I’m fairly sure DTG and especially their employees do genuinely care about the game and want to create the best product they can and probably a lot of factors like deadlines, staff numbers etc all play their part in routes having to be rushed for release. It wouldn’t surprise me if the decision to make TSW5 a free upgrade was directly a result of the incomplete state of WCML and seen as a way to soften the blow perhaps? As others have mentioned the deluxe pre order deal is still pretty decent, even with the issues (clever DTG). Just have to hope they take the majority of this criticism seriously and keep working to improve it in the weeks post release.
I will be watching the Frankfurt stream intently this evening. If it matches with what I consider to be important in a sim I will buy the regional pack. If it falls below my expectations it will be the Free starter pack. I will not touch WCMLs until serious improvements have been made on all the points raised on the forum since it's Stream went live. I have only been playing TSW since April this year, I have spent loads of money so far. This launch of TSW5 has left me wondering if I made a mistake investing so much. The mistake of DTG has been to release upon its loyal customers an unfinished product with the expectation we will all buy it whatever on a promise.
The Bakerloo timetable seems ok (ish). The Overground timetable is by far the worst offender, with less than half of the IRL services being represented. The 350 timetable is a little under but not so much that it’s really an issue (will expand on this below), however the majority of the services appeared to be 4 car which is completely incorrect as they are overwhelmingly 8 car consists, with only a couple being 4 or 12 car IRL. There are also things like the (if I’m remembering the stream right, it’s the Tring) services being all stop runs whereas in reality these are semi-fast. The 390 again seems fine, however there was no clarification in the list Alex has provided as to what’s going on with AI. If AI was included in that then there’s a problem. Now, the above all pertains to playable services, the route has a cataclysmic lack of AI going on. There are sizeable TMD & sidings on the run to Euston & they were all far too empty. There is nothing in the way of rail tours which aren’t uncommon on this section of track, nothing coming over from the ROG37 which is a frequent visitor of the TMD’s on the line & no 08’s which again are almost always out & about. There is also no RHTT going on. Im not a fan of the bending reality when it comes to adding diversions & fake railtours etc, but there is more than enough stock within TSW to flesh out this timetable & still keep it more realistic than other routes in the game.
WCMLs ""Class 66 – 38 Services"" As someone who generally drives freight this is disappointing given the huge number of tracks, sidings, loops and depot locations that WCMLs features. If services start at 5am and finish at midnight that's 2 per hour on the entire route?
To be fair on the section we have, there aren’t really any bits where you’d see 66’s stabling/staging. I think there is one yard near Stonebridge Park (or maybe Willesden) where you’ll see a few static rakes being held. Whilst it is more common to see a container rake along the line, in the weekday you probably aren’t seeing more than 2 an hour & certain times, none at all. There’s a few tracks yes but generally they’re all in use for commuter stock, so it’s still very much a case the freight fitting in where it can. Mostly this end of the WCML is a bypass for runs toward the Container gateway.
My thoughts are that if enough people say they are not happy and refuse to buy, then the more likely DTG will be to fix it in the future, it's the age old way of dealing with a problem like this. Say you go to buy a secondhand car and a tire is flat - do you hand over the cash? Of course you don't, you wait until it's fixed then you hand it over. I'm refusing to buy TSW5 when I can get a free upgrade because the only route I really want is WCML. When it's sorted I'll buy it. If it isn't then I'll wait a year until it's on sale at a decent discount for what it's worth in it's current state. But at the end of the day it's up to each individual how they spend their money.
Not only that if it is indeed Rivet, that's two timetables they need to improve and two routes they need to improve overall. It's now September and Fife hasn't even been sorted yet either, so if indeed the mantle is on Rivet, you can probably expect updates for WCML at about march/April next year. If they bring that forward, expect Fife to be pushed back to accommodate.
Trouble for me Vern is I live in London and know this route very well, how the LO 710's are the most significant runner in timescale out of Euston. To relegate them to one every 90 minutes destroys the immersion for me and likely others that know the route. It's no longer a simulation but fiction. You could say that 2 routes saves you money of course, if you want them which is cool. But I don't want to be seen supporting something I feel so strongly about. When the 710 timetable get reinstated as is, I will buy. If it doesn't I'll wait until it's on deep discount just for the other units really. It's a crying shame as I was so looking forward to this, but TSC's WCML is really good.
The thing that still annoys me, is anytime that Rivet get any criticism, you will get this undertone of them looking for sympathy. I've never seen them take any accountability or come out and say "look we know we can do better in future and aim to improve 'XYZ' areas of our work". (I'm not talking about small patches, but the overall work in general. Its like a copy and paste with every route)And they genuinely can not see their mistakes. Instead they just march on making the same mistakes without any thought for the general feedback that they have received from previous add ons. And to add insult to injury, we get drip fed statements about the developers feeling hurt about the criticism. I just find Rivets repeated attempts to invalidate fair criticism quite distasteful, dismissive and actually quite provocative. My word of advice to them would be to listen carefully to feedback rather than have a 'throw your toys out the pram approach'. Skyhook are a great example of turning things around and look at their reviews now? I've not once heard them deflect or invalidate genuine feedback. Something behind the scenes needs to be said about this. Maybe it has already I don't know? I appreciate Alex making that comment off the record, but also be able to read the room, rather than think this is unnecessary and overly critical feedback. Its a back catalogue of previous mistakes that are still fresh in peoples minds and lead them to boil over when they learn of certain developers having participation in this project. 24 hours to go until we see the WCML in the flesh for the early access players. This will be interesting and show both the positives and negatives...
Thanks CK95 for taking the time to go through the timetable issues. It's seems that this route had potential to be really interesting in terms of being busy and to have quite a variety of stock on it. What a real shame.
I have a serious question concerning timetables… not question if they should be complete or not, but what difference does it make to your running a service. Since most commuter routes should be scheduled where there is little congestion if all is running correctly, a lighter timetable would mean you have a fewer meets along the route but should not affect the timing. Of course if the timetable would overload the route with backups and delays just from the sheer number of trains, then that is another matter meaning the route is over utilized. Besides have more services to choose from to run, the actual running of a service, besides the number of meets should not really be affected that much - Correct?
A small comment on this - there are 198 Tube services in the WCML TT but to represent all of the playable real-life services, we should be looking at more like 300 services (19 hours x 8tph north of QP x 2 directions = 304). There's also the possibility that if Rivet have simply reused their 1938 Stock timetable as has been postulated, some of the 198 services may literally be turnarounds at the Queen's Park shed sidings (I hope not but... confidence is now very low with this timetable to say the least).
I wasn’t planning to buy anyway, but it’s such a shame this route has been shortchanged, especially timetable and night lighting, which also ruins the night timetable that is left. I don’t understand why DTG gave rivet such a free hand on this knowing the amount of dissatisfaction on these forums about them. Seems strange.
To be fair every single rolling stock in this pack is missing services, I will say I didn’t think the BL TT was down by a third though. Some transparency on what went on with the TT as a whole though would be great, something fishy is going on with it & I’d like to know what it is DTG have actually done on this route, because Rivets fingerprints are all over almost every part of it. The UK team at DTG had to be doing something right? This honestly just looks like DTG are trying to trick me into buying a Rivet DLC.
Correct, but it is the meeting of trains that is the main issue. A place like WCML you should be passing/have trains passing almost continuously. That's the main highlight of the route. Without that it's not really WCML South. Look at Brighton Mainline, the entire reason it is popular is because it is busy. If only 40% of the timetable was there it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular.
this is exactly what happened with Rivet's Fife Circle. There were around 90 Class 170 services across the ENTIRE 24 hour period, yet if you looked closer some of these were simply 2 minute 'Glenrothes Shunt' services, making the actual number of proper services across 24 hours something in the 70 region. then Rivet updated the timetable with an additional 33 Cowdenbeath services.. yet one third of those were again 'shunt services' so despite saying there were 33 extra services, in reality only 22 were actually additional in-service passenger journeys. it simply cannot be denied that Rivet have produced underwhelming and disappointing UK timetables. They did the same with WCL, where not only did that not include the Falmouth branch but for some reason got extended to St Austell which added no real positive gameplay, but the timetable was incredibly weak.. including zero Penzance to St Ives trips, which exist in reality at the start and end of service. I'm not trying to upset anyone at Rivet or hurt anyone's feelings.. i'm just talking about the facts of mine (and many others) experiences of Rivet's UK timetables. I gave them the benefit of the doubt up to and including Fife Circle, but the timetable created for that was frankly unbelievably poor, and i'm holding out hope that when Leven gets added the timetable is significantly enhanced (credit to Skyhook for what they did with the new E2G timetable in fairness) The simple fact is that no developer, under any circumstance, can look at this flagship TSW5 UK route of WCML South and think for one second this timetable is good enough, because it simply is not good enough.. i still can't believe we're even still having this conversation, DTG for me really need to come out and tell us exactly why this is the 'final timetable', i genuinely want to know specifically why this is what it is
Oh I know the route quite well, albeit from the 1970’s and early 1980’s, the latter commuting between Northampton and London. (Cobblers!). Back then the DC Line was the rattling old Class 501’s, but still every 20 minutes in the off peak. Then in the morning and evening you had the through trains to and from Broad Street, also 501’s plus the through Bakerloo services to Watford Junction. In fact a period DC Line/North London Line would have been great in its own right, maybe not built by Rivet. What’s quite astonishing and DTG should really be taking note, is on the eve of early access instead of the forum abuzz with anticipation of the new version and content. Instead the determination to get the message across re WCMLS still dominates the discussion.
Very true, it smells very much of a lazy shortcut in this case. Instead of making the full solid timetable, (and cut it for gen8), its looking like doing the gen 8 timetable for all platforms to save time. Totally inacceptable!
Do DTG have plans for voyager or a new Freight locomotive.It could explain the gaps left in the timetable. It was the lack of suspension on the 350,72 stock and the 710 that has me disappointed personally . I'm aware that things go wrong, life's like that sometimes. I also wonder if recommended system specs are up to running the three new routes.Thats a real worry. I have about six months before I can build a new PC. I'm still looking forward to the route though and the American and German routes also. The pendalino and Vectron look good.
I had a look at that preview stream from a while back. It's a tiny thing, but I was gutted I could not see the old "HST STOP" signs at Euston. I always look out for them when I go to Euston, they are a nice reminder of the station's past.
Lets face reality and make a positive suggestion to DTG as an idea of a very much needed feature for TSW6. DTG should focus on bringing a solid timetable editor for tsw, so players can share their timetables on cc. What can i expect from a dev that is not even seeing a point in populating the empty sidings of a depot? Yes exactly, nothing. Different thought: was the "accurate timetable feature" dropped to save money and performance?
Considering the biggest gap is with the London Overground line I'd say that if they were doing something like that it would have to be making the North/West London Line and having a 378 included with that addon to then layer on to the WCML. Also I feel like they probably wouldnt make a Voyager since Avanti are currently phasing them out for their new class 805s.
BML is still one of the most enjoyable routes and its years old. It really feels like you are commuting into a busy London. the amount of traffic is insane.
That's not how timetables work in TSW unfortunately. They need to be simulated (which takes a long time, over an hour even on a great PC), so they aren't something that can be created in game.
Unfortunately as seems common across a number of routes, from the stream it appears they haven’t even bothered adding half of the current operational stop boards. Harrow & Wealdstone was one I noticed, as well as for some reason having two AWS magnets right next to each other which was glossed over quickly.
Exactly, that's why the route is so good, the traffic. If 70% of the traffic was missing, people wouldn't touch it.
DTG should no longer allow Rivet to touch WCML. It should be in house now. Rivet have been a disaster and should never have been tasked with developing the route in the first place.
Thanks for the replies. I'm still getting up to speed on current railway news.And I did buy the 700 thinking it would have timetable other than ECML depot to platform and the SEHS branches onward BML turned out to be another story.I'm up to speed with layers now. Bit spooked of mods at the moment,had a gigabyte install of FSX that had random stability ten years ago. I know there's a dedicated bunch doing good mods and paint jobs. 805 class; can that run the West Coast at design maximum speed ? Hadn't realised the underground layer/extension had disappointed everyone too.
It's all about the immersion, each route having it's own characteristics and flavour. WCML South should be choc-a-bloc with traffic, pulling you into your virtual train driver world, and making you feel you're there. Very much like London-Brighton which is a beacon of how a heavy commuter traffic route should be done (although not perfect, but what is). So please Rivet, leave the platforms lifts, bagpipes, and pianos behind and focus on the essence of the route; what gives it it's soul but out on the track. Look at a real cab ride video and besides the traffic you will see all manner of lineside clutter. Use your eyes and try to reproduce this in the game, it all adds ambiance and immersion to the route.
The thing that gets me with the poor timetable, is it really does come down to laziness by Rivet- that word gets thrown around unfairly, but afaik, building timetables is less about skill than time, attention to detail, and sheer determination- many many hours of fixing something, resimulating the timetable, seeing if something new broke, fix that, res-sim again, etc. The results we've seen suggest Rivet just didn't want to put in the required time and effort.
One suggestion would be to enable PC editor to export timetables and scenarios to creators club. This was suggested on a recent live stream. As they do not contain extra assets they may even get past the console restrictions.
I think the major problem is that DTG or whoever is pulling the strings has actually factored into their business model that TSW players are soft and they can take advantage of TSW players. That is what it seems to be were I am sitting and from what wcml is proves it. TSW4 arrived a complete mess, DTG spent months trying to fix it and there are still issues they will not fix. Then DTG launch TSW5 and oh this is in a mess as well and by the looks of it this will take months to clear up as well. Then TSW6 will arrive....can you guess what that is going to be like? And players get hurt when I try and advise them because they think I am attacking their "friends" at DTG or their way of life. I said it months ago in a poll, should DTG stop making DLCs and fix what is wrong with TSW4 and some players complained about that idea, but look where we are today.
To build on this, what really disappointed me about the WCML we're not fixing a lot of it announcement is there was no we are going to be all hands on deck to fix this and make it right it was just a oh well if we fix it. I personally would've had a lot of respect for DTG if we had an admission that its not up to standard, an apology and a commitment to fixing the timetable and them stating that all projects will be on hold until this is rectified. Pie in the sky here but I think they should also add the Abbey Line to make up for what will be a poor day 1 experience.
BML and SEHS have really good traffic which makes the routes feel alive it's a shame others can't be like that
[Deleted; Inflammatory - DTGHarry] Just for the record of those reading this thread, I couldn't care less if Dovetail went bust and folded tomorrow, It wouldn't make any difference to my life and they definitely ain't my friends, they simply make a product I want to buy......
Ultimately everyone will make their own minds up and I’m still weighing what to do. We have until the 16th to make a final decision whether or not to spend the £54 (or £34). However in noting DTG’s undertaking for post release fixes, some of us still have a rather dim view as to the state in which steam traction has been left with the company completely unrepentant about their actions.
SEHS is what WCML should've been. There's a reason it's my most played route to date, and pretty much the only one I touch.
Yeah, I am not a steam guy, I don't know much about steam, but even I am disappointed they dropped it. I love just having a load of locos to mess around on, steam included and they dropped it because not enough money, there is a red flag right there. Yeah, DTG have put everybody in this position, making it really hard to decide or warrant buying a broken game.
A lot of what you say has merit. We are too soft and easy for sure. I just wish DTG would check their subcontractors if they are going to farm out the work. If they'd of said it was being done by rivet then there would have been a riot on here and rightly so. Secondly they need to take longer on the three flagship routes upon which the standard of the new release applies, they cannot just be treated as normal dlc releases because they carry the next new version of the game. I wonder whether this years free upgrade was because they knew the state WCML was going to release in? It's not really that hard to get right once a year.
That can't even get acknowledged without a classic PR answer. We still don't know why that's been dumped the way it has been and swept under the rug. They won't even acknowledge that now. Unfortunately it seems like that is now the way DTG are set on doing things.
I think DTG needs to employ proper quality control for its products. Just because they are virtual doesn't mean they don't have to reach a certain standard of quality. Imagine FIFA releasing a mess such as this. Can you imagine it? Sorry folks we've missed a few teams out and a few others have last years strip. We will try and fix it later.
DTG have a hear no evil, see no evil policy. They are a business and they box clever or try to do damage control because it affects their bottom line. Players on here may not know how businesses work or think, but usually any comment they have had a meeting about it, how to divert, change the subject and so on. DTG have been caught red handed, but they can't or are too scared to come out and admit they made a mistake because it would cost money. The reality is DTG have done this over several version of TSW and it has got worse and worse, to the point even the loyal fans are saying enough is enough.
DTG probably don't even need to pay quality controllers, I would say a lot of players on this forum would keep DTG honest.
Someone leaked WCML earlier this year, access for beta testers was withdrawn following that, while WCML was still in development. A few months later, WCML is publicly revealed, and is in a poor state. Coincidence? I think not.
Didn’t Matt say in another thread they had a new batch of beta testers on tap? And even without beta testing, the management at Rivet (ha!) and DTG should have had ongoing close oversight of the route building process.
They dropped steam because they couldn't make the physics work properly in Simugraph (not to mention the AI audio) and didn't consider the time and resources necessary to make it work worthy of investment, despite having massively hyped steam as the pinnacle of TSW development. After taking a lot of heat from the community, they reversed the rhetoric and more or less blamed players because steam didn't sell enough. All in all a disgraceful episode of which DTG should be thoroughly ashamed.
