Wcml South - Not Good Enough

Rivet have been a subcontractor for DTG for a very long time and will have worked on a lot of the DTG content in TSW, as well as their own content. It really doesn’t matter how much of an involvement they have had with WCML because the route is a DTG route and all criticism should be aimed at DTG. And don’t do something as silly as calling for DTG not to use Rivet. You will be ignored in the same way you would ignore someone who called for you to switch barbers because they think your hairstyle is rubbish. We are only one step from demanding to know the names of the individuals who made the scenery so we can have a pop at them on their facebook pages. It’s getting silly. DTG is who you buy the route from, and you can say you don’t like it, point out its failings, but don’t be asking for them to out Rivet as the culprits for some dodgy scenery or whatever. It could have been Skyhook or another company that we don’t even know the name of. It doesn’t matter. It’s a DTG route. They can work out how to improve things without us calling for the heads of dodgy devs on a stick.

 

I respect what you're saying but I disagree.

No one is demanding that individual people are called out, and no one wants peoples individual names, and no one ever will. That is a very exaggerated example... The jist of it is, this particular developer has a reputation for poor quality work. Why would a company even consider using them for something so complex as the WCML and for a new flagship route? Them (Rivet), as a company, have a track record of very shoddy and poor quality work.

More disappointingly, if it is proven, that DTG have ignored the communities historic feedback and very vocal criticism of Rivets work and outsourced the work to them, allowing this shoddy work to take place right under their nose and allowing it to be released with barely any quality control in place, then questions within the company definitely need to be asked, and moving forward this should not be allowed to happen. There is nothing wrong with outsourcing work, but (and again, if proven), to hand a very complex project to a company with an evident track record of poor quality work, was completely irresponsible on DTG behalf. DTG are solely responsible for potentially (if proven) allowing the WCML route to be released in the current state it is, and having this in the state it is as a TSW5 launch route, is a shambles.

Players are annoyed at the companies and not the individuals, and people can clearly make the distinction between the two.

 

I think I have got to the bottom of the 350 formation situation. I re-watched the preview, and it looked like services on the fast line (Birmingham New Street, Crewe), had 8 coaches, and services on the slow line (Milton Keynes Central, Tring) have 4. The other 350 variants must be added, or the numbers of other variants added to the 350/1 until the new variants can be made.

 

For one thing we dont only get /4s and /1s on the BML and that ECR to MKC service is more realistic/adds more realism to that said service and route. And then are able to hop on to the WCML and drive the /2s on to MKC/WFJ which makes more sense before you know you suddenly have a pantograph out of nowhere.

 

The only benefit would be a rarely seen pantograph and different numbers. That's it.

Too much work for too little gain.

 

suppose so? Though with the success (can it be said as that? I have heard from a lot others that the route is good/decent due to its busy-ness) of the route, I dont think it will be on the piority list of remasters.

 

I was wondering whether panto-less 350s might be used as AI 450s around Clapham. That would make "The Junction" a more interesting spot.
Otherwise, most of us North of the River types hardly notice which sub-class of the original 377s we're on so adding /2s to the BML seems like a low-priority if the BML is updated.

 

This is all conjecture, so why are you working yourself up into such a lather about it? If DTG had directly hired all of the Rivet staff and got them to do this route, would that make any difference to your feelings? DTG can hire or subcontract to whoever they like, within the law of course, and it's got nothing to do with you or me. This is equally true of feedback: it's great that they ask for it but they don't have to listen. The only control we ultimately have is whether or not we choose to spend our money on the products they produce. I know people hate hearing that but it's the truth. If you ultimately spend your money on TSW content, then live with your choice. You of course have a right to be unhappy with it - and if it's not fit for purpose, then you have recourse in the law (in the UK anyway) - but no one is forcing you to spend your money on this stuff.

 

It would definitely make it feel busier, although they'd presumably have to be unbranded SWR or maybe Stagecoach/whoever owns the South West Trains brand would be willing to license that but I doubt DTG would be willing to pay and tbh that would be wholly understandable. For PC editor timetable mods though where licensing isn't an issue it seems like a good idea assuming portals are set up on that side of Clapham.

 

This Rivet thing is starting to become like Roswell. If your car misfires because there is a problem with the ECU made by Bosch or Denso, you don't go out of your way to contact them and complain? No, you walk your ass around to the front of your car and you look at the badge on the front of it and you contact whoevers name or badge it is, Ford, VW, Skoda, BMW etc. From where I am standing, this has DTG in big bold lettering on it, makes zero difference about the parts or who was involved, DTG are 100% responsible to quality control it, period!! Stop trying to divert the blame off DTG, they signed their name to it, their problem.

 

No ones forcing me to buy it, so you are correct. But what is frustrating, is it would seem such a backwards move in the evolution of the game. Every series has a level of progression in terms of standards and immersion, so to do the opposite of that is a move in the opposite direction for standards.

DTG can hire who they want, but hiring a company with a history of poor quality products isn't fantastic idea. And if Rivet staff were taken on by DTG I guarantee they'd flourish and be able to bring their work upto a better standard. But at the end of the day DTG have signed this off so the buck stops at them regardless of who made the route.

As I've said in the end of my other posts, DTG are the ones that have a lot of questions to answer for allowing this type of thing to happen regardless of who made it. Although we do need to acknowledge who actually made it to make sure it never happens again and so standards don't fall if any other routes are outsourced.

 

No, it is not your responsiblity or job to track down who did what. DTG's name is on the front of it and it is down to them to quality control their own product and manage it. Our job is to give DTG feedback on their product, so they can address the issues however they see fit. (Or not)

 

Not only substandard, but support nonexistent, essentially Rivet produces abandon ware.

 

It's not the first Sub standard WCML South DTG have signed off. I suspect the dev time ran out and the powers that be said its got to be released. They hope enough of the wow day one crowd will bite as will yes I hope there is a patch crowd.

 

I doubt very much that the leak helped. We know of one area of possible fallout - the LNW licence - but how many other fires had to be put out that involved unexpected changes to the code/assets? Also, with the leak likely to have come from a beta tester, which would have caused major distractions and trust issues, how much testing ended up happening in the latter stages?

 

I wish the route were longer like ts classic. Yes a lot of man power but flipping heck would be a dream to have it. Thank God we have 3rd parties like JT who make up for it

 

People tend to miss the obvious here. In one breath they say it'd take too many man-hours to produce a longer route, then in the next they point out 3rd party devs who are doing exactly that, apparently without issue.
DTG are all about churning out DLC. I've no problem with that but let's not pretend it's not what it is..

 

Exactly that. Even if the routes came in installments, and were built upon bit by bit I would buy it. Mainly because I want something long that will last me and entertain me for hours. Really don't care if it's 5 hours long the route. Saves money as well as I can occupy myself with one for a while.

 

Well - I believe it is not that easy. JT produces one route a year ... I don't think that DTG could afford that. Secondly: The longer it takes to build a route, the more expansive it is going to get. So there has to be a sweetspot of production length and affordability.
Having said that: The argument against the London portion of the ECML was the same as for the short WCML. Time and complexety.
But I think there could be a way around.
Man if they could solve the route connection problem, they could sell them part by part. So instead of wasting time and manpower on the silly suspension thing (there I said it, it's silly) or on the route hopping feature, they could have opened a way to profit from shorter route segments. These would be the improvements I wish they would invest in. They built short routes anyway ...

 

Yep I just long for a first party route truly end to end. No ifs or buts. I think Matt said its something to do with the tools to build the routes.

 

Now to be fair, R***t are at their best with the Swiss narrow gauge routes, and I deliberately took a trip on Bernina Line this morning just to remind myself that they do have talent. Just not for UK routes unfortunately. Saying that, the 2022 Island Line is a pretty good effort. If they are to have a continuing future with TSW however, they should stick to what they do best and keep away from UK content until they have the internal expertise to pull it off successfully.

 

If there is one thing I want from the future of TSW is to see the likes of ECML and the WCML extended. Both routes can be added to in any version of the game. I do not think for a moment that you could run a single trip from Glasgow to London because of PC and Console limitations . However it could be done in stages and therefore driven in stages by linking timetables.
JT version of WCML is set in the 80's so there will be no conflict. I'll still be buying it regardless.

 

The next step is seeing DTs response to the issues next week and seeing the player feedback from the early access that goes live on Thursday evening. So will have to see what those two things bring.

 

I suspect we're in for a mixture of things that weren't shown because it was still a WIP version of the route and things that need more time to fix.
I am hoping the LO timetable was a WIP issue, I think the active pantograph and first class being at the wrong end of the 390s will be a release date or slightly later fix.
My main concern is the weird lighting at Euston. DTG were aware of the false tunnel effect at Jamaica on LIRR but haven't fixed it yet. I'm hoping it doesn't take so long to sort on WCML because that 390 at Euston looked awful.

 

I wonder if we shall see the response before the Frankfurt preview on Wednesday.

 

Yes, I reckon DTG will respond more substantively by Tuesday close of business.

 

I think DTG have already said they'll be minimal changes between the stream version and release version. It's earlier in this thread but the phrase "expectation management" was in there..

 

Yep and that's one of several reasons I won't be buying WCML until either improvements are made (Suspension/missing services etc etc) or it's reduced in price.

 

I just want it fixed, I'd reserve judgment until we see Frankfurt if I were you. They really need to be working on the route timetables, the lighting and the vanilla track. I just hope that WCML is not the "Runt of the Litter" come launch day.

 

just like the TSW2 content packs

 

Personally I'm hoping WCML will be the runt of of litter, the last thing I want is for Frankfurt to be equally disappointing.

 

I'm not wanting to share the disappointment, there are a whole load of folks who are not happy at all with WCMLS for many reasons. Lets hope DTG get at least one route well received next week. We have already suffered Fife Circle in TSW4 that had to be rescued by the good folks over at Train Sim Community and their Mods.
Waiting to hear what DTG have to say in their statement next week.

 

I have both ATS and ETS2 and I'm sure you know their maps are not 1:1 scale as TSW is. SCS do a far better job with their asset creation, scenery and lighting. I'm looking forward to Arkansas next week, and Greece TBA.

 

Source?

 

The only concern I have to date on the German route, and it's a very small one is the DB Vectron running numbers from screen shots released so far.
DB Vectrons in the 193 series are all in the 3xx range real life. So far all I have noted to date are in the sub 100 range in the press release screenshots.

 

*DTG and Rivet sitting on a park bench*

DTG: “do you want to make WCML?”

Rivet: “sure, I’m down!”

DTG: “Okay, just don’t make it too obvious you did it, also, make it high qual-

*rivet has gone*





basically the conversation that happened

 

Ah, yes I know who you mean. There are so many acronyms used here I locked onto the first one I recognised.

 

And who is responsible?

 

to make a very very long story short, we dont actually know for sure, its speculation,,,

 

Let me clear that up for you DTG.

 

26 pages .

Especially if its known to be a very high awaited route, suggested dozen of times, then as a developer of such a route, you have 1 job to do .

Its really not important who makes the route or dlc, but after the preview people should be excited to finally drive the route they are looking forward to. After JTs preview stream i was "wow" all those detailes and variety.

So here now with the UK flagship route, players are annoyed, because its once again not up to TSWs standard. I personally dont think its visually bad, but going lazy with the timetable is a bold one. Same for the false promises with the suspension.

You failed epic DTG, this thread should be 26 pages of excitement, instead its pure annoyance of players, willing to pay!! for a solid dlc.

 

Some of the earlier maps in ETS2 are pretty poor, but of the more recent, Iberia is my personal favourite. I have to say ATS is a much more consistent experience quality-wise and for me the US highways are more suited to "windows-down-radio-on" cruising; it's definitely my go-to truck sim. During the summer I managed to catch up with my Steam achievements to 100% them both, but some of the last few ETS2 ones were a real slog!

 

Agree ATS generally is a better overall experience especially when you get off the freeway.

Of course art imitates life, driving the UK in ETS2 (with or without ProMods) serves to reflect how awful and primitive our roads are compared to other parts of the world IRL.

 

Off Topic but as a big ETS2 fan I've been having a lot of fun with Star Trucker.

 

IF the route was made by Rivet, I hope ongoing responsibility for it lies with DTG going forwards, as I have more faith that they would go back and correct things than Rivet.

This is especially true for the timetable, there is only one Joe and it's right that his talents are focussed on the upcoming US route, but Rivet didn't even bother with a complete Fife Circle timetable and Euston was always going to be way more complicated than that. To many people the single biggest selling point of TSW is having a true to life 24 hour timetable, the 710s taking a 90 minute lunch break is unacceptable.

We know Rivet is capable of delivering good content, Berninalinie for example, but complex timetables are definitely not their forte.

 

What's green, hops around and keeps going Rivet Rivet Rivet Rivet Rivet!!!!

 

One of the amphibians that live in the celebrated Forest of Cornwall?

 

I'd be very interested to see the feedback from the pre release Ambassador streams on YouTube. Although it's been quiet on that front and I've not seen any mention of upcoming streams? Unless anyone else has seen anything?