With the arrival of TSW 2 I believe TSW is definitely heading in the right direction in terms of “country” expansion, realism, detail, physics and scenery recreation. With the community and “sim” or “game” growing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cater TSW to all types of players. That’s why I propose two modes, a “realistic” and “casual” mode (has been mentioned before, I just wanted to reiterate this). Here are two extreme examples: some people want TSW to be a true to life simulator and some want a relaxing game. You can be a casual player, a hardcore player or something in between and that’s totally fine, I believe everyone should have an equal amount of enjoyment with TSW. I think TSW can’t please/welcome everyone in one “mode”. For “middle-ground”players: a “custom”mode or the ability to disable adhesion physics, engines from overheating, realistic braking characteristics, etc., would work as well. Albeit I presume this feature/mode is harder to implement. What do you guys think?
While on first glance this sounds like a plausible approach, one potential drawback, as seen in TS20XX which does such a scheme, those who use the casual mode expect all DLC to be able to be run in such a mode. Several advanced DLC will only operate on “expert” mode because of the advanced scripting required. While some developers are very conscientious and cater to both, many others don’t. This causes the situation where a casual player tries an advanced locomotive and runs into difficulties, or a new player not knowing the difference has a very frustrating experience. This then fills reviews and forums with “bug” reports or derogatory reviews that are unwarranted. As long as the difference between expert and casual is well differentiated in both option menus and documentation (I know, “what documentation”?? ) this might be an easy problem to avoid. Of course, if you throw in multiplayer then this two different classes of users adds another set of problems.
I agree, this is all well and good if it can be implemented without "dumbing down " the sim for those of us who enjoy the challenge of realistic locomotive operations. And can it be done retroactively for the dlc we already have? Some 3rd party developers did not want to script this way for TS, and I'm not sure just how many players really want a "simple " mode. We need a show of hands, I guess.
the Sim already has a simple mode. It starts up with all saftey features turned off. If you want expert mode then turn them all on
