Thoughts On This Year's "main Release"

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by dreampage, Feb 3, 2021.

  1. dreampage

    dreampage Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2018
    Messages:
    530
    Likes Received:
    928
    It is an open secret that there will be some kind of mainline release for Train Sim World this year. Sam himself said this in one of the live streams not long ago, adding that they don't yet know what form it will take. I'd like to share some of my thought about this.

    I do not think the same approach as last year would do much good for the franchise. If there is a brand new game being released, called, say, Train Sim World 3, or Train Sim World 2022, or whatever, and it means us having to buy another new game, start it from scratch, and the developers having to import all prior content yet again, that would create further bugs, issues, and perhaps most importantly unfathomable extra work for the team and confusion in the online stores.

    While I agree that from time to time, TSW needs (and will need) engine upgrades to newer Unreal versions, I don't think manually importing every DLC again into a new game is a viable route going forward. As time goes by there is more and more content, more and more packs to "preserve" and it's simply getting too much. By the time the team finishes importing everything and fix all (or at least most) of the bugs, they could start again for yet another release. Of course, leaving content behind would be an even worse idea (sad face looking at NEC).

    Furthermore, it's not very good for me as a player either. I don't mind spending money on the simulator, I was happy to buy TSW 2 when it was released. However, starting everything from scratch every year is not something I'm willing to do. I have my character, my collection, my stats, heck, even my achievements. I simply don't want to do it all again and again every year when a new TSW comes around. It's not a good player experience at all.

    What I'd like to see this year and going forward is Train Sim World becoming one unified, cohesive platform, for which the core remains unchanged, and for which I can collect content indefinitely. So I think the key would be to keep the same SKU in the online stores and update that one as the core. Rename it if you like to anything (in my opinion, the best solution would be to just call it Train Sim World), but keep it intact. As far as I know, it is indeed possible to execute full graphics engine upgrades within an SKU without the need to release it as a brand new game. I may be wrong on that.

    This has the added benefit of less confusion on the customers' part. We enthusiasts can keep up with all the DLC but average players won't be able to. For the preserved collection there are already two versions available for every piece of content, imagine if every year there would be a new one. A TSW 2020 version, a TSW 2 version, a TSW 3 version for everything, plus preserved versions for content that was released for last year's main game. I think the best would be to have one Train Sim World game with all the DLC going forward, so that people don't get more and more confused with what's for what.

    I know that DTG has to think about financials as well. Releasing a new annual game is a good source of income, selling several new routes in a package, while introducing new features. If you kept the TSW core platform intact and just release DLC, this would be harder to reproduce. I'm not a financial expert so I have no suggestion for this. What I know is that as a fan of Train Sim World I have no problem spending annual money on it. What I have a problem with is starting over every year, wait for DLC preservation and additional bug fixes every year, and trying not to be confused with which piece is for which game.

    I honestly hope that our TSW experience going forward will be kept intact. Like (as far as I know) Train Simulator on Steam. It's renamed every year but at least it's the same "launcher" with more and more content. I'd like to have the same structure with TSW. Don't put us back to square one and level 0 every year. Let us have a substantial train driver career for many years to come.
     
    • Like Like x 4
  2. aaron1807

    aaron1807 Member

    Joined:
    Aug 18, 2020
    Messages:
    42
    Likes Received:
    58
    Whilst I agree with the purpose of your post, I think there may have been a slight misunderstanding on your part. From what I understand DTG aren't actively pursuing an annual release cycle of new TSW games and are focusing on DLC for TSW2. I believe any core updates to the unreal engine should be able to be implemented within the current TSW2 game, which is what they've stated a few times on their recent streams.

    I think they recognise that the situation of moving to a new game last year wasn't ideal but was absolutely necessary to be able to implement the core game upgrades. In addition to this I also think they recognise that releasing a new fully fledged TSW each year would damage them in the long run as people would get fed up having to buy a new game every year and/or not being able to afford a new copy. Also, not to mention all the preserved collection importing each year to keep up with the new game. They have stated though if this position changes and they do have to release a new game they would brief the community adequately, making that clear to us in the first instance.
     
    • Like Like x 2
  3. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    Sam said in a stream that TSW 2 was needed because TSW 2020 had fallen quite behind in terms of engine updates. Sam has also said they don’t intend to do a TSW 3 (or whatever) to incorporate the next engine upgrade (needed for steam and further improvement opportunities) but this hasn’t been ruled out - it all depends on how well things go. It’ll be interesting to see what happens as no existing content should be left behind.
     
    • Helpful Helpful x 2
    • Like Like x 1

Share This Page