We As A Community Need To Buck Up Our Ideas, Improve Ourselves & Do Better...

Hmm, I think this thread has come to the end of its useful life, just like TSW.

I think the root cause of the high emotions is a product with too many faults to viably correct now, and which go back to design decisions made five or more years ago.

The only remedy is for DTG to start again.

I have only been dipping my toe in TSW, and only buying content at least 80% discounted, but I think that has to stop.

My advice is to accept TSW isn't going to get better. Enjoy what you've got, if you can, or find something else to do.

 

Finally a post that clearly represents reality.
That's all there is to say.
IronBladder=10/10.

 

They keep dangling the occasional gem in front of us, though. The recently released Trent Valley, upcoming JT route, the German steam route and the Class 70 are all wallet tempters.

 

The class 90 will be the last DLC I pay full price for, maybe not forever but certainly for the foreseeable future.
From here on in I’ll be paying an absolute maximum of 50% of the list price.

 

Just like your next lottery ticket will be the big winner?

Even if those DLC don't have annoying specific bugs, you will soon grow tired of their novelty when the pop-ins, stutters, blurry textures etc still remain.

My advice is to wait for those to be fixed before you buy anything else at anything other than a deep discount. In the meantime, use the money saved for some nice, shared activities with Mrs Vern. That will give you more happy memories in the end.

 

It was really sad what they said about Harry. Yes she talks a lot on streams but she is just herself and I like that. She is also funny and from what I get, a kind person. I saw an interview with her, where she was talking about her youth and the railway back then, it was very interesting. I really think you can talk for hours and hours with her and have a good time with a lot of fun and laughing. She really didn't deserve that hate.

 

I used to work with her mum a few years back who was an amazing person with an equally bubbly personality and very similar to how Harry comes across. Harry comes across as what I’d refer as a proper northern lass who as you say you could spend hours chatting over a pint and have a good laugh and conversation. Any hate she got is totally undeserved and shouldn’t go unpunished.

 

Wait, they bullied Harry away? What a **** move.

+1 for support for Harry. She looks like an amazing person.

 

No. A bad product isn't a valid excuse for toxicity. The root cause is a select few people who can't seem to behave themselves. The sooner we rid ourselves of these people, the better. Unfortunately, the only thing we can do is report toxic behaviour and let the moderators do their jobs.

I will thanks. Still enjoying TSW. It's not a bad product.

 

Unfortunately the moderators seem unable to do their jobs, I’m sure they want to make the socials better for everyone’s sakes, but it seems they are doing it with both hands tied behind their backs.
Perhaps DTG are in that much desperation for sales they are scared to ban anyone incase it leads to a reduction in revenue, but if that is the case then it’s not working as the toxicity of the forums are turning people away from the game and they are no doubt losing just as much money.

Now I’m aware correlation doesn’t always mean causation but I do wonder if there’s a link between DTG withdrawing from the forums and the need to make redundancies and cancel up development of up coming titles.

 

I doubt toxicity in the community really influences sales. I think only a small part of the playerbase actually engages in the community. And considering TSW is a single player game, toxicity in the community has no influance on the gameplay experience.

 

Matt has stated he finds the forums hard to read, he hasn't been a regular on here for a long time, other DTG staff have said the same.

We could make excuses and deny that it has anything to do with toxicity on the forums of course. More conspiracy theories do not help, this is something which has become endemic on these forums.

As for Harry, whilst a few did stick up for her, but there are a lot of silent voices as they probably don't want to get involved or didn't particularly care. The only way nastiness will stop if those posters see that their nastiness does not fit the narrative of the forum and gets "called out" by many and their actions have consequences, i.e. getting banned. However, I suspect many of these people are so self-absorbed they could never believe they did anything wrong or don't care.

 

Perhaps not directly but if (as it seems) players concerns and issues are being ignored because developers and moderators aren’t engaging with the community because of the toxicity then they become disconnected with what players wants and needs are and the game goes in the wrong direction and issues aren’t picked up. This will certainly result in customer dissatisfaction and result in lower sales.

 

Matt too? Because of toxicity.

Recently, Maik Goltz seems to have left the forums too. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/running-train-sim.97697/page-4#post-1123291

I don't think it's our job to start a fight with the toxic people. I'm not a fan of backseat moderation by regular forum users. I think that's a job best left to the official moderators.

And DTG should step in to protect their employees from abuse. I guess telling them to stop interacting on the forums is one way to do that, but it does create a larger gap between the community and the developers, and punishes a large part of the community who does properlly interact with developers. I think I'd prefer a stricter moderation policy to prevent abuse. I'd love to see Harry, Matt, Maik and who else left the forums, back on the forums interacting with the community and providing interesting technical insights on why TSW does the things it does.

 

Regardless, so I think we are all in broad agreement that the game and forums are both in downward spirals at the moment(even if we disagree on the severity of this). Now these might or might not be directly connected and you’re welcome to agree or disagree with me on this point. But everyone connected to the game from the investors down to the end customer have a vested interest in making sure this spiral doesn’t become a death spiral. And yes that change has to come from us all, myself included. But change must happen because the current approach isn’t working for anyone.

 

That is fair enough and it really isn't our job but people will continue to behave like this if they think people agree with them.

Is the game in a downwward spiral? There has been some great content released and I still spend a lot of time on it, there seems to be a lot of content in the pipeline. Yes there are some DLC which have been released which isn't up to scratch, but I don't buy those so I don't get annoyed by them. I am on PC and for me the game runs very well, but I realise for many console users they are having a different experience.

 

There has been some great routes but they’ve also been some stinkers. We’ve also seen new features which haven’t hit the mark and not worked as intended and been quietly forgotten about where in the past these would be improved and worked on. The PC experience is still on the whole good but TSW and DTG rely on the console market and the product and experience isn’t as good there. DTG produced releases have slowed down and key staff and contractors are no longer working on the game. The company has stopped development on other titles.
None of this says the future of the game is in a good place to me even if we are all enjoying the majority of the content we already own.
If you honestly think otherwise than that’s your right to hold that opinion and I respectfully agree to disagree with you on the point.

 

Maik has not left the forums completely, as he yesterday replied on here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/br218-to-the-rescue-scenario.84109/

The post he replied on, was not friendly at all and an accusing one. TSG already submitted a patch, but DTG never released it. So people are frustraded because of unsolved issues, the dev already did a fix, but DTG does not release it. So this shows exactly why people are getting frustraded about DTG and it's also frustrating for the 3rd party devs.

 

I see nothing wrong with the OP post there. I see no toxicity. He found something not working, he reported it. No blame placed anywhere. That's not toxic, is it?

 

Not the OP, but the post before the post of Maik

 

I don’t really agree that the game is in a downward spiral - it certainly HAS been, but clearly the discontent has been heard because we are also seeing acknowledgments that it needs to be fixed. Whether or not these prove to be empty promises still remains to be seen - if it’s still in a mess this time next year then fair enough, the evidence will speak for itself. But right now I think they have a chance to pull it back.

And so do we, as a community. We don’t need to be so polarised. Perhaps this is just a reflection on the way society in general is going, but I for one think there’s still hope. Again, I might be an idealist and this time next year I’ll have quietly left the forums, but right now I’m cautiously optimistic.

 

Sorry but I’m still not seeing the toxicity of in this either? Are you saying that after 2 years of an issue still not being fixed players have no right in asking why this is still a problem and questioning if DTG actually have any testers? And if the reply that it’s been fixed but is waiting QA testing by DTG before release then the answer is certainly not enough testers to manage the volume they need to test.

 

Asking if they (TSG) have testers or they're sleeping, is not very polite. We don't know when the patch was submitted to DTG, but is can be quite some time ago. Also, as Maik explains, when you're on time you can still finish it, so it's not really a bug. It's always better to be polite when you don't know the ins and outs.

 

I see a frustrated player who may or may not have English as a first language being a tad sarcastic after 2 years of frustration of being unable to complete a scenario that was highlighted as a key selling point of a dlc (atleast on the steam store it advertises the number of scenarios included so to me I expect that these should be able to be completed, although in fairness Mail has said it’s possible just hard). Yes it could have been worded better but sarcasm isn’t always toxic in itself. If we are going to include this as an example of the toxicity of the forums then to rid the forums of toxicity is an impossible task.
And given that we are all well aware of the QA backlog across many 3rd party patches I don’t think this is an unfair point to make.

 

I didn't say it was toxic, however it sounds not friendly but accusing. But as I said a few times earlier in this thread, people are getting frustrated so the tone is shifting too. This issue could aldeady been fixed, as TSG has already submitted a patch to DTG, so DTG is the one to blame here, again.

 

Not very polite, also not factually correct, but also not 'toxic'. If you want examples of toxic, there's plenty of those on these forums.

 

I fairness the thread is in troubleshooting forum and is 2 years old. An issue was reported in aug 2024 and there’s been no official reply from DTG or TSG in the interim before Maik replied.
Perhaps if someone from DTG had actually acknowledged the thread originally and gone away, looked in to it and then replied with how to complete it players wouldn’t be finding issues searching the trouble shooting thread finding no response in nearly 2 years to their issue and then leaving sarcastic responses.

 

This is one of the areas where the CM's should (in both my and I think others, opinion) be earning their biscuits. Updates on items reported in both the Troubleshooting and Feedback forums. Do what SimRail do, mark issues as open, duplicate or even invalid and anything resolved is then locked with details of the action taken (or not). There's just no organised system or structure that I can see to do this. Frequent updates would avoid much of the perceived *toxicity" which I'm afraid, again, comes to to poor community relations.

 

Here is another games bug tracking using Discord. DTG have all the tools needed to do something similar but it's another example of "everything is extremely difficult for DTG".

Remembering that they close tickets when bugs are reported before there is a resolution, it would be strange for them to list all the issues with their game in a single place everyone can see them when they have such an evasive business ethic.

 

Ah, do I spot a fellow World of Warships player, MadduckUK ?

 

Not wanting to out myself as a crazy person, but yeah from closed alpha.

 

I'm sorry but what is this take?

Do you think community managers are corporate drones that aren't allowed to have a personality? And that because she took what like 2 minutes of her time to talk about a snake that means she isn't busy?

Outstanding logic.

 

Same here, although I've been avoiding any PvP as best as possible, because of toxicity. And that gets up back on topic

 

But at the same time too busy to take 2 minutes to acknowledge a player reporting a CTD on the game? As I’ve said many times before I’d have no issue with this if it was for the fact there are dozens of reports of issues being ignored. It’s called priorities and clearly DTG CMs are instructed to ignore genuine issues.

 

What do you want them to say other than "we are aware of this issue and are looking into it"?

Also both Candace and Jamie are active in the feedback thread for Trent Valley on their Discord server so nothing is being ignored here.

 

I'm reminded that no sooner did Candace say hi than someone accused her of being an AI bot.

The problem is, once that culture gets set in, with a circle-jerk of snark and misinformation being generated and repeated mindlessly and with automatic upvotes guaranteed, it's as hard to excise as a fibroid tumor. Kinda like some politicians, when the ounce of prevention fails, the pound of cure becomes more like a ton.

 

Whisper: Asymmetric is the best thing to happen for YEARS, watch them continue to wreck it!

 

...aaand what was the correlation between the thread topic and this post again?

 

I have been a member of these forums from the beginning and was a frequent contributor, but have avoided them for several months because of the lack of decorum and maturity of many. Still enjoying TSW, but don’t need to waste time here the forums since almost ever thread seems to degenerate into useless diatribe.

 

Spot on could not agree more.

 

This is it and why it's become an echo chamber and that is why there is so much glumness here because those of us who are enjoying it, I suspect feel the forum offers very little. Therefore you get 40 or so regular posters most of whom seem to be unhappy.

I used to visit several times a day, not any more and this is why the forums will end up becoming irrelevant in the future.

 

Technically you just did it...

 

And there is the problem, they have abandoned the forum for Discord, a format which is not geared to structured discussion or that many on here wish to use. While the forum exists, it should be supported equally.

As regards Candace being a bot, that may have been me but the assertion at the time was based on information received in very good faith and subsequently corrected and apologies made for the misunderstanding.

 

I this is one of the main reasons why this community is not worth the time.. snarky and not needed…

 

If they're more active on Discord than the forum, there's a good reason for it.

But I agree that the forum should be supported more fairly. Unfortunately, I also understand DTG too to be less active when you see what the forum in question looks like.

 

Can't speak to forum vs Discord since I've never used the latter. People here say that's closer to live chat. It's also been said here that the Discord crowd can also be high maintenance, so maybe they need more of a mod presence. At any rate, I daresay that if the forums move to being more enjoyable and less of a FromSoft poison swamp, we'd see them here more.

IIRC, it was someone else who tossed out the accusation (and who, unlike you, never mea culpaed). But my point, and the point of the thread, is the behavior, not targeting specific people.

 

Unfortunately the type of snarky remarks and rude behaviour you received is exactly the type of stuff I'm trying to advocate against and return to some form of etiquette.

It's like I said in my original post, it's always the vocal minority that are bringing the forum down, and that vocal minority are often the loudest.

I'm sure we can all agree there's no issue with some slight sarcasm or jovial remarks... We are not complete androids. But the amount of unpleasant behaviour towards Devs, DTG and even just in this thread to others that is unnecessarily rude just isn't on, and the scale of it is getting out of hand and is derailing what can be fairly decent threads.

In terms of discord someone would have to tell me what the moderation and etiquette is like on there as I'm to old and long in the tooth to bother with such things... Forums are more my cup of tea. I think DTG are trying to cater for the younger generation at the cost of us who are slightly older and prefer different formats. There certainly needs to be a balancing act between the two. But I do get the impression the forum is becoming a more and more hostile environment that make DTG want to only interact where necessary because anything they say or do is brought down by this vocal minority who like to hijack things and become unnecessarily personal and abusive at times.

As I've said dozens of times already, criticism is completely valid, but it's the way some are conduct themselves and that criticism that just isn't on at all. It doesn't take a lot of effort to conduct yourself like an adult or voice your grudges in a productive manner.

 

Sorry I didn't see this earlier and is worthy of a reply...

I am not blaming the entire community for single peoples reactions. But I am trying to advocate the community collectively calling out such behaviour and not turning a blind eye to it... Like in the case of Harry, I felt I was one of the only ones that called others out whilst others turned a blind eye. If I see someone getting bullied in real life, or personally abused for no reason, I have, and would like to think in future I'd step in.

Moderaters have the overall job to officially act on this in type of personal abuse. But as individuals we should also call out these people to make sure they know their behaviour is unacceptable at an official level and as a collective community that doesn't tolerate bullying or personal insults.

I think what I'm advocating for has a very marmite reaction, but I'd like to think if we want to stop this type of behaviour we all have a role to play where possible not to tolerate it. I'll often call out personal remarks or insults, not because I want to be a forum 'sheriff' but because alot of it is unjustified and unhelpful. But I'm fairly sure 90% of the forum are decent people, with etiquette who wouldn't tolerate personal abuse either.

We are never going to have complete perfection, but we can certainly try our best to make the forum a more welcoming place and return to some form of etiquette we have lost over the last year or so.

 

The post Lead got is much less rude than how people who announce how they're leaving the forums get treated, those threads are filled with snark. Heck, the OP of the thread was doing that in this thread, which caught me off guard.

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/im-done-with-dtg.94209/

I'm sure someone will argue "They were was rude, so he got what he deserved", but if you're going to argue that "We as a community" need to call out stuff, then that involves treating people you don't like with that same respect you want. If you treat the people with snark don't be surprised when people then assume that they can use it against you or others you like.

Shout out to Harry though who actually did a very professional response to that thread.

 

To be honest I completely stand by that comment as it wasn't personal or rude like you're trying to make it out to be. It was telling someone to calm down on a thread that was highly abusive and swearing... I think Michael Winner could do with intervening in other threads and telling them to calm down when they were being abusive, swearing and being outright disrespectful.

Sort of feeds back to my other points of intervening when people are being extremely and unnecessarily rude. If I was swearing, being highly abusive and carrying like the individual in that thread and someone on the forum told me "where is Michael Winner when you need him, calm down!" that would probably be one of the most tame jovial replies you could get.