Needlessly Locking Threads And Censorship Of Criticism.

Why are forum admins always so quick to needlessly lock threads? That thread about reduced timetables and reducing layers was locked "at the request of the studio" due to "inaccurate information" that apparently got deleted.

First of all, who is the studio here? All Aboard or DTG? If inaccurate information is being posted, why not take the chance to correct it? Why does an entire thread where people who were having a discussion about being unhappy that content that was sold was so woefully unoptimised (and seemingly untested) that advertised content they thought was part of the product has later had to be removed.

I could understand locking of the thread if people were being uncivilised or something, but the only problem was that someone posted misinformation (that they themselves apparently deleted and a mod deleted posts quoting that information).

Really does reek of the fact someone can't handle criticism of an approach.

 

To be honest I disagree. We have a whole thread (which is the longest thread on this forum) which is basically slating DTG for all their decisions and bugs and whatnot.

Compare this forum to RailUK Forums, this seems very relaxed, especially with how often threads go completely off-topic.

The only time I've ever seen threads get closed down is when things go too far (I.e. insults).

 

And surprise surprise it's Candace again that does the locking.

 

Same as 85hertz said, not really noticed any overt censorship happening, the threads I've seen locked got locked because some folks prefer throwing insults, rather than try to have constructive criticism, there are tons of these threads around, and they have not been locked, and blaming Candice is a bit sad mate, did you maybe consider that it's her job? she has rules to follow just like us, don't hate the messenger hate the message.

 

As the explanation of Kezz is removed, including replies on his posts, I guess AABS or DTG was not happy with this post. Was it for being to honest about the situation? It also reminds me of the silence from the class 90 developer, after he was very open at first. Or are they to afraid for damage on the upcoming route?

Removing the named post and locking the tread was important enough to do so over the weekend. It was not like it was a derailed thread or so, as far as I can tell, everyone was behaving itself.

 

The thread I'm referring to had zero insults

 

Candace doesn't like criticism, she was the one that said being critical of the class 90 was just playing the blame game and pointless.

She's locked threads before that were critical of a product but people weren't being insulting to anyone.

You call it sad. I call it predictable.

 

As far as I'm concerned, blocking (valid) critcism is censorship, and there were no insults

 

DTG always enjoys doing censorship and at this rate by tsw 7 they will be like North Korea

 

i think Abraham Maslow put it best.
"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

 

And months later we still do not have any explanation about the class 90 and what happened and what is going to happen. I don't think people want to blame, people want to know what happened and how this can be avoided in the future.

 

I have a delivery for a RAILSIMULATOR.COM LIMITED, there's like 50 rolls total. Where should I leave them?

 

Be very careful what you say about Rail UK Forums - they consider bad-mouthing them off-site against their rules.

 

Why? There was no personal attacks here on Lexie’s thread it was just an open discussion about the poor choices game devs are making, which we the consumer are suffering the consequences for.

Free speech exists for a reason, without it bad decisions go unchecked and devs continue getting away with murder

Locking the thread either tells me some home truths were brought up to the surface to which they wanted to take the spot light off, or DTG would rather bury their heads in the sand and ignore all forms of criticism. Both choices are childish though.

 

What exactly is her role within DTG?

 

• telling the community that they’re wrong to criticise dtg
• saying that it’s no one’s fault when something goes massively wrong

 

My comment is a general statement, to be honest I am not sure what thread OP is referring to.

 

The thread in question has been temporarily locked for review tomorrow (when DTG staff are in to provide correct information) because misleading information was posted by the third party dev. Everybody’s reacting like it’s been locked to restrict criticism. It hasn’t. The thread is going to reopen tomorrow with the correct information as to why timetables were cut down and everyone can continue to criticise then.

If threads were locked for criticism there would be no threads open.

 

It's not hard to figure out https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...-trains-and-reduced-timetable-series-s.98137/

A third party dev posting misleading information is entirely unacceptable

 

The third party dev really shouldn’t be mentioning his after hour activities. Some people are going to take offence juggling hamsters to the theme of imperial march at their local boozer.

 

I don’t think it will have been deliberate but it is why the thread needs a full review and more pertinent to this thread why it has been temporarily locked.

 

I should also point out I didn't realise that a dev was the one who posted misleading information. I just assumed it was a forum member

 

Some who argue “misleading information” as the truth. Whatever was said, which I failed to play attention to, must’ve been something very
controversial to have a member of staff come down with the hammer! I hope he doesn’t get disciplinary action taken against him.

 

Where did it say “misleading information” in the thread?

I saw “inaccuracies” which to me may have just been a harmless mistake.

But yet again the community have jumped to their own conclusion already.

 

Isn't inaccuracies not misleading information?

Some of us have our own definition of what misleading information is.

 

Candace specifically said that the thread was locked at the studio's request.

She also specifically said that a comment that posted inaccurate info was deleted by the commenter, and comments that quoted the deleted inaccurate info were also removed at the studio's request.

Finally, she said no mod action had been taken against anyone.

This has nothing to do with censorship or blocking criticism (which if actually done would shrink the forum considerably).

Curious if those railing against this imaginary injustice being done will be willing to adult up and acknowledge the injustice they're doing themselves to someone else with these bogus accusations.

 

The posts of the dev are gone, so are the quotes of his post. So I see no reason to lock it, as we can just discuss how we think about changing stuff after release. This action not make the situation any better, actually with their upcoming route, the timing is spot on to warn people.

 

Absolutely two different things, I would say misleading information requires intent. Inaccuracies, could be simple or harmless as making a mistake of getting something wrong.

But, like I said the only people who have mentioned “misleading infornation” is assumptions by people on this thread.

 

Yep, pretty silly locking a thread because of misleading information, and like you said the dev’s comments have been removed, so what’s going to change with a moderator reading through the thread when the culprit was the devs comments?
Harsh words get thrown around on here all the time, something was said that DTG didn’t want the public knowing maybe.

 

Great, fantastic. I will believe it when it happens because presumably that is a huge queue jump for a patch and ATS have said similar about things and shockingly it did not go like that.

But presuming it does happen, why the gently caress was this change knowingly made in the first place if it can just be put back in in a few days?!

 

AFAIR "Candace" is not actually a DTG employee but works for a PR agency whom DTG presumably outsourced to assist with community relations. There was another individual too, whose name escapes me.

Whole situation is a bit odd though, if there was misinformation in the thread surely better just to post a correction or something. Obviously seems like someone, somewhere didn't want the the potential sales apple cart for Trent Valley, tipping over.

 

For someone who doesn’t have Facebook or care to sign up to it, could someone copy and paste Kezz’s response.

 

Feels indeed like doing some damage control after the backlash. They're mentioning in the Fb post: lower-memory Xbox Series X configurations. What on earth are they talking about, there is only 1 memory configuration for Series X...

Also they're not making any statement regarding the fact, console players now have to deal with a reduced timetable to "fix" blurry textures, while the cause of the issue still not has been fixed.

 

@stujoy

And where did you get that information?

I'd love to see DTG issue a statement tomorrow, but knowing DTG, that's pretty unlikely.

 

I was paraphrasing what Candace wrote in the locked thread. I added the bit about DTG being in the office because I assume any information added to the thread would need to be accurate.

 

I don't even see any claim of individual responsibility for the mistake, just AABS taking ownership with "inaccuracies in the patch notes we provided to Dovetail Games." Could have been Kezz perfectly reasonably believing his own studio's patch notes.

And here's a link to Candace's post about temporarily closing that thread: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...-timetable-series-s.98137/page-2#post-1121568

 

I see no reason to lock a thread if the inaccurate or misleading information has already been removed.
I'm also not really a fan of third parties being able to say "I don't like this conversation, lock it"

 

Where was this posted by a third party in the locked thread though? I've gone over every post there and all I can find is people discussing it as having been mantioned elsewhere. There's not a single citation or quote linking a deleted post.

It makes it a lot harder to know WHAT is incorrect, and encourages even more misguided speculation...

 

Someone from All Aboard posted something in the thread, but this is now deleted.

 

Im abit confused by the whole thing, i tried the latest patch on my console and it runs a lot better now, i understand the frustration around the railtours being removed but then why would Kezz remove his comments? Someone who appears around the community a lot and to my understanding has never caused an issue or tried to point fingers at anyone for any pitfalls?

 

I quoted Kezz deleted post, my post is also deleted.

 

Abuse that printscreen button people.

 

So, while obviously this isn't the case when it comes to XBox with the necessity of differing S and X builds, I can imagine there could conceivably be some obligation in place for Series X/PS5 parity, though that seems a bit of a stretch.

It's definitely laughable if you watch footage of anyone playing on XBox to imagine Playstation would be the only platform with "mounting issues" though.

 

That seems so strange though, was anything bad actually said?

 

The internet never forgets, are they now gonna ask youtube to take down this video?

 

Again, Candace's post says "temporarily locked", and that she'll be going over everything in the office Monday to make sure "the information is corrected and this thread is given the correct information."

Guessing at motivation here: If the thread weren't locked, then that's more conversation still around the bad info to have to go over. This at least makes a reset easier--correction(s) posted, and people can take it from there.

 

The thread with all mention of it removed, that thread would still be "around the bad info"?

 

The bad info is removed, Candace has mentioned it was "incorrect" information, so no need to lock the thread.

Besides this, the post with the patch notes is still there (https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...pdate-notes-may-28th-2026.98127/#post-1121134). All Aboard has said in the Facebook post that they has provided incorrect information to DTG, so why are the patch notes not corrected or removed for the time being?

 

I really do feel bad for All Aboard Studios. The Birmingham-Crewe route looks like a solid route in terms of scenery. The addition of the 350/2 and 350/3 is a nice touch as well. For a third party's first route, this should have been an easy win.

Instead the route is plagued with issues that are not their fault. Texture issues on Xbox, dispatcher issues and other core issues that have just brought the quality of the route down. Removing services that people paid for as well must not be ideal for them either

I was surprised that the thread was locked. Surely a simple message saying that there was incorrect information stated and a clarification would be sufficient instead of locking a thread. Mistakes happen.

This seems fishy to me