There are many things that make you feel more or less immersed in the simulated world of TSW. It's hard to both define immersion and to name the things that create it and destroy it since it's so subjective. With this in mind I thought I would create a poll for people to select their two most important features that creates immersion in the game. I'm sure I forgot something that other people feel is very important (or maybe even the most important) to create immersion, so I added an "Other" option for people to describe in the thread. For myself I would say that the two most important things that make me really feel like I'm in the game, are physics and sound. I pick physics because if things behave unlike how they would in reality that's something that can be really jarring and spoils the immersion. I also picked sound because, while low quality graphics can be disappointing and visually unappealing, they don't really annoy me or kill the immersion as fast as bad sounds. Really bad sounds can almost be painful to the ears, and great sounds can make up for almost any other fault. Now I'm interested in your opinions!
Because if DTG (or another developer) has to prioritize, I want them to know what the community prioritizes. If you could select everything the poll becomes less informative (imo).
It's physics and sounds for me. The graphics and the detail can be good, but it's not immersive if I can't "feel" the train moving and hear it do so realistically. I need cab sway and cars moving independently of each other to see the train moving along the small imperfections of the rails, and I need to hear not only the engine sounds, but wind whistling at speed, things rattling and making noises as cars move in relation to each other, etc. I think Boston Sprinter is pretty good in that regard, I love the sounds on that route. Only thing I'm missing is that the sounds don't get loud enough if you open the window (only in the F40PH), and you don't hear much wind - even though increased wind noise was in older TSW routes, I beleive. By the way, best example regarding immersion for me is Densha de GO. It's not even a proper simulator, it's more of an arcade train driving game. The graphics are old and ugly, but it just has that amazing feel to it. And while it doesn't have much in the physics department, and even though the sound quality is also pretty weak, the mixing of them, and the hissing sound of the wind and the wheels going over the rails, it just really gives that immersive feel. And even if you can only see ahead like 200 meters due to the incredibly low drawing distance, and all the train and objects are just plain boxes, yet it stills make me feel like I'm actually there in Tokyo driving commuter trains. So long story short: good sounds and good, visible physics. One thing I really miss from the physics in TSW, for example, is the train jolting when passing over switch points. The sounds are usually there, but the ride is always completely smooth over them, which is a shame, if you ask me.
It’s always been sounds for me. And for many intact. Probably why BVE was so popular. It looked awful, didn’t really sim much, cab only but….it’s by far the best sounding sim to date. Still hasn’t changed.
All of the listed factors plus: lighting, water, ambient sounds, AI trains, road traffic,street life, dynamic weather, dirt and grime ( railways are dirty). That's all I can think of right now.
Sounds are obviously my biggest priority, and that mostly stems from my inner musician and being somewhat of an audiophile, so when things sound like they were recorded on 1995 hardware and compressed to 8bits when mixed, I can't. Especially when I do know what it's supposed to sound like. However, immersion for me is really created by a combination of what makes TSW, TSW. I found TSW simply by wondering if there was a sim more detailed without a fixed camera in cab that would let me do things like cold starts, get up and walk around, etc, googled it, and found TSW. I like that I can get out of the driver/engineer seat, walk around trains and stations, if I want. I like being able to push buttons, even if they don't do anything. I understand it takes dev time to do things like this, but I really wish all buttons and screens worked in all trains, engine rooms were modeled, etc - all things that make me an engineer in the game instead of a camera. This means graphics become a priority b/c you don't want low res graphics where you can walk right up to something. Physics are important too, but given I have absolutely no clue how the different trains handle in real life, this is kind of a grey area. One of the many reasons I don't like about TS1 is physics feels faked. In general, TSW feels more natural, some obviously better than others. The only thing I think needs work and feels faked is adhesion. It's too predictable and simple. Timetables are another grey area. More services = better, and realistic events improve that. What I personally don't enjoy though, is sitting at red signals for 10-20 minutes waiting for another train(s). I'm very selective about what freight services on RRO I play because so many start out with a 15 minute wait while 3 or 4 passenger trains pass. While that may be realistic, I don't find that enjoyable, simply because I'm still sitting at my computer. I could walk around the game world, but I don't know when that signal will actually clear, yards usually don't have much anyway, and there's the annoying "give up service?" prompt. I could bring something up on my other monitor, but I'm not playing TSW to scroll through twitter or FB - I can do that anytime. There's also the chance that red signal is bugged and won't ever change, but that's a different issue.
I'm with you about grime. Whether we like it or not -- and especially whether DTG likes it or not -- the world is a dirty and frequently trashy place: a reality that neither TS nor TSW reflects.
Sounds! Definitely sounds! If sounds and physics feel right, everything else seems believable. Take OMSI 2 for example. It's not the best looking game graphically, but it more than makes up for it with sound and physics. It's by far the best bus-simulator out there in my opinion.
This will probably seem a bit off-topic, but what really jerks me out of the sim's atmosphere is having my telephone or the doorbell ring; other than those, there's not much that I allow to distract me.
Biggest break in realism for me is the lack of rail replacement services!! I shouldn't have to go out and buy bus sim. Let me do a rail replacement between Brighton and London.
I'm usually not bothered by the numerous factors that other forum members complain about in regard to "immersion", but I did run across something a few days ago that disturbed me. While driving one of the services provided with Skyhook Games' DB BR 187 DLC using the in-cab camera, the presence of falling leaves caught my eye, followed by noticing that upon hitting the ground they instantly vanished. This was certainly not the first time I had seen leaves falling, but the lack of fallen leaves on the ground did jerk me out of the simulated world. Would it be so difficult to add grounded leaves to the routes that include falling ones?
I am personally struggling to cope with and I echo this for probably the 30th time across a variety of media. I can drive a train on Train sim, a ten year old game and pass by a digger that has a moving boom and looks like it part of a moving world. On TSW i have passed in excess of 1000 non moving diggers and it's now becoming a trauma seeing them all static and boarded up. Environmental sterility in places is so detracting from the immersion.
Good immersion is very hard to achieve. Good graphics are not enough. Those things that i think that are important for good immersion are: -Performance. Game must run smoothly almost everywhere. -Textures. Ground and track textures must look smooth. Narverkehr Dresden is a succesful route in this case. -Physics. Driving physics must be as realistic as possible. -Sounds. Train sounds should sound as authentic as possible. -Track type. It has also effects on immersion. I have noticed it, when i drove Narverkehr Dresden first time. This route has perfect track type. -AI traffic. Immersion suffers, if everything looks ”dead”.
I think the question is flawed What makes me feel like I am actually driving a train would be different to what would make me feel immersed into a route or journey The former would be sounds, the way the thing moves, it's physics The latter would be timetables, signalling, interactions... Of course as a passenger it would be that annoying person sat opposite you shouting loudly into their mobile phone at someone you can't see but you now know what they had for lunch, as well as where they threw it up again...
In the end whats most important for immersion is gameplay. All the above factors help, but when you’re in the zone, those are all taken for granted when you are concentrating on achieving your goal. The quality of modern graphics is now staggering compared to ten or twenty years ago. The detail and accuracy were undreamt of, yet we still got immersed in our games if the basic gameplay was there. (Elite came on a single floppy disc yet it contained a galaxy)
I have put sounds and physics, but equally graphics is vital too, which is the reason I switched to TSW2 instead of TS2021. TSW2 delivers on the graphics, However the physics and sounds are inconsistent. Some are amazing but some are way off.
