Midland Mainline - Leicester To Derby & Nottingham

Actually playing the TSC version you get the same experience, apart from New Street which has most of the platforms filled up with (AI?) 350's. Certainly no Voyagers, Sprinters or XC HST's passing you between New Street and Redditch.

 

At least in TSC of course you can make your own scenario and add those, if you have purchased the add-ons. And then spend a few hours making your scenario, and you have your scenario, then you play and you are done, so you spend a few hours making another and you play it and then you are done.

I do love TSC, I was barking over Stainmore in a J21 yesterday and I loved it, but it is an easy route to make scenarios on as you may only encounter a handful of trains based on my WTT, freeroam works well of course for routes like that..

I find with the modern modern/busy routes, that is where TSW comes into its own.

 

Hi all.

Anyone having trouble with the map collectible? If so, would it be Leicester platform 3b?

 

Regarding the TPWS grids outside Nottingham I regulated my speed to under 25mph and didn’t get tripped by the grids.

Let’s see how slow I need to go to avoid tripping the ones at Mountsorrel!

 

Thanks for the heads up. Just posted a variety of them in there, yep.

 

I m wondering if this has been mentioned. I find this route is too bright or something wrong with the contrast. I don't think its my tele as I use a smart tv for playing my PS 5 on and my tele is new. I've had a look in TSW setting to see if there is a slider there for brightness or contrast but there isnt. So i hope DTG or skyhook can do something about this. Overall I'm 50/50 on this route but kind of enjoying it in places other than bugs and being so quiet/ lack of traffic and passengers. I've just done the railtour from Leicester to derby with the double headed 45s and guess what? no passengers onboard.

 

Absolutely nothing to do with the thread, but (and hopefully this is not too nosey a question) what were you involved in in the 8 bit days? I imagine a lot of us old fogeys on here have played a multitude of games youve been involved with if you've been in development that long! Personally I went the route of speccy > atari 800xl > c64 > amiga

 

That emptiness is only a thing at New Street, which you are in maybe five minutes in a run. The rest of the time the only trains on the RL line are the 323s, and you pass plenty of them.

 

Not strictly true. Between New Street and Bromsgrove you should have the WMR diesel operated trains to and from the Worcester area and a half hourly West Country Cross Country service either Class 220/221 Voyagers or HST's and also the hourly Cross Country Cardiff to Nottingham and vv service operated by Class 170's. North of Birmingham you should have the Walsall line services between New Street and Aston.

 

Jane, it’s good that you are taking on board the criticism and suggestions. I feel that we will eventually have a reasonable route.

 

Oh, is that the way it's supposed to work?

Eventually, the route will be " reasonable " ?

So that $40 is just the first installment.... I see.

Well, excuse my naivety. Slap me with a wet fish!

Ya see, I thought the dlc were supposed to be " reasonable " at initial purchase. Silly me!

 

Ok Crosstie, they got it wrong to start with we all know that, but Jane is making the right comments that they are taking on board what we say and will attempt to put it right. Give Skyhook a chance to deliver a reasonable route eventually, something Rivet haven’t done with their pig s**t attempt of the WCL and have shown they are not bothered. At least Skyhook are listening.

What gets me is that the route was delayed and DTG stepped in to assist. It is obvious that this route wasn’t beta tested properly before release, as I am gobsmacked that no one in the community of testing, DTG, Skyhook and the Beta Testers didn’t notice what we all have.

 

Given what has happened with the DB BR 187, I wouldn't be holding my breath. Listening is one thing, but actually doing something is another

 

Hi there. I was one of the beta testers for this route.

There was a lot we DID bug and report, however clearly these didn’t get through to the release version. From the outside it may look like not a lot was spotted and bugged, but please be assured that there has been a significant amount of bug reporting going on behind the scenes. We do try our best to try and report everything we can.

What the issue is here is insufficient development time and/or unrealistic deadlines for the amount of work required. If it was up to me, I would have only released the route once I was happy with the state of the route and its timetable. Am I perfectly happy in the way the state of this route has been released? In all honestly, no. However, I’m confident we’ll squish a lot of bugs and make the Midland Mainline route a great success and experience for you guys.

Hopefully this will be a bit of of lesson for both future DTG and third party routes

 

Hey, londonmidland, I'm sure most everyone in the community recognizes and is grateful for all the effort you have made, not just with this route, but with trying to make the game better than it would otherwise be.

You're certainly not responsible for any shortcomings that have emerged with this release.

But, whether you meant to or not, I think you have " nutshelled" the problems with the current business plan and the consequent release schedule for TSW.

Hope you don't feel too down about your efforts not being recognized and rewarded in the release version.

Keep up the good work. Chin up!

 

While arguably not as important as some of the major game breaking bugs that have been reported in the last few days, what I'm most surprised about is how inaccurate some of the lineside scenery is. Was this not spotted and reported to Skyhook during testing? As a local to the route (as am I) I am sure you are aware of some of the blatent inaccuracies. I'm not sure if you have seen my comparison images from other threads but there are arched bridges where there should be straight ones, straight ones where there should be arched ones, missing retaining walls, long stretches with no lineside walls, bushes or fencing. For example:


I know you've already said you will hopefully be able to eventually add some clutter along the route and I'm grateful for you hopefully doing that but I'm just amazed that some of the scenery wasn't flagged, if indeed it wasn't.

It's a massive shame for me as the rolling stock and most of the stations are beautifully modelled.

 

bart2day Hi there. The feedback regarding the foliage has certainly been noted and reported. As to if/what will change with it, I am unsure of. Though I too would like the foliage to get some TLC.

At this stage, all I can say is wait for an announcement in regards to future patches and fixes. I’m sure jane-skyhook can advise further

 

Thank you. Yep, Jane has confirmed in another thread that the feedback has been passed on to the environment team. I was just curious if it was a known issue before release.

 

Last night I happened across a video which discussed the deleterious effect on the entire industry of the No Man's Sky Effect. TLDR version- No Man's Sky released as a buggy, incomplete mess to howls of outrage. However, over seven years of (free!) updates, Hello Games have made it very good indeed.

However, this tale of redemption has been taken on by the industry not as a cautionary tale but as a model. Exhibit A: Cyberpunk 2077. The Effect has become, in effect (ahem) "Release an unfinished, broken game, then patch it enough to silence the loudest critics."
I hope that hasn't become DTG's business model.

 

LondonMidland. Thank you for your response and explanation. Let’s hope eventually the route will be improved to our satisfaction.

 

Sorry but for my part i need to see results. A lot of promises are done. But why not doing this stuff BEFORE realease ? Ah, yes because of deadlines.
So why should we hope better updates on this route than lets say... on the 187 ?
And when ? A mini patch in 1 week, a bigger one in 3 months, or 2 years ?
And if that was actually cheap. But its a full price. No need to wondet why they are bought by a bigget fish if its really profitable. Minimal investment on each route for maximal profit.

 

Every time I excitedly add a new route to my steam wish list and then a few days after release delete it again. Are we all so short sighted that we keep buying things ?(I guess yes, or this the reason DTG got sold, after pumping out poor quality stuff for months?)

Last one I gave in with was Birmingham Cross City, lots of stuff I like about the route but having walked besides the railway in places it just isn't right (no fence between canal tow path in places and no path in others) and then every time you arrive in New Street it is like the middle of covid combined with engineering works and whilst it looks great it just feels so dead an unalive. I went back to London-Brighton recently and I just love the constant flow of trains and the feeling you are on a real railway. It's the emptiness and obvious issues that are now beyond a joke. I've promised myself that I will simply not buy anything now unless the quality is as high as Niddertalbahn and I really want a given route. I'll probably not even bother frequenting here as much. Really feels like we are not being listened to and are being mugged off all the time having sunk more into this game and its predecessors than any other game/sim I've ever played.

 

You have to realise that DTG appear ignorant in their responses when it comes to big fixes, missing lineside fencing etc. Take the BCC DLC for example, they purposely ignored the Redditch branch as they knew it was incorrect/incomplete and they are cunning when it comes to fixing something. I genuinely think they are just half arsed because the amount of times we try to get our messages across on a live stream, it is simply ignored.

As for Skyhook, they are not the brand name, they are a 3rd party. So I don't hold out much hope of them creating additional services, adding AI services, lineside foliage and adjusting the incorrect bridges implemented. Believe me, if they did I would be extremely happy and shocked..

The TSC version will be heavily used going forward as I have lost trust with everything that has gone on. I like accuracy and unfortunately, TSC is far more accurate in many ways (JT)..

 

TBH having watched the "Megasim" YT clip with the HST, I would say the biggest single lack of enthusiasm I have for this route is the short length. Non stop Derby to Leicester and you're done in just over 20 minutes. Even if everything else was tip top, hard to justify £30 for something so lacking in length - not even got the nice scenery that Nidd does or over in TSC the complex track and urban built up scenery of the new Tokyo commuter route.

 

Well it clearly isn't DTG's business model because they have done the very opposite of Hello Games.

I really like HG model, not the buggy mess part, but the part where they fix it up through free updates and expansions, it is the very opposite of the DTG model.

If Hello Games had left NMS as it was, and issued a full priced NMS2, followed 2 years later by NMS3 what do you think would be the position?

I suspect NMS2 would have bombed and NMS3 would have been laughed out of the room - even if it was the game we see today, because people wouldn't want to give them any more money after the first one or two goes. PEople have pointed out several times that TSW3 doesn't seem to have done as well as TSW2, its not super clear, but the evidence is there that 3 is not a huge leap forward from 2 and has been a bridge too far for some people.

If we had TSW which was still TSW and you could play any of the DLC from CSXHH up to MML as you wish without having to update to a new version of the game then TSW would be much better thought of, but DTG did not fix all of the bugs, they just released a new version and moved on.

 

Yes, and with the recent news and personnel changes, it seems even less likely that the fixes for TSW2 will ever happen.

Someone said recently that TSW2 is.....

What was it John Cleese said about his Norwegian Blue?