Dtgs Continued Failure Of Communication.

Some people seem to think a game development studio should act like a TV station, broadcasting 24/7 what they do, why they do, when they do what, explaining every bit of the work WHILE they do it. That's not what should happen or will happen. Developers can do the work or they can tell about the work, not both without losing time and money. If there is something to tell, they will tell you. No idea what some people really expect from a game studio other than being able to buy their games. DTG does way more communication than most other big studios. Lots of games i play, which are way "bigger" than TSW, i never heard anything from the studios other than "buy our game, now".

 

Horses for course. The team behind Derail Valley have been providing open and transparent progress updates on their Facebook page, culminating in release of their simulator version yesterday.

The reason most of us want to hear more from DTG is twofold. Firstly frustration at long standing bugs which never seem to get addressed, or ignored. But mainly because most of us here are enthusiastic about the product and eager for more. That’s why it can generate anticipation and indeed a bit of frustration at, for example, what the Just Trains forthcoming route and train is. We want to be put out of our misery at what’s being lined up for the summer. Is it TSW4? Are we getting three ace new routes to try and if so what are they? I know it’s best not to announce things too early lest they turn to vapourware, but equally don’t keep us eagerly waiting too long.

 

Back in May we were promised a mini roadmap mid of the month.

Since then the subject has been cancelled

 

In the early days pre-Sam there was a lot less communication than there was post-Sam. Sam definitely changed the mentality.

Now JD, Alex, Jan and Matt regularly appear, but I imagine reading these forums isn't always the most pleasant of experiences.

 

I don't care about communication.
I care about when bugs are fixed.

 

Just seeing a little more communication in the feedback and other threads would be great just to say okay we've seen this or just putting the list of issues together. Telling us if something is too much to realistically see in a patch for whatever reason similar to what Janes been doing (although I know you can't provide that level of interaction). I know you cant reply to every thread all of the time but it feels like some important things can be lost in threads.

For example when the ROG 37 came out myself and others instantly put posts in a feedback/official thread saying the journey was missing and I did a ticket report and a few reviews but never got anything back on those until a long while later where someone else made a forum post and it was instantly queued for release after Matt saw it.

I don't expect the world from you guys and I know the forum is a rough place sometimes it just feels like sometimes big things are missed

 

I notice Jan has been doing a bit in the Technical Report forum which is helpful. However often reports are made and there is no clear indication they have been seen. Bug/fault tracker has been mentioned before and this would go some way to helping. Then there’s the operational errors or glitches like I reported this morning with no brake vehicle on the BCC Railtour consists. Things like this are just frustrating because surely it is a couple of minutes work to go in there and swap one of the TSO’s for a BSO or BG and add it to the next patch. And if it’s not that easy - tell us. Not like I’m (this time!!) asking for a buffet car!

 

Fair enough my friend
I think we are all on the same side

 

Communication is definitely substandard. Reduced Roadmaps, reduced livestreams. Inform people of updates. The lates update was only acknowledged a day afer release. Be honest with people. Keep us up to date. No matter how small. Example : Update to MML. We were lead to believe this would be released by now. Having found out this isn't the case has actually angered me. SHG have benn communicative. Dtg have been very silent

Tldr:

More consistent Roadmap
Announcement of incoming updates
More up to date info

 

Rubbish, sorry JD but i am sick of the lies. I paid £30 for rush hour London commute. This was over a year ago. What the hell is going on? I'm actually looking at taking dtg to a small claims court. Rush hour is a con.

 

Bit extreme, isn't it?
And as you have said, you paid £30 for it. Just going to give my two cents and say that you decided to purchase the route, no one forced you to.

 

Roadmaps were reduced because most of the time, there was nothing substantial in each update so all dtg could do is to repeat the same thing over and over again. There are periods where it'll take a while to really talk about something juicy. Which is why it was made monthly instead of every 2 weeks i think. Even monthly roadmaps may not have much going on compared to the previous month.

 

A lie of what. Jd spoke the truth. Dtg explained during the preview stream the reason why rush hour passengers is a thing. They never lied about it. They communicated it instead of ignoring it completely

 

Another thing, those streams are pretty much useless. It is extremely rare to see an actual question get answered, it's usually the most dense ones getting answered like "How much is it", "How long is the route" and "Is that a Class 323", y'know easily searchable information

 

I paid £30 for content that still does not exist. It was called rush hour. Main focus was increased passengers. Instead we got reduced passengers. You think my comment was extreme? Given the money paid, and lack of deliverance,I'd say its fair

 

But they haven't lied about the reason why the rush hour passengers haven't been added to Bml yet.

 

I think he's complaining about there being no rush hour passengers. On BML. Which is already stretched to its limits.

 

Rush Hour was always a bit of a misnomer anyway. To be “Rush Hour” the trains would have to be so packed you would struggle to find a doorway space let alone a seat. People would be six deep lining the platform edge.

I certainly don’t think it’s worth having a whiteout over and as for suing, well good luck with getting laughed out of court. Rush Hour passengers is one element of the game. The primary function is to drive simulated trains from London to Brighton and back, which it does remarkably well with Joe’s most excellent timetable and since fixes to the AI and signalling routines. Any sane court in the land would adjudicate you have had your £25 or £30 out of it and send you off with a chiding, plus a bill for wasting their time.

 

Is this a real thread or have I just entered a dystopian world?

They explained on the preview stream about the rush hour passengers. BML is one of the most popular routes in the sim so good luck with that. I remember an infamous former forum member threatening the same (not regarding BML or rush hour passengers) and wriggled out of it when some of their coterie were pushing them to do it!

As for MML, JD has posted quite a few times why the update to the borked update is delayed so they can hardly be accused of lack of communication on that front

 

A dystopian world, I'm afraid.

 

I thought the BML already had rush hour passengers didn't realise it didn't either way the route is great one of my favourites

 

I just sparked it up for a run on the PS5 and yes, while the Electrostar is not my favourite drive of the game (well it’s better than a Dosto), this is the most complete end to end UK route we have in the game, certainly the longest.

 

Hence why along with SEHS it is my favourite route.

 

There are barely any passengers on North Transpennine, I'm not talking about at the countryside stations, I'm talking about Leeds, Huddersfield and Manchester Victoria, the trains are all empty. And hearing that nothing is planned to sort it out is actually upsetting. I imagine it's Similar on other routes as well (not including London Commuter where everyone gets off at Gatwick).

 

NTP badly needs a refresh. Am sure many would purchase some new DLC for it also to make it worth while. Class 25, 56 or 37/0 would fit the bill or another DMU type. 108 or 104 would be spot on.

 

Not to mention the fact it does nothing but crash!

 

And the Door issue as well with units rear doors being stuck open.

 

Here's my take, Back when Sam and others were with DTG there would be frequent communication and banter with forum members, we'd be given updates even if it was news we didn't want to hear. But these days there is barely anything, days or weeks can go by with barely any communication except "We do communicate but only when we want", others have said that to see updates coming through with no info is worrying as often they end up breaking things, so yes Communication on that front is needed even if it's gobbledegook, just assure us. Ever since Rush hour was released and ballsed up the game by removing DLCs for two weeks communication has been poor. For example, GWE HST livery editor has been on the roadmap since November, why isn't it out yet? Give us news about that. Remove Brighton Mainline from roadmap as it's clear you've zero interest in doing anything else. Don't keep it at the red light section. Delaying MML updates has annoyed the users and hasn't been well received especially because it's been delayed because of a mess up by DTG with SEHS (And yes the reason more people play that is because it's been out longer and is a bigger route, stop being patronising.). Stop treating us like idiots.

 

I would say the problem with SEHS was a more urgent fix than the MML one, which they have explained is being tested from what I recall.

 

I do feel like the nature of communication has changed. To me, there were two major turning points. The first was the uproar over the DRA branch lines. Although this did result in one of the lines being saved, since then I would say DTG has gradually pulled back on providing information on new DLCs until just before release. The other turning point was the disastrous TSW3 training center preview by Sam, with someone else I can't remember right now, maybe it was Alex. It was so stuttery and just ridiculous. I think this was one of the last times Sam really presented anything and was not surprised when he eventually left.

So now we get less frequent and more tightly controlled streams from DTG, plus more of a reliance on ambassadors. The articles are also different. Just look at the article that was supposed to provide information for NYT (I wrote about this extensively in the North America mega thread). Poor communication was as much of a problem with NYT as anything else. I would say that this probably represented the nadir and that articles have generally improved since then.

To be fair, a lot of this is just fan service anyway. Although you would want some communication to keep your dedicated players interested, I'm sure there would still be at least some sales without having streaming or forums at all. I imagine DTG wants to be at the intersection of maximum hype and minimal criticism. And, as previously mentioned, they do allow pretty much anything on this forum. I do think the opaqueness of TSW in general helps here as the forum provides some much important gameplay and background information, mostly provided by the players. This makes it difficult to do anything about the forums now, even if DTG wanted to.

For me, it means less feedback given but more in the circumstances where I feel it very necessary, such as save game. On the other hand, I have also not bought anything made for TSW3 except the Acela. To bring it back to the OP, does all this represent a failure of communication? Perhaps. It would depend on what the intentions were in the first place.

 

Sam didn't leave because tsw3 was released

 

To be a little more clear, my assertion is that Sam participated in a poor stream, was not heard from again, and is now gone. Not to say that Sam was part of the problem; indeed, perhaps to suggest that where Sam was with communication and where DTG was (and is) were not the same. Did he feel like he was unable to communicate as he wanted to? To my knowledge there was no explicit reason given for the separation. I also can't recall Sam later addressing how bad that particular stream was, but interestingly enough Matt did speak about it and how things would be improved going forward. All conjecture, for sure, but the fact remains that Sam is no longer here and several of us have noted some deficiencies in communication.

I did not mean to imply that Sam left because of the simple fact of the release of TSW3, certainly.

 

He left the community management job and the streams quite a long time before he left the company. He stopped being community manager because JD took over and he moved to a creative director type of role, which presumably fit his seniority and experience better. His departure happened months later.

 

The days of streams with Matt, Sam, Natalie and Adam will never be seen again. That was quality - but then things have become quite a bit more complicated since then.

 

u do understand that its better for them to put there focus on building the game make it better then coming along and livestreaming all the time u do know there is you tubers and twitch channels that do livestreams u know like The British Ace (Joe) , DadRail , TinTin , UK Sim and for course Myself Australia Worldwide Gaming & Entertainment (You Tube) but i do have to say this ever Since Sam left full time from doing streams its slow died to the point of them doing less livestreams and also not been as fun i miss them days as well the 4 up's and that but hey thats life just as long as they start doing better routes and my vote is on longer routes then ill be happy just as long as we get ECML/WCML Within the next 12 months with ECML South having Class 800 LNER ill be happy

 

Again, i've paid for content i still havent recieved. I havent gotten what was advertised. dtg lied when the advertised and sold rush hour. In uk thats illegal under ASA. You cannot advertise and sell a product when said product does contain what was advertised

 

Well, you haven't leaked anything in a while so that's one thing you can start with...

We're here complaining & frowning because we love TSW for what it offers & DTG for the passion they put into this product.
Our expression might feel a little direct at times but be assured that none of the criticism is directed personally toward any of you guys.

 

Mate I get that you're upset that Bml still doesn't have it's rush hour passengers, but Dtg have provided (what I think at least) is a good explanation as to why.

Besides they are many games out there right now that are far worse for not including features that were promised and I don't mean delayed while awaiting a optimisation pass like Bml is, I mean just cancelled altogether.

For example, Overwatch 2 pve content, Halo Infinite slit screen co-op etc.

And as others have already said, if you take Dtg to court the only likely outcome is that your case would be thrown out and you would probably be paying the courts legal fees.

 

LC passengers is the least of TSW problems. We still got DLC which is 50% unplayable

 

If you're that unhappy with it, then simply don't play it.
At least DTG gave reasons as to why there are no rush hour passengers on BML. Not giving a reason is more of a false advertising.

 

It's got passengers and trains and it's very busy with those. My issue is lack of editors and as such we are stuck with what only works commercially in DTGs scope. That's seriously suppressed TSW and its appeal. How many more services are they going to run without brake vans or signals at red when the guard gives the right away.

 

I remember when Sam was the voice of DTG. Things got done and done well. I've been watching the live streams since the game first released in 2018 and things and communication has steadily got worse since Sam left the company. I'm still waiting for the updates to be released for older routes from Adams preservation crew dating back from TSW2.

 

No they haven't. If anything life should be simpler now than before, mainly because we've got several community managers and directors and Matt is exec producer when before he wasn't so if anything it should be EASIER now than it was before

For me this is pretty simple.
The communication we have now is basically limited to one stream per month, and that's "the roadmap stream". Unfortunately this has turned into the "what's the next release" stream, whereas before we had some input from Adam (what's being fixed on old content), Matt (What's coming up, being done generally, wider information on the game, the company etc) and then the argumentative host (Sam and latterly Nat)
Now we have a stream where nobody seems to know anything of substance, and the usual answers are "We'll have to go and ask" and then it doesn't actually get fed back to us in any meaningful format.
The "mid month minor update stream" was something I would have actually listened to with interest, and hopefully it wouldn't be another "this is the next DLC release" thing.
Players WANT updates to passenger behaviour
Players WANT dioramas showing lineside works, various station passenger interactions etc
Players WANT different poster options or train liveries, or timetable revisions
But we don't know if this is what DTG are doing because there's one 90 minute window a month to get this information out there.

Even how new DLC are being introduced has seriously changed. I once suggested that creator content be used to hype the release, but now it's turned into that being the ONLY content bar one pre-release stream which usually has some issues in lagging, display, "Is this the release version?" and so on.
Even the ten second "short" video format would be a good thing for DTG to adopt if only to show something akin to the ten-in-ten that you've been doing recently

Communication from DTG has drawn back significantly since the team had Matt, Adam, Sam and Nat on board and I understand that video creation is a thing that takes planning, time and personnel (referring to a post from last week)
BUT
As a gaming company where interaction with players can and maybe should form a large part of the interaction with that base, and where you obviously have the facilities surely one video a week or maybe two a month which deal with upcoming new releases AND fixes which are upcoming (even if they're not "player facing") would keep people involved, because right now I don't see that interaction, which is a shame

 

Sadly JD has already said that there is nothing in the pipeline for passengers
BTW 100.% agree with your post

 

Can I add antony.henley to this list of YouTube channels?

 

Absolutely. He's a great person on YouTube and twitch. Goes by Hentis Rail

 

I will have a go at this as I think there is plenty of scope here. We don't need to go back to Feb 21, I just went back to Feb 22, and even since then things are a lot quieter.

Roadmaps - have halved in frequency.
Release previews - we used to have 2 of these per route, now only 1 right before release.
Release day streams - now left to the youtubers
Let's plays - generally abandoned unless there is a specific event on
Scenario planner and livery designer - Cat has taken the livery part on but only occasionally and not much seen of the scenario designer streams
4 up challenges - again hardly ever seen - perhaps Sam was the one who knew how to sync the streams
Pub quizzes - JD you did these, but not recently.

Now what I want to point out, over and above this list is something very important. Each of these were an opportunity for engagement, chatting, answering questions, giving insights etc. There was a ton of information that passed between the company and its customers during these streams, not all of it scripted. Indeed the less scripted ones were often the best! Each fewer stream is one less opportunity for this to take place. DTG may have at times been burned by some of these, but I think the benefits generally outweighed the costs.

 

We also got an example of where communication could be improved in the Class 700 preview thread, where the door was quickly slammed on the unit appearing as a layer on BML with or without a new timetable. That’s not the way to sell a product particularly to those who might be sitting on the fence as regards buying just for SEHS. An explanation as to why would go a long way to helping and all this “no plans” business smacks of truculence. No plan… make a plan and communicate your intentions to the customers. Otherwise one cannot help but get an impression that things are just a bit too laid back in the commercial planning department.

 

False. DTG clearly stated, before release, that Rush Hour passengers were not implemented on BML.