The bitching about Locomotion

[Born Acorn]

people who don't like locmotion:

don't post in the loco section of the forums. No one cares if you don't like the game and post in every thread how much it sucks. You only make yourself sound like a fool and have less friends.

[SupSuper]

The development process does NOT stop once the product is released. Most developers will agree.

As a developer, I disagree. Especially in a commercial environment it usually is more feasible to go on developing another game rather than patching all old games (suppose every good developer was still releasing patches for everything they made they wouldn't have time left to develop anything new...).

i take it you haven't seen Blizzard

[Paul_Boland]

I still play TTDlx and that is the original version without the patch. The unofficial patches for TTDlx spoiled the game. Off the top of my head, here are three things that patch changed that I didn't like.

1. Massive long trains.
Just why would you want this. A 9 carriage train takes long enough to get a full load, and delivers you a nice sum of money. Waiting for a 200+ carriage train to load... You would be bankrupt!

Someone forces you to use ultra long trains? I believe I have never went above 15 carriages (exocluding usset where I often go above 40 cars - but that is usset - using the same as principle original US rrs do). Long consists allow to have more freedom in train making. Anyway - you can turn mammoth trains off.

2. No slow down going up hills.
This totally ruins the game. With no slow down, all your strategic planning goes out the window when connecting point A to point B which are seperated by a rugged mountain range. The hours of planning and careful track laying, gone with the patch.

It was long time ago (and - as usual - could be turned off). Now 99% peels use realistic kinematic model that is much more challenging then old TTD one. Also - current custom trainsets (esp usset) guvemuch more discrepancy between freight and passanger services - adding more realism.

3. Laying monorail track directly over existing rail track.
I can see the appeal of this for some people, but it wasn't for me. The challege of getting a monorail system up and running was the task of having to shut down a line, up root it and relay it.

Current trend in is to elimiante maglev/monorail compleatly - and replace it with much less beefy trains and real electrified railroads.

I do recall that other elements that the patch added I did not like so I stuck with the original TTDlx and that is what I play today. I'm really looking forward to Locomotion and when I get it and play it for a while, I'll let you know just how it compares to the classic TTDlx.

How about slectgoods - thanks to which you don't lose tatings on stations that never should accept cargoes - since these cargoes will never be picked up?

Do you really limit yourself to 80 trains?

Do you really diss presignals?

A heck do tou really klick 100000 times to repay AI debt?

Or use ai as a subsidary for your own operations?

There tons of improvements that made the game much more varied and rich in comparsion to TTD and I will never return to vanilla ttd.

Khrest:

TTdpatch can configure the game to be really difficult or really easy - depending on your approach. You can make hillclimbing easy as hell, or youc an use realistic setting and freighttrains 10 to have 'really' difficult time.

Thanks for the info. I didn't know you could actually turn off these features. And by the way, my hat goes off to the creator(s) of these patches. It's great work, just not for me.

With Locomotion now out and I have it on order, I'll wait till Locomotion arrives and do a compare of the two programs from the point of view of someone who has been playing the original TTDlx since it's release.

[TBOT]

i take it you haven't seen Blizzard

Some companies go for quality (even though it makes less money), some for quantity (which generally makes more money).

[Severn]

The development process does NOT stop once the product is released. Most developers will agree. And thats one of the first things they teach you.

As a former developer of flight control and radar data processing systems used on board military aircraft, let me assure you that our products were NEVER released until development was complete. The first things they taught us was how to design, document and test our code to death.

Locomotion clearly has some bugs in it which devalue the game playing experience, and which ought to have been found during playtesting. I don't care a hoot about features like Maglevs, long trains, speed on hills, etc, etc, but the bugs need fixing.

[Karl]

Yeah, but a game is hardly of the same level of importance as a flight control system. Systems like that should be (and often are) tested meticulously before they're released, because if they fail, people's lives are in danger.

I hardly feel that lives are going to be in danger because of a graphical glitch or the inability to build a depot in Locomotion. There's not anyone that sad around

EDIT : Not that I'm making excuses for any lack of playtesting by any means, but there's a list of testers in the back of the manual, maybe we should be chewing them out for not finding the bugs instead of chewing Chris out for not fixing something which may he may not have been made aware of.

[Bloodnok]

EDIT : Not that I'm making excuses for any lack of playtesting by any means, but there's a list of testers in the back of the manual, maybe we should be chewing them out for not finding the bugs instead of chewing Chris out for not fixing something which may he may not have been made aware of.

Generally, game betatesters will pick up on the vast majority of bugs the public find - and certainly all the major ones. However, it is not up to the betatesters to fix the bugs - only the developer can do that. If the bugs aren't fixed, that's not the betatesters fault...

[teeone]

i take it you haven't seen Blizzard

Some companies go for quality (even though it makes less money), some for quantity (which generally makes more money).

Quality = Blizzard ... releases one expansion pack for each product, usually adding a great deal of gameplay. But more importantly releases dozens and dozens of PATCHES that fix small (and large) things, before AND AFTER releasing expansion packs. Sequels of the originals usually add so much to the game is overwhelming (Diablo ---> Diablo 2) (Warcraft ---> Warcraft 2 ---> Warcraft 3)

Quanitity = CS+Various Publishers, Sims+EA .... both releasing a gazillon expansion packs to milk money out of a product, both releasing sub-par packs that usually don't add much to the game. Also don't release very many patches because that doesn't make them money, they save them for the expansion packs. Sequel of RCT hardly added much to already great game. Sims 2 does visually look great though, I applaud EA for releasing this sequel.

[BigVern]

I have been involved in external beta testing (not on Lomo I hasten to add) and can assure readers that bugs are found and meticulously reported but ultimately it is down to the developer as to what action is taken. By the time an external beta is out the code is pretty much set in stone and the developer has to prioritise over what are either, 1. Showstopper bugs, 2. Minor irritating bugs or 3. Feature requests disguised as bugs and of course whether any action taken to fix those may create other problems with the software. In some respects external beta testing is more akin to play testing and it can be quite annoying and frustrating when beta testers are harangued for failing to spot this or that bug, when we did but can't say so due to Non Disclosure Agreements!

If I had playtested Lomo then I would certainly have fed back on the issue of reliability and some of the quirky signal/pathing AI (like trains turning back when you install a new passing loop).

[alphagamma]

The bitching about Locomotion...should stop.

[swiitsch]

I played locomotion, and I liked it very much because it was so similar to ttd, which I liked VERY much (as most here probably do or did).
What I muss most are the depots. I thought they were great. They made a really complex Transporting system possible in the first place.

Also I think it would have been great if passengers had destinations (Maybe in higher difficulties...)

I like the Swiss scenarios, because I am from switzerland, and I can build the train lines I ride all the time. Yay!