Why Do Dovetail Games Keep Making Routes In The Same Countries?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by stanbacker, May 2, 2021.

  1. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    The issue is whether they want to. Most of the 3rd-party TS developers are doing well doing stuff for TS. TSW is a much bigger deal, a very steep learning curve, takes far more man-hours to do the same thing, and as we have seen with Rivet it isn't necessarily a smooth transition.
     
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  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Then surely we should see more posts about lazy local devs who need to get off their proverbials and do some gemming up on the latest tech

    We see that peddled out enough about DTG after all
     
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  3. stanbacker

    stanbacker New Member

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    Oh yeah right :). Well I will buy it anyway (mainly for the new passenger features) I know we can expect great routes from the new DLC's
     
  4. Doomotron

    Doomotron Well-Known Member

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    Some people will only buy some types of DLC because that's all their into. There are people here that would go nowhere near any other country than the one they like, some only buy electric routes, some modern only, some want none of the 'slidey door nonsense' or 'foreign crap', and some only look for shiny fast trains. DTG only bother with trains they're sure will sell, which is why we get a lot of retro British and American stuff, pretty much no classic German stuff (I suspect if they did that it would sell best outside of Germany!), and the only French and Swiss routes are the state-of-the-art LGV lines or picturesque (before Rivet got their hands on it) mountain routes, because they have a general appeal.

    Of course I'd love a suburban French route like the line between Calais and Etaples-Le-Touquet, but it's out of the question since it wouldn't sell well. I'd love to see the East Kent Railway in TSW2, but it's a microscopic heritage route in the middle of nowhere that would barely sell anything. The Marshlink Line between Ashford International and Bexhill would be a nice addition, but it's far too small and unknown to make any money. I'd enjoy a Japanese mountain route like The Story Of Forest Rail, but again it wouldn't sell very well. I'd say Belgium is out of the question. Not as much as other places, but Belgium is too minor of a country (no offense) for DTG to consider it.

    Hopefully with more developers on board, more obscure routes can be made for TSW like in Train Simulator, as DTG won't suffer if they do badly. Union Workshop (?) do a lot of good Japanese stuff, and Just Trains are rather good at making large networks (albeit not always at high quality) - Western Mainlines in TSW2 would shut up a lot of people complaining about TSW.

    Really DTG should have future-proofed TSW by allowing more people to access the route editor. By going down the Unreal Engine route, they've effectively put themselves into a situation where only hand-picked individuals can make stuff for TSW, otherwise they'd probably get into a legal game of chess with a huge corporation partly owned by the largest company in China. Some people on here say DTG have nothing to worry about with both this and the livery situation, but in reality (particularly for the former) DTG know more than us.

    As for your request for Desiros, I'm sure the Portsmouth Direct Line will come at some point...
     
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  5. kosti.nuuja

    kosti.nuuja Well-Known Member

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    DTG made Mittenvaldbahn and Semmeringbahn for TS20xx.
     
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  6. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Hey I'm a New Yorker
     
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  7. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I looked at that list on steam and it seems people in different countries pay less when the price is converted to the American dollar or am I wrong?
     
  8. LodeStar

    LodeStar Active Member

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    Basically any route/train in any country could well be interesting to buy for a lot of train enthusiasts worldwide:
    - is the scenery/line interesting, historic wise as well. (The Riviera Line, Harz-railway, Grindelwald - Jungfraujoch, Qinghai–Tibet)
    - the train itself a true legend in its own era (Shinkansen, Big-Boy pulling freight through Wasatch Mountains, the famous Oriënt Express, The Super Chief, T.E.E. or a TGV for the matter)
    - are operations interesting/diverse enough. (changing gauge situations, changing engines at borders, adding locomotive power to a consist on particular stretches, transporting special goods, high speed operations to normal operations, switcher on sidings)

    Problem is getting (live) reference material, licenses and access to historic and accurate information. Besides that, it is just marketing.
     
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  9. mattdsoares

    mattdsoares Well-Known Member

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    Because DTG is a company trying to make money which means they need to sell enough copies to turn a profit. The US, UK, and Germany are pretty easily the biggest markets for train simulation both in terms of the location of the players and the routes people have interest in. That doesn't mean there wouldn't be interest for Italian, or Dutch, or Japanese, or Russian routes, but that out of all the regions of the world, US, UK, and Germany provide the most route options that appeal to the largest groups of players. Expanding outside of these three countries requires new licenses, often drastically new scenery, and often new safety systems and assets, so they do so selectively and it's the exception. It was the same in Train Simulator and would expect it to be the same in TSW. Other third parties can come in and create routes for other countries that they'd like to sell like Rivet in Switzerland, RSSLO in Austria, etc.
     
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  10. miaideli

    miaideli New Member

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    I was wondering also why there is no more variety of routes in TSW since their size limit is pretty small compared to TS. Plus is more modern and accessible to new people (except the price, that is their biggest weakness).
    Australia, China, Japan are also big into rails, so no need to say Germany/UK/US are the only ones who pay.
    France is also huge in rail, so huge they were one of the best in giving material, help, and even feedback to Dovetail. I wonder how much they paid for that.

    The dream project would be to have a roadmap for famous lines on all continents. Those give huge replay value.

    In fact, a project like Orient Express, a 4-5-year game dev. to make a route from London towards the Channel (just 60km). Then 60 km from France (coming to Paris let's say), Belgium (two world war peace treaties signed in an Orient Express sleeper car...), Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey.

    Imagine 60km from those countries, 3 routes per year, 5 years... And they can partner with companies to get signaling done, cars, locos, terrain scouting (partner with Telephone Companies like T-Mobile, Orange etc or mapping companies to get elevation and all that).
    The trick in business is to not do it all yourself but hire for one job only (kinda like in the engineering field). And like they said in their fan fest, a huge amount of help they get from the community, meaning their money ain't that hot if they do a lot of work from free help (and charge 30 euro for a few months of development (compared to AAA games). .. Epic is buying out many players (even ArtStation)) and I would really wish to see what a company with a big budget could do.
     
  11. mattdsoares

    mattdsoares Well-Known Member

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    No one said the US/UK/Germany were the only markets into rail. Just that they are the three most lucrative markets. UK due to the high number of trainspotters, Germany because of the popularity of simulators and the numbers of railfans, and the US mostly due to its $$ and size. Also, no one is saying that it wouldn't be nice if DTG expanded to more locations and had bigger ideas. But the question was why they seem to mostly limit themselves to US/UK/Germany. And, well, that's pretty much why.
     
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  12. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    However, it's interesting to note that roughly 10% of the player base are Australian (as many as the Germans)- so why not an Aussie route?
     
  13. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    Because we still keep on buying UK content. The Aussies probably do too.
     
  14. johnjohn190690

    johnjohn190690 Active Member

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    I reckon we'll get more countries in TSW2 LGV Marseille - Avignon had good reviews so we could head back to France soon. I know TS has a good Dutch following so if TSW2 were to step into that market and work along with Chris Trains. Could see Austrian, Japanese and even Chinese routes coming. If Australia is 10% sales like its been mentioned before then why not. The three main ones will stay that way for a while tbh and slowly add in more countries. I see people getting fed up of Modern German routes I enjoy them always day one buys for me but HHL might be sale purchase for me. Also modern routes in Germany might be down to licensing.

    Also will need more than just DTG Rivet Skyhook Games making routes for TSW2 need more third party. Aerosoft Justtrains and RSSLO have made routes for TS classic maybe they can get involved too just a thought.
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2021
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  15. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    I've recently been sidetracked (!) into playing the Moss Vale territory on SimSig and the more I experience it, the more I'm convinced part of the "Main South" would be a great addition into TSW. Loads of freight, passenger workings with Endeavour DMU's and XPT's on the long distance services. I could certainly go for something like Picton to Goulburn as that would also encompass the mineral branches.
     
  16. Blacknred81

    Blacknred81 Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately, that one of the biggest problems that TSW2 has, is that it is not easy for a 3rd party developer to come in and start making content for it, unlike TS21, where it was alot more open for one to jump in creating routes and rolling stock.
     
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  17. johnjohn190690

    johnjohn190690 Active Member

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    They slowly opening up I know Rivet hasn't done well with scenery but trains are very good hopefully the more routes that come from Rivet, will become better with scenery.
     
  18. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    I know Rivet has gotten quite a bad rep with the TSW crowd, but they released some pretty darn good quality add-ons for TS. I'm confident Rivets TSW DLC quality will go up as they gain some experience with making routes.
     
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  19. johnjohn190690

    johnjohn190690 Active Member

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    Definitely agree with you.
     
  20. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    I actually bought train sim and ECML from pbo to kgx. I drove some of it but was so disappointed with the old engine and graphics I refunded the dlc. I find some of ts21 far better than tsw2 but I can’t cope with the old graphics and UI
     
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  21. TheRealJuralumin

    TheRealJuralumin Member

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    I just want some non-european and non-north american routes for a change, would love to see a Japanese route or an Australian route! It seems weird to call the game "Train Sim World" when it only features routes from 2 continents.
     
  22. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    Although I agree with the request for routes from other continents as well (personally I'd be interested in anything in Asia, Southern America, Africa and the Australian continent (not limited to the Australian country).

    But I do like to point out, although it may look like Europe is getting a lot of attention by DTG from a non-European perspective, it really is only a very few European countries that get featured in TSW. Mainly UK and Germany, and so far one route from Switzerland and France, but that still leaves many European countries, with each their own identity and unique railway systems and landscapes, left outside TSWs current scope.

    So in addition to the continents mentioned before, I'd also like to see the rest of the European continent get some more love.
     
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