Played with SMRR, thought it a nice piece of light entertainment good for a few days but not worthy of deeper investment. So... wanted to get a few opinions:
Is there a set of problems with RT3 that, if fixed, would bring you back to the game? Or would it take an entirely new game?
How important is multiplayer? So far all of the changes to RT3 affect the editor only. If we alter the game itself, we'll lose the ability to play multiplayer unless every player is using the same version. You can already see this to a lesser extent when using Bombardiere's new engines.
If you used to write scenarios, what made you stop? Was it the lack of feedback, changing interests, or showstopper bugs?
How would you solve the boredom factor in RT3 once the company reaches 'unstoppable' size? Change the chairman's responsibilities? Increase overhead above a certain size so that owners had to hop between multiple companies to stay profitable? Leave the challenge to the scenario scripter (unions, managers, natural disasters, etc)?
I've never heard of a game coming back from the bargain bin, and normally I wouldn't even attempt this - but the only sign of decent economic sim development I've seen has been Transport Empire, which appears to have stuck in design phase for over two years. (Pjay, what do you think?) We don't have enough volunteer developer-hours here to build an entirely new game ourselves. That seems to leave patching what we have, and finding out if it really is possible to turn it into a solid, fun economic rail sim.
Really, the only thing keeping me from RRT2 or 3 is time. It seems the days are getting shorter lately.
I would like to make another map, or at least try and fix the 3 I've made, but between the forum, web site, and the annoying trivialities of daily living, along with the work I'm doing on a route for MSTS, there's just not enough time in a day.
I think once I get this route work done I'll find some time for RRT.
I am currently playing RT3 and RT2. I expect to get back to making RT3 scenarios sometime soon. Apropos SMRR does not have the word tycoon in it, I mean, there is no company.
Milo, this is a great subject to choose for a discussion and I have (surprise) some opinions about RT3.
Quote: Is there a set of problems with RT3 that, if fixed, would bring you back to the game? Or would it take an entirely new game?
First of all, I do think it needs the developer to make most of the changes but then again I know little of how the game is/was programmed. Nevertheless, here are some of my suggestions that would make the game more playable.
Graphics:
If I play the game the environment it plays in has to look natural to me. RT3 has in the broader sense wonderful graphics capabilities and is great to look at from a wider perspective. The scenery can be wonderful. Where it fails is at close-up and this is most noticeable when going on a train ride. The rail bed looks appalling as well as the places where individual track sections join or better said, do not join. Sid’s Railroads has made it look just the way I like it.
The train should not drive through buildings and the rolling stock should not give me the appearance that they are made out of paper thin materials.
Overall game play:
There is a lot of ambiguity as to what you are and the effects of what you are doing. For instance, if I am the chairman of a railroad I do not, generally speaking, have the railroad company own other industries. Why would I want to risk, from a purely financial point of view, both those entities due to a takeover from another company? If I do own other industries then it would not be linked to the railroad and be a separate entity. To be given an option of the railroad owning it or it being owned personally would be fine.
To simply purchase an industry and count on the built in economic system to generate funds in order to get sufficient cash to start a railroad is in my opinion a wasted exercise. The idea, at the beginning, should be to start and run a railroad and by doing it well you get to be a Tycoon. As a Tycoon you might own other industries but that would be through your personal finances and not through the railroad company you are the chairman in.
A suggested improvement would be to have Industrial only A.I. companies that own industry.
Economy model:
Overall, the way product flows is not a bad idea but it does not, in a practical sense, work. One of the reasons why it does not work is that all stations in a way behave the same. They are a sink and attract all kinds of cargo.
Sid’s Railroads deals with that in a better way by having unique stations. For instance a station at an ore mine will only provide iron ore. Perhaps it could be made to also accept goods but that is a different matter. So in RT3 if I place a depot for a textile mill in the middle of a city, it should just accept wool and cotton and not passengers or mail or whatever.
In any case by having those special purpose stations you will not have all kinds of cargo streaming to those stations that you most likely can not use anyhow. If you want to attract all kinds of cargo then place a unique “cargo yard†station there.
Failing the above approach, then just have for each station a check-off area in which you select which cargo a station is equipped to handle. If the depot handles produce, you then need a refrigerated area and that adds cost to the station. You handle coal you will need bunkers or other holding facilities.
Another issue is that I can not ship anything at a loss. This leads to excluding activities that would subsequently still lead to a profit making undertaking. This whole cargo flow business still needs a lot of adjusting. I mean how much sense does it make to ship ore from one steel mill to another just because there is one dollar difference in price. You then stop delivering to the first station and later then can sell it back where it came from in the first place. Or why would a steel mill want to stockpile that much ore in the first place and why then sell it to the competition.
I am not sure that it is salvageable at all. I would like to see demand play a much bigger role then it does with the present system.
Map Editor.
I like the improvements made to it so one does not have to type out the events anymore. What is missing however is a better way of dealing with mathematical expressions, improvements in dealing with variables and a copy and past for text entries.
What also need to be restored is the access rights as they were in RT2. This is now a real mess.
Well I could go on but those are some of the issues I have with the game the way it is.
The man who has no imagination has no wings. (Muhammad Ali)
Quote: How important is multiplayer? So far all of the changes to RT3 affect the editor only. If we alter the game itself, we'll lose the ability to play multiplayer unless every player is using the same version. You can already see this to a lesser extent when using Bombardiere's new engines.
Multiplayers is not important to me since I do not use it and believe never will. But the simple fact that we might at some point be sharing maps that have been enhanced with mods in one way or another is perhaps an issue. How will a map behave if opened and it uses assets that are not available from a player’s basic game? Would the “asset not found†notice and the graceful exit not be coded into the basic game?
This, to me, unknown behavior has stopped me from installing any improvements to the basic game.
The man who has no imagination has no wings. (Muhammad Ali)
Sid's Railroads just wasn't what I was looking for, so I am back to RRT3 exclusively for my tycooning fix.
My personal perspective is that I'm looking for more options. The more possibilities, the better. That's why I love the extra locomotives.
With that as a preface, what I would love to see is more cargo types (gold, silver, electronics, etc), and more "factories" that use cargo in different ways (Aircraft Plant: steel + rubber + electronics = aircraft, Jewelry Factory: gold + silver = jewelry, etc).
Another idea is parallel track. Currently, the track that is laid appears to almost magnetically repel any other track that is laid near it. Is that able to be de-programmed? The triple track in SMRR is nice, but I'd settle for being able to lay 2 double tracks parallel to each other.
I'm also looking for new maps. I've downloaded pretty much everything that appealed to me on Hawk's site, Railroad Tycoon Info, H&P, etc.
I think what I'm looking for can be summed up with "more!". :) More locos, more maps, more cargo types/buildings...you get the idea.
Quote: If you used to write scenarios, what made you stop? Was it the lack of feedback, changing interests, or showstopper bugs?
For me the biggest issue for not moving on with map making is that I simply to not like to play RT3 maps. I do like working on them and have fun doing it but not wanting to play them and in doing so missing out on catching some errors before others get a chance to catch them is a major impediment.
I have made the statement before and will make it again that I make scenarios primarily and foremost for my own enjoyment. Therefore, if it takes me forever to finish one so be it. However, I must say that overall the amount of input and feedback from players in general, is very disappointing. This is rather surprising because the feedback from volunteer map testers has always been excellent. Even though, I believe, I have been at times going out of my to get players involved in the process, it simply has not had the desired result. Only very few players have shown interest and/or made suggestions on improvements to particular scenarios. This is not a major issue for me but it would help to make a better product and other players would benefit from that also.
The man who has no imagination has no wings. (Muhammad Ali)
Interesting... This is exactly the sort of info I need.
Gwizz, is there anything you can put into words about why you enjoy playing RT2 maps more than RT3 maps? (Yeah, I know, if this could be reduced to a formula then everyone would be writing games.) If it's just a general comfort level, then there probably isn't much we can do to RT3 to help you; if it's something specific you can point to, such as being able to control exactly what gets shipped where, we should put that on the list of things to try to hack.
JSS, thank you very much for your suggestions. I'll have to think about which of these are feasible without requiring major alterations to the game engine - you're probably right that several would require the original source code to implement. Do you think that implementing some of these might make playing maps enjoyable for you, or is your disillusionment deeper?
Canis39, it should be feasible to add new cargoes - Ned Fumpkin already demonstrated a few in his Atlantis beta, in fact. Tricky part is adding them without breaking existing scenarios. Trickier part is finding out how to build the 3D models in the game, then getting someone to build new ones. JSS, very good point about testing for installed asset sets.
I went through a period where I just got tired of the build industry-bootstrap company-finally start playing in fifth year cycle. Eventually I found a rather nifty cheat/bug that let me accelerate that considerably, and started enjoying the game again. I doubt everyone's experience is so easy to fix, though.
This is a great thread to reintroduce Hawk's forums!
I must confess that I "started" with RT3 a couple of years ago (my wife bought it for me for Christmas...big mistake on her part). I loved the game and played non-stop for months. I was excited about SMRR announcement, figuring it would build on RT3 (not), and have played the demo only. And, I subsequently have purchased RT2 Platinum and have been getting into that of late.
So consider all of that while reading my answer.
- RT3 roadbed graphics brutal (SMRR much better)
- RT3 coaster track-laying brutal (SMRR much better - except for the movable city buildings?). Cuts and fills, even the Disney-like version in SMRR would be better than impossible grades
- RT3 bridge-building brual (again SMRR better)
* So SMRR is a much better game graphically (if you could zoom out a bit more), but the "game" is lacking likely won't buy it (again I've just played the demo), I would rather spend time with Civ4
* That said, the maps themselves look much more realistic in RT3, thanks mainly to the work I've read by players on this forum and others
I have tried my hand at writing some map scenarios (even submitted one to Hawk's previous forum), but I find this a bit overwhelming. BUT I am more than willing to keep learning. My gameplay would be more along the build and empire and try to be most profitable kind of scenario (trying to emulate the protoype) and not get into too much "game play" for the sake of it.
Now (and I'm sure you'll chuckle) the very simplistic difference between RT3 and RT2. If you were to delete the options of "any freight" or "any express" from RT3 and have to actually micro your consists like RT2, would the games not be more similar? I found that to be an initial challenge when back-tracking from RT3 to my "new" RT2 game? But, I am frustrated by not being able to deliver goods to a certain place, regardless of profitability, to support an industry (most likely one that I own), say coal and iron to a steel mill. Although, if it's that tough...sell the steel mill.
Sorry for rambling. But what a great topic.
Curious, again comparing to SMRR, that everyone from Sid down says that the game is supposed to resemble a "model railroad" in his mind, when most "modellers" are striving to not have their railroads look anything like models, but instead emulate the real thing? I think RT3 has greater capability - still - to continue on that more realistic path.
milo wrote:Played with SMRR, thought it a nice piece of light entertainment good for a few days but not worthy of deeper investment. So... wanted to get a few opinions:
Is there a set of problems with RT3 that, if fixed, would bring you back to the game? Or would it take an entirely new game?
I have four grievances:
The AI has a single digit IQ when it comes to track laying, so I tend to only play on maps that has no AI (sometimes I remove them in the editor myself). I once saw an AI build a bridge along the Mississippi that was as long as half the state of Illinois.
I don't like that maintenance buildings are separate from stations. This tend to turn speed limit scenarios to micromanagement hells. They also contribute to terrorforming
Rivers and bridges. Bridges in RRT3 are monstrous affairs that have miles long and miles high ramps. Also the required distance of tracks from rivers makes it near impossible to lay track in some river valleys. (example the Humboldt valley from Central Pacific scenarion) I sometimes remove rivers when they becomes to annoying
Industries are way too profitable. The diworsification effect isn't taken into account. Our company has a RR management, they shouldn't know anything on how to run a steel or argiculture business. I tend to prefer scenarios where Industry building is turned off.
So, I would be happy with playing RRT3 if you would give me scenarios without AIs, rivers, oil/sand/water consumpion and industry buying.
How important is multiplayer? So far all of the changes to RT3 affect the editor only. If we alter the game itself, we'll lose the ability to play multiplayer unless every player is using the same version. You can already see this to a lesser extent when using Bombardiere's new engines.
I have never played RRT3 multiplayer and probably never will.
How would you solve the boredom factor in RT3 once the company reaches 'unstoppable' size? Change the chairman's responsibilities? Increase overhead above a certain size so that owners had to hop between multiple companies to stay profitable? Leave the challenge to the scenario scripter (unions, managers, natural disasters, etc)?
To prevent the unstoppable size problems. I would remove industry buying, add management overhead related to the number of stations and leave the rest to the scripter.
dj wrote:Now (and I'm sure you'll chuckle) the very simplistic difference between RT3 and RT2. If you were to delete the options of "any freight" or "any express" from RT3 and have to actually micro your consists like RT2, would the games not be more similar? ... I am frustrated by not being able to deliver goods to a certain place, regardless of profitability, to support an industry (most likely one that I own), say coal and iron to a steel mill.
I recommend players try RT3 Atlantis to see how you can play RT3 with a distinctive RT2 flavour. Because you need to micromanage to control the effect on the environment, and because the distances are high, it plays very much like RT2.
As for overriding the rejection of unprofitable cargoes, it could be that the steel mill is unprofitable, relative to unowned ones willing to pay a higher price for coal and iron. Check the price of steel at each steel mill competing for the same resources. I know new industries take a while to build demand, but even after we buy or build them, they take time to get built and come online. I know that if you are the boss of everyone, you can do what you like, but I think that overall, the cargo model in RT3 beats the others.
first of all, a good topic IMHO!
Now, after SMR has been released (I've only started to play the demo though) it seems to me as a completely different kind of railroad game that RT2 or RT3 did.... you know, more cartoonish (from what I know you can't 'take a ride' like in RT3 - which has EXCELLENT camera options btw!!), and doesn't reach the depth (economic and geographic) as RT2 or 3..... so I think I'll stick to RT3 for a while (still, I want to test/play SMR as well)...
after RT3 came out I hardly went back to RT2 although it was an excellent game...but having played RT3 and got stick to the unique game design RT2 is kinda hard to go back to IMHO...
milo wrote:If you used to write scenarios, what made you stop? Was it the lack of feedback, changing interests, or showstopper bugs
well, at least this point I want to comment on... you know I've started making my Semmering map... the reason why I got stuck now again (having finished school in summer) is that the editor doesn't give me the possibilities I need.... the RT3 editor is enhanced compared to RT2, but it only offers you the triggers that are provided...so you can't write some triggers for yourself like in RT2...and a few other things were 'simplified' as well.... e.g. you can't seperate track-laying rights from train-running rights or industry-buying right and the likes....
so I'm sure I'm GOING to complete my Semmering map sometimes (as we still don't have a real RT4), but it may get delayed 'again' unil I can solve several issues concerning the event-scripting
With the Railroad, distances are disappearing, material interests are promoted, culture is raised and spread.
Carl Ritter von Ghega
Once I've exhausted the possibilities of SMR, I'll probably head back to RT3, unless the editor for SMR comes out. I write scenarios when I can't find one to do what I want. I get bored just trying to make money, but I love to manage trains, but not too many trains. So, my scenarios try to spread track building out over the entire game and force you to manage the trains to maximize profits. In RT2, buying industries was critical in my scenarios, while in RT3 I didn't allow it because it made things too easy.
Will I write new scenarios - yes, but only if there is something I want to do and the editor gives me a way to do it. There's stuff I want to do in SMR (a la NW scenario) and I wonder if the editor will allow me. In RT3, I haven't played any of the new scenarios developed after last spring, so I have some catching up to do. Sometimes these give me ideas, - the western scenario (D&RG?? - can't remember) had a terrific traffic jam in Denver that just forced me to do Four Roads to Berlin. SMR has traffic jams, but the dumb path finding AI makes them very frustrating - the biggest flaw in Transport Tycoon/Locomotion.
I prefer RT3 over SMR, but SMR is new and has some good points, so I want to keep playing it for a while longer. But, I wish there was a reason to ship food and other such cargo over long distances. RT2 and RT3 gave you good reasons - well, in RT3 it just happened. I liked RT3's express system and wished it could have been used for cargo also. Most probably don't agree. I wish trains didn't get lost - RT2/3 were great on this issue, although in RT3 trains got lost if you double tracked over the train while not on pause.
I gave up on making scenarios for RRT3 because I was sure SMRR would make the older game obsolete. Since that does not now appear likely, I will probably try my hand at one more.
Is there a set of problems with RT3 that, if fixed, would bring you back to the game? Or would it take an entirely new game?
1) Needs an event test for a single train's annual/lifetime best speed.
2) Basic 'ownership' model of cargo is wrong but can't be fixed without total game rewrite.
3) The AI players are pathetically useless. In Great Republic I did finally get the AIs to build railroads, but I had to let them cheat.
How important is multiplayer?
Could not care less.
If you used to write scenarios, what made you stop? Was it the lack of feedback, changing interests, or showstopper bugs?
Lack of constructive criticism is a HUGE problem. When I got good, critical feedback (for Japanese Miracle) I hopped to it and fixed the problems, so you can say the criticism made the game far better. Mostly though if you spend a lot of time and energy making a scenario you get little or no feedback.
Partly I ran out of good ideas. I have found myself wishing for a good scenario in the US during the steam/diesel/electric changeover years, though, so perhaps I'll do something with that.
Also there's room for a transcontinental railroad game from the UP side, one that reflects the graft, corruption and logistical problems - in short, one that is a real nightmare to finish. I can't believe someone else hasn't already tackled this.
How would you solve the boredom factor in RT3 once the company reaches 'unstoppable' size? Change the chairman's responsibilities? Increase overhead above a certain size so that owners had to hop between multiple companies to stay profitable? Leave the challenge to the scenario scripter (unions, managers, natural disasters, etc)?
In Great Republic I increased the track laying and maintenance costs and forced the player to spend ever-higher amounts for track. This increases overhead, forces efficiency and limits the amount of track you can build in a year. I also threw in a lot of random events, some helpful and some not, but all scaling up as time went on. Lastly, I closed the middle and west regions and opened them later in the game. As a result, the game isn't hard and there are a lot of things you can do but overall there are clear limits on what a player can do in a single turn.
Japanese Miracle takes a different approach by requiring you to ruthlessly pump up industrial output. You earn new track by delivering steel. The fun lies in building and servicing industries while growing (and improving) the rail network that makes it all happen. Being 'unstoppable' isn't a problem, it is the only way to win!
So in short the answer is to carefully restrict resources and limit the player's abilities to accomplish certain goals. You want the player to be rewarded for good play and penalized for bad, and to feel that the medal goals are just barely out of reach. Also it helps if you can set up some 'intermediate' goals that are prerequisites for the final goals. This lets you channel the player, gives him something to work for in the short term and gives him a little glow of satisfaction as he moves on to the next challenge.
The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." - James Branch Cabell
milo, it is difficult for me to say if just some of the fixes would make all the difference. Other players have also some great ideas and in combination, - who knows? All I can tell you is that my list was in no way complete.
No matter what, in my opinion we should try to find out first what the intention of the developer is with the game. How do we know that there is not someone working on the next upgrade already? (If you never before thought that I have lost my mind you most certainly will now). I do believe that RT3 is not a bad base to expand from if several things get rectified.
Perhaps we should get ourselves organized and approach Take2 (or whoever) and tell them that as railroad men we are not to be trifled with and threaten them that under certain circumstances we even could get irrational. Whatever, it would just be nice to know where we are at rather than assuming or guessing that RT3 is dead, Railroads will never come close to it and Trainz will all the time be too far into reality to be our idea of a fun game.
Gwizz, yes we share that pain but it simply does not make it any easier.
The man who has no imagination has no wings. (Muhammad Ali)
JSS - Of course we can't predict in advance if changing the game will affect how people feel about it. It's more that modding RT3 involves some rather hard work. I'd like to get a list of possible repairs together, figure out what each will take to implement, have us vote on which ones to do - if any - and perhaps ask for volunteers to help hack this beast into shape. Not all the changes are to the game, either - what EPH described has me wondering if there should be a 'review a scenario' link available from the program menu.
I don't think we'll get help from Firaxis/PopTop, because they don't want to do anything to jeopardize SMRR's market. A couple of sources have mentioned that Sid doesn't like the RT2-RT3 direction. Worse, they're still selling Shattered Union, which shares its engine with RT3, so we can't even beg the source code from them. If an RT4 were to happen, it'd be from a different company and with a different name (Firaxis owns the RT trademark).
To be honest, I >don't< want this project to be too successful. Modding is in the grey area of legality as regards the license agreement. Take2 is turning a blind eye because what we've done so far can only increase their sales; if we actually started chewing noticeably into SMRR revenues, you can bet there'd be a C&D in Hawk's box the next morning if not a lawsuit in mine. Even OpenTTD and TTDPatch waited almost a decade before they dared to open up the Transport engine.
Interesting topic Milo. I have been thinking about serious modding, but I am not sure could it be done/should it be done. However it is interesting to hear what are others thinking.
My issue is track laying. It should be easier and there should be a manual option for bridges, tunnels and junctions.
New industries and cargoes are relative easy to do. (I know how, but haven't personally done it) 3D model... Well that is another thing.
I stopped quickly to let know that I am here. I read you post carefully later when I have more time. Perhaps it would be an idea to separate topics to different posts.
I am curious to see what will follow, and what could be done with RRT3.
