PlayStation This Community ?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Sam50i, Oct 3, 2020.

  1. Sam50i

    Sam50i New Member

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    Hi guys, I’m kind of new to the train simulator scene. I’ve never played any of the pc games, I’ve only played TSW and TSW 2 on PlayStation. I’ve been watching this community for a lot longer, since Matt started making YouTube videos. I really don’t understand why everyone is so toxic to the devs. I see so many people complaining about things offering no constructive feedback. I really don’t understand the hate. dovetail is a small studio with what I would imagine isn’t a massive budget. Yet loads of people from this community act like they’re a AAA studio. Maybe if people got off the the devs back and let them do what they need to do, things would be better !
    I completely understand having high expectations but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
    I completely understand having payed for something you want it to be perfect.
    for these things to become reality you need to give them the time they need to make it perfect ! Telling them what they do is trash is a waste of time ! Tell them why you don’t like it !
    Anyway I’ve said my bit and if someone couldn’t explain to me why, I’d be willing to listen.

    edit: I also want to say this isn’t aimed at everyone here ! I know the silent majority vs the loud Minority is a thing !
     
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  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    The problem is that three years ago people were promised that certain things would happen, and they didn't. Then quality slipped or issues were never addressed (and still haven't been in many cases), but prices remain the same, the output schedule remains the same and the quality still isn't there. This is why even the latest releases are not passing basic quality control, but still being put out in store at £25.
    The size of the dev team isn't as important as the want for that dev team to be given the time and freedom to work on the issues that are known and reported (frequently) so that the products we already HAVE can be made into the products we expect before releasing more, flawed product
    As a most basic example, try to find the manual for the class 20... To my knowledge there isn't one.

    I will support DTG and call people out when they unduly slate teams within the company, but there are also historic issues between DTG and "the community" which have led to the point we're at now and they need addressing by both sides before people will calm down a bit.

    And if you want to wind people up, especially the PC crowd, just say "Editor..."
     
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  3. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I think there is more constructive criticism than just complaining here on the forum. It might not be the same on social media outlets but I don’t look at them. We are told to keep the criticism coming and to report what we find and nearly everything you read on the forum is entirely justified, with even the biggest of TSW fans giving some solid and necessary criticism or complaint. There is only a minority here who seem to dislike DTG in every way and they can be the most vocal at times but lots of people agree with a great deal of what they say as well. There are also people who are more than willing to give DTG every chance to fix things and improve their products and policies, and help and support them in their efforts, but even their patience can be stretched at times. Most of the reporting of problems is done to help the devs although the wording of some of this can get a bit fruity at times.

    At this exact moment in time there are a lot of people having problems getting hold of their old routes for TSW2 and a lot of this content is far below what you should expect in quality when you do get it. There’s bound to be a bit of unhappiness around here while that is the case. There are also positives around but a lot of that is promises and there are some who have been let down in the past with DTG’s promises so they will need to see big changes to start heaping the praise on to the developers. A big part of the forum is the opportunity to agree with and reinforce other people’s complaints, or to disagree with them, and that can end up getting a bit out of hand at times but mainly everyone here wants to end up with a better product through their posting. Staying silent won’t achieve that.
     
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  4. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure I've seen any hate directly aimed at the Devs. Most of the upset is directed to DTG as a whole. I'm sure all these issues are down to senior management decisions, as opposed to the development team.

    You're right, they're not a AAA studio, however they're also not one man in his shed producing a game. The quality of some products is really poor, and the preservation process has clearly never seen a QA team, as products have bugs that could be identified with less than ten minutes playing.
     
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  5. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Watch the preserved team streams and you'll see why things are being released "as they are" rather than in a repaired state
     
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  6. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    Which is quite frankly shocking.

    To some extent I could understand not fixing existing bugs immediately, but to add in new bugs without a care in the world...
     
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  7. Ps4Player

    Ps4Player Well-Known Member

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    Actually that's the problem. Many many bugs weren't touched in TSW2020, which is very unsatisfying for the customer. Now they ported it to TSW2 and already existing and never fixed bugs are combined with new bugs which result from the preservation. Seriously, the problems started already with TSW2020 and continues now.
    I appreciate that they want to improve preserved content, but looking back at TSW2020, DTG has to regain the trust of many customers like me with proper bug fixes.
     
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  8. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    That bit at the end is your opinion...
    The focus at the moment is getting the DLC from TSW1 working in TSW2 and then they will be able to go back and fix old and new bugs. I'm sure there are people who would prefer they spend six months making everything perfect, but there are also people who want what they had before "working" now (I put that in speech marks deliberately)
     
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  9. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Except... that between TSW1 and TSW2020 came the new era of "We're saying what we're doing, and ONLY what we're doing" and I have had more trust in what they say now than I did a year ago
    So when they say they're bringing things across "warts and all" and then they'll go back and finesse things, I believe what I see on stream NOW
     
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  10. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    It might be my option, but it's the impression they're giving. I can't see anyone signing off some of these releases unless they really didn't care about QA.

    I'd rather they released what we had before in the same state and then fix it, however we are at the point where they're releasing what we had before, but further broken.
     
  11. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    They've brought it over "in a working condition" even though they know that the transition between "old UE and new UE" causes further issues (as do fixes they've implemented elsewhere)
    It's annoying and yes, I can get the point but I can again see that people would prefer to have something being released and brought over than nothing at all
     
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  12. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    Exactly, they knew there would be issues. Therefore it's not unreasonable to expect them to fix it.

    There's a very big difference between a "working" product and a "quality" product. At the moment, the preserved content is not quality, and in some cases is not working.

    They've made it to the point that playing the game has lost its enjoyment. It shouldn't be a case that endless bugs (old and new) are found. This isn't an alpha or beta product.
     
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  13. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I would query that ANY game which has DLC ever reaches past beta as they're always in development, but then I do some dev myself and can see that that's a pedantic view...

    They're going to...
    OK. let's follow this rabbit hole a bit and see what the repercussions would be. They concentrate on getting the american content from TSW 1 over to TSW2 with NO BUGS AT ALL... that takes all of the team approx 6-9 months.
    SO in that time there's no new content, no fixes to anything else, only US content being worked on.
    Then they release that... Fans of american railroading rejoice, they have the same content they had last year but it all works. The german and UK fans are steaming because they don't necessarily care about US railroading, but they now have to wait ANOTHER 6-9 months to maybe have their routes seen to, but then they find out that the Germans are next. SO the problems on NTP have been there for now two years, there's still no new content... you see where this is going?

    Given that the roadmap is talking about preserved content, fixes, new routes, new assets and updates to the UI I would say that they're working on a lot of things at once and if they can manage to stay on track and get those things righted then all will be good.

    What we shouldn't expect is a pristine release, ever.

    Let's look at another simulator with a billion pound budget and thousands of people working on it. MSFS2k. On day of release there were over a million bugs in the game, from crashes to simulation errors, things being solid which aren't, mapping issues... And that's with the might of microsoft behind it.
     
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  14. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    At no point have I ever said, in any thread, that a product should be completely bug free. The fact you continue to go down this line, means you only want to get your view across without actually reading what I've put.

    However, the number of bugs introduced as part of the preservation clearly shows they're being rushed.

    The 146 cannot reach its top speed of 160 kph. This would have been identified with five minutes of playtime. This is not a minor bug (like a random invisible wall etc), but this is a major part of the locomotive. This is one of many bugs that have recently appeared.

    If we were talking one or two extra bugs, then I'd agree with you.

    The roadmap is a token effort, one that's in the right direction. However so far we've have had approximately ten bug fixes. Given the hundreds of threads on this forum, this really isn't enough.

    If you're truly happy with the game in the state it is, then that's fair enough. You really need to understand that some people are not happy with the quality.
     
  15. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I am not questionning that the transition between UE versions isn't introducing it's own issues, nor that fixes in other systems are causing impacts
    I haven't commented on my view of the game, it's state or in fact much about the game at all. I have tried to focus on the development of it, how the team has been portraying that work and how their dev cycle hopefully will achieve what you're saying whilst giving people options now.

    If you want to report bugs and go on about bugs, then fine. I'm talking about things other than that
     
  16. Mikkel

    Mikkel New Member

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    There is a very negative atmosphere in this forum for sure. Not just today but if you scroll back to the early days of the PS4 forum you'll see exactly the same. If you read some of the comments it's almost like TWS is a malfunction life-support system instead of just a toy with bugs.

    I think it would help if the forum was divided in subforums like the TS forum. That way complaints and bugs can be separated from other questions and discussions. Hopefully that will lighten things up in the other subforums and provide a more pleasant forum experience for the silent majority who is very happy with TWS as is. Like me.
     
  17. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    Instead of a paid product with bugs.

    Personally I'd love to be able to enjoy the game in the same way I enjoy TS and other games. However the bugs really detract from the experience. I'm vocal about it because I want things to improve. Hopefully with enough complaints, the negativity will turn into positivity.

    It seems to have worked with West Coast Main Line South, and with the preserved content to some extent.

    At least in Train Simulator the community can fix what DTG doesn't want to.

    That would be like me saying that the majority hate the game. Neither of us could back that up with a fact. You could be right, but you could also have a situation where the majority are disappointed but just can't be bothered to express their opinions.
     
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  18. Luke8899

    Luke8899 Well-Known Member

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    I agree generally there is a definite lack of perspective sometimes, the word 'unplayable' is thrown around so often it has lost all meaning. People are often unable to put their experience in perspective, so it's clearly not unplayable if others can play it, but neither is all good because one kind of player doesn't encounter the issues others do. BTW some lucky dev had to learn how all kinds of German signalling work to make 'just a toy', so there's another example of perspective!

    This forum isn't particularly dissimilar to others in respect of how people interact with the game and the devs, and online communities do tend to develop in very common ways, particularly the subcultures that pop-up within them, of which "long-termers who seemingly hate everything and do nothing other than share war stories about their years of disappointment" are as much a staple of every online community as "starts a thread once a month with a bunch of pictures with no explanation" is. Just gotta learn to appreciate everyone for the role they play in these places I guess, or get friendly with the ignore button.

    Similarly, hyperbole is an engrained part of online discussion and has been for as long as I can remember. The PC forum is particularly good for melodramatic writing, half the posts are written like the intro to a globally significant piece of investigative journalism in the Times (Klaxon: hyperbole), so yeah there are gonna be periods when "it's just a video game" is gonna feel like the only response, but don't post it coz you can be sure most will be thinking that anyway, and you'll only get a long list of the crimes of DTG in response to any attempt at putting things in perspective.

    BTW I think there is actually a plan to merge the forums so PC/Xbox/PS4 is all in one... insert mushroomcloud.gif
     
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  19. Lenwigg

    Lenwigg Well-Known Member

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    I agree with all you say. I am also new to the game. TSW 2020 for two or three months then TSW 2 from day one. Love it and can put up with the bugs as I think and hope they are working on them. A bit annoying sometimes for a few seconds then I just get on with something else in the game.
     
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  20. Lenwigg

    Lenwigg Well-Known Member

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  21. Rob39

    Rob39 Well-Known Member

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    “Toxic” urghhh.
    Word used to describe a pattern of opinion that you disagree with.
     
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  22. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    I criticise TSW 2 because I love TSW 2 and want it to be the best it can be.

    I’m disappointed so many issues are seeing final release. These issues are annoying and spoil a product I care about. I want the developers to understand the issues are damaging the quality of the game and what issues I’m finding. It’s up to them then to take onboard this feedback - if they want to.

    To be fair to the company, it seems keen to do better. It just needs to make sure it’s not too little too late. People are getting fed up.
     
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  23. byeo

    byeo Well-Known Member

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    See my thread titled “Losing love of the game”. I’ve not touched TSW2 in a good few weeks now and I don’t miss it at all. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the game but have seen enough to tell me I’m not missing much by not playing it. Maybe the management at DTG don’t care, they’ve got my £24.99 so they’re happy, maybe the likes of Matt, Sam & the rest care as it’s those who seem to deal with the brunt of the criticism. Either way, something needs to be done to reel me and countless others back in who are fast losing faith in TSW2.
     
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