Atomic Systems

What is standard these days? What features do we, as purchasers, have a right to expect any new release to have?

I’m asking because without having an agreed definition of what constitutes the current standard specification it is well nigh impossible to make a reasonable judgement about the quality, or lack thereof, of any new DLC. We often see members here asking for the opinion of others as to whether or not product X represents value for money and a fair minded attempt at answering that that question objectively can only really be made if there is a widely acknowledged standard against which that product can be measured.

So, just what should the current standard be? What features is it fair and reasonable to expect in any new product?

To get the ball rolling here's what I would suggest the standard features should be for any new diesel and electric locomotives/units.

Universal

• Fully operational external lighting configuration
• Fully functioning fans and grills
• Dynamic exhaust effects
• Cab light
• Night cab lighting
• Instrument lights
• Fully functioning instrument indications
• Mousable controls
• Prototypical brakes
• Rain effects
• Opening cab windows
• Two tone horn
• Master key
• Wheelslip indication

Where applicable

• Functioning guard-driver buzzer/bell button
• DRA
• Slow speed control
• Player controlled headcode/destination blinds
• Functioning train-length system
• Selectable nameplates

Sounds Universal

• Separate internal/external sound sets
• Prototypical equipment noises
• Brake rub/squeal
• Flange rub
• Wheelslip noise

Sounds Where Applicable

• Door sounds
• Driver – guard buzzer/bell

Now some might try and dismiss what I have set out above as being a wish-list. It is not. Everything I have mentioned here already features in some existing DLC’s and there is therefore, in my opinion, no good excuse for us not to reasonably expect them to be built in to any new release.

Now of course, other factors will always enter into a debate as to the value or otherwise of a product, such as the number of liveries and, not least, the asking price. However, having a definitive standard for the basic features we expect any release to have will go a long way toward making the task of assessing a products inherent value a whole lot easier and give prospective customers a solid measure of what to expect in return for their money.

Cheers,

1S81

I think that the list is a good one, but I fear that those devs already vary widely on their outlook as to what constitutes a standard, some devs do it because they are passionate about realism others do it for the cash that is why an expected standard will not happen, may as well whistle into the wind imo. But yes it would be nice if the list you gave became a pre requisite and a kite mark or something to qualify them as being so?

smarty2 wrote:I think that...

I hear you and I pretty much agree. That said, if enough of us start to vote with our wallets and demand a bit more for our money then the message might start to get through. Railworks has for a long time been a producer-led product and while it was developing and finding its feet that was all well and good, but those halcyon days are now gone and with more and more entrants coming into the DLC marketplace then the customer gets to have more say.

Dont know about anyone else but I long ago gave up the must buy-everything mentality. Quality and value for money matter more to me these days and if that means going without this or that item on my "would be nice" list then so be it. If it's a substandard mousetrap then I'll wait till someone makes a better one before parting with my cash.

1S81

I agree with you totally there, my cash is staying in my wallet as far as RSC content is concerned, but.... port road comes out I have no problem supporting Keith. Not even got the "new" 66 even at half price! Not interested with the premier league mentality.

I'm with you on this one brother! In the early days I was a full on DLC addict buying up everything, even stuff I knew wasn't my thing like steam engines and foreign routes.

These days I'm a much more cautious customer and pick and choose very carefully indeed. One thing I've learned on the forums though is that everyone has wildly differing levels of expectations which equal and surpass the wildly differing standards of DLC currently on offer!! Not a good recipe for creating an agreed and accepted standard.

My personal standard today is to play the patient game and read the reviews carefully and wait for sales if applicable. I've also stopped buying completely from certain developers who have a less than friendly approach to customer service coupled with serious deficiencies in the quality of sounds etc.

The only developer I continue to purchase from without waiting and at full price is Richard Armstrong! His soundpacks and scenario packs ooze quality and you know you're getting the very best every single time. Pocket money prices also mean there is little hesitation in purchasing from AP.

1S81 - I'm in full agreement that the list you've given is (or should be) the de facto 'standard - but I have a couple of additions of my own.

1 - full compatibility/usage of controller devices stated as being suppported by the game (e.g. XBOX controller, RailDriver, etc)
2 - photo-realistic cab dash textures (I cannot stand cabs that look like they have been carved out of virtual 3D plastic with a hot wire)
3 - passenger views (where appropriate, of course. It really narks me that none of the payware 4-CIG/VEP emus feature any kind of pax view, yet their interiors would be perfectly acceptable for one, given the standard of the built material in there already).

However, getting developers (payware or otherwise) to adopt these as 'requirements' will be marginally more difficult than getting the Dalai Lama to dance the Hokey Cokey in MC Hammer trousers. In the case of the freeware devs, it'll come down to skill levels, time and commitment - and frankly we don't have any reason to be judgemental if they're giving it up for free anyway. In the case of the payware devs, it'll be down to 'bums on seats' and whether their shortcomings affect sales.

At best, I think your 'standards' list might form the basis of a set of reviewing criteria, but the problem is going to be in getting some publication (online or magazine) to adopt them, and to actually bother to review DLC content. Maybe a reviews thread or two on this forum might be a start, and offer prospective customers some useful insight that cannot be gained, sadly, from the online point-of-sale materials (which are often superficial at best, misleading at worst). However there are potential libel implications with reviews, and the Atomic Systems team may not be keen on that as a risk to bear. Certainly, what the DLC world of TS2013 needs is a 'Which?' magazine type level of coverage, with less fluffy, rewritten press-release puffery, and more quality/content focussed impartial write-ups.

1S811985 wrote: • Prototypical brakes
• Wheelslip indication

• Separate internal/external sound sets

Snipped a little to get relevant points.

Looking at these from the other side of the fence for a minute;

• What exactly do you mean by "prototypical brakes"? there are core issues which will stop any attempt to do fully prototypical brakes - there isn't a single DLC that's done them "prototypically" yet.
• Wheelslip indication? in the cab or the interface? RW core adhesion physics are broken quite badly, so it's not really something to look at too hard.
• Internal sounds: cab audio occlusion works, so there isn't a need to do another full set for inside the cab.

What it boils down to is if there are enough man-hours in the project budget to insert all those features.

Kariban wrote: [*] What exactly do you mean by "prototypical brakes"? there are core issues which will stop any attempt to do fully prototypical brakes - there isn't a single DLC that's done them "prototypically" yet.
[*] Wheelslip indication? in the cab or the interface? RW core adhesion physics are broken quite badly, so it's not really something to look at too hard.
[*] Internal sounds: cab audio occlusion works, so there isn't a need to do another full set for inside the cab.[/list]

What it boils down to is if there are enough man-hours in the project budget to insert all those features.

Yeah, I worded that poorly. By prototypical brakes I mean that the brakes work as close to realistically as possible according to the braking system on the prototype being modelled.

Most cabs, even on older traction types have a wheelslip indication light in the cab and this should work.

For sounds I had in mind what AP is doing with their pro series. Perhaps that's an ask too far. Then again, when a bar gets raised it's up to everyone to try and hurdle it.

1S81

Your list above could indeed be used as a kind of reviewing benchmark for dlc releases. Would take out all the emotion and personal preferences etc. Just a yes or no for each of the checkpoints on your list would tell you all you need to know. Each individual user knows what they're prepared to do without and what are essential elements so this kind of info could be really useful.

1S811985 wrote:Fully operational external lighting configuration

Don't forget that this can't be presently done for single locomotives or one-car trains, such as the Class 153 DMU because TS2013 can't handle more than the standard Off/Head/Tail lights on these trains. Trains such as the Class 220/221 Voyagers (ie the Voyager Advanced from JT) can handle this as the driving cars are different.

thetrainfan wrote: this can't be presently done for single locomotives or one-car trains,

It couldnt be done in the Kuju dark-ages. No reason why, with a bit of work, it cant be acheived now. The Taurus manages it and so does the 76/77. Again, this is about a bar having been raised.

1S81

Right you are, I still live in the Kuju dark ages
Never thought of the 76/77 and Taurus even though I have all three!

Kariban wrote:Looking at these from the other side of the fence for a minute;

• What exactly do you mean by "prototypical brakes"? there are core issues which will stop any attempt to do fully prototypical brakes - there isn't a single DLC that's done them "prototypically" yet.
• Wheelslip indication? in the cab or the interface? RW core adhesion physics are broken quite badly, so it's not really something to look at too hard.
• Internal sounds: cab audio occlusion works, so there isn't a need to do another full set for inside the cab.

Fair points all. I think the main intention is one of judging the degree to which these things have been implemented well (or at all). Some DLC, for example, appear to have no in-cab attentuation, and you can hear the right-away bells of a totally different train at the opposite end of a faraway platform just as clearly as you can hear your own! To me, *something* has been poorly implemented in that case, and (if I were reviewing the asset) I would downmark it on that basis, simply because *other* assets don't suffer from this problem. Ergo, whatever the underlying RSC/RW/TS reason that it might be awkward or difficult for developers to exploit, some do and some don't - the ones who do, deserve more brownie points (and/or customers' cash) than the ones who don't, in my opinion. I am less certain of the variability of brakes and wheelslip, but clearly there are differences between assets here too, else the OP would not have mentioned them, I feel. I concur with his intent, though the finer points may need nailing down in order to ensure fairness of any application of these 'standards'.

Kariban wrote:What it boils down to is if there are enough man-hours in the project budget to insert all those features.

In the eyes of the developer, certainly (and I speak as one, though not of any TS2013 payware - at least not yet).

But to play Devil's Avocado, the customer generally won't care how long it has taken to make said asset, unfortunately. They are most likely to evaluate the asset in terms of 'features-vs-price' (which is broadly equatable in their minds to 'quality-vs-price'). Whether the developer struggled across the ice-floes of Greenland, bringing his asset to birth amidst a flurry of snow whilst fighting off polar bears, or whether he banged it up in an afternoon whilst rolling a spliff and drinking tequila, is actually immaterial to the customer in 99% of cases. Obviously the latter developer most likely will have made a worse-quality product, but not necessarily. He may have invested in kit on projects past that has simplified things for him, and thus have the art down to a simple point-and-click exercise; he may even just be a genius. Conversely, the valiant, struggling, high-effort developer may be a complete numpty who creates more problems for himself by not RTFMing than he has already due to the polar bears! Sadly, effort expended (and man-hours/project budget, in commercial terms) is *only* a consideration for the commercial developer - along with those other hoary considerations like price-point, and how much of the net sales receipts to split with the distributor and publisher. The customer won't give a toss about any of that, and for them, quality-value-for-money is the only equation that matters. Alongside the equation 'how much is this asset vs another asset', of course. In a nutshell, if the developer can't reach the bar set for him by market expectation and still make a profit after all the middle-men and wheeler-dealers have been paid for yelling about his wares on his behalf, then he shouldn't be developing that product, that way.

This might sound hardnosed, but it's the commercial reality all businesses face. Skilled and worthy 'makers' of anything use every economy of scale, trade-secret, trick or bit of experience and knowledge to be able to make their products better and more quickly than their rivals. This in turn increases their chance of making a profit.

The unfortunate situation with TS2013 at the moment (in my opinion) is that because there is not really any independent review process or a commonly-agreed set of standards for an asset to be measured by, it's actually quite easy for a crummy developer to be able to ship a sizeable quantity of product that is not fully compliant with the modern iteration of the game-engine (whatever the historic reasons for that, it's still a 'fail' in the eyes of the customer who bought that product yesterday, as new, thinking it would work fully). Alternatively in some cases fully compliant assets can be shipped out that are massively lacking in features, compared to other available assets, yet are pitched at the same price.

The writeups on Steam, and/or the developer's or publisher's sales pages usually very neatly (and very legally) gloss over or totally ignore those shortcomings, focusing instead on nostalgic guff about that asset's history in the real world, and the customer is left struggling to find out the real truth. And it's too late once they've purchased it and found out it's a woofer. With Steam, there is no refund. This is one area where the rules are *firmly* in the publisher's favour, not the customers'. It's an area where *most* other makers of things in the real world would love to be, but are prevented by law. But because software 'purchasing' is all about 'licensing', rather than tangible owned goods, it's allowed, and it persists. IMHO, it's wrong. If I'd bought a Hornby OO-gauge Class 455 EMU because I'd been told by the shop that it would fit my O-gauge track (or even if they *hadn't* told me that it *wouldn't*), I'd be able to get a refund under the Sale of Goods Act. But not in the case of software. Caveat Emptor.

I applaud the effort by the emptors to create a common standard for assessment, so that there is less caveating required.

1S811985 wrote: For sounds I had in mind what AP is doing with their pro series. Perhaps that's an ask too far. Then again, when a bar gets raised it's up to everyone to try and hurdle it.

There isn't actually a need to go and record internal & external sounds though, since the audio engine got changed; looking at the internal sounds and going "hey you short-changed me here!" because they reference external ones is just silly. There is a different issue with internal sounds from *other* stock - that is more to do with the other stock's sound config I think. All that excess running noise you get in a cab when you'd never hear any of it, because the stock has internal running noise set up...

End-user reviews are firmly in the hands of end-users, it's not the developer's responsibility to publish reviews ( would you really want that anyway! ). Given the choice would you rather have a developer miss a few features because that's all they can budget for, or can the entire project? a lot of more advanced features people are starting to take for granted need devs to actually fight the dev platform which is crazily time-consuming.

And finally, "hardcore" enthusiasts won't want to hear this, but; *most people don't care*. Any quality issues aren't down to lack of reviews, they're down to lack of competition.

Kariban wrote:

1S811985 wrote: For sounds I had in mind what AP is doing with their pro series. Perhaps that's an ask too far. Then again, when a bar gets raised it's up to everyone to try and hurdle it.

There isn't actually a need to go and record internal & external sounds though, since the audio engine got changed; looking at the internal sounds and going "hey you short-changed me here!" because they reference external ones is just silly

For the most part the occlusion is good enough, but personally I prefer separate soundsets as internal sounds can be totally different.