A lot of them also seem to be content suggestions (despite being told they won't be answered they're still coming thick and fast), so that'll knock out quite a few too.
When is the TVL, NTP and GWE updates coming out? And will they have livery designer when they come out
Is there any plan to release the m9 locomotive for lirr along with the Babylon Branch or port Washington Branch.
With the SNCF license in hand, existing assets for French routes, experience with multiple French signaling systems, and demand for French routes (LGV is highly rated on steam with lots of reviews and requests for more countries consistency comes up on forums), can we expect more French content in 2022? If not, why? And what would it take to make more French rail content by DTG)? DTG have consistently communicated that licensing, asset creation, and demand determine whether to expand into other countries, all three of which exist for making French routes already.
When do you expect the Game to get a bigger variety of locos and routes like in the TS? Are you planning cooperations with other developers to make more trains and routes?
With having two different Train Simulator programmes on the market, there is some kind of strange rivalry between the two usergroups of these programmes. What do you think about this rivalry?
And, hooking into this line of question, what is DTGs long term plan in regards to the ratio between the amount of focus they place on TS and the amount the focus on TSW? Can we expect TS to fade towards just shadow support, keeping the game operational and 3rd parties capable of creating DLC, with DTG adding no real new features and no longer developing DLC for the game? Would such a thing also mean more employee time being directed towards TSW?
Matt said that LGV was a one-off because everyone knows the TGV. Future French content is not impossible, but highly unlikely.
Will there ever be a Michigan route like Amtraks Michigan line with a SC-44 Charger? Or like the CSX Grand Rapids Sub Or even the Plymouth Sub? I am curious?
Wish you all a happy New Year!! Is there a possibilty to add more freight cars loading and unloading scenarios and services? Like tankers loading and unloading, or centerbeam flatcars, or covered hoppers and hoppers etc. That would be great.
Here you have the images: A: Full train on track 1 (the one at the left) B: Half ot the freight cars goes to track 2 (The one at the middle) C - Finally you will have to take the ones of track 1 to track 3 (the one at the right) But as you can see due to the length of each set of freight cars, you could perfectly go first to track 3, then uncouple the set of cars, move some yards back up the switch and take them to track 2. Final positions of the 2 set of hoppers cars. So no need to use track 1 at all (the one at the left). NOTE: I mentioned those number of tracks of the industrial yard, just to identify them. Do not remember their exact identification.
I do not have it, but I remember to see there is tank loading on the CNO Route. But you have to do it manually one by one. So for a long train it will be boring. Different it is on coal hoppers, where you can load them just running at very low speed, and the process it is automatic. For center beams, I believe it will be complicated as this must be done by a forklift, and will require lot of movements and this is not made by a train. It is a pity there is no coal loading on Sherman Hill. It will make the route more interesting. But I believe this is due to there is no loading facility for it in the TSW2 route. One interesting loading system hopes could be implemented sometime in the future is container loading. This not be easy, but it has some regular "rules" as to load 2 containers by freight car, then this can be done just moving the train and stopping for each one to be load, and then repeat the sequence with the other cars. The container might "suddenly appear from nothing", always on the same place in order to make it possible Of course just an idea.
[/QUOTE] Are you guys going to make a route from blair nebraska and council bluffs iowa to Norrh Platte?
Could we end up seeing another London based route such as the London, Tilbury and Southend railway involving the 357 and 387 because we haven't seen this route in any train simulator game?
Good day team. Earlier in the stream Matt mentioned doing some test team expansion for those that use consoles, but could test on PC. How or where would we get in contact for that when it becomes available? I am a ‘mature’ gamer (not saying age lol) with PS4 and PS5 consoles plus a PC that can run the sim. I have only played using the controller so that would be my slant. I have previous testing experience for gaming company releases (PC racing sims in the mid-late 90’s), and familiar with all the NDA’s and requirements with testing and reporting. I am very engaged in the Train Sim 2 platform on PS and would be interested in potentially assisting. If you wish to contact me or wish to provide an avenue for me to contact please reach out. (I posted to each of your profile pages and YouTube comments too, sorry for the ‘spamming’, just wasn’t sure where to ask! Lol)
When will we Be able to play all the routes we had on TSW1 like the NEC New York plus all the DLC I bought the Metroliner Cab Car or the GP40-2 like come on you said this over a year ago we would be able to have everything on the new game once it released but yet oh no you lied again and made the game worse no wonder the reviews and ratings for the game sucks and I don’t blame them you do a half assed job on everything, everything you guys release has bugs and it disappoints me that I wasted money on this game for a company that barely seems to care at all about the state of the game it’s sad
The Q&A has already happened, but they stated multiple times that NEC New York and associated DLCs would not be ported over to TSW2. While different to what was originally said (on the4 FAQ, I think by the time the first stream rolled around they decided not to touch NECNY), they have now gone back and updated things like the FAQ as new information came to light. They were hardly lying. Here's what the FAQ says now. Due to decisions they made in development, it is literally easier and cheaper for them to scrap everything regarding that route and do it again from scratch.
Yes it does suck that Dovetail say they're not doing a thing then don't do that thing, and then not lie about it.
Stop building new DLCs when you have major problems with existing DLCs. Quality over Quantity.. That's how you build a brand.
Hi! Could you possibly extend the oakville subdivision Expansion? Even though you don’t have a GO license, you can still stretch the route all the way past union or at least just to union station? It should not be to difficult, after all you will still have the ability to transport freights around.
Well my question didn't get answered. I appreciated Matt's honesty during the stream but I basically got the impression that while he genuinely wants to improve the quality of the product, and has plans to try to get to improve things after the break starting the new year, his hands are tied as to how much he can do. I didn't get the impression that there will be any change in DTG's operational plan, no more emphasis on fixing problems than before, etc. Pretty disappointing really. Did anyone take away a different perspective?
I don't think that's necessarily the case. What we aren't going to see is the sort of radical course change that never was going to happen - DTG isn't going to stop new DLC development and reassign the whole staff to bug fixing! - but Matt did refer to some organizational changes which should bear fruit. For one thing, they have added nearly 30 staff positions this year. This in turn is permitting DTG to have two separate dev teams working in parallel, so that while the release rate will stay the same, each route will spend much longer in development. He also mentioned a significant revamp of the QA process (although, to the disappointment of some, public betas cannot happen because Microsoft won't allow it).
I hope your right, but one that really struck a chord with me is that Matt said there will still be release dates that MUST be met regardless of the condition of the product. I get that a company needs income to survive, but IMHO if you are running your business so close that you have to release a product to get income regardless of the state of said product you aren't running your business properly. And I get this is the perspective of a customer looking at it from the outside, but I do run my own business and have been successful at it, and I certainly don't run it that way. As far as I'm concerned you don't release a product if you know it has serious problems. I don't expect perfection, but releasing a product with known serious issues and no plan to fix them is just borderline unethical.
I fear however that the release schedule is above Matt's paygrade. Paul came from EA, and I fear brought with him EA's attitude towards release dates. Moreover, the Money behind the whole shebang want a continuous, steady rate of return.
I'm absolutely sure it is out of Matt's control, if it was under his control I'm sure things would be different. I respect Matt, respect his passion for trains and the game, and I always enjoy his posts. I've always enjoyed his streams as well and have spent many hours watching them while driving a train (on the sim) myself. I don't get to do it nearly as much as I used to and I miss it. Maybe I'm wrong but the impression given by the way things are run is that management/owners care more about a constant income source than the quality of the product. And I also strongly feel if DTG had a solid competitor they would either be forced to step up their game or they wouldn't survive.
I would be very interested in hearing Matt or someone else explain how release schedules are planned and structured plus what complications there are that make them so inflexible. Basically what are the parameters that force a developer to release content before they have received the ideal amount of polish beforehand? I have seen many people state something along the lines of 'this add-on is poor quality and it's DTG's fault for setting a deadline for it when they could have just held off and fixed everything'. This to me has always appeared like a great oversimplification. I would be very interested in hearing the complexities and constraints of releasing content. I asked a similar question during the stream, but only once so it quickly got lost in the chat but it's definitely something that I think many people could benefit from hearing why simply delaying a release is not always the option it appears to be from a player's perspective.
Based on my experience in the software business, from development to sales.. It's almost always the business side pressing the development side. Developers would always want more time and are usually personally driven by quality. Investors want returns, executives want to see growth trends in the quarterly revenues and new customers. When projections about next year plans are made, sales wants to meet those dates, since their bonuses depend on it. Once sales I made, the bugs are handled by Support and the work is bug work, which doesn't concern sales and doesn't ding revenue on the charts. The conversation for next years goals will go like this.. We sold 100,000 units last year, let's do 120,000 this year. But we're already limited with dev resources and our bug list isn't getting any shorter. Well, we can hire a few more devs if you need. But if we don't maintain 20% year over year, we won't get the next round funding and there will be no bonuses for anyone. New sales count for growth, bugs don't, and we haven't seen a drop in sales yet. Ok, so it's settled then. Now, these growth pressures could vary. Initial investors may want a quick sell, so could drive up revenue growth at the cost of quality and customer retention. Growth basically determines value of a company. Or if privately owned by active founder, growth may not even factor, as they may seek higher profit margins instead. Either way, the goal of a company is to grow big enough to be bought by a larger one, or go public. Early investors and executives can then cash out. Problems can arise if investors, executives and development managers are not on the same page and don't agree with each other. If there isn't a strong CTO or engineering director, he may not speak loudly enough to note that the deadlines will cause poor quality. Software is notorious for not meeting deadlines, because it's such a fluid process. If you have a history of the same kind of work, it may get more accurate, but then you might get pressure to get even faster. It's also not something you will likely get a super honest answer about from the company, because nobody will admit to releasing poor quality to meet revenue projections for investors. Now I'm not saying this to be negative, and this dynamic doesn't necessarily mean poor results. If the business is passionate about the software itself and not cynical about customers, it can be great. It's just a balancing act that has to be made and compromises agreed based on company priorities and values.
Makes sense as to why much smaller development companies seem to avoid similar situations for the most part, they won't have to go through so many hoops to simply do what they want to. I suppose not relying on the business financially helps a lot on that front too. Thank you for your response though, I was mostly considering external complications from the diferent platforms for example, so an insight into the more internal factors was interesting to read.
Me and typing on phones do not go together. I have the finger dexterity of a walrus. I meant to say there was close to 200 questions on the thread. I don't think there was that many answered (least not from the thread). If it was a collection of sales leads I feel the easy non roadmap questions were cherry picked in the good spirit of "'if its not on the roadmap...."
Yea a smaller company may not have the pressure to deliver on investment, as one started with that intent. Of course you have your standard business tradeoff, of quick growth with investment and associated pressure and loss of control, or slow growth but being able to do it your way. Compare XPlane made by Laminar Research since 1995. Founder, programmer and aviation enthusiast started it himself to code better flight simulation based on real time physics calculations of surfaces. Never sold it, and is still very much in control of all business and development aspect personally. He even flies his own game online, and heard him on PilotEdge (online, paid human ATC). While personal stubbornness can be a problem in such situations, it will ensure investor return won't be a factor in product choices. Not that Xplane is not perfect and has it's good share of bugs for sure, just an example of a company driven by interest in subject not just corporate success. Another thing to add, you'll never get 100% error free releases, but you decide what level you're comfortable with, based on severity, required fix effort and area of impact. If it's a blocker where you can't proceed or the game crashes, you'll probably not want to release, but a missed graphic or incomplete feature may be ok. It's also a question of whether they release with known bugs or with later discovered bugs due to limited testing. Not something we can know. About platforms I can give a good general answer. In the past you had do code separately for consoles, PCs and Mac. Later, game engines developed which game developers can use to code on top of. A layer between the hardware, that the developer doesn't need to worry about. Unreal Engine is one such platform. This allowed DTG to develop TrainSimWorld which could run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux PCs; PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch; and iOS and Android mobile devices. Theoretically, it should work the same on all, but you do end up with quirks and different bugs. The coding doesn't have to be duplicated but it does add more testing to do on the different platforms. It's also likely when faced with an console bug vs PC bug, they will fix the console bug first. I could be wrong but would guess that there are or expect more console users and more profit there. Also, note that TrainSimulator series, was PC only, hence the move to TSW was to expand the user base, in a more modern engine supporting more future capability.
I found the Q&A stream rather dissapointing TBH. I feel many questions were left unaddressed. It felt like the questions weren't categorized beforehand as in the Q&A stream last year, and some questions took 30 minutes to answer, while Nat kept saying they'd need to hurry a bit as there were lots of questions to answer. Several of my questions weren't adressed, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has its questions not even mentioned in the stream. I don't know if my questions were skipped intentionally (for whatever reason, I personally think they're all on-topic), or just plainly overlooked (despite being asked well in advance). It felt to me the stream was chaotic, not structured and badly prepared. With the questions asked well in advanced, I expected questions to be categorized, ready to be answered systematically and thouroughly (that is, not skipping any questions). I also was a tad surprised my questions posted in the chat were adressed, which apprently had more priority than those questions asked here, well in advance of the stream. Posting questions in advance should give the team plenty of time to prepare the answers. When the stream ended with Nat saying they think they answered all the questions, I felt many questions were left unadressed. I watched the entire 3 hour stream awaiting in the hope more questions would be answered, but in the end, it was dissapointing and not really worth the time watching TBH. I do appreciate the devs taking the time though, I'm sure the intentions were good, which makes it kinda sad that the stream was dissapointing.
I have to admit that I agree, at least to some degree. At one point, both Nat and Matt said that there was a section dedicated to Xbox and PS questions coming (specifically PS5), but then it never did. Until Matt rushed through in some minutes while Nat had already tried to end the stream. I want to give Nat credit, her streams and way of asking questions has improved considerately over the year. That being said, I still feel like we get a lot more answers (whether they be good or bad) when Sam is doing these streams. Also credit where it‘s due to Matt. Doing a three hour stream of facing an onslought of questions while recovering from covid can‘t have been easy.
My question was not answered as well and so are many others who are passionate train fans. It was because they were avoiding so many questions that do not have a response to them such as new features that will come in 2022, or when will see multiplayer, but they did mention which one was top on the list discluding multiplayer which is more than number 1 on the list, which is more dynamic weather and realistic weather, follow by different roles to play such as guard, conduction, train dispatcher. So hopefully it won't be long that we might see it this year which I really do hope so.
I actually doubt they've been avoiding certain questions that'd be 'hard' to answer. A few of my questions that haven't been adressed are probably not particular difficult to answer. I don't know why so many questions are skipped. Perhaps DTG Natster could provide some insight on why these questions were skipped. Were they skipped intentionally, because they were somehow not on-topic of the Q&A? Were they skipped because the answer would be "We don't know"? Were they skipped because there were too many questions to answer within a decent time? Or were the simply overlooked unintentionally?
Multiplayer was moved to side because it's consistently #1 in all the surveys. Don't take this as a hint, though. The survey is to gauge what the community would like to see - it's not a declaration of "you guys voted for this, we're now going to make it, 100% guaranteed."
How can we add extra services to other routes like having timetables for the class 375 on the east coastway and the br 425 on the SKA s bahn
The Coastway is Southern territory; Southeastern doesn't run on it. And the 425s only run, in-route, on the very short segment of the RE8 between Köln Hbf and Köln-Ehrenfeld: not really worth it. (it's been enough of a fight just to get 423s on the S-Bahn instead of the incorrect 422s!) Speaking as to the why: a route is developed with a timetable baked in. This timetable usually to a greater or lesser extent provides for the "layering" of other trains - but these are trains that already exist at the time the route is made! The only exception to this is when a loco DLC is known to be upcoming and room can be made for it (like the Acela services hidden in the NEC timetable). When the 313 DLC was released just recently, DTG had to create a new timetable for ECW to accommodate it; the same was done (and it was a job of work) with the overhaul of Rapid Transit. Just "adding trains" isn't that easy: it means rebuilding the whole timetable, which is not easy at all.
Well, debatable, if they had this approach on the London Commuter timetable, which service is long enough to be worth to have it in the timetable, well I guess, there would would be only half of the services in the actual LC timetable... the train is availble in TSW2 and it would add around 30 services to the often as empty criticised Köln Hbf area. While they are right now developing this basic route expansion pack, it would be a chance to get these services in the game...
