So to start this of, this is from the perspective of a German that’s almost only interested in German, Austrian and especially Swiss content. This might be important in case my opinion is not 100% objective in the following few lines. As I saw the announcement of the stream I was really really excited. The release of TSW3 was a bummer for a lot of people because they couldn’t find a reason to buy three routes for the price of about two just because the game is titled different. And yes, it might have been possible to implement the TSW3 features as an update- but that’s a story that was discussed on a lot already. As the days flew by and I sat here on August 22., I was a little confused that DTG took another way of advertising this huge event that was about to happen than last year, considering last year with the 24h (maybe even 48h, can’t remember tbh) stream was first class advertising and a ton of fun to watch out for hints. As the three hour stream dropped this feeling of detective work when everyone is gazing at their screens and share what they saw, heard, felt and smelled was back- and it was great! And then the real stream started. First of all: The introduction with the orchestra part was amazing! Although some people in the chat couldn’t help themselves and were angry because they had to wait another minute I really enjoyed this beautiful piece of art- probs to you, Benjamin! After that, our lost man from “somewhere he hasn’t got internet access”, Matt and Lukas greeted us with the fabulous news: TSW4. (Again, some people started to hit their keyboards again because the game gets a new name and so on instead of just updating it. For me personally it’s not a problem) And as JD started to show off the new routes my happiness went up and down… It started at the bottom, went straight to 100% as he showed of the Voralbergbahn and dropped off a little again as we were told that it’s not going further than Lustenau and Bludenz- still a super cool route and the mountains look gorgeous, but especially the Swiss part to Rohrschach would have been amazing; but maybe because of licensing issues that’s not that easy… Another thing that put me a little off was that (afaik) the only “new” train is the Talent 1. It’s a very cool train and I do look forward to it, but… It’s a commuter train! And this line is crowded with IC, EC, and so on- why wasn’t the most common loco of Austria, the Taurus, repainted with the IC wagons from the Br101 DLC to bring in so much more variety? That’s something I can’t get to think off of a reason :/ Anyways, this will be a super cool route that I will drive up and down a lot! I can’t say much about the Antilope valley and ECML because British and US routes are not in my interests that often but regarding to the feedback of the livechat especially the later one was a bullseye for DTG- chapeau! And then there was a big surprise! And no, I don’t mean the flying scottsman and not the Vectron (which looks gorgeous btw., great work there!) but the „missing“ German route! I know it was never promised to be there but I can’t get behind why it is not? Yes, clearly there weren’t enough resources, time and so on- but as it was later promised (and brought back my good mood) one will come until the end of 2023. And then I thought to myself: Maybe they could tease a little bit on when it’s set? But no, no news on that unfortunately Yes, DTG is a company-but therefore I can’t explain to myself why they didn’t swap the Austrian route with the German one to give one of the biggest player bases of the game a new route and introduce a new country a little later? Anyways, I look forward to both of them, but it leaves me wondering in some places… After that it was time for the features, and oh man: There were a lot of ups and downs… First up: Livery and scenario editor 2.0.: A few improvements and especially the ones for livery designer are a welcome present I always wished for! The scenario editor improvements are cool, but not as much as the livery editor ones due to another new feature: Free roaming! This one is pretty nice, but would have been even cooler if it was implemented in the timetable mode. Because in my opinion that’s the biggest problem of the scenario editor: You have to build a complete timetable for a run where you might only want to drive a train that isn’t available on this route in timetable mode but have AI around you. The next feature were a few improvements to rain and fog which all do look awesome- especially the shot with the Azuma at night driving through the station looks gorgeous! I do wonder though whether we will ginally be able to see something with our headlights at night? (Yes I‘m looking especially at you, Luzern-Sursee) And then there were a few things that left me wondering for a long time: Things to make the game easier for beginners like a possibility to turn manual coupling and turning switches off. What is that for? I had a good laugh at this because I think those two things are some of the easiest to do in TSW- but there will be people that will use this feature, and therefore it will find its place. You could argue about the displayed difficulty on the locos that is now implemented, whether it was needed or not- but it’s there now! The possibility to customise your hud is very cool though as the biggest problem for me is to remember where the stations are and if I have to stop at them when I don’t drive a route very often, so this one is very cool! There are a bunch of other features but I think I covered the most important ones. But most if not all of them are for beginners. The average player that has got this game for a few years now can’t do anything with that. And since it’s a simulation game and not one an arcade game it’s normal to work yourself through stuff to learn them instead of being able to turn them off- because for me that makes a simulation a simulation: Learning to do things you normally couldn’t do; like driving a train! Therefore maybe the time could have been invested better somewhere else- like fixing the menu of „choose train“ where you land on a different route than the one you select XD And then it happened: The PC editor was announced! Yes, correctly: PC. I know it wouldn’t have been possible to bring this to consoles but at the same time I do hope that the introduction of the editor won’t change the complete game, especially for console players. The possibility of building e.g. your own train will be interesting for example, as the best part of this game is definitely the timetable mode. And what leaves me wondering is: Will we ever be able to see our build locos in this timetable mode? Because I remember as BRO dropped and people wanted to drive the 110 on other routes it was possible, but only with Dostos because the dynamics of the N-Wagen sets were very different to the Dosto ones so it just wasn’t possible for them to substitute. But what will happen if we have to program our own dynamics for our locos? It will be interesting to see whether we end up with a TSC with better graphics or (and I would prefer that) many new 3rd parties that build nice new locos and DTG implements them into the game. At this point (after about 1,5h) I was a bit frustrated. Frustrated that for me the only interesting new things are the Vectron, Voralbergbahn, new visual improvements, livery editor 2.0. and the possibility to customise the hud. But then a glazing star appeared at the monitor: The future plans! And oh boy, this brought TSW4 back to live for me: 1-3 months: Winter core update, new German route, new Swiss route (ain‘t no way I would have dreamed about that to happen regarding Rivet were really quiet the last few months) along with two new Rivet loco packs (maybe another Swiss one?)! 3-6 months: German route 6+ months: German route, German loco, Austrian route. WOW! This made up a lot and if we can look forward to a really cool new German route until the end of 2023 (I would love a modern day one, not one from the 80‘s again pls) then for me it makes up the missing German route. To conclude that: Things are looking quite good. There are some things I can’t explain like the missing German route. A modern day Linke Rheinstrecke would have been enough to have gameplay until the next route releases… But Three new German routes, A SWISSSSS ONEEE, another Austrian one and a new German loco in the line (along with TSG which will certainly release the Br420 at some point in the next few months I hope) it will be quite interesting to look forward to these things. At the end there is one thing to say though: A release on the 09.09. would have been way cooler- another month without all the stuff is really hard to wait for! ;D Thanks for reading this. I would really like to get your opinions gathered here a bit, but please keep in mind that this is my opinion- and if it’s not to way you think about this announcement than it’s ok, because you can have yours and share it here too! Cheers!
