Ny-trenton: Usa Content Is Still Severely Flawed

1mtr from impact the game should just fade to a black screen or better still automatically reload the last check point (Checkpoint saves - if you're old enough to remember them in TSW2). Same with derailments, the moment the train leaves the track its back to the last checkpoint, it might not be the magic bullet for all Train Companies in allowing a license but if it helps just sway 1 license holder to change their mind I am sure the community wouldn't complain (that much), especially if it was communicated out to why it had been done.

 

NJT does use pis. Also LIRR and Metro North don't have something close enough. They do have pis. The thing is that rail companies in the U.S use different style pis. It's not like Germany or the U.K where they only use one style PIS system

 

It probably doesn’t help that most commuter railroads are semi-government agencies. There is added bureaucracy there that leads I’m sure to less reception to a sim/game.

It would take someone who understands gaming/sims to see the advantages of providing a licence. I.E. a positive image, recruiting tool, somehow encouraging ridership. A lot of people making these decisions won’t connect these dots. And just see the disadvantages.

And I’m sure there are plenty of disadvantages someone would think up, like the aforementioned “what if someone crashes/derails the train”, “what if some hijacker/criminal uses it to learn the route and trains”, “what if the game sucks and makes us look bad”, etc.

At the end of the day a lot of them might see licensing to a game as having nothing to do with their core business and introduce risks they don’t even care to think about, easy to say no. One day maybe the right person gets into the decision making spot and sees advantages and agrees to license (ie Amtrak, MBTA, etc).

I remember a similar situation for YEARS when American Airlines outright refused to allow any of their paint schemes on MSFS, basically through the 90s into the mid 2000s. Even third party websites with user liveries would get legal notice to take down, along with “virtual airlines”. And then, at some point, they decided it was ok since we now see AA in many sim games.

One thing I always wondered with trains, is it seems like you can get any operators trains for model railroads. Do they need licensing too? Or do the makers just put them out without permission? Because I feel like model railroads and TSW are some ways analogous, if a company is ok licensing to make model trains I don’t see why they wouldn’t also agree to a computer sim.

 

P.I.S. (Passenger Information Screens) and Departure Screens are different words for the exact same thing. It doesn’t matter what it looks like or what the information it displays, PIS is a broad term to describe it.

The French got it for a one-off, this current one doesn’t even look remotely similar to anything in the USA, it’s British with caps lock on.

 

Then why code the ability for trains to crash into the game? I'm sorry, I can see it being plausible that companies might not want that to be possible, but it's not plausible that DTG then goes "we will never take the ability to crash trains out of TSW, it is integral to the game".

 

Not only crashes but for other reasons too. Safety risks, etc. Maybe it's people who like to fool around and drive recklessly and upload it. It's still bad pr.

 

At one point they didn't, but then the Union Pacific railroad stepped in around the 2000's and sued a few model railroad companies.....

Also, no one is gonna purposely crash their $300+ model train for entertainment, due to the costs of repairs.

 

This is dodging the point made about crashes.

 

That sounds interesting, lol. Can you give any examples?

 

Imagine when BML came out they would had said we only included the lines going to brighton.we ran out of time so no other services, no AI, no branches, no london bridge services, no freighter and no plans to add them…… imagine that.

 

People have been moaning about that route for lots of reason since the day it launched.

This constant pretence that BML is this flawless jewel is honestly weird. It literally released as part of a rush hour pack noted for its increased passenger numbers... Without any rush hour passengers because performance was so bad. People had public breakdowns because they were so upset with the quality of a footbridge in Reigate for goodness sake.

The point I am making is this, people here complain whether DTG get 60% right or 95% right, there is no 'sweet spot' for DTG because the level of vitriol is almost exactly the same whatever the route, however good or bad, and so many people here just don't see it, because the only reason they come here in the first place is to complain and moan, so they don't see that that's all this forum is actually for, hence why nobody at DTG is delaying this product urgently to add in some static LIRR stock, because they rightly assume it won't alay even 1% of the complaints anyway.

To this day, the most positive comments I have seen about BML have been on this thread, and only to prove how bad this route is going to be by comparison. I am sure it has been said by others, but literally any aspect of this game will eventually be weaponised to beat DTG over the head with the moment it becomes convenient to do so by the latest member of the 'I have run into some mild inconvenience with a video game so I guess I better spend two weeks of my life having an absolute meltdown about it' crowd.

 

just wait until the route is actually out on Thursday, the weaning will be even more

 

That simply isn't the case; while BML has its flaws and its detractors, its timetable is widely lauded as a masterpiece, and that is what NYT's lame timetable is being compared to. It's also worth pointing out that NYT's closest relative, LIRR, has been lambasted ever since its release for lack of traffic. This is not just a pointless moan by naysayers who will allegedly never be satisfied. It is a legitimate complaint by players who know that DTG can do better than this.

 

Expect it literally does have support for crashing. You see the train leave the rails. I have to presume that at that point some internal flag is set for the game to end a few seconds later.

Except this logic makes no sense, because if say the game immediately ended when a train derailed the player would still be punished.

 

I have been praising the BML since it came out.It’s my favorite route.I owned on it on steam and XBOX X. after TSW3 came out the BML became unplayable because of the AI train being stuck right before Hayward’s Heath. I was on this forums for months asking when the route was going to be fix. I was also involved with providing feedbacks,suggestions about the US route which many of us had narrowed to the NEC. So yes I will continue to voice and be critical of DTG especially when admitting of content no being added do to time constraints. You have your opinion. I have my. nearly 75% on this thread agree that The NEC route being release at the current state is unacceptable. This is why we have the forums. Maybe this thread will help for future content , maybe it won’t. But at least we tried to make the game better and not just settle for less.

 

Something bad does happen, its game over boys, now if its game over the instant a train derails or 5seconds later probably doesnt matter a great deal to the majority of players (apart from the small minority who seem to delight in seeing trains 50' up in the air for some unknown reason.

In some ways its a shame TSW3 isnt an online game, if it where the terms of service could explictly ban this sort of mod and culprits could be perma-banned.

 

Even with no support in a game for something, people will find ways to rip the game's models, rig them for other behaviours, and make them do stuff that isn't in the game. Just search certain types of video sites for Overwatch.
Someone could, say, rip the models and textures from Horseshoe Curve and throw them into animation software that allowed for a realistic recreation of the recent derailment in Ohio.
If DTG don't make that easier by having the deformation physics for crashes ingame, that adds more degrees of separation between their product and any work derived from it that a licensor may take umbrage at.

 

It couldn’t have been easy to get the licenses you’ve gotten.

I hope someday you get septa and Marc licenses sorted so more of the nec can be developed. I’d love to go all the way from nyc to dc … obviously not in one route …

I can’t imagine the pain it takes to get a license at all in the USA

 

So if I'm looking at this correctly it doesn't look like we even have the whole NJT time table for the NEC branch inclunded with the release. below are the timetable from Trenton to Penn for a 24 hour weekday schedule.
Looking at Northeast corridor line counting only 31xx,37xx,38xx,39xx services which they stated on the article, I count 66 passenger services From Trenton, Jersey Avenue, New Brunswick, Newark airport (only 1), and Newark Penn(only 1) and these don't even include the deadheads. So are they not even including all services from the NEC branch? These services listed are only NEC Branch

 

It's not, there are multiple reasons and that one makes more sense to me than the crashes as crashes can be avoided. I understand the argument of the licensor as It's one of the safety concerns that popped in my head when I first played the game.
I don't think fictionalising how the train works is a good thing in a simulator so it's a valid point why licensing can have dead ends. Removing the crashes is extra dev time so I can understand why they don't fix that specifically for licensing

Counter the argument, "with games like these more people are equipped with the knowledge to start working at your company, mister train company. It will allow you to PR your company in to the minds of your much needed future employees."

 

Yes, I believe many people here already did the math and came to the conclusion that some services are missing even if we only count the NEC services. Really hope that will be addressen soon in a post release patch.

 

Then why was it never mentioned before it was brought up that DTG's actions don't make sense if crashes were a major issue? Before that it was all "crashes are a serious problem with licensors".

Pick one:

• Getting licenses is important to DTG
• Crashes are a serious problem with licensors

 

Define major issue? Plenty of operators don't mind, and the throughput of routes is not being held back by the lack of companies willing to engage, it's simply a matter of time and resource with what is available. The idea that the game needs to be redesigned to fix this issue, ahead of any other, is a faulty starting point, driven by the poundshop Columbos like you who think every time DTG willingly give out some nice-to-know details, you've landed some kind of 'gotcha'.

There are lots of competing factors for DTG in this game's design, and its future development, many of them contradict one another. That is normal. Nobody at DTG ever said "getting new operators is our only priority and we will do whatever necessary to do it", so the fact the game as it is, is perfectly fine for numerous operators, who have seen zero negative side effects as a consequence, means that in the grand scheme of things, it makes little sense to go any further on this. As Matt says, operators who are that tetchy about the tiny potential for an issue, will very easily find another reason not to engage, or something would cause them to pull the plug even if they did sign an agreement. This all makes sense unless you just want to find an issue, any issue, with which to say "See, see, DTG did something wrong! Look! They did something which does not wholly align with this other thing they said, at some other point! Scandal!". It's a video game, the stakes really are not that high here.

 

Yeah, I can see that being a problem. It was a huge change when someone here mentioned how you are supposed to actually drive with LZB/AFB. And it works really well on SKW, and adds a great deal of gameplay, though you have to pause frequently for gradient map.

 

This argument would make sense if DTG was acting in a way that suggested they didn't care about crash videos.

 

I was focus on the missing services from the other branches that I didn't realized the missing services from the NEC Branch.

 

To these people, I would tell the stories of Lucas Ordonez, Jann Mardenborough and other racing drivers, who started their careers winning Gran Turismo competitions on PlayStation. Simulation training is important for many domains, from flying, racing, to surgical skills.
Maybe TSW is not a proper simulation for trains?

 

You’re thinking about it wrong.

An example of a bad habit would be accelerating towards an adverse signal, because you know it will clear before you get to it.

WCL is a good example of this, when departing St Austell there is always a signal which is set to on, until you clear the objective marker 700 yards before it, at which point it turns Green. This could easily turn into habitual behaviour.

There is no disputing that simulators can offer a certain level of knowledge to an individual, however you do not want to walk into an interview for a job & flaunt that you have experience based on playing them - no matter which way you swing it, these are games & not real life.

There is a massive difference between a simulation developed for entertainment & one for professional training.

 

TSW Has no real train physics xD its more of a game.
If you want a real train sim to train on the closest would be Run8 atm.

 

I was going for the comedy, along the lines of: "Sorry, how do I increase the throttle? I usually pull RT for that..."

Which one is Gran Turismo?

 

This is definitely a different situation, in racing you can do almost whatever you want to the car to push it to the limit. Train running has rules and an extra set of practical regulations for maximum effectiveness.

 

Well, if you get to the point where a train crashes in TSW, you passed the point of failure a while back already, so I can get why it's not worth simulating stuff beyond a point.

When it comes to putting simulation time down as experience in any kind of job application, I am reminded of a hilarious AITA post on Reddit, with a dude asking why it's unreasonable of him to complain that his wife won't introduce him to coworkers and the like as being a "pilot" when he spends all his free time in flight sim, but works at a fast food store and has no actual qualifications or flight time.

 

So only 40 services total on the ALP-46

 

Train clipping still exists at Penn… 5 years later

 

Again, these pictures would be more useful if they came with captions. What am I looking at?

 

Sigh Pen station

 

Is a shame because the route looks great

 

haven’t read much since a few days ago but gotta pop in here to add (i’m sure i’m not the first and only) but my god it’s so dead between NYC and Newark international (so far). There was what, one acela (which is an add on layer) and like 1 NJT that passed… and this is happening at 7:30 am?? during rush hour? disappointing is a MAJOR understatement. Dovetail, do better!

 

Yeah it seems quite dead for 7:30AM

 

I agree . the Pantos are down on all train, no passengers, is just a ghost town,

 

Pantograph is even down on the player train and it is still pulling power. Interesting simulation...

I assume it is just the animation that isn't firing and the simugraph thinks it is up, but it isn't showing when you look, hence the panto up button isn't responding...

 

“Welcome to Train Sim World, an immersive and highly detailed rail simulation” - where all the trains run with the pantograph down, and apparently not caught by QA?

 

yup I'm sure they just ran out of time

 

NEC: Magic Railroad ✨

 

Lmaoooo, any more excuses they gon make???Again, I dont want to hear deadlines, and all the other excuses cuz BML wouldn't have went through this....even Dresden-Rieia wouldn't went through this and they added that branch from that dlc later on.....Welp, there's that another poor attempt on a dlc inviting New York and the timetable..even worse lol..But as usual DTG always put the US content at the short end.

 

the colours all look washed out, the black on the NJT loco looks light grey