"New Technologies" to be announced by RSC in the next weeks

[MattW]

This is only speculation at this point, but with gamepad support, SteamWorks integration, and now Quick Drive, RailWorks may be able to create a big enough audience of people not as concerned with accurate physics simulation, that they can begin fixing some of the physics and other "big ticket" items hardcore train simmers (myself included) would like to see fixed. I don't know what other new technologies they'll be introducing over the next weeks, but hopefully we'll start to see a turn back toward the simulator side of things.

[Kali]

Wellllllllll, what i'd love to see is real time and time progression.. not just the time played in the game.. Sun-up sundown would suite me perfectly..

How do you mean? the game has sunrise/sunset/lighting progression already.

If this purported gamer market is big enough, there won't be any point fixing physics or other complicated technical annoyances.

[PamBrooker]

Wellllllllll, what i'd love to see is real time and time progression.. not just the time played in the game.. Sun-up sundown would suite me perfectly..

How do you mean? the game has sunrise/sunset/lighting progression already.

If this purported gamer market is big enough, there won't be any point fixing physics or other complicated technical annoyances.

Wellll, I guess I mean that i'd like to see the sun rise at 6AM and set at 9PM just like when i look out the door.. Nothing destroys the immersion for me faster than having a sun that never moves..

[TrainMaster1]

Once again Kali has nailed it on the head. If the game market which buys lots of inferior products already is large enough...good bye realism. In away it is brilliant to sell your game to a host of people who have no clue what works and what does not. Your complaints go way down while your profits go through the roof. But fixing the keys problems not likely any time soon.

This will diminish what little drive there is to make this what its' name says that it is: a rail simulator. The new technologies are a smoke screen designed to raise cash and distance the company from fixing the critical elements that deter from a real railroad experience. I am sure "multiplayer" will be announced soon...why not... TRS has a so-so version of this for a while and RUN 8 a much better version of it already. So add it to yours and slap "new" on it and see who buys.

As someone who has spent years turning multiple simulator into a real working real railroad, this is astonishingly bad news. RW needs solid routes with real length on them combined with properly developed and correctly painted equipment (amazed how many engines alone are in the wrong scheme on the wrong frame with the wrong number).

Well back to the drawing board, boys...as soon as you tally up the day's take.

Nick

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[dazzharvey]

If I were able to suggest ideas, I'd say a real time weather tool like in the Tiger Woods golf series. If it's raining in St Andrews then it rains in the game.

Is there a windy setting? i kinda miss crossing the Forth and Tay without the fear of being blown away by a gust of wind.

[PapaXpress]

Lets not get too far ahead. While I agree with Kali, there is still room for an "expert mode" where we get the simulation experience we want. I would hate to think they would throw away the editor, and lock down the system to where only RSC approved content works.

[PamBrooker]

I think we've grown in our sophistication and expectations is all.. Remember, Railworks is a virtual table top set up.. Just like N or O scale only on a computer, and i think we all clued into the possibilities immediately for creating real routes and destinations.. However, the game itself, is still, a table top pastime.

[PamBrooker]

Lets not get too far ahead. While I agree with Kali, there is still room for an "expert mode" where we get the simulation experience we want. I would hate to think they would throw away the editor, and lock down the system to where only RSC approved content works.

Microsoft was persuing that exact course with MS Flight. No third party anything that wasnt approved by MS.. Well, Flight launched somewhere between february and march. It's dev team was laid off and dismissed two days ago.. So much for no third party support.

Besides, RSC approved?? Thats scarier than you know.. Take for example the fact that i have never once had an issue with any third party developers products, either free or payware. They run solidly from the git go.. If RSC approves all third party dev work, does that mean we'll lose that level of quality because they cant even release an update without breaking something??

[hertsbob]

I've no idea why people think that the developments that have been mentioned mean that any plans RSC have to improve realism have been shelved?

Of course, there's always the debate about whether there are such plans, but I remain optimistic about the long term aims of the company.*

Pam - the sun does move... If you stare a particular view closely you can perceive the shadows moving.

Cheers

Bob



*Vested interest acknowledged.

[TrainMaster1]

When I think table top past time I think TRS (Trainz) because it is the only sim with guts to include a DCC mode ( that still cracks me up).

The sad part is that with a small staff of dedicated people we have be able to get real HP rating on locos, build car for car consists against a real world counterpart and then get that train to run within .1 mph of the real thing on the actual route with video running side by side.

I know RSC will never deliver a 100% accurate working railroad. That is not where the money is. They rush out products without checking facts and quality like crazy. That is a corporate choice they make. It take many hours, days, weeks and months to get a route right. But the forums will be alive with when are we going to get...the new route. So the route is rushed and it is a disaster.

When I see things like expert mode or beginner mode...I know this is doomed to remaining a game. Locomotives and railroads do not have beginner, intermediate and expert modes in reality. Those are nice game features and I am sure many owners enjoy hours of relaxing fun running according to what they want to do. That is absolutely fine. Not everyone can run as an actual engineer would or even create a properly blocked and assembled train. That's okay too.

I was hoping for RSC to step up their game and move towards a real sim so we do not have to take hours fixing routes, equipment and physics to enjoy a prototype operating session. My bad.

Nick

[Kali]

Wellll, I guess I mean that i'd like to see the sun rise at 6AM and set at 9PM just like when i look out the door.. Nothing destroys the immersion for me faster than having a sun that never moves..

From when I was messing with the lighting files; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BtPC2BEYUA

--

I suspect the only money in a totally realistic simulation without any feature to reduce "difficulty" is selling it to railway companies - and even then I suspect what they most want is procedural trainers rather than airline-like simulators, but I could be wrong. If you have a limited number of tools to work with it takes inordinate lengths of time to work around them to dig up "realism", and whether that is cost effective is probably down to how you do your books and what other income streams you have. As someone who's worked on the fringes of the games/sims industry for a decade I can truthfully say that people will buy absolutely anything though, so you get to a point of thinking "why bother?" - and at that point you're in the business of making money, rather than doing something you want to do and incidentally living off it. Corporate burnout, if you like. There is still absolutely no excuse in not using what tools you have correctly! especially if people say "this is wrong, this is why, here is a correct one that works and here's where we showed that it worked", that's just arrogance or bad process management or both.

None of that is a criticism ( except the arrogance ), just an observation from over the years. I keep an eye on the combat flightsim market because that seems to have the most room for real "simulation", and... actually that's supporting a few really quite hardcore sims still - mostly made in Russia. The racing area has two that I can think of, one of which doubles as a training service for real racers, and the train market has... well, you all know what's available here.

[PamBrooker]

Wellll, I guess I mean that i'd like to see the sun rise at 6AM and set at 9PM just like when i look out the door.. Nothing destroys the immersion for me faster than having a sun that never moves..

From when I was messing with the lighting files; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BtPC2BEYUA

heh.. i guess maybe i spend too much time rebuilding and not enough time driving..

[PamBrooker]

ummm,,, somehow i just got shifted to this thread replying to another.. I apologize..

[Hawk]

Apologize for what?

[PamBrooker]

posting to the incorrect thread.. My reply to another thread showed up here for about a minute and a half while i erased it and wrote the apology. I figure someone might have seen it and was left scratching their heads over it.. :)..