Enough Is Enough!!!

You know, I never seen any game Broken like this you know.

 

Heard about the crashes on the latest patch, not sure if this applies to PC (Steam) though.
Launched it on Steam just now and obviously the game needed updating first. Initially the patch was around 1GB in size and then it grew to almost 10GB?!! About two whole routes in size.
Has this happened to anybody else?

 

It might just be an ECML thing because that's all I tried - but tbh, after 4 out of 4 crashes of some description or other I couldn't really be bothered stepping into the realms of the unknown with another tedious loading session for a 5th time to see if anything else worked...so maybe I was being a little hasty.
No worries though, I have TSW3 whenever I need a train fix and my copy of WRC should arrive today....just in time for my big "6" "0" birthday , so plenty of other things to keep me occupied.

 

It’s certainly not good or professional to put out a patch that wrecks the game. Frontier First Encounters, anyone? (Though that was broken from the beginning, the patch just made it worse). Luckily I’m still not touching TSW having found far too much to do in Snowrunner, SimRail and TS Classic. However the poor state of the core doesn’t bode well for future purchases, including Blackpool, if the game is now this fragile or changes are not being properly tested and evaluated before rolling out. Just not prepared to buy more expensive content for a title in such a poor state.

 

If anyone is surprised at this point, they aren't taking any notice.

 

They haven't taken any notice since Sam and Matt were doing what they did best...and even then they only acknowledged that things weren't as good as they could be without really doing anything about it.
Personally, I've never liked the idea of them releasing content in an 'it will do' condition and then relying on the community to point them in the right direction to put things right because not only does it ruin the novelty of playing something brand new when it's not in particularly good condition, it also puts the game in a bad place with those who don't visit the forums and therefore don't understand the inner workings of Dovetail Games.

Casual gamers will always judge TSW at point of purchase, so if they see it as a trashy, broken game from the get go then they're just going to walk away from it or get a refund without ever knowing about this bizarre 'fix it later' mentality....

Anyhows, it's of little consequence anyway because Dovetail Games are fully aware that for every person who chooses not to buy TSW4 there will be many other new users who will....and their levels of drop-off for TSW5 will once more be offset with the next batch of new users. And so forth!

 

Except "fix it later" doesn't happen either..

 

I was thinking more on the lines of the critical stuff which may prevent someone from playing the game to a reasonable degree of acceptability, but yeah, the rest is a complete lottery. Still, for as long as the likes of.......

"we're looking into it"
"I'll pass it onto [insert team]"
"it's on my hit list"
"I'll make a note of it"
"we think we've found a solution"
"it's going thru further testing"

...exist then people will always be fooled into believing that the 'fix it later' myth will one day become a reality.

 

Im waiting for the "weve heard your feedback" and "we know we need to do better", right before the "now lets move onto our next DLC offering" and the "some features might not be available right at launch but our "insert team name here" are working flat out on it" nonsense.. at that point I think I will actually headbutt my desk..

 

Yes, mine was - 3.7 GB one day and then 6.3 GB more the next day.

PC/Steam/Ryzen7/RTX3060

 

Happy Birthday! I was "6" "1" one month before TSW4 launched, so let's see next year haha

 

To think i was fully slated for saying all these issues would happen when the TSW4 announcement was made. [EDIT - Jan - Insulting]. Strange that

 

I don't see any at all.

 

Oh one popped up earlier in response to my comment in the November Roadmap thread. I was going to respond but CBA. Just put them on ignore.

 

You want to know the funny thing:

The law states we are entitled to content of satisfactory quality. A new £40 game released where the majority of content is broken and never fixed is not satisfactory quality.

 

I'm still getting over the fact this new suspension was sold as an amazing new feature of TSW4 – only to find out, post-launch, that they consider it to be in alpha test stage.

And rain in tunnels that they aren't promising will be fixed... I could cry at this stage, after caving in and buying it – just not sure I'd be crying with sadness or laughter.

 

Well, this is it for me, at least for a while.
Seems like there's no point waiting for DTG to fix Scoring 2.0, or release the promised TSW3 fixes, since they can't even get TSW4 to work without crashing. Anyway, I don't feel like playing the game as it is anymore.
I'll keep an eye on Announcements every now and then, but that's it for now. Goodbye!

 

I think this is where I stop buying into TSW, for now at least. The game is suffering badly under the grip of DTG and has a massive identity crisis.

All I can hope is that with the advent of more third parties and the editor being released, we will start seeing good quality content and we will finally be free from the DTG flywheel.

 

I think the major issues are core related, rather than route specific a lot of the time. That's the problem.
I'm sure JT's new route is going to be great, and high quality. But I do worry that general core issues might detract from it.

 

I bought TSW4 on Epic and took advantage of the pre-order discount. I played 01:59:23 before I decided it wasn't for me (it was unintentional, but I was very lucky that I managed to get a refund). By reading this thread, I guess this was the right decision.

So I re-installed TSW3 and I had a run on the Birmingham Cross-City Line, which is a somewhat decent(ish) DLC. It looks great, especially after installing some mods. But I only saw Class 323s along the way, which is just a huge immersion breaker...

So today I gave the TSC version a go, and man, it's so much better (especially if you have various AP packs, sky and track EPs, so it is fair to say that you have to invest in it):



This is a modern QD where only modern rolling stock spawns (I know, there is a Class 66 'Shed' appearing, a Class 170 etc.), but all these QDs have 2000/2018/2019 versions.

Does this have timetable mode? Of course not. But in QD, spawns are random, so you won't see the same consists again. The 2000 version is full of Class 56s, Class 91s etc. I personally don't miss timetable mode, as spawns are random. I can still pick my preferred season/time/weather, so no two runs are the same. Whilst in TSW, AI always arrives at the same time. Works like clockwork.

Now you are probably wondering why I shared this?

Because a 2009 game has more flexibility, variety and quality (I know, thanks to third-parties and the fact that this game came out more than 10 years ago). If you wanna build a route, you don't need to invest months in learning the so-called editor. Easy in TSC.

As far as concerned, TSW4 came out with the same kind of bugs as any other versions before (missing OHLE sections, missing speed signs/stopping boards, no working tail lights, AI driving with the wrong lights etc.). And here's a 2009 game that does the majority of this better.

The most laughable thing is the patch notes. You promised more frequent patches, and that is true. But it's filled with things like:

• Removed branding for "Snapple" on the hotdog cart collectable.
• Fixed an issue where the service name was missing from the mission summary.
  
• Fixed an issue where an NPC in the Training Center was headless.
  
• Updated menu thumbnails to use the key art of the route.

Bigger, game/immersion breaking issues are still not fixed. London Commuter's Class 375 still has gang doors wide open at the front.
NY Trenton's AI trains still run with doors open, without the correct headlight setting.

This is what the community wants, not "Snapple" branding stuff removal. They want you to fix that spaghetti code of yours that won't have a negative impact on other stuff when you fix one thing.

42 pages explain this quite well. Is this the future? No. The variety is laughable in a game that first came out in 2018. I just don't see this being the train simulator we all want/deserve. Negative commenters don't interest me, this is not a thread for sharing positive stuff - gotta accept that.

Rant over.

 

The branding being removed is probably because they don't have permission to use it.

 

Is this new update the one from a few days ago that broke stuff or is there another new update since 10/31? When I loaded TSW4 this morning there was no update trying to be installed.

 

I installed it for the first time ever a couple of days ago so I'm really not sure of the patch history because all I got was the most up to date versions of everything. As I said though, what I installed caused x2 CTD's (somewhere before the white Dovetail Games splash screen) and 2 game crashes (FPS absolutely collapsed when looking around the cab and the game just gave up on me) when trying to depart from Doncaster in the Azuma.
I have since been given a potential workaround from a friend but I've uninstalled the game so it's something I can't try just yet.

 

Which platform, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m on PC but haven’t attempted to fire it up since the latest cycle of patches and partial rollbacks.

 

Oops, sorry....I'm on Series X.

 

Couldn't agree more!

For the breeze - get yourself a desk fan

 

Very confusing on which update was which and what the changelog actually is. 10 GB or more of update, something must have improved something. I've been running some of my older routes on it now (Cathcart, East Coastway, West Somerset) and they seem better.

PC/Steam/Ryzen7/RTX3060

 

Image captured at the time of this message.

 

Considering TSW3 had a humble bundle that got lots of people into it. Those numbers aren't that bad comparatively. 4 seems to have a similar population to 3.

 

That and the fact TSW3 has had a year's head start so there are probably thousands more users propping up it's figure. That aside though, when you consider all the pre-launch momentum that DTG tried to generate for TSW4, those numbers have to be disappointing.

 

TSW 4 apparently was so disappointing to a lot of people that they started playing TSW 3 again. When TSW 3 launched, people actually switched to TSW 3 from TSW 2 without going back at any point. Now look at TSW 4 in the recent weeks, this timeframe is also where the ludicrous broken patches were released (with the latest one being reversed because it was breaking all mods despite the patch notes saying "it will improve mod compatibility and support"), which also BROKE WORKING THINGS for some people. By the looks of it, it made people switch back to TSW 3 again, so many that it outnumbered TSW 4 in active players.

 

TSW4 is going so well that today it was discounted by 35% on xbox.

I bet the loss of gamepass is going to hurt them a lot in terms of players buying DLC.

 

I was very much on the fence about getting TSW4. But after seeing all the issues you guys reported I'm glad I didn't.
TSW3 was barely a year old when 4 was announced and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like TSW3 had so much more juice left for it to be abandoned so quickly. On the other hand, my favourite route SEHS is in perfect condition on 3 for me and I'm hesitant to let TSW4 spit all over it.

So unless DTG wakes up and starts improving, I'm keeping my wallet firmly closed.

 

Honestly, I only bought it because my autistic (yes seriously) brain wants a half-way good simulation with good graphics and half-way user-friendly sandboxy world (Sandbox and Free Roam were mostly the reason I bought it, before that I used God Mode extensively) with trains, I love Zusi but it's not user friendly and time consuming if you want to create your own stuff, so yeah. I do have fun in this game, but my software developer side is going insane on the state of the game and the handling of it's developers. Like seriously this isn't even funny or acceptable anymore. Even from a general view this is just disappointing and infuriating how they treat their customers - which aren't typical consumers but more people with their main hobbies and interests in rail/trains/public transit, who mostly have no other choice other than to buy and try to ignore and excuse the actual issues.

 

My thought process FWIW;

1) I was very sceptical about TSW4 and the need for it. Still am. Also very critical of it before release
2) I bought it to bring forward the mods I’ve made previously and to get the JT route
3) TSW4 is actually ok. It has all the issues TSW3 had and has brought some new ones for good measure but putting that to one side, it is better than TSW3. Thus far the post-release patches have been hugely disappointing, fixing not much whilst glaring errors go untouched (ECML signalling here’s looking at you)

However, the truth is DTG win, because they’ve effectively got 500 of the 1000 people playing TSW3/4 in that moment captured above to buy the same game twice.

Winner winner chicken dinner etc. Makes business sense but maybe a bit morally sketchy if you ask me.

 

I want to thank wholeheartedly all you paying beta-testers for your efforts. Your guidance is most appreciated. This ain´t sarcasm, I really mean it.

Right now I´m convinced that DTG completely lost control over their developments. I mean, patches that break more than they fix and wrong build releases are nothing new, but patches that do exactly the contrary from what has been announced are quite a new dimension.

Who knows, history sometimes repeats itself. I bought TSW3 reluctantly because of NID and it works so so. But right now I can´t see why I would want new and improved headaches on my console. This should be fun, not a source of anger.

 

Not if the bulk of those TSW3 players paid £12 for it like what I did for the DX Edition....or they were just preexisting players who bought some cheap addons during the various Steam sales. Sure, it might be money for old rope but it's hardly anything to write home about.

To put things into a little more context, I was scrolling down the Steam 'how many were playing various games' list and I forget the exact numbers but at that time more people were playing Farming Sim 17 (as well as a host of other games that I'd never heard of) than were playing TSW4 so that does speak volumes about the game as a whole.
Winner winner? Well, I guess if Dovetail's intentions were to place the 'new' game's interest levels on a par with a six year old (and twice replaced) farming simulator then hurrah...let's blow up some balloons and get granny dancing to Agadoo

 

Farming simulator is actually much more main stream than Train Simulator is though. It's got multiplayer and co op, it has campaign features and progression.

 

If the JT route is any good then I may get TSW4 when it's on sale for a good price, or if there's a standalone 'starter pack' with just the JT route. The only other route on PC I want but don't have is the Niddertalbahn, which I can play in TSW3. I have pretty much everything else pre-TSW3 on my PS4, soon to be PS5.

 

...maybe, but we all know that FS19 is the place to be . Besides, the whole host of other weird and obscure titles hanging around the TSW figure most definitely didn't involve ploughing fields

 

I can't see myself ever paying for anything TSW again after trying out some of the more well known competitor products. Certainly while the current regime is in place anyway. I would say its amateur hour but amateurs actually do it better than DTG atm..

 

Same. Saw the preview video for the JT route and it looks like finally a competent developer for the franchise. Though I am not really interested in british stuff, but if the route ends up being good, then just might get it.

In a similar boat myself. I am playing Hmmsim Metro instead, much better visuals and immersion than TSW, even despite lacking many features. No 24h timetable, weather or passengers yet, but still, it just feels great. Visuals are good, lighting is better, good sounds and passenger announcements and a great variety of rolling stock included.
An indie developer is also making a game called Running Train in EU5 and it just looks amazing. Hopefully it will release at some point, because the driving also looks pretty nice judging by demo videos.

Of course, TSW is still leading gameplay wise with the 24 hour timetable, being able to walk around, passengers and implemented weather. But the complete package is just... not there? They can't recreate the proper feeling most of the time and everything feels unfinished, for quite a high price...

 

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Pretty crazy, they came back with TSW 3? They have just disputed that TSW 4 is a catastrophe.

 

Is that on Steam? I thought TSW3 had been pulled from sale when TSW4 released. What the heck?

 

Yes, TSW 3 was removed from all platforms (EpicGames / Microsoft / Steam) after the release of TSW 4, a friend and I were checking a possible bug on Steam, when suddenly TSW 3 appeared to buy with this super promotion.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1944790/Train_Sim_World_3/

=====

I just checked at Microsoft, the Standard Edition version is also on sale again, but at normal price.

https://www.xbox.com/games/store/train-sim-world-3-standard-edition/

 

Its a no brainer for those that have not yet upgraded from TSW2, or went straight to TSW4.
4 routes for £6

Whether we like the methods or principles, & whatever your opinion is of DTG, the business model ensures that at some point, you can upgrade versions for very little money.

Perhaps this is a way to hammer the lid shut on the TSW2 coffin.

Next year, rinse and repeat. No publisher should ever be using resources to work on 2 "versions" of the game, never mind 3. (Plus console builds)

 

Are we sure that isn't just an error. Can't think why DTG would want people to purchase an obsolete game.

 

Probably cuz it is getting preservation updates so makes sense to put it on sale. But it's still cheap

 

I must admit I was one of these ... when I ran into something broken in TSW4 I went straight back to 3 where it works. I didn't buy TSW4 for a month after release, waiting to see reports and if it looked promising. I'm sort of still waiting, although TSW4 seems better after the latest updates.

PC/Steam/Ryzen7/RTX3060