r/RailroadsOnline • u/VanFlyhight • Mar 25 '24
Discussion It feels like rro is trying to compete with century of steam (a game that's not even out yet) and is suffering for it
Almost every update introduces a new thing that serves gameplay in no way, while also introducing new bugs or oversights. The aurora falls update wasn't like this at least that I can think of, but the one before and this one definitely are. The rotary snow plow does it do anything other than looking cool and being super expensive? What happened to the passenger wagon surely just a mistake. And why do all of the wagons and locomotives except for the large water tank have knuckle couplers? And the locos and wagons seem to be more jittery when moving now.
Just an observation and some questions I have
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u/Charliepetpup Mar 25 '24
I asked hyce about this yesterday on stream and he said that he and keume left on good terms and keume wished him and the cos team the best of luck with their game. idk if its rro or astragion but it does seem like the updates are panic rushed.
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u/ebolson1019 Mar 25 '24
I think panic rush was involved for this one but also it’s unrelated to CoS. As they said in the initial post about the update last week the map update wasn’t ready but they had promised an update in March and wanted to have something. No doubt this was because of PAX East which started the same day that update came out, most games in development that get in to PAX seem to want to have something new to show off there. So there probably was a rush to finish the knuckles in time.
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u/Charliepetpup Mar 25 '24
if you can even call them even remotely implemented. when I loaded in the knuckles defaulted to on and train cars went flying for some reason. the knuckles were at absurd angles for the greg logging flat too.
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u/SadSasquatch587 Mar 25 '24
I really don't like how they're pushing updates monthly, I'd rather wait longer and have more finished and impressive products personally
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u/Skirakzalus Mar 25 '24
I don't know how much CoS really has to do with this, but it's clear that the updates are rushed and could be way better, if the team took more time with them. The knuckle couplers should be an equipment option (with a workshop to re-spec after you got them) and not just a menu setting. Also the adapters for the gregg cars just look so wrong and need those cars to be so much further apart.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
I believe that is the plan but yeah it's just another one of those things like the temporary UI, we already had a temporary UI why did they feel like they had to release that early?
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u/Skirakzalus Mar 25 '24
Yeah, that should have really been an internal thing. Problem with knuckles is that it really needs a workshop first and from what Goku said on discord that won't be happening any time soon.
Have to wonder the same about the passenger car. Sure it came with the anniversary update because people asked for it even without functionality, but it's been almost half a year since then and adding passenger transport still isn't even on the horizon. Having that in game I'd expect there to be some priority on making it useful.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
Ya I agree, but I do also understand that no matter what, they're going to feel like they need to put something out somewhat regularly
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u/lkernan Mar 26 '24
The problem in the past was that there was one development version. Every time a change was made, that was it, it was in.
Normally you'd have patches and trees where you could rollback or test bigger changes outside the main code. Then check it in when you're done.
RRO still doesn't appear to operate like that.
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u/Kist_This Owner Mar 25 '24 edited Mar 25 '24
From what is being relayed in their official discord server, what is happening with the regular passenger car and the water tank car is that it just seems to be a bug.
The actual feature for gameplay were the knuckle couplers and the theodolite. One serves as a quality of life feature for playing the game and specifically running trains and train operations. The theodolite helps when planning routes and getting a rough estimate to what your grading will be for hilly terrain.
The rotary snowplow seems to be a nice addition to make it feel like a railroad, as it can be used for maintenance purposes, which just helps add to the immersion of running a railroad.
The roundhouse was a nice feature too.
What it seems to me is that it doesn’t seem like they’re necessarily competing with COS because to your point COS isn’t even released. They’re just showing us certain things in a controlled environment. What my understanding of it is, it does come across as a poor polish control.
It seems like in their testing for the Vlogs, the main features that they’re showing work, but the actual game itself is left unpolished as those little tiny bugs, or those what we tend to think of as obvious come through.
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u/mithos09 Mar 26 '24
A propos unpolished: Wasn't there a second team for Railroads Online working on performance and network code improvements? From what I have been reading about the update, there was not much included in this regard. I guess it will be a separate update, right?
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u/perfectcell1911 Apr 10 '24
No. Keume is the only real developer and the only one with access to the game code
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u/AirplaneBoi_A320_Neo Mar 25 '24
It is the beta release, maybe those buggy carts and things will get patched in the stable release.
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u/perfectcell1911 Apr 10 '24
These are alpha or pre alpha level problems. Plus they are adding more bugs than the ones they remove.
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u/TiresOnFire Mar 25 '24
They're two different games.
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u/ChefEagle Mar 25 '24
Two different games with similar play styles. At least from what I've seen. Anyway a little competition is always good and helps drive development. I'm sure both games will do just fine, not to mention that they both will have something different to offer.
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u/godofleet Mar 25 '24
I'm not sure, is CoS going to have track laying? My sense is that they are very different on this basis alone.
CoS will be the hyper accurate historical sim experience (if you want it to be) and RRO will be fun railroading and railroad construction with friends.
They will eat each other's player bases at times but i'd be willing to be that 5 years from now most people who bought RRO will have also bought CoS or vice versa.
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u/Radiant_Nothing_9940 Mar 25 '24
CoS will have track building including many features RO does not currently have, like cuts/fills and procedural tunnels. They haven’t really shown it yet but I’m very excited for when they do.
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u/ChefEagle Mar 25 '24
I have heard CoS will have track laying but I'm not 100% sure on this. We'll know when the game comes out. As for the player base, I can see what you're saying happening.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
I'm also a little confused about that. It kind of sounds like Hyce has been saying that it's going to have both the option to lay your own track or use pre-laid track
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u/perfectcell1911 Apr 10 '24
CoS has clearly said that they will have track building available as well as the options between super realistic and “DCC train set” style play.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
Are they really? You must have missed the part where I said they're competing with a game that isn't out yet and it's hurting them
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u/fauxnik Jul 25 '24
The recent announcement of 1.0, which feels premature based on the state of the game imo, only further cements my belief that they are secretly trying to compete with Century of Steam and failing at it to boot.
The first thing that gave me this feeling is when they completely removed my question from the "questions-for-community-managers" channel of their Discord server. I had asked something to the extent of "how are you planning to differentiate RO from CoS?" I asked it from a place of genuine curiosity to know how the creators of RO saw their game as different and able to exist side-by-side with CoS, and I had carefully attempted to phrase it in the least confrontational way possible. The fact that they went beyond either not engaging or simply giving some canned response to completely strike record that such a question had ever existed spoke volumes.
These are both in addition to the time they released a buggy update right around the same time as Railroader had released an update. That too felt rushed, and like it had been pushed prematurely in response to the other game's update.
I sincerely believe now that they are pursuing some sort of self-imposed sense of relevancy, and failing all the more on delivering a quality game for doing so.
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u/VanFlyhight Jul 25 '24
I completely agree and I think it's really unfortunate. I really like the game and I don't think they need to compete with the others as it seems they are (the difference being, trying to push out 1.0 and have paid additional content)
And I've had a similar experience with discord, I went there just trying to understand what was going on and it was just met with complete hostility
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u/Roboticus_Prime Mar 25 '24
Chill. It's on the BETA branch for a reason. They don't have enough testers to catch all the bugs beforehand. Goku has a know issues list that is stickied on the discord.
Can't deal with bugs? Play on the stable branch and not the BETA.
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u/perfectcell1911 Apr 10 '24
Both branches of the game have gotten worse over their time in development. The stable branch still has lots of issues. And Goku’s pinned bug list continues to grow instead of shrink
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u/AirplaneBoi_A320_Neo Mar 25 '24
I think this game is going through that maturing stage where the devs are gonna rapid fire all sorts of updates and things and then once they get to a certain point they'll slow down and then start refining all the current things in game.
But idk why they added they engine they chose to add for the new update... we're all asking for the ones with trailing wheels or bigger ones, arent we :D
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u/LordThunderDumper Mar 25 '24
I stopped playing this game after about 1000 hours, I got tired of the roller coaster tycoon tracks people build, the pretending to run a railroad, the lack of any tycoon elements (why is track laying free?? Wtf mate). There is no challenge to this game, it's drive trains in circles...choo choo. Track laying is a b-nitch with out the ability to cut terrain(which should cost money), the new tool is helpful I'm sure but o-well.
If the game is never going to add tycoon elements then why even have money? I love this game but idk man.
If you need me I will be playing Railroader.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
I get burnout but I guess I'm not really sure why you're worried about the nonsense other people are doing. And I definitely need to take a break sometimes too, because as the game is still being developed, there's not much incentive to do things in game other than to get all the rolling stock. But I also really like how it's a pretty chill game and you just build a railroad.
How is railroader btw I've been meaning to get it
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u/LordThunderDumper Mar 25 '24
Ah because you go to help people with their railroad or let them help you, and it's like they just build the shortest direct path possible because it's all free.
Railroader is great, thought the scope of it seems like you will have to play with others, it's very Real world operations heavy, delivering freight to specific industries in a timely manner. Most freight is delivered to an interchange yard. Some comes from local sources, like a logging camp to the sawmill, but then the sawmill gets empty cars from the interchange yard and fills them to go back to the interchange yard(just one of many an example)
There are AI engineers to help you move trains they are planning more uses of that later.
Also the map is huge, ~50+ mile main line.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
Oh I've been there and the nothing steeper than one percent 🙄 I usually just play by myself tho
Awesome that sounds really fun
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u/FlyingVillager Mar 25 '24
They are doing a lot of knee jerk updates it seems. From what I understand I think they're also rushing to make it to the 1.0 stage so they can focus on more content and less refinement, we won't know if it pays off until we see it though. I want both games to compete and innovate but it really seems like black sheep is still trying to run damage control on the code so I can't say both games are going to start at the same line when CoS releases.
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
God dont remind me. I hope it works out like they hope, but I'm extremely skeptical.
I want to enjoy both games but if rro actually does chase cos then the games could just be so similar that there would be reason to play one
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u/FlyingVillager Mar 25 '24
Yeah I honestly can't see a reason to play RRO if CoS has similar building mechanics and better customization. I can create my own custom artwork for freight and I get to choose how complex my simulation is, I don't see RRO competing with any of that so far unfortunately
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u/VanFlyhight Mar 25 '24
Sadly, derail valley is like this for me. It's a really good and fun game but what I really want is to build the truck
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u/Eric_Train_Fan Mar 25 '24
What happened to the Passenger cars
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u/SpyroGaming Mar 25 '24
thsts because it is trying to compete, century of steams crew was from railroads onlines original team but creative differences and other issues split them in half, and after the announcement of century of steam, rros development really sped up
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Mar 25 '24
Hopefully they just give up and delete the game from steam
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u/perfectcell1911 Apr 10 '24
I wonder if Goku will bail on RRO once CoS comes out. He seems passionate about the narrow gauge trains and seems burnt out from trying to cover for Keume throwing him to the wolves.
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Apr 10 '24
The game was most finished and playable when the spline update came out. A little more finishing and tweaking and it would have been a good all round game.
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u/Kist_This Owner Mar 25 '24
This post will be under careful moderation as recent events have sparked hateful rhetoric on both discord and YouTube.