ZUSI 3 Released on Steam

[seagoon]

The "English" version has been released by Aerosoft via Steam.

For those who are interested and whose native language is English, you might be interested to read the following comment by one person (out of the four so far) who have posted on Steam:-

"Unless you're solid in German, until there is good enough English documentation out there for it, don't even bother trying this yet. It seems all they've done to prep this for Steam was translate the UI and that's it. There is a _very_ extensive 90MB PDF manual included but is entirely in German but no translated version anywhere to be found.

For $70, I can't recommend it in its current state if you don't know German."

[WesternDivision]

Becoming another example of never impulse buy.
Never realized that the full manual in German language is supposed to be around 775 pages in size.
Hopefully the English manual they have provided is a fill gap until they get around to translating the full version, It's just were so use to game manuals being so slim these days that I figured that was it in it's entirety and we had to figure the rest out.

Even this light English manual has done a good job of providing insight into some of the German signal system better than other sims have done, but thinking about the level of detail that has gone into recreating the cabs and the procedure required to react to the various switches warning alarms, computer screens etc, we will need a very comprehensive English manual to explain the operation of these trains.

Probably going to be a case of check back in six months time and see if Aerosoft is still supporting this sim for the English speaking community.

[NorthernWarrior]

Probably goes without saying, none of the editor functions have been translated!

Definitely a wait and see job, I think.

[seagoon]

....were so use to game manuals being so slim these days ...

And as a download, PDF file.
A far cry from the days when manuals were printed and were thick and very readable.

However, I did lash out recently and buy the printed manual for Fallout 4.....and it is a whopping 515 A4 pages and is utterly brilliant!
How nice it would be to have something similar for other in-depth games and sims.

[haverfordwest]

I didn't know you could read Vern. I thought you just looked at the lights, red, yellow and green.

I am disgusted than none of you boys sprechen deutsch, ze englanders are mad mein fuhrer.

[Edwin]

Bought it and will probably refund it. German language special characters don’t display properly in the menus and screens.
Seems ZuSi is programmed in old fashioned Borland Delphi and this handles Unicode differently from Windows 10?
So unless you use Windows with Germany as system locale, the special characters don’t display as they should. I’ve set ZuSi to English, but only a part of the menus and screens are translated at the moment.
Then the game doesn’t want to update itself and the Germanglish doesn’t help either.

Seems to me, the Steam release hasn’t been properly thought thru and internationalised.

With ZuSi being a one person team using tried and proven but probably obsolete programming tools I have little hope this will be improved.

Aerosoft mods in the Steam forum will probably collect the 1st day comments and hopefully answer the questions I’ve posted there.

So my advice also is wait for 3 months and see if Aerosoft is serious in its support of their product. JT also resells ZuSi, so they’ll have to answer support questions too.

[NorthernWarrior]

Thanks for that Edwin, will now take it out of my wish list.

[Edwin]

Yes.
My German is good enough to read ZuSi’a native documents and forum.
It seems the language problem is persistent.
Then there is this mixture of lo-res and hi-res cab textures, various external controller problems reported.
A somewhat diffuse policy as to free or paid updates by Aerosoft regarding new routes.

The ZuSi community in Germany is very committed and knowledgeable. So only if you participate and take some interface language concessions and plow through the initial teething problems, ZuSi is the game for you.

ZuSi is even more hardcore than Run8 and will in its present form never be a casual mass market product.

The success of ZuSi on Steam depends on Aerosoft’s support and for that they’ll need sales volume.

[ex-railwayman]

For those who are interested and whose native language is English, you might be interested to read the following comment by one person (out of the four so far) who have posted on Steam:-

"[FONT="]Unless you're solid in German, until there is good enough English documentation out there for it, don't even bother trying this yet. It seems all they've done to prep this for Steam was translate the UI and that's it. There is a _very_ extensive 90MB PDF manual included but is entirely in German but no translated version anywhere to be found.[/FONT]
For $70, I can't recommend it in its current state if you don't know German."

Yeah, but, how much of a search did they really do? We have a 201 page English Manual available now. Is this another Steam fanboy who can't download a manual from the product description page? The vast majority of us who have played with Zusi in the past know that it's a one man show and everything has always been written in German, we're lucky to get an English translation out so soon to a degree, but, any Zusi product isn't for the passing fad Steam gamers, you have to be dedicated and knowledgable to be able to grasp the complexity of the German railway system and pay about $70 for the rewarding entertainment you receive, I doubt the casual gamers on Steam will appreciate that, and will deposit hundreds of negative comments because it's far too difficult for their little minds to work out, which is not really fair on the developer!!!!

Cheerz. Steve.

[NorthernWarrior]

Noted Steve but there is still the localisation issue to consider. I don't want yet another funky train sim that needs kicking to work on Win 10, not for nearly £55!

[Edwin]

No, it is not fair on the developer.

Steam however is THE platform for casual gamers, one supposes the hardcore players of German railway simulations already have ZuSi direct from the developer.

So if Steam opens up a whole new party of consumers, perhaps Aerosoft even wanting to establish a large and new dedicated player base, Aerosoft as the publisher responsible should answer all service questions. They probably get a hefty cut off the proceedings.

The Steam release is still young, but if the game will not display proper German special characters on any PC not having the Germany system locale, they are having a problem with international customers.
First fix or finish the translation of the menus, as there are provisions for different languages.

So it's a bit of a conundrum in my opinion.

[NorthernWarrior]

Definitely wait and see, Edwin.

In any event, I'm not recommending people shouldn't buy it, just relaying my personal choice based on cost and what we know so far.

Worth remembering, the development of the project was somewhat chequered, having originally been planned to come out around 2007 but kept getting put back with the author very coy as to the reasons - possibly involvement with the professional training application for it. When it was released it was via the odd USB stick arrangement. As we have all stated looks aren't everything but while it is an improvement on Zusi 2, sadly to me it looks like a 12 year old programme when compared even with the likes of MSTS latter day routes running in OR or Run 8 so really shouldn't be selling at that sort of price level, not if the aim is to reach the wider market.

[seagoon]

After reading Edwin's comments - for which I am most grateful (thank you, Edwin) - ZuSi is also gone from my wish-list.

[Edwin]

You can reconsider if Aerosoft is really up to supporting the Steam version of ZuSi.
It is a complicated simulation that requires a study of its manual.

I suppose they are collecting tips, improvements and bugs from the first weeks. And use the lessons learned hopefully to improve the release documents and have the developer get those menu's and screens sorted and properly translated at least in English.

[Edwin]

Made some positive progress.

Read up on the ZuSi forum and learned that the Steam version is at the latest version and you shouldn't update it using the ZuSi Verwaltung (file manager)
So I had Steam remove the corrupted install and re-install a fresh copy.

This time I selected English menus straight away and denied the game from updating itself so it stayed clean.

The new copy seems to work OK and has all the main menus in proper English.
Together with the English manual that one can download from the Steam page, I set out to explore this unfamiliar world.

This went OK as far as I could tell, though almost everything is different from the usual train simulations/games I have.

With my trial time almost used up, and ZuSi now doing as it was advertised, I am inclined to keep it.

Euro's 60 seems a lot, but you get a lot of trains and routes, with proper physics, signaling, schedules and a few goodies I have yet to discover. ZuSi is equal to a base game together with few DLC of TS19 or TSW. So in the end, ZuSi offers the same value for money.