A Talk About Scenery (tsw2's Biggested Problem Hiding In Plain Sight)

I think this is not ironic, it probably hints at the underlying cause of the issue. This piece of information is quite useful as it suggests the trains are off-centre compared to the platform.

 

I think DTG are just scared of the community making better routes than they can make, as well as them loosing out on easy profit.

There’s zero reason for TSW to be such a closed game as it is now. The only reason I can think of is because of a decision that the fat cats who are at the top made, due to pure greed.

TSW will eventually die if it remains as closed as it is now.

Just imagine all the things the community could have fixed for free if we had a route editor… No doubt routes released with crap scenery (there’s quite a few of them..) would have had attention given to them on day one of release by the community.

 

I feel like the community would have more care and passion if they had editing tools to make something amazing. Since DTG prioritize profit over quality, it's no wonder why many of their routes have these scenery problems since they just want to get it out the door.

I wonder if TSW3 will finally have a public editor....

 

This is definitely an issue that needs light shedded on. Not enough time is being spent to make the scenery as good as it can be. The rush hour routes most definitely did not have enough time spent on them. Especially Boston Sprinter. I definitely appreciate you talking a lot about Boston Sprinter, because the scenery bothers me so much on that route, and makes it really hard to enjoy. Two things you didn’t mention were that the trench walls between Ruggles and Forest Hills look nothing like how they do in real life, and the fact that the track model they used is completely incorrect. The TSW version uses track with wooden ties and ballast covering the middle. In real life, the route mostly uses continuously welded rail and concrete ties. Those 2 things really bother me. I feel like things are getting slightly better though. DTG is capable of making good scenery if they take the time to do it. Harlem and SOS are definitely a step forward in terms of polished scenery. Obviously they do have their issues still, but definitely an improvement over the rush hour routes. Rivet has also really stepped up their game with Luzern-Sursee and Island Line 2022. The scenery on both routes feel polished, complete, and realistic. Especially Luzern. They’re really beginning to set the standard DTG should be striving for when it comes to scenery. I think they could learn a thing or two from Rivet about scenery. Something I honestly want to see is the preservation crew or scenery developers at DTG look over all of the TSW routes and at the very least fix floating scenery, and parts that don’t look complete. DTG is also not spending enough time modeling buildings. LIRR is the worst when it comes to this. LIRR uses a lot of re-used buildings that look nothing like real life. They also use the same houses every single block. Then comparing this with the TS version that just released, clearly more time was spent modeling more buildings to make the route feel more realistic. I honestly hate that there are TS routes that look better than TSW routes. Another issue I really have is like you said, distant scenery. This isn’t as much of an issue on newer routes other than Sherman Hill, but this is the biggest issue I have with most preservation routes, especially with again LIRR. Now I totally get it, gameplay is extremely important for TSW. It’s why I enjoy the game so much, even with the issues it has. Gameplay is definitely where it should be in TSW. But scenery is definitely not getting enough time put into it. DTG needs to continue the level of quality they are doing on routes such as Harlem and SOS. Make it to a point where it’s presentable. Scenery is a huge part of the experience for me in TSW. It’s what you look at while you’re driving. It always bugs me when I go past somewhere that isn’t accurate to real life or an area that is poorly polished. It’s really immersion breaking. I definitely appreciate how above and beyond you went about this post. This has been an issue that has really bugged me. I really hope DTG reads this and tries to grow from this. You showed them what’s wrong. Now they need to fix it. Thanks for making this post man

 

Interesting you bring up Purley Oaks here, because I can confirm that station also has quite a big gap (at least on the two platforms that are served by trains).

Platform 3's gap start's tiny and gets slightly bigger the further up the platform you go (towards the Northern end).


...and platform 4's gap is comparable to the examples already shown here.

But that's not what I want to talk about here. On the subject of platform 4, you cannot access the stairs that lead down to the walkway underneath the platform. So if you are trying to navigate this station, you will have to jump to across the tracks to access the other platforms. However, you can access this underpass from the other platforms and if you do walk down to where the access for Platform 4 would be, you are lead to...

.this.

Yes, a field of grass, and some trees. What's more is that looking at this from the outside, the stairs for Platform 4 are literally to the right of where this is, as seen in the next image.

From having a look on google maps, I can safely say that this is not how it looks in real life. In reality, there would be a path leading away from the station towards the nearby road via a couple of old/empty shops. But no, that has clearly not been represented here as all we have is just a plain looking field. Which perfectly explains why the platform 4 stairs are not accessible on foot.

 

[removed]

 

Ealing Broadway is by far the worst modeled station I've seen.

 

The worse modelled station and area in TSW is Reigate. It’s an absolute joke and an insult to people that use the line and station.

 

Now I will admit that Ealing Broadway station on Great Western Express, hasn't aged particularly well. I mean, the District Line platforms are represented by some generic depot building that seems to pop up quite alot on this route, as well as Rapid Transit, regardless of whether it's representing that specific area accurately or not.

Which leads me to this, you have to remember that Great Western Express is an old route (only the second TSW route ever release). So you kinda have to excuse it for the fact that may areas like this might not be totally accurate to what this route really is in real life. I have every belief that this route was done now, it probably would look alot better than what it does at the moment.

Which is why I specifically target the more modern routes like London Commuter, Boston Sprinter, Southeastern High Speed, Tharandter Rampe and so on. Because honestly, we expected alot better out of DTG nowadays when it comes to scenery (and any Third-Party on the side to an extent). Even if parts of it like Ealing Broadways haven't aged well, I feel like Great Western Express's scenery is alot more polished than many of the more modern routes we have nowadays.

 

South Eastern High Speed is a good example of this. A fairly recent route, yet it is absolutely awful in the way it has been built. Inaccurate in so many ways and done to the bare minimum. The fact that you can see large areas of unbuilt scenery right next to the track says it all.

 

I know it's one of the original routes of tsw which makes me wonder if it kinda set the standard for dtg's future routes? I've never really passed ealing broadway on gwr but I did pass recently on crossrail. As soon as it come into view I knew it was ealing broadway especially looking at the lu part of the station.

But on tsw it wasn't until I actually stopped there and see the signs saying ealing broadway that I knew it was ealing broadway! I never recognised it passing through.

If you go in free camera and look at the station entrance, there isn't one! It's like a generic building that's half way into the road.

Now one could argue that you don't really see that part of the station driving trains, but for a sim where you can walk about on foot I would expect such areas to have a bit more of a level of detail to them.

As someone that's created routes on tsc with no knowledge of modeling or the means, I've often used a few generic buildings to try and make the best representation of a station I can. Dtg on the other hand with all there knowledge and means to model buildings and stations as they should look, I find unacceptable when I come across things like this.

Ealing broadway isn't the only station that's unrecognisable either!

Look at the bakerloo line. I purchased the route and played it a couple of times then kinda lost the love for it. Most of it doesn't really look like the bakerloo line!

Compared to tsc the level of detail has been cut in half, more than half actually. I can't understand why? Considering dtg's annual turnover has more than doubled since the release of tsw.

Reigate station I can't really comment on. Its not a station I'm familiar with. I will say I tried one service from Reigate and as I went through a massive mound of earth going across the line I never went back there. So I guess you are right, it's terrible.

 

Yea it does kinda let the route down. The terrain around higham isn't anything like rl, the tunnel entrance is brick but in tsw its concrete! Also the little things like the do not lean out of the window signs on Rochester Bridge, they have been there for decades, missing in tsw, yet they modeled the Russian sub moored in the medway. Old Rochester station has yellow hand rails along the platforms but on tsw they are tall fences. A lot of trackside scenery is missing too.

 

Look at gwe. Was completely unplayable for me. The tracks loading in right in my view. Raised several tickets with dtg. Was blamed on my hardware! Then the preservation crew give it a good working over and the track loading problems gone!! Wasn't my hardware after all.

 

Reigate station comparison of the real life thing compared to TSW…

 

I see you point. Terrible is being generous.

 

Perhaps DTG are modelling another Reigate, in cloud cuckoo land.

 

I'm starting to wonder if Reigate was even ment to be on the route? Maybe someone making the timetable accidentally added Reigate, then someone else was given 5 mins to make Reigate station.

 

I wonder if DTG would be willing to go back to older routes and improve the scenery. They have the money to do so. When TSC has better scenery than the "future of train simulation" then clearly there is a problem

 

Honestly, I think adding reigate was a last minute decision hence why it was rushed

 

Isn't that what the preservation crew do? Gwe was like an entirely different route after they worked on it.

I know Reigate wasn't on tsc. There's the Reigate expansion but way over priced for what you get.

 

One thing in here

Simple answer probably not. I’m with you though and it winds me up that the future of train simulation can be uglier than the predecessor of the future

 

People might hate me, thats why i am 100% against season passes in the form of rush hour. Players could get each route for 10 euros. For that money im surprised what we got doesnt look like a total screw up. TSW content seems even cheaper compared to tsc routes.

Maybe DTG miscalculated the precision of their "auto scenery creator". Also spirit of steam seems to have not so great looking areas.

 

It is unfortunate but probably true. As I said a few days ago, from DTG's POV most DLC probably sells 90% of its expected lifetime return in the first days or weeks of release. Obviously there will be a few hits with refunds but sometimes it takes over two hours to spot not everything is rosy in the garden. They can't even go back and fix glaring bugs let alone improve the overall quality as from their point of view it's simply not going to generate any more revenue.

 

I bought IOW , did a couple of runs and refunded. Not necessarily bad but it just wasn't anything different to what I can do on other routes, was just shorter. Same with sos initially because of scenery

 

Yes but they don't make major scenery changes hence why I wonder if they be willing to improve the hs1 section on sehs for instance although as some have pointed out, that most likely won't happen unfortunately

 

The routes individually though cost $30 which isn't exactly cheap these days

 

Possibly, who knows. There's a lot of improvements needed on a number of routes. I don't know what happened with dtg. Maybe an investor is more concerned about profit than quality, it could be that now they are in the console market routes are selling weather they're good or not.

Looking from a business point of view if people are buying it your gonna keep selling it.

For 24.99 most people ain't gonna complain or want their money back anyway.

 

I don't understand why the station environs of some places (Reigate, Minehead, St Ives, Dresden Hbf) are so terrible when overall the standard is fairly good. Do the developers just run out of time or are different artists doing different parts of routes?

The SBB route is about the best... But then they dropped the ball by not allowing access to the many sidings on the route even in route editor! You couldn't make it up... They need to employ people who understand that both graphics and gameplay matter.

 

A big one for me is the repetative ballast textures. I'm not referring to the 3D ballast areas- more the texture immediately adjacent.

There's about a 3metre square texture that just repeats. When looking into the distance, it just repeats, very lazy. Surely the sample size should be bigger and be dynamic.

The problem is UE is for very graphically dense/rich environments - think Hell let Loose. When areas are undercooked and lack detail, it has a disproportional negative impact. TSC doesn't have this problem so much as the engine doesn't really lend it's self to super fine detail whereas UE does.

 

Just wanted to give a mention to another problematic station on London Commuter, and it's one that isn't a part of the main route, but I still think a better job could have been done at representing it and that is which Norwood Junction, which is on the line leading north away from East Croydon towards London Bridge. Now what's the problem may you ask? Well, it's simple...

...the station flat out doesn't exist!

Yep, not effort was made to make that even looked remotely like what Norwood Junction would be in real life. Just a few signals and some floating stop markers are the only indication that a station exists here in real life.

Now I know what you are all think 'But this station isn't accessible, this isn't that big of a deal!'. Well true, but here's the thing. This is not located somewhere that's far away and out of sight of the route. You can see this even from within the boundaries for the route, as seen in the next image, taken where you encounter the invisible walls heading in this direction.

I also think you would be able to see this you you were operating a service that involves Selhurst Depot, as I think it comes close to where this is located.

So even if Norwood Junction was represented with just a couple of basic platforms, it would still look at lot better than not even recognising a station even exists here at all.

On the subject of Selhurst Depot, I also think the general area round there is not that great. There's a few areas that look okay, but alot that also could be done alot better. Plus, the main depot building there that you can go inside has no floor underneath it, similar to the issue found at Gillingham Depot on SEHS.

The interior doesn't have to look completely what it does in real life, just adding a floor here would make this so much nicer than what it does now.

Also, since this discussion has been going on for about a week now as has some decent traction behind it, I want to shout this thread out to to the community team (DTG Alex, DTG Jamie, DTG JD) as I want to see if any of them have seen this thread (and accompanying discussion) yet or not.

 

I'm not sure why the station wasn't included on the route, it would have made a logical end point and had given some of the London Bridge services a bit of uniqueness and variety other than just ending at East Croydon.

There's a few other stations that spring to mind like this, such as Reedham and Coulsdon Town on the way to Tattenham Corner which can be seen from the mainline. Again, would have been nice to have had these included, and again, could of given the Tattenham Corner services a bit of variety other than just ending at Purley.

 

This has always been the way dtg does it.

Open the 2d map on plenty of tsc routes and you will find several stations marked on the map with nothing more there than some track. No station no scenery, nothing.

 

Indeed. Old habits for some never change

 

Scenery has always been something of a compromise in TSW. Many buildings and most road vehicles are low-poly and cartoonish, or are omitted altogether, if the developer doesn't think they will be missed by most players. The Manhattan city-scape and Yankee Stadium are two recent examples.

Driving the Luzerne route, which is a fairly well made effort overall, I noticed lots of apartment and office blocks planted without entrances or road access, so workers and residents would have to walk across empty fields to get to work or to get home, assuming they could somehow get into their buildings.

These things don't make the routes unplayable, which I guess is the standard for developers, but they do take some of the shine off gameplay.

I think it used to be better than this in the days of Sand Patch Grade and other early routes.

 

I doubt they would be accessible on the scenario designer even if they was modeled anyway.

 

Low-poly buildings with plastic-y textures are one thing, but a lack of quality on immediate elements of the railway lines themselves are even more worrying. The repeating patterns of copy-paste ballast/ground around ballast is probably the most egregious example that is just painful to look at.

 

If you wanted to see what both Reedham and Coulsdon Town look like in game, well...

There was an attempted of making something that looked liked Reedham station, but the platforms look way too short compared to what they actually are in real life.

But that's more effort that what went into Coulsdon Town Station, in which the only thing that seems to exist here is the station building and the footage. No platforms to be seen anywhere.


...and like Norwood Junction, this is a station that's visible from the main route, so even if it was just a basic platform here, that would still look alot better than how to turned out here.

...and I also agree that both of these stations should have been part of the main route to begin with. Maybe this part will be added someday down the road, idk. But it can't see how it would be too difficult considering how close this section is to the main route.

Also, I've seen alot of discussion about ballast, and I want to bring up that I have seen, mainly of the more recent routes, some really bad use of ballast textures. There are probably examples on the 5 routes I covered initially, But I want to specifically bring up an example on a route that wasn't covered (but I have plans to do a full scenery report on it one day) Hamburg-Lübeck. The area in question is located just east of Hasselbrook and is on the freight line coming from Rothenburgsort as it joins onto the main line and the ballast work around here looks...

...well, the images speak for themselves.

It's almost as like the textures were just splatted everywhere with it being properly polished and it just looks ugly and not what it's really like as there's really alot more greenery close to the track that what's here in game.