Preserved, Not Remastered.

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by ProfCreeptonius, Oct 1, 2020.

  1. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    The latest roadmap is only six days old, why not wait to see what is on the next one!
     
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  2. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    “Fix state of preserved collection” is a bit broad and vague. I think they plan much smaller, manageable tasks to fix very specific things (e.g., “ABC sound volume too low on XYZ loco”).

    I do agree things should be fixed, but let’s let them gradually do it bit by bit, instead of having them broadly promise that everything will get resolved.
     
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  3. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    ‘There’s a distinction between things they’d like to fix but haven’t scheduled yet, and things they are fixing‘

    Yes, but that argument misses that they are adding new issues to be fixed as they release stuff. So if they say on the Roadmap they’re going to release something and when they do it has new bugs in effect it’s the release that wasn’t completed.

    So, they put a tick by the item on the Road Map as being complete. But it isn’t. It’s missing core functionality. So the argument is not should the bugs be added to the Road Map but rather that the original delivery should still be there.
     
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  4. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    True, a release with bugs would be incomplete.

    If the original delivery was still on the roadmap, it could confuse people. If XYZ route shipped with bugs and “XYZ route” is listed under In Production, did it ship or is it still in development? People don’t expect the answer to be “Both.”

    Customers also expect to see forward progress on the roadmap, not backward progress of an item to an earlier state.

    That’s probably why DTG lists exactly what’s being fixed for XYZ route as new, separate items, rather than keeping the original delivery on the list.
     
  5. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    ‘Customers also expect to see forward progress on the roadmap, not backward progress of an item to an earlier state.‘

    If you share something like a Road Map with customers they expect to see accurate reporting of the state of a deliverable. Of course we all expect too see forward progress, but only if it occurs. They don’t break out components, like sound, as a deliverable so arguably it isn’t done until it’s done. You’re also washing over the fact that this isn’t a minor defect. It’s the sound.

    This is the blurb on TSW2 from the Steam page

    ‘Your collection comes with you - You can play your Train Sim World 2020 Add-Ons in Train Sim World 2. Train Sim World has always been about your collection, your choice of Add-Ons from your favourite region, time period, diesel, electric, passenger, freight – your way. Your purchased Train Sim World 2020 Add-Ons will be available to play in Train Sim World 2.’

    Interesting mixture of verb tenses by the way. ‘You CAN play’ and ‘WILL be available’. Again, not a favor to the community. Part of the selling of the product. That’s a commitment. They excluded the two items they’re not transitioning but for every other TSW1 add on it’s meant to be available in TSW2 presumably seamlessly and to the same quality.
     
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  6. wargame99

    wargame99 New Member

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    Its good that there is an acknowledgement of problems. If DTG can then address some of the more severe ones then they just might have customers gushing in revelry and joy. Who knows...
     
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  7. wxtr7

    wxtr7 Well-Known Member

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    But here's the thing, we are already seeing backwards progress, because old routes are being ported over with the same bugs as before AND new ones as a result of the porting. Even the core TSW2 routes have their own issues. Again, a lot of these issues are CORE issues, not things that can go wrong on a specific PC or console setup or because of simple user error that should be caught either by the devs themselves or QA testing. Forward progress isn't negated by sharing/acknowledging bugs. However, if they don't look into it OR if they are aware and pretend those issues don't exist and push out content anyway and then issue a generic PR statement of "we'll get back to this at some point in the future" then that is not forwards, but backwards progress.

    As others have said, the roadmap is supposed to a communication line to us, the consumer, about what is going on with TSW content. If bugs aren't showing up on the roadmap, there's a good chance that they will forget about it in the future (because it's now buried under a whole new pile of bugs) and we may never see a fix for it. At least putting something in the "In Planning" section, is a note to us that they haven't forgot about it. It's still not a promise that it will get done, but at least we know they are continually aware.

    The other issue is, and why I'm on the side of bugs need a tracking list (whether that's a pinned forum or using the roadmap, I'm in favor of the latter), the Technical Reports forum can move somewhat quickly and sometimes issues can be lost. Since there's no acknowledgement of issues how do we know they aren't lost.
     
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  8. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    Putting something in "In Planning" that they don't currently have definite plans to fix would be misleading.

    Valid point, but the Roadmap is not intended or designed to track every single bug.

    Just think of how less valuable the Roadmap would be if it got cluttered up with hundreds or thousands of issues that currently have no committed plans to fix them.

    I think we have to accept that DTG has a bug tracker they use internally, prioritizes fixes that can be done (even if they're not the issues we'd have preferred to be fixed first), and then adds those issues to the Roadmap.

    I don't think they forget things that need to be done. I think they're constrained by man-hours and expenses and can only accomplish so much with what they have.
     
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  9. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    I think the "in planning" part of the roadmap needs to be re-named. It is clear from the posts in this thread people are mistaking this section for the list of things that DTG plan on doing, which is why they think fixing the sound on preserved content should be on there.

    As I understand it. the "In planning" section is the part where they are investigating issues, gathering information and actively preparing to start production. It is an active section not an idle to-do list. Having a to-do list, adding things to it then leaving it to one side while you get on with something else is not what this is intended to represent. A better name might be "In preparation"

    It is confusing because although they have said they plan on addressing the sound issue in the future after releasing the preserved collection, they are not currently working on it - even doing the data collection or analysis of what is wrong. It is not actively in progress at all, hence it is not on the roadmap, but we can say they are planning on doing it afterwards...
     
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  10. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    ‘ if it got cluttered up with hundreds or thousands of issues’

    Are you trying to get us prepared for that number of bugs with TSW2 DLCs? I think most would be happy if they included say half a dozen items that get discussed on here

    ‘they have said they plan on addressing the sound issue in the future’

    What we are missing is whether they know what’s causing the sound issue. There was talk at one time that they’d made bespoke changes to the TSW1 engine. It was often quoted as one of the rationale for not releasing the editor. Perhaps its connected to that. There must be other games that have made the engine upgrade, or even use the sane engine. Do they have sound issues as well? What the underlying problem is, what the solution might be, or whether they’ve even found the root cause are key. Does the same issue impact all the routes in the same way (they can all be fixed by a central or shared code change) or does each route need work. Is it one of these Console/PC issues where Console constraints drive the solution? Those are the kinds of things that they will use to decide if and when they fix the problem.

    ‘I think they're constrained by man-hours and expenses and can only accomplish so much with what they have’

    DTG are a commercial company. They choose how much resource gets applied to get the quality that they want. If they’re short of inhouse staff generally there are contractors who will be experienced in the disciplines that they can get in to resolve bottle necks or complex issues. In terms of man-hours for technology these days you work to get the job done. As a suggestion perhaps Product Leads, rather than doing streams, should be in the office burning the midnight oil resolving problems. I know that will upset some but much as many of you like the streams they are of dubious commercial value. Basically you are spending time promoting the product to a small number of your most loyal customers.
     
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  11. wxtr7

    wxtr7 Well-Known Member

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    Investigating issues. That is addressing bugs.

    I disagree that putting something in "In Planning" is misleading if there are no definite plans, and DTG has even said themselves, that even if something ends up on the roadmap, it's not a definite until its released, as it can be scrapped at any point. But DTG has branded this roadmap as a tool for us to use to know what's going on, and what we can expect is being done. If there's a major issue, that needs to be logged somewhere (the roadmap makes the most logical sense) so that we know they will be looking at it. I can understand an argument, and I'll concede that posting every bug would probably make the roadmap less ideal from cluttering, but something needs to be done in this regard, which is my argument. Especially if they are purposefully leaving things unfinished at release time with the intention of coming back to it, that should end up on the roadmap, not a side comment in a stream.
    Also, if there end up being hundreds or thousands of *unique* bug reports, that says something about DTG and how they need to reevaluate their game, company, and effort as something isn't right...
     
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  12. skyMutt

    skyMutt Well-Known Member

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    Just a friendly reminder about the roadmap–

    Eight out of the nine bug fixes published on the last update were not previously mentioned at all on the roadmap, hence the star that appears next to each fix. Each and every single one of those fixes were related to routes from the preserved collection.

    This presents an interesting situation, whereby they stress over and over again, 'if its not on the roadmap, its not being worked on.' And yet it seems that's not entirely true. Were the fixes investigated, worked on, and published in between the roadmap updates? If so, is updating the roadmap every 15 days or so sufficient enough? Perhaps its not wrong to think that bug fixes are being worked on despite not appearing on the roadmap.

    While its a very good idea to have a roadmap that's public for everyone to see, it's not a concrete and reliable thing to point to. I've seen other members talk about there needing to be a separate list, one that lists known bugs and those that are being worked on.
    I whole-heartedly agree with this idea, as not only would it relieve some confusion, but perhaps it could help restore some faith in the community?
    A separate, dedicated bug list thats updated much more frequently than the regular roadmap.
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2020
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  13. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    Where did DTG say that? Because all I've seen in this topic is DTG saying:
    DTG pretty much leaves all options open here. No promises were made here. They simply aren't ruling out they might work on it in future... And that is what worries me.
     
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  14. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    The fact that they bring preserved content in a more broken state than it previously was in TSW 1, plus the fact that there’s no guarantee of a fix, is very concerning.

    Surely they knew what upgrading the core engine would do, and the changes required to bring older content into a new version. Isn’t that the whole point of brining preserved content into TSW 2? Test it out first and make sure everything works as it should before releasing it.

    Instead we have release as many things as we can and we might fix it later on but there’s no guarantee of that. Very poor.
     
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  15. montes_1234

    montes_1234 Well-Known Member

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    Its not magical. They made it like this because it suits them very well. They will not put on that list anything that they know will never or hardly be fixed. So I think that the roadmap that was presented to us is just for a marketing purposses. You would hardly see on it many of the problems TSW is facing, not to mention a ton of things and new features which the community wants.
     
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  16. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately you're right. The roadmap is a token effort, done as a marketing ploy.

    DTG need to communicate a lot better around fixes if they truly want to improve customer relations.

    The lack of response to numerous threads on this forum identifies the lack of care that DTG is presenting with their products.
     
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  17. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    ‘The lack of response to numerous threads on this forum‘

    I thought it rather amusing that Matt P was on this forum yesterday happily contributing to the thread ‘Well Done DTG’. So they do react to the ones they want to.
     
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  18. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I don't take it as a marketing ploy. I see it as a way of saying "Here's what we're working on right now".
    If the thing you want worked on isn't on that list it doesn't mean they don't know about it, don't intend to work on it or indeed that thing will be picked up, fixed and issued in the next round.
    It's a snapshot of what they had in their heads on the Tuesday it was issued.

    The other thing that I noted from last weeks roadmap video is that there are issues putting out fixes because of the way the console stores work with regards to such thing, so I wonder if things are actually fixed and available, but not on the roadmap so people don't get narked when it's not put out due to that limitation of the store systems...
     
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  19. Typhomat

    Typhomat Well-Known Member

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    Only more the reason to ensure things are done right the first time and have better QA
     
  20. rat7_mobile

    rat7_mobile Well-Known Member

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    Just a thought, and mind you I might be wrong, but could it be possible that in order to fix some of the issues with the preserved collection (like the soundfor example), it would require all to be release so the is apply it once only for all, instead of having to apply it one by one,and to do this all the preserve collection must be release
     
  21. doublefine7

    doublefine7 Well-Known Member

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    No, because every Loco and every route is a separate game DLC and can be handled as separate "game", so you have the core engine and the stand-alone dlcs. And the sound equalizations are set per DLC so every loco has its own sound settings (or should have them at least).
     
  22. rat7_mobile

    rat7_mobile Well-Known Member

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    Could it be possible that it is one of the change that some thig like the sound maybe now "global" and it may cause all those issue
     
  23. doublefine7

    doublefine7 Well-Known Member

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    No, because that wouldnt make sense since every loco sounds different from the interior. You can hear the difference when you look for cab rides with the BR 155 and with the 185. Especially older locos have less damping in their cabs so IF they created 1 equalizing setting for ALL the locos, that would be the worst decision for sounds in my eyes. But I am not a developer and I dont know how exactly they set it up.
     
  24. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Each DLC is in essence a complete package, so each route is distinct, each loco and carriage and wagon distinct so if they upgrade a tree in one route they then have to upgrade it in all the others... 3rd parties may get around this by referencing the tree in the first route (and that's how you get requirements) but DTG don't do that
     
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  25. 2martens

    2martens Well-Known Member

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    The roadmap is not and will never be an exhaustive list of things that DTG does. There are very technical details (like engine work) that will be worked on but aren't very informative for normal users. It is to be understood as a commitment of DTG to do the things on the roadmap. Fixes may be done in addition to that but with fixes it is hard to schedule those. Once a fix appears on the roadmap, the expectation will be there to see progress on it. If they don't know if something can be fixed with reasonable effort, they won't put it on the roadmap.

    Nothing is worse than putting things on the roadmap and then later removing them. So they will wait with putting it on until they can be rather sure that it CAN be done and they have the resources required to complete it.
     
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