General North American 3rd Party News (non Dramatic Version)

Milepost's last word was that their route was in qa, and knowing dtg that'll be a black hole for a good few months.

 

Meanwhile enjoy Powder River Basin and KCS Shreveport

 

Does anyone have this route mapped out in google maps ?

 

Nonsense! Another trip down Donner Pass with you!

Screams are heard.

 

Looks like some of the ancient Kuju assets got updated.
Also, some specific NP details seem to have been added to the Geep, a roof mounted swinger bell? Now get rid of those pure white headlights, it isn't that difficult ...

DTG's QA? Hopefully, it will lead to more improvements to route, assets and rolling stock.

 

DTG's QA doesn't care for headlights and such, they still do not in TSW. They are testing gameplay. Does the route crash, if no, ok. (This is no sarcasm btw)

 

DTG's 'testing gameplay' doesn't instill much confidence in me either. Running through each and every scenario? Each and every of the supplied Quick Drive paths? Nah, those are left to the paying customer.

Isn't DTG's QA more about not crashing the Steam Store, to avoid liability claims? Even there, they've made gross and stupid errors in the past ....

We'll see how these DLC evolve.

 

While I can't comment on testing, I can say that individual testers most likely playtest various routes and offer information on things that are not working. These are passed on to the team to fix. Unfortunately, if you have a release with, say, 200 different services, it is logistically impossible to get to all of them. Paying customers may indeed find one that the testers missed because they never had a chance to try that service. Testers do what they can with the time they have, especially given that the DLC is still being created and updated in the background.

 

Moan and complain. Rinse and repeat.

 

Have you nothing worthwhile to add to this thread?

 

Did any of the recent posters have anything to add to this thread? Moaning about the procedures and the company that provides us with the heart of our great hobby does not seem to me to be contributing anything worthwhile. Call me crazy if you will and I'm sure some will do just that.

 

Well, if you are asking us to call you crazy, I'll be happy to oblige. Whether it's crazy as in loony or crazy as in madly addicted to the game, I will leave that for you to figure out.

 

We still have no answer nor proof DTG is still committed to the improvement of TSC, the latest beta has opened a whole array of scripting problems.
3rd parties are still developing, some with more succes than others.
Rinse and repeat only applies to DTM, HIS and such, but perhaps there also is improvement in these developers?.
We'll find out when the DLC releases on Steam whether the longer development time resulted in more 'quality'.

 

I have a funny feeling HIS will eventually try to join the TSW bandwagon. Just call it a hunch. I honestly have no idea.

 

Uhh, they are already committed to a Santa Fe "Gameplay" pack and a route on TSW. But they haven't shown off any progress since announcing it.

 

HIS' specialty was scenario packs in TSC before he became manager over larger projects and part of RWA's staff.
So it makes sense, since we have Cajon Pass and the Santa Fe F7 in TSW.

What constitutes a 'gameplay pack'? A new passenger train behind the F7's, like Super Chief? Some zebra stripe GP units and a couple of slogan boxcars, or a blue bonnet F7, and a caboose to make up the freight train's end?

 

Gosh I didn't know we had a "staff" at RWA. There is just Bruno and me and some moderators. One presumes a gameplay pack is some scenarios.

 

Gameplay packs in TSW are usually reskinned locos that already exist in game, believe the pack is slated for the 90's, and the only locos predicted are the C40-8W and SD40-2.

 

That sounds like a great idea! Buzz can make his own thread, maybe he can call it “General North American 3rd Party News (Censored Version)”

 

Invade what thread? THIS THREAD IS ABOUT GERNEAL NORTH AMERICAN CONTENT!

Which includes being critical about upcoming content based on what we see about things, including DTG's slow Q&A being the reason Bozeman and Pipestone are being slow to release.

The world isn't all sunshine and roses, people will be critical on operations, poor quality and such.

If no one is ever negative about anything, how would anyone know that one bad update that DTG put out WHICH DELETED THE GAME.

"Oh oops, game deleted, its ok though cause we are gonna always be positive!!!!!!"

 

Why did you delete your post then repost it?

EDIT: Now you completely deleted it.

 

Guys, let sleeping dogs lie, please.

 

Well, if the moderators do not take action and sort out the usual trolls casting their bait, this thread will be locked again. I see no more reason to participate here, it's gotten too toxic imho and the only option is to ignore both of these "members". No discussion possible.

 

I'm a little puzzled that my post referring to moderators as "staff" was deleted, the reply deleted, and my reply to the quoted yet deleted comment was left to see. Didn't think there was anything wrong with that in the first place. I will accept that others have a different view, but I attempt to be cordial with everyone and I hope folks are not offended by my comments.

Since the rest of the chain was already deleted, I am deleting the post that was left there.

 

it seems like the HIS route is likely going to be releasing this thursday. Unfortunately the scenery and color palate still doesnt really look much like montana, but his gonna his I suppose

 

Colour palette is tinted by the used TimeOfDay files. The default DTG sky ain't the best

 

Yeah, you can add the AP sky to it.

 

Even with the sky issues, I still think the ground texture colors feel off, it just doesn't quite have the look of the alpine grass in the area imo

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/...ozeman_Pass_Livingston__Three_Forks__Trident/
HIS released their bozeman pass route

 

It is somehow almost 10gb, how? Can devs please optimize their products better than this I only have so much storage.

 

Maybe the large amount of locos and wagons included?

 

Still far too large. The entire game of Railroader, which has about 5x as many engines and about the same number of cars, as well as the game's entire code, is only 7.19 GB. This is just a case of horrible optimization.

 

Oh well, storage space is cheap and Steam downloads are fast.
I’m looking forward to hearing impressions of the route, it might be the first TSC route I’ve bought in years.

 

2009 game, so yes.

 

If it seems too large see if there are loads of junk files.. .bak .cost .tgt etc.

 

These wouldn't take up that much space.

This route has a lot of custom assets, high resolution texturing, and has no dependencies. Complaining about asset size is fairly ridiculous imho (unless you want to complain about something).

I've just tested it, it looks outstanding.

 

Definitely, especially as storage space is cheap

 

given how good many routes look despite being far smaller I personally think it's a very fair complaint, space is cheap sure but ts1 is a very space intensive game and 10gb for a single route just bloats things even more. Perhaps if it were higher quality it wouldn't be so much of an issue, but when you've got an already mediocre release taking up that much space it just makes me even less inclined to purchase it.

 

Not sure what you mean "high quality" but it surely is among the best looking US payware routes. I'm pleased with it. The usual DTM stock errors (wrong cab occlusion files), but largely improved on loco texturing now. The SD45 looks great.

I mean I've bought a large SSD to occupy it with good stuff, an empty disk is worth nothing. (AND Taurus mountains or NZ Midland line are also >10 GB btw).

And there is a reason for not using shared assets in payware, to make people not having to buy requirements. The route is self contained.

You get more data per dollar. Don't see the problem.

 

Seems there is always something to complain about. Better to have new product available to purchase (the individual can decide whether to spend money) rather than always HIS bashing!

 

Which somehow proves buzz's point ironically.

 

Machine Rail's WM I-2 is coming on Dec. 20th (including 2-bay hoppers and caboose)
https://www.machine-rail.com/post/w...5btATijSpcGbrg2pRw_aem_r7qmUHjlBxWITyBkmSaQ2g

 

Apologies, I clearly must only obsequiously praise routes now. My most sincere and heartfelt apologies. Clearly my frustration dealing with the managing the size of modern games (and ts1 releases) is irrelevant, I concede to your impeccable point good sir, we must all uncritically consume product, that is all humans should do as a species, consume, anything else is meaningless.

 

No need for pathos. You do not need to praise anything nor buy it. But there's just no sense in complaining about the lots of assets and them taking up so much space. Won't be changed, unless you prefer lowpoly models and 256x256 textures.

 

Just watched Schnauz s youtube review on bozeman pass he was not too impress with some scenery they did and other stuff ..not good seems even in tsc and tsw not good efforts being put into routes lately except Just trains route in TSW5

 

I've stopped watching Schnauz as he's expecting a first person train driving sim to look perfect from his useless aerial views and he's strongly biased imho.

I do like what I'm seeing so far.

 

ya i still will end up getting the route , he showed the tunnel portal he pointed out they took the viaduct in cumberland on moutain sub and used a arch for the tunnel portal even i noticed that ..it scares me to think HIS is going to do us stuff for TSW like santa fe pak and possibly a route they need to get it right cause we need some new good US freight and i hope HIS dont botch it.

 

Apparently HIS and Milepost shared tiles in the Three Forks area so that there should be some compatibility.

 

Just bought it. Only 2.31GB not 10 as discussed