Nothing Is Going To Change, That Much Should Be Obvious Now.

Yes, absolutely.

BUT.....

Squeezing extra marginal profit at the expense of quality can bite a company in the ass. General Motors once thought it was getting away with it... until reality and the market caught up with them, and the advice of the "cheapness experts" was exposed to be not clever cost control, but a corporate cancer. That's only one in a long list of companies which destroyed or nearly destroyed themselves by letting their reputation fail (Gibson guitars, IBM, Harley-Davidson, Winchester firearms.....).

More half-assed releases like NY-Trenton (especially given the size of the US market) does not bode well for "people wanting to buy at an impressive frequency" in the long term (especially not with potential competitors entering the market). DTG need to provide tangible reasons for spending forty bucks on one of their routes as opposed to, say, one from Simrail.

 

Everyone's opinion is different. I don't know the route in real life and I'm based in the US so I don't know what the scenery looks like in real life so those issues do not really affect me. Of course I'm using the londonmidland ep pack but even without that, I would have been easily satisfied. New train, good sounds, features, able to go from a to b and relatively good scenery (don't know what it looks like in real life) are enough for me. Others are going to disagree of course.

 

Well we will have to agree to disagree. Yes the night lighting is disappointing and I agree the cab occlusions aren't good but the route is certainly not awful and I wouldn't say any of it is utter rubbish. I think it is a better route than GWE. I use Cross City a lot in different weathers and different times of day and I very much enjoy it.

 

I didn’t say that is was awful or utter rubbish. I said large swathes of it were utter rubbish and overall it was mediocre at best. IMHO that is the case.

GWE came with 3 trains and a number of different wagons. It had interesting and varied scenarios, voiced tutorials, station announcements, high quality scenery etc. You pulled into Paddington and it was relatively busy. Paddington itself knocked spots of New Street.

By contrast BCC came with one unit and some new skies. Beyond that, it’s just totally and utterly blah for me. It got boring very quickly and I’ve had no more than 10-15hrs at the absolute outside out of it. Zero variety and certainly not worth £30. Sand Patch Grade was better. GWE was better. RSN was better. Routes and rolling stock back then even came with manuals. I can’t see anything to suggest that BCC is anything other than mediocre at the very best yet it’s had 5 years more development behind it. Where is the evidence of that huh?!

I honestly think we’ve collectively got so habituated to disappointing releases that if something isn’t as bad as E2G then is classed as good. By this point, and for £30, I believe we should be getting far better than this.

 

Well we are all different and each others views are as valid as the last. I was not disappointed with BCC and am still not, I rarely use GWE to be honest.

 

Actually, many of us who were there at the beginning would say that the quality of routes like SPG and GWE was at least as high as it is today.

Such a sweeping generalization. And you don't know anything about the individuals you've called out, certainly not enough to be disparaging their competence. Naming names is rather shoddy behavior in my book.

Agreed. I don't like these threads that just give people an excuse to pile on and vent whatever is ailing them that day.

We all have our issues with the game and many of us, including yours truly, have criticized aspects that we don't like, but I hope that we have had and continue to have a constructive and balanced approach to that criticism.

I like to think that a fair and civil approach is more likely to improve the game than a general scrum of negativity.

 

Absolutely, we are all different. That said, and just out of interest, go back and start the GWE journey from the start, as if you were a new player. At least do the scenarios again. It would be really interesting to see if you still feel the same way once you’ve done so.

Crosstie I totally agree. This automatic blaming of ‘senior management’ with zero evidence that this is all down to them does my head in. At the end of the day, it is the devs who set lights up wrongly, place scenery incorrectly, mix sounds badly etc. They have the same amount of time to do it right as they have to do it wrong.

I suspect the whole culture of the company is askew, and the product they produce (particularly lately) is evidence of that. No one person is to blame, but collectively they should be doing far better. The one thing we will have disagree on is I sadly think no kind of approach will ever improve this game. It’d all been done a thousand times before; people have reasoned, ranted and pleaded for it to be better but it doesn’t really ever change. I have got to the point that I don’t think it ever will.

 

+1... this is a car that keeps filling up with fuel rather than looking at VFM

 

What, should we hide behind a bland collective euphemism like "top management" and pretend we aren't talking about the same individuals?

The problems with TSW are manifest. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to sniff them out: cheeseparing budgeting of time, personnel, resources and testing. And the source of that problem is, again, elementary.

 

Just for clarity, I think most people will have noticed that this wasn’t a serious statement and taken in context of my post should have been seen as such, but I’ll underline that here.

It’s interesting that we all tend to have much respect and a liking for the people we see on the live streams and in the forum and everyone we don’t see is lumped in as the entity known as ‘DTG’ and comes in for some stick. I’m sure there as many others above and below those we see who share the passion not only for trains but for making a good game and that will include some at the top as well. I haven’t a clue how to run this kind of business and therefore can’t say what DTG could do differently. I don’t think they have much scope to change things to the extent the community would like as every improvement would likely involve more cost and we would like a lot of improvements. There’s only so much juice you can squeeze out of a lemon before you need more lemons.

 

I feel Things improved back when TSW2 came along and the roadmap was first announced I feel we got a steady Amount of information every few weeks. Routes got longer for with SEHS. Scenario planner was a great addition.
Sam was there to scrutinize aspects of details of where things was at. There was little development every two weeks but for me it kept me engaged with TSW it was nice to see the team. And see an article with a Roadmap.

Now Though.
I don't feel the level of quality has improved for routes. You get a good section & at the other end not so good.

- Little development in getting uk Tocs into the game if I was in charge of the department I would work so hard to get meetings and partnerships in place to sort it out.

It also feels a route gets made and there's no plan to expand with that route with more trains. So your left with few trains per route.

End of year surveys not helping as it looks as though things like sound , detail of routes , detail of trains not taken as important for the player.

Audio mixing for trains hardly ever seems to be correct. So I wish DTG would tackle the issue. Get Armstrong powerhouse involved. The Audio engine on Xbox should of been upgraded.

I dislike how updates that are complete are held back until DTG feel bothered in releasing them.

 

I don't care who is responsible for the poor quality of DTG's content. What I care about is that since their beginning DTG have embraced a practice of pumping out content and never spending the time to fix it.

 

You misunderstand me, I'm solely referring to the unknown low level grunts who never show up on camera and just follow orders of their managers. I hate seeing people like that getting partially blamed, intentionally or not, for TSW's failures, when I don't think they warrant any of it. Someone like Matt I don't really put in the same category as them.

 

I'm not pointing the finger at him exclusively. If he's unhappy with the constraints management is putting on him and the team then he should speak up or leave.

 

Can't really have anything in TSW...

 

I wrote one of these threads last year. It gained quite a bit of traction and thanks to a visual glitch on SteamDB single-handedly killed Train Sim World. It is interesting to look at TSW as an outsider now I have left it to rot on my PS4. I didn't buy TSW3. South Eastern High Speed is no better than the original, which was already terrible. Birmingham Cross City looks to be worse than the Train Simulator version. the TS version of Cajon Pass (from 2007!) has more going for it. I don't know much about the German high speed route but other than the ICE 1 model it doesn't have much appeal for me. It's like LGV Rhones Alpes for Train Simulator but with presumably worse scenery (and a signalling system I can't use but that's more a me problem).

I first knew TSW3 wasn't for me when I saw the price increase over TSW2. I'd previously mentioned the price-per-route increase over time when discussing Rush Hour, but with TSW3 it was even worse. RailWorks 2 had eight full routes plus the TestTrak. Based on the presumed £30 price (SteamDB doesn't go that far back), each full route costs £3.75. You got a variety of content, with all bar one route having freight, shunting and passenger potential. TSW3 comes along at £40 with three routes and the Training Centre (effectively TesTrak 2)... £13 per route, with each route being a one-trick pony. Cajon Pass has no passenger services (unlike the Rail Simulator version), SEHS has commuter workings only - yes, High Speed 1 is a commuter route and between Gravesend and Faversham the only distinction is that the trains have a pointy nose and smell weird. Almost the same can be said for the German route.

TSW almost had promise. The TSW2020 days were the best ones. Every release was great and there was some great innovation (which we mostly never saw again). This was the time when I sympathised with DTG because I thought they were onto something, but over time the promise dwindled. TSW routes are uglier than their Train Simulator counterparts. The lighting is weirder than TS (a game from 2007). There is less to do. There isn't the option to make stuff to do. I asked myself 'why do I play this game?' and I couldn't answer. The ugly, broken and laggy PS4 version was already on borrowed time so when I got my PC it was game over for TSW. I moved back to Train Simulator. I am fully aware a lot of you will groan at this - I was like that - but the benefits TSW offers don't outweigh the benefits of Train Simulator. We see TSW routes being made for TS - they look better in the latter and play better too. There are limitless options, so why should I just stick to TSW's limited offerings? DTG certainly can make good stuff when they try, and their recent TS releases have been rather good. TSW's have not been that by any means.

I believe a true sequel to Train Simulator can exist. SimRail isn't it yet. TSW has never been it. TSW was announced in 2014, just when DTG started making truly good stuff for Train Simulator. Yet the high quality of Sand Patch Grade and GWE has never been reached again, and that's how we end up with ten year old versions of routes looking better than the new TSW versions, as is the case with South Eastern High Speed. As a TSW outsider now, TSW only provides a sources for nice models to import into TS. The new Class 323 would be nice in TS. The Class 166 too. But not the 37, 101 or Electrostar models, you can keep those.

 

Sadly the only message I've ever heard from DTG in this regard is "don't like it, don't buy it". Such lacklustre enthusiasm for their product kind of says it all to me.

 

DTG playing a high risk game with comments like this if enough people embrace this message and profit start to suffer those high level executives might just wake up and find there profits have tanked.And unless they want to pull the plug on the whole shabang they better get there dlc releases up to snuff or kiss those big bonuses goodbye.

 

Unfortunately, they see in their sales numbers that a majority of people are buying their stuff, and only a small minority of players are voicing their concern over the quality.

 

´The fish stinks from the head´ - nothing new under the sun.
If I get that bulldozering "if you don´t like it, you don´t have to play it" argument from an executive producer, something must be really rotten in the state of denmark.

Ah well, this thread will be closed soon™, I have a feeling.

 

My own dlc sales have plummeted. I've become much better at taking DTG advice as well as avoiding day one until I see what as been missed, cut, coded wrong. I've gone from every dlc to probably one in 5 now

 

Again, another of these statements that keeps being repeated parrot fashion as if it were stone-cold fact but it’s just not true. See how easy it is for fake news to get it’s legs?!

DTG is a private company funded by private equity. They do not have to produce forecasts or publish anything public unlike a listed company has to, and other than their annual accounts (which a decent accountant can make show anything they want), they don’t.

We literally have zero idea as to how well this game sells. They only people that do are the people that own and run DTG.

 

Well, that's true we don't know the exact figures, but as DTG do not invest more time and money into increasing DLCs quality nor they have lower the prices for the new DLCs to attract new customers, we may assume thay they are happy with the current sales charts. What do you think?

 

I don't see it as squeezing extra profit, more sticking to budget. I would imagine the NYT release is what they feel they can include for the budget.

 

I see it that they have been invested in by this organisation that want to see a return on their investment. I would suggest that them throwing DLC out of the door on a given date, come what may, is because they need the money coming through the door suggesting a rather hand-to-mouth existence to me. They’ve also increased prices which doesn’t appear to have led to a longer dev time and a better end product. I see that as another red flag to be honest.

We’ll never know, but if DTG were swimming in cash I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t want to improve their product and thereby improve their reputation. Companies that sell expensive, poor quality products and treat their customers like fools don’t tend to last all that long.

 

It is funny how most of these comments have been oft repeated since the early days of Rail Simulator circa 2008/2009. They are still here. I think we would see signs if the franchise of TSW was in trouble or indeed the company themselves.

How do you know they aren't?

 

Who says dtg aren't putting effort into uk tocs. Where's your evidence. Some tocs simply say no to being in a game for their own reasons. Dtg can't force them or they risk losing the possibility of a future agreement. Dtgs licensing team do all they can but if they get a no, they have to respect that. If they hadn't, we wouldn't have tocs such as southern, gwr, nse, sehs, wmt, emt, br, regional railways.

 

You don't need licenses for BR as you do modern TOCs. Southern and GWR are licenses they've had for over a decade. EMT I believe is owned by the government as well (the same reason we have SWT and London Midland in TS). The only thing new is West Midlands Trains.

 

The progression of getting Tocs is vastly slow the Evidence In the game is evident enough.

They will have their reasons so they need more convincing.

All am saying it's been so many years now the progression is rather slow and something needs. to be done about it.

 

I think the most frustrating bit is the nearly-but-not-quite we get on virtually every release. BCC is my local route and much of it is highly recognisable. If they'd just sort out the lack of fencing along the canal south of Five Ways, put an actual hole in the canal bridge at University, add in a couple of key landmarks (Old Joe in Selly Oak being the most glaring omission), a bit of additional night glow from the city (and distinctive red glow from the petrol station on approach to Northfield at night) and a bit of tidying/finishing on the Redditch branch, it would feel like a MUCH better route. Not including the 172 from the start was also a real missed opportunity - particularly as they're already painted in EMR purple for when they move up there and there's an EMR route on its way...

 

You’re all at it again, stating things as fact that you cannot possibly know unless you’re at the sharp end of DTG’s business.

theorganist, I’d say there’s enough going on at the minute to make me concerned about TSW’s future. They have form for pulling a game from sale without notice, remember?

 

I think it's safe as a game, the fact that dull as anything routes sell with one train because its in Jimbob rail plc colours plus rhtt as that's what many purchasers see at their local station. The days of getting the WCML north of Carlisle with yards, freight etc like we got in TSC are gone even for TSC. TSW has found the money now and that is that. I think those of us wanting more retro UK stuff and more ops style things to do need a new simulator to rise up....

 

I think stating opinion as facts has been a part of train sim forums since I can remember going back to around 2008, from whatever side you approach things. For example the "fact" stated that DTG aren't making an effort with TOC's.

I certainly don't claim to know anything, I just give an opinion, I just would have thought if DTG were in trouble there would be a sign, they appear to have a few vacancies on their website.

They have just announced a load of new content so I don't see them suddenly pulling TSW and we don't know what their sales figures are, we can only see steam stats as far as I know.

However I might be wrong and maybe tomorrow it will have disappeared from sale and some of the forumers can come and tell us with a glint in their eye that they told us so!

We have had these periods of unrest before and nothing has happened and I remember when UKTS was "the" place for discussing train simulators, similar conversations were happening.

Maybe one day one of the soothsayers will be accurate but personally for now I don't see it, I just think this is one of those periods. A lot of which is of DTG's making and I agree they do need to show a bit more foresight in their decision making, I am not happy with everything they have done by any stretch of the imagination, the new steam route for example was a big disappointment and I feel for those US train fans who want to experience something akin to BML.

However tonight, as I have time, I will fire up TSW and spend a few hours on it and will enjoy it like I often do, and I wouldn't say I am that easily pleased.

 

I totally agree, I don’t think it’s going to disappear anytime soon. I do think though that whoever it is at DTG, be it Matt or the people above him, that have it in their gift to take action need to sort their s*** out and do so quickly. The quality of the product needs to be seriously upped and fast, starting with this new content they’ve announced. It is not acceptable to be giving excuses as to why a ‘new feature’ has been forgotten from a given release. “There’s a ‘feature checklist’ but the problem is we haven’t updated it”. Seriously?!

The truth of the matter is that there are people here who have previously spent a lot of money on this game but have now stopped. I have read from many others who feel like me, and I have stopped because I’m sick of being ripped off. Yesterday I spent £53 on the -800 variant of the PMDG 737 for MSFS. I’d already spent the same on the -700. That is a proper quality piece of kit, and having flown them for real for many thousands of hours I can attest to the depth with which every single system is simulated. These things are way more complex to learn and operate than a train but complete luddites are willing to stump up the cash and really put in the effort. As soon as Asobo sort out the WASM module for consoles PMDG will sell an absolute truckload more. I would absolutely LOVE to see trains simulated to that level in this game. Would I spend £50 on one if it were done properly? Of course I would.

On the flip side, and as an example, TSW has the safety systems turned off by default (which are as simple as train goes bing, press button) because they’re worried people might find it difficult. I could list all the reasons why TSW is a game and not a sim but I don’t have the time. What I can say though is that I honestly believe TSW is in the midst of a total identity crisis. It is trying to be too many things to too many people and they‘ve totally lost sight of the core purpose of the game. In case they’re still struggling, the clue is in the name.

 

Exactly why I've kept TSW 2020 and have not yet bothered upgrading. It's pretty much doing its job and I've not come across any serious flaws. Night lighting's ok, no crashes. I spent a lot of time on the forums and decided I'm not going to pay for bugs, so while being a TSC guy, I do fire up TSW 2020 occasionally and enjoy timetable mode, having all of TSW 2020's content. Which is enough for me

Edit: Upgraded to TSW2. It's just better and faster.

 

I do agree that all is not rosy in the garden and I do think that DTG should be looking at what steps they can take to stop the negative feedback. But maybe they feel they don't need to if indeed the forums are a miniscule sample of TSW players, I don't know.

My main gripe, personally is more to do with the scope of their projects, I used to think TSC routes were shorter than often equivalent MSTS routes and now TSW routes are shorter. You mentioned GWE in another thread, I just find it so frustrating that it ends at Reading, my most played UK routes are currently SEHS, BML, BCC and CCL as they are nice and self contained and you can complete full services. Despite the large stations lacking in traffic the routes can be operated almost as if you were driving a full shift as a driver. These aren't even my main sphere of railway interest. The new NEC route going to Trenton when the TSC version went to Philadelphia, shows that you don't get the same length of routes as you used to. I just find it irritating giving up an express at Reading, Riesa, Chemitz etc, hence my large frustration with the new steam route, for me it will provide a very unconvincing experience as it is currently planned.

Anyway I digress, I don't disagree with much of what you say but I suppose I find enough to enjoy with TSW that I can live in the most part with its deficiencies. Whether that will continue who knows. It has giving me a interest in non UK trains I have to say, something I didn't have before.

 

And the fanbois' collective Stockholm Syndrome, their daily postings getting high on suggestions, promises by DTG, dreams, silver linings and castles in the sky.

DTG is a business, and make business decisions as such as outlined in this and other threads. Nothing wrong with that, but skipping research, development, quality and most of all QA and the inevitable bug elimination is what keeps serious players frustrated.

The only way to try to change DTG's business model is voting with your wallet and not remaining quiet. Keep the founded critique, valid suggestions for improvement of released DLC coming.

SimRail is built on a competing game engine, Unity, right? I have played only the free demo, and didn't like that experience particularly to recommend a purchase at this moment. TSC, Run8, even OpenRails and Derail Valley are still higher on my playlist.

 

Of course there are those who think that people who enjoy the sim are "fanbois" or equivalent childish expressions or adding other insults, because they can't handle that some people actually aren't that bitter!

You won't get change if you divide people, and you won't get change if TSW becomes unviable, well you won't get anything then. For me TSC is still worthwhile but I have no interest in the other simulators as they don't cover such a broad range of interests. Simrail certainly hasn't peeked my interest yet.

 

You may be correct on this point. Usually the number of people that read, let alone use, a game's forums is miniscule in terms of the overall player base. There could very well be plenty of negative feedback here while sales are happily cruising along on all platforms.

 

I believe this is the case and they know this. I have been playing for years but didn't join the forums until early last year. I will continue to give feedback and bring up concerns and Ideas that I hope DTG will use for future content. I know is a small chance of that but I'm not going to give up., I enjoy the game and will continue to do so.

 

They have made changes before, for example on SEHS and of course pressure has been piled on over the new Scottish route which is being worked on. I guess people just have to make their opinions felt on here and decide whether or not DLC is worth their while.

I am afraid I am not going to join any boycott as I do enjoy the sim in the most part although I am much more fussy about what I purchase and when.

Personally I feel that if they see a drop in sales of certain DLC and strong opinions calmly expressed on here by a large amount of forum members that is more likely to garner change than angry rants.

I am afraid when I see a ranty post saying DTG are evil money grabbers and all you fanboy simps are buying into it, I just think whatever!

 

I don't think anyone would ever considered a post on a forum as "news". It's a personal opinion, even if it's not marked as such.

My opinion was based solely on the "don't like it, don't buy it" attitude. Would you hear something like that from the Executive Producer if they were strapped for cash?! I think not.

My point exactly, albeit my post was maybe poorly worded.

Here are some numbers for TSW3 in Steam Store.
RECENT REVIEWS: Mostly Positive (209)
ALL REVIEWS: Very Positive (1,605)

I don't play on Steam, but I refer to Steam reviews, since XBox store reviews are practically non-existent.

 

For example I am incredibably frustrated with the newly announced steam route to the point of bafflement, as to DTG's obviously financially based choice of starting point and a couple of other matters.

I made my opinion felt on here, after a while a few people concurred, will it change anything, unlikely? There was not enough of a surge of opinion in my way and likely most who did agree with me will still purchase it and that is of course fair enough. All I can do is make my opintion felt and not buy the route, which I won't from what I know about it so far. This should be a day one purchase for me, no question.

Will I change DTG's approach, well no? I could say I am going to uninstall TSW and not give DTG another penny but I know I won't be doing that!

 

I don't agree. There are some dubious sales practices going on which give customers the right to demand things. If a route was released and DTG would say "It is as it is and nothing will be ever fixed" , we indeed would just have to sit and shut up. But DTG shows builds in pre view streams with features that are not available in the release build and are promised to be coming soon and end up on the roadmap indefinitely. A good example is the BML Rush Hour passenger debacle.

 

Exactly my point, that criticism can also build up because here and there there are still bugs or things have been forgotten is understandable. No one is forced to like or buy TSW. But if some people constantly criticize only to make a publisher look bad, then they can also leave the forum completely and don't have to waste their valuable time with comments on a product that they reject. So-called fanboys, or to put it another way, people who like TSW, do so because they are real railway enthusiasts and want to live out their hobby in a digital form too. That's all!

 

Yes I agree, TSW can be a very frustrating experience, it can also be very immersive. I am more in the rivet counting, borish camp when it comes to train simming so I wouldn't say I would settle for anything and I can see why some people get angry, but I also see that for some it is a valuable source of enjoyment, a release, a distraction and even therapeutic for some.

I also like to try and suspend reality and imagine I am actually driving a train (surely the point of a train simulator) whether it is back in 1958 at the controls of a Jubilee or racing along towards Koln in an ICE which TSW manages to do to a large extent but does leave you wanting a bit more effort from the developers quite often.

 

Imagine me watching an interview with the CEO of PMDG and 56 minutes in he starts talking about Dovetail Games and Flight Sim World. Very enlightening indeed and says everything that needs saying. The business model stinks, and we should never think that history doesn’t at least have a chance of repeating itself.

For context he's talking about how important it is to allow 3rd parties and the freeware scene to interact with established players in the software game to drive innovation and development. The interesting bit comes just after 56 minutes. I've tried to start it slightly before to give some context but this forum is being weird and won't let me. Start it playing at 54:30 to hear some interesting stuff...



I think we now know what DTG mean when they say we can’t have an editor because of ‘licensing’.

 

This always irks me. Can you imagine Steve Jobs or Tim Cook doing one of their launch presentations at the end saying, don’t like it, don’t buy it? It’s of course true, if you don’t like something, don’t buy it, but it should never be a company ‘slogan’. It just screams defeatism.

 

Just uninstalled TSC as well as TSW. No more money guys. Been a supporter for a very long time but enough is enough. Plenty of flight sims and other Train sim stuff to keep me going. Have always supported the scene even when it's produced rubbish. The fact that those on the fringes have helped improve it over the years have kept many of us here still. If they want a closed shop fine bit I believe in the end the product will be watered down so much that its more fun watching paint dry. Maybe that's were we are now.....

 

Okay thanks for sharing.... Have fun with all the other bug free games.... (If they ever existing)