General Discussion Is Gone

Well, so long everyone. I hesitate to use that phrase because many people post that sentiment and return the next day.

But I've been here so long I feel it's appropriate to say goodbye to those players I've talked to so often in the last decade.

And I'm making the rather obvious connection between the cutting off of the forum at the knees and the general decline of the game we all used to love.

It doesn't take much intelligence to see the closing of the GD forum as an attempt to squelch criticism of the withering content coming from DTG and the less than stellar efforts of third parties ( excepting JT and Firefly ).

I'm keeping some content, mostly US routes and trains, but most all of the electric content from the UK and Germany will go. Doubt I'll be adding anything in the future except maybe Cumbrian Coast and Hayden Branch if it gets positive reviews elsewhere.

I will start looking at other train games experimentally and I'm also expanding my gaming in other directions.

But, as I say, I doubt I'll be posting on the forum again, I mean 97% of my posts have been in General Discussion so...

So, again, best wishes to all. We'll always share a love of all things trains. Maybe there's another rendezvous down the road apiece where we can resume our conversation. I really hope so.

 

I would like to thank Train Sim Society

he is, as I am typing this, soon about to complete a video discussing the forums situation in detail and formal.

it is important that people are aware of this going on, as it is deeply concerning.

I have been giving him insights into the situation, and he is going to be looking at both sides of the story in detail. I will share the video here, when he uploads it to his YouTube Channel which should hopefully be soon.

 

What a fantastic way to rip apart a good little community.

Thank you to anyone that’s chatted with me over the years, i do like it here. It’s going to leave a big hole in my free time, but I guess DTG knows best…

 

He will make a "brutally honest review" about this matter?

 

This is partly why I dont blame the decisions being made. I find it hard to find threads that don't lead to unpleasant and unwanted comments. Of course its okay to express feelings and voice opinion but people must refrain from personalising issues, inappropriate comments and attacking others. Whilst I appreciate a lot of discussion takes place here, this is now not the only place to do so. I think as long as we save valuable and informative threads from GD I personally don't have an issue if this helps DTG focus on valid sensible criticism and feedback. Many won't agree with me I've already accepted that. But just looking at the GD now where we already have other threads talking about the same issue when there only needs to be one where we can all see and share. I don't agree that this attempts to silence us in any way. We are more than welcome to discuss, share and feedback through other means. Just my thoughts and clearly I see majority dont share the same feeling. Ill respect that. Let's see what happens...

 

ffs...

 

Good to know!

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...dited-railtours-removed-response-added.98189/




Train Sim Society We are about to run out of June with the restoration of the class 86 and 87 services on Birmingham-Crewe nowhere in sight, deleting GD would certainly assist with covering this up if they are unable or unwilling to add back these services.

 

“It mostly spread hate”. Lol, you should work in a job where you see hate day to day, and you’ll realise this forum is nothing like hate spreading. People have a right to critique DTG without being personal, and if you like something that’s fair enough.

 

Please have a look at that.
And please let me know there whether I should go ahead with it and whether you’re interested, or not.

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/alternate-discussion-forum-options.98480/

 

i’m not stopping you from sharing your opionion?

 

I'm interested.

 

Two Words: Focus Entertainment (or whatever they call themselves these days). Ever since they took over, there has been much less focus on the user base in discussions and livestreams and more on only telling us what they want us to hear. They (probably under instruction from the bean counters) sound really enthusiastic about everything they do, even when users overwhelmingly give a different opinion (for example the original Thomas DLC).

Whereas they used to be fully interactive and answer most pertinent questions in live streams, they are just an advertising gimmick now. They say what their bosses want them to say and ignore any questions that are not on their script (Keir Starmer would fit well if he is looking for a job soon ).. Basically, they are towing the company line.

This forum is an inconvenience. There are too many awkward conversations.

Sorry., that's more than two words and it is just my opinion.

 

Well, one things for certain, the discussion thread DEFINITELY lasted longer than a certain someone from Downing Street.

 

I absolutely would buy it if it's good, but the fact that they are doing everything possible to curtail discussion here makes it hard to know. The first release from HiS was not great, so it's especially important to gather user feedback in this case, and not just the day it releases and DTG finally create a feedback thread- we all know major changes are highly unlikely at that point.

There are users on here whose opinions i consider very highly (and not necessarily the same users for every topic tbh) and it can absolutely sway a purchase decision one way or the other depending on their feedback

The only conclusions i can draw is that DTG have decided (or had it decided for them by Pullup) that either:

1. The increasingly negative reception to recent DLC (especially since blurries started in TSW5) is materially hurting sales to the point where they'd rather have no discussion/hype at all than face the current level of criticism.

OR

2. They literally can't afford to pay for proper moderation across their various social media. There's some evidence for this with Candace mentioning she's only contracted for 4 hours/day across all her duties. She's the most active CM i see on here by far, so they might really be running just a skeleton crew these days. The games industry is struggling across the board so that wouldn't be super surprising to me.

Either way none of it is good news for the future of the franchise imo.

I think some transparency would go a long way tbh. If the EP (or somebody at the decision-making level) said something like, "Things are hard right now- we're strugging to keep everything running with staff cuts alongside the massive effort to fix the texture issues, but we need to keep selling new DLC to keep the lights on. None of us is happy with how things turned out, but that's where we are", the response from the community would be overwhelmingly positive (not 100% of course).

DTG's current, simultaneous posture of, "we're taking the long-standing major issues with the game seriously, for real this time", "everything's fine just buy the new DLC", and also, somehow, "don't criticize us for the long-standing major issues" is really tough for me to take seriously.

Take some responsibility for the product you're selling DTG!

 

I'm definitely interested.

 

No, it's a European forum.

 

Train Sim Society’s video on the forums is coming at

6PM UK Time.

this video will give everyone in the community a clear idea.

 

I remember years ago when the BBC were shutting down their 606 football forum, everyone was up in arms but luckily someone decided to create a very similar forum site and many people moved across using their original screen names, though the BBC did give a few months warning, DTG have given us just a 1 week warning, hopefully someone here can create a site we can all move over to, but no chance of this with just a couple of days left and how would they get their message across

Poor poor show DTG, just poor!

 

HIS is very relevant to the discussion in that regard, for a while in TSC they didn't have announcement threads because of how poor the reception in the forum would be to them. It didn't matter all that much because would talk about it in general, in the current context though if they pulled a similar stunt again for TSW though under current rules they could full effectively stop discussion of the DLC altogether on here if they chose to be strict on off-topic moderation.

 

What an utterly bizarre choice DTG. Discord is no substitute for a proper general forum. If the issue is time spent dealing with people not behaving properly then get rid of those people, not the forum.

No issue with getting rid of the off-topic forum, having one of those is asking for trouble.

I strongly hope this decision is reversed.

 

Exactly. If certain people are repeatedly being offensive/abusive, ban them. Do this instead and prove that you don't have anything against general criticism and debate.

 

This is single handedly the stupidest thing i’ve seen DTG do. Why? i mean literally why? there’s no point. i’m not migrating to Discord simply because i don’t use it and don’t plan on using it. Thanks Dovetail!!