Dovetail Games

[OldProf]

This name change really has little or nothing to do with the chicken little reactions it's receiving from so many negativists. My credit union did much the same thing almost a decade ago, changing its primary name from "Educators" to "Cornerstone" for the simple reason that the old designation limited it to serving people in the education profession under a quirky provision of some federal banking regulation. Switching to "Cornerstone" allowed it to attract many more customers and has had nothing but positive results for all depositors. Likewise, the switch from "Rail Simulation" to "Dovetail" opens new possibilities for both creativity and marketing. If the speculation that "Dovetail" suggests production of non-violent computer gaming, I'm 100% in favor. There's no need for more encouragement or enhancement of violent personality traits in today's world.

Drive trains, not tanks!

[artimrj]

But I like tanks too!

[GSkid]

The name change means nothing to me cuz it's just a name. As for the comment about easing back on new DLC in favor of fixing bugs and better physics? I'm in full agreement, but I don't ever see them doing that. Realism clearly isn't their priority, it's a "if we decide to get around to it....maybe" kind of priority.

I will say that in newer DLC and routes, the physics have gotten better. They aren't Run 8 level by any stretch of the imagination, but much better than before. I can actually make a train that's too heavy to pull up a grade when underpowered. The acceleration levels in most cases is too fast for a train in real life, but overall better than before.

I haven't yet done a feet per second test on the sim using the railroad ties as a reference, but the trains "visually" seem faster then the MPH speed would indicate. Especially in trackside camera mode.

Overall as a sum of it's parts, I'm happy with Railworks. I just have to cheat on it with another sim once in awhile to get my real deal physics fix.

[BNSFdude]

The name change means nothing to me cuz it's just a name. As for the comment about easing back on new DLC in favor of fixing bugs and better physics? I'm in full agreement, but I don't ever see them doing that. Realism clearly isn't their priority, it's a "if we decide to get around to it....maybe" kind of priority.

Its like no one can read. I made it very clear They can't go back and fix physics on older DLC without breaking scenarios.

[JohnTrainHead]

The name change means nothing to me cuz it's just a name. As for the comment about easing back on new DLC in favor of fixing bugs and better physics? I'm in full agreement, but I don't ever see them doing that. Realism clearly isn't their priority, it's a "if we decide to get around to it....maybe" kind of priority.

Its like no one can read. I made it very clear They can't go back and fix physics on older DLC without breaking scenarios.

Even if they can't fix the bad physics of the older DLC, they should still add lighting and rain on the windows to them. As I recall, they did that to several of the old DLCs and everything went just fine.

[BNSFdude]

That is an entirely different thing. And would be really easy to do, yes. Dunno where their priority is with that.

[The_Garbear]

I feel like this is much ado about nothing. RSC is clearly expanding (they just moved into a shiny new office, what, two or three months ago? They must be doing well enough). After all, there are only so many interesting routes to be created before it's just a bunch of the same old same old- vast stretches of the US rail network is flat or semi flat land of no particular interest whatsoever, and there are already how many mountain pass routes. People aren't going to keep buying routes that are similar to old ones if they don't have something that makes it special, something that makes people stop and think "wow, that route looks pretty awesome, I really want to buy it," their business will suffer if they don't keep moving forward and perfecting their craft and they know it. They've stepped up their game (no pun intended) significantly in the last couple years and I don't foresee them moving backwards just because they're branching out into other areas of the field.

As far as physics is concerned, it could go either way to me. I just like driving trains across cool, well-made landscapes and as long as I can do that with even moderately realistic physics I'm still going to have just as much fun as if it were as realistic as the multimillion dollar simulators BNSF uses for engineer training. Just my two cents.

[GSkid]

The name change means nothing to me cuz it's just a name. As for the comment about easing back on new DLC in favor of fixing bugs and better physics? I'm in full agreement, but I don't ever see them doing that. Realism clearly isn't their priority, it's a "if we decide to get around to it....maybe" kind of priority.

Its like no one can read. I made it very clear They can't go back and fix physics on older DLC without breaking scenarios.

They don't have to go back and fix it. They can include both the old physics and the new physics code in the sim. You have the sim insert a bit flag identifier to scenarios made under the new physics models. Then when you load up an old scenario, it sees the ABSENCE of a bit flag and runs the scenario in legacy physics mode so that they remain unbroken. The new scenarios that have the bit flag identifier get the new physics. That way... new or old..... they won't be broken.

Microsoft Word looks at such things when loading up Word documents from many years (and versions) ago. These identifiers tell Word how to bring those formats into the latest version of Word with little to no problems. Programs with long legacies do this. I can't see why Railworks would be any different.

[buzz456]

And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. If you guys would spend half as much time working on how to fix things as you spend bloviating about it we would have a much improved simulator.

[BNSFdude]

No. You don't understand. The physics problem with stuff like the SD70s and Dash 9 are NOT core issues. But simulation file issues.
And you don't understand that someone like me has no power in the game. if you want stuff fixed, message RSC about it endlessly and blow up their inboxes.

[buzz456]

Stop now.

[ozinoz]

You truly learn something new every day - bloviating is a real word!?

Now I just have to work out how to work it into a sentence

[arizonachris]

Stop now.

Nah, too late. They already called the ambulance before any crash has happened. I'll just keep a good thought. Diversifying can be, and most times is, a good thing. When one niche market is slowing down, another venue takes up the slack profits wise.

[Ericmopar]

But I like tanks too!

Yep. Good ol Battle Zone...

My comments about non violent aren't speculation, it's Dovetail's own quote of what they want to pursue.

[NorthernWarrior]

Hopefully there will be diversity into other transport genres. Within the railborne transport scene they've barely scratched the surface of tram/interurban or metro/tube/transit routes or networks. Likewise narrow gauge, apart from the hastily and for reasons still unknown withdrawn Phorum Peninsula, there's not much at all and you're left having to try and build something in Trainz if you want to explore that area. A couple of forays into that area would open up huge potential for more Workshop and other freeware routes that would have some decent assets to reference (assuming they are useable*).

Moving further on, there hasn't been a decent transport strategy game since RRT3. That area is ripe for the picking, particularly if the option to ride your network is part of the package.

Then there's planes, ships and road transport. Bus sims seem to do fairly well but personally I think a terrain and weather system based on the Unreal system could form the basis for a new Rally game. We haven't seen a decent one of those for some years.

*My only concern about moving to the Unreal engine is that tech requirements may be far higher, if there's even a sandbox at all. We have already seen some of the latest DLC such as GEML and the new ECML by all accounts using complete station units with few individual assets, which are not going to fit anywhere else. And if I decide to go traditional freeware rather than Workshop will my ancient copy of 3D Canvas be capable of producing anything that can be imported to the new game engine? All questions which will hopefully be answered in the next few months.

Finally, if they're looking for "peaceful" game types - how about a decent golf sim? Apart from the consoles this is another genre sadly neglected the last few years and it's time we had a new one for the PC. (Perhaps there could be a miniature railway running round it).