Overpriced Loco Add Ons And Routes

exactly... I already had like 15 hrs of gameplay out of the new F59PHR... which is like 7x the runtime of a movie I would pay almost 10 euros to see at a cinema

 

Hate to mention Roadcraft again, but interesting comparison with pricing within what is now the same gaming group (Focus). Brand new complete game with multiple levels, vehicles and emergent gameplay plus preorder bonus DLC £34.99.
Route DLC for TSW £30 or even £33.

 

I just went and had a look at it and for the Standard Edition it's $56.99Cdn and the Rebuild Edition is $70.99Cdn and that's just the pre-order price.

 

Sounds like the old Steam territorial difference rearing its head again. Anyhow UK definitely £35 for a game that going by appearances will offer far more than the average DLC.

 

Playing the game on Xbox SX there’s rarely any decent discounts, especially for DLC I’m interested in. Saying that, I don’t really have that much of an issue paying full price if it’s a route or train I know i’m going to get many hours of enjoyment from.

The only caveat to that is having to pay full price for something that hasn’t been properly tested. I can accept the fact that DLC may need updates upon release, but let’s be honest - content is rushed out at the expense to the consumer. Reporting issues via the ticket system is a complete waste of time and rarely gets anything resolved in my experience.

 

Just a quickie re Roadcraft (there is a dedicated thread now in Off Topic). If you already own Snowrunner there is a nice discount on the pre order. Scroll down the Steam store page to find it, Should show £26.24 rather than £35. Now that is definitely cheaper than a TSW DLC and a good incentive to pre-order, DTG, lesson to be learned!

 

My Favorite TSW Era, was the TSW2 time. At this time, i bought almost every DLC at Day One on full Price. My last fullprice DLC for TSW that i bought is some years ago.

I was absolutly out of ordering more fullprice DLCs especially when the Price was increased to 35.99€ (dont know the Price in Dollars).

Yeah, i remember some gamers justify it with "inflation" and higher/increased costs for electricity and employees..and bla bla bla so on...

Yeah i have to say, my income is not increased either. So why spend money on higher prices?

DTG would sell more DLCs (and have more income) if the prices not that high like today.

I (and many other people out there) boycott much more products nowadays that i bought very often in the past because of increased prices and becausw of that bad bad "Inflation" *crough*... so i seen many Products gone...forever

Its ok for me, i dont have more Money...i can not spend more Money. Thats easy.

 

I wonder why NYT is still being charged at an absolute rip-off price despite the atrocious state of the route it is.

 

Same could be said for routes such as WCL.

Prices are the same for each route, no matter the quality. Pretty poor practice really.

 

Rapid Transit probably the worst example. I know there are relatively frequent sales (except for those poor sods on Xbox) but generally you would expect to see a general price drop on older content, once it’s been out a couple of years.

 

The problem with the pricing although to my tastes they can’t justify the increase - is the lowering of quality being seen.

Playing London Commuter, you can see the love. It’s solid, performs well, it’s busy and clearly has a lot of love poured into it for its time.

Playing Mannheim or Fulda or WMCL, there’s either missing timetables, poor optimisation which causes frequently micro stutters or in its worst form, crashes.

I was playing Mannheim last night and the stutters are crazy on Xbox series x.

They are simply not up to the required standard to justify the price. I’m also sick of seeing cars floating, not being able to animate properly when turning, missing shadows and clearly unfinished scenery. TSC whilst obviously using a much older engine, has way more custom scenery quality and a lot more dedication to detail.

I’m expecting stutters galore with this mildmay route.

 

Having tried and failed to run the Roadcraft demo, maybe it’s me but I can see the Focus mindset working its way into business at DTG. Publish and be damned, even if it’s not ready and has major optimisation issues and becomes a stutter fest. Oh and either stonewall the problems or blame the customer for not having a NASA super computer. I hate to pile on Roadcraft again but it totally beats me that a game which pretty much looks identical to Snowrunner can’t run on hardware that eats the latter for breakfast!

 

just saying. investing in TSC is much better...

 

It absolutely is not, as TSC hardly has any new developments. It's not completely dead, and it never will be, but it won't evolve any more other than a few 3rd party routes and locos per year. It's also not very new-user friendly, and to play one "good" scenario, you have to own like 7 routes, 16 loco/waggons packs and search for 3 hours some bush assets and download them from shadly-looking websites. Or even better: the link doesn't work, so you won't even find it. No, thanks. If you enjoy TSC more, that's perfectly fine. But i disagree a lot with you saying thst TSC is the better investment.

 

Depends on relative cost & what you want.

I’d say spending £300 on TSC will get you a much fuller experience than £300 on TSW.

TSC is more a full, multi course meal whereas TSW is more like a buffet.

 

I really adore TSC's variety. It probably will forever outrun TSW in this regard. If you want more variety than TSW offers, go and get Train Sim Classic.

However, TSC is sadly so different to TSW and not my type of game. The omission of timetable services, the disadvantage to not be able to walk around and explore trains and stations, the HUD design and last but not least the graphics is not something I personally enjoy. But still a good place to go, if you're looking for an experience TSW does not yet or can't provide because of whatever reason.

I sometimes wonder why DTG does not invest ressources into TSC anymore (to maybe change one of the things listed above). I guess most casual players (and not actually the hardcore train enthusiasts being in this and similar forums) these days are just interested in a game shaped of TSW, and not TSC.

Back to the topic.

Paying for quality and diversity. All of the work brought into the product up to release but also still in active developement (read the latest patch notes) is worth something. Expecting to get more features and support for an inferior price tag which is not related to the work spent would be unfair to the people who dedicated and still dedicate their lifetime for this product.

Developement for DLCs which appear to be standard can have higher costs than the costumer could think of (dependent upon the time spent or the people working on it) and is sometimes only viable for a certain amount of price. Otherwise the project might have been not completed maybe.

We at least got the ability to purchase the DLCs for the given price now (better than not having the opportunity for less price - if that makes sense). Noone forces anyone to buy on day one either. If you worry about the prices that much, just wait for a sale and get the DLC when you think its at the price which you think is appropriate for the product or when you can afford it.

Since you list the Expert 101 and 218 as one of your primary examples. Which bugs do they have which remain unfixed?

 

Not if you don't have a PC

 

But you can get TSW 5 with 3 routes cheap too.... wait until you want DLC for that game....

 

I love how "justify blah blah blah" is how you choose to describe "explain facts."
It's not like inflation is some conspiracy people are coming up with like a flat earth or moon nazis.
Are you sure there's nothing in your life that's more expensive than it was when TSW 2 came out?
Have you bought food lately?
Paid your light bill?

 

Let's just say it's not "user friendly."

 

TSW is just so much more advanced graphics wise and on an interaction level. TSC has, however, prepared me for the stuttering and sound popping we live with now on TSW - I think I would have struggled to deal with this had I not got used to it for years with TSC lol.

 

And given TSW has a large console market, I doubt many have a PC that could cope with it.

 

Rapid Transit would be a better example, but I couldn't really form an opinion as I touched it maybe once 6 years ago and never again.

I do agree though, the older a route (or any DLC for that matter) is, it should decrease in price. Especially when compared to better, more detailed routes.

 

Sadly it really isnt user friend. that I do agree when I first try and play TSC.

But it does take time for just getting use to the game makes the game a bit more worth it. I mean hey, the routes in TSC doesnt end in the middle of nowhere, unlike TSW... and just much more varied. Although 3rd parties are over prices at least its worth it in terms of just once again varied.

 

Let´s put it this way: if you are starting with TSC today, it´s not worth it and a big mess. If you´ve been building, collecting and modding for ten years, like me, it´s a different story. I fully understand why people would not want to switch over to TSC at this point in history. It´s a huge mountain to climb.
TSC is all about third party and modding... if you only buy a couple of vanilla routes on Steam and compare them, TSW is obviously superior.

 

instead of release new TSW version every year why not try to bring one version of TSC to consoles

 

Because TSC has really old code and a completely different engine. You would need to adept a 15-year-old game engine for consoles. The effort is way too high for the few people who would be interested in playing TSC on a console.

 

The engine is not built for consoles and trying to add the functionality would break every dlc and would need to be rebuilt. I don't think dtg and 3rd parties/independent developers are willing to remake them. There's probably a thousand dlc which would just not be profitable or realistic to achieve

 

Pretty sure the inability to port TSC to consoles is the whole reason TSW exists.

 

I think that's what they said yes. And there's a LOT more third party content, much which of it not made anymore that would be unusable. TSC has always been about the mod community, so not having that on console would make it...TSW basically.
Minus the extra features.
TSC is where it belongs. It has it's place. And to be fair, it's not that "cheap" compared to TSW either. It's just different.

 

It’s expensive, but it is how it is, DTG have a business to run. End of.


If the quality is good, and aspects of the route are great, it’s probably worth it anyway.