Qa Are Not The Problem

Sure, sure. You´re explaining what could be done to mitigate those (unproven) costs. Thanks!

But the underlying question here was another. In a nutshell: How much does it cost (a number, a cipher would suffice to have that answered) and would this cost prevent DTG from having patches released more frequently? Which, in turn, could explain why our modding geniuses have it fixed in hours while DTG takes weeks or even months (or never) to release that fix.

 

I think the fact that the signals being fixed "in hours" have been in game for months or years answers the question. DTG are not doing these things even with them having to be reloaded or rebuilt for TSW3 so the cost equation isn't relevant

 

Releasing fixes wouldn't always be needed if new dlc where released in better condition,do it better the frist time so having to keep redoing it isn't always needed.

 

The money dtg make from selling their product on said platforms should outweigh any cost of providing updates?

 

Pseudoidealistic attitude, make yourself feel good (DLC) asap, then... update? neeeeh, make your self feel good... and so on...

 

Absolutely! That is why many (serious) companies run first-time-right programs, a well equipped QA and a rigid quality control. Apart from keeping very open eyes and ears for customer complaints.

 

But they hired a fancy QA director last year. Aren't we all impressed at how well a job they're doing?

 

They're doing a better job getting updates out for recent dlc

 

"an update with a release notes a few hours later and then everyone finding the next bath of issues that were not fixed by the update or even cause by it" ....Which is why I have Steam set to 'Only update this game when I launch it'. This way I can see when patches for TSW2 problems created by the developers (if they ever are), fix the game, or make it worse. I can play the game offline until I see how the patches work on these forums. Because we all know DTG has form for patching one thing and mucking up another.

 

DTG policy. If it isn't broken, break it!

 

So your saying adam and his team don't have enough work from previous routes to fixs and need new problems to boot.

 

Yeah, that ominous QA director must be the ultimate genius. If it causes trouble, take it off the game (The TSW3 Savegame Soap Opera). Following that path there might be not much left to play with.

BTW: I have a feeling we´ll get banned soon from this forum. The only thing I´ve left to comment on this utter mess and blatant lies is acid sarcasm. And that´s a bad condition for a fair discussion.

 

ROFL. This made my day!

 

The deep-in-the-know on this board might confirm or not, but I´m pretty shure "Adam and his team" have long stepped down from their previous assignments and are dealing with other tasks..

 

Not quite... from the roadmap streams the pres crew team are supposed to be mopping up the last few TSW2 items and will THEN move onto other things (who knows what those are though...)

 

Your optimism is electrifying. OK, your comment in God´s ear ... hope´s the last thing to die.

 

You missed out the "supposed to be"...

Personally I couldn't care less as moved to TSW3 and when I rebuilt my computer a fortnight ago will be the last time I have TSW2 (or TSC) loaded...

 

It's been less of a "positive vibes only" echo chamber in here lately, but yes I could still see this happening once they choose to dump all non conformists. It's been lovely conversing while the time lasted.

 

Not sure where this has come from
DTG don't ban people for not conforming, they ban people for being pains in the neck, constant bashing other people (not DTG but other forum users) or other behavioural issues.
Been here several years, bashed DTG on the regular, had direct communication with Matt P several times and still here...

If you are reasonable and make a case (or even unreasonable but don't start having a go at individuals) and you're not going to get kicked.
Personally I'd say sometimes they're TOO lenient with the old mod hammer

 

Agree with that, I can only think of one person who was banned (twice) and they managed to wind up pretty much everyone on the forum, no matter what side of the mythical "camp" you were occupying!

I am sure there are forums where if the owners of the forum took as much stick as they do on here, there would be many more bannings.

I assume a conformist is someone who has the temerity to disagree with them.

 

Good Lord! I hope not! Surely acidic sarcasm ain't the same as trolling, swearing, or not treating others with respect. Respectful debate, even if acrimonious, would not fall into those categories. After all, what/who is responsible for our acrimony? Also to use the old saw, 'If we don't tell you of your faults, DTG, who else will?" After all, we so love the game and as has been pointed out elsewhere on the forums, we can live with cars sinking into car parks, very few passengers (although a few more would be nice), trees smacking us in the moosh as we drive past, scenery buildings that don't quite come up to scratch and a host of other small, even minor defects. All we are asking for in our own ascerbic way is for DTG to fix the damn thing they broke. If that were to happen, maybe, just possibly, we may be prepared to outlay more of our hard earned on other versions/routes. But not before they fix what they promised they would.

 

The QA may not be the problem, but what happened to the QA director that was gonna make changes to improve the qa process? Doesn't seem like they exist or doing their job

 

Maybe the person's hiring was yet another DTG lie

 

I can answer that - because the free and mod people care about it, know more about it, doing it because they just want to get it right and not just pay the bills. People at these companies like Rivet just want to be paid. They don’t give a bonfire’s smoke cloud about us, the train they’re modelling or anything for that matter. If they did they’d have taken on board all the help and feedback and actually got on and fixed the issues.

if the public were given access to ALL of the editor(s) we’d have a totally different game available by now. Because modders CARE and know how the train should behave and sound - because they’ve actually done some research.

 

I think what people fail to realise is that Rivet can produce flying moths but fail to produce working GSMR like recently implemented on BCC. I think this is why some users still appreciate TSC..

 

Alex, I am also deeply worried about letting Skyhook loose with my other favourite DMU - the 158 … it’s just got a repeat of the 150/2 written all over it.

 

I've always wondered if it's actually the developer, or TSW itself that's responsible for poor-quality content. I feel it's both. Now with Skyhook, they actually created some nice Train Simulator addons in the past, so they're very capable. Their Austrian content is really great, and they can make complex stuff (worth looking at their TS Pro Range). Obviously, third-parties could do much better, but I feel that they're not given enough support from DTG, or the dev environment is so buggy that fixing one thing makes 2 new bugs appear... On the other hand, maybe DTG is also struggling with their own dev kit, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised. I also wouldn't be surprised if third-parties are given 6 months for example to finish a DTG, no matter what. I think it would be very revealing to see the fine print...

 

I think 3rd parties can take as long as they want outside of dtgs influence. It's their dlc after all

 

Put it this way, this is not a day 1 purchase unless it is proven in a pre release stream that is up to an acceptable standard.

If they do produce a poor product, then I will just not bother with TSW3 anymore. They just don't put the same effort in these days. Plenty more stuff is coming to console anyway. They don't listen, they don't change and the 3rd party developers can get away with anything really.

 

I know, same. I was driving the class 20 just now and just amazed at how good the sound set was. Some DLC are breathtaking and others are just beyond awful

 

Third parties shouldn't be putting content out if it's not finished and any support from DTG should really be of the nature of "If you need something in our toolkit let us know..."
Dont' forget that third parties decide what to make, how to make it, what to include and not include etc and do not work to DTGs timelines (indeed a few 3rd party releases have been put back by DTG)
So I would say that all venting of spleens here should be aimed at the third party no matter how much people like to sling mud at DTG

 

Having worked in the software/gaming industry for 9 years, it seems to me that TSW3 was only announced to prevent the player base from eroding further, and to attract some new players as the numbers didn't look great for TSW2.

Six months before the release of TSW3, TSW2's player base halved as we approached the 6th of September (on Steam). I see the same if I look back at the previous year prior to releasing the 'new' game (around 50% of the players left during this 365-day period, and the majority left 6 months before the release date, the previous 6 months were quite steady). I think the numbers are not much different on any other platforms.

So management had this great idea of renaming the product, releasing it as a 'new' game, and numbers started going up again. So their plan worked. Plus this was a good excuse to increase DLC prices for new content, which means releasing shorter routes with fewer new trains, wagons etc. for more money. It was a brilliant idea (for them).

If they keep pushing out undercooked DLCs (given the current economic situation, I think the majority of players now think twice before making a purchase, especially paying £30 for a DLC), these figures will drop, no question about that. That's when we're gonna get TSW4.

On the other hand, this business model is not sustainable for long in my opinion. If you look at the reviews of their recent releases, the best I believe is 'Mostly Positive', the rest are 'Mixed' or 'Mostly Negative' (again, on Steam).

Train Simulator wouldn't be a thing today without the editor, workshop etc. - and without the community and many third-parties, it would've died ages ago. I understand that TSW has third-party devs, but it's a much more restrictive ecosystem. At some point, DTG has to announce an editor, otherwise I don't see Train Sim World to have a future. DTG and third-party releases won't keep it afloat, given the quality. Train Simulator Classic is still out there because of the great community-made freeware routes, and talented third-parties like Armstrong Powerhouse or Searchlight Simulations. Once the editor is out for SimRail, then DTG needs to find a good response to that...

 

When I load up the game/SIM it shows DTG's logo. It's like if I went to a friend's house and they fired up the game, I'd have no clue a 3rd party had developed anything barring the Game Creator as nothing differentiates this on any of the menu's.

 

DTG are ultimately the ones that publish the content.

 

In the end you can blame DTG for everything if you like, but the people making this content should be the ones who make their content better rather than it all being focussed on DTG

 

Then in this case EA shouldn't be getting criticized even though they mostly publish games and not develop them. The Washington Post shouldn't have gotten critizied when they published an op ed that was used to defame an individual even though it was proven that what was written was false.

DTG do share some responsibility as the publisher of these DLC's. Doesn't matter if they didn't make them. If a dlc is not in a good condition, they can choose not to publish *Cough DB BR 187* *Cough* but they ultimately did hence why some criticism is valid

 

EA publish games developed by EA owned studios in the main

 

From what I know of EAs output they employ 2nd parties to produce their "content" rather than 3rd, so the constant supply of games with a year at the end re directly paid for by them. We're not talking about that

With regards to newspapers, they're paying for that content directly. The people writing in their publications don't get a cut from sales, the papers are the ones buying the stories or opinions and then deciding whether to publish them or not.
So again not the case here

I mean if you go down the rabbit hole you're going down, the ultimate sellers and publishers here are the content stores. They hold the files, process payments etc etc so DTG are "middle men" in that situation, surely?

 

Even when articles are published to their own websites?

The point is that you say that DTG shouldn't be getting all the criticism if any at all. That frankly makes no sense when they ultimately publish these products and at the end can delay something if they deem it to not be fit for purpose like they have done in the past. It's their responsibility to ensure that the content is fit to be released and not just that you can drive the train. We saw with Edinburgh-Glasgow some core features that were missing. The 187 was an abomination and the reviews for the 187 speak for themselves.

So yes DTG do deserve criticism where it's warranted whether you like it or not because they are at the end of the day the ones that ultimately published the content and allowed for it to be released

 

I have worked in QA years ago. The testers do know about the problems but higher ups just want it out as you have said. A little extra on some of the dlc could mean many of the bugs are squashed at launch, otherwise eventually people will hold off until stuff is patched

 

Kind of begs the question, why have a QA team at all?

 

Don't forget about the "QA manager"

 

I think even DTG forgot that person existed

 

I don't know why I have to keep repeating this, but QA are bug hunters, and don't care a loaf of bread about lighting quality, fps, stutter, wrong catenary, ballast colour, or anything else that keeps getting whinged about. They are there to get the game to crash and report it, that is it, that is all that is expected, and all that they will report. As you'll note, the vast majority of the crashing issues (XSS excepted) have been resolved in recent months (at least judging by the lack of recent posts stating a recent crash has been experienced), so it seems to me that QA are in fact doing a very good job

 

DTGs start to finish development process needs refinement.
Because Franky things just get repeated or its an apology and nothing seems to improve.

It's the same with route announcements there's no build up to release. No clear marketing strategy. Prime example is the new rivet route. No information what so ever. And the announcement happens after the update for the route is already out.

So if you saw the Reddit post of it you knew the name of the route before the live stream.

 

And to me they need to start with the end date for principal development being two months or so before release...
They seem to keep developing right up to release date, which is madness