My Opinion on TSW6

[Milo's Trains]

Hello, I recently found out that TSW6 will be coming out shortly. Yet another cash grab in my opinion.

From £40 - £108 for a game is insane, plus all the addons, I'd probably be able to buy a class 43 power car for the amount I have spent on this game. Yes the graphics are amazing and yes its a good game to spend time on but with all the bugs and the prices going up its just greed now. DTG ending steam was a bad idea and raising the prices will soon bring an end to TSW in my opinion.

 

[ainsworth74]

It's certainly expensive but then video games are just expensive these days at least the bigger ones are anyway! Though that being said the base Standard Edition is £44.99 and for that you get the TSW6 updates to the game plus three new routes considering a new route by itself can be in the £20-£25 region it's still not atrocious value.

To be honest I've sort of fallen off the TSW bandwagon (I think I've not got one since TSW4) in part because it did feel a bit cheeky that they basically became an annual release type game in the line of FIFA or Football Manager, and the quality of routes could be so variable. Some would be excellent on release, whilst others were bug ridden and quite poor. That being said I'll no doubt get an itch at some point to pick it up again or they'll lure me back in with a route that really appeals.

I'm not sure that TSW is going to go anywhere anytime soon though, it still, to my knowledge, the best of the simulators that can offer experiences ranging from "I just wanna make the train go fast!" through to more serious simulation in the "I want to drive this train following real world procedure" sort of way and it looks pretty whilst it's doing it.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

Hello, I recently found out that TSW6 will be coming out shortly. Yet another cash grab in my opinion.

From £40 - £108 for a game is insane, plus all the addons, I'd probably be able to buy a class 43 power car for the amount I have spent on this game. Yes the graphics are amazing and yes its a good game to spend time on but with all the bugs and the prices going up its just greed now. DTG ending steam was a bad idea and raising the prices will soon bring an end to TSW in my opinion.

Existing users of TSW5 will get the upgrade for free(without the new content). If those users want the new content they can buy TSW6 and get it, at a lower cost than if they purchased the content individuall later on. How is that a "cash grab"?

TSW5 currently retails at £40, too, and has done for at least a year. So where is the price rise, exactly? Yes, you can buy larger bundles of content which cost more, but it's still cheaper than buying it seperately or there would be no point. The best choice in any case if you care about price is to wait for the frequent sales - if you have patience there is no need to buy anything at less than a 60% discount.

The last time I checked Dovetail Games had a profit margin within the typical range that a healthy company aims for; so if they are greedy they aren't very good at it.

In general I find the TSW community very, very strange. I can of course understand complaining about bugs or poor quality, or calling for a change in strategy, but the poor people who dare to engage publicly on behalf of DTG are routinely accused of being greedy, evil, malicious and lazy - traits so deep and dark that if true, there is no hope of any improvement. New product announcements are usually denounced as an inevitable appalling fiasco before so much a screenshot has been shown. Yet, they keep playing.

In short, a lot of TSW players seem to be in dire need of therapy to resolve their toxic relationship with Dovetail Games.

 

[jp4712]

Thank you @Fragezeichnen , a post I fully agree with. TSW is a niche game, it'll never attract the millions of players that the big games can get, and I don't think the offer is bad value at all. I certainly can't wait to play the Riviera line.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I find the strategy with TSW frustrating and hoped by now they would have resolved it. They claimed with the original TSW they had to release the new TSW2 to add steam engines and multiplayer then I think they claimed they needed to release TSW3 for weather effects or something....I'm not sure if they even bother justifying now given the changes to the game seem very minor and the existing problems in the game remain. With the amount of DLC always growing I find the process of installing the new game and having to install all the same DLC which even on a 500Mb/s connection takes time.

The 'free' part is misleading because at least with TSW5 there were constant full screen adverts on the loading screens recommending to buy the full version of the game. And it still had the same major bugs as TSW4 both graphical and gameplay with an extremely irritating stutter. In terms of the price rise, there is both a price rise and a decrease in content - TSW 4 came with ECML and the IET as you'd expect as one of the flagship trains on the route but TSW 5 while added portions of the WCML didn't include the similar Pendolino, you need to pay for the more expensive £60 deluxe pack. They're doing the same with TSW 6, no Voyager unless you again pay £60 for the deluxe edition.

I'd much rather they kept the core TSW and DLC separate so you get access to the current TSW core and then buy whatever routes and locos you want and maintain the same DLC rather than this complete mess of needing to re-download DLC every year. I don't think it's unreasonable to think these new pointless yearly releases are a cash grab because there's little other logical reason for them now.

I do think many aspects of the software are extremely good in that the graphics and audio (aside from the bugs) are extremely good and they've made it extremely accessible. I'm just getting fed up of these unnecessary releases and I feel less inclined to change over yet again since it won't be long before there will be yet another version.

 

[prod_pep]

Admittedly the game is of interest this year due to the Riviera route, but I still insist TSW's routes are extremely poor value for money, sales notwithstanding. The part routes they keep releasing lack the immersion factor, timetables are hit and miss, whilst aspects like passenger design and behaviour are crying out for a major overhaul.

Dovetail like to whinge that their audience holds them to a higher standard than other developers, but my experience of playing several other simulator and racing games strongly suggests otherwise. Other developers tend to handle it far better.

 

[prod_pep]

Just to mention a few positives: the Riviera route is absolutely great in my opinion. It is one of Britain's classic sections of railway and they have done it justice with an excellent, well-layered timetable to boot. Just chalk and cheese compared with last year's WCML debacle.

One area where TSW has come on leaps and bounds is with layering in stock: it's far more immersive and fun to see and drive trains other than just the one or two that come with a route. One of my favourite routes, the Cross-City, is completely reinvigorated with the Class 170 DLC which also adds 350s, 390s etc., and there is an upcoming mod timetable which looks better still.

The newly released Birmingham to Crewe route seems another winner too with strong detail and a busy timetable, although discretion is advised with that one whilst its teething problems are sorted.