Railroad Tycoon Sequel 'Sid Meier's Railroads!' Comes to Mac

[MacBoobsPro]

Originally Posted by knightlie

I loved the Railroad Tycoon games (II in particular), but just a heads-up - this is NOT Railroad Tycoon, far from it. It has fixed maps, poor AI and the PC version crashed left right and center. I'd rather dig out my RRT2 than play this.

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Again, this ISN'T the Railroad Tycoon series.

Totally agree. I was sucked in and bought this as I loved Railroad Tycoon 1 2 and 3. This is NOT RRT! Infact its poo. Its like a kids version of RRT. I guess thats why theres no gameplay shots in the trailer... because its poo. You have control over NOTHING. The stock market is abysmal, the steam trains dont even have tenders and look stupid. The only thing even slightly interesting in this game is you have to plan your track VERY carefully - but that soon is made redundant when the AI players just bridge all over your track and so you cant extend your rails because of pillars and stupid junction all over the place. Whats with the 50% vertical grades?! Save yourself some money and dont buy it!

[SandboxGeneral]

Originally Posted by MacBoobsPro

Save yourself some money and dont buy it!

Interesting review. I may just do that and not buy this. Thanks!

[SpiderDude]

Originally Posted by Dirtyharry50

I've noted a fair amount of complaining about the price of the game in this thread. People don't seem to realize that it costs a lot of money to produce and carefully test a high quality native port to OS X of a game. You cannot compare the price of this to an existing windows version that is six years old. This game is newly ported and it cost a lot of money to do that. Please don't underestimate software engineering tasks you probably aren't qualified to evaluate. I see a lot of that in gaming forums as well. People often believe it is a trivial affair to port a game. It isn't. It isn't trivial to properly test it on a variety of machines, configurations and operating system releases either. All that costs money. Last but certainly not least, Feral Interactive is a business, not a charity - they need to make a decent profit to bring us high quality releases for OS X, otherwise it simply is not worth doing. They've got bills to pay just like the rest of us.

Short version: There is no free lunch. Ports cost more money, particularly of the quality Feral is known for.

Dude, I played a ported version of Skyrim. It ran smoothly as anything on my 3.06 GHz iMac (not the fastest machine, with the 256mb of VRAM and all). Is the testing that intense for a 2006 train game? Or are you just telling yourself that to justify the 30 bucks you're gonna spend?
Sure sounds like a rip off to me...

Just my cent.. The crisis took the other.

[Dirtyharry50]

Originally Posted by SpiderDude

Dude, I played a ported version of Skyrim. It ran smoothly as anything on my 3.06 GHz iMac (not the fastest machine, with the 256mb of VRAM and all). Is the testing that intense for a 2006 train game? Or are you just telling yourself that to justify the 30 bucks you're gonna spend?
Sure sounds like a rip off to me...

Just my cent.. The crisis took the other.

You played Skyrim with WINE which is not the same thing as a native port although the net result is similar depending on the game. I was speaking of the costs associated with producing a native port, not a WINE wrapper which non-technical people can do at home thanks to WINE, Wineskin, etc. where all the real work of graphics calls translation has been done for you.

[Northwestern]

Any news about the Mac App Store Release?

[Hixalot]

Am I wrong (hopefully) that this won't run on a 2012 MBA due to no separate graphics card?

[SandboxGeneral]

Originally Posted by Northwestern

Any news about the Mac App Store Release?

Well, it's not in the MAS yet, and if it was submitted already, it's just a matter of time for Apple to get to it and approve/disallow it.

Originally Posted by Hixalot

Am I wrong (hopefully) that this won't run on a 2012 MBA due to no separate graphics card?

Check out the system requirements on their home page. Looks like the minimum graphics needed is just 128MB VRAM.

[Hixalot]

If anyone else was curious, it runs great on the 2012 MBA 13". I wish someone better at this than me could find a way to make some of the mods for the pc version work (like the tender mods)

[Northwestern]

Originally Posted by Hixalot

If anyone else was curious, it runs great on the 2012 MBA 13". I wish someone better at this than me could find a way to make some of the mods for the pc version work (like the tender mods)

Good to know. I have a MacBook Air i7, 4 GB, Intel HD 3000 (late 2011). I think this is enough power to run the game. I am waiting for a release on the Mac App Store or the retail version (end of November).

[MacBoobsPro]

The graphics shouldnt require much oomph. The maps are half redundant anyway. HUGE swathes of areas (relative to the tiny maps in the game) are not used and dont need to be during gameplay. Also the rivers are bright pink!

I keep giving this another chance but its more and more of a let down each time. If someone buys you out BAMM thats it, game over. There are 10 slots of stocks for each company (you can only have max 3 AI layers) so that means there are 40 stocks in total up for grabs. If you buy 7 of your own you cannot be bought out apparently. if you have less than 7 and the rest of your stock is bought by another player at anytime you can get a message saying you've been taken over = end of game. This usually takes about an hour or two so the game ends right there!

Shortest crappest game ever really!

For another classic RRT game we need the signaling controls of RRT1 (you could change them yourself). The stock market of RRT2 (much more realistic that 3). The 3D engine (but better) of RRT3 but also a 2D top down option. None cartoony graphics and something to spend your personal wealth on. Like houses, cars, boats etc as a small side game because it seems pointless amassing personal wealth at the moment. The side game can fill the times when everything is running perfect and you are planning your next expansion move or you need time to allow the company to build up a bit of cash.

[cerote]

Originally Posted by Northwestern

Any news about the Mac App Store Release?

It's in MAS now.

[Northwestern]

Originally Posted by cerote

It's in MAS now.

Thanks. I don't like the +8% from Apple on the price!

It's not 24.99€, but 26.99€.

Finally, it's great to see it on the MAS.

[iforbes]

Originally Posted by MacSince1990

In 2006 USD, it IS $5.99.
Quit whining. You paid $2,000 for you computer but can't afford $30 for a game you (might?) enjoy?

Thank you so much for your insight. I will definitely stop whining.

You are so smart. Gee, I wish I could be just like you!

[mrfrosty]

Originally Posted by Dirtyharry50

I've noted a fair amount of complaining about the price of the game in this thread. People don't seem to realize that it costs a lot of money to produce and carefully test a high quality native port to OS X of a game. You cannot compare the price of this to an existing windows version that is six years old. This game is newly ported and it cost a lot of money to do that. Please don't underestimate software engineering tasks you probably aren't qualified to evaluate. I see a lot of that in gaming forums as well. People often believe it is a trivial affair to port a game. It isn't. It isn't trivial to properly test it on a variety of machines, configurations and operating system releases either. All that costs money. Last but certainly not least, Feral Interactive is a business, not a charity - they need to make a decent profit to bring us high quality releases for OS X, otherwise it simply is not worth doing. They've got bills to pay just like the rest of us.

Short version: There is no free lunch. Ports cost more money, particularly of the quality Feral is known for.

You imply that it is carefully tested !! Ha ha, that's a good one !! Also porting is not that expensive when considering the whole process. Large portions of the code can be recompiled with little change, no new audio is needed, little in the way of artwork Is needed. It still costs a lot of money sure, they are a business too but compare the cost to some iOS games of equivalent complexity that are not ports, someone is either overcharging or undercharging.

[Dirtyharry50]

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

You imply that it is carefully tested !! Ha ha, that's a good one !! Also porting is not that expensive when considering the whole process. Large portions of the code can be recompiled with little change, no new audio is needed, little in the way of artwork Is needed. It still costs a lot of money sure, they are a business too but compare the cost to some iOS games of equivalent complexity that are not ports, someone is either overcharging or undercharging.

I'm sorry but this is just more of what I was talking about. I'm sure it seems this way to you but you are incorrect and do not actually understand in detail what is really involved in doing this kind of work.

In any case, if the price is not agreeable to you, the solution is simple enough. Don't buy it. I think it is well worth it myself but to each their own I guess.

[edddeduck]

WARNING: This is a long post answering all the questions I have seen so far!

Cheers,

Edwin
Feral Interactive

Originally Posted by erzeszut

Anyone know if this is an EXACT port of the '06 Windows version? I already have that one via Steam on my Mac, running in Parallels.

If there's ANYTHING additional in the Mac version, I'll probably buy again. Did they throw us a bone -- an additional map, anything??

We added all the DLC packs and fixed a bunch of multiplayer and scenario editor bugs. On the PC making custom scenarios sometimes caused them to be unplayable we fixed all that.

We also upgraded the audio tracks from low bit rate mono to high bit rate stereo. If you have a nice set of headphones/speakers you should really notice the difference.

There are a few other fixes dotted about but those are the major changes.

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

I loved this series but this version (on the PC at least) was the biggest piece of crap ever because of constant crashing out when things got busy ! Other than that the game was awesome.

We fixed a bunch of crashes in the PC version for the Mac. Not claiming it's crash free but it should be much better when things get busy.

Originally Posted by SLFGNR8

Can you install it on multiple machines? That is one of my understandings of the benefits of waiting for Steam or Mac App Store.

Although as I understand with Steam you can only play on one machine at a time, whereas the Mac App Store doesn't care. Or do misunderstand how that works.

Our system allow you to install on as many Mac's as you like (you have a limit of 5 Mac's being activated at once). You can deactivate and reactivate as many times as you want.

Once activated we don't phone home or demand an internet connection you can play offline to your hearts content.

Originally Posted by Banjhiyi

Is 3 gig of RAM for a six year old game really considered a modest system requirement?

It's not so much the game as the OS. The OS these days uses up so much RAM before the game even loads, that's why we need to take this into account when coming up with the spec.

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

You imply that it is carefully tested !! Ha ha, that's a good one !! Also porting is not that expensive when considering the whole process. Large portions of the code can be recompiled with little change, no new audio is needed, little in the way of artwork Is needed. It still costs a lot of money sure, they are a business too but compare the cost to some iOS games of equivalent complexity that are not ports, someone is either overcharging or undercharging.

It's very easy to make assumptions when you are not involved in the process. I have spent a good ten years now working on Mac ports and the effort required to port a game is not trivial. Audio and artwork are just data files. Mac and PC games use the same data, we don't port the data we need to port the engine and audio libraries so they can playback or draw on the Mac instead of the PC. This means in basic terms removing/replacing every DirectX or Audio Library call with a Mac compatible one then working through the platform differences. These can be caused by the Mac and PC calls being slightly different, the compilers acting differently, the drivers having different features/performance (for the exact same card) etc etc

You then have licensing costs as some libraries will need to be licensed per platform.

In fact in this case (Railroads) the PC music had to be replaced so we needed to re-record all the music in the game (we updated it to high bit-rate stereo from low bit rate mono).

We also fixed a number of crashes from the PC which many people noted when the PC game was released. I understand your comments, I made similar ones before I joined a Mac company and saw how it works from the inside. The good thing is with more Mac users playing games the choice of games is increasing the their are more flash sales etc where you can get a bargain.

I hope this explains a bit about the realities you face when porting a title, it's not a case of recompiling the code and charging a fee. It's months of work, licensing and testing to get a high quality port completed.

[gregorsamsa]

In fairness to Feral, ALL Mac games companies porting classic game titles have always charged much higher than their PC counterparts, for some fairly obvious reasons. Not least, the Mac gaming market share is so much smaller.

On the plus side, if you buy the DVD version, these games, like Macs, also tend to lose very little value over time.

By the by, loads of classic Mac games have been lost thanks to no Rosetta since OS X Lion.

Hopefully, Feral might soon consider reporting classics like AoE II & Rise of Nations to run on modern Intel Macs, maybe alongside porting newer games like Napoleon: Total War, to add to Rome & Empire.

Keep up the good work, guys!

[edddeduck]

Originally Posted by gregorsamsa

Hopefully, Feral might soon consider reporting classics like AoE II & Rise of Nations to run on modern Intel Macs, maybe alongside porting newer games like Napoleon: Total War, to add to Rome & Empire.

Keep up the good work, guys!

Thanks for the kind comments, we never ported the games you mentioned so it is a little more unlikely than a game we ported previously however never say never...

With that said I am off to have a shower as I appear to have quoted Justin Beiber...

[Florida Shades]

First off I am new here. Retired a couple of years ago an lived in Florida 25 yrs.
I have played thousands and thousands of games of Railroads on PC.
Spent over a thousand on upgrades to my PC's to better play the game.
Ok I'm a fanatic therefore................

I have always been impressed with Mac's but stalled on buying one. My question to you folks is simple..............

With Railroads now available I will take the leap, and buy a Mac. So..........

Which Mac should I buy to have the best luck wading in the Mac pool and playing my favorite game Railroads??? Do they have Civilization IV for Mac?

This will be big $$$$ so I hope you folks can point me to Mac happiness!
Sincerely I thank You for your opinions!

[iwan073]

Originally Posted by Florida Shades

Do they have Civilization IV for Mac?

I know they have Civilization V.
But if you like IV better, I believe they have that one too.
Just install Steam and have a look.

And welcome to the Mac!

[Florida Shades]

Thanks Iwan

[mrfrosty]

Originally Posted by edddeduck

WARNING: This is a long post answering all the questions I have seen so far!

Cheers,

Edwin
Feral Interactive



We added all the DLC packs and fixed a bunch of multiplayer and scenario editor bugs. On the PC making custom scenarios sometimes caused them to be unplayable we fixed all that.

We also upgraded the audio tracks from low bit rate mono to high bit rate stereo. If you have a nice set of headphones/speakers you should really notice the difference.

There are a few other fixes dotted about but those are the major changes.



We fixed a bunch of crashes in the PC version for the Mac. Not claiming it's crash free but it should be much better when things get busy.



Our system allow you to install on as many Mac's as you like (you have a limit of 5 Mac's being activated at once). You can deactivate and reactivate as many times as you want.

Once activated we don't phone home or demand an internet connection you can play offline to your hearts content.



It's not so much the game as the OS. The OS these days uses up so much RAM before the game even loads, that's why we need to take this into account when coming up with the spec.



It's very easy to make assumptions when you are not involved in the process. I have spent a good ten years now working on Mac ports and the effort required to port a game is not trivial. Audio and artwork are just data files. Mac and PC games use the same data, we don't port the data we need to port the engine and audio libraries so they can playback or draw on the Mac instead of the PC. This means in basic terms removing/replacing every DirectX or Audio Library call with a Mac compatible one then working through the platform differences. These can be caused by the Mac and PC calls being slightly different, the compilers acting differently, the drivers having different features/performance (for the exact same card) etc etc

You then have licensing costs as some libraries will need to be licensed per platform.

In fact in this case (Railroads) the PC music had to be replaced so we needed to re-record all the music in the game (we updated it to high bit-rate stereo from low bit rate mono).

We also fixed a number of crashes from the PC which many people noted when the PC game was released. I understand your comments, I made similar ones before I joined a Mac company and saw how it works from the inside. The good thing is with more Mac users playing games the choice of games is increasing the their are more flash sales etc where you can get a bargain.

I hope this explains a bit about the realities you face when porting a title, it's not a case of recompiling the code and charging a fee. It's months of work, licensing and testing to get a high quality port completed.

Despite all i say i would buy this game on the spot if I was confident it was more stable than the original PC Version. I'm still waiting for the patches for that ! It makes me angry that they are still selling it on their website knowing that it basically doesn't work !!! Honestly I feel like I was mugged !!

[Lebannen]

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

Despite all i say i would buy this game on the spot if I was confident it was more stable than the original PC Version. I'm still waiting for the patches for that ! It makes me angry that they are still selling it on their website knowing that it basically doesn't work !!! Honestly I feel like I was mugged !!

Based on the reviews for the PC version, and me playing hours and hours on the Mac version without any crashes, I think we can say it's more stable than the original PC Version.

(Since my original posts I think I had a couple of crashes with custom scenarios, but at the loading stage - no problem while playing, and no problems at all during the maps/scenarios it comes with. I know people say this isn't a "true" Railroad Tycoon game, but as someone who spent a lot of time with 1 and 2, I still very much enjoyed Railroads.)

[edddeduck]

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

Despite all i say i would buy this game on the spot if I was confident it was more stable than the original PC Version.

I know from testing the Mac against the PC is it just as stable if not more so. It still has bugs but so does the PC. The railroads community (I have been about the modding communities) seems to agree that the Mac is not any worst and perhaps a little better.

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

I'm still waiting for the patches for that !

It's unlikely the PC will be patched but I don;t know for sure I am only involved in the Mac version.

Originally Posted by mrfrosty

It makes me angry that they are still selling it on their website knowing that it basically doesn't work !!! Honestly I feel like I was mugged !!

I assume you mean the PC version? The Mac version works fine, sure there are a few issues some players have found but when compared to the thousands of users of the game and the fact that the Mac version is based off the PC the number of issues is quite low. We always try for no bugs at all but with something as open as Railroads things can crop up as you cannot test every possible method of playing every level.

If you have something specific, preferably 100% repeatable then by all means email support of PM me directly. We have a history of patching games and fixing PC issues where possible so if you have an example of something and it can be fixed without causing side effects we will always look at doing so.

Edwin

[skye12]

I really enjoyed the tycoon series. Very immersive.