Upcoming Release Master The West Midlands!

Yeah basically. As I said before, don't respond to my posts if they offend you.

 

but then again, ats is much higher quality than the dlcs dtg releases. Ats actually takes their time and makes things good before releasing it lol

 

I think dtg have said that they anounce the route like 2 weeks before release and do livestreams so they are better able to answer questions since development of the route is basically over. Things have changed over at dtg, so Im assuming this is what is going to happen moving forward.

 

I'm a little confused:

1. What would be the point of pre-ordering the route if there is no discount? Am I missing something? Will they run out of stock?

2. What strange exchange rate does DTG use? According to today's rate, the route should cost about $34.95 rather than the actual price of $39.99.

I don't mind a modest price increase, but 33%!?. For this very modest route, I think I'll pass.

 

There are some games in general that will allow players to pre order but not have a discount so it's not unheard of. I don't see the point of pre ordering in general to be honest.

I don't mind price increases. TSC dlcs were $40 but at least there were frequent sales. But $40 for a route with one train, isn't long and has around the same number of stations as BKL doesn't seem worth $40. If it was the full WCML, then that seems somewhat reasonable, but for this route, it's definitely gonna be a pass for me. This route seems like it will just be another Cathcart Circle anyways

 

Yeah I don't either, it's not like it will sell out lol. I suppose it increases the excitement for some..

 

I was a little shocked myself finding no discount and the route costing me $51.99CDN I think I will wait for when it goes on sale.

 

Same here. I was expecting some big stuff for BNS in regards to the layers, but nope. The price increase meant we could see bigger and more extensive routes like the EC and WC, but this feels no different (in some aspects less exciting) than a TSW2 release. £30 for only about 30 miles, one new train and a deserted New Street feels extortionate.

 

Why are people saying that this route has less content? It’s almost as if they know it has a standard amount of content because they also follow it up with something about Cathcart as well, another route with the standard one train per route we always get. It has the same amount of content as most TSW routes. Some routes get a reworked train on top of the one included new train but other than a select few routes (mainly early routes) TSW routes get exactly that, one new train. The route is a bit on the shorter side of standard and certainly not as long as those long routes we sometimes see but as a standard non-year-start-bundle route DLC it is completely normal. The only difference is the price has gone up a bit.

Go through the list of routes in TSW and see what they had at release. BCC will not look that different. We already know UK content doesn’t lend itself well to layers and reused stock, unless you are clever like DTG and do a string of routes with the same type of train for the reworks, the ones everyone is sick of (hint - third rail, way down south) but TSW routes don’t come with more than one new train. SoS was one of the only recent exceptions because it was steam and as the first route of its kind it got a second new train, in the same way SPG and GWE got three and NTP got two. German routes get to use practically all the previous content from many German routes and the issue there is the reused Dosto, but UK trains don’t mix so well. If someone adds the BR locos and MkII coaches to a route from a slightly later period to give a route extra content everyone goes mental. We could have had another Electrostar for the new UK route. Is that what people wanted? No, so we get something elsewhere and as such it only has the one train but DTG have added some layers, so it’s not so void of action. UK routes don’t normally get a depot (that is off the actual route depicted) so that isn’t a cutback in content. It could have been included, sure, but that would be a non-standard extra and thus a bonus.

It isn’t shrinkflation either on two accounts. Shrinkflation is where you get less content for the same amount of money, a smaller chocolate bar for the same price. This route has a standard amount of content and the price has actually gone up, so not shrinkflation, just inflation. And the price has gone up because of inflation, nothing else.

This grasp of reality is passed on to the good people of this forum completely free of charge. Enjoy, and please do go through that list of routes to see what you got that was new (and not a rework) in each.

 

Say what you will, people are looking at this offering and what do they see?

The price is going up, actually by quite a bit, but the game is not moving in a forward direction. There doesn't seem to be anything new and exciting. There's even a rumor that the platforms are dry in a rainstorm, which would be going backwards. And the most elementary feature, a major depot, is missing because the developers ran out of time ( or out of gas). What's that about?

There seems to be a question about value for money, a question that wasn't asked about previous routes like CJP. And players are invited to pre-order the route without a discount? How does that figure? Why would they do that?

When you increase the price of your product, however justified, you need to make a splash, cause some excitement.

Maybe, when we see the route itself, opinions will change to a more positive view. Let's all keep an open mind.

 

I was going to stay out of the price increase discussion (at least for the time being) however I’ve changed my mind and thought I’d add my thoughts to it.

firstly, do i understand general price increases happening? Mostly, but I don’t all agree it’s stemming all from the Russian Ukraine War.

Secondly, do I understand DTG as a company need to keep their business a float ? Yes, I have sympathy for that situation and understand their need.

Lastly, Do I think price increases in this way are the best response ? - Mostly No

It all seems like this will do nothing but drive away the customers and at best make the patient (mostly likely I would say those who are already invested in TSW) wait for sales, which on Microsoft for example are about 2 per year.

I also cant understand the reason (fully) why they rise now, TS has been operating for about a 10 years (not sure on exact dates) and yet it’s prices seemed to have held (at least until now)

have those past 10 years been an economical miracle of 0% inflation ? Surely not

or have DTG said that price is brilliant and it holds ? (Until now)

or did they just charge expensively back then so they appear to not rise in price ?

At the end of this I’ll never agree reacting to “inflation” with price rises is a great idea, it all seems that the reasons things rise because they are purposely put up not because of an event/incident.

My intention with TSW in general now is to hold off (at least for a while) I have around 90% of the content released as of yet, therefore quite a substantial amount to do, for me in general I need to start limiting my purchases otherwise I don’t think I will get my value from my previous purchases. Whilst at first this price rise seemed to be negative for me personally, it may help to deter over purchasing on all but most wanted items. Though I do think it will increase my critical reviews on future content meaning unfixed bugs or IMO misjudged building of route/loco features decisions, will affect my decision to purchase to a higher extent

Just my thoughts on the whole thing in general. I still of course remain sympathetic to the issue of the company affecting it’s employees.

 

I know you are a regular member here just like me, but I completely disagree with your thought process. CCL has a depot and barely any AI (excluding the 314), though it has a mere 20 miles of track (ish) and that was/is £24.99 when released, so now we are due to get a little more track + price increase and no depot. Do you not think that catering to your loyal customers over the years for the sake of a little extra go beyond (an extra 4 mile of track and a depot) is an acceptable thing to do? Think about the mess of the Rush hour routes, the constant OOM issues (still not fixed), the continual promises that have been broken and then to top it off, new features like rain drop effect on platforms and puddles being visible on platforms with the new system has now also been missed on their upcoming flagship route for TSW3. I'm not sure if I'm deluded or you are?

The company needs to stop churning out half completed routes just to make the piggy bank top up, because I am all too understanding that this is how it will be released and nothing else will happen to the route, just like CCL,SOS. We don't get listened to and do not think this will all change now. Like many others have stated, one for the sale... Until they learn their lesson, they can wait for payment.

 

The team could at least give us the class 150 trainset which goes from Birmingham new street to Bromsgrove as you can see, which i really do hope so.

 

Technically yes this is true mate, however they were too infrequent to be added probably. Whereas there were 4 x Class 170's per hour (ish) in 2019 for WMT and XC respectively.

 

We can keep moaning about it, they've made their decision and they'll stick to it because they've got to.

We either pay up or wait until it's on sale, take your pick. I urge as many people possible to wait for a sale but it won't happen, you know it and DTG know it.

 

Big difference between recreating a full scale route in TSW than in ATS the cities and towns ETC in ATS are NOT replicating real life nor are the 1-1 scale unlike a TSW route so poor comparasion in all fairness. I get your point but you cant say ATS is more realstic when it is nothing like the real life counterpart is is attempting to create.

 

Any company will be reluctant to put prices up as it will always generate negativity amongst it's customers. If you can absorb a little increase in your costs and avoid passing that on, you will try to. But those cost increases will happen: electricity bills go up, fuel costs go up, computer prices go up, staff will expect a pay rise at every annual review, your customers will expect you to hire new sound experts and new talented developers who can add fancy new features, and Matt will need to be promoted so he can take control of the product lines (he doesn't work for free)...

If you manage to absorb those costs for, say, ten years, eventually your profits will start to take a hit and you'll need to start recovering by putting up your prices. I can easily imagine a developer who was in from the start being paid 20% more than they were a decade ago. I suspect most of us, even without promotions, have had enough inflationary pay rises to cover that extra fiver.

If you always used to wait for the sales, carry on waiting for the sales. If you thought the routes were decent value ten years ago, they're probably just as decent value today.

Inflation is a slowly creeping glacier that won't be stopped and DTG have absorbed that for a decade when they could have added incremental yearly price increases. At least this way, they've not had to put up with the complaints every year.

 

ETS2 and ATS have got better over the years though at their summarised compression and the feeling/atmosphere of the areas depicted. In fact you only have to do a drive through the older original core territories, in particular the UK, without ProMods to see how much things have come on in theit later maps. Then you have Snowrunner with their very reasonable priced Season Pass who have output loads of content, though admittedly I haven't progressed much beyond the original maps - mainly because there is so much do (and some of the maps are fiendishly hard).

Even TSC without a sale I can spend less than the asking price for this simple BCC DLC and get a route three times as long with far more rolling stock. Yes you don't get the all day timetable and TSC is a bit dated, but not that bad and it still looks and runs far better thsn TSW in most instances.

And the ultimate - for £60 I bought MSFS which provides a great world map, numerous detailed airports and loads of different aircraft to fly. Later this week they are adding a free A310 Airbus. Yes it has warts including issues with the save game, but by god I look at that, then at DTG's asking price for BCC and only end up reinforcing my views that TSW has been turned into an attempt to churn out content at the maximum price they can get away with. Well hopefully this decision will come back to bite them and probably as early as the Chinese New Year Steam sale this will be going at a bargain basement price.

 

But you guys obviously knew you would get backlash from the community because it's a key aspect of the operation of this route. No one takes responsibility within this company, it's your word and that's final. Why can't you create a DLC that adds an extension to Soho Depot and a class 170 for £11.99, or whatever the inflated rate is now, seen as our 'reasonable' request is constantly being ignored. You now do extensions to routes right? DTG JD

 

i just check pc steam and seen the price has gone up big time on DLC's 59 australian dollars no way in the world would i pay that tell me that this is a error as the normal price has always been 42 australian

 

sorry i wont pay almost 60 for a dlc when its clear u cant even release a route on time let alone have it come out with no bugs and what 1 train for the price sorry but no im done ill stay with ATS

 

Yes Texas is looking very enticing. A couple more territories and we will be able to drive coast to coast, admittedly at 1/20 scale - match that, Dovetail!

 

What I will now be doing too. Gone are the days of buying every DLC.

 

Am I the only person who had never even heard of Soho Yard before this thread? I would have happily bought and played this route in blissful ignorance, and probably still will.

Can someone from DTG please advise if there will be a Game Pass discount on Xbox (if you know). Thank You.

 

Sorry to quote full post but working from the phone...

As regards Soho Depot all I can say is how on earth was it even considered to omit this at the planning stage? It is literally 3 or 4 extra miles and an integral part of what you like to bill as the "experience ". Someone still needs taking to task over this decision, then slapping a £30 price tag on it.

 

The price increase is due to the increased cost of running the business and not related to the scope of the content. It’s because of wage increases and other overheads in the light of a much higher inflation rate than at any time in DTG’s existence. And it is nice that you have put down in words how much bigger in scope this route is than Cathcart because it is longer and has more going on. Now I could add a guess here that DTG know that hardly anybody plays the depot runs and therefore adding them to a route adds little to most people’s experience of a route and takes a disproportionate amount of dev time to player reward and so the extra amount of work in this case was not worth it and efforts have been placed elsewhere in the route.

Having features disappear from routes is nothing new for DTG and again unrelated to price. This is most likely down to the overlapping nature of route development. The wet platforms hopefully will return in later routes. You bring up the OOM issues in Rush Hour routes. That’s what happens when the scope of routes outpaces the ability of the software to adequately run them so overstretching on the scope of routes is a bad thing and it is much better for the players’ enjoyment and ability to play without problems than to cram everything possible into a big route. DTG massively overstretched themselves with Rush Hour and I wouldn’t want them to return to that. Hopefully this route will run like a dream. That again is unrelated to the price of this route though.

Neither of us are deluded but we are disagreeing on this issue, the price increase is general and not related to this specific route. All the DTG routes, big or small, have always been one set price with I think one route that was minimal compared to all others being slightly cheaper (WSR). Now that may be changing according to DTG, with a little more flexibility, but the standard price has gone up for cost reasons and nothing else and this is very much a standard UK route.

 

I had no idea either, unless you know the route or are a full-on rail nerd then I don't think many people would be aware of it. I certainly wasn't..

I read it wasn't even on the TSC version. Let's not get het up about it.

 

But TSC does not offer the prospect of an all day timetable which on most other TSW routes includes various Depot moves. It's not a complete party pooper but combined with the price increase and no preorder discount has all added to pee off those of us who were originally contemplating a Day 1 purchase.

 

Don't get me wrong, it would have been nice, it seems many people wanted it included. DTG have their reasons and I suspect "time" will be the main reason.

 

So the price increase is just for new DLCs? Or is the preservation collection stuff increasing in price too?

 

Does anyone know how many trains there are from Soho to Cross City destinations?
I didn't so I looked it up.
Today there are seven departures, the last being at 0626. There are a similar number in the evening, the earliest arrival being around 2045.
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/detailed/gb-nr:XSZ/2022-11-09/0408
So this insistence on Soho is for fourteen empty stock services on less than four miles of track, most of which will take place in the dark.
It's hardly surprising that it wasn't in scope.
Lichfield to Bromsgrove is about 80 minutes. £30 for an 80 minute route doesn't sound bad to me.

 

Well JD has stated it simply wasn't in the original spec. I can't see adding in the Depot would have added an insurmountable number of man hours for either the route builder or 3D modeller. It's a deliberate oversight at best.

 

New dlcs i believe

 

When I checked Steam last night all the pre TSW3 stuff was still at the original prices.

 

Don't know why people are surprised about the depot. They didn't bother with Slade Green on SEHS and its less than 2 miles from Dartford

 

Hi JD,
do you know, if the HST-runs are seasonal? As some people are complaining that they are included, those people could then just do their runs in another month. (I don't mind them being there, I just wished for a complete HST-set, as I saw videos of them too there)

 

It doesn't state if they are, but to be honest I wouldn't have thought so. Reading the gumph is interesting though.

High Speed on the Move
The last layer of note focuses on a series of rather unique moves which happened quite a lot during 2019. With the retirement of HST trainsets on mainline GWR services, and their planned introduction on secondary duties in the Western Region, many Class 43s and Mk3 coaches were sent to and from their depot in the west to Doncaster Works in South Yorkshire for refurbishment and maintenance. Their path necessitated traversal of the Lickey Incline.
If you own Great Western Express and Northern Trans-Pennine (more on that in a minute), you can enjoy a handful of services showcasing these HST refurbishment moves. Sent on an ad-hoc basis, they were rarely ever travelling as complete formations...

Perhaps there maybe one Full formation HST in the handful of services that are provided. Here's hoping.

Incidentally my first ever HST run was from Bristol - Derby via Birmingham New Street. it was awesome. I was about 12 at the time. We caught a 33/0 and Mark 1 set from Southampton central and travelled to Bristol caught the HST, Heads out up the likey Incline and in to B'ham New Street. then settled down for the trip to Derby and a pair of twenties to long Eaton to where we walked to Toton Depot. Then went Derby - St Pancras behind a 45 then a 4rep and 2x 4tc back to Poole (plus 33/1 from Bournemouth. Awesome journey.

Hentis

 

On the contrary, it's a line into the city centre which they wouldn't otherwise need to build and would mean building more of the distinctive city centre buildings which are visible from that direction, including the Sealife centre and quite a bit of Brindleyplace which wouldn't be visible from the Five Ways approach. Not sure it would be worth building to the required detail level, just for a handful of transfers.

 

Well have to differ on that. This isn't some freeware project, it should have been a matter of professional pride and fulfillment, rather than what seems to be thinking what is the least we can get away with and charge £30 for it!

 

I read Steams article on Google News about price increases in some country it did not list Canada as one of those countries to get a increase. After seeing the price for it yesterday was a major shock.

After being in a major 5 car accident on Saturday afternoon it will be a while before I am able to back into affording prices like this.

 

Hope you're OK after that unfortunate accident.

Whatever Steam recommends, according to my calculations, the new price for route dlc should be £29.99 /€33.99 /$33.99 /C$45.99.

I seems that we in North America are being asked to pay a premium price over and above the current exchange rate. In the past, the prices were very close to the true exchange rates. Something's not quite right in the state of Denmark.

Listen, in my situation paying a few extra bucks for something isn't going to break my bank. What I don't like is paying a 33% price increase out of the blue, without a concomitant increase in the value of the product.

If these new prices prevail, I'm going to be much more selective about my dlc purchases from this point and, unless this current BCC route is utterly spectacular and phenomenal in the stream and other players' reviews, it won't qualify.

 

Name a game that has came out with NO BUGS go on try.

 

Nice to see someone with sense comment.

 

Exactly what I said earlier. I just paid £13 for a black ink cartridge down at Asda (the printer probably cost £30 three years ago) and didn't bat an eyelid. £5 is a couple of beers or two single Marshfield "real" ice cream cones in our local park, i.e. loose change. It's the principle the DLC is already rather pricey compared to other ventures and we are being asked to stomach a 20% increase on this sawn off little effort. If they had wanted to test the water for a price rise, they should have waited until they had something more iconic to try it on.

And at the least bring back the preorder discount.

This even makes me wonder if this new stinginess from DTG will spill over into the forthcoming sales and we will see fewer discounts on existing older items. They already distanced themselves from the Halloween sale, apart from a few bits of Rivet Swiss flotsam and jetsam.

 

Fortunately I and everyone else were able to walk away from the accident, not sure how some were feeling a day or two after it. But I have gotten lucky not to have suffered any injures at all. But my car is a question mark of it being repairable or not that has not been determined as it was one of three cars not driveable.

Looking at what you have for pricing I was expecting it to be C$45.99 not C$51.99 that it's listed at now. It does seem like that we in North America are asked to pay a premium for DLC content now.

I do not mind a slight increase as it would be something I could cope with, but an unexpected 33% increase is definitely sticker shock.

Add: I did check another sim Train Life Simulator something I was thinking of getting. Checked it's price this morning and it is still the same price there was no increase to it.

 

This! For instance compared to the time PS5-Players still have to wait for the release of the addons-manager for TSW3 this is peanuts.

 

It’s interesting to read that Americans are (rightly) complaining about the premium being paid for US Dollar purchases. In the UK, we have been used for many years for like for like prices on technology (e.g. $299 in the US and £299 in the UK for the same product), even when the US Dollar was worth about 70 pence.

 

The idea that $60 wasn't standard in 2017 is ludicrous, I preordered a Switch and Zelda, that game was $60. Also I bought a Wii U at launch, and I know for sure that Mario U was $60, so were most of big system sellers that released on it. I'm also pretty certain that Nintendo were late on that front, Xbox 360 & PS3 games were at the price point before then. From what I vaguely remember you'd have to go back to the transition from 5th to 6th gen of consoles to see flagship releases at $40.

Furthermore to my understanding cartridge based systems like the SNES & Genesis had games priced at $50 usually, with some going as high as $70. But prices went down on the PS1, and Saturn, because CDs were much cheaper to make, thus allowing prices to actually fall below the standard that had been set previously. So really excluding the PS1 & Saturn, flagship releases have usually hanged around the $50 to $60 mark, with a few oddballs going higher.

Now I'm not saying that nothing's change, you could argue that DLC & special editions have gotten more common, or that more games have released at $60. I'm not sure the data on those figures, so no clue on how true that is, but I could see those being possible certainly.