Petition To Delay Fife Circle Line For Seriously Needed Updates

Ah. Right. I hadn't thought of that.

 

When I watched the live stream, I originally thought it was just Matt cycling excessively fast through the list of stations, and he just missed it. However, after pausing the recording, Perth is definitely missing from the station list. As Matt had only pressed "Next Destination" a few times (originally), pressing "Previous Destination" would have been much faster and easier to get back to the "original" route terminus.

It's also quite interesting that other Scottish destinations (e.g. Gourock and Wemyss Bay, both on the Inverclyde Line) etc. are present, although this does not necessarily imply that they will be Rivet's next Scottish route.

 

I just want the 170 from the DLC so I can have it in the Southern Rail livery and run it as it once did between Eastbourne and Brighton as the 171 on the incomplete East Coastway... yes, I am still bitter about that.

 

Absolutely. Not a peep has come from DTG and it’s very frustrating !!. And I thought WB Games and Netherrealm Studios was bad the way they ignore their fanbase.…. Seems to me like they just don’t care enough. I didn’t seem to bothered by the preview last night but this morning I’ve changed my mind after watching it again. A lot of stuff really does need fixing immediately. It’s appalling.

 

There has got to be something from DTG at some point today surely? Like I've been around here for a long time and I've never seen such a bad and more importantly united community response to a route preview. If WCL got delayed for additional work surely something has to happen here

 

A delay won’t happen, there is not one CEO/CFO in the UK that would pull their main product less than a week before FYE.

 

Rivet:

 

I have a feeling we won’t get one comment from rivet or DTG

 

Someone told Rivet to delay the route on there own forum and the response was “There’s more to it, Stay Tuned”

 

There isn’t anything they can say that we haven’t heard hundreds of times before. They’ve 100% seen all the threads that’ve been opened, it’s just the matter of whether they’ll take on all the feedback and do more than just one or two small updates

 

Unless it’s an early April fools and the real route is being shown next week

 

Thats not what you want to hear... After a preview stream though where you're meant to be selling a product. "Stay tuned" this isn't a cryptic mysterious teaser situation this a "We've made a catastrophic mess we're sorry we've baited a ton of people into pre ordering a mess of a product" situation lol.

 

‘There’s more to it’ sounds like we’re about to get some drivel from the PR team.

Im not interested in what troubles anyone had during development, im interested only in the route being upto at least an acceptable level of quality.

Some routes fall down in other areas because another part of the content took more time (ie BML has iffy scenery too but the TT makes up for it), Fife Circle is just a disaster from every point of view.

Scenery? Nope
Timetable? Nope
170? Nope
Layers? Nope
Special new feature? Nope

Everything was “not at the moment”, Rivets entire development power seems to have been exhausted on one bridge.

The laughable part is that Jasper was gloating about doing the new branch when it’s opened…Jasper you haven’t even finished the current scenery.

 

Yea scenery issues haven’t been used to delay products at all (Arosa/BML to name 2), and not really many or any post release patches for them, they are often fired and forgotten

it’s the other issues what will be the decision point on this routes release status

 

West Cornwall 1993 was delayed for fixing. They changed the sand colour and dumped an early 80s timetable on it.

 

And you know that, how?

 

they didn’t delay over the sand colour (the same colour I think made a return on fife , why didn’t they just remove such a colour and keep using the current WCL one ), and I don’t think it was delayed, they released the 80s stock later.

 

guess it was, it was a long time ago I couldnt recall, but it certainly wasn’t the sand colour, and the 80s stock came post release.

 

Do you seriously believe that a company would pump tens of thousands of pounds into a product and then completely screw up its unveiling by showing the wrong build? This game releases in 3 working days. It’s finished. That’s the final product before release.

 

yes, it honestly could have been a genuine mistake it is a different build nothing overly complicated.

though I’m beyond doubtful everything is grand in the other.

 

Heck, DTG have on occasion released an old build!

Certainly you've had enough experience with computers to know that it's all too easy in a folder of near-identically-named files, to click on the wrong one. God knows I have.

 

Then either DTG and/or Rivet need to go back to school when it comes to professionalism. You check and cross check that what's being shown is the correct and up to date version and only then do you push the button on the stream. And what happened to a dummy run or rehearsal where again if it was the wrong build, which I highly doubt, they could have actioned the error before going live.

Sadly, with no real response from Rivet or DTG as publisher, I get the vibe they are going to ignore all the pushback to go ahead and publish anyway. They are probably gambling there are enough people who haven't watched the stream, read the social media or will blindly buy it anyway out of some misplaced sense of loyalty/charity to meet the initial sales target. After that, either nothing will get done or they will do a WCL and put in a classic diesel layer in the hope that running a Class 40 or 47 across the Forth Bridge will placate the angry horde.

 

Ever heard of checking, double checking and doing a rehearsed stream to make sure everything is correct and in working order before going live?

 

Given that they've almost definitely worked the timetable around the future 158 DLC layering in, Theres a considerable piece of work involved in then adding additional services, freight and specials to bulk the timetable gameplay to a healthier offering. I can see a couple of token freight services being chucked in, then radio silence will follow until the next route is announced.

 

anybody?

 

And what a lack lustre update from rivet….
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/an-update-on-the-fife-circle-line.79952/

 

"we hope you'll enjoy the route when we release on Tuesday"

Is there anything to even enjoy??

 

Absolutely. For starters they need to show some before and after images of locations identified from the stream.

This really smacks of desperation to get sales revenue in before the end of the financial year.

A delay of a few weeks to get it right would have been the right and honourable thing to do and might even have ended up achieving more respect and more sales.

And DTG are knee deep complicit in this "publish and be damned" stance.

All we can do is vote with our wallets and hope the initial sales levels are so dire it will force Rivet and DTG to actually deliver on promises to sort it post release.

 

while i wait for somebody to reply my previous question. I am pretty sure somebody has said this before. At this point DTG should just kick Rivet out from the 3rd party with this much backclash from the player.

 

Pov: You've read the latest Rivet Announcement

 

I’m with you Vern, however I hold out little hope of either DTG or Rivet being hit hard. There are many players who will buy on launch regardless (their prerogative), and this will make them some cash. I’d like everyone to also vote with their wallets. Having said all of that, the backlash on these forums is unlike anything I’ve seen here recently, so just maybe that will have an effect?!

 

Indeed. It's been said before only a minority of the customer base use the forum or any other sort of social media. So the sales will still come tumbling in from those who switch on their PC or console on Tuesday evening, see the flash screen about the route, think this is great and buy it blind. Unless they are on Steam the chances of getting their money back on realising it's a dud are pretty much non existent.

In the wider scheme of things, all this has done is ensure I will never ever buy anything in TSW and particularly from third parties on release or preorder. Fairly evident there is simply no effective internal or external QA process undertaken by DTG when handling third party products and they are therefore just as complicit in not caring whether or not we are fobbed off with something that looks like Trainz 2004 with buildings modelled by 8 year olds in their art class.

Anyway enough for now. Off for a bit of Snowrunner I think!

 

Exactly even on discord it's been mentioned multiple times

 

If I recall correctly, didn't a similar thing to this announcement happen with West Cornwall, specifically with the timetable? Standards were perhaps a bit different in the TSW2 days but I seem to remember in the leadup to WCL's release, the 150 and the revised 37 were the only things talked about. It wasn't until a little time passed and I assume community feedback was received that the loco hauled passenger services were layered in just before launch.

And here we are again, looking at a timetable more empty than even original WCL with the community feedback having lead to an update in the timetable (at least this time it will be period accurate). I'm not mad at that, it feels good to know that the community was actually listened to. What I am upset at is the fact that this happened again, and the sentiment I've heard echoed a few times today that mistakes have been made in this route that we thought had been learnt from years ago.

If I were to be somewhere between devil's advocate and giving them the benefit of the doubt, I would give Rivet this advice: in future, do one route at a time. I reckon part of this dip in quality was likely due to this being developed alongside Bernina. Some of the best routes released on this game up to this point from 3rd parties are Blackpool Branches and Niddertalbahn, and both of those afaik were given 100% focus. Bernina was amazing and was clearly the primary focus, but over the last few months Rivet have actually come out with two routes and two loco packs. A dip in quality really shows when you simply overload yourself.

 

pretty sure it was an update post release.

 

Dug this up. They did the preview stream, they found some issues in the release build so they delayed it, then based on feedback they implemented the extra layers during the last minute fixes. It also saw them adding idle stock in sidings that Rivet hadn't added beforehand, since this was for the most part a new feature from the Rush Hour routes earlier that year.
https://live.dovetailgames.com/live...les/article/west-cornwall-local-arriving-soon

 

Note how, in general, the scenario looks even better in WCL!

 

and threw a load of 1983 content at a 1993 route in a desperate attempt to make it remotely worth buying.

 

Well done. That wins the internet today.

 

It's rather simple. If your not happy with Rivet Games latest offering then don't buy the route until it's
A: to a standard your happy with after update patches or
B: in a sale in a few months time

 

bad circumstances but definitely reality.

 

FTFY…
C: Never.

 

I do understand where they were coming from at that time - we simply had no time and region accurate stock for 90s Cornwall beyond what the route had supplied itself. It does beg the question though as to why they would choose that time period in the first place (I think I read somewhere that it was meant to be modern but was backdated due to licensing issues) but I guess someone had to make the first step into the era. At that time outside of that route, the only content we had available was from the 70s and 80s, then it jumped right forward to privatisation era. In the end to expand the timetable they had to take a few liberties with it, even if that meant outdated liveries and non-air conditioned MK2 stock. I don't see it as the end of the world however, it still created a relatively alright timetable to drive on if you just take it for what it is.

In this case however, there was no backdating licensing limitation. Fife Circle is in the present day, and that means that a significant chunk of the entire UK catalogue could have been used in one way or another. Steam railtours, maintenance trains, RHTT, freight, ECS moves, even driver training in light locos as the likes of Blackpool and SEHS did. I am glad that they have at least said they will be adding a few things to the timetable, because at the very least how could they not have added at least one recreation of the countless iconic photos of steam engines on the Forth? It honestly boggles the mind.

All in all, the whole thing just says to me that they really put time and care into the bridge area. Revamped the water, crafted the bridge itself to perfection, that part of the map is absolutely stunning and I would go as far as to say perhaps one of the best bits of track to drive in the game period. Beyond that however it looks as though they really rushed it. Don't get me wrong, I am prepared and hopeful that I will be pleasantly surprised, and I am glad that they have said the Roblox buildings won't be in the release version. But even with that fixed, as it stands right now what we're looking at is a route that is one quarter TSW4, three quarters TSW2.

 

There’s art of a modern 150 in GWR green in the 150 next to a set of doors

 

In fairness, I think we will eventually get an update. I was saying to others that I'd be very surprised if Rivet didn't get it in the ear on Friday after the stream and some kind of warning from DTGs brand management (or such). Not only did it kinda make things awkward on stream, it sent DTGs customers into a fury in chat and in the forums, effectively harming the brand.

 

The biggest issue for me was the lack of variety in trees and foliage. If you've been to or live in Scotland, its not such a monotonous shade of green and it just felt a bit too much for me. I've seen much better scenery on other routes really.

 

So true lol. One of the first things I picked up on.

 

I knocked together a NE Scotland map in TF2 and following one of the little trains around it looked better than Rivet terrain and texturing!