GameSpy's Preview

"OK," I said to Rick Selby, the Business Development manager for Microsoft Train Simulator 2, "You've got just a couple of minutes to explain to me what the big deal about Train Simulator is." After all, the first version of the title sold ridiculously huge numbers for a vehicle that, in the final analysis, can only go forward and back. Rick just smiled and gave me an impressive array of statistics on the numbers of people who are involved in some way with either a real railroad company or spend time building enormously complicated model train sets. The numbers are bigger than you'd ever imagine, and all these train fanatics apparently love fulfilling their childhood dream of driving these big steam chugging iron horses. Rick then began taking me through the features of the latest version of Microsoft's Train Simulator, showing me that it's not just about going forward and backwards. There are all sort of decisions and controls that have to e managed to get from Stockton to Santa Fe and Train Simulator 2 will model more of them than ever before. In fact, most of the product's new features, including the routes the player can drive, the engines available and a number of other elements came straight from the messages and requests sent in by the hard-core fans of the original title. The first thing I saw was one of several new routes that have been added to the product. The player will be able to drive accurately modeled trains across famous tracks in Germany, Japan and Switzerland. In fact, the sheer beauty of the train route over the Swiss Alps caused the developers to add in a passenger mode. Players can move around the accurately modeled and fully 3D railroad cars and just enjoy the Swiss countryside passing by. Yet, despite adding in all these exotic locations, Rick told me that the track that they're most proud of is the Horseshoe Curve, Pennsylvania route. Horseshoe Curve was one of the last steam locomotive passenger runs in America. It was dismantled in the 1940's, but it's been re-created here including period correct equipment, housing, tracks and even passenger clothing. That's right, passengers. One of the biggest complaints in the original product was that players would drive their trains through sterile worlds. Now, the trains drive through stations teeming with people who get on and off the train, mill around while waiting for you to arrive and even drive in other vehicles. Cars now drive along the roads that parallel that tracks and line up realistically at railroad crossings. There's also considerably more train traffic to deal with and even the chance to race some of these steel monsters. The cabs are also now modeled in 3D and are fully interactive - you can even stoke the firebox if you wish, and it's a lot more fun and cleaner than the original job. I must admit, Rick did a good job, transmitting his own love of trains through his enthusiasm for the product. Certainly Microsoft's Flight Simulator line and others show that there is a market out there for people who want to play with big machines they'd never get to touch in real life. The Flight Sim and Train Simulator also show that no one's more dedicated to giving simmers the accuracy they crave. Train Simulator looks like it will continue this long and distinguished tradition.

Danny - Pittsburgh
Official YARD DUTY Junkie

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RE: GameSpy's Preview, CSX_CW60AC_GregMarck, May-20-03, 06:27 PM, (1) RE: GameSpy's Preview, DTA, May-20-03, 06:35 PM, (2) RE: GameSpy's Preview, edwardk, May-20-03, 10:47 PM, (3) RE: GameSpy's Preview, ssw, May-20-03, 11:03 PM, (4) RE: GameSpy's Preview, landnrailroader, May-24-03, 08:04 PM, (12) RE: GameSpy's Preview, rgarber, May-21-03, 01:11 AM, (5) RE: GameSpy's Preview, Bing, May-21-03, 04:14 AM, (6) RE: GameSpy's Preview, heffed, May-21-03, 11:23 PM, (7) RE: GameSpy's Preview, Bing, May-22-03, 11:51 AM, (9) RE: GameSpy's Preview, heffed, May-22-03, 08:18 PM, (10) RE: GameSpy's Preview, brucek, May-23-03, 08:09 AM, (11) RE: GameSpy's Preview, crow357, May-22-03, 08:04 AM, (8)

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I like.

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Good advertisement. Shame about the reality! LOLWhen you consider how pathetic the original routes were (wrong track length, gradients, speed limits, route detail, missing gantries,etc..to infinity), and the totally useless activities, all of which have NEVER been corrected in two years by KUJU, what do you expect with MSTS2?More of the cynical same I expect, especially as KUJU is bleeding money, and desperate to make this one pay, so Microsoft will take them over and the big boys get a big bonus.Watch them KUJU shares go down! Then buy them at bottom prices.David

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LAST EDITED ON May-20-03 AT 10:47 PM (EDT)

Who knows, maybe the supplied routes will be better this time around. I wonder if they scaled the locomotives and the objects correctly this time around. The locomotives I believe were scaled bigger in the first release. I am not sure about the objects.Edward K.

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>Horseshoe Curve was one of the last steam locomotive
>passenger runs in America. It was dismantled in the 1940's,
>but it's been re-created here including period correct
>equipment, housing, tracks and even passenger clothing.
I miss something? I guess those PC, PRR, and other 2nd-3rd generation DIESELS I've seen pics of are just ghosts runnning on a ghost track?

Bradley Linda
Waco, Texas

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Well they were somewhat correct. Originally there were 4 tracks, and then, during the Leo Stanley Crane era (he was my boss at Southern, one level removed, for 13 years, nice guy, but a consumate bottom line focuser), around 1984 or so, one track was removed. Given that it is all diesel now, I doubt the 4th track was really necessary. Or maybe they are referring to the nearby Muleshoe curve which was abandoned some years ago, on the old Portage line. It is a few miles south of Horseshoe curve, but same general area.J. H. Sullivan

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"In fact, most of the product's new features, including the routes the player can drive, the engines available and a number of other elements came straight from the messages and requests sent in by the hard-core fans of the original title."
REALLY.Who'd a thought?Must've been a typo.He must've been thinking of FS or something else...Just not possible. Rich Garber

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Rich - You ought to know by now what the special flavor of MS hype smells like. These guys can't even count to ten, what do you expect? We'll make it work and you will stay up nights writing another great tutorial. The deafening silence regarding OpenGL pretty much tells me there is no chance at all for it being available in TS2. But I still think SOMEBODY would have at the very least mentioned it by now. Wrong again. Bing

Just say "Yo!".

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>The deafening silence regarding OpenGL pretty much tells me
>there is no chance at all for it being available in TS2. But
>I still think SOMEBODY would have at the very least
>mentioned it by now. Wrong again. I think no one has mentioned it because they know what the chances of M$ going out of their way to support something M$ didn't design are. -Jeff

Union Pacific is my drug.

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>>The deafening silence regarding OpenGL pretty much tells me
>>there is no chance at all for it being available in TS2. But
>>I still think SOMEBODY would have at the very least
>>mentioned it by now. Wrong again.
>
>I think no one has mentioned it because they know what the
>chances of M$ going out of their way to support something M$
>didn't design are. Yes, I understand, Jeff. But the same as having Kathleen Turner return my calls: I can dream, can't I? Now and then, the Redmond elves will throw in the towel and tacitly admit they can't do as well as the outside world. The WinXP defragger is an example. With Win98SE and prior, you might not live long enough to do a basic defrag. Worse, the proprietary defragger corrupted data; happened to me just once. I went out right away and purchased Executive Software Diskeeper 7, use it every day and am certain will never regret the purchase. Not cheap. Good software often isn't. My Copy of WinXP HOme has a defragger with the Executive Software name on it and sure enough, the interface looked famliliar. Compared to the version I purchased the included defragger is limited in functions. No reason for me not to use D7, which I did, so can't comment on how the limited version works. But it seems to me MS admitted they couldn't do as well as an a real world developer. Would they ever do this with OpenGL? Nah. But per above, I dream on. Not always rationally, you see, but have always been a dreamer.Bing

Just say "Yo!".

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>But it seems to me MS admitted they couldn't do as well as
>an a real world developer. Would they ever do this with
>OpenGL? Nah. But per above, I dream on. Not always
>rationally, you see, but have always been a dreamer. Without dreams, we wouldn't even have personal computers. -Jeff

Union Pacific is my drug.

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Quote:-But the same as having Kathleen Turner return my calls: I can dream, can't I?Have you seen a recent photo of her? http://www.imdb.com/EGallery?source=granitz&group=1970&photo=Events/1970/KathleenTu_Mazur_1086267_400.jpg&path=pgallery&path_key=Turner,%20KathleenMaybe you are recalling her Romancing The Stone? Bruce.

AustRail

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LAST EDITED ON May-22-03 AT 08:05 AM (EDT)

There was a place to send in comments and requests? Sheesh! I missed my chance! ROFLMAO! Oh wait.. sorry, I lost my head there.

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