What do you think about locomotion?

[Darkvater]

I see there hasn't been a poll about Locomotion, so I decided to create one to poll your opinions.

The moment I saw the downloadlink I fired up my bittorrent client, and downloaded the demo. Installed it right away, and with high expectations started to play with (the screenshots didn't manage to lower my expectations, maybe just a bit )

The tutorial brought me the game's first negative vibes.
Let's just say that I am more then dissatisfied with the actual graphics then I already thought I would be. Dull, monotone (mainly brown), and just plain ugly graphics. None of the cheerful TTDLX graphics

The second big disappointment was when I (the tutorial) built the first train. Actually, it was the first bus, but the train was even worse. You just build the vehicle somewhere in space, and just drop it on the tracks/roads. OK, weird . No more servicing, etc. Very, very simplified. The true moment of truth was however, when I myself wanted to add a new coach to the train. The train had to be stopped to add a coach! Now, how weird is that??? No depots, nothing, but I have to stop the train.

Then I went on to the landscaping. I thought cool, 'water landscaping', I can build tunnels. So I grab the tool, and WTF? I got a coloumn of water. Just as you would with the normal raise/lower land (which is also ugly, cumbersome and non-obvious), but on top a nice little square of water.

From here it all went downhill. Building tracks/roads is just horrid, at least to me. I have never played RCT, but man, is this not normal! I don't like the interface. Add to this that I could simply destroy half the town while building rails and I think I've had enough.

I played until the demo stopped (I think half an hour or something), but it didn't get better. I could do only half the stuff I could do in TTDLX, not to even speak of the Patch. Too simplistic I say.

There are some good sides though. I especially like the elevated rails, but that too can look really ugly.

So much for my rant. What do you guys think about this game based on the demo? How is it working out for you?

[alphagamma]

Only improvements!
Best transport game ever!

[eis_os]

Hi folks

My two cents:

First I tought great, now I can build hopefully underground stations and stuff, surely it works. The interface however for laying tracks is really annoying. Ok, it's like RCT but then some other problems arrived:

How I can change a road piece to a different system? Why I have to remove it completly and rebuild it, as far as I know ways can be simple overbuild in RCT, why not in Loco? (Maybe in the final it's possible)

The Road one-way is therefor a big catastrophe,
Road station terminus can be build only at end of road, hmm, but I can build a road behind it and it looks like your vehicles can drive throught it.

I don't think how I can manage tram system and road system with this interface...

The locomotion graphic look prosy, but that isn't a big problem for me...

Signalsystem? Hmm, I don't know... (removing of signals is a bit complicate)

Good stuff:
We have now real 3D (before people scream, I mean it in gameplay sense, the engine is only the output of the game world), I think the bridges are very good working then I thought they would on the screenshots (only the ramp thing is a bit confusing, the interface say ramps would have speed limits, but I can't build other ramps?)
Stations underground, nice, ontop of each other....
Waypoints

I don't think it's that bad for the price you have to pay, it seems to work stable.

My conclusion, it's not that good as TTD (and I am compareing TTD not TTDPatch!). The best I would write my own game ohh yeah....

[Lakie]

Hi.

Well, My thoughts are it should be very good, because it's based of the RCT / RCT 2 engines...

However, I did not like...

• the road building style, it's nice but no very fast, or useful when replacing road. (maybe the choice like in paths in RCT and RCT2 would be better for construction of road and track.)
• the track limits. This thing got me the most, it limits station design A LOT...
• having to move ground to build above / underground. (I would prefer if it had RCT 2 ctl control)
• building like coasters on RCT makes it feel very limitted and abnormal to a ttd user
• The map sizes don't seem to be in properon ether. making them crapt

I did like the...

• building above and underground.
• Stations that can have any design. (not 4x6 but having some lanes longer etc.)
• the new way industries work.
• New graphics, I like them.

In Concluesion

I generally like this game how ever it feels quite limitting.
TTD does have advantages when it comes to building and design of railways, and roads.
It seems like a let down for A LOT of people and a bit for me.

[edited by Lakie twice] The lists were messed, so I fixed them once, only to have the other list not working. Fixed the both now.

[BLOODUK]

Awsome but the time limit just plain sucks, who thought of 10mins needs a slap

[Cironir]

Yep, the time limit is a bit annoying. An hour or two would have been nice. Without all of the scenarios, and a true sandbox mode (something that's larger than the first map), it would still be limiting enough. Anyhow, I pre-ordered my copy already, so I'd be happy if I could play until the game arrives. Oh, well ... less than a week.

[lcandy]

I don't vote for either of those choices. The demo was not enough of an insight to really be certain yet. I'm really ticked off that it's only 15 mins for the demo, or that’s what it appeared like for me. Hopefully my views won't be too biased by that but here we go anyway.

Graphically

At lower resolutions the game is very poor, grainy chunky blocks with too many annoying pointless objects getting in the way of my building. I can only use resolutions of up to 1024x768 on my Laptop and although the game runs very smoothly, it's not ideal. On my desktop on the other hand, with a resolution of 1280x1024, the game looks a lot sweeter and well rounded. The only downside is, my P4 1.6GHz cpu seems to struggle performance wise on the Great Britain and Ireland map.

Also there were a few graphical bugs, or perhaps unfinished bits. They were annoying but far few in number than the early screenshots.

In general, we knew the graphics were going to be below par. The demo has just confirmed that.

A.I.

This is where the demo really sucked for me. There is no way to evaluate the competitive AI in 15 minutes. The path finding appeared to be decent, but will this equate to a really competitive and enjoyable challenge? At least with this brief glimpse, there appeared to be an improvement, which is something.

Interface

Well, it's like RCT which is what we expected. Building is simple, takes no effort except to get a good view at times. The menu system is also simple and effective, not requiring any effort to figure out where things are what they do. I had created my first ride, I mean route in, in about 2 minutes and everything seemed to fit just nicely together. Non RCT users might take a bit longer, but I remember learning how to play that easily enough within an hour.

I don't think the interface will give anyone the slightest problem what so ever although short cut keys will probably be used in the end as they are rather useful.

Sound

Sound, what sound? I wasted fileplanets bandwidth to download all that music, just to want to turn it off and then find out there are no sound effects? Some people may like the music and appreciate having it on, but I didn't. I hope we can import our own mp3's, or better yet, there are in fact sound effects when the game is released.

Oops, just went back and played the game again. There are sound effects and they are pretty basic but sufficient. I accidentaly turned all sound off when getting rid of the music.

Playability and feel

Well there had to be something that was good, and this is it. For the brief chance I've had to enjoy this demo, I really enjoyed playing it. It's got that instant gratification of setting up an effective route before someone else, seeing the money roll in literally and then moving onto the next part of the chain.

I really think it's going to go the way TTD did, easily letting you enjoy the game for hours at a time while giving you the feedback game play wise that is as good and in some cases better than its predecessor.

Good examples of this are, no more maintenance. That was a real headache before and thankfully doesn’t appear to be in Locomotion. If you want a train to stop to change something about it, it actually slows down nicely. I even started to see a city begin to change its roads as I moved people around, exactly like TTD, but better, somehow.

I just got a really nice feel from Locomotion, just about everything seemed to be in place to give me what I wanted. It made me smile.

Conclusion

I'm not happy about the Demo, it was a let down. But the prospects for the game are good. A lot of effort seems to have gone into it, little details and things that happened just made me think a lot of care had gone into the game. It had all the charm I was hoping for to, it felt like a Chris Sawyer game and that's always a good thing.

I really hope the late and rather poor release of a demo doesn’t put too many people off. For me at least, I still can't wait to get the final product on release day.

[Born Acorn]

Isn't there an option to choose, Excellent but can't beat ttd?


In my opinion its is excellent. Thats mainly because I found the networks more refined than TTD and a simple presignal support (train won't continue if both platforms are full) but its probably also because the real names of all planes (try really fast mode) and trains. Also that there are SO much UK locos, Ive got far enough to play with the deltic! The third rail system is also great, allowing EMU's

[Nemesis]

It looks nice, okay.. you have to get used with it, but i'm also a RCT fan so building isn't a problem for me.

Something what I think is missing is:

The subsidies... I build on that!
Free land.. not a mission.. I just want a automatic generatic map and play.. until the "end" like in TTD(LX)
Game Options.. I want to disable de A.I.

These three things are the most important for me.Well the first en third one could be resolved in the full version, but i'm afraid the most important feature number two.. won't be resolved. Well, that will make the game far less interesting.

[lcandy]

Yeah, well said Born Acorn. I really loved the look of those British trains to.

I don't think that's going to be a problem Nemesis. There is a scenario editor and creator that will work in the final edition, well that's how it looks. With RCT you could use that to make game's which didn't really end. So my thinking is right now, you will be able to start out, if you want, with a huge map full of undeveloped towns and industries, then go play till your hearts content.

The lack of that option would really suck from my perspective, I just don't think it will be absent.

[LorenzoDV]

What are the track "limits" you are talking about?

Anyway, my first impressions.

Graphics
IMO graphics are good. From the screenshots I had expected them to be a lot worse. The trains are really well-proportioned, the animation is smooth. Ok, they are not cutting-edge but still way better than TTD - wich I played till a moment before downloading the demo.

Sound
The music score is just great: I'm one of those people that like listining to game music. About the sound effects, I couldn't experience them because they were not working at first (I had to change the sound device to my sound card instead of default one) and their volume was too low (couldn't find a way to trim it).

Interface / controls
The interface is intuitive, as it was in TTD. You can do everything with just one or two clicks. Railway and route construction is a lot different from TTD, as we expected, but not that hard to learn. I prefer the new way: with TTD I had to constantly change track direction to make curves, each time clicking a button and traveling half a screen with the cursor. It me be disorienting at first, but it's really easy and intuitive once you get used to it.

Gameplay
It is undoubtly a Chris Sawyer game: I had the same feelings I always have when playing TTD. It's a rewarding game, a lot fun to play. I tried the Transport Giant demo too and found it VERY disappointing: the two games are on two different planets (JoWood watch and learn).
Railways are realistic: 16 directions, realistic smooth curves and switches. And also: a lot of transport options and vehicles, ability to go underground, trucks with trailers, electrified rail... awsome!
Ah, and I don't miss depots: they added more problems than realism.

Right now, the only missing feature I can think of is passenger destinations. I'm sure I will discover other low points, as there were in TTD, but this is a undoubtly a GREAT game!

[GoneWacko]

I think it's crap.

Not going to be worth the money

[lcandy]

I think it's crap.

Not going to be worth the money

Why don't you say how you really feel? Or at least say why you think its not very good.

[Cironir]

I think it's crap. Not going to be worth the money

Ouch. That's harsh. What about Locomotion disappointed you so much? It pretty much meets my expectations, so I'll buy it. I wish more people did, because this is such a niche market .... if we want more, better games in this genre, we have to make it attractive for the developers/publishers. It's just $20'ish.

[Born Acorn]

apparantly he doesn't like it because its like rct2. Which isn't really a reason. What didn't you like about RCt2?

[alphagamma]

I think it's crap.

Not going to be worth the money

Then go play Transport Giant

[John]

naja, played it a couple of times........
not sure

ok,
bad (or possibly good)
like in rct, you have to beat one map to get the next one, (good). bad, because there are no 'random' maps (shall we take bets on the number of expantion packs???)
very bad
trains cant crash into buses or trams, they go through them (how boring)
and when trains crash its an rct crash

also bad
trains can make it up a hill irrespective of load (like in ttd), minimum speed is 5mph
diagonal tracks cannot be raised or lowed (they could in rct?)
on the bus between two cities tutorial, the bus slows down to 12mph before the corner, yet on the way back it doesnt??
buses u-turns at end stations, where they just turn around, then switch over and if one side is taken the bus switches over to the other (too much like a rail terminal) the second bus should weight

good
underground building, above ground building (looks horrible though)
many different types, trams, 3rd rail etc etc
there is a maximum height you can build the tracks
trains dont stop instantly when you tell them to, the take time to break.

AI
welllll,
i saw a rather interesting layout by the AI, on the bigger of the two maps....


[edit]is the removing of signals like the removing of stations, in that case you just click on the bit of track again (with the same build tool as the one that is placec) and it will go [/edit]

[uzurpator]

1. Impossible to make synergic routes - for example to full-load load coal and iron ore at the same time.
2. Possible to multihead
3. Selectgoods by default
4. Track laying sucks - it gets overly complex when several tracks are laid
5. How to remove signals?
6. Wagons have speed limits
7. Impossible to lay diagonal track with ease
8. The game seems to be using kinematic model (accel/deaccel) from outer space. 400 kW loco does 27 kmh with 2000 ton train
9. Train Warp!
- wait until train unloads
- stop it
- pick it up
- move it to location you fancy (for example 2000 miles away)
- put it back
- let it load
- repeat ad-inifintum (micromanagers will LOVE this)

[John]

right one session later:


dissasters
coal mine shaft collapse
what happens, welll production falls a bit (no massive explosion )

and the AI still seems a bit random

[edit]ok, building up is good, but over houses???and towns???[/edit]

[edit2]k, found more usefull stuff,

you can have a prefered owner name (so you dont have to retype it everytime)

you can choose whether you want to see trains and station names at any zoom level (bar the closest)

(me thinks) you also have preffered currency, but ill go check

[edit3]yeah, its prefered currency

also, largest station possible is 16x10 (then you get the good ole message, station to spread out)[/edit]

[Cironir]

like in rct, you have to beat one map to get the next one, (good). bad, because there are no 'random' maps (shall we take bets on the number of expantion packs???)

I agree, yes. No random map generator is definitely bad, since that removes the ability to "just play" a scenario without knowing what awaits you. Player-generated scenarios should counter that a little, though, but it's not optimal.

I do like that you have to complete a mission before you can play the next map. That adds a bit of challenge to it, and provides some goals. No doubt, I'll eventually curse this "feature", but over all I believe it's a plus.

Expansion packs ... if they release any, it means that the game has been a success, so any expanasion is good for the game (and for us). I really don't want to wait another ten years for a sequel.