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!!

 

For anyone interested, I've put together a video covering as much of this as I can, considering the frequent developments. That includes the forum changes, the community reaction, & how I personally feel about it. Please note, I did not grab every single point raised, as it would be 1+ hours long, so if there are additional points you want to add, feel free to do so in the comments. I think it's important to get more eyes on this, specifically eyes that aren't in the social space of this franchise, so we can hopefully try and keep GD going. The goal was to be as fair as possible and consider all angles.

I also want to extend genuine thanks to the community team, who are clearly stretched thin & stuck in the middle of this.

To DTG Harry specifically, again, I appreciate you and the light that you bring. And candacedtg ,thank you for dedicating as much time as you have to moderating to the best of your ability given your time and workload. Much love to the rest of the CM team as well. I really hope this decision can be reversed. Cheers!

 

It was the same when the old Edge games forum closed down many years ago. Someone created their own mainly UK-centric games forum which is still going strong today and has a decent off-topic section, film&tv section etc and no problems with moderating it.

 

So all whining like demonstrated in this thread will be gone soon. What a shame.

 

nice one... I also think that some folks read too much into this as it being an attempt to silence criticism etc., which is a bit conspiracy level stuff... I am sure there is some rationale behind this - they are not stupid, they knew full well it will raise some emotion among community, and did it anyway, so there must be valid reasons to do so, even though it might be painful... for a time

 

That's a fair balanced video TSS

 

Yeah, a fantastic explanation.


And a good shoutout to the right honourable member OldVern, It’s good someone who is very prominent on the forums is being mentioned here.

 

we kind of knew this was coming when they created their discord server, and it does seem pointless to have two separate places where you can talk. on one hand, I can understand the decision, BUT is this a move to make it harder for people to talk about issues with the game?
the forum you can create a specific topic to talk about and people simply reply to that topic, on Discord as far as I’m aware it is just a general chat channel and there’s no way for you to create a specific topic (Thread).

although I do understand that Discord is a lot more popular I just hope they are not making this move as a way of trying to silence the critics because of the state of the game?

 

I genuinely think you should be made an ambassador with the caveat of keeping your content how it is. You're out here providing high quality content, involving the community and doing it from a good place. You highlight the good and the bad which you've done really well here.

One interesting point is talking about Candace's post that mentioned how much the forums and community has grown recently.

If the community has grown this much and the forums is a big part of that (if it wasn't a big part we wouldn't be having this issue) why are we cutting half of it off?

 

Cheers for the video TSS and for what you add to the community. I agree with your points.
From my perspective, especially as a console player, trying to censor conversation whilst continually releasing content that is not always fit for purpose is not a good look and no wonder infuriating for folks.

 

Whatever happened to free speech and opinions?

 

DTG removing the General Discussion forum because they can't handle people criticizing their decisions? Are they only after people who say nice things about them and act like everything they do is 100% perfect with no errors whatsoever?

Absolute melts the lot of them.

 

I know certain DTG decisions over the years seem a bit 'odd' but this one? I had to check it wasn't April 1st. To me it is like that old analogy where a schoolkid playing football decides to pick up the ball and spoil the fun for everyone else.

I sure many here have been on a lot of forums over the years as have I and been lucky enough to run a few really successful ones and even a few of my own but one thing they all have in common was the 'General Section'. The best way to improve a user base whether it is for a game or whatever is the 'General Section' where people can ask or discuss things or share advice, hardware etc why motive would you have in killing the most used part of the forum?

I can understand trimming the least used parts of a forum unless that have useful advice in it. I remember being told that a forum is only as good as its mods. imo I hope someone starts an alternative forum for people to join but then is this DTG's aim or people could just use the feedback area, lol. Abuse on forums can be really tricky, I have seen forums split apart because of it but that comes down to how mods operate is it a frustrated customer or personal abuse, I think if it is personal action should be taken but you don't shot down the most popular part of the forum. Strange decision.

 

I think they are tired moderating the forums that often have people attacking each other out of nowhere, and even DTG Matt stopped interaction in the forums (I think he even have said something about the forums). Currently moderators would not lock the forums until things spins completely out of control, but I do support giving bans if anyone is in violation of the rules often.

I do need to state that removing General Discussion would not be a valid measure to suppress critism, as if an addon is bad you may find critisms everywhere, including the feedback forums, DTL article discussion and the steam review sections where you make the purchase decision.

If anyone want the nearly same experience as here, maybe go to Reddit. As of my observation it has a pretty good moderation. But General Discussion is the spine of this forum, if DTG kills this off entirely they better off just archiving the entire forum altogether...

 

I don't think 'tired of moderating' should be an excuse. Successful forums I have seen had volunteer moderators because they have a passion for the game or whatever the forum is about. The answer could be in getting certain members of the forum to act as moderators. If you get the right sort of people the forums can be a blast. I was on an old PS forum for a driving game but we made it for adults so there was 'colourful' language, lots of banter but no personal stuff. I think we only banned a couple or so people from there and it was great at the time but we had good mods.

 

Maybe the forum is being secretly taken over by Kier Starmer, after all, he needs a new job!

 

Well, you can still have it as long as you don’t criticise DTG at all!….

 

It seems to be conveniently timed as it's usually around this time of year they announce the next "version" of TSW and they probably don't want people saying hurty things to them about it.

 

Technically viable solution. Though I wonder if this forum have more efficient moderation tools than just manually inspecting each thread - or if the amount of postings are still viable for a few people.

 

I’d love to live in this utopian world of niceness that DTG thinks exists! Get a grip DTG!

 

I bought it and I'm loving it
they've improved a lot since the ATSF pack

 

Just pathetic.

 

Two entirely different platforms for different purposes.
It's like saying "we can close stop selling TSC because we have TSW."

 

I honestly think this is one of the FRIENDLIER forums I've seen.
If people think THIS is rude and insulting, I have no idea what their life experience must be like.

However, even if that is the case, the answer isn't to throw the baby out with the bath water...it's to focus on the few "offenders".
And if you don't have enough PAID people to do it, you've had at least a dozen people offer so far to help fr FREE.

 

…I think DTG’s angle is that this forum is causing them to lose potential income. So often when a new DLC is released it’s (rightly)…”got blurry textures”, “empty timetable”, “missing passengers” etc. to which the response is usually “not buying it ‘til they’re fixed/80% off in a sale…just saying without prejudice.

 

Diddums! Maybe they should actually listen to peoples concerns and actually do something to fix them! Jesus effing wept!

"We are going to shut out General Discussion forum because we don't want to hear about peoples issues with the game"

 

Where am I going to have a conversation with like-minded individuals now? Discord is run by the fun sponges. Rail forum is too serious and professional. This sucks more than doofy's vacuum.

 

…pretty much !