Ideas For A Potential Community Spotlight

• Community YouTube channel of the month?
• Real life railway heroes - could be historic, could be your favourite guard, or train, or station cat...

 

Trainy McTrainyblog

 

I'd like to see some of the cooler setups people have made to play the game showcased. Similar to modding, but people who have unique controllers, interesting hacks or have a place dedicated to play train simulators.

 

Mods for TSW and TSC
Surely it means the Creator Clubs livery not the ACTUAL mod out there for TSW...right...?
Or did I just witnessed the DTG's change of stance on mods for TSW?

 

Now this idea I like.

 

Have DTG ever stated a stance on mods for TSW? I'd have thought if they were against them for any reason, they wouldn't allow engine.ini settings, londonmidland's enhancement packs, the unofficial editor etc etc to have threads on the forum, no?

 

I think the idea of mods for TSW is possibly a typo, DTG have stated before that mods will never be officially implemented as there're simply too many implications such as licensing, copyrights, etc

 

What I quoted from Spratty is the 'Stance'

 

There's a difference between mods that have branded content in versus those that are, let's say, "enhancements". londonmidlands fall into the former category here of course, so I expect that that wouldn't be able to be featured. But take away the branded assets and keep the enhanced modelling of track, sky, ballast, me mam's gardening gloves and the like, and I see no reason for DTG to not feature it, or things like it, if they were gonna use this blog as a PR fluff piece

As I say, I don't recall them ever saying that they are anti-mods or anything like that, just that since TSW is multi-platform they're unable to "officially" integrate and support it (eg. using Steam Workshop) beyond things like scenario planner and CC

 

Long story short, when I'm saying 'Stance' I mean exactly as 'No Official Support'.
And by changing 'Stance' I mean it goes to 'Official Support' or at least 'Official Promotion'(for PC users).

 

Articles on heritage railways would be very welcome.

 

Hmm probablly just a difference in interpretation of the phrase "official support". For me, that phrase would mean mod integration into the game (ie. as TSC does it)

 

I don’t think they’re anti-mod one little bit. I for one don’t believe that the ‘accident’ that led to the ability to create the unofficial editor and everything that has spun away from it was entirely an accident. I remember when it happened, and it was like a light switch going on in the heads of people far cleverer than I when it comes to this stuff. We should all be grateful to them for what they’ve managed to do.

None of it will ever be officially supported though. Of that I am certain.

Anyway that’s off-topic so I’ll shut up now.

 

^ Exactly this, not all mods are branding patches or liveries, and DTG definitely aren’t against mods in any way. In fact Matt and his team are going out of their way to test and provide feedback on mods for the PC addons manager test. That’s very, very kind of them and it’s highly appreciated. There was also a nice discussion on mods between Matt and Sam on the charity stream a little while back where they said some of the creations the community have made are quite impressive.

They definitely aren’t against them, but they can’t officially endorse them either. However with that said, I do think this is all just a misunderstanding as Creators Club stuff seem to be interpreted as “mods” sometimes too.

 

They should say what's permitted and what's not for mods, in order to be considered for this.

 

Given that mods are only applicable for a 1/3 of the player base it seems weird to commit time and energy devoting articles about them, even before you consider all the legal implications.

 

I imagine it be planned to be a spotlight in a wider article, in a similar manner to the mini interviews they do in news articles on the main site. These get pushed out to console via the game itself too so us console lot will see em there

 

A monthly community-oriented article sounds like a great idea, maybe call it something like community highlights of the month? Obviously with a heavy focus on Creator's club content - perhaps with an accompanying stream playing user-created scenarios and liveries?

Similar to how the screenshot contest encourages more community involvement, showing community created content on an official stream could spark more use of that feature of the game and get more new members onto dovetail live, the forums and involved with the discussions. Also maybe use some member's content from the "real railways videos and photos" thread in the off-topic section to help revive those threads.

 

Perhaps a list of trending topics / discussion among the various forums with a brief description. i.e. Train Talk: What's is the community talking about?

 

I think it would be better to have these articles focus on the actual game rather than real life stuff, maybe only accept photos of trains represented in game? Just seems kinda off topic to me.

 

You guys have watched the threads where Matt has said that DTG have been working with mod creators to make them TSW3 compatible, and then compatible with the DLC manager... right?

Mods ARE legitimate, have been embraced by DTG since day one and mod creators have been assisted by Matt, Adam and the dev teams for ages.

 

That's literally just what they call the uploads on creators club but ok.

Also i fail to see why this warrants putting the whole thread off topic

 

Oh, btw back on the purpose of the post, perhaps it can be done in similar way of Snowrunner's 'Community Update'? Something like this https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1465360/view/3727334659004900790?l=schinese
(I totally not choosing the game that Focus in control too :P)

 

Simply because mods on TSW and mods on TSC is two very different meaning and we don't know if Jan was using it as the 'Official Meaning' (as TSW Mod=CC Livery) or the 'Unofficial Meaning' (as TSW Mod=TSC Mod=Patch to game not done by DTG).
And if you are the people who cannot tell the intention of Jan like me, then you will have to consider the huge impact if Jan was indeed meaning the 'Unofficial Meaning' here or not.
If you are not, well, 99% chance you are right.

 

Are there any plants to resurrect the "We are Railfans" DTG Site. It could be useful in hosting the community news. (maybe bring the podcast back as well).
We Are Railfans (dovetailgames.com)

 

Remember, Matt P started as a modder. While certainly there are legal considerations, I can imagine there is opposition on principle.

 

I'd love to see a 'magazine' style series highlighting the various routes/DLC using real narrative from the people who, say, worked on the line, drove on the that line operating trains etc. Mix that narrative with real history of the route and region. I think a few would find the added 'colour' might make the sim driving that much more cool.

 

@dtg_jan

I´d suggest a historical series about the evolution of simulators for home use. As an example: My first was a PSION "Flight Simulator" on a Sinclair ZX81 - they really dared to call that a "simulator" - with its 64x64 pixel b/w graphics. Or I remember playing a "moon landing simulation" on a monstrous main frame computer, no monitor just a (very noisy) matrix printer - "Congratulations, you´ve just dug a new moon crater, what name do you want to give it?".

The point being it has become clear that those sims have come a looooong way since then. To the relative perfection we can experience today and TSW is certainly one of the representants here.

Do a series about this, present the evolution in pictures and descriptions. And (corrected) $$$ figures of purchase! I´d risk a bet that especially younger players might take an interest, and for us old rags they´d be nostalgic memories.

I wouldn´t be able to provide material and storylines, but I´m quite sure you´ll find some forumites here and over there in the TSC fora who would be glad to help.

 

If we're highlinging the best of the best, then surely First Class has to be the name?

 

Hi dtg_jan ,

I love this idea, but please be warned about the size of this task if you want to do it well.

There already is a part of this forum with tips and tricks for new players:

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/forums/getting-started.173/

Also Natalie created a page at the TSW website with tutorial material: I could not find it any more, but it still may exist.

Finally this is there:

https://dovetailgames.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/80000678884

At the forums I have seen a lot of contributions that are worth keeping, but the main issue is how do find what I need? Most them are hidden in discussion topics somewhere. It would take some effort to organize these topics, e.g. using keywords and by making some kind of ordering. A forum is not the best spot to do this.

So I think it may fulfil a clear need. A lot of knowledge is not documented and this may give a huge amount of interesting background information.

For mods, there is not much to do, there is an excellent website for this purpose already:
https://www.trainsimcommunity.com/

So do not try to copy that.

Finally, there is a playlist with tutorials at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvUwWjZgALPUAcA2_XcdbDR-qtcLkXDnw

there also is this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvUwWjZgALPXmFuBjgbI_y5aFPn11wkUl

Both lists are incomplete. I attempted to make a better collection, but it is running out of hands:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa2JNNN51aoHlefzwI4kaPwbY0PJoVgOZ

There are 57 tutorial videos in this playlist, but it is getting to long now, you cannot find back what you really need and a lot of interesting stuff is not included.

My recommendations:
Think first very well on how and where to organize this
Second, think very careful about how to keep this up-to-date. This is a big issue. Can you still do this next year? How much time do you get to keep this working? Who can eventually replace you?
Keep the scope ten times smaller than what you would like to do
If you have done that, make it ten times smaller

 

I think this might be useful in another perspective? Personally I wouldn't necessarily watch 90 minutes of the Roadmap livestream, as an alternative I would probably look listen to the Roadmap IF it were available as a Podcast. I remember Sam doing some interesting Podcasts under the We Are Railfans banner, but nothing for 18 months now.

https://open.spotify.com/show/2ztExjTdY2bUmYXzi3Bsrw?si=_b5f5vq4Q3ucM5x98w9org

 

Must agree that would be a fitting name from what I can understand their idea is.

 

Focus on bugs, not on the community would be a good start

 

Yes, let's get staff that are employed to engage with community editing code instead

 

Defo like to see modding TSW rather than any of the other ideas. Or more behind the scenes, office and dev stuff.

 

Articles on the best in game railfanning spots could be a good feature

 

There's a lot already done, the major issue is how to find it back. And I think also for the more blog like stuff, it would be helpful if you can find it back. The major disadvantage of the forums is that it is hard to fiind older information back when you need it.

 

In such an article I would like something about collected ingame data. Doesn't DTG track the things we do ingame anyway ?

Maybe some "player of the month" type of thing where someone transported the most passengers, played the most runs on a certain route, took the most pictures, uploaded the most or most successful C Club livery or scenario, things like that.

 

Related to Kangaroo Conductor's above suggestion with but with a different spin, but a 'Creator Highlight' for Creators Club, once a month, looking at a different person in the community and their creations.

Perhaps could double as a "get to know each other" thing with a text-based interview or something?

On another note, I think it would be a huge missed opportunity not to start hosting monthly competitions, with the prize being a highlight on this community article. Of course, the existing Xmas/Halloween/Easter competitions could retain their current prizes as well. Rotating between Liveries and Driving would be cool.

I agree with Kangaroo Conductor's idea of showing the people who have done the most ___ in the space of a month, perhaps a Top 10 or something for fairness.

 

^ This. I totally agree with this, monthly best of Creator's Club articles would be nice and monthly scenario or livery competitions would be cool, I'm so nice I'll give an example of each:

Livery Challenge:
Livery: GWR on the Class 158
Challenge Duration: 2 weeks
Reward: Appearance on the monthly Creator's Club article in a seperate section with an optional Q & A session with that creator about how they made the livery or releases in general

Scenario Challenge:
Scenario: Class 465 on Birmingham Cross City from Lichfield to Birmingham New Street
Challenge duration: 1 month
Reward: Appearance on the monthly Creator's Club article in a seperate section with an optional Q & A with the creator about how they made the scenario and what AI was involved or releases in general

That is how it would work in my eyes, hope you take this onboard dtg_jan

 

I don't see how a scenario challenge would work really, it would be hard to judge what's better than the others.

For a livery competition, I also think it would be best to give a generic thing to make rather than recreating a real livery, because then it's just a test of patience more than anything.

 

Yeah fair enough on the scenario challenge front

I don't mind tbh whether it's a real livery or not, and plus, it's an example so sometimes it wouldn't be a real livery as it will be DTG that set up the challenge anyway, so in reality it's their decision on what livery they want us to make

 

Good idea about the challenges. It could also be an overal community challenge, like reach 1 million km on high speed routes, or do 100.000 boarding tasks. If the community reach this at the end of the month they all get a special emblem to use on their trains .

I actually also like the idea of an overall leaderboard with train driver level or points. But this has not necessarily something to do with this topic. I think it will be also a good idea to let certain players test a route before release, maybe with a pre release preview were both the testers (players) and community share there thoughts about the route and occurring bugs. This could be done after the route preview by DTG.

Periodically route suggestion with polls would also be a good idea in my opinion.

Last but not least, tip or trick of the month were a player share some handy tips on certain train controls, routes of safety systems etc. For example: how to handle when you reach LZB ende on a certain german route.

Have fun.

 

Celebrate the awesome journey thread and create special limited time journey chapters based on the community recommendations

 

I'd like to see something like:

Users can submit a favorite "service" and "scenario", and each month one will be chosen to highlight- maybe the user who submitted the winners can help write a little blurb about why they chose it.

I'd also like something like a "TSW Awards" where every year the fanbase could vote on

Route of the Year
Loco of the Year
Best 3rd party release
Best 3rd party dev
Best new 3rd party
Most Improved DLC (that came out in a prior year)

Etc

 

Yes Jan,

Would like an "Operations" and "Technical" for those of us in the indistry and those who are interested.

Example being...

US freight operations have changed in recent years

Another:

Electronic train braking yet only a few freight operators use it.

If a big company/operator (ie government) permits it,

Driver/engineer spotlight

Then maybe a signalling article and safeworking... etc

 

This would be a great example:

The Barrow Railhead on the MML

 

It's more of Community Spotlight thing (hence the thread title) than a Railways Spotlight that they're going for, I think.