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"MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but lacks something..."

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rrtycoon (29 posts)
Jan-23-02, 06:59 AM (EST) "MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but lacks something..." I have now played now and then this game, and I have to say I'm bit of a dissappointed. I invested a lot of money to this game, and what I got is a beta-release. Just a few "minor" things, that keep bugging me:
The (steam)-trains accelerate very easily, but are hard to slow down- I found out that on an even ground, the Gölsdorf just keeped on going forever, no matter if I set the regulator to -80, no matter if I set train-brakes on overlap99...you would think, that a train will atleast slow down a bit, if the engine isn't running, but no. I even set the engine to zero-power and looked how it affects the speed: no affect. Gölsdorf just puf-puffed it's way, eternally. Clearly, they lack knowledge of general rules in physics, at Kuju. A steam-engine is A VERY HEAVY-built mass of metal, and IT WILL SLOW DOWN, if it's not powered. I'm not myself an expert, but hey, MSTS feels ridiculous sometimes.
Yes, and I DO know that trains slow down slow, in general. But they do slow down. With MSTS, they dont - unless you brake. Why on earth have they chosen deep blue as a font color, for the message-boxes? The general text is white, but speeds are with dark blue, which is extremely hard to see for a person with bad eyes. WHY, WHY?!! I'm a nearsighted person, and I just can't see the text there. It frustrates me very much. Also I find hard to understand, why there's not provided any kind of general MAP, while you are running a route? A map would have worked much better, than a list of stations, which could have worked as a plus, but not as the only way to get the idea, where the heck you are going. The SLOOOOW mouse - My mouse acts on MSTS the same way, as my own hands do - after I have had five drinks of rhum or vodka. (Only- I don't drink anymore, by the way) Not only isn't it bugging me in general, but it hurts the overall playability of the game, as the controls are very hard to use with the slow mouse. For example the train brake has to be clicked and dragged, over and over again, to get it to the way you want it. "use keyboard instead" isn't a good excuse for a game a paid almost 100 bucks. Damn it, with the prices of processors nowadays, I could buy an AMD DURON1G processor for the same money! And it bucks me like hell. Besides, I don't recall all the keys, as I play other games too, not just MSTS. The cabin controls of Gölsdorf: here and there, but not exactly where they should be. When I point at the "throttle" (or what it's real name is, I'm not an expert, and not even amateur), and click at it, the whistle sounds. What a mistake! Hard, very hard to understand why this kind of easy mistake has slipped through. And you have to remember, microsoft sponsored and marketed this game. Looks like that's about it - they didn't obviously do anything else, like some sort of "quality-guarantee-testing" All sorts of bugs have come thru. Is the overall strategy of Microsoft to just "stick a Microsoft-stamp on it, and people will buy it"-kind of way? Just "Microsoft" everything, even the internet, and there you go. I say it stinks. Activities: Great that the game includes an editor. (which, by the way, is the only reason why this game could survive more than one chrismass-season, anyway). BUT: You would think, that they would have bothered to include a little bit more, and better done activities there. The activities for Gölsdorf are very few and not to be taken seriously- they are more like something to practise with. ACtivities are the ones you play this game for - what's the glory just to ride a track, hour after hour? I hate to say this, but MSTS 1 isn't a classic. Maybe MSTS2 will be, who knows. There's too many things that annoy me in this game, to the point of frustration and anger, that I suspect if I ever will get any kind of joy out of this game.
Just guess who is NOT gonna buy and pay for microsofts XP? I trusted them once, and got next to nothing, I'm not gonna do the same mistake again. That's what I learned so far in life. With all said, I still hope that there will be MSTS 2, and goddamn it, if it isn't ten times better, atleast in playability!
(not much to ask, as the MSTS first is so poor in that respect)
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but l... troub Jan-23-02 1 RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but l... rgarber Jan-23-02 2 RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but l... BlakeTyner Jan-23-02 3 RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but l... jspittler Jan-23-02 4

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troub (294 posts)
Jan-23-02, 10:08 AM (EST) 1. "RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but lacks something..." The good thing about the world is that your opinion does not decide what makes something a "classic." troub
MSTS: Illinois Central Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
rgarber (1389 posts)
Jan-23-02, 01:56 PM (EST) 2. "RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but lacks something..." Okay, obviously you're not the biggest MSTS fan... just yet. But you know? You are like alot of us that when all this started, the future of this game was a short one. But, if you keep at it, you'll see there is alot this game does. Alot will depend on what you like to do. For me, route building. So I'm at, every day, at the very core of what I see most people complaining about. At the same time, there isn't one aspect of the sim that folks aren't complaining about something. But every day the membership climbs, new engines are loaded, new routes are being built and the popularity of the sim grows. This is a tough sim to crack. It's not a game. You got to get into it to really enjoy it. You may find yourself spending money to upgrade your system. This is nothing new. Even for a game. Been doing it since Falcon3 came out and my gosh we had to go from a 286 256K monster machine to some cretan from mars ungodly expensive 386 bankruptcy marraige busting rig. And it hasn't stopped since. Increase your RAM for starters. Get it over 256 meg. Get a current video card, and a smile will break out on your face. Plug in a mega-whopping faster CPU which you can get for unheard of bottom-dwelling prices and soon your name will be up there with the greats. Agree, first impressions were not the best with MSTS in regards I wanted it all. Months later after the many contributions of others, I got one route finished and am plugging away at another. Looking to increase your enjoyment of the sim... there's millions of megabytes to download. Here's a way to look at this. All these downloads came from somewhere. If they can do it, so can you. Rich Garber Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
BlakeTyner (118 posts)
Jan-23-02, 02:11 PM (EST) 3. "RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but lacks something..." I have to admit, I don't do much steam driving, but from what I have done I like the steamers...never driven a real one but the ones in the game are pretty nice.My main question though, is where you live. I don't think I would have spent 100 bucks on the game and I LOVE it. I paid $49 at Wal-Mart. And about XP...I downloaded it before it came out and ran it on my system for a while. There are a lot of improvements and the desktop looks and "feels" a lot better. Security is an issue but I think that has been fixed. I ran BlackIce defender to insure I wasn't being hacked. To tell the truth, I probably woulndn't ever PAY for it...but that's me. It's not a bad OS.Just keep at it for a while and you'll probably enjoy the game. There are a lot of great add-ons here that make things a LOT better. Just my two cents worth Blake Harris
Vice Dean, Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jspittler (99 posts)
Jan-23-02, 10:57 PM (EST) 4. "RE: MSTS has great POTENTIAL, but lacks something..." Hey Blake,Not a complaint, just an observation:It is possible your signature animation may be a mild irratation for some folks for two main reasons, and a minor one:1. Your animation is 40KB. This is a fairly large file, and would take folks without broadband a while to download.2. Your animation is very large physically. This makes it take up a lot of room on the screen.3. Many people find animations somewhat distracting.I am not claiming to be the signature police, but I thought I might at least make you aware of the issues, before someone comes in and tries to start a "flame war".BTW, I am sure that some people are bothered by MY signature as well, so I guess it is all a tradeoff.I could be wrong, people may like your signature, but it is my observation.Take it easy.
Judd Spittler
www.juddspittler.com/spittler_engineering/
Spittler Engineering:
High Quality Freeware
for Microsoft Train Simulator
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