The 'kent Loop' - London St Pancras To Ramsgate

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Doomotron, Oct 24, 2018.

  1. Doomotron

    Doomotron Well-Known Member

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    THE KENT LOOP

    kentloop.png

    ROUTE DETAILS
    The entire 'Kent Loop', from St Pancras to St Pancras, via Ashford, Dover, Margate, Faversham and Gravesend. Would include all depots along the way, including the ones shown on the map (possibly excluding Dungeness Power Station) and also including Ashford Yard, which isn't shown on the map. If DTG are feeling generous, the Canterbury lines and the Sheerness Branch would be included.

    STOCK
    Prominent stock from the route would be included:
    • Class 395.
    • Class 375 (all variants with different interiors, including the /9s 3+2 and the slightly different interiors of the /3, /6, /7 and /8 - because what this game needs more than anything else is more detail, care and attention).
    • Class 465 (ONLY if the Sheerness Branch is included).
    Other stock could be included:
    • Class 92.
    • Class 73 (plus track cleaning train).
    • Class 66.
    • Class 377 (realism - doesn't need to be driveable, it should just be there for detail at Ashford*, although should have the modified Southern interior, with the correct livery - the SE 377s are actually in a deep shade of purple from their FCC days, with the blue doors -, external CCTV and the black headlight surrounds).
    • Class 171 (ditto**).
    *If the Canterbury West line is included, the Class 377 would need to be driveable and detailed.
    **Similarly, if the line to Dungeness is included, the 171 would undergo the same treatment.

    PRICE
    Personally I think that TSW DLC are completely overpriced - half the price of the whole game never has been and never will be an appropriate price for a DLC - so this one would go for £9.99. Much better.
     
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  2. KTL_Rob Powell

    KTL_Rob Powell Well-Known Member

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    You going to put the effort in when the tools come out for that sort of route length at £9.99?
     
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  3. jamesbaby286

    jamesbaby286 Well-Known Member

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    I was on board until your price point. Completely unreasonable to expect a detailed route for that price. Not only that, I would expect that if the route were to be made, it would have to be made from multiple separate dlc releases.
    If you're still expecting a dlc to be that price with the complete length and 3 locomotives then I simply think you don't understand what you're paying for when it comes to simulation game content.

    Overall the idea of a large looping line is a good one.
     
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  4. Doomotron

    Doomotron Well-Known Member

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    I was expecting a comment like this. You see, let me give you a few examples...

    Forza Horizon 3's Blizzard Mountain expansion is £16. The developers, Playground Games, had to rebuild the entire physics engine for it to work on snow, which hadn't been needed the entire series. The KL DLC wouldn't require to rebuild the entire game.

    Grand Theft Auto 4's expansion packs cost £12, and they are both entirely new storylines, with new characters, voice acting and brand new game mechanics.

    Gran Turismo Sport has had over 50 cars and a good deal of tracks added to the game (which, by the way, transformed the game completely). It costs nothing.

    For the first two weeks of its life, Forza Horizon 2 Present Fast And Furious (a standalone expansion) was free. After that, like the KL, it was £9.99. Until it was removed from the store. Yay. I wanted that.

    Burnout Paradise's map expansion, Big Surf Island, costs about £11 (it's been a long time since I bought that!).

    Grand Theft Auto Online's Heists and Doomsday Heist expansions are free, and both of them add episodic levels to play.


    So big DLCs in other games don't cost as much as TS DLCs do, compared to the price of the original game. As I said earlier, half the price of the game is not an appropriate price for a DLC, no matter how detailed it is or how much care and attention is put in it.
     
  5. NuReality

    NuReality New Member

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    Yeah, i think that'd be a great idea. like Doomotron said, maybe £15-20. It'd be fun to drive the 377
     
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  6. jamesbaby286

    jamesbaby286 Well-Known Member

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    "Then I simply think you don't understand what you're paying for when it comes to simulation game content."
     
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  7. jamesbaby286

    jamesbaby286 Well-Known Member

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    Most of those are racing games which are different for a few reasons:

    As a "simulator" they are not really. Their focus is on experience and gameplay rather than simulation.
    It is like that because they are catering to their established broad audience, and making it fun and enjoyable for them. Which I'm not knocking because I enjoy those games.
    It comes down to detail of system simulation. How many of the titles you named can you stall the engine of a car by putting it in the wrong gear? Gran Turismo does? Cool, but how many factor in brake or tyre temperature if racing? How many cars allow you to turn on an off systems like braking assist? How many even allow you to put on the blinkers of a car if it's a street legal car?
    That detail is the kind of thing expected from a simulator but disregarded by most racing games. It's what makes simulation content take so much longer, and therefore more costly.
    There can be racing simulators but they are fare less common. Codemaster's F1 20XX series for example.

    On top of that, trains have way more complicated systems both in cab, and in relation to the external environment. Like PZB, ATS, DSD and all those security/safety systems in response to signals and magnets.

    Another factor that makes any of these comparisons ridiculously unfair is the budgets and development team sizes that make these. Gran Tursimo Sport has 5.5 million players on an estimated 60-80 mil budget. Gran Turismo is a flagship technical demonstration for the Playstation. Not only being developed as a game, but as Sony's example to other developers as to the capability of their platform. The benefit to Sony goes beyond profits, even when the game made ridiculous profits. Forza Horizon 3 had 2.5 million players. And these games had teams of at least 30 people working full time developing them.

    DTG has 5 or so working on Train Sim. Spreading roles amongst themselves like bug fixing, scenario writing, play testing, community management, communicating with 3rd party developers (which are often even smaller teams working on content in their spare time). All for the very very niche market of people who want to drive detailed simulated trains.

    The main package of TSW and Train Sim 20XX is as cheap as it can be. What you are buying with the base package is the game engine coupled with some cool routes. Then if you want a specific cool route or loco you can get that if you want. The base package functions as a gateway to further purchases that are actually the content that DTG and 3rd part devs make a living off of.

    This isn't just how DTG works, but most simulation games with add-on content. FSX, X-plane, Trainz, heck even stuff like Cities: Skylines and The Sims they all work from the same model. Payware DLC has the detail that means the price has to be at a point that it is worthwhile for the developer to make.
     
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  8. jamesbaby286

    jamesbaby286 Well-Known Member

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    A common response to that is "If it were made cheaper more people would buy it".
    There is a limit to when that stops being possible. It's a balance. No matter what the price is there are always people that would buy something if only it were cheaper, but it might not draw the amount of people required in order to make up for the price drop. I would hazard a guess that after almost 10 years of doing this that DTG knows where that balance is.
     
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  9. volvolover1972

    volvolover1972 Well-Known Member

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    Absolute disgrace that you think a route of that length should be £9.99. A route of that nature and length in TSW would be well worth over £100 if it was done right
     
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  10. Railfan722

    Railfan722 Well-Known Member

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    It all comes down to expected traffic and map density. Your points about Grand Theft Auto Online's missions being fairly cheap is one thing, until you realize that almost 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 people own the game. If there are more people willing to buy a product, the cheaper it can be as costs are still recouped either way. On the other hand, Train Sim World has about 50,000 to 100,000 owners. At a bare minimum, some poor person has to make 50 to 100 custom models for this. Modelling is hard, in case you've never done it. Also, the expansions for games you talk about generally don't have over 40 miles of stuff to detail. In the end, it comes down to this small thing you may have heard of if you've ever taken any economics course called supply and demand. The higher the demand, the more supply you need and the lower the price. The lower the demand, the lower the supply and the price goes up accordingly to try and make a profit. Any train or flight simulator will have paid DLC. Some of the better flight sim aircraft can be well over $100 for a single plane. Expecting a company that has very little demand in the grand scheme of things to essentially give away something for almost nothing at all is completely and totally unfair.
     
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  11. Doomotron

    Doomotron Well-Known Member

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    No racing game I have come across, although RFactor might.
    Quite a few, including GTS and Project Cars 2.
    Ditto.
    GTS.
    A quick trip to GTPlanet may say different.
    I'm sure it actually had several million more, but whatever.
    So, hang on, DTG has got about 100 staff and only 5 of them are working on their current bestselling game? Another one for the shoddy business tactics.
    No chance mate.
    Except that every single new DLC is overpriced? Right.
    There was a game called Fuel that had a map that took about 4 hours to cross and was actually about half of the entirety of the US. No game DLC, no matter how detailed, could possibly be worth £100. No chance.

    Replying to everything I quoted, TSW and RW's DLC is overpriced because of the lack of quality and detail. If the next DLC ran well, was detailed and had nice textures for once, I might consider paying a bit more. Going back to Blizzard Mountain, it was a DLC that, unlike all TS DLCs, needed the physics engine to be heavily modified. And the current game, Horizon 4, has both normal, dry roads, wet roads (introduced in FH2 - also required rebuilding the physics engine), snow, ice and black ice. It cost £16, roughly the same as the terrible WSR DLC.

    When I told my father about Ruhr Sieg Nord, he said "It's not worth it at all. It'll be on sale soon'.

    My father used to manage a casino and stopped it from making a loss and instead made it £4 million profit within 2 years, while being pressured by Aspinals. I think if his opinion on TSW DLC is that, he's probably got a point.

    He also knew Vladimir Putin, which is cool, I guess. Apparently he wasn't the nuke-crazed lunatic he is portrayed to be.
     
  12. Railfan722

    Railfan722 Well-Known Member

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    Ruhr Sieg Nord is well worth the $30 I paid for it. With the package, you get two locos which are very well modelled and the physics seem about right on the 143 from what I remember (I went to Germany many moons ago and had the pleasure of riding behind one). The Doppelstockwagen and control car are nicely modelled, and a nice touch is that the lighting panels work so you can turn the lights on and off. The sounds are the only slightly disappointing part of it as the horns don't have a ton of depth to them, but ah well - such is life. The route itself is very nicely done - I really have no complaints. You can even walk through gates and access small industries and overlooks such as the ones in this article - https://live.dovetailgames.com/live...icle/exploring-train-sim-world-ruhr-sieg-nord
     
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  13. Zammy Martínez

    Zammy Martínez Active Member

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    Eurostar service as far as Ashford? #WishfulThinking

    But I totally agree with you bro, i even asked for some of this route in one of these forums, ive seen someone on pc drive the hitachi train (395 javelin) and i would love to have a go, think it was from Faversham
     
  14. Zammy Martínez

    Zammy Martínez Active Member

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    £100 for a dlc? Thats a train ticket!
     
  15. AlexNL

    AlexNL Well-Known Member

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    Games like Forza, GTA and Gran Turismo Sport have a bigger audience, so the price can be lowered. This makes selling DLC easier. Train Simulator is more of a niche game, and DLC is less likely to appeal to everyone.

    Personally I don't really care about freight and I don't care much for American railroads either, so I won't be buying a GP40-2. It does cost DTG money to make a loco tho, the creators don't work for free. That's why TS DLC is priced the way it is.

    Regarding your proposal: I like it, but I think a long route like that won't have many takers. Going the whole loop takes 3.5 hours, which is an extremely long time for a game. Maybe selling the route in bits will be more of a success.

    The community could then take it upon them to merge the routes, as is being done with the ECML.
     
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  16. volvolover1972

    volvolover1972 Well-Known Member

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    I’m just estimating based on prices from TS1. For example in TS1 one loco cost £11.99 and the just the Sheerness branch also cost £11.99. So based on the fact that the original proposal includes the entire Kent loop with up to 7 different trains this would probably cost well over £100
     
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  17. NuReality

    NuReality New Member

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    How about the Virgin Trains East Coast Mainline?
     
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  18. Zammy Martínez

    Zammy Martínez Active Member

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    Good shout, i used to drive that when it was GNER on pc train sim the original one with the green case probably back in 04’
     
  19. Zammy Martínez

    Zammy Martínez Active Member

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    I hear you bro
     
  20. AlexNL

    AlexNL Well-Known Member

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    Very much offtopic and it's for TS 2019, but if you want to drive the entire route... keep your eyes on this page: http://xcroute.com/extended/ecml-london-to-edinburgh/ :)
     
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  21. 37114

    37114 Active Member

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    It's an incredibly boring route and has been done in stages in TS. The West Coast Main Line would be far better.
     
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  22. Zammy Martínez

    Zammy Martínez Active Member

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  23. iAspex

    iAspex Active Member

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    As many many other people have said, you're expecting way too much for such a small price. You forget that TSW has different dev tools to TS20xx, no doubt TSW tools being harder to master. Maybe when the dev tools come out, you should create this route for free, because that's essentially what you're saying. Don't forget that DTG have to pay their workers, you don't have to be payed to create a route for others as you're not a business.
     
  24. Zammy Martínez

    Zammy Martínez Active Member

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    Id pay a but more on ps4 why not
     
  25. cooltoyn

    cooltoyn Member

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    This should be made add it on to the already London to faversham route.
     
  26. dasmith1

    dasmith1 Active Member

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    I wouldn't mind the full route to Dover Priory
     
  27. Trainmania100

    Trainmania100 Well-Known Member

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    Wouldn't sales figures be higher if DLC was priced slightly cheaper? A cheaper price would appeal to more people and possibly get more sales
     
  28. Northerner

    Northerner Well-Known Member

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    It's a balancing act, if they reduced the standard route price to let's say £20 from £25, then the sales would have to increase by a quarter for them to just to get the same amount of money. A 25% increase in sales is not an insignificant amount so it might not be worthwhile for DTG to decrease the price.
     

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