PlayStation Dtg, Take A Very Deep Breath And...

Stop biting off more than you can chew because that’s exactly what you have done, in chasing the pound note you have churned out substandard software that’s ruining your reputation and will eventually ruin your bank balance, the amount of bug reports and upset customers must or should give you all sleepless nights, you really need to pull teams off of upcoming releases and get EVERYONE fixing the many many problems that already exist, remember it’s customers like me and others that keep you all in a job, you really need to show respect back because most in this community have been long term loyal customers, it’s time you treated us as that and return the respect back to us.

What really annoys me is that you know you’re releasing substandard software and are happy to do so because it fits a timeframe, that is absolutely shameful, it’s unforgivable and it lacks respect to the customer

Why should I look forward to the next upcoming route when my thoughts are how bad will this route be? you need to change mindsets because I’m not alone with these thoughts and I won’t be spending another penny on this company until you can make me change my negative mindset and the only way you can do that is respect me as a customer and release software that’s finished, not substandard software that meets a deadline

Sam and or Matt, do you understand my very frustrated thoughts and where I’m coming from? Others will agree or disagree with this post

 

I agree with you but I already gave up.

 

'Ive heard comments on dtgs own streams from the person steaming saying this along the lines of, of you don't think it's worth the price etc, then don't buy it.

I really hope they don't live to regret these kind of remarks, as more of the community loose interest.

Such a shame, as from it's infancy, tsw has come a long way in many areas.

 

Often followed quickly by, or wait until it is in a sale.

 

The post is more about their work ethics and lack of respect for their customers than the price, if the product was polished it would be worth the price but it’s shoddy and not worth buying as it stands

 

True, but I was just trying to convey the attitude towards the customer. But I take your point.

 

I have to sliiiiightly disagree on a couple points. I don't think the issues with IOW on consoles has anything at all to do with DTG biting off more than they could chew, as they were neither biting, nor chewing on the route, Rivet Games was. DTG did not create the route, but did sign off on it so, while they share culpability for the LOD issues on consoles actually making it to consoles, I don't think it has anyhting to do with stretching too far.

Second, I'm not sure this this ruining their reputation, as this...generally was already their reputation. Something folks like Sam and Matt have begrudgingly acknowledged in the past. DTG generall speaking has a reputation in the game sim industry as a smallish studio that pumps out DLC of massively varying quality and has had issues standing by their products and fixing issues.

 

I agree with you, however, I am noticing that DTG is getting better at acknowledging bugs/issues, even if they aren't fixed right away. It seems that they take a step forward and two steps back. I think their main issue is the timeframe, I don't think its the developer's fault, it's upper management. The devs are the ones that NEED to stick to the timeframe of release. They can avoid these certain threads by focusing on fixing the stuff they put out, right after it's released. I think they are learning what they need to do. The Munchen - Augsburg Route looks promising, even with the "lack" of services. They need more devs, to work on more things and coordinate better. They also need to at least try to get real sound recordings and go to the yards or something to really analyze so they can do better. As I said before, I think they are learning and getting better (based on what they've said during the recent streams) they just need to SHOW us that they can actually do better.

 

My criticism of DTG is management who are happy to release unfinished software, my problem is not Matt, Sam or the dev team, it who pulls the trigger and says let’s cash in on unfinished software and deal with the fallout at a later date

 

My criticism is NOT just about the IOW route, it’s a general criticism of DTG’s ethics in general, release unfinished content and at some point in the future we might fix it but we have so many other problems to fix who knows?

As you said DTG signed off the IOW route to cash in with Rivet so DTG’s take their fair share of responsibility for doing that as well although they won’t want to upset Rivet by delaying but they can upset their customers who pay out for the product

 

'Cough Cough', Maybe it's the founder dude named Paul Jackson... He used to work at EA. Says A LOT.

 

Not working for DTG I obviously have no clue what is going on inside the studio, but the releases are clearly not meeting everyone’s expectations in terms of quality and the number of obvious bugs/issues being present in the routes that are released.

I do hope they are listening carefully to every bit of negative feedback and I hope it inspires them to do better. I see huge potential with TSW 2. It looks great (in the most part) and the variety is building (as detailed on the Road Map). I just hope they don’t bugger it up, lose all their loyal customers and allow the game to die a painful death.

Only they know what problems they face internally that allows these things to be released in a subpar state, so only they can put it right. Hopefully the sooner the better so we can talk more about how we enjoy the game rather than having to submit dozens of technical reports in the hope of things getting fixed.

 

Yeaj, the, German content is really coming together now, with layers bringing routes to life. Be good if they can go down that road with the other countries content in the future.

 

Matt appears to be a nice guy and very passionate about trains , train Sims etc,.

But as Senior Producer for TSW, I'm afraid that he must shoulder some of the responsibility, because that's his job.

This job spec was taken from the Ubisoft but I would assume that the job spec is very similar across the industry.

Job Description
Summary:

The Senior Producer supervise the game production making sure mandate is clear, proper production management methods are in place, game quality expectations are met & games are released on schedule.

 

Maybe the problem is in the last part of the description, as in meeting expectations and releasing on schedule. No doubt powers above the dev team, will take the schedule over expectations. To keep their revenue coming in.

 

When I get nervous, I get nervous too much, if I forgive, it's too chic. DTG case follows this scheme. I understand perfectly Your point of view. For me this so-called "quantity first, quality later" is hard to accept, but I work on myself. Hope they too.

 

Would be helpful if the British franchise system wasn't such a damn mess and changing every other day it seems.

 

Yeah, what's probably made it easier for the German content to all fit together, is it's all based around the same time scale etc. Maybe easier to do due to DB being a national thing in Germany, rather than lots of franchises (only a complete guess)

 

I'm sure that's part, but also the British routes available for TSW are extremely diverse. Tees Valley, Isle of Wight, GWE, Trans Pennine, Southcoast. All different periods and franchines with little to no overlap.

 

I actually really agree with this. I've never known a company happy to be like "if you don't like it, don't buy it". All other companies want you to buy the product, they want you to feel it's worth it (even if it isn't).

Look at Fortnite, they manage to suck people into buying cosmetic items (that do nothing but look good). They do this by making the product appealing...

TSW routes are easily worth £25-30 if the quality was there, but with the lack of quality the value is reduced...

 

‘I'm sure that's part, but also the British routes available for TSW are extremely diverse. Tees Valley, Isle of Wight, GWE, Trans Pennine, Southcoast. All different periods and franchines with little to no overlap’

This is true and adding the Bakerloo line would have further reinforced the point. There’s some argument that the other characteristic is that they keep getting shorter. We started with a portion of GWE and now we have the IOW (which I know is Rivet). SEHS should be longer, but how much of that might be tunnel?

The short lengths really are limiting. Take the Tarka line - that’s almost twice the length of East Coastway.

 

Think everyone here that's upset should check out rail sim 2021 it has muli player and dispatch mode. Me im sticking with this cause i love playing it and despite issues nobody else on console is trying to be better by competing with another sim.

 

No competition is the reason DTG is so shoddy and they get away with it, they need competition and someone eating away their profit to make then up their game

 

You are unnecessarily provoking Natalka at this moment. She would have to clean it up again!
Matthew Guilford can thus win the contest for the number of posts deleted by the administration. And that's a plan!

 

I’m not actually trying to shame anyone, just telling a few home truths and as a consumer I’m entitled to have my opinion else what is the point of a discussion forum? as for Natalie, if she wants to clean up posts she needs to be consistent in who she deletes and not just pick on one side of the argument (I run my own forums so know how to control them and how to be FAIR)

 

Trainz. That’s one competitor off the top of my head. Of course there is no competitor on consoles but if there were it would make no difference to the quality of DTG stuff. Just like the competitors on PC don’t change the quality of TS routes they produce. I like the way that you think that less income for DTG will make them better, as if they will say “Profits are down, let’s hire more staff”, in the same way supermarkets have led to an increase in the quality of corner shops and Amazon has led to an increase in the quality of all items available in all shops. Or could it be that the only way to compete with Amazon is to sell the same cheaply produced poor quality light bulbs as they do leading to the consumer having great trouble in finding a decent lightbulb in any shop on the high street. More competition for DTG is more likely to result in poorer quality routes if anything due to the same process.

 

Oh, I'm just kidding. I was reminded of another thread and how it all ended. And it started innocently. Have a nice weekend, folks!

 

“One is the most liked posts in the forums” is a stretch. You claim that you have been so wronged by DTG. You rant that they will go bankrupt and they have bitten off more then they can chew. The truth is their is many more people who enjoy this game who don’t come to this forum then the ones upset with really small things in the grand scheme of things. Anyone who has played TSW from the first Heavy haul release up to the more current TSW2 routes, every release has been an improvement, whether it had bugs or not. I’d like to know where you got these ridiculous expectations for DTG to release a “Perfect” product. I understand your paying for routes so it’s reasonable to expect quality. Expecting much more then DTG has ever delivered on though is not really fair, and to talk so negative about them because they don’t meet your delusional made up standards is just immature.

 

Now we all know that's far from the truth!

I present to you, Oakville Subdivision. If you can say that's better than previous releases, then you must have a completely different version of OSD to every single other player.

I don't think anyone expects perfection... If they do, then yes I'd agree with you that it is a ridiculous expectation.

However, to expect more than we're given is not necessarily unreasonable.

DLC for TSW is not cheap and as such the quality should often be higher than it is. Isle of Wight is a great example, the bugs on console are unacceptable for a DLC that is the same price as some full games.

Little tip. The second you resort to insults is the second your argument is lost... Keep it civil, we obviously all don't share the same point of view.

 

‘I’d like to know where you got these ridiculous expectations for DTG to release a “Perfect” product’

To be honest DTG do push the idea that they produce outstanding software. Take the Geoff Marshall interview with Matt P. Matt does go on about their obsessive attention to detail and how much work they do to capture every facet. While I’m not expecting them to talk down their work many other games developers do try a little harder to make their customers aware that there are limitations of what is possible,

 

Very true. There is a fb page for tsw that is the same. Fair few members can only resort to calling other immature and childish because they subscribe to a different view.

All that will happen is a mod will close the thread. That would be a shame, as it was a good topic, before we started posting screen shots of "mine is bigger than yours"

 

“Dlc for TSW is not cheap and as such the quality should often be higher then it is” Compared to what? Can you show me the price and quality of routes from other train simulators for PS4?

 

What does it have to do with it being a train sim? It could be a fps or an rpg and such poor textures would still have no place.....

Just because it's the only train sim on console, doesn't mean people should have to settle for poor quality. I'm not talking about "oh look, that shade of red is a bit too dark" or "that tree isn't in the right place" But obvious things, like the textures, that would be so obvious after 5mins of playing.

 

Are you saying that Matt lied? Where is the line here? If there is a tree placed in the wrong spot on a route, does that mean they didn’t really pay attention to detail or try? Let’s face it, if a tree was in the wrong spot. Most people on these forums would only pay attention to that and nothing else no matter what other positive things there are. Expectations people. We know the content DTG produce, it’s okay to not be happy with it. I just suggest if it’s as big as an issue as some make it seem then don’t buy it. Problem solved!

 

Every video game is different, there are different developers, different game engines. That FPS your talking about doesn’t have the complex systems behind the scenes to make a train run, or make signals change. There’s really no comparison.

 

Where did I say compared to other train simulators? There's other games on Playstation than just Train Sim World, a number of which less than the price of IoW, and likely to give more gameplay than the IoW does...

Actually, that's where you're wrong. If the massive glaring issues went present in release, then there would be less people moaning about small things. What happens:

> Player plays the game.
> Player finds a massive bug (like the textures, which should never make it to release).
> Player gets annoyed.
> Player then spots lots of little things further annoying them.

This is what happens for me. If there wasn't big bugs then the little bugs wouldn't really bother me.

That's not a sustainable business model. The more people that don't buy it, the less chance of TSW continuing to be developed...

I guess FPS games are so simple, and that's why they only have a few hundred people working on them...

I think you'd be surprised at the amount of effort that goes into any game. And for most consumers, the only thing that matters is the end product, not how it is made.

I really think you need to understand that people have different view points. People are allowed to be disappointed / annoyed with DTG and TSW, and you have no right to go around telling people they're wrong. This is exactly the same as no-one has the right to tell you that you can't think the game is amazing.

 

“I went to an Italian restaurant and had a terrible experience and didn’t like any of the food, the service, or the dinning room. I want this restaurant to get better though because I love Italian food. After trying the restaurant a few more times I realized even though I like Italian food. I don’t like this restaurant at all. They haven’t improved. The only reasonable thing for me to do is continue to go to the restaurant, and write letters everyday to them telling them how much they suck. I’ve been doing this for 3 years now. If only I had just stopped going and decided to go to another restaurant or just not go to one at all”
Just stop going to the restaurant if your not happy with it.

 

FACT 2nd and 3rd most liked posts in the forum in order of liked posts

 

Fair comment, I've seen a fair few comments around the forum and fb pages. From members saying this is the last dlc they'll buy on release, to wait and see how it comes out and then any planned fixes etc. I was going to get IOW, but now I know there's a fix coming for the textures, I'll hold off until it's patched. I'll get it after that mind you, because from what I've seen on videos, it looks lovely.

 

Except that's not what is happening at all...

Firstly, as you pointed out earlier, where is another train sim for console? Or even a similar sim for PC? So going elsewhere isn't really the option.

Unlike a restaurant where you pay once and eat once, TSW you pay per unlimited meal.

That would be like going to a restaurant and paying £25 for Pizza the rest of your life. If you wanted curry, that would be £25 more.

The fact that you could keep going back and eating your existing food / content means that players are drawn back.

The fancy advertising then makes the next release look amazing. People impulse buy, it's a part of life. And that's what often happens here. Impulse buy, get disappointed and refund.

 

Nail. On. Head.

Competition doesn't magically improve product quality anymore than it drives up wages or improves working conditions. There's a complex network of ways product quality can be improved regardless of whether any other products or vendors of similar products exist. If nothing else, there is literally a whole history of companies that go broke as a result of increased competition, it clearly does not uniformly improve anything. Anyway, in regards to DTG there's really no point theorising about it, as I've said before, DTG is a private commercial company, we have literally no idea what goes on behind the scenes, nor will we ever. Any highly motivated people with the skills necessary to contribute who really have a passion for DTG's product should go try work there and see what they can bring to the table, I guarantee what they will find is more intricate and complicated than what you'll read in a few paragraphs here.

On another point, the people who go on about competition are the same people who when presented with, for example, the total monopoly Sony have over digital sales on Playstation, or Microsoft have over digital sales on Microsoft store, still find a way to blame DTG for there not being equal sales reductions across all platforms at the same time, so basically, it's not even like the people making the argument really care all that much about a free market.

 

‘Are you saying that Matt lied?’

Did I say that? No. Was I talking about tree placement? Is anyone talking about tree placement? No.

Matt might want exact detail in the product but the real truth is it doesn’t all turn up in the finished effort. Does DTG seem as obsessive about testing their product?

Your idea seems to be that these forums are only for positive comments. If people are ‘unhappy’ they should just not buy the product. Feedback in all forms is useful for DTG. ‘Unhappy’ isn’t a useful term. What many are trying to do is point out where they think TSW isn’t reaching its full potential.

I buy the UK routes. I bought TSW2 as the old routes were being ported and when new routes appeared I could then buy them.

But if all DTG are going to release is short start stop routes then I’m not going to buy them. That doesn’t make me unhappy. Just expressing my preference for more routes like GWE. It’s clear that TSW isn’t a replacement for TSxxxx but it’s increasingly straying further and further from the game that brought me to DTG products.

 

Well sure, if I went to the circus I could probably get a bunch of clowns to agree to anything. I have seen people one minute praise the content and the next minute say it’s the worst thing in the world. A negative thread about DTG on these forums will always get likes but that speaks more towards the attitude of this community.

 

‘I guarantee what they will find is more intricate and complicated than what you'll read in a few paragraphs here’

But that’s true of all commercial games development. Why do DTG deserve some special sympathy? How do other games developers manage? Is your argument that TSW is leading edge games development and therefore more difficult than most?

 

So it appears!

One moment you are saying you have had more likes than another member, but when they point out that they have more likes to another point, the likers are all clowns!!

 

It went fast ...

 

Yet earlier you were comparing your likes to Samos... Why you once again result to name calling is beyond me.

People are allowed to have views that differ yours...

 

Are they the leading edge of game development for train simulators on console. Yes they are! Do they deserve special sympathy? No. The real answer is none of us have any idea what goes in behind the scenes when DTG develop a route. Should a smaller team making a niche product for a small audience be held to the same standards as EA or Activision? The fact is that there is no other developer making a train simulator for consoles. Again, you are all aware of the product and the quality of it from DTG. If you feel like multiple routes haven’t lived up to your expectations then why are you still buying routes? DTG is made up of humans that are the same as you and I, I tend to see the positives more then the negatives and all the dlc I own has lived up to my standards and if it wasn’t for DTG including consoles I wouldn’t even be able to enjoy this hobby, if you really think about it that’s the most positive thing. If you want to look past the positive changes DTG has made over the years then your more then welcome.

 

You hate criticism very badly, even if it does not concern you. Stop for a moment
Or ... are you from THEM? Admit it, admit it finally! Chill out...

 

I don’t think I was calling someone names. I don’t agree with any of this. None of this is DTG’s fault or the fault of the product they put it. The problem is the person who puts them self in this situation in the first place by continuous purchasing of a product they don’t like and in terms of someone new to our community who has just found TSW2 and sees some of the ridiculous posts about “how terrible DTG and TSW is” filled with fiction about developer testing times and how the devil DTG just want your money and how we all are going to make a lawsuit.