There’s so much that needs sorting that we could do with some dedication to the game and the various issues that still plague it. I’m getting very resentful over new routes. Rather than waiting in anticipation for them I’m viewing them cynically and I’m not cynical by nature. You can’t just make and forget. New York Trenton is still broken. Where’s the time and dedication to that? Why am I still getting major shadow pop in on routes on both high end pc and Xbox series x, the most powerful console on the market? Why are bridges and building popping into the scenery not far from my train? why arnt the roads and traffic fixed? I am happy to support a sim that’s thinking about the customers and tsw has the potential to be so much better than it is, I’m getting more and more fed up with roadmaps and releases. Midland mainline was promised fixes a while back. The engagement has stopped seemingly across the board between devs and the people who keep them in work. Please, let’s start looking at getting these things finally sorted so we can play together hat we bought and enjoy them like they were first envisioned.
Waiting for the typical replies to a reasonable request from a frustrated customer: - Devs don't work for free - Devs gotta eat! - Things are being worked on, please be patient (indefinite timeframe) - Open a ticket for your issues - Post your issues to the technical support forum etc. etc. etc.
Well if the quality of forthcoming routes and their accompanying train(s) is to the standard of Maintalbahn, then not many people are going to be buying them anyway. The game definitely needs the pause that was originally promised last year but instead morphed into buying TSW(3) all over again. They also need to resurrect the preservation crew PDQ to get to grips with all the residual issues.
Not a great image at all for DTG that they used what people were after as a cover to mask attention being moved to a new iteration (which lasted a year)
Don't ask for that! The last two times they said they are taking a content break to focus on fixes, they instead ended up re-releasing the game in both occasions. So the moment they announce they are working on fixes, you can know for sure TSW5 is on the way.
The fact that has to be faced is that there is no way on earth DTG are just going to stop making routes and go back and fix all of our quibbles, and you can't really blame them for that as after all they are a business. However what must be ensured is that their route quality going on from now improves and doesn't add more wood onto the bonfire because it will just get harder and harder to control and maintain, which will also have to be done in conjunction with releasing DLC (ex-preservation crew) and hopefully overtime we'll have good quality new routes, with old routes having improvements done to them. It may also be possible with the increasing number of 3rd parties making routes and locos to have a handful of two or three week spells working on the big major problems. I will warn that you that I have been asleep for an hour or so and should still be now, so I may still be in a dreamy state with what I said above!
I understand that and I understand that they need to keep interest ongoing, but how about cutting back the releases to one or two until stuff gets back on an even Kiel? I only bought Branches because of the exceptional time and craft that went into the route, otherwise I wouldn't be parting with anything. I actually love the ICE, but I cant play it because the game cant actually keep up with its speed, so you get this heavy lifting of the engine desperately trying to load in assets in front of the train, not to mention I'm still getting stutters across routes. I could deal with the stutter if the asset loading was much smoother and less noticeable.
And unlikely ever to get it fixed. Sadly they're a shovelware company with an overly enthusiastic marketing budget.
I would much rather the game have more features and bug fixes rather than 2 new routes that will be riddled with bugs. [Removed - Alex: Highly Insensitive] How did they miss such obvious problems like 801 numbering, and volume its absurd. They make youtube videos rather than actually reporting back to DTG
The testing team aren't at fault. It's whoever decides to release the route in its current state who are the problem.
DTG has released 8 routes in 2023 (2 German, 3 UK, 2 US, 1 Austrian). Also 4 loco add-ons along with 4 other things that look like they took a day at most to make. Imagine how much more time could’ve been out into their releases if they made just half of these! It’s not like anyone was begging for the Maintalbahn or the Glossop Line. While I’m not a businessman for sure, I could see these less frequent releases making it so a new DTG route feels like a bigger deal rather than “oh wow, another new route”. All that extra time gained from making 4 less routes can be used to make their new products of a higher quality than normal, and would also provide more time to actually act like they care about their older products. Like come on now, 8 routes a year? No wonder nearly every single thing they’ve released this year has felt rushed. No wonder they haven’t had the time to fix all of their broken content.
it’s ironic aswell as feedback like what’s being said in this thread is all about what people are wanting to see to keep the franchise alive which does the feedings and payings, rather than watch what could be a brilliant franchise fall flat. Edit: developers seem to pick up on what sells and what doesn’t, it’s funny how they always miss the part that half quality will fail to find customers.
That’s exactly what much of the criticism on these forums are: helpful information offered by people who care. These are the customers, it would be wise to put this voluminous feedback to good use for the betterment of the product and the long-term viability of the franchise. Ignoring customers is a great way to wipe out any enterprise needlessly.
Proposition: If instead DTG put out just 5 routes, but of the quality of Blackpool and Niddertalbahn, they would make at least as much revenue if not more.
Yes, but those two routes probably took most of a year each from concept to launch. Even with DTG's greater resources, do you think they could do 5 routes a year with the scenic quality, trains and gameplay of Blackpool Branches without significantly increasing staffing, dev time, cost and probably pricing? And remember DTG has to cover at least 3 railway systems, not just the UK like JT or Germany like TSG. It's asking a lot when you consider that a company of DTG's size needs to sell new product pretty consistently throughout the year to cover overhead, salaries and marketing. There's no question of pausing or slowing down new product in order to make fewer higher quality routes. They have to churn out as many projects as they can, so we get lots of shortish A to B, single emu routes and debacles like NYT when they try something more ambitious without being able to devote the necessary time and resources to it. They don't have the luxury of time that small studios seem to have. None of this means we should stop complaining when DTG routes fail to meet our expectations of course. After all, that's what consumers are supposed to do.
You're also forgetting amongst all that they released a big patch maskerading as a new game with all the accompanying marketing hooplah.
This game is in DESPERATE need of a solid, fundamental core update (and not one that’s paid either) of the like SimRail has just had. We’ve just had a paid ‘upgrade’ to TSW and you have to ask, where exactly is the upgrade? UI, sound, lighting, performance (DX12, DLSS, FSR) etc need some sustained work and improvement. Maintalbahn just looks like another blah route, other than ‘it’s a different train in a different place’ what does it have going for it? It’s just the same old blah repeated over and over again. Same crappy lighting, same copy and paste scenery (for example, look at the variety of trees on Niddertalbahn vs the trees on all DTG routes), same linear and repetitive gameplay etc. I wonder whether or not there will ever be a day that this game realises the potential it has, or is it forever consigned to simply going around in circles in this bin of mediocrity. The one bonus of SimRail is that it’s mere existence means TSW will lose players, and sadly the one thing the type of management that DTG seem to have understand is when it hurts the bottom line. Long live SimRail.
I mean, I felt it rather sums TSW up that during the Maintalbahn stream they stopped at a station and switched to an outside camera, flying around a bit to look at the scenery. The first thing they focussed on was passengers coming off the train and inevitably they were totally glitched. They were glitching through each other, not moving etc. A total mess. Inevitably there was zero mention of it as the camera quickly panned away and where does it go? Into the car park to highlight a pink van. Cue lots of laughs, ‘ooh, I wonder who put that in’ etc. Of course, and completely inevitably, there was also zero mention of the state of the lighting, that looks like an 80's TV set right before it blew up and needed sending for repair. [Removed - Alex: Highly Insensitive] Given we’re being asked to pay £30 a go for this stuff, many more of us are concerned about the glitching passengers (which has been broken for years) rather than the colour of a van. Seriously, where is the oversight and management of this product?! It’s like this ‘Winter Core Update’ that is actually just fixing the broken features introduced in TSW4 rather than actually fixing anything in the core itself. You know, the stuff that has been crying out to be sorted out for years. That's obviously in the 'too difficult' pile. The difference between watching the Just Trains stream where the devs were full of enthusiasm, ‘look at this cool thing we did, look how many liveries are included etc’ and a DTG stream ‘look everyone, we coloured this van Pink’ was very stark to me.
I wonder how much more threads like this need to be created to finally cause a change to Dovetail Games' and Focus' mindset. I mean there is at least one new thread complaining about their business strategy, behavior and in the end themselves raised every 3 or 4 days. In the livestreams, they always say they're interested about our feedback. But raising just a bit too critical Feedback is and keeps notorously ignored. Why should we take the time then over and over again to participate and share it? On the long term, this doesn’t make sense for me. Our words seem to have no power to conquer in this endless fight without a single sign of success but there is one tool of us which has. Our money. Just don't buy the new overpriced low-quality content over and over again just for the sake of collecting it or getting a new train. Buy older DLCs if you don't have them yet and you find them to have an appropriate level of quality which justifies at least a good percentage of the price tag (on sale). The sales are the only force of us left which can make a change. If you buy each new low-quality DLC, they for sure won't stop anything in their behavior and just keep smiling at these rage threads. Save your time by saving your money. And spent it only for something what it's worth. If you want to throw your cash at something, there is so much more games and DLC content out there, with a good and fair(!) relation of price to quality. No need to empty your bank account for game developers who just don't get any clue for what we're actually paying them.
Quite a few times it does feel like the whole thing is marketed towards children. I just watched a video of the new Arosa aggregates pack from one of the ambassadors and through the whole thing he was like "this is actually quite scary", "let's hope we don't crash" and "wish us luck". Like, my man, you are playing a train simulator. You are merely transporting 2 freight cars for 800 meters at 30 km/h...
Nothing gets paused, there is plenty of time to do things the right way. DTG is capable to produce Routes like "Preston Blackpool" from just trains, they simply just dont want. DTG can be lucky to have Matt and a good crew, but i will give their management a huge slap into their face with my money, which 1) will only be spent on heavy sales, and 2) is thought for Devs which go the extra mile big time. Seems they struggle to see what can make a dlc popular. it has been discussed alot, but "average usual minium" its for sure not. Why not a new freight wagon as extra in the maintalbahn dlc? Nobody would have expected that.
This has been implied and reneged upon at least twice by DTG now, it seems unlikely that it will ever happen. TSW is beginning to feel a bit like Tetsuo's body at the end of Akira.
After playing nothing but Blackpool Branches for the last week, I can get behind this statement. JT have knocked everyone out of the park with their first release. I think I'd much rather DTG bring out one or two routes for each of the main three countries per year, that are to the standard of Blackpool Branches. After a route releases, they could focus on filling in the new route with additional loco/DMU/EMU packs, and patching any issues alongside these follow up stock DLC packs. You wouldn't be losing too much in terms of releases, when you consider third parties will be working on their own content too. Though I think minimum quality standards should be put in place, especially where Rivet are concerned. Community interaction seems to have taken a bit of a nose-dive in the past year, I personally miss the days when Sam took charge. He was straight with everyone, and not afraid to ask the questions that needed asking. The roadmap also felt more like an actual behind-the-scenes peek back then, they just feel like a corporate sales pitch now. Generally, the community doesn't have the same feeling that it did in the TSW2 days, I don't even watch the livestreams anymore. I've not tried SimRail since the early demo, so can't make a comment there. They'll need to get some UK content out before I consider a purchase.
Sorry in advance for the long post! I see a big problem at the moment. DTG can’t pause DLC production because they need to keep in business. Along come TSG and Just Trains both taking DLC to the next level. Both run on TSW4 which goes to show what can be done with the underlying engine. So what’s the problem? DTG keep producing mediocre DLC full of issues. Sooner or later it’s likely that people will actually stop buying it. What happens to TSW then? If people aren’t buying DLC, how are DTG going to fund the base game? In my opinion they need to up their game considerably, before it’s too late. It’s no good having great 3rd party routes if there is no game to run them on. I already reached a milestone last week. I‘d pre ordered Maintalbahn (I have every German route) and was looking forward to it. Then I watched the stream and realised I just didn’t rate it. There was little to no enthusiasm from the presenters, the two languages didn’t help even though I understand both. I refunded my pre order as I can already tell I‘m not going to enjoy it. The preview is meant to be a showcase not a turn off. So I don’t want to see DTG to stop DLC releases. I want them to release something they are actually proud of that will make people want to buy it and ensure the future of the game. As for existing bugs, I‘ve given up. There are important bugs now from TSW2 that have survived into TSW4 without being touched in 3. There has been no commitment to actually fix them. My suggestion to DTG. Go through your list of bugs. Pick 10 that the community are asking for then report progress on the top 10 in the roadmap. Maybe we‘ll see them actually making progress - and if not, it further confirms there is something wrong.
it’s a slow down what’s needed, not a full stop, they ain’t giving their own teams enough time to do a route. they seem to be doing what isn’t realistically sustainable. I haven’t seen the stream as I was busy with something but feedback from others suggested I ain’t missing much. Can’t blame lack of enthusiasm if they struggle to find something to be enthusiastic about. Keeps going they will have a ton of dlc with not enough customers. Then those who were interested in TSW get to read about how it’s the product not being economically viable to maintain for the reason of its collapse rather than what is actually being done. they have time to change this now, keep going and that time will dwindle. Not to mention they will cause more problems for themselves with bugs, can’t expect rushed out content to reduce that, the routes what have not been rushed have considerably less game breaking issues to the point it’s only a few and not easy to find. Those are the route where people can say bugs can happen, can’t say that for the rushed routes.
Agreed. I'm really exhausted from discovering new bugs, testing, reporting, waiting, asking, hoping and being disappointed - the DTG cycle. The JT route is great, but I'm now fully into SimRail which is a much more professionally done sim on a higher quality level, with tons of stuff to do already in the Early Access release. For the next time, my wallet is closed for DTG, I've got enough to keep me happy for a long time. No need for new DLC, it's become more of an addiction than a real need, so time to stop it. It's me taking a break now
The time is past; it was 2021 when TSW2 reached its peak on Steam and I presume on console as well (no data on consoles so it's just a guess). There was positivity at that time, a Preservation Crew who worked long and hard but their fixes were never finally applied; new Routes were more carefully crafted and rolled out; the streams were fun as well as informative; and most of all that potential was seen, instead of the sad direction things have gone in now. I guess we can't go back; but maybe at least some lessons could be taken from that time.
I agree totally Robert, I was very fed up, and only bought TSW4 for the ECML Route which I was interested in. Most of my time is still spent in TSW3, which has potential if the fixes ever got applied (which I don't believe they will however). EDIT: I must eat my words, I guess - well done on TSW3 updates. The "Short Window" has opened!
I think an interesting thing to keep in mind when discussing the quality of DLC is the high likelihood that JT’s Blackpool route won’t actually sell significantly more copies than any other route DLC. The people who have bought it may be happier with it than they are with other routes but the quality is unlikely to be reflected in extra income from the DLC for the extra effort put in. That’s how DTG see it too. DTG have never paused making content and are unlikely ever to do so. Their model works for them and unless more people suddenly start buying lots of content then their budgets for route building, fixing up old content and core improvements will stay the same. Producing new content is always going to be top priority.
Let's suppose that were true, it might not be reflected in extra income for Just Trains, but it might be reflected in less income for DTG now and in the future because we just hit a spot where excuses aren't acceptable anymore since there is a clear evidence that things can be done differently. Also I doubt that Maintalbahn will really sell the same as BPO or SEHS for example. Yeah, that's what I said. But exactly this is the problem. Forgetting and abandon overpriced DLCs, leaving them unfixed, and putting promises behind a paywall isn't a petty offense and good behavior either. Plus, we actually even can see a drop in quality from TSW3 with Linke Rheinstrecke and Niddertalbahn to TSW4 now with Maintalbahn. As many people said in this post (including myself), making new routes is not the problem. Rushing out half-hearted content and feel no shame selling it for the full list price is.
Having just watched a cab ride video of Manchester Piccadilly to Huddersfield on YT this morning, I fancied a ride on Norther Trans-Pennine. My first intention was to spawn in a diesel train using Free Roam then remembered the limitations - the inability to program passenger stops in, inability to swap trains in an existing service so I can use theirs, the inability to even see which platforms are which when selecting a route, all on top of passengers that neither embark nor disembark. So, instead, I thought I'd look at Creator's Club. We're now on CC version 2 and I *still* can't filter by route or train, I have to play this guessing game in a search engine, hoping to strike it lucky with my keywords. A search engine that defaults to sorting A-Z rather than new-old or most popular, and that never remembers my settings so I have to do it each and every time. A search engine that makes me have to manually search for every livery the author wanted me to use rather than automatically subscribing me to them. A search engine that makes me swear off CC until the next time I give in to the impulse to try it again. So instead I did something I rarely do - try for the collectibles instead. As I spawned in at a station and started collecting, then walking long lengths of track looking for obscure logs that can be anywhere along the route, I bemoaned the lack of an in-game tracking sheet that would tell me which ones I already had and which ones I still needed to collect. So I packed it in and went back to watching YT videos instead. I love this game, I love the experience of driving the trains, I love the passion that some of the people who make it have, and occasionally the graphics are just stunning. But if I had to sum up my experience with TSC and TSW over the last, what, 10-ish years it would be "DTG - aiming for mediocrity, and managing to achieve it." SimRail has never appealed to me, primarily because of the lack of UK routes, but the Black Friday sales are still on Steam and I found myself searching for YT videos on it after leaving TSW unplayed. DTG - read the room. Stop fobbing us off and showing the next glittery new thing. It's still only November, and as I think back to all the breathless promises of TSW4 last August, and note which ones either don't work as intended or we're all still waiting on, I start musing on wondering which ones in TSW5 will be in that state at its inevitable release. Think what an awesome, awesome title this would be if you invested time in fixing what we're collectively asking to be fixed. But having just typed that, already my lip is curling in a cynical twist.
I wouldn't expect a sudden influx of new sales to cause DTG to change their strategy. In fact I would expect the opposite. Frankly I would consider "aiming for mediocrity and achieving it" to be too generous a description of DTG!
I disagree, I can’t say it would be at the bottom of sales and personally think it will rise above at least a fair chunk of route sales (can’t say for certain I’m not at privy to such info) though at this time sales are different to say when it was TSW1 for many reasons from customer expenses to it now requiring TSW4 also. if I had to guess for a close recent release I believe JT’s will sell more than maintalbahn. Buying more will put an idea that less quality sells, if you want change then it seems the complete opposite, don’t purchase products you don’t think are worth it. edit: I also think theirs marketing affect going on, taking maintalbahn for example I missed the preview stream, impression and feedback I’m getting is I ain’t missing much it’s pretty mediocre. On the other hand, now comparing that to reading forum messages on here before Blackpool releases, if I missed a stream I would be thinking I need to catch up and watch it as its worth my time to find out its features.
Focus Entertainment acquired DTG for their money making potential/scheme. As with any purchase, the new business has to bring more money not less. So, we won´t see any meaningful improvements for existing content until the planet starts spinning the opposite way. Apart from layering trains to other routes, each release is pretty much a dead end street.
that to me sounds like reasoning to wait for big sales or not at all, up to each one what they think of each release but sounds like an equal developer-customer downside. they’re choice of course, it’s only feedback the customer can bring, not change.
Where has everyone been the last 4 years. It's bèen the same business model for all these years, they aren't going to change. Maybe you all should have done your research before investing in this game. Me personally I still have fun playing the game I have found nothing the makes it unplayable for me. And having fun is all that matters because it is just a game in the end. And yes I will buy the Maintalbahn route when it comes out just like every other route that has come out. If the game makes you as angry as it seems then maybe you should take a step back. It is only a game and if you don't have fun anymore then obviously you don't like the game. So stop playing it and find something else to do. Why not take a walk and enjoy some fresh air. Or find another game. Sure vent your frustrations but you are not going to convince players who still enjoy the game that it is garbage. And if typing a complaint on the forums is making your lip curl obviously you need to take a break. For gods sake it is just a game and for your mental heath I recommend you just take a break.
I wouldn’t say anyone is resorting to anger in this thread, people give feedback all the time for route, locos, core game. This is another thread for that. I haven’t seen anyone tell anyone to believe it’s “garbage “ neither. I don’t think people would bother giving feedback on a game they didn’t like well at least not more than once or twice.
