I was referring to your use of the word 'never' (that's why I quoted that part only) not to all these other things.
I have no issues with Crewe-Preston. *shrugs* I know, I know "well that's your experience"... but it is important to keep in mind that issues can be exaggerated.
It'll probably be Union Workshop's decision. Or, at the very least, they [UW] probably can afford it. Other devs probably budget for releases being in set windows and can't really move them much. UW seem to not have that problem.
Although I'm disappointed that the route won't launch this week, I'm quite happy with the delay announcement. I'm taking this as a sign that DTG is finally starting to take QA more seriously, particularly on consoles. Too many routes and DLCs are rushed out full of bugs that get outed in the feedback threads almost immediately after release, while the fixes for those issues often take months to arrive. I love this game, but I get tired of troubleshooting its bugs. Here's hoping that the Tadami Line is an enjoyable experience on all platforms when it launches!
for me, the problem isn't even the delay itself, but the fact that the "new" TSW is already on the way and there's a risk they might want to push the release back to coincide with the "new" TSW, and honestly, I can't stand waiting anymore because that would mean waiting through all the "new" TSW rollout process before the "new" TSW's own DLC release cycle even begins which would likely take a total of about 4 or 5 months in other words, do you see how the problem always comes back to the same point? that senseless practice of re-releasing a "new" TSW every year
I strongly support the decision to delay content that isn’t ready for release. But I wonder why it took them so long to notice that I’m assuming it would’ve been in QA testing for a few weeks by now.
It does seem systematic in that the solo developer does his magic and then somehow - obvious issues do not seem to be established until the very last second - feels like we have been here before (Mildmay line had problems with the passengers from day one, Crewe to Birmingham New Street had significant timetable issues - these are just two examples off the top of my head) - third party developers often praise the help that DTG provide (but do they get support throughout?) - but surely it does not take long for just a few experienced testers to work out if it isn't running as it should be - without knowing all the facts, it does feel as though they loaded this up today to do the preview stream and then could immediately see problems - I know it has been a long wait for this (and personally it's not top of my list to buy), but the process just has to be better, perfectly excusable if this was the 1st time. I'm happy that at least they are not going to release it in it's present state, but it doesn't give confidence overall.
I wonder if they could just do the whole TSW 7 hype and their release "bundle".... and leave it at that. No new features, just a revamp of the core to be more stable. Wouldn't even have to be a whole new download, just an update patch that changes all the "TSW 6" logos to "TSW 7." Then they get the marketing boost for sales and new players (and you get some nice route bundles) but there's no tech debt to work on. It's what I'd do given the state of the game, but it's not my company so take it with a grain of salt.
Sad to see it delayed...hopefully not for too long Maybe we'll all be playing GTA6 before Tadami releases
Well, if DTG really does carry out QA testing, then surely they’d do it before announcing the DLC. But I’m slowly starting to get the feeling that DTG doesn’t really pay much attention to QA testing anymore – or do they only start the QA testing once they’ve announced the release date? And if DTG is now holding back Tadami Line, it’s surely down to the poor performance on consoles or even on the PC.
Yep, the announcement basically says its down to performance and I assume if its serious enough to push a release date, its across all platforms
Doesn't even have to be PC. I think something like 80% of sales of TSW are consoles so, even if it's "only" Xbox or PS, that'd be maybe 40% of your player base. Definitely enough to not want a fiasco. Again, I think it's the right call to not release it if it won't work as planned, but especially given that it's the inaugural Japanese route and at a high price tag....kinda the trifecta of bad press.
It doesn’t really matter if it is TSW6 or 7, especially if TSW7 is a free upgrade like the last couple of versions. What matter is that it is properly tested and released in a good and playable state and not rushed out to meet an artificial release date.
Maybe it is time to end the series and build again from the ground up with their own custom engine. It surely can’t go on like this forever. What ever happened to the German steam train anyway? If I was DTG I wouldn’t announce things so far before they’re ready cause it just feels like they never arrive.
Yep, I'd really prefer they do it that way, in form of an update. It really feels so completely and utterly pointless to download the now up to half a TB of data, all the same data that's already laying around in the neighbouring folder on our disk. And the amount is growing with each new release and it's not growing linearly.
It's inconceivable that something spends years in development and, at the last minute, a fatal flaw is discovered that showed no symptoms for all that time. Unless, of course, either: a. Nobody really ran the thing all the way through until yesterday. Or b. problems were found by beta or QA and ignored with, as stujoy suggested, fingers tightly crossed that we wouldn't notice ( not for the first time, fat chance of course ).
It's highly unlikely to be any sort of licensing issues. The route and train are all unbranded and plus UW released Tadami line and other Japanese routes for TS Classic with no issues. The most likely explanation is they fired up the route on consoles for the first time and it was a blurry mess of textures and poor performance.
I suspect that we have multiple companies with multiple different standards on QA after what happened with Thames Valley and was TrainsimTV was saying about his experiences with the QA for the JT routes being very stringent on things.
Incidental, but dtg_jan think you need to amend or redact the article in the Live section of the board which still says the route is coming on 30 July.
I'm probably just being cynical, but what's the point in announcing a release date then seemingly five minutes later announcing that it's been delayed indefinitely?
"They've been working hard now for quite some time getting to understand the TSW tooling and they are now rapidly homing in on their on their first release which will be the Tadami Line" - Matt, Dovetail Direct, Spring 2024. This means the route has spent at least 3 years in development. I'm not buying this last-minute "we only just noticed the performance issues" excuse either. So, tinfoil hat on, personal speculation ahead: This has more to do with marketing than the route itself. Maybe they realised that announcing the release date 1 week prior to release was a bit short and people had little time to get excited for something concrete. Maybe they decided that releasing Tadami a week after Thames Valley will have resulted in people delaying the purchase and spoiling their statistics. Or maybe they have decided to go mask-off (again) and are making this a TSW7 launch title. I think the last one is highly unlikely, if only for how much outrage it will cause, but I'm ready to Expect the Unexpected.
It's funny how everyone rushes to blame performance on consoles when the timing suggests the issue raised it's head when they were prepping for the preview stream, which is run on a 4080 equipped PC.
Because the people that make the ultimate decisions aren't always fully in tune with reality. Looking at figures and spreadsheets is very different to sitting with the game running with terrible stutters and other performance issues. Given how late the decision was to postpone things it possible that the release build was given to Matt to use on the LiveStream, and whilst pre-caching the route issues were found and a confident pushback was made to postpone things. It's just a shame that over the past years the route would have been through various QC and Beta Testing cycles with DTG, it's not just a case of "we are going to release this soon put it in testing", these computers are usually different to home users as they are setup to perform debugging and other tasks. BUT the Beta Testers (do they exist?) would have had a near public build to use on their standard home systems. Such a disappointing state of affairs, given the long statement we had from DTG and ATS regarding the Class 90 debacle.
That sounds like a plausible situation. I've seen that happen on projects before. QA: "Hey, you need to fix this and get back to us." Vendor: "Ok here ya go. All fixed!" QA: "Ok I'll just take a look...wait this isn't fixed." Vendor: "Well it worked for us on our system!" QA: "Yeah, but it's supposed to work for customers on their systems" If Union Workshop did the same thing and just ran it through their own dev platforms again, the same bloated DLC would work the same since it's the same system they are testing on. As I've said before this isn't just a DTG thing. It's what I've seen MANY developers in games doing. Then they are (sometimes sincerely) shocked when their product doesn't perform as well on the "average" system. I think deep down it's just human nature to sort of be biased to assume that other people live like we do, so if you have a high end computer you'll just assume other people have the newest computer too. It's gotten to the point there's often an "elitist" sort of snobbish attitude in some of the higher performance games (flights sims, space sims, etc) where if it's not working on your system then "well you're clearly not the intended audience. If you had money you'd have a better computer." I don't KNOW that's what happened here and I'm not claiming that UW or DTG are the latter part. However, it's easy to do an in-house QA and then ship a product without testing it on a potato rig just to see what the "average" gamer will experience.
So with out breaching my NDA, There was stuff that was noted by the ambassadors as well as others that basicly if it had been released you lot would have been venting spleen over across many pages on the forum and the socials and obviously some throwing their toys out of the pram. So it was decided to delay it. It was the right decision to make and to be honest I hope they decide to do it more often if it needs to be done. Hentis
All this after 3-4 years of development... What were they doing over at Union Workshop? Philosophizing about world problems, in general, just to pass the time?
The announcement was quite clear about this as well. It’s not an issue having the release delayed when issues are found, that bit is understandable and the right thing to do. I think most people are just alarmed at how the issues weren’t picked up sooner. It’s all a bit last minute for something that’s been in development for so long. I’m not an expert in this obviously but I’m wondering, and many others will be too, why final testing is done after a release date is set. Our main point, in amongst the spleens exploding, is why DLC isn’t all tested and finalised before being announced as ready for release. The system is one of fingers being crossed instead of certainty and we have seen things release with issues that seem to take DTG by surprise many times before. The system needs changing. This time they have delayed the release, most times they do not, but the system that leads to that decision point is clearly the issue.
I fully agree with this… What it actually confirms for me is what we regularly see: products perform very poorly after release. I get the feeling DTG was caught off guard by the performance issues. My question is also: how is that even possible?! And this isn’t a case of “oops, sorry” it’s not the first time. It’s fine that they’re stepping in now, but indeed, why so absurdly late? I think it’s fair if someone from DTG could explain this in an honest and fair way. Not to give DTG a hard time, but this whole situation is just a bit bizarre, right?! It feels very amateurish to me.
With the class 90 of course being a prime example of a DLC that should have been postponed (even if last minute) because of the poor quality.
They don't seem to have been releasing anything for TSC since 2023, and I can't find anything they released in their name. Don't even know how big "Union Workshop" is. It could be one guy on his spare time and he just got busy or sick or something. I did see some mention of mobile games or a collaboration with Valve, but nothing beyond that when I did a search so... could also be that it's an dev that pays the bills with contract work and does train routes on the side. So, the hobby wasn't a priority if the day job was paying the bills? Just speculating here because there's very little about the developer that I could find. That suggests to me it's not a huge "studio" but rather one or two people. Jumping from TSC routes to TSW routes is a pretty big leap too.
Yes, a few years for a single route isn't something that happens if people's income depends on it. UW is likely a person or people with lives who are doing this for enjoyment, and maybe skills development. Which is fine! As customers, we're owed nothing except a working product at the end. I'll be looking forward to it when it's finally released.
We should call a spade a spade. "Passion in free time" smacks of amateurism. Amateurism doesn't really mesh well with monetization... Note that they want your money, in the end... Or maybe I missed something and we're talking about Train(Z) Sim World?
Really, after 3 years? How long do they need? If SCS (truck simulator developers) had died they would be turning in their grave! Sorry but absolutely no excuse for this mess.
I am not following that thought process at all. Was some of that monologue in your head and didn't reach the keyboard? What does SCS have to do with anything?
Particularly as SCS have a habit of announcing stuff 18 months ahead of time! Still waiting for Iceland and the Coach add on for ETS2 and the taxi(ish) add on for ATS which they keep teasing. The only certainly is when they do come out, 1. They will be in a very playable state and, 2. A pocket friendly price.
Union Workshop is a team of experienced developers for train simulator. This is just their first product for TSW, but they’ve already successfully made multiple Japanese routes and trains for TS Classic, including the Tadami line.
The manual lists 4 people under Union Workshop in the credits. So like you say not just one developer.
Considering the performance is supposedly poor, the screenshots shown looked quite unfinished, and the landscape design appeared rather mediocre - especially near the water's edge and regarding the water textures. Hmm. That looks more like TSW2/3. The design of the riverbank and the textures remind me of the Japanese MSTS route from back in 2001. I don't know, the spark just doesn't seem to be catching here. If the vehicles are also mediocre - meaning, above all, that the sound is terrible - then unfortunately, it’s not a day-one purchase.
Having 4 people and doing a route for TSC every couple years does not equal a full time studio team. It still sounds like a few guys doing it on the side for fun who also have day jobs. As for quality... it seems alright for what it is. We've had better, we've had worse from the screenshots. Then again, I'm not as picky as others. The key for me is price. It's definitely not a $39.99 route... but is it a $24.99 route? A $19.99 route? I can see it being worth it for people if in the $17.99 level that Thames Valley is priced at.
Those screenshots don't satisfy me at all. The water looks very bad, like a repeated texture pattern all over. Considering Japan is supposed to be quite picturesque, this isn't going to be a purchase for me.
The problem with this route is that there will only be a small amount of shared DTG assets that they can use to built with. Some trees and vegetation, the track and some lineside assets. The majority of assets will need to be custom or re-textured from the existing shared pool. This takes time and resources. The other issue is that the route was started back in TSW3 era and much has moved on since then and players expect routes to have the detail and excellence close to that which JT brought to the party. Some of the screenshots of the route give off a TSW3/4 look, which just isn't going to cut it, as we shortly head into TSW7. When you've been working on something for so long there's the hesitation to just keep "updating" things, for instance the water decals that have evolved a couple of times since the terrible, flat ones shown on the route. How long do you keep chasing the current time??
