(this post was born as the response of me and some friends to the comments for Gameplay - Publish On Nvidia Geforce Now | Dovetail Games Forums but it changed into some general feedback we wanted to say in this forum for quite some time now) PLEASE READ THIS TEXT BLOB TO THE END BEFORE COMMENTING AS MY FRIEND AND ME DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME TO STRUCTURE THIS POST AS WE WOULD LIKE TO SO IT DOESN'T LOOK THAT ... Have fun and as always i encourage you to just put this text blob into ChatGPT and let him do the reading of this mess. This is just some feedback to the devs which we hope they take seriously. It would already be win if at least one of them reads this. We packed some of our disappointments and ideas into this post which we would might at least a little impact the game we all love. If you see the game: - What is it? It's not a simulation as MOST trains have like 60% percent of the buttons and features disabled or buggy. And it's not really a "Gameplay"-game (i hope you understand what i mean), as most of the scenarios are just copy past 400 plain duplicates with the only difference beeing that you don't drive the full length but 80% for example or that you drive reverse. - The devs only create more and more scenarios which they can sell instead of focusing on the many bugs the trains and tracks have but which they can't sell directly - Per patch the address like 10 minor bugs with often only very little impact on the game and leave the majority unpatched - If they launch a new map it maybe gets 2 or 4 patches where it gets like 1 or 2 very minor fixes and then never get touched again. So they just rot away but instead of improving them they just launch the next map with generic timetables and like 5 meh scenarios. - The game could be so much more if they'd focus on quality over quantity - There are some very wired decisions they did during development which just don't make sense: Some train models of the BR class ... are included with multiple maps but feel different from map to map with a new tutorial for this train which is like the other for the same train but with some minor changes in what they explain and how they explain it. And the models have lightning differences between map A and B where there shouldn't be with screens looking muted in map A but shine in map B. With front lights beeing nearly invisible at night but still cast a very bright light 2 m away from the train but in map B they work just fine. This seems very sloppy. - The animations of the driving models feel very static in to many situations by not adopting the the tracks or just normal game physics as they should - There are soooo many spots on the maps where the terrain under the tracks just overlap the track object/texture. This isn't a open-world game, the map only focuses round a few tracks but still the devs missed so many obvious overlapping textures which of course cause overdraw on places where it doesn't have to. - These discrepancy between the terrain and the tracks make the physics of the train "simulation" really feel way more static and unrealistic as you drive through terrain which overlap parts of the tracks and train trains doesn't even notice at all. Not even some animations of the wheels that bug because of unexpected change of the track. Why?, because not part of the "simulation cares" To be clear. I still love the game and are thank-full for the devs for creating this price but especially because of this and the lack of competition me and my friends are really frustrated about the (sorry) wasted potential that could this game really have if there would just be a shift in focus from quantity to quality and polishment of what already exists. So you don't have this wird situation where you play 200+ hours then enter the intro to the Munich-Augsburg map and the game starts explaining you how the controls work, how you move and what the HUD means. (also this tutorial is really broken concerning the ICE intro which really isn't built for the TSW4 revision). I just doesn't get in our heads how they develop a simulator which is based on levels but then only focus on content quantity and minor patches than focusing on getting the simulation A+, like that flight simulators did for decades (look at X-Plane, MS Flight sim, or something completely different Farming Sim 22), and on connecting the experience between these levels for the user experience and their overall game state. I'm sad to say that the game currently feels to use more like a Roblox for train routes that like a Train simulator with cool gameplay. (and just a note at the end: why does a sandboxed game is called "... World" but includes duplicate parts between sandbox levels that aren't connected, most of the world is empty of filled with out of place houses that aren't really integrated into the scenery and vehicles driving on roads like they were on rails. I know this post unfortuneatly sounds like a rand (we are all not native English speakers and don't have the time to carefully rewrite each sentence) about a personal opinion. But that isn't meant like that. We love the idea of the game and many parts how the devs implemented them but especially because we like this game, we care about what the dev team behind it makes out of it. And if we think about it. They essentially make the game for us as community as we are the ones paying them. And at least we as group would continue supporting this work by buying content but we also feel like at this point that they took so many paths (decisions) that really go in the opposite direction of what many of use love about this game and the idea behind it. And before someone response the default comment about we don't really know what we are talking about blah blah blah. I just want to respond that 2 of use have years of experience of software development also with teams smaller than the one behind this game and also did some game dev. Sure there might be some parts where we there are very good excuses for what we mention but overall the arguments are the same and should show the core: "quantity over performance" aspect of the game and the huge potential behind this game that this leaves behind and we would love to experience in a polished state and can't be fixed by just adding more and more DLCs while letting the others die a silent death. Cheers
(just two additions: - There is always an issue regarding passengers (not only robotic buggy the animations of the boarding we all love). First they are way to less/few of them. Second may be a bug but we almost always have a full train when doing one of the back to depot trips but if we drive normal schedule of often have empty cabs) (And how long did it take to make unreal engine fold these houses in the background? (top right hand corner) )
