Hi Dev-Team and everybody else!
During my 30 hours of playing the game (yes, I took yesterday off for it) I noticed some bugs which I wanted to bring to your attention as well as I thought about some possibilities to improve the gameplay:
1.)Traffic: I read a lot of threads which argue about the amount of traffic ingame and I can’t concur with that opinion. Metropolises are dense population areas which need to be crowded, either with cars or with people or both.
The bug regarding traffic I encountered was a rather curious one: After building a bus or tram line the traffic on the lanes used by any line increased dramatically after a few ingame months which made it nearly impossible to maintain a profitable line using roads.
In Amsterdam I experimented on this hypothesis:
I built a base net of Metros and one tram line from factory (south) to the airport and after becoming profitable I saved the game.
On basis of that Savegame I tried building buslines in many different locations: suburb, city center, a.s.o.
Every time the same effect: heavy traffic on my side of the road, nearly no traffic on the other lane.
I can’t say for sure if the problem continues when you change the direction of an existing line because sometimes a new traffic jam would occur and sometimes not.
What I can say for sure is: On every new road based line, regardless of tram or bus, I get a traffic jam anywhere on the map.
2.)Cities in Growth: I recognized on two occasions that Amsterdam decided it would be better to cut off a small amount of a road and place a new building there instead off placing the building on the road which it made disappear. I have two neighborhoods where I can’t send busses because one of the roads was made a gull-de-sac without turning point for my busses.
3.)Tourist got stuck: On one occasion I noticed a stuck person which didn’t vanish, move or anything else and was responsible for a traffic jam which ended in a gridlock.
The site where that person got stuck was “Beuersplein” on a former tram station which I relocated because of the massive traffic jam.
Just to be clear: The traffic jam did not start on the intersection to Damrak but approximately three to five car lengths before the stop of the intersection.
Suggestions:
While playing I made up my mind what I miss in that game and I think one or two of the issues above could be solved with that
1.)Park&Ride: Ingame I tried it like I know it from nearly every major European city I have ever been to: Metro or tram station at the city limits connected to a line to downtown or another major line. Guess what: Only one or two passengers from the nearby neighborhood jumped in and wanted to use public transports.
When I think it through I would change the means of transport when I got stuck in my car for the last three months.
Can’t you make the citizens more aware of their travel time? They are surely aware of the time waiting for the bus so why not showing them how much faster they can go by leaving the car at the brand new P&R Center with a connection to the inner city?
2.) CHANGE: YES, WE CAN!
a. Why can’t we build simple roads out in the nowhere to make sure our busses will not get stuck anywhere? To not let the player have to much power over traffic by giving him/her such a powerful tool you could simply restrict the building capacity to 1km per month or per year or per day or…
b. A part of your dev-team visited Vienna to get some impressions of the city. Good! Like most other cities Vienna has bridges, subways and exclusive lanes for trams. Would be nice to have such a capability in that game as well.
3.) The feature I miss most in the whole game is the possibility to click onto a building and be able to see where the people visiting/staying at/in the building. The infoscreen is a nice tool and very detailed but a one-click view would be a much simpler way to make the first steps on a map.
4.) Not a real bug or problem but in most cities I visited you pay the price of the ride per kilometer rather than per means of transport. IMO it’s not logic to pay a fee for every public transport you use to get to your destination inside city limits.
To solve the passenger could be priced by the chosen route which would also determine how fast or slow he would get there
All in all I would like to thank you. I’ve waited for a game like this since Verkehrsgigant / Traffic Giant and I really like the game, the amount of detail in the game and the complexity of it. You sure got a real beauty here and I can’t wait to see what the expansion packs will add.
Suggestions for further patches/expansions:
1.) Multiplayer would be reeeeeeally nice but not like Locomotion
2.) City-specific models for the vehicles (I would love a GRÄF&STIFT circling around Vienna)
During my 30 hours of playing the game (yes, I took yesterday off for it) I noticed some bugs which I wanted to bring to your attention as well as I thought about some possibilities to improve the gameplay:
1.)Traffic: I read a lot of threads which argue about the amount of traffic ingame and I can’t concur with that opinion. Metropolises are dense population areas which need to be crowded, either with cars or with people or both.
The bug regarding traffic I encountered was a rather curious one: After building a bus or tram line the traffic on the lanes used by any line increased dramatically after a few ingame months which made it nearly impossible to maintain a profitable line using roads.
In Amsterdam I experimented on this hypothesis:
I built a base net of Metros and one tram line from factory (south) to the airport and after becoming profitable I saved the game.
On basis of that Savegame I tried building buslines in many different locations: suburb, city center, a.s.o.
Every time the same effect: heavy traffic on my side of the road, nearly no traffic on the other lane.
I can’t say for sure if the problem continues when you change the direction of an existing line because sometimes a new traffic jam would occur and sometimes not.
What I can say for sure is: On every new road based line, regardless of tram or bus, I get a traffic jam anywhere on the map.
2.)Cities in Growth: I recognized on two occasions that Amsterdam decided it would be better to cut off a small amount of a road and place a new building there instead off placing the building on the road which it made disappear. I have two neighborhoods where I can’t send busses because one of the roads was made a gull-de-sac without turning point for my busses.
3.)Tourist got stuck: On one occasion I noticed a stuck person which didn’t vanish, move or anything else and was responsible for a traffic jam which ended in a gridlock.
The site where that person got stuck was “Beuersplein” on a former tram station which I relocated because of the massive traffic jam.
Just to be clear: The traffic jam did not start on the intersection to Damrak but approximately three to five car lengths before the stop of the intersection.
Suggestions:
While playing I made up my mind what I miss in that game and I think one or two of the issues above could be solved with that
1.)Park&Ride: Ingame I tried it like I know it from nearly every major European city I have ever been to: Metro or tram station at the city limits connected to a line to downtown or another major line. Guess what: Only one or two passengers from the nearby neighborhood jumped in and wanted to use public transports.
When I think it through I would change the means of transport when I got stuck in my car for the last three months.
Can’t you make the citizens more aware of their travel time? They are surely aware of the time waiting for the bus so why not showing them how much faster they can go by leaving the car at the brand new P&R Center with a connection to the inner city?
2.) CHANGE: YES, WE CAN!
a. Why can’t we build simple roads out in the nowhere to make sure our busses will not get stuck anywhere? To not let the player have to much power over traffic by giving him/her such a powerful tool you could simply restrict the building capacity to 1km per month or per year or per day or…
b. A part of your dev-team visited Vienna to get some impressions of the city. Good! Like most other cities Vienna has bridges, subways and exclusive lanes for trams. Would be nice to have such a capability in that game as well.
3.) The feature I miss most in the whole game is the possibility to click onto a building and be able to see where the people visiting/staying at/in the building. The infoscreen is a nice tool and very detailed but a one-click view would be a much simpler way to make the first steps on a map.
4.) Not a real bug or problem but in most cities I visited you pay the price of the ride per kilometer rather than per means of transport. IMO it’s not logic to pay a fee for every public transport you use to get to your destination inside city limits.
To solve the passenger could be priced by the chosen route which would also determine how fast or slow he would get there
All in all I would like to thank you. I’ve waited for a game like this since Verkehrsgigant / Traffic Giant and I really like the game, the amount of detail in the game and the complexity of it. You sure got a real beauty here and I can’t wait to see what the expansion packs will add.
Suggestions for further patches/expansions:
1.) Multiplayer would be reeeeeeally nice but not like Locomotion
2.) City-specific models for the vehicles (I would love a GRÄF&STIFT circling around Vienna)
