Railroad Tycoon 3

[Rasbelin]

Nah, I'm quite sure they won't forget about gameplay.

I just noticed that I forgot to mention in February that PopTop Software had already registered the domain railroadtycoon3.com very shortly after RT2 was released, so already back in 1998 they expected RT3 in some form.

[JohnT]

I couldn't stand the stock market aspect either, so I ended up cheating in the first few seconds of most games and buying all my stock. It also irritated me that you couldn't assign which cars were to be "unloaded" at certain stations.

OTOH, the rest of the game was fun as hell, especially for people like me who just wanted to play in sandbox mode. RT3 might be my 2nd new game buy of the year (MOO3 was the other one (bought off Ebay for $20)).

[Urban Ranger]

The one big unforgivable omission in RRT2: can't build tunnels. My first reaction was followed quickly by

Other big ones: can't build a track into a city if somebody already has a station there (no sharing like Empire Builder, no rate war like the original RRT), can't leave stock at a station where no demand exists for it for another train to pick it up, can't build your own industries.

Small ones: can't set priority haul for a train, can only build bridges at certain places, gradient readout for tracks are not accurate.

[Az]

I never played railroad tycoon.

I liked transport a lot. ( but that's a different story. )

[vovan]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The one big unforgivable omission in RRT2: can't build tunnels.

They calim to have fixed the oversight for the next installment. Another piece of quote from the press-release:

As well as the 25 challenging scenarios to recreate magnificent feats of railroading history from around the world, players can also lay down track, complete with tunnels, bridges, and overpasses, then pick from more than 40 locomotives - from the original Planet and Norris 4-2-0 to monstrous late steam engines like the 4-6-6-4 Challenger to the ultra-modern EuroStar bullet train. Players will haul over 35 different cargos between more than 150 different buildings, in a dynamic and fluctuating economy.

Notice the tunnels in the very first sentence.

[The Pioneer]

I actually like the pop-top group, they certainly have interesting ideas i.e. Tropico 1 & 2. But I can't wait to get my hands on RRT3, I've been waiting for a long time for this game.

So long...

[The Pioneer]

Express World has very good coverage for RRT3, you can also find info on RRT2 if you are stillpplaying the game!

So long...

[vovan]

Well, it looks like PopTop has posted a news item on RR3. (Available on the main page: http://www.poptop.com .) They are basically saying that now with Tropico 2 done, their main focus is shifting to RR3 (). And also this bit of info:

We'll have a new webpage for the game with more details and screenshots very soon.

Heeey, now that I like.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by vovansim
They calim to have fixed the oversight for the next installment.

Oversight? Bah, tunnels were in the original Railroad Tycoon.

[vovan]

Right. That's why I call their absence in RRII an oversight.

[Tau Ceti]

Tunnels were hardly that great in the old RT either, being limited to single track, and the double track implementation there was pretty silly (double track can safely accomodate exactly two trains? ) Furthermore, tunnels on the scale we are mostly talking about in these scenarios would be pushing the boundaries of realism. Of course, the realism factor is not all that high to begin with.

Anyway...

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Other big ones: can't build a track into a city if somebody already has a station there (no sharing like Empire Builder, no rate war like the original RRT)

Huh? You can connect to your competitors' track and stations, paying fees to them for doing so. Alternatively, you can build your own station nearby, and any cargo that is within the radius of both stations appears for pickup at both, the first to pick it up getting it.

Rate wars were another annoying part of RT1, being a very artificial concept and generally extremely disruptive to your operations while they lasted.

can't leave stock at a station where no demand exists for it for another train to pick it up

You can in The Second Century, and in the original if you have the gold edition.

can only build bridges at certain places,

Except for the restriction that you must build at least one straight section of track on each side of a bridge, I have seen no limits to where you are allowed to build them.

gradient readout for tracks are not accurate.

How would you know? Do you get any other information than what the game tells you?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Tunnels were hardly that great in the old RT either, being limited to single track, and the double track implementation there was pretty silly (double track can safely accomodate exactly two trains?

You're talking about what, early 19th century? I think that makes sense to have tunnels like that. Of course, I am not a railway historian.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Furthermore, tunnels on the scale we are mostly talking about in these scenarios would be pushing the boundaries of realism. Of course, the realism factor is not all that high to begin with.

In fact, there was a limitation on the length of the tunnel.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Huh? You can connect to your competitors' track and stations, paying fees to them for doing so. Alternatively, you can build your own station nearby, and any cargo that is within the radius of both stations appears for pickup at both, the first to pick it up getting it.

Not if when one of the victory conditions is to build station in a city, say, Los Angeles.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Rate wars were another annoying part of RT1, being a very artificial concept and generally extremely disruptive to your operations while they lasted.

Artificial? Com'on, this is about railways, a wholly artificical creatiion. Besides, AFAIK, rate wars was in fact part of the actual thing.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
You can in The Second Century, and in the original if you have the gold edition.

That means I need to pay more for what should have been in the original. No thanks. It's like the publishers skim on the manuals so they can sell a few more "strategy guides." That's quite unethical if you ask me.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Except for the restriction that you must build at least one straight section of track on each side of a bridge, I have seen no limits to where you are allowed to build them.

It doesn't say in the manual, but you can't just build a bridge anywhere in the actual game.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
How would you know? Do you get any other information than what the game tells you?

Yes. Building one single section of track often gives you a different reading than multiple sections over the same place in the same direction.

[Tau Ceti]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
In fact, there was a limitation on the length of the tunnel.

Yes, but that limit was still longer than any tunnels actually in existence, given the scale of the map.

Not if when one of the victory conditions is to build station in a city, say, Los Angeles.

As long as you can build a station close enough that it says [Connected] under the city name, it should be fine.

Artificial? Com'on, this is about railways, a wholly artificical creatiion. Besides, AFAIK, rate wars was in fact part of the actual thing.

Why would a city want to give one railroad a monopoly when it could be serviced by two (even going to different places)? And why is a rate war a better game mechanism than sharing stations or cargo - even to such an extent as to be game-destroying, apparently?

That means I need to pay more for what should have been in the original. No thanks. It's like the publishers skim on the manuals so they can sell a few more "strategy guides." That's quite unethical if you ask me.

Nothing wrong with adding features in an expansion pack, and it is not really usual practice to add those features to the original. (And it is an additional feature, not a bug fix.) Nor was this particular case a selling point of the gold edition - it was, as usual, designed mostly for those who did not have either the original or the expansion, by bundling them and adding a couple of extra scenarios.

If you wish to hold it against the developers that they apparently did not include this particular ability in a downloadable patch, feel free. Holding it against the game, though, seems unfair.

It doesn't say in the manual, but you can't just build a bridge anywhere in the actual game.

How, exactly? Have you just been building long stretches of track in the wilderness and then been denied the ability to cross a river? I have never been stopped from building bridges except if there are buildings in the way of the track, which is hardly unreasonable.

Yes. Building one single section of track often gives you a different reading than multiple sections over the same place in the same direction.

That is because when you build track, you also terraform the underlying terrain. If you use the auto-pathfinding, it does all this in one stretch and attempts to minimize the grade along the entire length of the track; if you build sections one by one the terraforming is also done sequentially and this may change the grade of later track sections. The two methods are not equivalent, but I do not think they were claimed to be.

[Grumbold]

The problem with the terraforming was that you could get quite significant differences in grade if you played around with the length and start point of your sections.

In RR3 I would hope to see far more extensive options, like building cuttings and bridges to keep the track level and tunnels short even when the terrain does not cross a river or other major feature.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Yes, but that limit was still longer than any tunnels actually in existence, given the scale of the map.

That's still better than the inability to build any, in terms of game-play.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Why would a city want to give one railroad a monopoly when it could be serviced by two (even going to different places)? And why is a rate war a better game mechanism than sharing stations or cargo - even to such an extent as to be game-destroying, apparently?

Because railway building is (was) so expensive, that the companies would like to make sure they could get a return on their investment by signing an exclusive contract with the cities they serve.

Now, I don't mind sharing, but why couldn't I build track into a station? That's just as strange as rate wars if you ask me.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
Nothing wrong with adding features in an expansion pack, and it is not really usual practice to add those features to the original. (And it is an additional feature, not a bug fix.) Nor was this particular case a selling point of the gold edition - it was, as usual, designed mostly for those who did not have either the original or the expansion, by bundling them and adding a couple of extra scenarios.

It simply doesn't make sense not being able to leave cargos in a station of a city where the cargos are not in demand. Do people just come in and take the stuff?

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
How, exactly? Have you just been building long stretches of track in the wilderness and then been denied the ability to cross a river? I have never been stopped from building bridges except if there are buildings in the way of the track, which is hardly unreasonable.

Can't remember the exact situations now.

Originally posted by Tau Ceti
That is because when you build track, you also terraform the underlying terrain. If you use the auto-pathfinding, it does all this in one stretch and attempts to minimize the grade along the entire length of the track; if you build sections one by one the terraforming is also done sequentially and this may change the grade of later track sections. The two methods are not equivalent, but I do not think they were claimed to be.

They should be, since I wouldn't be ripping up the existing tracks.

[SCG]

maybe i have a different version of RRT II than whats being discussed here, but i don't have any problem building tracks to a rival station (rival company gets a cut of the delivery payment) or even building my own station in the same city as a rival company (i've even driven that comany's profits down by delaying trains so that they made delivery or pickup moments before the rival train arrived). As for tunnels, I'm disappointed they weren't allowed in there (those 6-12% grades drained sand in no time flat). For length of them, I would like to think of them as a series of tunnels rather than 1 long tunnel, kind of like the ones going under the Alps. individually, each is pretty darn long. together, it makes for a very long tunnel system (had to ride a bus through some of those tunnels once when an avalanche knocked out the train tracks from Switzerland into Austria)

[The Pioneer]

I concur with SCG, I can connect to track and stations of the competition. I of course have to pay a fee for using his infrastruczure but there a lot of times when it makes sense to do so.

So long...

[The Pioneer]

Here you can find the first screenshots of the game.

So long...

[vovan]

Too bad the screenies are in BMP format and are between 1.5 and 3 MB each... So, I figured, I'd compress them a little bit for those of you on slower connections.

#1:



#2:



#3:



#4:



#5:



Enjoy.

[Felch]

Those look beautiful.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Those graphihcs dont really grab me. I hope they arnt the final ones. It looks to me there is just some random houses in the forest, and the train is so small compared to the farm house.

[Alex]

I like those graphics.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
Those graphihcs dont really grab me. I hope they arnt the final ones. It looks to me there is just some random houses in the forest, and the train is so small compared to the farm house.

Just as I thought as I saw the pictures...

[moomin]

I don't particularly fancy the graphics either, but then I don't care so long as the game is good - which, IMHO, RRT2 wasn't. Anyway, it would be more interesting to see how it looks at maximum zoom-out, which is where most of us spend most time, except when laying down some really obnoxious piece of track.

[The Pioneer]

These graphics do not grab me either and I hope they will improve them. As moomin said most of us will play zoomed out so we can have more control.

On the other side graphics are not why I would buy a game like that. I hope that we will get some more details on the game itself in the next few days!

So long...

[pg]

after seeing those screenshots my interest has effectly dropped to zero for this game. the only impressive thing about them is the draw distance. the models(trains, trees, buildings, etc) look totally out of place. it looks like a college project or something. i prefer the old 2d graphics over these by a longshot.

what's worse though is that those screenshots just make me feel as if the gameplay couldn't possibility be enhanced by 3d graphics like that. it looks like rt3 will most likely be a struggle against the interface. i could be wrong however...

[Adagio]

Originally posted by pg
it looks like rt3 will most likely be a struggle against the interface. i could be wrong however...

If you have played the other RRT kinda game, that was released about a year ago, which was also 3D, then you know you're right... it's a struggle against the interface... It's diffecult to make this right, so I doubt they will...

[pg]

Originally posted by ADG
If you have played the other RRT kinda game, that was released about a year ago, which was also 3D, then you know you're right... it's a struggle against the interface... It's diffecult to make this right, so I doubt they will...

i haven't played that game you mentioned but in general 3d is usually horrible for tbs/rts/simulations. there are exceptions of course and removing a free floating camera as being required to play the game is usually going a long way to improving playability.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
It looks to me there is just some random houses in the forest, and the train is so small compared to the farm house.

To be fair, the early locomotives and carridges weren't all that big.