JT Met Line

[Merlin75]

This night interest a few people Just Trains are making the Met line https://www.justtrains.net/product/metropolitan-line

[749006]

I wonder if the Met line would add-on to the Chiltern MYB to Aylesbury Line?
A good percentage of the Metropolitan Line exists in that route.

Peter

[gptech]

I imagine that would be true Peter, it would increase the route's "saleabiity" if marketed as an extension as well as stand alone.

[johnrossetti]

It's all my local area, so the line interests me but would interest me 110% if it was an extension to the Chiltern Line

John

[Deano55]

A few people being the catch of your line.
I'm sorry but JT make poor quality old out dated routes that even the old TRAINZ franchise look far better than.
Even Disney and WB cartoons look more life like than any JT route.
Sorry to the lovers who will argue for argues sake, but hey, lets tell it as it is. xxx (kisses)

[ashgray]

Deano

By all means tell it as it is, but to compare it to a Walt Disney cartoon does both JT and you a huge disservice, makes you look a little childish, and I'm embarrassed for you. Can you not find anything more constructive to base your opinion on?

Ash

[sem34090]

I'll be honest and say that until getting London to Aylesbury I thought much the same about JT's routes, but that route (the base for the Met route) changed my mind on that.

Don't write the off just yet - they've produced some good stuff of late.

[gptech]

Too many have forgotten, or possibly have never known, that JT allow the amateur route builder to gain a foothold in the more professional world, and maybe get a bit of beer money for it too. Yes, lots of old Kuju assets have been used in JT routes, and yes, sometimes the placing of said old assets has been a wee bit too much along the lines of the contrary girl's garden (pretty maids all in a row) but if those have been the assets available to the route builder what do you expect them to use?
The old invitation, as non-helpful as it is---if you can do better, be my guest--which many of those passing *helpful* critique never take up, still holds.

On the subject of cartoons..... I'd actually take being compared to Disney and Warner Brothers as a compliment; they are after all the Rolls-Royce and Bentley of the animation genre and set the standards for todays animation studios to aim for.

Now, shall we wait until we see some in-game screen shots before deciding on the quality of the route building?

[IronBidder]

The old invitation, as non-helpful as it is---if you can do better, be my guest--which many of those passing *helpful* critique never take up, still holds.

No, I think that's the wrong way to look at it. These are commercial products and as a customer it's reasonable to expect them to be done well. If a carpenter fits my new door wrong the solution is not for me to learn how to fit a door, it's to get the carpenter to do the job properly. If I buy a car and I don't like the build quality it's unreasonable to expect me to make a better car.

JT's routes are often innovative in their subject and scope (e.g. Kyle, Western Mainline), but can suffer from clumsy repetitive asset placement, though recent routes are getting better. I'm often surprised at their bad choice of assets, given that more suitable ones usually exist within their own libraries. The Ness Bridge in Kyle comes to mind. In reality it's a red plate girder steel bridge, but it was modelled as a sectional concrete bridge, yet one of the linear objects included in their asset library is a red plate girder bridge!

[RobertM]

I do fancy a bit of LU action for a change, but the first thing that stands out for me is everything is to 'clean' no clutter or infrastructure

[gptech]

Agreed; the image on the JT website does look a little sterile but let''s not forget that this is still a work in progress. If if's a right Lemon when released, hammer the hell out of it for being shoddy. However, nothing we've seen indicates huge problems so for anyone to claim that it has, or will have, real problems is ridiculous.

[gptech]

These are commercial products and as a customer it's reasonable to expect them to be done well.

Of course, but before we could go any further with that line of thinking we'd have to agree on just what the definition of "done well" is.

If a carpenter fits my new door wrong the solution is not for me to learn how to fit a door, it's to get the carpenter to do the job properly.

Isn't that what JT have done previously in response to customer comments?
It's very easy to sit back and be over critical of any route/asset available for the game, but until you've had a go at creating the same thing how can the statement "it should be better" hold any conviction. That's the point I was trying to make, not one of stating "fix it yourself"---that will come later, when/if we have a list of *faults* to work with.

can suffer from clumsy repetitive asset placement,

Which really has been the only fault with the vegetation in (particularly) Western Lines ; not the fact that they've used older Kuju assets but that those assets have been placed in too neat rows, all at the same height, all with the same orientation thus resulting in a very artificial appearance.
Using Kuju assets is fine, particularly for those new to the game who don't have the vast catalogue of routes to draw on that many of us "old hands" do. If we go with the theory that the Met will tack on to Chiltern, let's keep things neat and tidy and look at the requirements for Chiltern---just the Chiltern route plus the Kuju European Locos and Assets Pack; £25 for the route plus £12 for the European pack. 37 quid in total.
Compare that to a route from elsewhere--£25 again for the route, plus 3 other routes which add up to £50. 75 quid all told.
That 75 quid route is a cracking route, though it still has it's issues according to my definition of "done well", but for those on a budget JT fill that *middle ground* nicely.

I'm often surprised at their bad choice of assets,

Kyle, according to my source who I can trust 100% in this matter, also has a major flaw in one of the villages. There's a large tree which is modelled as the wrong species. "Big deal" we might say, but to one who hikes regularly in that area the inaccuracy of a well known (in the hiking fraternity) landmark grates somewhat. Yes, he had a smile in his eyes when he informed me of this *serious fault* and it matters not one bit for the purposes of playing at being a train driver but it does highlight how familiarity of an area can, and will, alert you to even the most trivial things

[IronBidder]

Kyle, according to my source who I can trust 100% in this matter, also has a major flaw in one of the villages. There's a large tree which is modelled as the wrong species. "Big deal" we might say, but to one who hikes regularly in that area the inaccuracy of a well known (in the hiking fraternity) landmark grates somewhat. Yes, he had a smile in his eyes when he informed me of this *serious fault* and it matters not one bit for the purposes of playing at being a train driver but it does highlight how familiarity of an area can, and will, alert you to even the most trivial things

The Ness rail bridge, as one of the most important civil engineering structures on the whole line, is rather different from the wrong tree in a village off track.

[gptech]

Which bit of

......the most trivial things

is confusing you?
Of course the tree's different to the bridge. However, if both are purely scenic items neither one is harder than the other to replace with an alternative. I'm not saying you should it, just that it's a simple job. Have you made JT aware of it?

[markpullinger]

And for the rest of us who have never been on the line in real life, or seen a vid wouldn't have known about the inaccuracies if you hadn't told us! You have so totally ruined the experience for us.