Whats Going On At Dtg?

idk if im the only 1 to notice but ever since april began we have gotten only 3 new dlcs between april 1st and june 1st unlike last year where around the same time we got way more dlcs but now there so much silence and stream cancellations aswell so im really starting to wonder what dovetail is doing rn bc i have a big feeling tsw 7 is not happening in some way bc theres still like 16 dlcs on the roadmap to be released.

 

We always had DLC on the Roadmap before a new TSW Version dropped, just the Logo on the Roadmap will change, as always.

 

What happened to tonight’s live stream?
Cancelled… to enjoy the sunshine. What sunshine? It’s been cloudy all day here in the UK.
I was really looking forward to the stream. Boo!

 

Because DTG are relying on 3rd parties to produce DLC )probably taking a step back so not to flood the market) one down side is the lack of sole control over when things are ready for release and that we can have resulting lulls whereas before they could even there staggered more easily. Personally given some of the epic uk and European routes these 3rd parties are knocking out of the park I’ll accept these lulls and it helps keep my bank manager happy to boot.

 

It’s a shambles.

I have no issue with third-party developers or delays, but what’s infuriating is the lack of proper quality control. Some of today’s updates have actually made things worse. Problems happen in game development and tech, but ultimately companies are judged on how they manage them for consumers and the last 16–18 months have been a mess.

I have no confidence in the current setup. The team regularly go on streams talking about improvements and changes coming soon, yet things continue to decline.

The issue isn’t even the third-party developers in my eyes - the responsibility lies with DTG to ensure what they publish is fit for release, and right now it simply isn’t.

 

A lot of people (myself included) have spent years feeling frustrated that all too often they release DLC that is unfinished and full of bugs in quick succession without a thought for the consumer

Maybe they’re addressing that? I’m chomping at the bit for almost everything on that roadmap and expected so much more on Q1 of this year but if (and I can’t stress the if enough) it means that we receive a better final product on day 1 then I for one think that’s a good thing.


That said, the radio silence is starting to feel a bit eery

 

Funny weren't people all up in arms when there was a DLC every week it seemed.

Now the same because they arent releasing like crazy?

 

What on earth are you on about…… not sure where you are in the UK or why you’d say it’s been cloudy in the whole of the UK all day. Personally I was sat out in the garden sun bathing most of the day till I went in to work for my night shift. (Sheffield).

 

I was thinking maybe the mystery stream could be about TSW Next (UE5). Just a confirmation they are working on it, maybe with some screenshots, not much more. If the DTG staff is not working on new routes for TSW6 and Metro Rivals they must be working in something else, right?

 

TSW7 is in the works and the three routes are already pick out and being worked on same with the features. if your wondering about the roadmap content some of that will be for tsw7.

 

TSW7 will just be the same as every other year, plain and simple.

it’ll just be the same as every other year, releasing core features that’ll be broken on release, and left to dry in a bottomless, gaping, pit of broken promises and QA backlogs they call a core of a game. all bugs that remain, even from years ago, will be brushed under a rug, and carried to the next one.

nothing will change, it’ll be the same facade, year after year, just like Train Sim Classic. This has always been their goal, with every new “refresh” of their games.

they’ll paint it out as a brand new product, only for it to be a refurbished item, with cobwebs and dust. Still plagued with the bugs that sprang up since the beginning.

and the sad thing about it all? It always works. Whether you like it or not, DTGs strategy has been smart, their marketing and advertising is SO deep, people are blinded by the sheer fake green grass that hides the dirt underneath.

 

Well the simplest explanation is they pushed to get most of the upcoming content out before the end of the financial year, which effectively cleared the decks. The fact some of that content wasn’t quite ready for prime time (like the Class 90) seems to have been a secondary consideration.

As noted earlier in the thread and from our own deductions, it does seem DTG are relying on third parties for content production and while nothing can be confirmed, it seems their capacity for in house development is severely reduced if non existent. That seems borne out by the fact we don’t appear to be getting the Q2 “short” route this year similar to Cathcart, Glossop or Goblin Line.

In regard to everything else well I would much rather we don’t see pressure on developers to “publish and be damned”. There’s already more than enough content in TSW to keep me going for years and I do like to play other stuff too, like my current rapprochement with MSFS2020.

 

Holiday season beginning to affect staffing? DTG on the verge of collapse? Staff working on other projects/priorities? Who knows?

Whatever, while it's fun to speculate there isn't much we can do about it, so enjoy what you've got or find another hobby.

I'm shortly departing to walk Hadrian's Wall with my son, so no TSW or anything until I get back.

 

I do recall this. Proof again that you just can’t please everyone.

 

Depends where you were, wasn't cloudy where I was, and I'd have appreciated the lower temperatures, let me tell you.

 

Wasn't that mostly from people who were complaining about how expensive the month was going to be because they were going to buy everything? Like, it didn't bother me personally as there were only two things on there that I wanted (Medway and the 90) and well I waited on the 90 for a bit and was glad I did so just bought Medway and was very happy.

I mean there was a massive influx of DLC but it was from several countries, only the "hardcore" would insist on buying it all in one go - and then complain later that all the patches were coming out en-mass.

 

It seems to me that when DTG were responsible for most of the releases Along with their pet poodle rivet, they were able to control things to a certain degree. Now 3rd party devs have sprung up like toadstools after rain they seem to lack any control over the content, not that rivet stuff was much good but in those days we didn’t know any better.
Possibly the high quality of JT releases lulled DTG into a false sense of security probably Hoping they’d be the norm. Unfortunately human nature being what it is some devs have jumped on the trusted bandwagon to release a shed load of sub par dlc of which we are in a current glut.
DTG get a grip the stuff is being released under your banner. Apply some quality control or folk are just going to stop buying on day 1 or at RRP.

 

Seemingly not much is going on at DTG when you look at the roadmaps and see very little first party stuff (a lot of which get outsourced anyway) and Metro Rivals got canned

 

Either waiting for TSW7 or winding down operations with a view to not doing anything with TSW in the future.

 

It's either Staff holidays as already stated, or I'm just hoping for the sake of hoping, that maybe they have delayed them because of how bad the last couple of releases have been, most likely is they released the patch the other day and the 3rd parties got back to em saying you just broke my dlc LOL

 

Lucky you.

Fair enough, it was cloudy where I was, much like today.

Is that an excuse to cancel a live stream though?

Haha, absolutely. It’s been painfully uncomfortable. Thank god it’s cooler today.
Rain expected next week too, hallelujah!

 

Yea ik but like not so many especially that 1 portuguese route that was so hyped up for tsw 6

 

Believe me you were in the minority nationwide going by the issues we had across the network when I arrived at work yesterday evening with overheating at sites.

Anyway sunny weather isn’t an excuse to cancel a stream but either staff on leave or short term sickness / emergency leave are so don’t just assume a sunny day means a company will cancel online streams.

 

Don't get me started on "Issues across the network" - Sitting waiting for a train home at Darlington yesterday, I was increasingly relieved I got tickets valid on any operator and service, as the announcements notified us of trains that were delayed by 95, 110, 115 minutes....

 

Seeing those delays makes me glad I only had a short delay the other morning (annoyingly by 13 minutes ) after someone drove a road vehicle into a level crossing barrier

 

Lots of people ask for core features for TSW7

You know what I would want? And im certain a lot of people would want?

I just want a working game for once.


The core features over the years have been boring, since they're always broken on release, what’s the hype in it anymore, if it doesn’t properly work?

 

I don’t want to paint a bleak picture or just write negative things. This is pure speculation.

I could imagine that DTG is gradually phasing out its work as a developer and will become solely a publisher. The list of new DLCs consists exclusively of third-party titles. It’s possible they’ve already laid off some developers. The reason for this could be that sales of content for Train Sim World have plummeted. No game developer can survive if the message is “only buy what you like.” The development industry is simply too expensive for that. As a pure publisher, you have lower costs, especially when it comes to personnel. I could imagine that the TSW era is slowly coming to an end.

Think about how many DLCs Dovetail Games used to publish themselves a long time ago. There’s no trace of that today.

 

Its possible there trying to bridge both rolls judging by the current things we know about DTG, but you then also have to consider how would pullup receive this news as they are DTGs publisher, would they be happy being a publisher of a publisher, as from a purely business standpoint that's daft as instead of being a primary profit holder you're going to be taking a cut of a cut, would be interesting to see what some of the other forum folks think about this as my big business knowledge ain't that great.

 

Pullup are not DTG’s publisher. They are DTG’s owner. The decisions about the future direction of DTG are ultimately made by Pullup.

 

Not to keep repeating the same old story, but there are two questions.
Either they're developing a new, more modern train simulator, or DTG has simply become a Pullup brand (one that users can immediately recognize as familiar).
I don't know how else to describe the situation.
In any case, I hope that the employment of the employees will be maintained as much as possible for their well-being and that of their families.

 

One of the worst core features they ever added was conductor mode.
Do players actually use this mode?
I thought the whole point of ‘Train Sim’ was driving trains.

I’ll tell you my experience when I played this mode. Hold forward, Spam X (PS5).

Complete waste of resources IMO and something I wouldn’t miss if DTG decided to remove it.

 

The glass-half-full view is that they have assigned a lot of devs to optimization and fixing core issues like blurry textures and z-fighting, who would otherwise be developing new product.

 

I must admit I was quite hopeful with Conductor Mode, it just doesn't quite work right. Mostly it's issues with ticket validity but generally I'm here for the driving side.

That's pretty much my thoughts on the matter, though given how long the blurry textures and other bugs have been going on for so long I'm also a bit doubtful.

 

i loved the idea of conductor mode and think the feature itself works fine. open and close doors, check tickets, move luggage. nice and engaging. the problem is historical issues like static passengers, no passengers at all, trains randomly stopping etc

 

you have a gaping wound in your arm, sure taking some pain killers and wrapping it in a bandage will help, but the only thing that will fix the issue is a visit to the doctor or A&E.

TSW at it's core is broken, and has a huge gaping wound. sure, you can wrap a bandage on it and add new features like conductor mode, dispatcher scenarios and the best looking bandaids that TSW has ever seen with the prettiest pictures printed on them, but the only thing that will fix the gaping wound in TSW Core is a visit to the doctor or A&E in this case being a skilled and capable dev team..

poor analogy but irs 00:55 as i write this so

 

It’s good you enjoy it, it shows there is a demand for it.
Personally I don’t see the appeal myself, it’s never something I’ve wanted to do gameplay wise when jumping onto TSW. I just want to get into a cab and drive, that’s me though and we’re all different in regard's to what satisfies our train itch.

 

Only when it’s part of the Monthly Mastery and then just spam a save game on the shortest possible run.

If it had been a decent RPG style implementation with varied passengers, spoken dialogue and some interesting challenges dealing with difficult situations (no ticket and smoking weed in the toilet), could have been interesting. But DTG are too bound by their nicey nicey PEGI 3 paradigm to do anything other than a most basic feature.

 

ive noticed all this weird stuff started around the time metro rivals got cancelled bc then way less dlcs and updates came out

 

on paper less dlcs have come out recently, but really its the case that loads of dlc came out in a short time period leaving nothing else left for a while. dtg also stated a few months ago that the update cadence would be decreasing temporarily to ensure that they get things right. that’s really paid off hasn’t it…

 

Same, the biggest impediment to my enjoyment of it is that when an AI train gets stuck in driver mode, I can delete that train. When I am collecting tickets on that train, not so much.

 

Those weren't heat related AFAIK...... They were due to a fatality.

 

My uncle was travelling from Peterborough to Newcastle on Friday, the delays and cancellations were due to a fatality.

 

One of the main issues with conductor mode is that trains are mostly empty especially during rush hour. I've played it only a few times myself but never actually completed a service because of the trains mostly being empty. I wouldn't mind if conductor mode was tossed in the bin either

 

Someone's been hit by a train just about every time I've travelled in the last couple of months, it's grim.

 

Are people really crossing railway corridors more, or are the grade level crossings just that bad over your way?

 

I mean, I would tend to just put it down to extremely unlucky timing with the days I choose to travel, leading to my experience being a statistical outlier. Statistically it's like one per day across the whole network of rail, metros, underground, etc. A mix of accidents (A very small number including passengers, public, and rail workers) and suicides, obviously there'll be more of those concentrated on main corridors like the ECML just due to population along the route, and how LONG the line is, so I just happen to keep picking days they happen.

 

My commute to/from Manchester Airport was a particular nightmare last month, almost every day someone had jumped at some point in the area causing mass disruption. Ended up getting a taxi home one day only to get stuck because someone caused a six car pile up as well...

 

Luck is a finite resource, for someone else to have good luck someone needs to have bad luck.. darn

 

I mean, any time it happens, I just remind myself that someone is conclusively having a worse day than me.

 

Probably 95% are suicides. The remaining 5% are either trespass or people doing graffiti or genuine accidents such as at foot crossings where people have not looks properly or gone on the line to try and retrieve their dog and been so focused on that, they don’t see an approaching train until too late. All very sad, though in reality the UK railways are relatively secure compared to most others in the world with substantial lineside fencing, much these days the unsightly 6ft palisade type. Many foot crossings have been closed or replaced by bridges, particularly on high speed lines (though there is one near Wootton Bassett about 4 miles from here on a 125 MPH stretch of the GWML) and road level crossings are relatively rare, again many having been replaced by bridges. Stations remain the main issue though as seen on multi track routes in TSW, the island platforms are now fenced in the middle to close off fast lines where trains wouldn’t normally call. One thing that irks me a bit in TSW is the fact passengers frequently spawn on Fast/Main line platforms where nothing calls and right up to the edge too.