointless, as stated above. But sometimes I also question the need for these two features. First of all, without sharing options, they're completely useless to 95% of the playerbase, as noone is going to bother spending hours in Livery Designer doing the same repaint that 50 people has already done before. Same goes for the Scenario Planner.

    Of course DTG says the issue is licences and copyright, but that begs the question, then why did they bother developing a feature that cannot be used to it's full extent? Pretty pointless, if you ask me.

    Of course they're fun system to use once in a while, but the lack of sharing renders them useless for most of the time and they're also pretty limited in their current form. They could be developed further, but then that time could be better spent actually improving on the core game.
     
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  18. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    " First of all, without sharing options, they're completely useless to 95% of the playerbase"

    Not entirely true, at least for PC users. Sharing is possible using 3rd-party apps and there is already quite a library of downloadable liveries on various websites. However, DTG for legal reasons cannot endorse or even recognize the existence of such sub-rosa sharing (Sam: "I'll pretend you didn't ask that question, because if you did ask it, I'd have to answer it, and you wouldn't like the answer.")
     
  19. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    The very name, Livery Designer, suggests that what DTG had in mind was players inventing their own fictional liveries; some players have invented their own railways and paint all their rolling stock in their own original logo. This of course doesn't involve any copyright issues. And if players want to do a Santa Fe or Virgin livery for themselves for their own personal use, that doesn't raise legal issues either.

    In theory DTG could implement a sharing feature run through a site which they maintain themselves, and which would disallow the use of real-life brands and liveries. The problem there is that it would have to be continually moderated, which is more work for some employee on the time clock.
     
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