Upcoming Release Master The West Midlands!

When TSW1 debuted five years ago a AAA game release cost $40 in the US. Today they are $60, if not $70

 

SO DTG going to pay their staff with Gummy bears and Oreos now are they?
They also have overheads as well as you and me. Everything is going up in price and yes you will have to make that decision on whether to buy or not.
As for Soho Depot It wasnt in the TSC version, yes it could have gone in they chose not to. Its just something you have to deal with.

Hentis

 

I know I am probably alone on this but I am not concerned about spending £30 as I am sure plenty of blood, sweat and tears have gone into making this route but I think the main issue, for me at least, is that I have been left in the dark about the price, up to now, and going into the future it may be better just to announce the price of the route, whether it be £25 or £30, in the announcement article of the route so everyone knows where they stand from the get go.

 

It's irrelevant if it was or wasn't included in an old, outdated version of a simulator. It's how you move forward with the times. We were issued new routes recently that equate to between 75-90 miles of track, so to see routes being released with lesser miles makes me feel we are back to the old times again. It isn't something that should be dealt with because if you don't stand your ground now, it will never happen and in all fairness, this is a make or break to some people, on whether they choose to purchase this route at all, or wait for a sale. Try to work with me, it would be a better addition that a missed one.

It is the principal of a price increase, I am not saying they shouldn't increase the cost but go above and beyond.

 

Price increase was probably overdue tbh, but once again the communication is very lacking. They should have made it clear when TSW3 launched that this would be the standard price going forward (if it is actually the standard, since they said subsequently they'd evaluate each release's pricing case-by-case, which just adds confusion).

Obviously a 2 day delay isn't a big deal but once again (after the leak of the route itself) they don't have messaging ready to go and have to scramble when the delay goes public on Steam.

 

I mean it could have been worse..... You could have had this BCC route as an official TSW 3 release route instead of SEHS....

Hentis

 

Ultimately it doesn't matter how much blood and sweat has gone into this, it's still a short route with one train (and no depot ). Everyone's perception of value will be different - if they were asking £30 for Euston to Birmingham or Carlisle to Glasgow I would hand over the money in a heartbeat. Probably happy to pay £34.99 for a route like that.

I am not anti DTG and know there are costs and usually happy to support them. But a line has to be drawn. Just hope that the number of people keeping their wallets firmly in their pockets on this one, will be sufficient to force a rethink. Do you want 5000 sales at £25 or 2000 at £30? (With the remainder drifting in at £15 in six months or a year when the thing is discounted in a sale)?

 

Potentially that could have been the case and guess what, as a Game Pass user this would have been free. But it is not and therefore if I am to purchase at a higher rate for a shorter route, I am making a statement regarding the inclusiveness of a depot which is, in hindsight, fundamental to the route.

 

Hmmmmm maybe PC releases were $40, but $60 has been the AAA standard for console releases since at least the 360/PS3 era, until the recent increase to $70 by some publishers.

 

I remember when you could buy a triple A rated came for £10.99!
We had it so much easier back in the day!

 

Costs have been going up for a long time. It’s clear DTG planned to up the prices permanently once TSW 3 came out, maybe they should have announced their intentions beforehand to soften the blow and reduce the backlash from some people.

 

let’s hope you never try flight simulation then if you think £30 is expensive for dlc steer clear of flight sim.

 

$60 CAD after taxes for 1 DLC add-on is not "fair".

 

and I can get a flight, that is ~2000KMs (Toronto to Winnipeg in this example), for $10 more than a train simulator addon.

Maybe the price increase isn't justified?

 

But then again, what if the route you want is really poor quality and only includes 1 train and nothing else lol. There will be routes that are more worth the price we have to pay for but quality does not always equal the price.

 

Well obviously it would depend on the exact circumstances, guess the point I was making is for this sort of price I expect to see a lot more for my money than BCC. If it had added more of the West Midlands network - Coventry, Wolverhampton, Walsall or Worcester then yes £30 would have been a fair price.

 

Looks fantastic from the screenshots on the recent timetable/layers thread.

I am intrigued to know if they would layer in the 7-8 car GWR HST on an hourly service because what we could do then is reskin it with XC/NMT livery and then would make it extremely interesting!

DTG Alex DTG JD Joethefish please can this be done,I will be happy then and never complain ?! (Big promise)

 

WTH…. 36 euros on Steam?!! *Facepalm moment*
Time to change hobby perhaps? Bad timing as I’m building a new PC.

 

For context about the pricing, over at ATS, there's a freakout that Texas might cost $17.99 rather than the standard $11.99.

 

At the rate I paid this week, £30 would get me a little over 16 litres of Shell VPower for my car, and that will almost certainly entertain me for less time than the BCC route, even with only one train. What you've already dismissed as a disappointingly short, sale-fodder route is still over an hour (of varied scenery) from end to end and that doesn't factor in layers, RHTTs or potential future DLC. With inflation as it is, an extra fiver is hardly an outrage after years of stable pricing.

 

well unfortunately for me I have to fund this route from my You Tube donations (which isnt alot) as I am an unpaid full time carer* and the money from the government is crap.

Hentis

*24/7 carer I add. Not just 9 - 5

 

Entirely up to you old bean, everyone has their own notion as to what represents value for money and what doesn't. As it stands, the need to have this particular route (when I already own it and barely touched it in TSC) means I will quite happily wait for 50 or 60% off in a sale just as I'm doing for Harlem, Lubeck etc. etc.

 

Personally I also don't feel like there is enough in the route to warrant the £30. But I'll still watch the preview to see how it handles. Potentially pick it up on a sale in the future

 

Really hope this isn’t the case. NTP and TVL are two of the best UK routes, the older BR diesels are more interesting to drive than the plastic modern units of today, especially the BR Class 101 with it’s gear changing. Not diesel but Spirit of Steam is one of the best selling TSW routes, 2nd to SEHS according to Matt on a previous stream. So there is an audience for historical content.

The UK content will get very boring, very fast if they only do modern content.

 

And indeed on our topic of pricing, a classic era BR Blue route with a new loco we haven't seen yet and a different type of DMU probably would persuade me to hand over the £30 (if well done of course).

 

100%. For me, it's the double whammy of less content for more money. It's a pretty short route with one new train for £5 more. I have no problem with price increases but they have to be set against what you are getting for the money. Just six months ago they made two new Steam locos (with new physics, steam particles etc), a new set of coaches and a 36 mile route for £25. Now, six months later, they can make one new unit with a 30 mile route with no depot for £30? Go figure. Makes JD's comment of setting the prices more for what they feel a route is worth a bit paltry to me.

As you say, I'd also happily pay £35 or even £40 for a well made section of the ECML, MML or WCML. The price has to be proportionate to what you are getting. By comparison this makes the extended SEHS with its 4 trains and big network seem like a steal for £30.

 

That's not really how inflation works, though, is it?

My house cost 50x what my parents paid for their house, because they bought it a long time ago; it's certainly not 50x more house. I bet your council tax goes up every year too - do you check through the "how we're spending your money" leaflet to see what extra services you'll be getting? Spoiler alert: none.

 

As someone who knows the route quite well, I think I ought to give a few comments/ask a few questions:

-Just one new train feels a bit unusual. The Cross City Line is a reasonably busy one, and is much more than commuter 323s. Without Hereford WMR fasts or XC services I can really foresee it feeling a bit ghost like. Birmingham New Street is going to be really dead with just 323s, and that is going to detract massively from the enjoyment of emerging from the tunnels into a huge expanse of tracks and trains, one of the things I was looking forward to the most about this add-on.
-The price increase seems fine, if the route is to be of high quality. I'm amazed there haven't been any real increases over the past few years, and considering the work that goes into making routes I think this is fair. However, the quality provided must be worth the money. I would easily pay as much as £35 for a route like London Commuter, but I was struggling to bring myself to order BCC at £25. At £29.99 I'm even more deterred.
-The route itself looks beautiful, and I don't have a huge issue with the length unlike some others here, it's just the rolling stock. The lack of the depot is slightly irritating but not the end of the world from my perspective.
-Has the 323 model been ported from TSC?. It seems to retain the striking inaccuracy, to be frank. The interior doesn't have the correct feel either, it should be far more yellow. Whilst I accept that this does sound slightly nit-picky, I buy routes and trains largely for the interiors, and the recreation of a realistic passenger experience.

So what do I actually want to say? Well, adding a Turbostar would help alleviate the lack of diversity. It would be a new train and I appreciate the effort that is required, but it would enhance the DLC massively. If that would be too much, then surely adding an HST on XC NE-SW diagrams wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility, the inaccurate livery could easily be remedied by Creator's Club uploads for those it would bother. Either way, is there any chance of a Turbostar DLC in the near-ish future to layer onto BCC, if it can't be provided in the route?

 

I know that's not how inflation works but this route is a double whammy of price 'inflation' and product 'shrinkflation'.

• If I buy a 1kg of chocolate one day for £10 and the next day it costs £12, fine, that's inflation.

• If I buy 1kg of chocolate one day for £10 and the next day the bar is 800g and costs £10, fine, that's shrinkflation.

• If I buy 1kg of chocolate one day for £10 and the next day the bar is 800g but costs £12; that is both, which for me is taking the proverbial.

Totally agree with this above. Once again I feel like DTG haven't handled this well. For the first route after a price increase, why not make another route on the scale of London Commuter to soften the blow a bit, rather than another 1 train commuter route a la Cathcart? They couldn't even be upfront about the price change when asked last week, instead leaving us to find out from Steam product page.

 

My suggestion exactly:

So why couldn't they do a GWR HST 7-8 coach layer, which operates per hour southbound and Northbound, so that when the HST is available in livery editor, we can create a NMT or XC version and then replicate what can be seen on the route?

Thus, making New Street busier and also offering a varied livery variety..

 

Dtg have no plans at the moment to create a turbostar. We'll just have to wait until dtg say they are working on it.

For the 323, most likely yes. It's easier to use an existing 3d model and then add more texturing and details to make it fit tsw3 standards.

There was most likely only 1 train cuz dtg didn't have enough time or there was a lot of custom route building that needed to be done. Whether it's the landscape, environment, station details, etc, other complexities that made it difficult for dtg to create another new loco. It's extremely rare these days to have more than 1 loco, last being spirit of steam.

 

If you check the Train Sim world Community channel on Facebook, Matt Peddlesden confirmed it was not a port over. Also, londonmidland did a comparison between the TSC one and the TSW3 one on the FB page also.

 

If anyone is interested.

 

If you read the article, you'll see that there is, in fact, an HST layer.

 

I read it extremely well, I thought I did anyway. Did it state they were passenger services though because I can't locate that bit?

 

I work in purchasing and everything my company uses has gone up in price in the last twelve months, some items more than once. DTG DLC hasn't really changed price in over a decade. I really don't think DTG are being unreasonable in increasing prices. It is clear some really have no idea of the costs of running a company.

DLC is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I will still purchase it at £30 no doubt as it is a local route which interests me, there are many routes I would never have purchased at £25 let alone £30 and would probably purchase in a sale. £30 is still a lot cheaper than a lot of other forms of entertainment and leisure.

As for Soho depot, it would be great to see it included but it isn't missing, it isn't part of the route in real life. I can live with it not being there certainly.

 

Rapid Transit was released on consoles in 2018 with one commuter train (the 182 came later), one A-to-B route and 23 stations over 71km (some of which was in tunnels). The Bank of England inflation calculator has its £25 price tag valued roughly a fiver more today.

For that £30, we can now buy BCC, with 223 services for the 323 (in 3- and 6-car formations), a variety of freight options (using the SEHS 66 as standard, but up to 9 additional services if you own the wagons from GWE/TVL/31), an RHTT layer, railtours in the Class 37 and even a bit of HST ("passing through on its way to refurb") action; 25 "distinctly unique" stations over a 60km route. The drop in absolute distance might tick your 'shrunkflated' box, but assuming price parity through inflation, I'd suggest the BCC release is the better value of the two.

 

How much was a KG of chocolate in 2010?

 

No, they represent stock moves from the GWR to refurb at Doncaster

 

Enough to induce hyperglycemic shock, just like today.

 

Current UK interest rates are 13%, DTG raise price by 20%. hmmm not for me I'm afraid. I'll be one of the players who pay less for the DLC than I was going to if price remained static. I'll just wait 3 to 6 months longer after all I've still got 300 more services to run on SEHS not to mention BML. Also, it will give them time to sort the inevitable bugs out

 

How many posts were kicking around saying we'd pay more. Guess they listened eh.....
That said, I wouldn't have paid £30 for Cathcart, SOS, IOW, or Bakerloo. It's all subjective, whereas BML, Cajon, SEHS, I would.

It's all relative to personal value too.

 

I think it is pretty awful a stream has been provided 2 days before release, yet when SEHS or WCL were previewed, they offered 2+ streams. Always typical that the one you want to buy you have to wait for but even a general stream providing a brief insight with the intent to fix lighting issues would have been acceptable.

 

This route is a pass for me. I already own BCC on TSC classic and I found the route to get boring really fast. Even on TSC classic that came with the 350 loco. Don’t get me wrong is a beautiful route but the sounds on the 323 never got fixed.

 

Just preview it first and make your mind up from there. There is a good patch provided by a 3rd party for the 323 sounds on TSC. Hopefully you managed to obtain them as the original sounds were damn awful.

 

“Didn’t have enough time” is fair enough if we are talking about minor additions, but with regards to core features of a route you absolutely have to plan your schedule around it. There is no-one predetermining the release date other than Dovetail themselves. The decision to postpone it by a couple of days is a move in the right direction if you ask me, and I’m glad Dovetail are more willing to change launches if a product isn’t ready.

I didn’t see that, it’s definitely better but still not quite there. The 323 must be harder to model than I thought!

 

I would had taken even just the soho yard for the ECS moves

 

so would you rather the would preview you something they have said needs more time to be worked on. Actually knowing you you would as then you can come here and moan about it.

 

don’t tell people that here in hey will go into meltdown