Matt said about reusing parts of routes we already have, such as big terminal stations. Not strictly extensions, but I would love to see: Edinburgh Waverley to Dundee | Class 158, Class 170, Inter7City HST London Blackfriars to Bedford via London St Pancras | Class 222, Class 700/1 London Victoria to Rochester via Bromley South and Denmark Hill | Class 465/0 & /1, Class 375/6 & /7, Class 377/5 Wolverhampton to Coventry via Birmingham New Street | Class 350/2, Class 390 Manchester Piccadilly/Manchester Victoria to Liverpool Lime Street via Chat Moss | Class 331/0, Class 802/2 Glasgow Central to Gourock and Wemyss Bay | Class 380/0 & /1 Along with a Brighton Main Line upgrade and merger with East Coastway adding the missing Wivelsfield to Lewes line. I can only dream!
Would love to see Oakville extended to Toronto. Adding Union station would make MP36PH useful as a passenger train, that update is coming...right? Even without the GO Transit license this would be a great addition to one of the shortest routes in the game.
Been said a million times already but GWR extension to Swindon or Oxford plus branch lines. They don’t even need to change era, just give me a decent run on the HST, 180 and Cross country DLC would be appreciated too.
Speaking of the connector between Main Spessart Bahn Kassel Wilhelmshöhe Würzburg Hbf routes. The Nantenbacherkurve carries sleeper trains between Amsterdam cologne Hamburg to Vienna and Innsbruck. Basically you have to play the existing service in two parts up to Aschaffenburg part 1 and Fulda Würzburg. The missing segments are is Kinzigtalbahn Schnellfahrstrecke Hanau Gelnhausen and Bahnstrecke Aschaffenburg Fulda.
Just imagine the sh*tstorm here if DTG made it as a standalone route, without connection with todays SEHS...
Also, I know the route is a bit new, but Cajon Pass could also benefit from a rebuild/extension. The route could extend UP's Palmdale cutoff to UP's West Colton Yard, BNSF's line could extend from San Bernardino to the Crossover at West Colton. Would add about 15 miles to the UP line, extend BNSF's line about 2 miles, and opens the option for transfer freights between UP's West Colton and BNSF's San Bernadino yards. On the other end. BNSFs line could be extended past Barstow to Daggett, which is about 8 miles, and include the UP line from Daggett to Yermo. about 5 miles of additional trackage. Also adds in the 2 military depots out in the desert. Cajon Pass itself gets a scenery overhaul with new flora, ground textures, and addition of missing scenery assets. The timetable gets rebuilt to add playable UP services from West Colton to Yermo, and West Colton to the top of the Palmdale Cutoff. A slot in the timetable is left for the SWC if we ever get proper stock for it. Nothing really gets changed for BNSF, except maybe having the SD70ACe added to the route plus its stock that come with that DLC. Maybe new Concrete Hoppers. BNSF could also have new services to the grain elevator in San Bernardino. Union Pacific gets a refresh of its Sherman Hill Lineup, and DTG could add a UP GEVO to the mix. UP Heritage Units would have the opportunity to sub into UP trains. UP Utah coal to Victorville gets added.
- Derwent Valley and Sheffield in MML, would finally give the HST decent run time, along with a class 222 and 158 services and more freight ofc . - Birmingham cross city extension to Wolverhampton and the chase lines - BML extension to caterham and east grinstead
All the more reason to investigate route merging as a future core feature. No need to have separate versions of parts of routes that overlap - probably quite complex to implement but it would be great nonetheless. Own two or more routes that share a station or yard in common? You can journey between them seamlessly without needing to end and restart the game session.
I'd vote for none. I'd prefer seperate routes with new trains that can eventually connect, rather than attaching ourselves to a certain area in a country for sake of extensions. If I had to pick one I would go with Edinburgh - Glasgow, and send it to Dunblane and Alloa. The two routes are, operationally, much the same, with the 385 running the show on both branches. On the opposite end, if I had to pick one not to extend, it would be Cathcart. The reason being, that the route is the Cathcart Circle Line, and it includes the entire thing. Extending it to be two routes in one is a bit daft, and all it does is mean someone who wants, say, the Inverclyde Line, would need to buy Cathcart to buy it.
I can't speak for others, though I feel the 'simple' answer would be for DTG to just make longer routes, like in TSC. No extensions required if they go from one recognised end to another recognised end. e.g.: Liverpool Lime Street - Hull Paragon Holyhead - Manchester Airport Blackpool - Liverpool Lime Street/Manchester Airport Mallaig - Glasgow Queen Street London Liverpool Street - Norwich London Waterloo - Portsmouth Brighton - Bedford and my favourite: London Charing Cross - Dover Priory (Apologies to non-Brits for my exclusive focus on GB routes).
A host of shorter routes that layer between each other works better. A lot of people don't want 2 hour runs. Most people prefer a shorter route with a few branches and such, over a long linear route. Besides, it's impractical for DTG to just build longer routes. Unless you want to pay £50 a pop.
I'm happy to pay £50 a pop, or even higher for an actual full route. Rather than tiny routes like glossop.
Is your view based on verifiable player data/surveys or just 10 or so people who have posted the same view as you on these forums? Even the player data is skewed as routes are generally on the short side in TSW If you don't ask, you don't get. People asking for longer routes is providing feedback to DTG. Only they have a more informed idea if there is enough demand to create full length routes at a price we can tolerate and at a cost where they remain profitable.
1. I’m going to be voting Riesa Dresden 2. I’m going to go for the Route to Leipzig including & adding back in the Flughafen Branch line. Might be a bit (a lot) too much to extend S1 line down to where it goes or connect up with Chemnitz aswell. 3. This brings in Leipzig HBf and Extends all services what run to either all the way or on the way there. Such an example would be RE50. upper platform station for Leipzig HBf are introduced and the busiest German Route becomes the 2nd longest (pretty’s sure it would be after Kassel?) it would also allow for better/longer runs should the ICE T come about in the future. with the addition of Flughafen Branch line, players would be able to operate S2, with what is currently about a 5 minute service between Dresden HBf & Dresden Neustadt, and turn this into a longer better experience complete with the option to perform a turn around (cab switch) as Flughafen Station is a Terminus.
Discounting things such as "I want ECML London - Edinburgh", because they're absolutely unrealistic, the forums tend to lean more towards sections of longer routes, or routes with branches. I ran started a dedicated thread where I talk through it, accompanied with a poll a while ago. I would say it's very conclusive. (https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...-enough-what-truly-makes-a-great-route.69581/)
It was (which was good), but it was also tiny with only one train on it. Doesn't have a lot of replay value. The nature of them doesn't make me want to spend a lot of money on them, but longer routes? I'm willing to pay whatever is needed to make them a thing. Because I will spend a much, much longer time on them.
few questions I have with the poll concerning it’s results: 1. was it multiple unlimited choice ? 2. Is it in your view suggesting people want shorter not longer routes? If Yes to question 2 are those people still happy if they get a busy route, high detailed scenery but only 5miles - 10 miles - 15 or 20 Miles long but no further. Edit: I only ask this as it seems the question is proposing answers what are near undeniably all positive and doesn’t seem to seek an answer to what they don’t want, and thus one could happily select all options and get one hell of a route. Edit: from the poll you’ve shown, the only concrete answer it can give is 155 DTG forum users enjoy Either a busy Timetable or Busy Stations or both. Likewise with the other options. It doesn’t seem to suggest either way whether the same 155 users think anything on the other options.
Yes. I voted for 5/7 and I know many did similar. You can (iirc) view the people who voted for what option and you'll find names repeating. I think they want a mix. Short is good if it has variety, such as Cathcart, Birmingham, Bremen - Oldenburg, but it's not great if it's linear with little service variety or rolling stock such as Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr. For longer routes, they need to offer the same variety. If they don't, it's boring. Many people have remarked that Kassel-Würzburg is one of the most boring routes out there. Three stations, what, 80/90km apart? Boooooring. LGV is similar, although the proximity of Aix and Marseille save it a bit. And the runs only take 30 minutes so it's just a nice quick run to do. KWG takes about an hour and is dull as hell. The main issue, and it isn't a technical one, is that the more stations there are, the more dev time goes into those, therefore leaving less time/recourses for making the route longer.. What DTG seem to be doing are making short/medium length routes in the regular cycles, and pushing out longer stuff at the annual summer releases. Anyway, back to to the point; In the above poll: 209 people voted 72 voted for Route Length That's only 34%. I suppose I already answered this, but probably yes. There are some people who act like a shorter route is some sort of shambles on the part of DTG but they're typically the same type who kick and scream in YT Chat on every stream. Shorter routes offer a different experience to longer routes. Everyone has their different opinions, but I think 155 people voting for "Good Timetable" (similar to BML or SEHS) and 153 voting for "Variety" (Branches, Trains)... Says a lot. They are all positive on paper but the point of the thread was "what makes a route good to you". In other words: what is the key to the route being in your most played list? What attracts you to buy and play it? There are no negatives, really, because it's subjective. It's about finding the biggest positive. And the poll, quite conclusively, suggested that route length isn't a crucial factor for the majority, and similarly the length of services is a concern for pretty much nobody. The choices were unlimited, after all. It's not like they had to pick one.
I see, I of course have played good short and good long routes, though a short route wouldn’t be a bad route if it was longer but a long route wouldn’t be as good if it was shorter. of course the considerations for Development/profit etc counter ‘extreme quality’ products Problem remains, it just leaves the question on where people see long routes, whether that’s above 15 miles or 30 or 60. It’s answer to preference for long or short routes remains locked by what the poll doesn’t reveal, and couldn’t be used to determine exact route length preferences. then there’s the topic of if people’s preferences have come entirely based of their experience with the one longest route, Kassel. Is it then therefore a further biased based on National Preference, Germans are more likely to play a German route from what I’ve heard and therefore would they’re take be different in this regard likewise with others. then theirs the question on is it timing not length, LGV and GWE are completely different lengths but run a 43 service or a TGV and roughly it’s the same time to complete. then another question, is it service style not length, is the problem remaining at cruise speed and not having many stops or interactivity, is the people who are polled for not wanting long routes those who play complicated freight services or is that then not the case cause they are perhaps those calling for more track to do such services and therefore it’s too much gameplay as we would be taking 2-3 hours of long freight not 1hr 1:30mins high speed. They’re just some questions to remain probably unanswered as polling especially for forums is unfortunately inaccurate and inefficient, it can only show answers from those who participated and comparing it to wide views is near impossible. edit: of course your poll is conclusive, as it only takes a majority for any poll to be so, though conclusive in the sense it’s official people don’t care for long routes or don’t want them or vice versa then that’s just not the case. As no one can get into the mindset of others that have views on this, without directly putting the question to them, the answer remains unanswered. It can’t be ruled out for instance someone felt the need to put one answer or were just thinking all these seem good I’ll put all or were wanting/hoping for a new shunting route lately and put what would get them that. All these possibilities and not one matters for length in them. polls of course only give what you ask them and get back from them. Even asking straight do you want short routes (A Yes B No) only gets an answer for those who participate not any majority or minority answer or any reason for such an answer unless a poll gets a majority of the planet population size it confirms no majority as the minority numbers remain unseen.
Online surveys generally provide only minimal useful information. Why? Selection bias due to the location the survey was posted: Posting a survey here, rather than on Steam, or anywhere else, will give different results due to different demographics. Also a survey that has not been seen cannot have the responses recorded of all those who play TSW, but are unaware of the survey's existence. Selection bias in the responder sample: Only certain people will actually respond to any given survey. Again, that skews the results in favour of the demographic that tends to respond to surveys. Biased or loaded questions / framing: Online surveys often have a loaded question(s) or lead the respondants to a certain view due to the way the topic is framed. With all due respect, your linked topic is clouded by your viewpoint. You gave an opinion and by so doing, whether you intended to or not, you have influenced the results of your survey. Limited number of respondants: Linked to the earlier points I've made here, you only captured 209 respondants' views. Per https://steamdb.info/app/1944790/charts/, TSW3 has anywhere between 17,981 and 178,900 players. That equals at best 1.2%, or at worst 0.12%, of players' views. I can understand why you ran a poll. Let's not pretend it does anything other than give the view of the small number of dedicated forum members here.
International Freight traffic between United States and Canada passenger Services have to be treated like RSN Motive Moves due to the Border stop at Niagara Falls, NY & ON
I don't see why regarding route length it should be one thing or not the other. I enjoy short and complete routes, for me the ability to be a driver for a shift on routes like Glossop is a boon and I hope we see more of the same. Also there are many occasions where I want a quick drive and to be able to complete a full service on Glossop or Cathcart in under an hour again is an advantage or if I want an even shorter run the IOW is there for example. However, there are times where I do fancy sitting in the cab of an express train for maybe two or three hours hurtling along with the odd station stop. I would not expect even 25% of the content to be of that ilk but the occasional long distance route, like Euston to Birmingham or Kings Cross to York would be nice, not just UK routes either of course. I would be happy driving long distances in a ICE, Acela, TGV, class 800, HST, Pendolino, Class 86, Class 45 or the footplate of a GWR Castle for example. You do see a lot of comments stating that "players" don't want long runs, but the longer routes and the merged routes on TSC seem popular. I have driven Preston to Glasgow, Euston to Birmingham in TSC and you get the sense of being a real express train driver. And of course, you can always stop and save if you don't have time to do it in one go. I suspect there are many different ways users play TSW and many different opinions of how routes should be implemented. This forum is a microcosm of users and frankly can be an echo chamber on occasions so I don't think what is said here should necessarily be considered to be the final word.
GWE gets my vote. Extension of the mainline to either Oxford or Swindon. ALL branches added... Old Oak Common to Northolt West Ealing to Greenford Southall to Brentford Waste Terminal West Drayton to Thorney Mill and Colnbrook Slough to Windsor Central Maidenhead to Bourne End and Marlow Twyford to Henley on Thames Reading to Basingstoke New locomotive dlc... Class 57 with Mk3 Sleeper stock Class 60 for freight Class 165 for branch services Class 180 for express services If redone in a vintage era, branches differ... Southall to Brentford Docks West Drayton to Staines West and Uxbridge Vine Street Larger Windsor Central Station Maidenhead to High Wycombe Larger Henley on Thames Station This would bring GWE into parity with newer releases, which is currently severely lacking.
I definitely don't mind short routes, and they have a place (as long as priced appropriately) I just think there have been too many short routes for TSW, and not enough long routes. If a route has an express train, and it literally just starts at A, and finishes at B, without any stops in between. Then it is too short. GWE is a perfect example of this, I hate driving the HST on it as it's literally just A-B. Conversely I enjoy driving the HST on MML, as it has multiple stops.
I don't disagree, certainly in terms of what in TSC would be considered a long route we really haven't had any. Certainly amongst UK routes. I enjoy MML, especially since the the Skyhook and community improvements, but even on that, a run on the excellent HST is over too quickly, even with a stop in the middle. Leicester to Sheffield would be much more fulfilling.
Yeah that's all MML needs to be perfect IMO. Really, really want Sheffield, and maybe a Class 222 DLC.
No? Surveys will always be limited in sample size but they offer a rough estimation of what the community wants. The Forums represent a fairly significant part of said community and therefore it is reasonable to ask them. Yes, it's not the entire community but it never will be. To suggest that a survey needs everyone to vote to be valid is utterly absurd. Only certain people do opinion polls with politics, only certain people fill in reviews on restaurants. Does that make all of those polls/reviews invalid? No. A sample size of 200 (which, for the TSW Playerbase, is quite big) is more than enough to get a representation of the community's wishes. If you dislike what the poll has found, just say that. My OP in that thread was an extensive yet objective write-up. The only parts that weren't strictly factual were the "this is something the community seems to want", which was an observation. The poll did confirm that, as well. The only part I offer my opinion at large is in the conclusion. If they don't care to read the meat of the post - which looks at what the two sides of the arguement(s) are, how that's transpired in game - then that's their problem. I did not influence that poll in any way, shape or form. I think everyone knows 179 thousand players is nonsense. Even 18 thousand seems a bit high. Regardless, the size of a poll doesn't invalidate it. Let's not pretend that means nothing. The forums represent the most dedicated space for Train Sim World discussion and therefore are the best place to ask this. If I ran the poll on Steam and other platforms - there would always be the risk that people vote for the same thing twice. At that point it becomes skewed and worthless. The entire point of the poll is to grab a representation of what people want. If you want to suggest that every poll in the history of mankind is invalid because they don't ask everyone who the topic relates to... Go ahead. Just don't try and invalidate LOVE you don't like the findings of.
Just for the first bit. The forums do NOT represent a significant part of the community. I'd bet probably less than 5-10%. That's always the case in pretty much any game ever, especially console majority games. The majority of people just hop on a game, play it, and turn it off. They don't post on game specific forums. There will be more people reading the steam forums than these ones for example, just because they are integrated with where you play the steam game. A sample size of 200 of the most dedicated/invested players (which forum users tend to be) can not be used as a basis to determine anything significant for the player base as a whole. It can be used to say "Most Forum users want this" however. Your average player that just plays TSW as a casual game will have very different wants from the more dedicated simmers that frequent this forum. Which considering they will make up the majority of the userbase, is an issue with basing anything on the data you have collected.
The forums are the ones who most actively engaged with the game. Unless you want to me to go round the doors of everyone who's ever played TSW to ask them, it's the best anyone other than DTG can get.
They are the ones most actively engaged with the game yes, but they make up a very small amount of the player base. But you're assuming they have the same wants as the average casual player, which they will not. I'm not expecting you to ask every player no, I'm just saying you can't infer anything from the data other than what a portion of the forum user base want. You can't infer what the player base as a whole wants from it, as it's way too specialized a dataset. It would be like taking a poll at a Conservative party conference what party they are going to vote for in the general election. It's inherently skewed.
It's the same as asking a Conservative Conference who they would vote for in a party leadership election, to use your analogy more accurately. They aren't everyone that will vote but they provide a representation of the Tories at large. They are the "core" of the membership but they reflect the wider membership. If it were "skewed" it would be manipulated to one side, but it wasn't. It just has a smaller sample size, which is how polls work.
Though I do applaud your attempts to find out people's preferences, I've invalidated your method because despite your efforts, it's unscientific and will always be so. Not because I don't like the results. As Fawx said, you're asking a specialised/niche group of people for their thoughts. It's like asking a bunch of road cyclists what a good bike setup looks like. They'll argue over what drop angle on the handlebar stem gives the best aerodynamic posture and how much of a performance gap exists between using 80g and 116g inner tubes. They'll completely forget there are mountain bikers, fixie riders, tandem riders, folding commuter bike riders, cargo bike users, wicker basket on the handlebar riders, etc.
The data is skewed, as it is from an extremely niche sub, sub group of the overall group. It is therefore useless for determining anything for the group at large. My analogy was accurate as I posted it. Your dataset fails to ask questions of the casual/wider audience, because they are not present on the forum. Your dataset is flawed at a basic level, and therefore can't be applied to the overall userbase. It it a biased/skewed sample. The method of data collection (Niche forum of enthusiasts) can not be used to infer anything about the wider userbase in any form. It can ONLY be used to infer things about the Niche Forum of enthusiasts.
I think I said this in another thread but there is a place for short and long routes in game except we haven't actually got any long routes. I don't mind a spin on Cathcart but my heart lays with Intercity driving and there is no route which fulfills this urge as GWE is a sort power up, go, brake, stop, end and although slightly better MML is just too short. I would just like a route where I can do what I call (with no bias) proper train driving and to do that the route needs to have a good length and a couple of stops to break the journey, an example I am thinking of is Peterborough to Donny/York where you feel you have covered a good distance, there are a few points of interest, things to keep you on the ball and interested in the trip and stops a good distant apart.
That's right. e.g. We could do a 2:45 run between Swansea-Paddington with 8 intermediate stops. Or a 2:06 run from Manchester or a 2:20 run from Liverpool to Euston, both with at least 3 intermediate stops. Long in distance, but not in gameplay time. I like that the entire ECML has been connected up in TSC. I'd love if we had 4 parts (all from DTG) in TSW to eventually bolt together.
I don’t know, you can get the same enjoyment of driving A to B in a longer route on a shorter run compared to driving A to B on a shorter route. Short routes aren’t really bad, there’s no issue at all with routes not being too long. But then again if we are only conversely getting short routes it isn’t a good thing, there should be a perfect balance between short and long routes. It should be like ying and Yang. Now short routes are good for say branch lines or local regional (stuff involving sprinters and lower speed bar 70mph), but short routes do not benefit faster trains at all, this should not be an argument. Look at both of the HST routes. 25 miles is decent for a 158 but for a HST you could do a non stop run in 20 mins plus which is too short for a train that fast. Conversely take GWE, decent for a 166 to short for an Intercity or High Speed Train, very linear and you’ll be done with the route in 30 mins. One thing about MML and GWE in my anecdotal experience is that driving that HST gives me this urge to want to keep driving onwards, but yeah most of the routes that feature high speed are too short. Now put that HST on a Peterborough-York you could do it in a hour tops (fast) and hour 30 tops (slow), or even put it on the southern WCML, fastest run could be done in an hour fifteen, slowest 2 hours . An hour 30 to about two hours is definitely long enough for TSW players of 125mph driving. Now I’m a bit different but in my personal opinion I prefer longer drives, I adore 2 hour - 3 hour long drives because when I play train sim world I play it for a long time, but I can understand not everyone has time to play longer routes. But then again it is important to consider what people believe a long route is as that is totally subjective opinion. There is no clearly defined metric for a long route, it could be 60 miles or 250 miles, so that is also something important to factor in. TLDR; short routes are good for slower trains but not long enough for faster intercity/high speed trains
Agreed. My main issue currently is there isn't a balance. We're primarily getting short routes. If MML went up to Sheffield and we could do Sheffield to Leicester? That would be great in the HST. Express trains need longer routes in order to get a proper run out of them. A sub 30 minute express run is honestly just boring.
