Having watched the MML stream, here is my initial feedback… Class 158 and HST look and sound gorgeous. The power station is fantastic - such a shame it isn’t being utilised from Day One. Please please please include this in the gameplay ASAP - it’s a definite point of interest on the route and one that should be fully realised. The scenery in general looks very very nice. It’s just a shame about the up close ‘popping’ in that is so jarring on almost every route. The cooling towers of the power station noticeably ‘popped’ when the LOD increased and a lot of up close greenery and fence posts ‘pop’ right in our line of sight. Very distracting and very immersion breaking. The guy from Skyhook noted the guard panel as a ‘favourite feature’, but hadn’t noticed the labels were the wrong way round before the stream. Big point made of the 10mph junction, but the speed sign says 15mph. The HST has all cars listed as A, rather than A, B, C, D etc and the train number is on each of the coaches. Pretty sure this is not the case in real life as only the power cars are numbered (each with a unique number, 43???). Will the route be a day one purchase? No, I’ve been bitten too often to jump in with both feet straightaway and there are things that need fixing. I’m going to wait for others to provide further feedback before I buy. That said, nothing I have seen or heard so far has made me recoil in horror, so well done Skyhook/DTG.
Thanks for the video, but I don’t watch Ambassador videos. I’ll be looking out to see if this guy buys the route… his videos are his own and he says things as they are (without sugar coating it). https://youtube.com/@schnauzahpowahz7106
He rarely buys uk content. From his videos so far, he's only really covered us and German content. Uk content is only stuff in the base game but that's about it really.
It was already explained in stream why the areas will be inaccessible. Basically, they only laid the track to future proof the route if a loco dlc ever gets added. So it'll be inaccessible until the right dlc gets made
I know. I watched the stream. I’m asking that they incorporate the power station into the gameplay ASAP. It’s too good an area not to see its true potential.
After watching yesterdays stream I picked up a few details which are prototypical to the real thing and these are: - there is a 5-7 second delay between opening the throttle past notch 1 and the engines revving up. This characteristic being unique to the VP185. (AP managed to get this down to a T in their pack for TSC which is a 16 year old game engine) - the TGS guards door droplight window seems to have been textured over in white and in reality this is where the guard would hang out on departure next to the CDL panel on the wall adjacent to the door and therefore this is just glass. Like the rest but the door is not painted in red as it’s train crew door. - the window on the HST cab door is the same droplight feature as the coach windows. Apart from these points. - if you’re going to include guard functionality within the 158, put it into the hst as well as it is has similar (not identical) to the 158
I have to say unfortunately I find the streams increasingly cringeworthy. Don’t get me wrong this is not a criticism of individual people, but it comes down to DTG having a history using community staff who mostly have little or no railway knowledge, which does put them in an awkward position when confronted by the (usually challenging) presentation of a new DLC. Even Sam wasn’t a train person at the time (probably still isn’t), but he was able to overcome any awkwardness by force of personality and years of streaming experience. Not sure why Matt is relegated to driving duties these days, as his knowledge and unique position at DTG make him an obvious choice to present. But when even some 3rd-party representatives on stream show a lack of railway knowledge, one has to wonder why were they chosen to take part in a stream watched by railway geeks who are ready to dissect every sentence. My thoughts are that it would be smart to invite guest YouTube trainsimming streamers to assist with hosting and fielding questions, and who knows, hire them full-time if they are good.
It’s still just suffering from typical TSW problems. The line side is far too bland, the lighting is odd in places, timetable mode is just a bit sub par. And personally it seems like a really strange route to do, kind of disconnected from anything important, and yet again, you’re just running a small section of a service. Not very interesting for me. However I think it will do well, the HST and 158 seem to be done well although I’ve not studied them in the game yet (shame about still not proper GSMR, we really should have that by now).
