The Problem With Rivet

Saying something is boring is not the same as pointing out errors of quality or sub standard modelling and timetabling, or challenging the decision to release in such a state at that price. There are several routes in TSW that I find “boring” but cannot deny they are well made to a high level of professional finish.

 

Don't shoot the messenger, I don't know what the content of the video will be so best to wait.

 

I think the whole concept of that "ambassador" class getting everything for free just for streaming is questionable.

DTG themselves are doing preview streams. When the DLC is out, many other streamers are showcasing the content.

While these ambassadors get everything for free, the hard work of modders improving the game and fixing bugs is largely ignored by DTG.

And if someone finds a route boring - one could question if railroading itself is not a boring and repetetive thing.

 

And what's worse in my opinion: There are almost no neutral and objective tests, streams or videos from the so-called 'ambassador'. Because they don't want to lose their free DLC, they naturally always keep the ball low when it comes to criticism.

At least that's the case with the German streamers and that's why I hardly watch them anymore, because they either just chatter and you never hear the sound (important criterion for me) and mistakes are rarely or not addressed at all. Then I can also watch and read the streams and articles from DTG, where everything important is summarized instead of having to watch 20 (e.g.) minutes of 'nonsense' and advertising being shown 5 times in between. To put it bluntly, of course!

It will be interesting to see what kind of videos come out from the 'relevant' YouTubers on Tuesday. In any case, I would like to see more honest and critical content about TSW and no praise. When something is really good, it needs to be said just as much as when things are bad.

 

I find that DadRail and TrainSim TV are both fairly good with being honest and constructive. They're personally the only two I watch.

 

I would say anyone saying "this is boring" is highly subjective.

One thing could be boring for someone, while another one might say "that's the most interesting thing I've ever seen!".

Opinions are different, and claiming anything as "boring" is just an opinion of one particular individual.

However, there are of course undeniable things like equal or less scenery or a weak timetable, which rather proof facts than being subjective.

But it's an interesting point actually. I can feel something is boring but need to admit it's still made of superb quality. Like a movie you watch for 5 minutes and fall asleep. It's boring for myself, however I can't deny that the effort to create the movie or scene is beyond all reason. So Effort is not equal to Entertainment. Lesson learned.

 

I like train sim TV been watching him for years now. the trainspotter from tauranga is a very critical reviewer but also very fair too.

 

[EDIT - Jan - Inappropriate]

 

I’m always cautious when I feel the need to criticise a decision or a product, as the same old arguments of “do it yourself then” or “you don’t understand how much effort goes into development”

And to an extent, they are correct. I am not a developer. The closest I have gotten to developing anything is messing around with the editor in TSC.

Sure, there are people who don’t understand how much time, effort and research goes into development, much like those people who think every bug is a simple ‘one click’ fix. But assuming that non-developers don’t understand what is required into making an addon is just wrong.

Ultimately, whether other people can or can’t make something better than the Fife Circle route, or whether people do or don’t understand the effort that goes into making an addon, it doesn’t justify releasing a product of such poor quality and which feels rushed, and certainly not at £30.

I will keep tabs on this route, and see how much feedback Rivet Games take on board, and see what improvements or changes are made. But as others have said, the track record for releasing content then moving on from it completely doesn’t fill me with hope.

Also referring to what others have said, I agree that watching the preview stream for the Bernina Line it looks great.

I’m not sure what has gone horribly wrong with this addon, and why it seems rushed, but I think discussions need to be had between DTG and third party developers (Not just Rivet) to ensure there is a fairly consistent level in quality.

 

What an utterly arrogant statement from a company that already has a really bad name for itself. It seems, as ever, it's simply a case of throw it together and chuck it out of the door to get some money in asap. Dovetail, like Rivet, now seems to be going down this route. Rush it out of the door, promise updates that the companies know will never be realised and grab the money.

I hope both companies will soon realise that people these days are no longer willing to spend their money on half finished junk. The economy has changed but these companies are stuck in the past with their arrogant, money grabbing, shoddy workmanship business models. This business model is doomed to failure in our current economic times.

 

You will NEVER get a completely unbiased review from 'ambassadors'. It's human nature. They will not bite the hand that feeds them free content. They might slightly criticise but never cross the line to get their freebies stopped. It's called 'self-censorship".

In most cases the ultimate criticism from 'ambassadors' is always reserved for paying customers that criticise a release on either its lack of quality or promised updates. The customer is at fault, never the producer. 'Ambassadors' always use the usual and obvious "stop being so negative, you've no idea how difficult this all is to build" nonsensical argument when faced with well founded criticism of new DLC's. They are consciously or sub consciously aware that too much real and well substantiated criticism from themselves will stop their fanboi freebie gravy train.

On release day we will undoubtedly see many streams from disingenuous "ambassadors" singing the praises of this "wonderful" new DLC.

 

this ^

I was thinking when watching the stream particularly around the airport section, the scenery is pretty dull and bland, lacking in vegetation and seeming like a Minecraft super flat world. Few assets around there, everything else open/empty, I wasn’t getting the realism vibe I often find in TSW, less immersion and more this it what it looks like before it’s done.

Definitely not what any route or Fife deserved.

edit: understandable that not every part of the route is going to have the details Edinburgh Waverley and Fife bridge (both done extremely well, great job) has and continued to improve very well on, on its previous faults, but it’s not an excuse to completely under do them, they equally need to meet their own standards.

this is certainly not bias towards rivet, I would and sure I have said to DTG as another example along the lines of this same issue on BML, everything doesn’t need to have the quality of London Victoria but quite frankly, what was Reigate station.

 

Giving credit to Rivet here, this time they seem to be open for player feedback, which is frankly much warranted after what we have been shown on stream.This is good. Given the backlash from the playerbase I can sympathize with them as a developer myself. They need to redeem themselves and restore their reputation. What we have heard from them since the stream makes me believe that they are trying to achieve precisely that.

To be on topic, I would like to join CK95. The biggest problem for me wasn't what we have seen on stream but what we haven't. Honestly, I have seen no other train on stream besides the one Matt has been driving. Looking at the timetable, the services seem to be bland and pretty much the same throughout. I understand the upcoming loco DLC is supposed to remedy that somewhat, but that still doesn't explain the utter omission of freight (including their own pack!) from the route. I don't personally care too much for driving steam and railtours but they add tremendous flavor to a route when you encounter them, and I feel like flavour is precisely what this route desperately lacks.

 

as it stood on stream, the only other train what Matt could have drove is the 385 which only does the odd stop down at Edinburgh before leaving the route map.

 

Edinburgh International Airport, what a hopeless look. One of the busiest intercontinental airports in the UK bereft of air traffic and looking like a desert. The deserted look also applies to Edinburgh Waverley with it's lack of rail traffic and passengers walking aound.

The ballast used on this route is also completely wrong. Ballast on the majority of this line, as with most other Scottish routes, is a distinctive red ballast, not the dark brown nonsense used everywhere in this DLC. Ballast used on most Scotrail routes comes from the Cloburn Quarry Company, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
https://www.cloburn.co.uk/commercial/railway-track-ballast/

Ballast on most parts of the route should look like this, with red ballast...

Dunfermline Town Station

Inverkeithing Station

 

An ambassador saying it’s boring is about as far as they’re going to go. And for someone like British Ace who plays a lot of routes and tends to be very optimistic it says a lot that he thinks it’s boring.

 

It seems an honest statement and nice to hear some honest feedback from those who are directly involved with TSW.

honesty is what will help drive TSW to be the best it can be, silence or refusing to be honest won’t.

It would have been great to have given the style feedback I was giving when it came to Blackpool branches for example, I wouldn’t ever be having a negatively critical view if the quality is shining through.

 

Don't forget the trainspotter from Tauranga YouTube channel, he doesn't have any fear of being critical of any aspects of routes and provides valuable insight into the pros and cons of releases.

 

You are joking right?!

That guy almost always goes way over the top and offers very little if anything that's actually constructive, I wouldn’t recommend his channel to anyone!

 

And his videos don't have anything to do with what he's saying.... Random TSC / TSW footage.

 

He's the classic Youtuber who has understood how aggressiveness and controversy pay well today, both in terms of views and subscribers.

 

I'm all seriousness, fife circle is so far, probably the most disastrous and largest failure in TSW History

I don't think many routes come close to being this terrible

 

WCL… another rivet product

 

In my view i wouldn’t say that, but in my opinion it’s not been shown to reach satisfactory.

Edit: though I think base game Arosa takes that spot, that wasn’t bad issues with scenery, that was scenery catastrophe.

 

That is not true at all. Sounds like you don't watch his videos. He reviews tsw routes and literally talks about the routes. Good aspects of a route and bad aspects of a route. Better than most ambassadors who mostly say positive stuff and hardly point out the things wrong with the product

 

The closest one is WCL which funnily enough was a Rivet route too (noticing a pattern).

 

Yeah right…… he doesn’t do anything but get angry, use the same scripts, inserts clips from TSC that have nothing to do with the review, says some stupid quotes that add nothing of value, only reason people sub to him is to either laugh or there just sheep, he’s a one trick pony

 

Like most of the ambassadors videos. Although o do like dad rail and hentis rail I find the rest boring, positive and monotone

 

I have always thought that Rivet are so close, yet so far.

WCL was a mess, but could have been great; EDN was alright, but had niggles (including the 385) which just prevents a problem free run. Then we have FCL where for the most part it looks the part but there are dodgy sections too frequently to be able to ignore them which hold it back and the timetable at this present moment.

I will be more than happy to back Rivet in the future, as long as they can walk the walk as well as they talk the talk when it comes to these improvements.

 

So I and others who subscribe to someone who says something you don't like are sheep then?

Perhaps understand that you may not like the way someone reviews content because you don't like how it is presented or whatever, and that is fine, but not everyone is going to share that view and there will be those find the content informative even if you don't like what is being said or how it's presented. Should I call you a sheep for watching certain Youtubers?

 

Perhaps you need to understand others will have a different opinion over you and just because it does not fit your opinion does not mean they are wrong.

 

But that doesn't make someone a sheep because someone watches something he doesn't like. Someone may like certain reviewers, others may not. Just because someone has a preference doesn't make them a sheep for preferring certain reviewers or content

By that logic, I should be able to call anyone who watches certain ambassador channels sheep, fools or clowns because I may not like how they review certain content or any channel in general which I may not watch

 

whilst i get it, and as good as the mods are, I imagine they dont make up a majority of the PC users.

 

So where is that "learning curve" Rivet aparently made past few years? To be honest i never bought that.

There is the time of the preview stream, which gives a dev the opportunity to show the new dlc, route from the very best side and convince all possible custumers of the effort went into the dlc.

The Problem with Rivet..?: They prepared their preview Stream and were probably convinced to present the best possible Fife Circle Line to the fans and customers. JT released a Top Notch dlc a few months ago..., and the good feedback is coming from the fact its good:

- Are there any depot services? No
- Is there freight? No --> Probably ther isnt freight, but halft the timetable + a.i seemed missing
- Planes on the airport? No
- Boats in the water? No
- And hypothtically lets say the scenery is as fantastic we usualy know from Rivet (lets be honest they would release this route with the lazy poor timetable as it is now, with the message "you get what you get", we might fix that in the future.
- We plan a 385 Record session --> Straight lie

Again the problem with Rivet:

Maybe they should just go a step back and stop the thing with escalators, and lifts. I recommend to Rivet, spending 100 hours on JTs Blackpool branches, so it might make "click" in their head why the entire community is reacting like now.

I dont care about a fix, not gonna purchais this dlc for even 1 cent.

 

But the trash cans...

 

But they did have several recording sessions. They required more sessions which was explained in streams, so not a lie. Scotrail are busy after all and we don't know if rivet were successful. If they have sounds, it's a matter of implementing them

 

I think that Rivet, having the bad reputation she has, finds it very difficult to get rid of her.

 

only they can do anything with that, not down to the customers to make sudden flips for no reason, they stick with their thoughts as they are.

 

The buy it now and we will fix it later approach, is a very common thing in the world of computer games and seems to be accepted as being normal, in fact i have been critical of this before and then got royally shouted down for it, i have pre-ordered the route simply because its a UK route, I will leave any criticism if I have any, until its released and I have actually seen it in the flesh rather than jump on the bandwagon because its a popular thing to do now.

 

DTG Alex shouldn't this be one of those cases of 'EDIT - inappropriate, confrontative, etc.'? If one of us aimed this at a developer, we'd be on the verge of getting banned. Also what a statement! Some companies fire people for this.

Edit: 'quarrelsome' is the correct word appearing under these, my apologies

 

I would say it is slightly, it’s not overly wrong but not right neither, more wrong this was the kind of response given when such quite heated uproar was at boiling point so to speak. Came across as very dismissive, ultimately uncaring and most importantly very very worrying they can’t see the issue.

though regardless you would need way more than slight to see such an edit for such a case. It wouldn’t look good on either when it essentially in a way puts DTG against Rivet. There’s a reputation and relationship issue with such responses. Controversial stuff.

 

You should come visit my channel some time because we are literally doing a scenario on the Penn Corridor and all it has been so far (halfway in) is talking about Rivet, their obnoxiousness and criticisms on their route

If I don't like something, I will tell it like it is whether people like or not, whether it is controversial or not. Sure, we like to have fun, we like to have banter, we like to talk about modern day topics whilst we do the scenario but if there is something even 0.001% off with a TSW product, we'll jump on it

 

“Not everyone can understand the effort that goes into something even remotely close to this”

Yes apparently neither do Rivet.

 

it's comments like this from rivet themselves that feel like a real slap in the face.

don't get me wrong some people can go way over the line and personal insults are never okay.. but all we're asking for is a decent standard route with a well populated timetable (look at Goblin from DTG last week which absolutely nailed both of those things)

i really wanted to love this route, the real life one is amazing and has so much scenery and service variety.. but what rivet have produced (forth bridge aside, credit where it's due they've done a really good job on that) is otherwise not good enough.. and saying 'well you don't understand what we've put into this' is an insult, if DTG can nail a route like Goblin, and JT nail a route like Blackpool.. are we being unreasonable and 'not understanding' for wanting a similar standard for Fife Circle?

 

Equally not everyone is trying to fleece £30 off folk for a half finished product. An absolutely embarrassing response towards customers, pointing out what should have been clear to Rivet & DTG.

 

I watched the end of British Aces stream he arrived into Edinburgh Waverley and it was completely empty apart from 2 385s that's bad for one of the busiest stations in the UK

 

Rivet forgot that the public Editor exists lol. If you can create extremely good 3D models and objects then you can surely make amazing maps and environments from imported 3D geo mapping data. It takes a bit more time, sure, but half of the work is already handled by the Editor tools (as I said, you can import map data into the Editor) so...

Also, the Fife Circle DLC and it's package have not been updated since ~2 weeks now, so no update has been pushed yet internally. But interestingly, a new branch called "fifebackup" was created.

 

I want to add my piece to this because quite frankly, I saw this and as a casual/hardcore player of Train Sim World (in all iterations since it came out on console), it disgusted me

The level of obnoxiousness in that closing statement is almost unbelievable to read because it's like you actually think your product is good and you think your product is acceptable. Well take a look at the feedback you have been given back and ask yourself that question; do you think the players think your product is good? Do your players think your product is acceptable? And if your answer is anything other than no to both of those questions, you are seriously lying to yourself

Are we as your players asking for the perfect route? No we are not asking for sheer perfection, we are asking you to be as close to it as you can possibly get and that route is far from it. The Class 170 as a whole just looks wrong; the PIS screens on it are too bright, the front and rear lights are the wrong configuration, I don't know if anyone else pointed this out but my brother who I record with did, the gangway between the carriages is too long, the sounds of the 170 do not seem quite right (and to say that the 170 cab is soundproofed so you can't hear it, that is the most inaccurate statement I have ever heard in my life because we've lived on a line with Class 170s and you can hear the engine from the other end), everything about that unit was just inaccurate in my opinion

As for the scenery and surrounding areas, what on earth is that? Some of those buildings look like they were done by a two year old on an etch-a-sketch, they look like something out of Roblox or Minecraft and quite frankly, are a joke. We give you some credit for actually getting the Forth Rail Bridge right, my brother was joking that you'd actually bring it out in the wrong colour shade but you didn't and that is the only thing we will give you but that shouldn't be the focal point and centrepiece, that is the route's job to do

And if you want the list of problems to go on, let's talk about it shall we?

The Class 150s for the West Cornwall Local, where's the fix of the engine sounds that we have been promised for the last three years?
Where's the lighting fixes that the S-Bahn Zentralschweiz has been badly craving since it was released?
Where's the texture fixes for the Arosa Line?
Why haven't you included the 385 in the Cathcart Circle?
Why haven't you included a lot of your Scottish DLC in your routes as NPC stuff?
Why do you keep insisting that the least effort you put into everything is enough when clearly players have had enough?

But we shouldn't also be putting the focus on Rivet and their quite frankly obnoxious incompetence, some of the blame has to go on Dovetail themselves because, and this is their wording after the debacle that was Rush Hour and the West Cornwall Local "if it wasn't good enough, if it wasn't acceptable to them, it was going back to the developers", which then begs the question; why do Dovetail continuously allow Rivet Games to get away with below par, unacceptable, shoddiness? When is the penny going to drop that players have finally had enough and we don't want Rivet Games as a developer because they cannot be trusted to get even their local routes right (yes folks, Rivet are based in Scotland, let that sink in)

Will I buy Fife Circle? Probably not
Do I want to buy Fife Circle? Yes

There is only one company that can change my mind on that and unless things change, it will never happen and that is the sad reality of Rivet Games because unless they get it out of their system that less is acceptable, I won't. Guarantee you all now, give Fife Circle to either Just Trains or Skyhook, give them a couple of weeks or months, that route would be infinitely better, it might take them a while to fix it but they would have a good go at it. Rivet? Just wouldn't or wouldn't be bothered, it's a simple as that

 

I don't think you can complain about a "buy it now and fix it later" approach when you reward it by pre-ordering.

 

Cathcart Circle is set circa 2014, the 385s weren't in service then.