Just about when the festival of rail started I decided to give TSW2 another chance, and so I bought some addons, mostly new routes and also Rapid Transit since it was the last one I needed for that preserved collection to be complete. I have now played several routes and I have to admit I am really disapointed. The game looks good, and while playing on Boston introductions I really enjoyed myself..until it was time to turn on the Alerter and ACSES, the latter which will suddenly lock you to 30 mph for no reason. I then decided to try out RT, couldn't do anything other than the introduction since the PZB locks you in the wrong PZB mode..not exactly rapid to drive around with a fast train in freight mode. Ok, so I moved on to Main Spessart Bahn, my favourite from TSW2020, couldn't get past a red signal, meanwhile the game was prompting me to increase my speed.. I waited by the red signal for 10 minutes, even tried contacting the signaler without getting any responce. These are just a few of the bugs, but that I deem as making the routes unplayable. I am now at the point where I just don't want to open TSW2, I haven't played the last 2 days now, I thought about it, but every time I am about to start the game, I just get this depressive feeling and turn on a movie instead. I decided that TSW2 is still not any good, though they fix a lot of bugs, as seen in the changelogs ( I have read them all ), the bugs present is just to many and game breaking, I get the feeling it's in maybe a early beta stage. The final conclusion is that TSW2 is not a worthy successor or opponent to TS, though TS also has bugs, and some routes and locos have lots of them to, the game is more open and you can either fix some of the bugs yourself or look for an unofficial patch which you will find for most commercial addons that doesn't work properly. Thoughts on quality: I am a carpenter by profession, I have a lot of proffesional pride, I am craftsman. DTG are also craftsmen, but do they have any pride in their work ? Honestly it doesn't seem so, the unofficial patches for TS is one proof, the unplayability of TSW2 another. Often you can read posts where players get a responce from support when reporting bugs: "Are you able to finish the scenario ?" Often the answer is yes, but you have to use workarounds. I want to ask DTG: If I built you a house, and the house didn't have any doors, would you be content, should it be considered good enough as long as the house had windows, so that you had a "workaround" by going in and out through the windows ?
Yes, TSW2 has it´s StarCitizen-moments. I had that phase you describe last year too, but then I bit my way through the many bugs and workarounds and now have a lot of fun with it. But you need frustration tolerance until you know all the little traps. I can still remember how it felt to start 5 different scenarios and get stuck in each one with a different weird error. Only to find out that there are patches for it. Which unfortunately have not been released yet (and no one knows when that will ever happen). In my opinion, it is not because DTG is not competent enough. On the contrary, I think DTG is very enthusiastic and regularly fails with its great ambitions due to reality (too few staff, too little time, too many unforeseen technical hurdles). Sure, given enough people, time and money, I have no doubts that Matt would build the "greatest train sim of all time" (no sarcasm).
The pzb issue on Rapid Transit has been fixed. The problem is it hasn't been released. DTG are saying because of a bottleneck in QA but the issue is that they keep changing the reasons alot which got some players frustrated. Heck I got rapid transit for free and I don't play the route due to the issues. I want to play LIRR but I don't because of the M7 audio issues which haven't been fixed since the route came to tsw2 more than a year ago. I think DTG are passionate about Train Simulation but there are too many instances where that passion isn't reflected in the final product. They really do need to get their house in order. People won't always want to buy the next new dlc and just want to enjoy the existing content they already paid for
The issues prove it is quite hard to make a good train simulator. I disagree it is worse than TS. There are a lot of features we wished for TS and we accept them now without thinking about it. I believe the main point is the old fashioned way they are organized with specialized teams, each doing a small part of the job and the the QA team needs to find out is it works. Even thou they have very competent, they cannot take full responsibility for the product they create. I recommended and still recommend DTG to switch to agile teams. In between, I do not feel as disappointed as you. Despite all issues I enjoy playing it. I agree, the Boston route is not good and has far too many issues, but other routes are quite good. But we also need to keep in mind that you cannot have everything for the price we are willing to pay for a route.
Unfortunately, you started off with two of the very worst offenders, Boston and Rapid Transit. Both of them, as well as LIRR, stuck with borked safety systems. There are other routes which work brilliantly. Most of them, in fact. Can't explain your MSB issue, since MSB hasn't given me any problems since- gosh, there was a Sifa bug introduced with the TSW2 conversion, but it was quickly fixed. And nothing since. So I'm not sure what happened to you.
MSB has always been pretty kind to me - even the save game usually restores okay. TSW is like most of the train games, it blows hot and cold. Tried getting back into TS a while ago but not having that huge range of timetabled runs to choose from is such a limitation, makes it hard to step back in. I'm currently playing around in the updated Run 8 but even with 500 miles of continuous main line to run with, I kind of find myself missing the detail on the US routes in TSW and indeed some of the proscribed tasks. Run 8 may have the superior physics and now it has "Otto" the pressure is off as regards despatching, but until all the third party industry files are brought up to date from V2 you tend to drive around with little purpose other than A to B. Graphics wise it still looks more like earlyish MSTS than a contemporary game. Mind at least the frame rate is rather better than Sherman Hill..!
My start into tsw2 was before last summer, after a 3 year brake from ts. Beside the content of tsw is increasing in a usual amount, the features have increased heavily. It looks to me like the safety systems thing wasnt tested well enough, it made problems from the begin, and leave it back behind cant be a solution. We hear so many bugs are fixed, but not tested..., well im patient and i hope dtg take actions and increase the number of testers from 2 to 4. no seriously, if this is now a giant bottle neck, it wont get any better the more content is released, so i really hope they come up with a solution inside their company how things get tested in future. Beside that i have fun with tsw2, as long dtg is upgrading old content i have no problem to spend money on this franchise. I enjoy the Rush Hour routes (didnt play Boston that much), and the new chemnitz is cool too. Its like with everything, i can search bugs and i will find them, and i can search the things i like and will find them. Nomatter dtg has introduced the saftety systems on us routes, so leave them back behind halfbaked would be a giant disappointment in my opinion. Who knows, maybe its fixed but the update is waiting for testing.
I just went back to the first TSW 1and the graphic was so horrible, it also lag completely throughout the whole route, FPS Drop all the time, basically nothing was playable, although their weather system is better than what we have currently, hopefully, they will add some of the weather settings from TSW1, and port it to TSW 2 when they are ready.
The easiest way to not be frustrated is just not bother with neither scenarios nor tutorials, I haven't done one in ages, I only touch timetable which often is much less broken and, you can learn the workarounds much quicker. I honestly don't understand why they would ever lock out controls, they tell the player what to do, if it does something else and for example puts on the emergency brakes it's his fault for not following the instructions. Also it feels like the scenarios that have prompts of "do this, do that" are much prone to bugs. My recommendation is to stay away from scenarios (only a few are fun and different from the timetable in any meaningful way anyway), tutorials as well, learn how to start up the train yourself and just play timetable, I guarantee you will have a lot more fun, and if you are struggling with something you are better off asking it here than rolling the dice with a probabily broken tutorial. About the quality/relism issue, I will relay a message I wrote in th awful BR187 thread, there was a similar discussion recently over there
Picking up train sim is like picking up a 50 yr old in a bar. Starting to look rough round the edges, has had everything run on it and now superseded by better looking. You think you want to try and then you see it and go to tsw
I mean I was definitely on about Kenbak..... Kenbak-1[edit] Main article: Kenbak-1 The Kenbak-1, released in early 1971, is considered by the Computer History Museum to be the world's first personal computer. It was designed and invented by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation in 1970, and was first sold in early 1971. Unlike a modern personal computer, the Kenbak-1 was built of small-scale integrated circuits, and did not use a microprocessor. The system first sold for US$750. Only around 40 machines were ever built and sold. In 1973, production of the Kenbak-1 stopped as Kenbak Corporation folded. With only 256 bytes of memory, an 8-bit word size, and input and output restricted to lights and switches, and no apparent way to extend its power, the Kenbak-1 was most useful for learning the principles of programming but not capable of running application programs. Interestingly, 256 bytes of memory, 8 bit word size, and I/O limited to switches and lights on the front panel, are also the characteristics of the 1975 Altair 8800, whose fate was diametrically opposed to that of the Kenbak. The differentiating factor might have been the extensibility of the Altair, without which it was practically useless.
I want to play TSW2 but I can't as I'm waiting for updates for my favourite route and there are 17 routes waiting, it is a real shame. Perhaps DTG are guilty of 'caring' for the genre a little too much. It seems they like to concentrate on a few things at the same time instead of concentrating on one thing, get it done and released then work on the next problem.
While the Kenbak existed and can claim a "first", it's sort of like Leif Eriksson discovering America- nothing came of it. Whereas the Altair, like Columbus, had a legacy.
