Have Dtg Got Themselves Into A ‘out Of Control’ Situation?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by londonmidland, Mar 12, 2021.

  1. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    I can sort of see both sides, because I've done both. Not really from a performance point of view, but just utility

    I originally got TSW 2020 on XBox via Gamepass, and liked it so I bought it. But my curiosity was piqued by TS Classic, so I bought that (necessarily on PC), and immediately found that at least for me keyboard was a vastly better interface than a controller- and TS Classic has a vast library of user mods which necessarily can't exist on consoles. Ergo, when I decided to make the leap to TSW 2 it was definitely for PC, even though I had to re-purchase the 2020 content I already had on XBox.
     
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  2. krustynuggets

    krustynuggets Well-Known Member

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    Not at all i am completely happy with my console versions of all the games the PC master gang play, but we never cry that we are being left behind with these things, but select members of PC gang repeatedly cry that because we are playing the same versions as you that we are holding back the progress and should be cast off and not allowed the same version to enjoy and play, that's why i find it all stupid and frankly sad.........
     
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  3. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    I think it seems to bother you more than you think it does...
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2021
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  4. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Let's dial back the platform angst, you're all awesome!
     
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  5. krustynuggets

    krustynuggets Well-Known Member

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    Nope couldn't care less just find it sad that some people can't except anything that means more people get to enjoy the hobby we all share here just because your playing on a different piece of hardware......
     
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  6. GrayDawg

    GrayDawg Well-Known Member

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    What Jetwash says above is the truth. DTG don't want to bother making a separate version for each platform, for each generation of platforms, and I get that. That would be an awful lot of time, and resources, that had to be reallocated to make this happen. Time and resources that could surely be better spent elsewhere. We are already complaining about that new DLCs are released prematurely, bugs not getting fixed and so on and so forth. Now what Jetwash said above, " the lowest common denominator will always be the yardstick.", is what is in effect, and in doing it this way, the more powerful platforms (in this case, read: modern powerful PCc) will be the platform which power will not be fully utilized. It's not rocket-science.

    This is not console bashing, this is a fact, and the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. So please refrain from starting a console vs. PC war (they are so meaningless anyway), thank you. So just to make it clear here, before someone is accusing me too for being an elitist, my preferred gaming platform at the moment is the PS5. Yeah, a console! Such a fantastic machine, such a beast! Loving every second using it. In fact, everything else I have played since it was released back in November last year, I have played on the PS5, except TSW and ETS2/ATS. I play them on the PC.

    Why do you even care about how the, in your eyes, "elitist members" view you in a forum filled by random internet guys/gals? Don't you have anything better to do, like I don't know...play TSW perhaps? At least you can be sure about, and this is far more important to care about than what the previously mentioned random elitists think of you, DTG sees you as very, very "worthy", since you and your poor inferior console brethren make up for, how much of the players nowadays, two thirds or some such? So, let me make a suggestion...more playing, less crying, yeah? ;)
     
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  7. JetWash

    JetWash Well-Known Member

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    Of course what I’m saying is tongue in cheek, but it unintentionally appears to have hit a raw nerve.

    It’s great that people play this game across all platforms. With that said, I hope to see a bit more scalability introduced in the future all the same.
     
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  8. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I have a Xbox Series X and hma runs like smooth butter and with layers on it should handle it no problem but the fact that next gen consoles can't get layers because of last gen's problems is quite annoying. There have been a few threads calling for a next gen version of tsw2 and I'm starting to see why some pc players say last gen consoles are holding the game back on pc because that's what effectively is happening. Even some next gen users feel the same way now. HMA didn't have great optimization for last gen and next gen users now have to wait until dtg optimize the route for last gen just to get extra services. Yes I'm aware that the most players still play on last gen since next gen consoles are not easy to find, are not cheap and it would take a ton of resources to make a next gen version of tsw2 but there should be a balance of both, not let the lowest common denominator ( last gen consoles) dictate everything. It was a fantastic idea to make tsw available on consoles as well.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2021
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  9. theorganist

    theorganist Well-Known Member

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    99% on this forum!
     
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  10. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Speaking of performance, any idea if UE 4.26 will bring anything new to the table or will it all be ‘under the hood’ stuff such as performance and memory improvements?

    Not that that is a bad thing, of course.
     
  11. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    TSW 3!!? :cool:
     
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  12. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Tsw3, (whatever it's gonna be called) Steam trains and probably some optimization improvements
     
  13. RailRoadEngineer

    RailRoadEngineer Member

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    Paid upgrade?
     
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  14. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    No it will not be another paid update/upgrade
     
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  15. RailRoadEngineer

    RailRoadEngineer Member

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    Before the advent of UE5, any idea which version will be the last in 4 series?
     
  16. Jo_Kim

    Jo_Kim Well-Known Member

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    Well even though it was mentioned that it would be extremely likely that the update will be free this wasn't confirmed yet. But I think DTG knows well enough that neither the community nor the staff involved with community interactions will tolerate this. I am willing to pay for new features like steam but I will not pay for "a new game" again just to get bug fixes and continuing support.
     
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  17. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    When dtg decide to make a Next gen only version
     
  18. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Yeh i don't think many would want to pay for another update again
     
  19. hibiki

    hibiki Well-Known Member

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    I am not going to go into this whole debate. Just something from a ye olde gamer I would like to say. Be glad you don't have to play the game on something like a ZX Spectrum. Where you don't get any updates, games still had plenty of bugs, and all that even if the game actually loads without resetting itself, or the R Tape Loading Error message.

    Maybe because of things like that I am not too fussy about bugs
     
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  20. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I never heard of ZX Spectrum before
     
  21. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    You don't know what you have missed!

    Although I can pre date the Speccy with a ZX81 and a massive 16k RAM pack.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2021
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  22. Jamy

    Jamy Well-Known Member

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    I had the Commodore Vic20 with 3.5kb of ram
    152757.jpg
     
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  23. Tank621

    Tank621 Well-Known Member

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    Sound AND music?! My word, they were really spoiling you there :cool:
     
  24. hibiki

    hibiki Well-Known Member

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    My first computer was a hand me down Commodore 16, then a ZX81, then ZX Spectrum.

    First console was a CBS Colecovision.
     
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  25. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    My mother was just recalling our days of ZX81 and Spectrum programming when she would sit and read what we needed to type in from a magazine. Hours of family fun. Then I tried imagining having to type in the whole of TSW2 and how many C90 tapes I’d need to save it on so I didn’t have to type the whole thing in every time.
     
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  26. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    First computer was also Vic 20 with 3k of RAM but you could get a RAM expansion pack which was 16k and when you plugged it in the coding changed such that some games you had to use it and others you could not. Then I got my grandad's ZX Spectrum.

    I once tried coding Manchester United Europe into the Vic 20, once I had made a loading screen that was the full memory used up...
     
  27. Nick Y

    Nick Y Well-Known Member

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    I still have a ZX Spectrum+ and about 20 games.
    Load time: forever
    Horrible screeching sound when loading a tape.
    Very poor audio.
    No online capability.

    I think my Casio digital watch had more memory than the Spectrum.


    I think I still have some of the programming books somewhere for the speccy.
    Programming isn't as easy as some people think. It's probably even harder today than it was back then.
     
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  28. hibiki

    hibiki Well-Known Member

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    10 Print "Hibiki Woz Ere"
    20 Goto 10

    Run
     
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  29. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    OK, you have me beat in the Jurassic Computing edition of the Four Yorkshiremen. I really did start out with a silver spoon in me mouth- an Apple II Plus! - that meant 48k RAM instead of just 24, and 6-bit color if you had a color monitor (that was for posh people; I had green on black)
     
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  30. ghall59

    ghall59 Active Member

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    Just like to add my thoughts if I may as I watched the whole video...

    I know nothing about programming so won't make any comment on that side.

    I don't agree with bringing individuals into it and an opinion on their motives or attitude, who knew who and so forth. Our good old Colonel is ok, I do find him entertaining and I believe he is much more patient than I when it comes to "When are you...?" "When is...?" Will you ever...?" and so on... BINGO! He also asks questions from a user point of view when streaming with Matt which I like.

    One thing that I was a little stunned with when I watched the roadmap video last week was that it is known LIRR has signal errors which may or may not get looked at. I thought being a train "simulator" this would be one of the basic fundamentals as opposed to fluffy clouds or trees with leaves in winter time. I found errors when the scenario thingy came out, I was following another train at 70mph and got a 200 yd warning to drop to 15mph... BAM!! Many virtual casualties.

    I have stated elsewhere that on the whole I do enjoy TSW2, I was thinking of picking up the latest offering Legends on GWE, but reading reviews and watching streams I have gone a little cold on the idea. Maybe after freight comes and a bit of tinkering is done re stop points and routing issues. I have a feeling with this one the bean counters upstairs yelled to the engine room..
    "Need another DLC you lot!"
    "But there's a pandemic and resources are hard to come by"
    "Not my problem, we need something by March".

    Anyways, keep on driving and enjoy it for what it is.....
     
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  31. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    There is a very interesting old video of an interview with Steve Jobs.
    He was pointing out that Apple had been in a situation where sales & marketing generated greater income for the firm, and accordingly rose to positions of influence in the company.
    This was very much to the detriment of the engineers who created the product and drove innovation.

    Salutary methinks.
     
  32. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    Hi Matt,

    This is really a good explanation. I think it is worth an article at the DTG site, as well as some of your other excellent inside contributions. For me it adds a lot to properly understanding why things work as they do.

    Thank you for that.
     
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  33. helderbrincolas

    helderbrincolas Well-Known Member

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    LIRR signaling is a complety mess and very innacurate and they still don't fixe it or improving it. Being this a Train Simulator that should be a prioraty because signaling is a key aspect and interfers direclty with your driving experience. I don't get the prioraties of DTG... If they are fixing the LIRR just fix what has to be fixed and don't leave and get away with the major issues that the route has... The 2 year wainting for fixing the New York Penn tunnel wasn't enought for us players??? Get your prioraties straight DTG!
     
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  34. BR125

    BR125 Well-Known Member

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    but TSW isn't a train simulator - DTG have made that pretty clear over the past 4 years. Its a train themed game with "it'll do" attitude.
     
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  35. helderbrincolas

    helderbrincolas Well-Known Member

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    Why the "Sim" on the name of the game then?
     
  36. BR125

    BR125 Well-Known Member

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    to make you think it is one? its simple marketing. It also calls itself Train Sim WORLD - 5 countries does not constitute the world does it.
     
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  37. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    6th country available through pre-order right now.

    Lets hope the next road map updated announces a 7th country. Still a lot of countries unexplored, but TSW is getting beyond the favourite 3 quite faster than Train Simulator ever did :P
     
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  38. DTG Jamie

    DTG Jamie Staff Member

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    As Natster mentions, thank you those who are providing constructive feedback. We do monitor these threads and pass on what we can. However, we expect everyone to engage cordially with each other and respect others' opinions. It looks like it's calmed down now, but we see any more personal attacks, we will lock this thread.
     
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  39. Tigert1966

    Tigert1966 Well-Known Member

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    There are an awful lot of games that call themselves ‘Sim’. Most of them are only themed games.

    If it was a true simulation there would be no collectibles, no scoring and you wouldn’t be allowed to fly around the scenery.

    It’s an entertainment product, part sim, part game. I like both bits personally. Spent hours on the IOW finding collectibles, no real idea why!
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2021
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  40. grob-e

    grob-e Well-Known Member

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    Actually you can't really separate these both Things. Every computer programe is basically a simulator, as it is simulating something that is does not happen in the real world right at the moment, you are using this programe. So, by calling a programe a game, because it has more gameplay items build around the basic simulation, you still include that it is basically a simulation. There can't exist a game without a simulator.
     
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  41. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yep, I simulate driving a train in-game and definitely don't move 40 miles during that time...
     
  42. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    After doing reasearch on the zx spectrum, it came out when I wasn't even alive yet and it's clearly dated. Maybe I missed a dated gem in gaming but it's so cheap now that I could buy it
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2021
  43. Nick Y

    Nick Y Well-Known Member

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    I was born the year it originally came out.
     
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  44. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I was suprised that the lirr had signal problems that dtg knew for a long time and done nothing about it hence why the lack of services on the LIRR Ronkonkoma and Hempstead Branches in the game and effectively an inaccurate timetable for both branches in the game compared to reality and inaccurate signaling functions. DTG say that this is a sim but the fact that signaling is less important than fluffy clouds per say is quite odd. Now I assume getting signals right is quite a challenge and lirr doesn't have many physical signals. Signaling for a route should be a top priority so I don't get why that is not getting fixed or why that hasn't be sorted out in years
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2021
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  45. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    DTG even say it's a simulator and yes it does have very gamey features such as pointless medals, ( it's so easy to get a gold in most routes that I wonder why they have a medal system) action points that have no incentive to earn the max out of since you don't get a reward or can't use them to get anything in game and collectables but that doesn't mean tsw is not a simulator. This game a alot of sim features as well. Advanced Safety systems, signals, wheelslip. I personally do enjoy finding collectables. I watch youtube videos to find them to save time though
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2021
  46. ZeenozPlays

    ZeenozPlays Well-Known Member

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    IMO, I feel like they can keep the current 'Gamey' system as another game mode. I'd rather have two modes, one being something where the game leans more towards a Simulation of the day in the life of an operator, and another that has the more 'Gamey' Aspects.
     
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  47. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    This sounds like a good idea because personally I don't care about medals since they are so easy to earn and there is no incentive to earn action points since they can't be used for anything. A option to sepreate those things to another game mode or have them off would be a good thing for those that don't care about collectables or useless medals and points. That reminds me of F1 2020 which as a casual player mode and a mode which you can have assists off giving a sim like experince
     
  48. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    You know that sky and scenery artists aren't the same people who program the signalling systems, right?
     
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  49. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    You don't need two modes, if you don't want to collect awards or fix fences, don't do those things. They don't change how you drive the trains after all
     
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  50. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    It wouldn't be a bad thing to have that though. Other sims/games have similar features
     
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