To buy or not to buy, that is the question

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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 26 total)
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  • #6385
    jimutt
    Participant

    Hi guys!

    I’ve followed this game for quite a while now. And I thought it would be an instant-buy when it was released. Because I really like similiar sim games and I’m into model railroads a bit as well so yeah, I really like the game concept.

    Though I’ve been put off by various things. In some aspects the game really does not seem like it’s finished yet. According to som videos I’ve been watching and some topics here in the forums I would rather compare the game’s current state to something like early beta than actually a fully released game.

    I do know that you don’t always get a very good view by reading in the forums of a newly released game. As 90% of the topics tend to focus on bugs, glitches or just whiny players who want their money back. So I’m looking for more opinions about the game.

    What do you reckon? Does things like permanent terrain deformation (if you create a track and then delete it for example), the fast time-flow, imbalanced vehicles/game features reduce the overall experience of the game? Or do you still think it’s worth playing in its current state?

    I’ve bought many games when they were in alpha and beta stage. Unfortunately that has made me a bit more careful now. I’ve seen to many games be released with a lot of bugs and glitches and then the developers wouldn’t really care about this at all. Which leaves you with an unfinished game that will never become the game you believed you paid for.

    Though I have to say that I get the feeling of the developers of this game being very serious and commited. And I do believe they have been doing their best and will continue to do so. But I still would appreciate if some of you could write a few lines about your current experience with the game. 🙂

    • This topic was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by jimutt.
    #6390
    trainjunkie
    Participant

    Well, two simple things:

    – I am enjoying the game very much and am having a good kick out of it

    – If the actual state were to be the final state of the game I would find it slightly on the expensive side, but the game is built on such a solid ground that I personally am confident it will be either updated or modded to a point where I will get every pennys worth out of it.

    All of the above is my personal opinion

    #6405
    theuros
    Participant

    I was skeptical at first if is worth or not and sometimes I feel that the game should be in steam early access and not as finished product..

    But anyway .. game is worth buying, because is fun and nice .. and all issues I encountered are not a big deal .. and i’m sure that will be fixed in future patch.

    If you like the genre then is a must have game….

     

    #6409
    nickos111
    Participant

    I had the same doubts. I still bought it anyway. I dont think, in its current state, its worth the money (yet). Thats my honest opinion. The basics are there, now they need to focus on tweeking things, and fixing some bugs and annoying things that are still there. If i would be a dev, i would communicate as much as possible with people who really see potential in this game. I mean, who else can tell you what is of adding value then the people who play your game? Im not really following everything of Train Fever, but as far as i can see, there is not alot of communication from the devs.

    Still, its fun to play. Haha ;P

    #6412
    strawberrymilk
    Participant

    I completely agree with nickos. If you decide to buy this game, know what you’re getting into, this could be another stomping land. However I’m gonna have faith on the dev team just because of their game creation background.
    And the game is actually really fun, trying to always pin point the most effective strategy with the ever changing demands of the AI and where they wanna go.

    #6416
    jimutt
    Participant

    Thanks for your comments guys.  Well, I’ll probably need to think about it a bit longer. As you’re saying it would be nice to see more response from the developers in the forums. My experiences are that developers who only decides to fix what They believe should be fixed and don’t try to be very active in researching what the players actually thinks usually only produces updates with patch fixes and content updates that have little to no connection with what the players are actually asking for.

    And please don’t mention TSL, you’re bringing back the nightmares! 😉 haha  I really loved the early, buggy, glitchy early access for The Stomping land. I also spent quite a lot of time to create a community website, recruiting members, setting up servers etc. Only to be left with a unfinished game. A game with a lot of potential but greedy developers without any kind of commitment or attention to the players. It’s funny what money can do to people…

    This is a really hard decision. I love the concept, I like the graphics, I want to build some awesome railroads. But I don’t want to be dissatisfied if the developers leave the game in an unfinished state.

    #6423
    Pureon
    Participant

    If you like transport simulation games and have enough money to buy it, I’d definitely recommend it. The issues that many people have been posting about aren’t preventing me from enjoying the game.

    #6425
    gax
    Participant

    Ah yes, wounds of the past. Have faith, young padawan, and give love another chance. 😉

    #6439
    jimutt
    Participant

    Haha, well it’s really tempting to give it a chance 😉

    #6497
    Tattoo
    Participant

    If you’re looking for something like TTD or Locomotion, don’t waste your money. I’m sorry I did.

    I wish I waited to see what they did about the complaints first because so far, I think the game is a flop

    • This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by Tattoo.
    #6514
    jimutt
    Participant

    Okay, well I’ve been digging quite a lot in the forums today and I think I’m having a quite good picture of the game’s current state now. I do believe I would enjoy it, but at its current state and having in mind what kind of features I believe is important in this kind of games I think I would get rather annoyed after a while. Though I think that there are many thinks that could be improved a lot by updates. So I’ll kind of have to decide if I want to support the developers right now and hope they’ll continue to be committed and that they’ll listen to the community voices, or if I’ll wait and see what will happen.

    I buy the way posted a short comment on their Facebook page about the fact that there are many people who wants the developers to be a bit more active in the forums. And surprisingly they replied to me and wrote that we can be asured that they are following the forums. That is of course very positive, but I guess we’ll have to wait for a couple of patches before it’s possible to determin where they are going with the game.

    #6520
    stubblychin
    Participant

    It depends how tolerant you are of some pretty small bugs.  Some people are making out like this game’s bugs are the end of the world, but they really aren’t.  I’m getting quite addicted after 18 hours.  Sure there are things that need changing and balancing, but hopefully they will come along soon.

    If you do decide to bite the bullet, double check your system specs against the required or post them on the forum if you are concerned, as there are some people who I think presumed they could run this on any old laptop.  Also read as many of the player guides you can find, as they really help.

     

    #6536
    RickD
    Participant

    A quick note to those who are sitting on the fence about the purchase, I’d say make the jump and buy the game. Yes there are a lot of things that need patching but your purchase shows that you like and support what the developers are doing. Don’t forget the the devs are a 3 man team and not EA Sports. I’m happy with what has been released so far and so long as the devs keep making improvements I think the price of the game is worth it.

    #6562
    habadacus
    Participant

    I would say don’t buy yet. After poking around in the game over the weekend, I can tell you that it needs so much work, it’s going to take a long time to get to where it should have been for release. Smart money would be on waiting to see if that really happens or not.

    Right now, it’s a buggy mess. Trucks swerve through streets like drunks, and drive through trees, or sometimes float above the roads. For $35 there’s so  few vehicles, most with very boring, flat, generic paint schemes. Some good textures on the early models, but later vehicles are just monochrome, with no numbers or anything.

    There’s no real grade crossings, trucks just drive through trains. No gates flashing, the signals don’t change color or move their arms to indicate aspect. No streetlights, stoplights, headlights, marker lights, no weather, no change of seasons, no day/night cycle. No other terrain but green grass and farm fields with no one working them and nothing happening. Nothing happening at the industries, but little icons pour out of them occasionally. The people walk around well enough, and the cargo moves to show you where it wants to go, but there’s very little else finished in terms of ambiance like that. The only animation they seemed to have finished, was the black smoke from the steam engines, which you will see pouring out of almost every building as they overused it to death to compensate for the monotony of the world. Industry is an afterthought at best, all branch-line work, seemingly incapable of generating enough traffic to justify the premier, high-horsepower engines you’re forced to work with.

    Track laying is a hassle (no undo, bizarre terrain rules), crossings are a nightmare, upgrading an existing line or station seems impossible with out completely destroying it and starting from scratch. Signals are a confusing disaster that do not work as you may have come to expect from playing TTD, or from looking at them on an actual railroad, if they work at all. It seems to understand passing tracks, but try anything fancier than that, and you’re going to be disappointed. The city growth and people moving at the game’s core are well done, which should not be surprising after reading about the team on the game’s about page. But the game is not called City Sprawl Fever.

    Urban Games has stated ” it should be clear that there will be serious updates for the game in the next weeks.” The game has been out for nearly a week, and they haven’t said or done much else since they posted that nearly a week ago. There were two small patches that didn’t really do much of anything.

    I’m not saying I didn’t have fun moments slogging through the years on a small map on easy. It was fun figuring out what was going and seeing what worked and what didn’t. But I easily had as much frustration as fun. The pace and quality of updates is still an unknown quantity. If you haven’t bought yet, just wait and see when and if these patches materialize. You lose nothing if they don’t, and won’t miss much about this build if they do.

    #6563
    jimutt
    Participant

    I couldn’t stand it any longer… I had to press the buy button 😉

    Now I’ll just put my money and my hope in the hands of the developers and hope that this will turn out to be a really great game. 🙂 And yeah, there are many things that needs to be done and thanks for pointing that out everybody. But I’ll take a chance that it’ll at least give me enough fun to make it worth the money.

    And I know you warned me habadacus 😉 So I only have myself to blaim now.

    Yes I agree with you RickD about the fact that it’s really nice being able to support the developers even if it’s a game that’s under development or not really ready yet. And I’ve done that many times. But if you get fooled a couple of times and the game developers leave you with an unfinished game in your hands you’ll be a bit more careful the next time 😉

    • This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by jimutt.
    • This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by jimutt.
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 26 total)
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