Matt has just done his first Koploper Service on this route, and wow. I’m impressed with what I have seen. I haven’t seen DTG make a route like this in a while! Scenery/Foilage - Scenery and Foilage for this Route is Fantastic! Certainly Much Better than The Cardiff Route, and I think is on Par With GOBLIN In terms of it. Locos - The Koploper for this route has been developed to a great standard! Sounds are on point and the running sounds and suspension are also on Point. And the SNG Sprinter looks and sounds just as good as the Koploper. Timetable - the timetable for this route is standard. and it’s very accurate! Issues/Gripes - may be a core issue but the view distance from the cab of the koploper to the track isn’t very good. I’m aware this is an issue across all routes, but it seems to be worse on this route. the cab lighting on the Sprinter looks a little funky to me? Not too sure though. This is Overall a Great Start to the Netherlands and is a ray of sunshine after the disappointing release of Cardiff Well Played DTG.
Not sure why you felt the need to start another thread when you could have put your comments in the existing thread!
It's a weird one... The route looks fantastic, work has clearly gone into this and it bloody well shows. The contrast in quality between this and Cardiff City Network is quite substantial. Fill in the blanks as to why that is... Will this serve as a lesson to DTG? That when quality and hard work shines through in their content, that well deserved pats on the back and sincere positive feedback will be given by the community. Of feedback, that was mentioned in the stream: Quality prevails and poor quality fails and comes across extremely sloppy and unprofessional. Simple as. A route might be in a really good geographic location, but if the quality is not there, its the quality that fails the route, and not a lack of interest by players, who will not be appealed by it's sloppiness and lack of immersion. And that is something that definitely needs to be learnt going forward... In regards to this route, it looks pretty damn good in the preview and hope it sells well as the quality and love shines through. I was very impressed, and the rolling stock is superb as is the visual detail to the route. I'm not to familiar with Dutch content so will be eager to hear Dutch enthusiasts how it holds up in their opinion.
It looks very good. The atmosphere of the route is very Dutch, which I like a lot. It is not perfect, but being Dutch I have the disadvantage to know well what it should look like. An example are the bikes. There are bikes and that is good, but in real life bike parks are overcrowded, with a huge variety of bikes, not the neat one or two types of bikes decently parked to the "nietjes"as we call the bike stands that are used. I love that the Vectro wil get ATB as well, this is very promising four further routes and for freeroam use.
Even Matt admitted in the preview stream that this route had more detail put into it than most DLC. So I wonder then is £30 the normal route price and £33 the premium price for higher effort add ons?
I don’t think there’s any wonder about it. Any of the £33 routes blow the vast majority of the £30 routes out of the water. The trains are always more unique & well made, the scenery goes beyond ‘passable’ & generally there’s good attention to detail, along with decent focus on gameplay. Compare this to CCN, even pushing quality aside, you have to wonder where they came up with the £30 price point for that & £33 for this. That £3 is buying alot more time & focus.
If DTG are charging slightly more for rolling stock and for their future routes to look as good as Zwolle Groningen, I’m all for it!
My view is that all their routes should look as good and play as well as Zwolle-Groningen at the standard price. When that is achieved they can talk about adjusting for inflation, extra rolling stock and the cost of tea and cookies etc.
Yeah now we need a Dutch route that’s a blend of network and express like Sehs. You could do Schipol to the outskirts I reckon, maybe even as far as Utrecht/Eindhoven though I believe you have to change.
I do agree with that. I mean I've been okay with the TSG and JT routes being that little more expensive because you do get more for your money and more importantly they get the basics right. JT for example we go so many additional liveries, timetable workings, layers etc. They even reworked the 47, 08 and 101 which were included with their various bits. You can tell the time and work that's been put in on top of all the fundamentals being to a really good standard. But we know from Goblin DTG can make a beautiful looking route. And the gulf between this route and Cardiff shouldn't really be as big as it is despite the £3 difference As you've said.
Of course the only caveat with the Dutch route is, the core issues are still there to spoil it a bit. Notably the stutters and sound squelching, though not as bad as WCML Shap which is still worst of all. And of course the ever present nuisance of just the one save game slot. More and more DLC but they just don’t seem able to implement this. Along of course with fixing the service chaining save/load bug.
That's the one that puzzles and maddens me. It really is as simple as programming gets once you have done saving at all: code a few storage addresses. Games, PC and console both, have had multiple save slots since forever, even big, complex RPGs with tons of data to track.
Given the number of times you ( and others ) have raised this issue, DTG's silence is deafening. Most recently it was ignored in the Dutch Q&A stream and forum thread. Multiple saves are so common in video games, even the cheapest, simplest ones.
Bought this route 2 days ago and I've to admit it very nice and relaxing, as expected. Haven't found any bug that's can cause me problem and love how the sounds are mixed! Good work DTG! Follow this road now.....
I’ve spent too much lately (and not just in TSW) so this will have to wait but, from the previews, it does look good.
Do you possibly know the shortcut to increase/decrease the train brake in the ICMm3? Im struggeling to do it fast when having to use the mouse.
After what we saw of the appalling 3D model of Cardiff Central station frontage on the Welsh route, Groningen gets this lovely 3D model: Shame on you DTG for the Cardiff route, shame on you.
Tbh the only reason I want cardiff is for the sprinters and to put a vote in for network/welsh routes.
now cos this one is so good (even with slight issues), ppl will now want more Dutch routes and trains... which is fine by me - the safety systems are neat enough to handle, the trackside signs are very clear and nice to read, you get stuff announced in advance as it should... overall comfort is high ... and I like the scenery, especially wind turbines segment, reminds me of Lower Austria kinda
Well the feedback from the Dutch route being generally very positive, what's the second act? It can't be another semi-rural, provincial route. Despite being a cut above any other recent DTG route, it doesn't have very long legs. A few runs on each loco and the little bit of freight having been done, it will become an occasional route to pull out of the toy box on a rainy afternoon, rather like ECML. The follow-up needs to be a much busier urban route out of Amsterdam or Rotterdam, with a more varied time table and gameplay with, perhaps some international running into Belgium or Germany.
I'm wondering whether to buy this route. I see a lot of praise about the quality, but the fact that there's nothing to do doesn't convince me. It's a straight section all the time. No challenges, no unexpected maneuvers... Or maybe I'm wrong, what do you think? Are there a lot of stops?
This route is well worth the money. There is no comparison to Cardiff Network, they are as different as Chalk and Cheese. Spoorlijn-Zwolle-Groningen is absolutely superb scenery wise whilst Cardiff is appalling and only slightly better than WCL, the worst route in the game.
Well it's very well built with excellent scenery, well drawn stations, interesting trains and, at least on my machine, runs very smoothly. Even the passengers are well behaved. And the night lighting, while not great, is acceptable. I can find no real fault with the route. But.......... It's flat ( that's why they're called the " low countries " ), pretty straight and a bit tedious to be honest. The ICMm runs pretty much non-stop. Haven't tried the Sprinter yet. And DTG has chosen to charge a premium price for what is a pretty standard offering. I bought it myself even though I wasn't happy with the price. Frankly, I think many of us were just looking for some quality after a succession of mediocre routes from DTG and it certainly provides that. How the same bunch of people could build Cardiff City and then this route is an enigma. Was this route in-house or outsourced I don't know? Was TSG involved to some extent?
I bought it. I did 4 courses and gave it back. Not my cup of tea, nothing happens, a piece of straight tracks with nice vegetation I think our expectations are low lately
It certainly has a TSG vibe to it, also wonder if any of the Dutch MSTS and TSC developers like Chris Trains were on board for some of it. Like you I baulked at the price but ended up paying it anyway, though as I expected after a few runs unlike WCMLOS it has started to get somewhat repetitive. Sat down at the PC yesterday evening for my pre bedtime gaming session and it was a choice between continue with the all stations run on the Dutch route, or wrestle my truck stuck in the mud with a tree wedged in the body side in Snowrunner Austria. Snowrunner won. I shall probably revisit the Dutch route once the April Mastery is revealed particularly if it’s a high mileage one again. But in terms of sheer value for money, so far I’ve probably done 6 hours on the Dutch route for £33 and 10+ hours on Austria for less than £5 and still got 75% of the missions to do. (Yes, it takes a long time to clear the tougher maps in Snowrunner!).
l personally don’t think DTG are totally responsible for the Cardiff mess-up. They admitted in the stream that Rivet were involved and to me the scenery is typical of a Rivet Route whereby they will make an excellent job of something like the Forth Bridge and then litter the rest of the route with boxes supposed to represent houses, which are similar to a child’s attempt to replicate a house. It is the same scenery you see in Fife Circle, WCL and every Rivet route. Shambolic Hopeless Inept Terrible What is disappointing is that no attempt has never been made correct their unacceptable work.
Didn't this company create Catchcart Circle? If so, after the remaster it's one of the best tracks in the game. So a track is not the same. In Cardiff, if you look closely, every house has a trampoline in the garden!!! I didn't know that Cardiff is a city of acrobats))
