Liverpool-crewe 1958 Is The First Steam Route

That's more about TrackIR and Sony getting together to develop drivers etc rather than DTG

 

Yes I know, really surprised they haven’t tried to move into console market. Would’ve thought there’d be lots of potential.

 

Sony have to let them...

 

On console?

 

no,
Sony have their own motion sensor technology, which they use in conjunction with controllers and possibly a playstation camera and in effect could develop a track IR type device. Whether they will well who knows. And if they DO develop it will DTG support, again that's a big who knows.

Hentis

 

Trackir would be good, if it was not for the fact that you HAVE to wear a headset for it to work, somehow without a headset it can not work, at least in TSW2, it was confirmed to me by someone that works at TSW (from the picture on the forum, he is bald with glasses)

 

There are alternatives, I use 'SmoothTrack' on my smartphone camera to track my head movements which works in TSW, also alot cheeper than the full setup!

 

for that you need a phone with camera, I do not have one as it is illegal for my work to have a phone with a camera

 

Casually offending TrainSim-Matt

 

sorry, I meant no offence to anyone, only describing what I remembered from the one that gave me the information, I do not know the name of the person, just a description

 

Sort of looking forward to this, will get a tough evaluation with myself experience of the area concerned being a local. Not to mention when I ask a friends opinion who has driven the route for decades in real life to have a go.

I see this route as being a watershed moment for DTG if it goes badly I would say it could be game over for TSW2 as they have stopped everything for it. Fingers crossed that isn't the case.

 

I have asked myself numerous times if the reason for no other DLC due is because TSW is in the last chance saloon as far as the accountants are concerned at DTG. If SoS flops could it be the end of TSW2? I sincerely hope not as despite the current issues with regards to bugs and performance TSW is still really enjoyable.

 

Hell thats a dark vision .

Tsw has one benefit called "it will get better and better".
This is refered to the amount of rolling stock now, which can make routes very busy.
This wasnt possible in the first years. So at the bottom of the line if dtg keeps producing and releasing quality locos and routes, the experience will be a better one. Sos has 2 locos now. With the next route we have 3 steam engines.

I really dont think tsw is in discussion for a "project cancellation".

 

The job has stopped for this project. Its the bosses pet project. No DLC for ages past or present. It has to work and has to be right. Of course bugs etc will be present. It all depends if they are showstoppers or not. A lot of trainsimming folk have not got behind TSW2 partly due to some serious faults not being fixed and partly that creating content isn't possible in the way previous platforms allow. I really hope it all works out but we have to look at the situation for what it is. Lead times on content creation seem huge by the production crews and many involved have admitted doing crazy hours just to get content to be a bit closer to reality. How much longer can people cope with one or two routes a year if that for their chosen favourite areas etc. Things need to start moving in a quicker and more positive direction and Spirit of Steam will be the fork in the road here....

 

Depends on your version of better and better. More rolling stock based in the last 20 years with short timetables and red light crashes isn't better for everyone

A plethora of variety in different eras, driving styles, things to do etc would be better and that's what isn't appearing on the roadmap

 

I hate to mention it again, but… Flight Sim World!

 

Well, i dont think TSW is at danger, but in case of really bad SoS launch clearly the steam community will say defunitivly say no to the franchise, while a good launch may bring new players...but how much ? I dont know what part of TSC base players are steam exclusive however.

Now about FSW, IMO it was doomed since launch. I am an entusiastic Flight simmer since years, and when i saw that only a small part of the world was included and others will be DLCs, i didnt even bother to read reviews of FSW. Others sims offered so much more and had already a fiant community of quality paywares.

Now in trainsimming there is nothing such whole worlds sim and DTG has leadership, people despite their shortcomings still like ans play TSC and TSW, so im optimistic about the franchise... If they start pumping quality, non bugged, content.

 

FSW was killed by Microsoft. With the launch of the new, revamped MSFS, no competitor could stand against Godzilla. If Microsoft (or EA or Blizzard or Rockstar) ever took it into their heads to produce a railsim, TSW would be doomed.

 

It’s more likely that the accountants are begging DTG to find something as popular as TSW to develop alongside it. As well as distributing ivory backscratchers to the directors and shareholders because there’s so much extra cash lying around due to TSW’s profit making awesomeness. It’s like a cow with an ATM for udders. They’ve grown a lot over the last few years and are constantly expanding the workforce and that isn’t down to the fishing games or PC only TSC. It’s all TSW.

 

Ship Sim World. Haha

 

Microsoft did produce a train simulator, and it was nowhere near as good as TSW. That's understandable, of course, as it was a different era, but my impression is that it ultimately proved a trigger for other to develop their own train simulators, rather than destroying the competition.

 

MSTS was the direct ancestor, through a couple of ownership and name changes, of Train Simulator 20xx.

 

MSFS would've been a issue if FSW lasted that long, but Flight Sim World was dead a whole year before MSFS was even publicly announced, it was a nonfactor in its failure. Also seems rather silly to suggest that nobody can compete against them when X-Plane's been doing that for about two decades now. And in the combat flight sim market IL-2 despite being made by a at the time small and unknown Russian indie team managed to beat Microsoft to the point of them pulling out of the CFS market all together. It's far from impossible to compete with Microsoft, or indeed X-Plane which is what FSW was really facing against at the time. but Dovetail's offering was a half baked effort.

 

The part with the flight sim and msfs has a point. Still dtg even as a software developer got a lot of knowledge in trains and how they work (same for routes and services). In my opinion to get a real dtg competetor is not that easy, their train sim experience as a dev is their golden cow.

Even if Ea, microsoft &co. would start a "msts" which is better in visuals, less bugs, i dont think any of those big devs would be capable of making it to a good sim & game like tsw.

 

FSW was an offspring of the then-defunct MSFS, so my theory on this is when MS decided to rebirth it they pulled the license plug on DTG

Just a theory but timeline and mannerisms fit

 

I suspect that was the case. If only it had lived a little longer to see a couple of passenger jets added, IMHO would have been a worthy alternative to what MS and Asobo eventually produced. Contrary to what was posted above, all the world was in there to FSX default standard and unlike the new FS, without commandeering half your C drive.

 

I believe this is the point. Why would MS license to another company something which rivals (and is possibly more developed) than their own new shiny product
You know, what DTG do with TSW and TSC and many people moan about

 

I suspect if SoS doesn't work out then DTG may end the UE4 based TSW2 software and start a new engine up or use an existing one that may be less buggy and more user friendly across the board. My point about DLC production lead times being long will not have have gone unnoticed by the powers that be and neither will the negative feedback on many DLCs regardless of producer. How long is it since heavy haul came out? The clean slate must be a more attractive proposition as time ticks on.

 

DTG had the license till 2019, and I know for fact that remained the case as the MSFS blog even made note of Microsoft getting the licensing back from DTG when it happened. So no they didn't get their licensed pulled, they had a agreement of five years, and it played out as planned. Also Matt was asked on his personal stream a day or two after MSFS was announced if he was made aware of it before its announcement, and he said he wasn't. Sure maybe others in DTG could've been aware, but without any evidence for that, and in fact having one piece of evidence suggesting the opposite, I really don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make.

Everything DTG said at the time points to FSW under preforming, and I see no reason to believe otherwise. I've seen people argue that TSW wouldn't be in a healthy place if not for the console numbers, and TSW's PC only numbers are easily five or six times what FSW had at its peak. FSW clearly wasn't going to get to a place where it could match or surpass what other flight sims or TSW was doing player wise without investing way more resources than DTG were able and/or willing to do.

 

All things considered, building a brand new engine from scratch, though will mean DTG can have an engine that can perfectly suit their needs, will require a massive commitment of time and resources and will require everyone on the team to relearn a lot of skills. Another off the shelf engine has no guarantee of being more appropriate for what DTG want to do with it and still requires everyone to relearn their skillset to work with the new engine.

I don't think bugs will be helped at all by the team having to relearn their skillsets on a new game engine. They have spent several years now with Unreal and that is what they know, and they will only continue to grow their knowledge over time. Throwing all that knowledge aside on what will be a complete gamble doesn't strike me as a logical step.

 

Well, having identified a bit of spare cash in my wallet this morning and happening to walk past the Steam gift cards in Asda this morning (one of the few retail outlets that still sells them), I went against my previous judgement and pre-ordered.

However DTG are going on notice with this. It really had better not suck. And for the love of all that is good, get a catering car of some description in there sooner rather than later.

 

Slow DLC production means cashflow slows down which means the business has to assess why. I suspect there is always a turnover of staff and skills learning ongoing. I don't doubt that a lot has been learnt and they wouldn't want to lose that but how long can they keep turning out substandard product. Then having to pay staff to go back and fix. Also as I say if SoS works out, sells well and is received positively by most users then I would see that as a positive sign the TSW2 concept will carry on.

I'm currently weighing up whether I take a punt on SoS or just order the grain elevator I want for my N gauge layout instead. I'm thinking of waiting till release day and seeing what it turns out like although with it being local to me I'm sure I will get it eventually.

 

I just think that having to start the entire process from scratch again with a new game engine is not going to reduce the number of bugs, if anything it will make it worse due to the lack of experience the team has with a new/different game engine.

 

That depends. Bioware nearly killed itself when it transitioned from Eclipse to off-the-shelf Frostbite, because an engine developed for first-person shooters didn't handle RPGs well at all, and it could only be made to work with lots of duct tape and baling wire and massive amounts of developer time (the biggest reason ME: Andromeda stunk was that out of five years of development, three and a half went to making Frostbite work leaving just 18 months to create the game).

 

Well I was a bit conflicted having parted with a fair bit of cash already this month for Run 8 stuff but my curiosity got the better of me. When justifying my expenditure to the wife I tried the model railway vs. sim cost but it didn't cut much ice!

 

It's true that many dedicated modellers will spend high 4- or even 5-figure sums on their railways, but they still retain some value - it may even increase. A software licence generally has little second-hand value.

 

When discussing this with my other half I was keen to point out that models tend to hold some value. Software that's downloadable doesn't have a value past what you get out of it personally which is fine of course and as said earlier its a lot less cost than having the equivalent in models.

 

well, but I would not mind beeing able to resell some of the dlc I have... many times i look at my dlc collection and think "I will not play with this - looking to bakerloo or LIRR for example... - just having a feeling that i got stuck with it because it was imposed to me..."
Would it be that hard to have DLC beeing able to pass from hand to hand? would it hurt the industry and dovetail that much?
If I could monetize some items i do not want probably i would spend it in more dlc i would enjoy...

 

Will never happen. Just be grateful Steam have their 2 hour refund policy and even then you can get cited if they feel you have abused the facility (looking at you, Rapid Transit, 1938 stock and West Cornwall!).

 

Maybe they will attach NFTs and then you can trade the rolling stock and routes and only run the ones you own

 

It is so beautifully written, describing the 1958 Steam in beautiful language and intoxicating text. but! Only 36 miles are available in the game.

 

And this will be the biggest single drawback. Even though I’ve preordered, I just have this sinking feeling it will become another GWE, end to end with not much to do in the middle. After two or three runs in each direction the urge to do something else will be strong, unless the timetable and scenarios are particularly well written. With hindsight, Crewe to Preston or even Crewe to Birmingham would have given a decent length of run and more opportunity for fast running.

 

I'm also sad about the route being only 36ml long but couldnt help pre-ordering it, trying it and knowing the feel of steam in tsw2. Let's hope for the best...

 

I'm still not sure the 36 miles is the biggest single drawback. My biggest concern is Crewe to Liverpool set in 1958 without a Black 5 or a Jinty or something like a 4MT 2-6-4T. If we knew a DLC with additional locos was on the horizon, we could be more optimistic. However, I had the same hopes of a correct HST for WCL and that's never materialised.

 

With their association with Bossman I would be VERY surprised if a Black 5 isn't forthcoming in the near future

 

Would they do as a DLC for this route though? The Black 5 was everywhere, and it could be argued that it would make just as much sense to save it for the next UK steam route.

 

As much as I'd love the Black 5 myself, some may argue that it is too similar to the Jubilee aka the Red or Crimson 5s.

I'm not worried about the route length at all, looking at what Rivet did recently is an example of that. What I really like is the varied amount of coach types and wagons released with this route, it's a big step up in variety for a UK route without any DLC.

 

Except there are no catering vehicles, to keep chomping the bit on this one.

I do believe a Black Five would be useful but agree it would be too similar to the Jub. A tank engine set either a Jinty or 4MT either LMS or BR Standard seems the next logical step.

 

Admittedly getting WELL ahead of myself here but based on this collaboration could we see the next UK steam DLC being a Southern Region main line with Bossman's rebuilt Merchant Navy and West Country classes, perhaps set at the very end of Southern steam with Class 33 and 08/09 diesels as they're already available?

 

Very much well ahead... like over the horizon