Agreed, it is all well and proper fixing the minor things they have, and is of course appreciated, but I really think they need to grow the balls to take on the timetable and performance issues in some areas as a priority, alongside the things which, by now, should be standard features, such as OHNS.
It does mention that they are working on a large post release update and that these are only small updates. It does not say we are not looking at any further updates or you are only going to get these small updates, which some seem keen to assume. If they make a new timetable, which I have sneaking suspicion they will, I feel it is unlikely they are going to announce that straight away.
It may be already in highest priority, but it will require many testing routine to cover all possible scenarios. But instead these visual minor fixes can be tested and released quickly. So patient and faith.
Joe, who usually does the timetables is busy with other things so don't expect wcml to be improved any time soon. If there's anyone who can do it, it's only Joe unfortunately
Surely Joe will have a protégé? “Always two there are. No more, no less. A master and an apprentice”. If not it’s Weird that DTG would put their eggs in one basket; or is there a brain drain in the company I wonder?
Imagine if dtg could do everything everyone wanted. People would still be picking fault about why a tree on sandpatch grade had wrong leaf placement and then they'd equally be moaning no new routes in 5 years. Reality is someone gaslights and everyone focuses on a negative rather than a lot of the good. There's constructive criticism and then there's "how much can we milk a thread" Can't wait until the next enough is enough post zzz BTW, I'm currently inestigating wind direction vs speeds to check the clouds on high settings are blowing correctly. Don't want yo miss that bad boy. I shall then be moving onto checking render distance and lod for grass in the 80-100m range away from track for us. Saturday night, a bad comedy club alone delivering satire to the deaf
There is quite a difference between a few trees in the wrong place and not having neutral sections on an AC overhead electrified route. Or 25kv catenary that passes through the steel girders of a road overbridge. All indicate the route was built by people with a sloppy attention to detail and not much clue how the railway actually works. If this was freeware or the railway was cosmetic scenery like those in the truck games, omissions like that could maybe be forgiven. But this is billing itself as a “simulation” and now the honeymoon period is over DTG are asking £30 for this mediocre effort plus another £15 if you want the pretty much essential Pendolino to run on it. Just saying…
Fair. I guess my question would be for 90% coming into the sim who would know where the neutral part is in the real world . It's a flick of a switch more or less when you pass it. Missed, rightly, wrongly etc to what extent does it detract from the route . If a route in a brand new country had a neutral section of 60m missed that you or I didn't know about would we miss it..... What If run8 had a missing junction, how would you know, only through someone that lives the route. My general point is there are things that break a route, train doesn't start, unavoidable spads etc, not a small neutral section. Now before I'm hauled over the "badged as simulation shrine" , I agree with you. I also have a slightly different view in that for the most part the trains are simulated well and somethings we may have to compromise. There's finite dev time I would guess and we all beat our own agenda against the dev time, but calling it lazy etc I'd question is it..... unless, someone was asked to put it in, and they couldn't be arsed in which case I'd stand beside you with a 2hr refund window ajar Sloppy is also quite strong as I can imagine route builders who pick up on everything are rocking horse ship to find
Few errors around Watford Junction. WT3116 on the Up Fast is no longer there. It was removed at the same time as Watford North Jnc went live (Mid 2023) and as the Watford North Jnc shunt signals are provided this signal should be removed. If DTG want to get in touch I’ll happily provide more clarity on this for them.
I think the honey moon period is well over, we know DTG too well by now and we know what they are capable of doing and wcml is not it, not the standard by a long shot. Wcml is over priced for the quality of the route, what DTG should do is sell it at half price and ask players to trust they will fix it when they can, let DTG put their money where there silence is, no point in saying mouth really.
I have to say having played the WCML a fair bit now driving mainly the 350 , I don’t think things are quite as bad as some people make out . Maybe I’ve been lucky but most the runs I’ve driven I see a fair amount of AI , and things mostly work fine . Of course there is room for improvement regarding the timetable and various bugs , but I don’t think it’s very bad at all . I’m playing on PC I will say . However I would like to see the bugs fixed , which DTG seem to be doing . As long as they continue to fix things I think the route could end up being very good .
Indeed, hardly a peek out of anyone at DTG about this, even the EP has gone silent post release. As I’ve said previously an admission this isn’t up to the expected standard and a clear plan to fix the problems would create substantial goodwill in the customer base. And yes, the route should be selling for £20 or at most £25 if left in the current state with those of us who bought the early access getting a pro rata rebate or voucher off our next purchase.
Just wondering if there is any arcing from the pantographs on the 350, 377 & 390, or is this hit and miss feature another miss? I didn't notice anything on the preview stream.
They've were offered help with the route months ago and said they didn't need it as they had enough drivers that knew the route already in their pool of consultants. Personally don't think they do, as there are so many signalling issues and routing issues it's unreal.
Not seen any overhead sparks Scorpion Got fifty hours on the WCML so far, so I should have seen it. Performance of the route in general is not great after a reasonable kickoff, it's become a bit more stuttery.
I’m more Rand out of Wheel Of Time. Beware the One Power (and he becomes increasingly madder as the books progress!).
Positives Route is good more scenic than ecml. 350 eight carriage in timetable and a.i. 390 Lovely Seen plenty a.i. especially in the early morning. Negatives Timetable sometimes have to load it up twice before it works; Bakerloo, Lioness.This could be a third rail and signals bug. 390 a.i. not running to their operating speed Route needs optimising; it's rough and choppy performance wise. Could have more a.i., though performance on recommended system specs matters to me. Timetable at least double the third rail traffic,if performance is an issue.A compromise Timetable for freight is poor. No one on here, myself included knows what's going to be fixed. I'm sure it will be, depending how much work is involved, could be a while. Anyone else having a problem with the third rail timetable; stuck at a red or sudden loss of power? More than fifty hours on the West Coast, it's a great place to run. Enjoying it, and looking forward to it when it's patched and maybe even a dlc for the route.
Disappointing but not surprising. I thought they had created some sort of checklist. Surely if you are creating an electrified route, there are 2 things that need including, arcing on panto's and neutral sections - why is it we see these in some routes but not others? Some consistency would be nice, DTG are like Premier League referees.
This could be an interesting point, I know of a number of UK based, and not only games companies, who are really struggling to employ skilled staff at the moment.
Think in one of the streams Matt said there weren’t any. Except on underground stock they were added on the latest update .
If they'd said to community,they weren't happy with it, needs another month in the pot.I'd personally would have been fine with it. I can't speak for the others, that's the way I feel. I can give you two examples going way back.Gunship by Microprose delayed more than a year until they were satisfied,on the Commodore 64 no less. Digital Integration, Tornado, the Amiga version AGA specific was 18 months late. A month for a polish wouldn't have mattered to me. Just my opinion obviously.
Fond memories of that one. The Amiga version only had the scripted scenarios but I later bought the PC version which included the mission planner. It often took longer to plan than fly. And those JP233 runway cratering missions were white knuckle jobs where 50% of the time you got shot down, or ended so peppered with holes you couldn't land the thing afterwards.
Absolutely Vern, Good memories of how much things have changed.Hewson's Southern Bell remember that? How much Dovetail deadlines or even delivery of product is in their hands , not a clue . I know after the last three months, they do something that's unique in the market. I've invested heavily. A detailed simulation of the railways,no one does it better. Some of the rolling stock is a work of art. It's a reputation they should cherish, release schedules be dammed.
Just noticed a banner at the top of the main menu saying “more London Overground services now available”. Are there?!
There has been no update and they've already said they can't improve the timetable because the main guy is busy with other things
No, that's not what they said. Read it again, there's nothing about " the main guy ". DTG simply stated that they can't commit to augmenting the timetable and it should be considered final. " Joe is busy with other things " isn't necessarily the reason. Stop making things up and pretending that you have inside information.
If there's anyone who will initiate the wcml timetable, it's Joe. Almost all the timetable upgrades that have been made so far has been made by Joe.
You're doing your favorite trick of extrapolating. Unless you have inside information, you cannot possibly know if Joethefish is the only dev who can work on timetable upgrades. I would hope that there are others at DTG who know how to work on that aspect of the game. It would be worrying if there weren't.
I'd find it pretty ridiculous if there was only one person doing the timetables, given the number of DLCs released throughout the year.
Indeed. They would be in a pretty pickle otherwise if he decided to move on elsewhere or was off on the sick long term etc.
Don't understand why they didn't put their expert timetable creator Joe onto this in the first place. Surely a headline route like this would derseve it?
Joe can't be in many places at once. He's just one person after all. Dtg have other tt devs but they are probably busy working on the future content that was announced
The amount of London Midland content in TSW you'd think they'd be familiar with the services. Personally I think the TSW are so busy planning the East Anglian suite of routes for TSW6 they've had to put a WCML patch on hold. Oh, just noticed I've not had my medication yet tonight, hence my deranged suggestion of East Anglian TSW routes.
Sloppy isn't strong word. It's an appropriate word to use given the issues players have pointed out with this route especially compared to recent high quality addons. If they don't bother you, then that's fine. You and some others don't have high expectations and that is fine. But it is completely justified that after 7 years of this game being out, a core tsw route shouldn't have the issues this route has especially considering what we know DTG is capable of. Just because you may not notice something doesn't mean that someone else won't either. For a game that advertises itself as an authentic simulator, things like neutral sections which have been present in older routes should be in a route that has them and a route should be as close to realistic as possible especially at these prices
I'd ask again though, when you say as close as possible where is the line........ The line is subjective, and that's why I question what is important to some and not to others and usage of the word sloppy. It's sloppy to some because of something they've noticed, not sloppy to others because they haven't. It's good to many because it meets their basic needs, and not good to others because 90% is there but a tree isn't for example. There's many products, cars, tools, homeward etc we've all owned for years , still buy, that still aren't truly perfect, there are many that meet out basic needs
It’s a shame in a way that WCML(S) was part of the TSW5 launch package, as DTG evidently didn’t have the resources to make the scenery and timetable themselves, deciding instead to farm these out to “partners”. Therein lies their fatal mistake as the fingerprints of certain collaborators are all over this. If DTG had kept it in-house, I am convinced a much better job would have been done overall.
WCMLS is certainly poor when compared to recent DTG so called in house releases. Although short and not particularly dynamic in terms of enjoyment, both the Glossop and Goblin Lines were built to a much higher standard. So regardless of whether the route is made by DTG on staff builders or farmed out to the likes of Rivet, there needs to be consistency as regards standards. For a TSW electrified route in 2024 that needs to include neutral sections at the prototype location and avoiding obvious artefacts such as OLE through bridge girders.
