Wondering when we might be able to get stations with passengers on it beyond the initial run. For me, the whole point of a train simulator, especially one with small branch lines, is that you could do a duty, for several hours, back and forth, swapping ends at the terminus. Nothing kills the immersion then doing a run with almost too many people on the platforms on the first run, only to turn around at the end and have no passengers on the platform, or entering or exiting the train. Everytime I open this game, I get frustrated and close it
They should give this more attention! I agree it breaks the immersion arriving at stations with no passengers at all , or driving a completely empty train . Also when arriving at a terminating station like Frankfurt in the ICE or even Fulda , and not a single passenger gets on or off the train! Sometimes feels like passengers are an after thought on some routes but getting them to work properly I think is essential for the immersion in TSW . Just feels like the developers have them way down the priority list!
It was a huge ask for the last iteration, they had that promo with the ticket blowing away and the passengers looked immense, only for it to say that it wasn’t in-game footage! If they release TSW7 without a significant improvement then they really haven’t been listening to the community and have really let us down. I for one dread to see what promises are going to be made but they really have to pull their finger out this year!
In the live stream route preview last night Matt, the Executive Producer at DTG, did say he hated the rubbish passengers in TSW. He’s either in a disciplinary meeting with HR right now because of that, or it was a hint that the passengers are getting an overhaul for TSW7. There are multiple issues with the passenger system. It does need sorting out. Hopefully it is happening, and properly this time.
To answer your direct question, yes it’s too much to ask for. I’ve got to hand it to people who think or hope improvements are coming, they possess seemingly unlimited optimism. The passengers have been a mess since TSW was created & it wasn’t really resolved when they did go back to work on them for Rush Hour. What DTG has done on several occasions is go back to give them new poses & accessories which shows where their priorities are with passengers. Given they haven’t tackled the most egregious problem (passengers routinely being hit by trains in game), I doubt they’re too bothered about the quantity & spawn rates. If they do make passengers a TSW 7/8/9 focus feature, it’ll only end up like the others before it - designed in a hurry, badly implemented & quickly abandoned.
To be fair yes I watched the stream and saw the comments . It’s nice to see they ( Matt) admit it’s not great , but they do need to put more effort in to fix it! I think it’s been below acceptable for a while . Also 200 passenger limit for passengers seems quite low , surely they could increase it , or even better make it an option in one of the menus to vary passenger density ?
Rip the whole passenger system out and replace it imo. Among many issues, one thing I've never understood is why passengers collide with the player character? Any kind of physics costs resources, and the collision doesn't have any positive benefit as far as I can tell.
DTG also missed a great opportunity to have passengers wearing football shirts during the World Cup. Perhaps we could've had passengers wearing the colours of the country where each route is set. Of course, for extra realism, all the passengers on Scottish routes could vanish 5 minutes into any run to represent how long Scotland were actually in the competition (I'll get my coat )
Would probably take years to get the licence from the FA/UEFA/FIFA. If Matt is unhappy with the passenger system, sorry to say he is the man running the show and should be thumping the programmer’s table and telling them to sort it out. Particularly the straying on to operational railway lines. Still really surprised none of the licensors have told them to sort it out or they will withdraw their agreement.
I don’t mean to be spiteful, but let me remind you once again that DtG published a survey asking us about our priorities for the development of TSW. It seems the TSW player community didn’t consider the issue of passengers to be particularly important. Plush dinosaurs to find and at stations are much more important. A model of ideal passenger behavior simulation was demonstrated fifteen years ago by two German students, the creators of the game OMSI: 1. Each stop has its own predefined minimum and maximum number of passengers boarding and alighting. 2. This number is further adjusted depending on the time of day and the day of the week (weekday or holiday). 3. Passengers arrive at the stop gradually within a reasonable time before the bus arrives. 4. Each passenger has a pre-programmed destination and can recognize the route number and the name of the final stop on the vehicle’s display. Each passenger boards only the bus that is heading to their destination. As a result, in OMSI, right after the bus leaves, the bus stop is usually empty (unless passengers are waiting for a bus on another line) , unlike in TSW6, where passengers remain on the platform and wait for the next train, which follows exactly the same route as the one currently stopped at the platform. In fact, in TSW, passengers don’t even board the last train of the day! After the last train departs, the platform should be empty. At TSW, after the last train has left, the platform is full of passengers who apparently intend to spend the night there. 5. Once the “NOT IN SERVICE” board is displayed, all passengers disembark from the vehicle. All of this was perfectly possible to code fifteen years ago for two German students. Today, I hear that this is an impossible expectation for a large, professional game development studio. Has this system been patented in some way by MR-Software GbR, so that DtG can’t copy it in TSW?
