Train Sim World 7 - Discussion

Skipping a yearly release to work on these issues would benefit the players but not the shareholders, and who's the business run for the ultimate satisfaction of?

 

Shareholders, like every business ever

 

I like this. Or similarly - TSW7: Back to Basics
- no new features apart from bug free, faster loading, better UI. Then 3x previous routes that are re-released in the form they should have been in (eg ECML). That would have been excellent and set the tone for a year of good new releases on top that people would trust

 

Last night's stream was incredibly interesting. Pretty sure Matt revealed more than what the community team would allow had they been around.

This whole blurring situation has shown that DTG are both incompetent and deceitful after last night's info drop.

Incompetent as Matt revealed that DTG and the 3rd parties have not been paying attention to textures in the game exceed what Epic recommends for the Unreal Engine.

Deceitful as for a long time now they have been saying they know things are loaded into memory and not been unloading but claimed they didn't know what.

Now though, it turns out to be the trains (who would of thunk that in a train sim game).

So to get around the problem with hitching on gen 8 consoles when a train loads into the game, every train was loaded and then retained in memory. Then as time went on and timetables became more varied, this became more of an issue on consoles.

However he said that the loading and unloading won't be an issue now as you would barely notice with the speed of gen 9 SSD's. Now they just have to put that tech in each train

Now they must have known this but my guess is they kept quiet as they knew if we found out ithat tech for gen8 was a factor in blurring on gen 9 then we would tell them to either dump Gen 8 or build a separate system.

Instead they decided to lie and have their cake and eat it

 

Again it boils down to dropping two platforms (PS4 & XBox One) in order to (theoretically) better optimise your product or removing two fifths of your install base and losing that money, even if only temporarily while some of those people hopefully get a PS5 or XBox Series console sometime in future and come back to the product. I think it's going to take more than "we're looking at a fix, meanwhile check out these awesome new features we've got coming", which is the equivalent of jingling keys in front of us.

 

So they knew that, but despite this release being gen 9 (and pc) only, they actively did nothing...

 

Nah, they dropped Gen 8 because they had to face the fact that the game doesn't run on those platforms anymore.

They're now facing the same fact on Gen 9, or at least in 4K with a full timetable.

 

It'd either take a heck of a lot of work to get an actually properly optimised port working on console, or I feel bad for PC players' bank accounts as Pullup try to make the lost revenue back.

 

I’d 100% recommend getting GeForce Now to play the steam version on a smart TV rather than paying twice for it.

 

Certainly on PC the game is better than ever and I like the new features like safety systems being enabled to be on and the new conductor mode.

However the console issues could eventually affect us if it results in less sales. Some third parties might pull out or prices might go up again. At the moment they are just about acceptable to me.

I do hope that the crashing issues are fixed quickly.

I did feel sorry for Matt and I think kudos to him for showing the stream and for it being on YouTube for all to see. I do wonder if he knew he was flying by the seat of his pants.

I would say that whilst the console issues are undoubtedly a problem and need addressing which I'm sure they are going to be, the game is not terrible for everyone. Even some console players don't seemed to be phased by last night's stream.

 

Ignore the current AI-induced shortage of RAM and temporary high cost of gaming PCs, they are here for the long term whereas consoles will always have a set shelf life. Just check out the thread in the TSW12 forum where it's announced that only Gen 10 will be able to use the new game.

Once more people cotton on to and kick-back against the "You will own nothing" tech culture, PCs will be king again.
I mean, just think of the large mostly US-based corporations that have access and control over your photo library full of memories. You really need to be reclaiming them back and putting them on a hard drive that you own, that you can hold and keep in a safe place where a cancelled subscription can't touch and delete them.

Wake up people. You're on the way to having no control over what you've paid for and things you cherish.
2026 "That Wivenswold guy is crazy"
2036 "Wivenswold knew".

 

It's a good option, but it's an ongoing subscription that would soon be more than just buying the game. Plus I get Playstation credit for using my credit card so I can just use that.

 

I've not seen it mentioned elsewhere....but I've probably missed it. But I find it weird that on the TSW 7 "cover", the 331 isn't represented. Every year all three routes are represented on the cover art, except this year.

(Screenshot taken from YouTube.)

 

If you want to go that way, don't use a Windows PC, as an Microsoft account is required. On PC you use Steam (or any other digital game store), so you also don't own anything. Even if you can get a PC game on disc, DLC are still digital only. PC is not much (or not at all) better then console, so there is no "PCs will be king again".

Once we step in the digital world, we give our soul to the big corporations and there is no way back, unless you gonna live somewhere very remote and back to basics. And for the people thinking, but there is Linux and opensource, look at the maintainers en contributors of many projects and you will see how much big tech companies there are behind them.

 

It's weird with the motion blur because it makes it look like the ICE4 is struggling to keep up with the Tri-rail.

 

Must be behind the Tri-Rail train.

 

Given it's Northern Rail it's either delayed or cancelled.

 

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Totally agree with your last para.

 

They couldn't have three trains onscreen at the same time because consoles would get out of memory errors. I mean, look at all those blurry background textures with just the two trains

 

It looks like, Rivet did the best job this time around. No crashing and no blurry textures on the UK route.

 

There will always be a trade-off for the time being. Microsoft may require me to have an account, likewise Steam and yes, I own something in name only when it comes to PC games at the moment, however, those games are all on physical hard-drives, so I do in fact have physical, accessible copies, if Steam dies, there will be a work around to accessing them.

But you are focused just on gaming. In my PC's hard drives I have copies of every DVD I own, every record and CD I own, every photograph I've taken. Then, as a manual back-up if you like, I have physical copies of my favourite photos, I have racks of films, albums and, most importantly, books full of content that's untainted by AI in my house. As and when a switch to a non-Windows operating system becomes possible I will be rid of their odious business practices. I'm preparing for that day, most aren't.

The PC will be king for gaming and the only thing I use the internet on, my record player, CD player, my non-"smart" TV and the DVD player will be my own entertainment centres. The Cloud, subscription services, smart devices, AI; we're being mugged-off and simply giving in to it won't prepare you for the day when you own nothing.

 

The only option, at this point, is to suspend, if not stop, development on consoles because it's just getting ridiculous. Y'all know the old adage, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Console players have been fooled 10x over with memory issues, blurry textures, reduced time tables... You can't tell me the paying console player base is as big as it was when TSW first released there. Surely, by now, it has diminished to the point that it's equal to, or less than the paying PC player base. If it hasn't, then I refer you to the adage I quoted.

FDev dropped console support with Elite: Dangerous, and it is thriving because of it.

 

If you drop your console base not all your PC players will be so keen to pay 2-3 times as much to make up for lost revenue though, so it's going to be a big financial hit.

 

Not necessarily true, there are ways around having a MS account on Windows, and it doesn't take much "know how" to do it.

 

I didn’t watch last night’s stream as I’m using a high spec PC. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest DTG are deceitful, the fact Matt facilitated a stream on console was, in my opinion, very transparent and honest and whatever was shown has given console users a first hand expectation of TSW7. It does seem as though there were issues, but at least those on the fence now know and hopefully it isn’t too late to cancel for preorders if you no longer want to buy?

 

Console makes up a very large % of the player base in TSW, cutting it off entirely is like using a gun to kill a house spider. Not worth it, financially.

 

You missed out 2 pretty major factors with ED.

The console playerbase was less than 15% of the total user count.

They dropped support for gen8 machines years ago - they never published on gen9 to begin with.

 

Elite: Dangerous has a big online function and community. I remember reading a story where a group of Elite Dangerous players formed a rescue party for one of their party who had run into trouble and found themself in deep space. Plus there's an in-game economy, updates and resources to manage etc so a lot more reason to be invested in Elite: Dangerous than there is with TSW, which is at best niche title for hobbyists especially given the amount and price of additional content.

I feel like a lot of this need for the console stream was because of the heavy focus on the PC release and concern/pressure from console users, even moreso after people saw the PC preview streams weren't exactly showcasing the new features at their best.

It's now a question of how Dovetail will deal with it. I put my tinfoil hat on and wonder whether the stream was last night to try and avoid pre-orders being cancelled because of the early access component, but also understand that Tuesday is traditionally the day TSW streams are done, and release days etc so it's likely just the timing that lines up.

 

But they saw the writing on the wall, and knew it wasn't going to work.

The argument that the majority of TSW's player base is on console may be true, but you can't tell me the PAYING console player base is just as large. If it is, then console players love to throw money away, which I don't believe, especially in the current economy. I would gather that the majority of console players take the free update, see all the problems, and go back to 6, 5, or even 4, and if that's the case, they aren't buying new routes, and are waiting for older routes to go on a deep discount, so they don't have much affect on the bottom line, anymore. All the while PC players aren't seeing these issues, and continue to support this game.

 

As we draw nearer to the time of TSW7, I think its time to say goodbye to the TSW6 era.

Its been fun, with ups and downs. But I think third party content really carried TSW6.

may TSW7 be a better year (ill probably jinx this)

 

I am disappointed with the Germany route issues last night. I suspect their console QA work is done with development xbox x. They really need to do more testing with retail xbox.
As a xbox X user, I am excited by the quality of life improvements with tsw 7 and the uk and us routes will be novel and interesting. So i am looking forward to playing it tonight. I wish they would add more save slots.
I am confident that DTG will address the initial release bugs shortly. I do appreciate the openess with Matt's console stream and that DTG do acknowledge when issues exist.

 

Agreed, but it must be part of the constructive criticism we hear about, same as calling for people to lose their jobs.

Personally if was a console player I wouldn't be giving them another penny until the issued were resolved or at best buying the odd route if it seemed to perform okay.

Hopefully the crashes will at least be fixed.

 

Console is somewhere between half and two thirds of the player base. That's a considerable amount of revenue to just give up, especially given that they weren't exactly giving deep discounts away week in week out on XBox. If those console versions weren't making considerable amounts of money for DTG/Pullup they'd more than likely have dropped it completely by now.

Half to two thirds of your revenue is a lot to try and recoup to keep those shareholders happy, which would likely lead to considerably higher prices and/or fewer sales on Steam and Epic Games. Yes, there'd probably be some players who'd migrate to PC if console was dropped, but that's also an expensive prospect.

 

I mean that’s just a lot of assumptions, give it 20-30 minutes and you’ll see the same names cropping up in one thread complaining about what’s been shown, then posting in the feedback threads about the issues they’ve run into after buying it.

Your statement was a misleading implication that one studio dropping consoles, indicates other studios would ‘thrive’ without consoles.

I wouldn’t bring up the example you did, as they ported a piece of software intended solely for PC, to gen8 machines. DTG on the other hand, developed TSW from an incredibly early stage for consoles.

I also take issue with your description of ‘thriving’ for a studio/publisher that has repeatedly lost millions in failed IP & content launches, along with making around 10% of their staff redundant.

On the other hand, you could make the case that consoles have allowed DTG to ‘thrive’, just look at their socials, their YT channel which is gathering views TSC couldn’t dream of, then you have devs such as ATS who were insistent on not making content for TSW. Staff that work for DTG & other third parties are branching out to create their own studios to create content.

It’s pretty clear that a significant market exists in the consoles, DTG just need to do better at supporting it. FDev never had a console market, even after they launched they peaked at something like 12% of their user base being on consoles.

 

Another reason console players are valuable is that we can't pirate our DLC (not saying all or even most PC players do this obviously!)

 

I’m not saying it’s a good outcome, but it’s a way better outcome than DTG has given us before.

Everyone here complains about transparency from DTG and that we’ve been conned when we purchase routes that are filled with bugs and issues or something not working right on console. Well for once we got transparency (whether on purpose or not) and now we can make a purchase decision based on known faults instead of buying blindly. And it’s early enough for people to get refunds if they jumped the gun and purchased early. It’s just a much better scenario than before.

 

I'm also an XSX player and I wasn't particularly fussed about the routes offered as they aren't my personal cup of tea so I was always going to be a free starter pack guy. But I worry about all of the great new content that is meant to come out if we're still having such bad issues?

Are new timetables and the remaster going to break NTP and fill that with blurred textures? The AAS Shrewsbury route is looking like an interesting one as well, is it the same story there? What about the new JT route which is the piece of content I'm looking forward to the most?

I bought Riviera on sale and it's a great route, but I don't even have all of the layers and it blurs half way through. I'd love to add the HST pack to that and GWE but they're both bad enough as it is.

 

There are workarounds, I know, but Microsoft is trying to cut every possible way.

 

I did feel sorry for Matt. It must have been his worst nightmare coming true, and you could just tell he didn’t really know how to react to the situation, but handled it well.

DTG are widening the gap between PC and console despite the latter having the most users. This is the first TSW I’m not going to buy, but hey, at least the shareholders are happy right?.

 

I'm just sitting down to look at the stream and he's said that any instances of blurring will be investigated. I just hope that those instances will be followed up.

I see there is nothing in the feedback threads just yet.

Edit - just seen it releases at 4pm BST. Was under the impression it was out earlier my bad!

 

That may be the player base that has the game sitting on their console, but actual CURRENT PAYING customers on console is considerably less, and I would say less than current paying PC players.

 

Yeah. We should see a huge change for the better from here from DTG, but I don't know whether we will get that or whether they'll circle the wagons and wait for it to blow over.

There was only really the UK stuff I was interested in, although I do like some S-Bahn running sometimes. Still very much something to wait and see about. I will hold my hands up and say that I've never noticed or been bothered by blurry textures, just as long as it'll let me get from end to end of the run I'm doing without crashing back to the desktop and then let me do another run if I have time to. I'll hang fire for a few more weeks before I decide whether I'm going to get the free update for Series S.

 

I’m assuming we will start getting some console feedback in shortly as from what I can see that released at 1600 BST.

 

Serious lack of passengers on the Airedale & Wharfedale line so far.
Its playing well on this route apart from that so far on PS5

AI services look to have plenty of passengers.
331 handles very well for me

 

Again I'll say if they weren't making a substantial enough profit from the console versions they'd have dropped it completely instead of just dropping gen 8 by now. There must still be a financial reason for them to keep putting it out on those platforms.

 

Do you have any factual evidence to support this opinion?

 

Where can i download the old routes? They are not available yet in the PS Store?

 

The "old routes" will be available on TSW7 for consoles on September 15th.

 

Does early access start at different times on different platforms?

 

Not until launch next week