Upcoming Release Master The West Midlands!

How depressing. To think that diesel and steam traction are to be jettisoned in favor of a succession of electric go-karts, on the UK front at least. I doubt we'll ever see a German diesel or steam train. More electric red boxes there too?


That just leaves the US as the only diesel hold-out. And with another NEC or nearby electric route on the horizon, things don't look very bright there either.

Those visions of older diesels, Big Boys and Challengers are mere chimeras, I guess, dreams rapidly fading in the distance.

 

Or those wonderful DB and DR steam locos, especially the massive tank engines or the BR52 Kriegslok.

 

But they would have been rare on the route, in fact for much of the 1980's Tyseley had very few Met-Camm vehicles, mostly making up three car sets between class 116 vehicles whose trailer cars had been scrapped. The three car sets they had in the 1970's, mostly used on services like the Hereford service or Cotswold line were sent to the West Country in the early 1980's. The Cross City line was a suburban route therefore high density units like the class 115/116/117/118 were used.

 

I think you are probably right. It seems many people on the forums want to drive the trains you can actually go and ride on in real life.

The only recent "heritage" BR route was WCL and the less said about that the better. I would have imagined SOS at least would have had some DLC announced by now but it seems to have been quietly put to bed.

 

your welcome a charming individual isnt he

 

Part of this may be DTG's reluctance to incorporate traction they cannot research first hand. However there are enough 108s and 117s kicking around the heritage railways. Ditto 50's and Deltics or even Sulzer Type 2's and 56's still see main line use as do 60's.

Anyhow D-Day or rather time approaches, in just over 7 hours the pre order should go live along with a reveal on the price. Pretty much decided if it's £24.99 I will give it a try, so much better if a 10% discount for pre order. If it's £29.99 then it will go on the back-burner and I will pick up next year some time.

 

I wonder what the age profile of TSW users is? Assuming an awareness of railways at age 7, you would have to be 47 to remember a Deltic in frontline use, 42 to remember a Rat and 37 to remember a Hoover or a DMU (small pockets of the country excepted). I'm not sure a great many players fall into this age bracket.

I imagine that to most users, these trains are as relevant as Spangles, Showaddywaddy and Dixon of Dock Green*

I for one would love to see these trains but understand DTG will go where the money is.

*If you don't get these references then I've made my point

 

Does everyone only want to drive what they see around them though? I enjoy driving Victorian tank engines in TSC and I was born seven years after the end of steam. You see many young people operating steam and diesel period model railways at exhibitions.

For me one of the wonderful things about train simming, as an enthusiast is recreating as close as possible a time on the railways which has gone before, that could be 20 years ago or 100 years ago.

Presumably I am in the minority though.

 

Not everyone, no, but the only content my kids have engaged with for example is that with which they are familiar.

 

I think steam has sufficient proponents within DTG that it isn't going to dead-end. What I think is likely is that they want to get the kinks worked out (e.g. manual firing, open safeties) before they embark on another steam engine.

 

The point of simulation is not just to represent modern day but elements of history, too. Sadly there is a trend in these sort of games, the newish MS Flight Sim to my knowledge doesn't as yet have a flyable Tristar or DC10, yet these are the aircraft I made my first trips across the pond to Canada and the US respectively. Likewise I fire up OMSI 2 but where are the Bristol Lodekkas or Daimler CVG6, or my all time favourite the RELH coach? Plenty of these have been preserved but no one it seems, payware or freeware, wants to make one for the game.

So I guess we just need to learn to love our Electrostars and pretend I'm driving a 4CEP unit...

 

Hopefully, and I suppose that does make sense but since the fanfare which surrounded the launch of SOS a deathly silence has settled. The few times I have driven the route since release I find I am bored as there is so little variety and the bugs do make it are very unimmersive experience.

 

This is where TSC is your friend.

I am tempted by OMSI2 as I see someone has released a Leyland National and a Daimler Fleetline maybe I will give it a go one day.

 

I think they have said as much. In the last roadmap stream they were saying that the changes they made when SoS moved to TSW3 have broken the physics and they want to get that sorted before they do anything else with it.

 

Certainly interested in the Fleetline. When I moved to Swindon in 1984, they were Thamesdown Transport's primary fleet vehicle, used to be a great thrash up the various hills into the Old Town. Problem with OMSI2 is that it's been abandoned by the developer and is quite buggy. For example I cannot get the joypad to work properly, the keyboard is too clunky leaving mouse control which does not sit well with my multifocal neuropathy!

 

BCC release is delayed by 2 days due to some unexpected issue.

 

So is that for PC users only or?

 

Boooooo, though ATS Texas DLC comes out on the 15th, so i'll have plenty to keep me busy

 

Devil's Advocate here - does that mean Soho Depot is being belatedly added along with full timetable for ECS moves?
Cynic thinks, this pretty much says rushed to release, what else is going to be half finished, untested or plain broken?

Eyes Peace River over in TSC instead...

 

None of this is exactly inspiring confidence tbh

 

For everyone.

 

Is this on Twitter? As a potential customer, I think it is respectable of a Company representative to advise me/us of why there is a delay to the release and also the preview stream.

 

Confirmed as £29.99 for the route DLC and Starter Pack:

 

£30 it is
https://store.steampowered.com/app/..._Lichfield__Bromsgrove__Redditch_Route_AddOn/

 

That's relegated to a sale then. Sorry DTG you just priced yourself out of the train sim market. Short route, one train, you ask too much - not even a preorder discount to sweeten the hike.

 

JD posted this in Announcements:

____________________
Birmingham Cross-City release date update:
After reviewing the most recent build of the route overnight, we need a little more time to iron out a couple of lighting issues that the team have identified.

Whilst we are confident in providing a fix, as it is so close to release it does mean we need a couple of extra days to implement and test it ahead of submitting it to the respective platforms.

As a result, we will be delaying the release of the route by a couple of days, and moving the preview stream to next week.

This means:

• Pre-order remains live today on Steam (and is available for pre-purchase now)
• Release will move from Tuesday 15th to Thursday 17th November
• The live stream preview for the route will now be Tuesday, 15th November, at 17:00 UTC

Thanks for your understanding. We want to ensure the finished product is as good as it can be, and the extra time will allow us to sort the issues we’ve seen today.

 

It's a no new dlcs day from today for me.

 

I think it is still £25 for the DLC alone which is about right surely?

 

Actually, I think the reverse- would you rather they went "Well, there are bugs in it but what the hell, we'll release as is"?

 

see above, it’s £29.99 either way.

 

It's just an absolute joke to be honest, why not use the additional time to add a damn depot to the route? It's less than 4 miles... Why was it not even considered? I seriously do not get this at all, even the sounds were reproduced there. Literally every bit of reference detail could have been sourced, especially if your source person (Daisy) works on the route. Why oh why on earth??

 

No it's not. Just called the product up on Steam and it is showing as the image above - £29.99 for either the starter pack or the DLC alone.

 

48 hours to build a depot?

 

It would appear not... something about lighting apparently.

Anyhow still not worth £30.

 

It's been postponed today so I'd take that as 9 days?

Price increase but offering less, can't go above and beyond?...

 

I get the feeling DTG we’re a little surprised with the feedback regarding this route and may have stalled to further polish and hopefully add a bit extra in.. maybe not.

I’m so glad MSFS 40th Anniversary edition is out on Friday. I’ll be keeping myself entertained with the study level Airbus A310, that’ll pass the time for me and if the BCC doesn’t peak my interest then it’ll definitely be a sale purchase.

 

Still, I don't think 9 days is enough. Not only do you have to model it with all the assets, textures, lighting, whatever but the timetable might need to be modified to add the services in. And they all need to go through testing to make sure nothing breaks and everything works so it would definitely take longer than 9 days. And who knows, maybe they haven't even built the track at all, requiring more work to create it and the depot.

 

One of these days you may actually post a happy post these forums. Every time I see your name it’s you complaining about something

 

Fully get that, though it has been announced roughly 1 week ago and many comments on the forum and Facebook have stated that this should be implemented. I am sure Cathcart circle has a depot around the same(ish) distance, just can't understand the flaw in why this was excused from the route.

 

where have they said the delay is to include the depot. You’re just speculating at this point. Did you even read the article.

 

It's my local route, so obviously I will be vocal. Sorry for the inconvenience. (I also work in customer services and rarely, if at all get complaints regarding my personality or service)

 

it’s every new product you appear and all you do is complain over and over again.

 

I was more referring to the comments that claimed a depot would come in 48 hours. Not for the right comment but just saying that it would take a long time to include a depor

 

It's hard not to complain about this no? We are getting one of the shortest routes in ages for a higher price. Getting less for more is not something to celebrate is it? If they'd included a second train or made significant improvements to the usual sparse scenery often seen in TSW routes, then a price increase would be justified, but as things stand, no, it's not.

 

My best advice is not to retaliate to my replies as it is heading off topic. I am not alone in my view regarding my query and disappointment. We will always agree to disagree but it is something, (an issue) that many other users of this Simulator are finding hard to understand, as to why a depot for your flagship EMU has been missed, when it's depot is within an acceptable distance of the main route itself. Plus the price surge on top of this.

 

DTG routes have been 24,99 for years and years. When everything else has gone up in price over the years they have kept prices the same. Inflation has gone sky high recently so obviously they have had no choice but to increase costs for this route. Is it something they wanted to do probably not but have had no choice I imagine.
It’s amazing how we can all spent hundreds and thousands on computers and hardware etc but when it comes to paying for software they will give us hours of enjoyment oeople complain.
I wonder how much money people spend on a night out on alcohol or cigarettes it’s amazing they never complain about costs rising on those and just accept and pay

 

Fully appreciate your reply and respect that we have mouths to feed, bills, energy etc.

However, with the growing amount of criticism on the forum regarding the depot being missing and an increase in price of DLC, I would have thought yourself, or another member of your company (as a representative) may have gone to the board to at least try to consider including the depot into your route. I wish I could find a valid reason (except time) as to why this wasn't included, but I am struggling. Ultimately, to increase a price of a DLC, which seemingly will be one of the shortest, a 4 mile 'relevant' extension, would not be too inconvenient to add onto this, even if we had to wait for a patch which would then add this on at a later date..