Thoughts On Train Simulator Classic's Current State

Dear DTG,

We really need to have a chat about the state of the game. As fans who have been here for a while, we've noticed some things that we feel need addressing. Let's talk about the recent DLCs. Some of us are feeling a bit let down by them. Instead of getting us excited with new routes and trains, they've left us feeling a bit uninspired. It's tough seeing the potential of the game being wasted on releases that feel half-hearted. Besides that we do appreciate the effort you've put into the core updates. There have been some great improvements there that we don't want to see go to waste.

In the end, we're rooting for you, DTG. We want to see you succeed and make this game the best it can be.

 

I really can't disagree enough, yes HIS products are distinctly mediocre and yeah devs like Searchlight, K-trains and PLD consistently outperform steam store offerings that's all true... but even so I'd much rather dtg continue to publish HIS for example because if they don't we won't be getting any more American routes. I'd also just point out that none of these routes or locomotives are DTG's, and that the quality issues are not solely DTG's responsibility, DTG's beta testers and qa can only do so much if a dev doesn't care to listen and so on...

 

Absolutely, I'm with you on that. It's not just about getting more content; it's about making sure that what we're investing in is actually worth it. We deserve better quality for the money we're putting in.

 

I was typing and removing the following sometime this weekend:
DTG is in a difficult position that likely qualifies as some sort of free market breach. They provide a framework and they are the official source (for the masses on Steam) of content. It could help everyone if they stopped producing content and became a pure publisher, ensuring to find and deliver the best quality possible. Also applicable to the TSW vs TSC competition.

I absolutely don't mind that there is a range of quality, I compare it to physical models where there are hobby pieces (to try them, or for your kid) and expert-enthusiast level offerings. As such I'd compare DTG to PIKO. They do well when they want to.

One problem is, they also refuse to accept help from very competent and helpful sources. Maybe it's a reaction to mistakes, most recently last week (unless it was also caused by player-side tampering). But there is a crazy amount of trivial fixes available to couplers, scenario, weather, liveries, which they don't apply. In some cases, it's stupid rules of the authors such as All Aboard, whose (12-15 years old) content may not be tampered with. God forbid anyone replaces the bushes or fixes the road vehicles.

For many a reason I chose not to buy from 3rd party sites. Not only the regular stories of messing up the installation, but I have lovely games from the previous decade which I won't be able to play ever, since they require obsolete DRM. If only 3rd party stuff would be merely a ZIP, but I've also seen the last few years where authors deleted their offerings, thus rendering dependent stuff broken.

I do, however, dream of a day when most if not all TSC content is available on Steam. Maybe we would need some sort of content manager though, the game is huge already.

 

I also find DRM immensely frustrating and unproductive for the sim's longevity, but I think it's worth noting that only a few developers actually use DRM (searchlight, jt, christrains and ats are the only ones I can currently think of) so I'd really suggest not letting that stop you from enjoying the best of what the Sim has to offer. Yes products are frequently packaged as .exe files but for most devs that's it, they're not doing anything online and so just backing up the .exe should be enough.

 

I mean the community as a whole

 

I'd also like to mention that creating content for this game is stupid hard. The textures, especially in most of the DLCs, are downright hideous, and the amount of effort required to reskin them is just phenomenal

 

No I'm not. I'm just stating what a lot of people have talked about before.

 

I play TSC less than TSW because of the load times. Really quick to start TSW but because I have a lot of content TSC takes five minutes to start.

 

It's not that deep.

 

Why does it matter?

 

I don't blame you.

 

Are you ever actually gonna engage their argument or are you just going to keep cluttering up the thread with this nonsense

 

What or who is the HIS you refer to?

 

I personally have never been happier with the state of TSC. The latest build has been a lot more stable for me. So if that’s what DTG are focused on, then I’m happy.

There has been a ton of excellent UK content in the last month for example

Network Scot East - Freeware
Northern Lines Electric - Freeware
Wessex MML Extension - Payware
RES Pack by ATS - Payware
TS Rolling Stock Wagons - Payware

I really don’t care if none of it is available on steam. If I only ever bought from steam it would limit the game a lot.

So, I’m not feeling at all let down and I’m really quite excited about some of the stuff coming up like the Flirt from ATS which looks to be incredibly detailed.

It’s a 14+ year old game that for me still plays very well today, so from my point of view if DTG keep providing a stable platform and third parties keep producing DLC, I think TSC is in a pretty good place.

I certainly play it a lot more than TSW just due to the variety of stock I own + Steam Engines are actually good in TSC. I’ve got a lot more issues with TSW.

 

I just can't imagine why it would take five minutes for the game to load. My Railworks folder is 566 GB and it takes about 20 seconds to load the game to the main screen and then 10 to 20 seconds to load a scenario depending on which one.

 

some peoples computers are slower

 

High Iron Simulations, they make decent routes, poor stock, and exceedingly overpriced payware scenario packs

It really depends on your PC and the size of your install, on my old PC with an HDD and a giant install it'd take ages for ts1 to load up

 

Really. Wow I never would have dreamed. Seriously that isn't a rocket ship. Win 11, i5-10600K CPU @ 4.10Ghz, 16 GB Ram, 6GB 1060 GPU.

 

TSC has evolved over time and the players need to evolve with it, TSC is no longer about the developer creating new content like it's some standard type insular game (like TSW is) that's where the 3rd party creators and community step in, not because they have to but because they want to, the 3rd parties and the community are passionate about making the content realistic whether that's routes, rolling stock, scripting tweaks or a simple repaint.

At this point in time DTG's sole focus and quite honestly responsibility should be (and thankfully seems to be) on improving and future proofing the core program that will continue to allow all those hyper focused 3rd parties and talented community members to make this sim continue to shine..

 

So don't buy any of it. Problem solved.

 

Even thought I wish they could actually make good models, having the game working by itself its a good starting point,

 

Me neither, except it could be me. Mine is somewhere about a minute or two, never actually measured. Usually take a stroll
What matters is how many scenarios you have. Maybe a couple other things. The game verifies the existing scenario database upon load, adds new ones, removes missing ones.

One extreme is having lots of assets but virtually no scenarios (it's possible to strategically stash them, except AP files), zero load time.
The other is having lots of workshop and similar.
It might also be an exponential curve because I didn't notice it for a long while, and then I did. Also, after recently reinstalling the old All Aboard routes, less than 100 scenarios, it feels much slower.
Fun enough, I'd be happy with the Build Menu way. Pick a route, then show its scenarios. Fast, efficient, who needs a cache, etc.

 

Oh, my apologies for answering someone's question. After all what's the point in even discussing products, we should all just magically know sight unseen everything about a developer and what standard their products are made to.

 

Congrats on derailing the thread over being pedantic.

 

The problem is, "standard" is an incredibly subjective criteria, and it seems to me that quite often praise/criticism is meted out based on people's personal feelings about the developer themselves rather than on the quality (or otherwise) of their products.

 

An actually valid critique, it's certainly fair to say that the ts1 community is quite partisan, and I'm admittedly no fan of Mr. Dolzall, that said I'd like to think that I'm generally fairly capable of assessing products in comparison to one another.

If you take a HIS route like Hanover Sub (imo their best work) and compare it to say a Just Trains route like Hope Valley you'll note a lower standard of quality (ground textures, lineside detail, number of custom buildings and structures etc...) that's not to say HIS routes are bad, I honestly think they're generally pretty decent while not groundbreaking (certainly better than dtg us routes) and just wish they'd pick other subject choices for their routes.

In regards to their locomotives they've frequently got significant quantitative issues, stuff like bugged number lights, missing detail on trucks (though the missing hangers were eventually fixed I believe unlike the fl9 number lights issues) and more, as well as more qualitative issues like poor texturework and the like.

Getting my priors out of the way with the scenarios i just dislike payware scenarios on principle, but with HIS scenarios in particular I'd come at it from two angles, firstly I don't think they're very realistic, significantly less realistic than some freeware scenarios even, and secondly in regards to them being overpriced you just don't get much bang for your buck, Gary's scenarios just lack the features of payware scenario packs like AP's or TTB's, significant scenery changes (lines under construction, custom fog assets and so on,) tsrs, custom audio, accurate ai etc. They end up feeling like a payware version of a decent workshop scenario, which is vastly inferior to other payware scenarios.

Obviously a lot of this is subjective but I think I've got a fairly compelling argument for my opinions and a decent amount of evidence to back them up.

 

A harsh incorrect post? How? It's an opinion, and opinions should be respected even if they differ from yours. Further more how can it harsh?

 

Hey TC, LOVE moan and complain every time about the same individuals and groups. Wash rinse and repeat. Everyone of us who has been around more than ten minutes know how you FEEL. All you are doing is making it less fun for those of us that like the stuff and appreciate their work and is accomplishing nothing.

 

We still appreciate their work but it’s a lot of be wish for.

 

I'm sorry to hear you feel that way, of course there is an easy solution, go back to your little forum and you won't need to acknowledge or hear different opinions

 

It's odd. There are certain developers, the mention of which seem to trigger people into grumpy, accusatory behaviour. It's HIS for US users, AP for UK users. Why is that? The forums would be a better place if we could all accept that what we look for in DLC can be very different, and since one person's meat can be another person's poison, we don't have to take it as an insult if someone dislikes what we like.

With regards the state of the game, I think DTG should be applauded for sticking with TSC development. What's currently underway is updating of the core to keep it compatible with modern hardware and OS. That's fantastic news for the longevity of the game.

Some new functionality would be nice, but maybe that's down the line.

 

I am very greatful for DTG actually fixing the game. But I think as a next step would be also fixing the dlcs

 

Hey Buzz, LOVE moan and complain every time about the same individuals and groups. Wash rinse and repeat. Everyone of us who has been around more than ten seconds know how you FEEL. All you are doing is making it less fun for those of us that like actual quality content and appreciate the developers who put in the effort to do so.

 

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Back in about a month or two to see if anyone posted anything worth reading.

 

[Removed - Alex: Insensitive]

 

-Writes disrespectful message
-gets said message copy pasted back at them
-"YoU gUYs ArE BeINg meAn!"

 

I'm not gonna say anything as we are not allow to give any negative feedback on anything, weather it be critical or constructive. Everything with TSC is perfect and nothing should be shamed on.

The moment someone releases an oversaturated, oversized locomotive with arcade like physics and broken sounds, we should be glad it exists, and not hate the developer for not making it correct for a train sim.

 

Well I really enjoy TSC. I have trawled the web and cannot find another platform that meets my needs better than TSC. We should be thankful for all of the fun time spent using this simulator. Complain about DLC all you want, I will keep buying it and supporting those who put in the time and effort. ( a glass half full kinda guy!)

Respectfully

 

I assume the thread'll be locked soon, but before that happens:

I think most of us who continue to be negative still want ts1 to survive and thrive, speaking for myself no other sim meets what I want like ts1 (OR's the closest but still doesn't have what ts1's got.) I want ts1 to do well, I want good content for this sim (and I believe that was the OP's point as well just put differently) I want good British content, I want good German content and I especially want good American content, my complaints about HIS are because I want them to improve, not because I just hate them and want their routes to fail. Yeah some of us might not always express that in entirely constructive ways all the time, but we do actually want good routes and stock in this sim and HIS is often frustratingly close to greatness.

Anyway as a last point I appreciate you being willing to not immediately stoop to insults, I know that's a bit much coming from me but while I'm happy to give as good as I get I'd much rather politely disagree with people.

 

I have mixed feelings about the current state of TSC/Railworks, but I appreciate that DTG is still putting in effort to improve the game’s core all these years later when they very easily could have abandoned the platform completely in favor of TSW development. The original distribution of updates before creating a proper beta branch did leave some salt behind, but they’ve thankfully rectified that now.

The game could definitely benefit from some better content management though, especially the way it handles the scenario database which is the main slowdown I’ve noticed when loading the game. A way to preload this outside of the game would be brilliant, or at the least give users the options to disable the startup SDB tasks and manually start them from inside the game.

That said, it does bother me that there is a large part of the user base who care not for quality at all when it comes to new content releases but rather quantity, and will buy everything. There isn’t much incentive to improve the quality of products when people will buy something that’s been rushed out the door anyway, and you can see that reflect in the quality of a lot of more recent content by certain developers.

At the end of the day though, everyone is free to support whichever developers they want. We have over 15 years of content at this point and quite a lot of older stuff that still holds up, with plenty of high quality content for different regions if you look around outside of Steam (and I do wish more people would, much of the best content doesn’t and likely never will be published by DTG). For that reason alone it’s still my most played game in the genre, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

 

Quality comes at a price and some users (maybe many) are prepared to give up some quality, if it gives a lower price.

Armstrong Powerhouse are undoubtedly high quality products, and are subjects that interest me, but they are at a price that I often pass over, as the subject matter is not critical enough to me to justify the price, even in a sale.

 

I have quite a bit to say here; in regards to the thread posted and the following comments…

1. I’m happy with the direction the sim is going in with what DTG is doing; they’re actually working on making the game itself better which is a massive step in the right direction even though of course they do screw up every now and then we cannot forget the “doomsday” event that occurred for 2 hours when a mystery update was pushed that removed everyone’s installed content who booted up the game during that period! Good thing to note is at least they fixed it pretty quickly… It is a rough ride to future proofing a 10+ year old game with shaky core coding for modern times.

2. I agree with what was said earlier, having a range of DLC “realism” is sort of a good thing but only if done RIGHT like the modelling space. For example like what we have with the “Pro” DLCs that are (usually) better and more complex but this doesn’t give an excuse for simple DLCs to be lack lustre; they still should be very good in quality but have less complexity if that makes sense? Or better yet! Simply just combine the two if possible which I have seen a few DLC do. You can make it so the DLC in question you can either drive it in a simple or complex / advanced mode. I enjoy a very wide variety of DLC and like driving simple to complex DLC in any corner of the world which also means that I have a wide variety of content to choose from and have lots of things to be happy with and enjoy. If you find yourself unsatisfied with what you are purchasing and driving, how about trying something else? (however I understand of course if it’s a situation where you just prefer to drive trains from your own country and are frustrated if said DLC of trains from your country is often poor but it is worth a try to branch out!)

3 Also for the rather controversial side of things I’m gonna say that you shouldn’t go after people who bring up criticism on certain developers a lot. Usually it’s done because they just want to talk about it, and see their DLC get better because if you don’t complain things will stay the same.

4. Speaking of which… the common statement “oh we can’t complain about TSC anymore it is a 100% perfect game” that really isn’t the problem as to why so many users are banned and threads locked down. It comes down to certain people being extremely negative and troublesome without providing a form of constructive criticism. You are going to get banned, or your thread locked if it spirals out of control due to large amounts of negativity, personal attacks and insults with little to no constructive criticism on the situation. In fact it seems this thread may be going in this direction; even if what has been brought up is very important to talk about but usually some users make trouble for everyone else. Arguing with this people does nothing but makes the situation worse and continues a never ending cycle of locked threads it is best to ignore them. Respect other peoples opinions and don’t bash them for it unless it is a harmful, disrespectful or outright offensive opinion but in that case still don’t bash them just report them and let the moderators deal with it… It’s also good to simply take a break from the forums if people are consistently frustrating you. Long story short… you can complain; as long as you’re constructive about it and provide feedback. I and many others have offered constructive criticism and no issues here because we remain polite about our negative opinions without causing needless trouble to others so everything has been fine.

5. Final thing I want to say is aside from the controversy and the negativity look at the positive things as well more often and focus on it more as well. If the likes of poor developers are frustrating you and show no desire to improve then it’s probably just not even worth talking about or buying from them and instead focusing on the good DLC made for your country or play style and purchase more of it.

To the original thread poster; HTRS Simulations sorry that you have to see some of this as a new member. You probably weren’t expecting it to get so out of control so quickly!

 

The part that everyone misses is the supply v demand model. Since a huge amount of DLC exists for TSC there is less new content to create. Most of the ‘more exciting’ routes have already been developed. There is now a higher volume of sales in the TSW franchise due to having multiple platforms and more opportunity. We are lucky to see any DLC for TSC due to these circumstances let alone that DTG is focusing on the Application Core.
Respectfully

 

I see what you mean that lots of DLC has been created and the “more exciting” routes have already been created to some extent this is true but in the grand scheme of things there is so much more out there still untouched. Still so much potential. For one (can you guess what I’m about to say? ) Australia is completely untouched and yet has a crazy amount of potential but I’ve already gotten into Australia a bunch so won’t talk about it further.

also one exciting potential I want to see a reality that I actually have barely talked about is American streamliner steam locomotives and other unique types of all locomotives in general. I love oddball locomotives and ones that are styled or work in very unique ways; always wanted to drive them and the niche of unique locomotives is almost untouched in game. However it must be noted that this is mostly for the reason this sort of thing is difficult; lots of Steam streamliners especially from the USA got scrapped quickly or soon after retirement, and same for oddball locomotives as most never went into full rate production and most scrapped for their impractical designs but there are still some odd ones out there able to be made. Lots of time periods of certain places still to be explored as well.

Even aside from that still plenty more conventional routes and locomotives that would be considered exciting or interesting are out there. It just takes someone with the skills and initiative to make them; I one day hope to myself even though unlikely but just for now doing some simple track laying and terrain importing for now. We all must start somewhere.

 

Well I mean yes, but I've heard about this happening here lol. So I was ready for it.

 

I would say that there are a ton of routes that could be done that are missing for the UK. I would also like to see the older routes finescaled too as there's a lot of those that need love, plus I'd like someone from DtG to tell me what files to copy and paste into my permanently offline copy of TSC to update it to the current version? I have asked but got no reply. I was even polite about it.

 

Open the Railworks folder (the online Steam one) and search by date of the update, copy over to your offline version all the files that have the same latest date and time stamp.

 

In response to the OP, I've been playing TS for more than ten years now and don't have any major concerns with either the game itself or the quality of the DLC being made for it.

 

You are not the community as a whole. You are one person.