There are multiple problems with a potential multiplayer in TSW: Only driving the trains would not change much from the singleplayer. At best you stop at the same station at the same time, at worst you run in the same direction and never see each other. The work, that implementing a multiplayer to the game needs, is not worth the effort regarding there are many other features that would enhance the gameplay more with less work involved. How do you design the multiplayer for TSW? With its many addons and cross-platform accessibility, this is quite difficult to implement. Even if DTG manages to overcome all of these difficulties it remains questionable if they will make enough revenue from this to finance the effort.
I mean in theory people could end up buying routes to play with each other. After all there are many opportunities for Multiplayer: Taking a ride whole your friend drives and simulating a driver swap halfway through Racing Crashing (it's fun. Deal with it) Guarding on a friend's train (if guard modes were ever added) And more.
I agree with all of this, and quite frankly, DTG should go absolutely nowhere near "online" until they can make stuff that works reliably offline, for say, five years in a row. Online with netcode, and uptime for servers, etc., is a whole new order of magnitude in difficulty. DTG's only online foray, so far, is the Mastery function with DTL - and that is not exactly a roaring success. And they find it difficult to keep their own online shop up and running and functional. That said..... an offline co-op mode (two player sofa/couch sessions) might be good for something like steam engines, with a driver and a fireman. Maybe they could try that first? After they have implemented steam engines successfully, of course.
About the only use I could see for Multiplayer is to have a real signaller or despatcher like Run 8, though ironically running with a group on a server holds no appeal for me and I prefer single player mode. However that would be a whole new game as it would require a signalling panel or despatcher board for each route, some sort of comms to release and lock ground frames which brings with it the spectre of controlling inappropriate behaviour. Train crashing or racing is never going to happen and is another kiddie aspect that only serves to turn many of us off to the concept of any sort of multiplayer in a train game.
I'm going to draw the example of American Truck Simulator by SCS. Recently they have released an 8 Player Multiplayer system to allow friends to play the game together in closed lobbies. Why not have that in TSW? It avoids the chaos of Trolling, and has the multiplayer aspect in it as well. As for Dispatcher Mode or Guard mode I'm planning on making a further detailed suggestion soon to outline to dovetail what I want to see, and using the off topic section having community suggestion to me, for my post to serve as a platform for these. So keep an eye out for that.
I’d like something like run 8 in TSW 2, it would be really neat to see all the services run by actual people, but I don’t see it as a huge priority since either it would be a pay to play thing, or it will not be practical for them.
I don't see the point in multiplayer in what is by definition a closed system. Seeing a train going in the other direction with a closing speed of over 100 MPH I don't really care whether it's AI or not. And dispatcher / guard / controller wouldn't really be a big change in the experience for me if they were doing their jobs
I am all for it up to a certain point. That point is that if they allow us to join random rooms. The reason for this is that someone could be just trying to do a scenario with a friend, but some one else constantly hops on and applies brakes or randomly uncouples cars as a troll.
I know, but just two trains on an online route won't do anything for the people playing as it makes the lobby feal empty and to quiet.
I know it's a slightly different genre, but you just need to read the Frontier forums to see all the grief (literally called griefers) who cause huge problems running in PvP mode in Elite Dangerous. You just want to trade a few wares across a couple of systems, exchange a friendly o7 or three with fellow commanders but instead get fragged to the rebuy screen by anti-social turds who think it is big and clever to mess up someone's day.
Well you can have two trains that would be the online train (you and your friend) and the rest would be ai trains from the timetable so the route wouldn't be dead. Unless of course your playing the Bakerloo line and lirr which has a very dead atmosphere due to the lack of trains in the timetable mode
Legit, just single player but a friend can join, not even a full on mulitplayer, just a 2 play co op, my friend wanted to be able to sit in the same train as me, and be able to see eachother and stuff. Legit, singleplayer with a "co op" mode is all
Much depends on the release of SimRail. If it will be a big success - we will get multiplayer in TSW. BR o7
I think it is a bit close minded to dismiss the idea of coop/multiplayer so quickly. I see plenty of gameplay scenarios that could be improved by coop. I'll list some below. The way I see it being implemented (if it ever will be) is to let players create lobbies like in games like Dying Light etc. The lobby leader can close the lobby for anyone (basically just single player), make it friends-only, make it invite only, or make it fully open. Every player in the lobby would take a first-person avatar with full control. I.e. they can decide to walk the line or hop into services etc, just like in single player. As soon as a player takes control of a service they are the only one that can drive that train, although other players can board the train, just as if the player was an AI driver. Maybe another player can ask to take control if the driver is outside the train (and this request can be ignored in case it is used maliciously), but it is important that only one player has control to reduce the possibility of trolling. Collisions between players and trains should probably be completely disabled so that potential trolls cannot damage the gameplay of others. Collisions between one train and another could be disabled implicitly by different means such as one train being deleted if it SPADs etc (or SPADs could be allowed "at own risk" etc). Some gameplay scenarios that could be improved by coop: 1. Shunting. Instead of having to go to view 3 to reverse into and couple to consists the 2nd player could jump out of the cab, go to the end of the train and ride on the ladder of the last wagon. Or they could go to the other consist and call out via voice-comms "30 feet, 20 feet" etc, to help with coupling. They can lay switches and perform other support duties. Basically act as a conductor. 2. Long distance freight: One player drives, the other sits in the 2nd seat as a conductor. The social aspect of this part is not to be underestimated. 3. Although I don't personally enjoy this part but I know a lot of people like to sit as passenger in AI trains. Now they can sit as a passenger in their friends train and mock their driving skills. 4. Players take control of different trains. On a single track line the realism/immersion will be huge because opposite traveling players will have to coordinate who should wait "in the hole" and who shouldn't. This could cause some fun (or not so fun) interactions if neither player coordinates or do it poorly. These are just a few of the possibilities. My closing point is that nearly every game is improved by (consensual) coop/multiplayer, all the different gameplay interactions cannot be predicted.
ETS2 now also has a convoy mode for 8 players. The same thing could be offered for TSW2 without much effort. One drives, the other controls. Then the other drives, the other controls. Or radio communication, or role play - one person injured on the train, someone helps behind, the train driver can call the rescue service via the control center. There are billions of ideas that could be implemented. BusSimulator 18 has shown how much the MP is accepted. Or TruckersMP for years, you are only chasing someone else and yet thousands do it every day around the world. And it shouldn't be that difficult to implement, since Steam itself offers a wide variety of host services for a secure line between the players.
Difference is that for trains you would end up being stuck at a red or chasing yellows. You don't get the same chance to "race side by side" on most routes as the two lines wouldn't have the same speed limit and there's no such thing as "an overtaking maneuver" so the whole interaction is very different than for road vehicles.
First yellow (probably double) : down to 60mph Second yellow (double) : stay at 60 Third yellow (single) : down to 35mph Red : down to 0 Then you realise your mate's stopped at a station to chat some passengers up and find the newspaper stands... Not my idea of fun, no
I must say, it's quite interesting to read your thoughts on MP. I don't see any point in bringing an MP to TSW as I can't believe it to be an interesting addition to the game. I just don't see enough possibilities of players interacting with each other. Maybe on Shunting services or on the MSB as an Push service. I played MP years ago in Trainz, and it sounded better than it was. My conclusion: Only if players can interact a lot with each other, I would be interested. I believe the suggested Ideas are not the Yellow from the Egg xD (Sorry for the German joke )
DTG needs to add this or else TSW2 will drown under water to simrail this is a thing needed in TSW2 to get rid of simrail
I will never play simrail, and DTG don't WANT to get rid of competition, they've stated it a number of times
Good thing with competition is it makes the rivals try to better the games. Looks at British Rail Privatised Right? In all seriousness it would be hard to knock DTG off the Train Simulation podium. And I'm not gonna buy SimRail anyway, I'll stick with a game I trust.
Of which many didn't have much valid competition, hence "limited" Look ay Southeastern... no proper bids in for years now, which is my GTR still have it
Yes, I know. But then intention of franchising was to create competition in bidding etc. I was mostly having a dig at how much that failed.
Same as just about every other UK privatisation scheme, or UK industry other than specialist metals and space... Everything else belongs to companies or even governments outside of the UK now
They aren't "taking over" they are working alongside DTG. Plus Rivet's content so far hasn't been promising...