I wish dtg would commission these companies more to do parts of routes rather than a whole route on their own. We've already seen it work fairly well with routes like cathcart circle. Then each developer can play to their strengths. Rivets modelling is very nice and they often incorporate imaginative features so let them handle the physical models of infrastructure and rolling stock. Then bring someone else in for the physics and sounds like AP perhaps. Then let DTG or JT handle the core route building itself. If needed another fresh pair of eyes could run over it adding detail. Whoever did the MML update would be ideal. It seems like it would be a more efficient way to build and the quality would be more consistent and higher over multiple DLC'S.
Waiting for the sale is exactly what Im gonna do. Having bought the Goblin line only last week I have plenty to keep me going!
I got refunded for the route after that preview stream, I've given Rivet too many "one more chance" moments. I'm not buying another one of their products until I see some quality improvements that at least match the quality of Skyhook's Midland Mainline at a minimum. That's not just Fife Circle either, I mean all future releases from Rivet. That one response from Jasper about these "I know better comments" the other day basically showed Rivet's attitude towards any sort of feedback. It's not just him either, if you go on Rivet's own forums, you'll see they can be quite grumpy towards some feedback. Ironic thing is, a good handful of these users do know better as they're doing a better job playing around in the editor than a third party who's had access to it since the early TSW2 days is doing... DTG should really be doing a better job at checking any third party content to make sure they meet a quality standard, it affects the overall reputation of TSW as a franchise. Surely they should be more protective of that? Then again, DTG aren't exactly known for making good decisions (steam locomotives, US freight) so I guess they're also doing a good job of damaging TSW themselves... but that's another topic. I do wonder what Skyhook make of all this behind the scenes? They're making a 158 for this disaster of a route after all. Must be off putting for them.
Hopefully they have a “Plan B” either another route of their own that could take a 158 or a layer for another UK route, though hard to see one where it could readily fit in without being a fictional layer. NTP maybe?
There's only really Edinburgh - Glasgow or Cathcart where they could potentially use it. Not sure if the ScotRail 158's actually ran anywhere on the Cathcart route though. It's a shame Skyhook weren't the ones doing the Fife route, with Rivet doing reskinning and any needed modelling changes on the 158 for them. Things probably would've ended up much better that way around!
Maybe it would be a good idea for Skyhook to release a class 158 livery pack where the 158 comes in a selection of liveries/variations which can be used for current and future routes, they could do Scotrail, Northern, Tfw and Regional Railways for example. Of course such a pack would require more work than say Skyhooks Hsc livery pack (each 158 would need a different interior) but this way should any route that 158's operate irl release in the future but Dtg or any other 3rd party can't modal the correct version for whatever reason (working on a brand new train for example) then we'll have the 158 ready to go as an extra layer.
Shame Skyhook arent making the whole route. At least they are open to feedback and proactive enough to make changes/improvements to improve the whole gamer experience. That said I like the route but will wait to see initial feedback before deciding on a purchase
I reckon their best bet would be to do a sort of 158 livery pack as TSC gets, so it can layer into multiple places. Get perhaps the Scotrail 158 for this route as well as a Northern 158 to add some extra AI on Glossop, basically similar to TSG releasing the 628 in modern red purely for layering purposes. I've been honestly wondering to myself for a while why livery packs weren't already a thing. Licensing issues perhaps, but there's definitely no harm in future proofing an addon. It would certainly make these new routes with only a single new train much more tolerable.
I was so looking forward to getting the Fife Circle line but I've been put off by the amount of negative comments I've seen about it.
On Tuesday, compare the release to the actual life video Whilst Just Trains really concentrate on the accuracy of the trackside scenery, Rivet seem to fill the route with a lot of trees. When the route is finished l will be interesting to see how it compares to a real view cab ride video on You Tube. Which like this one, there are quite a few to get hold of. I cannot understand why Rivet who can do an excellent job of modelling the Forth Bridge and the Meadowbank Stadium, then are reluctant to model a trackside building or even replicate a house seen adjacent to the line, replacing them with either a load trees or an amateurish attempt of a building that a five year would make it look better with a drawing at school. What saddens me is every time Rivet release a route, there is a lot of critical comments. You would think they would either take pride in producing an outstanding accurate route or not bother at all. There replication of towns too, are extremely poor, Ryde in IoW and Penzance and St Ives in WCL spring to mind of their lousy misrepresentation. Certainly asking players for £29.99 for substandard offerings, is daylight robbery. I just hope to see on Tuesday a better designed route than that shown on the preview stream or I will only buy it at 60% off in a sale and then still feel I have been overcharged.
I am in the minority vote here but feel I should explain why; I've been looking at how routes are represented around the station I live near by to, (Waverley) and have done videos on some of these from the MSTS Capital Express add-on based in the 80's, TSC with Thompson E&G, and DTG Fife Circle, OpenBVE from Waverley to Aberdeen and I feel I need to cover the new Rivet Games representation of the route and stock. I do have plenty of concerns and mainly that I will get bored of driving at constant green signals with the lack of traffic. I will bee looking for accuracy and will do my best to offer constructive feedback once I've done a few drives on the route. I completely understand why the majority vote here is not to buy the add-on and perhaps if I wasn't a local I wouldn't be interested either. I think the preview livestream was very poorly done but as I'm committed to trying this anyway I may have useful insight to offer. I am not a DTG Ambassador, just a local with a non-monetised YouTube channel hoping that my initial impressions are wrong.
A report on the accuracy of the route would be very useful. I have lived on the St.Ives to Penzance branch line almost all my life and their representation of the route was amateurish and abysmal and an insult to the Cornish people. Although I contacted them about it, they never responded. On the Fife Circle route, as it is in their backyard so there are no excuses this time. I have also had holidays in Ryde and Shanklin and again their route replication was extremely poor. I sincerely hope that they have worked extraly hard this weekend and the release does not show as an insult to the Scottish people who like yourself reside in the area of the Fife Circle. Rivet unlike Skyhook, ignores customer feedback and normally overcharge for their substanded work. We shall see what the result of their achievement on Tuesday, unless they delay the release until it’s a please-able offering. What amazes me is that Rivet are not ashamed of any adverse comments and do nothing to correct them. If they ran a shop in the same way, they would have to close because of lack of business. I do hope Rivet get their act together and start to offer, the top drawer quality routes in the future, that Train Sim customers truly deserve for the money they invest and until they do, don’t buy their products. Perhaps Rivet will now work to raise the standard of their previously sub standard offerings, but somehow I doubt that they ever will!!! Finally I would have no quibble in buying a Just Trains, DTG or a Skyhook route but I would have no confidence in any route Rivet designed. As this thread is headed Just don’t buy Fife Circle.
Whilst what you say is correct, you can simply just refund the item if you're not happy with it. You still get your money back even if you play it but so long as you dont play it for more than 2 hours.
I voted no but if I am honest, I think this is all getting a bit old now. I'm not a Rivet fan boy by any means but whilst there was a lot of glaring issues, I really don't see much point in people kicking the horse which is already dead at this point. We are best seeing if they can deliver their fixes and take it from there. I have a very strong feeling that because DTG were going to do this route and Rivet have underdelivered, they are very likely getting it in the neck from DTG about making sure it is up to standard as it embarrassed Matt to some degree along with damaging the brand. I will say though, whether people will go back and check thats up to you, but there was a lot of things that I picked up skimming through that definitely should be taken into heavy consideration: There is at least one moment where Matt references that he had heard announcements and rail sounds in another build which supports the idea of him playing the wrong build. This could be a DTG or Rivet issue, even Jasper sounded perplexed. The factory which got a lot of hate, which was understandable, actually looked way worse due to compression/low bitrate of the stream. If you go back and check it and go frame by frame, you can see that it was textured albeit unweathered and maybe not a final delivery but once the camera starts moving the motion bur coupled with the compression of the stream made it look smooth. The residential buildings we see next to the line were definitely WIP/unfinished, not disputing that. If the above is true, then its likely we didn't see areas of the route that were finished. I'm not saying the above is acceptable but it highlights a need for people to make sure the right builds are being previewed. And lets face it, we're human and its entirely possible it was an honest mistake. At the very least DTG learn from it, Rivet too, and have something in place which checks off builds for preview streams. Despite it being the wrong build, people seem to have completely glazed over a lot of the positives such as the 170 being fairly great in most regards. The only issues are for people who are really fussy about the PIS and some minor details with the sound. I'm not saying you're not allowed to take issue with it, maybe just dont let it completely take away from the fact it's still a great addition to the game. Station modelling is really great tbh, the tasks too are nice additions especially the train garden pots which are famously all around the stations. This is a hobby yes, and a passionate one for some and i get it but some of the level of hate is obscene and far too over the top. You CAN refund this if you already pre-ordered and you can also refund it for as long as you dont play more than 2 hours of it. For the record, I was also very very stoked for this route and was pretty disappointed but I've moved on fairly quickly.
Cannot agree more. People using Skyhook as a good example should consider that MML is - eleven months after release - still not finished. The 158 as of yet still doesn't have any exhaust emitters. The next patch should finally solve the broken since start HST cab light, and hopefully fix the HST's dark and 158's freezing gauges. Ratcliffe PS will stay unusable for MGR services. The 158 is only good because of cwf.green who did the Simugraph setup - what Skyhook have done is visible here using Low res textures and SSAO (the HST being even worse) I will use my two hours refund window to decide for myself if the route is good or not. And Matt should probably move away from his obsession with "Light Clouds" which is 45% coverage and exposes a fundamental lack in TSW when it comes to baked ambient occlusion and soft shadows - add the permanent ExponentialHeightFog which is very dense at sea level and makes everything look worse again. So let the sun shine and the route looks better (applies to all ToD4 routes, see my first post in the Nahverkehr Dresden feedback). So anyone praising Skyhook now should maybe remember their other products. Horseshoe Curve is flawed in so many ways - with broken functionality, sounds and physics. Never once did they go back and revisit it. (Probably because the US lobby is too weak in here.) There are no saints on either side. They've streamed the wrong build - Matt should have stopped it, let Jasper send his .pak to Matt, delay the stream for 30 minutes or do some Q&A stuff and continue.
Comparing MML’s 158 to Rivets route doesn’t really work IMO, we should make a comparison directly between the 170 & 158, or the route against route itself. MML vs Fife will just come down to what Rivet do post release, MML was not in a good way at all when it came to scenery, timetable & even technical aspects such as TPWS being an issue. The 158 may have been saved by a handful of people, but at least Skyhook had the foresight to ask for that help, so far Jaspers attitude has been along the lines of “don’t just say you can do better” - but the issue is that people can & have done better. It almost comes across as Rivet being in need of an ego check. They can & have done better themselves, it’s really worrying they are looking at Fife & needing us to point out what the issues are. I’ve said it in another thread but I really think whatever scenery tools & asset library that Rivet are using for UK routes is out of date. It’s not just a case of milking the criticism from Thursday, it’s a climax of Rivets continued effort in producing poor quality DLC’s, with little being done by Rivet to improve them after release. Just on the topic of Matt always picking light clouds, I think he’s just doing that as a safety measure, if there’s no cloud cover then you end up with too much washing out, just go back to the Rosenheim preview for a good example. There’s far too much contrast in the sunlight when it hits other objects. It of course doesn’t help when Rivet come along with their routes which is using scenery which must be designed for TOD3, you get the horrible mushy vegetation & flat green fields, with trees having no occlusion & just looking flat.
The Custom Light Clouds are a bad choice, because the more clouds (around 50% the more the diffuse light intensity and the more washed out things look. If you choose Dynamic Weather, the Light Clouds preset is better, having more single clouds and more blue skies.) And exactly the same is seen on many other routes picking that time of day and weather. As soon as a 3D tree is out of the shadow drawing range it looks flat. That's why TSC often has better looking distant scenery (clouds on hills) because it's using bitmap trees for that - which have baked shadows. And flying above the route will always expose "bland" modelling. An example of Leicester...
Agree to that. A lot of important stuff got messed up with the wrong build in the preview stream and absolutely have no idea how a final stage build can have unfinished buildings in it. But I can't completely understand the level of hate happened in the last two days, either. There are some aspects which are really nicely done, at least the Forth bridge we all should agree to was replicated professionally and looks good. The train and stations look fine. The passenger announcements and tracks sounds sound good in the video they have provided later on. - Passenger announcements - a feature which still every DTG route in the Train Sim World franchise up to 2024 (even the praised Goblin Line) is desperately missing. The scenerio with the trash transport - honestly I thought that people would use that as a metaphor for their arguments quite more often - is also quite nice and funny. Would have preffered a guard mode, though, since we're talking about a train simulator, not a trash simulator. I personally love the train garden pots and seal collectibles. Yes, I'm not a 4-year old child, but they are indeed lovely and quite a unique gimmick. It gives a bit of fun to the daily and sometimes monotonous job of a train driver. And I'm looking forward to what will happen as well. The forum was on fire in the last 2 days, but noone of us even saw the final product, yet. Not really believing that they would add a new branch to it in June, no, but I'm at least hoping for some arriving and departing planes at the airport and a few sheps underneath Forth bridge. The biggest problem in my opinion is the timetable, but they said they would improve it. Let's just see A. how the route in its sold stage and B. Rivet's response to all the hate is. If really nothing will be changed, then I would not say anything against anyone giving their hate here either. But after all, it's just very early in the topic. And don't worry, The sales of course will have an impact on what's happening in the near future with them and their products/their current product. Personally, and this is also my answer to OP's question "Are you buying Fife Circle?" - No, not in its current state. But if they really improve the product, I see no reason why the answer should not be "Yes" at least for a future sale, either. At the end, I'm looking forward to see what happens tomorrow from DTG's side. Maybe we get some more insights about what went wrong and how things can be improved to at least tame the audience a bit.
The problem here though is that Dynamic Weather is just a translation for ‘Foggy’. Still, if something is wrong with the various weather pre-sets, it would be nice for DTG to do something about it, especially as light clouds is the go to for previews.
There was no VolumetricFog in the questioned stream. That was the Exponential Height Fog, which is always there and thickest at sea level (see the bridge part). It's appearance is depending on the daytime, cloud coverage and height above sea level. Default fogstart 400 vs 100000 This is NOT Volumetric Fog. This base fog reflects the most prominent sky colour.
I agree Rivet are pretty good at doing Trains and Stations. What annoys me is they get the scenery around the stations completely wrong and this detracts from the realism. Rivet love trees, that they use them to save designing the buildings that are there in real life.
Today is our chance to decide whether we buy or not buy, as there are multiple live video streams starting at 10am from British Ace and Train Simulator Driver showcasing the route and Neal8TV is doing a few of the scenarios throughout the day and many other ambassadors streaming as well. l will be particularly interested to compare the route with the real cab ride video. From the one shown last Thursday with DTG it didn’t look close with regards to the Trackside Scenery apart from the Forth Bridge, which I think they have done an amazing job of.
Where would I be in my design career if every boss, colleague and mentor just praised me and never pulled me up or challenged me over my work and just accepted everything and anything I ever churned out? I’ll tell you what would have happened I wouldn’t have enjoyed the fairly successful career I have to date. The world has become abrasive to criticism - everyone should be nice and accepting but all that does is stunt learning and growth. Are Rivet and dtg to some extent going to use this learning as fuel for better products? Because the opportunity is there. Just trains and more recently dtg have started to raise the bar. Quality routes, well thought out ideas and future planning guarantee sales and word of mouth. Sure you’ll always get people who just have to buy regardless but over time without improvements people will just leave eventually. I eventually binned off MSFS 2020. I got sick of the untested third party add ons, poor updates and having to basically rewrite and reconstitute my pc just to get something working that originally worked well. I may be only one person in this regard but I reckon it’s cost Microsoft a good 1k over 2 years I would have spent easily.
Okay I have seen a quality preview video and I have noticed that with a good pc the route looks a way better. I think that DTG used a pc that dates bake at windows 3.1 or what.... This route isn't not in the quality level as Bernina but I re-buy this route and give it a try! But let me be clear it's far from perfect but decent enough to try.
The first images have just appeared in another thread and as expected, Rivet have done cuss all over the weekend to address the scenery concerns. Sounds like blaming the official stream on being an old build was also a load of old horse manure. There's still time for them to do the honourable thing and pull it, though I seriously doubt that will happen.
Thanks Rob. I was posting from the iPad and it’s not the easiest thing to copy and paste links in Safari!
I dunno, I think you were expecting a lot to happen over a weekend at such short notice. Highly doubt they were able to pull the entire team in for a crunch over the weekend, they're not exactly a massive studio. This is all getting a bit boring if I'm honest. I think you're gonna need to give them more time to fix this in either a day 1 patch or something we see later next month.
If I've worked it out correctly Rivet/DTG would lose nearly 6 grand in sales just from the poll alone from the people who voted no, let alone other stores & platforms... Ignore I can't do maths lol
That is a good point I didn't think of that, I mean you're not wrong with the math ain't mathing... I did fail that subject in school lol
I didn’t seriously expect it would. You can’t just rework an entire route in a weekend. However there was the hope they had indeed streamed an alpha build and the reality was better. Seems not the case and judging by the reported responses from Rivet on their own forum, not only are they going ahead with publication they are utterly unrepentant about the whole thing. Cowboys.
if all who voted no (199 currently) was going to buy it, it would be £5,968.01 in £ price, you were pretty accurate with it. it’s just 29.99 x 199 though too many factors like they waited for sale or in different country take account, and not all that goes to rivet etc. I do wonder if the developers still get the same amount of cash per sale from each country, I’m under the impression the price differences is only conversion/tax/store take percentage differences
I’m buying it. It’s going to be the best route of the year for me. I don’t care if being a Scot has any influence on my decision. Thank you Rivet.
I hope you enjoy it as your choice to purchase it and hope you can learn to respect those who have an opinion of not wishing to purchase it and the reasons why.
As long as people’s opinions are respectable towards the devs then that’s totally fine. Yes, I can’t wait. I am beyond excited.
If there's a sale in TSW MS store that has a Rivet Games product I stay away from it. Therefore I go with the non Rivet product when on sale
I agree. Please respect my decision too. Maybe check it out later on when it’s in better shape and at a discount.
If you are considering buying this route, here is what I think. The Forth Bridge is absolutely amazing. Top marks to Rivet for the design of it and the locomotive is fun to drive, but don’t look too closely at the scenery. Some of the distant scenery still looks a bit ropey at best, the textures in the fields and grass looks a bit grainy. It’s these little attention to detail matters that unfortunately are missed. I don’t like the textures on the trees and foliage and their is no variation in colours and there are no wires to the Pylons which is surprising and disappointing and far too many trees again!! The sounds on the 170 are ok although not perfect they are not awful and the locomotive has been well modelled. The Stations too are nicely constructed and look very good. The bridges along the route look ridiculously low and considering this route is in Rivets own back yard, I would have expected the scenery to be in keeping with the real route and doesn’t look right in many places. The modelling of the Meadowbank Rugby Stadium and Raith Rovers football ground, has been well done. Overall I like the route but is it worth £29.99? In answer to that, considering that Blackpool Branches has raised the standard and London Overground was very near to that standard for £24.99, I would say no, it is not worth the price on offer even for the magnificent Forth Bridge. If l was a route developer, l wouldn’t release it until it was spot on and would take pride and passion in getting it looking as close to the real route as possible. My overall opinion is that this route for me is not up to the standards of TSW4 and needs improving as it looks like a TSW2 route at best, however Rivet are not very reliable with post release patches and supporting their content are they?
I'm considering getting it on a good sale and with the promised fixes. but this shouldn't have been released in this state, nor should we have explained that missing ECS and other services. plus the state of the scenery is not ok. if they would get on any other route they would see that immediately. I am for supporting development by buying something that isn't finished. but as they have made their name in not delivering on bug fixes and other promises I'm only buying it when I see it's gotten better or it's 5 euro's. I'd love to drive the route and the train but up to actual TSW3 or 4 standards
