January Roadmap When? (answered)

Wasn't the roadmap for January supposed to come out Tuesday this week???
Where is it. And when is it coming out?

 

Pretty sure they said there wasn't a roadmap in January before Christmas. Feb is the first one of the year I think.

 

There's no roadmap for January, and the December roadmap article has already talked about it

 

I expect they are furiously trying to get the Winter update part 2 sorted asap.

 

No

 

I believe they said they're skipping January and just doing one in February.

It better be a meaty one. I feel like 2024 has gotten off to a glacially slow start for TSW4, we're now over half way into January and you'd swear they were still on their Christmas break. I feel like the lack of news is only hurting the game- my interest has certainly waned. Rivet's new route released with the smallest amount of fanfare I've ever seen.

 

That's true, not a lot of talk or the usual amount of hyping from DTG. And also that DTG Matt or DTG JD arent present at the moment on the forums doesn't help. It's been more than a month since Matt talked...

 

I think Matt took an extended holiday break (which is absoloutely fine), also he's not part of the community team. I don't expect him to be often on the forums. His time is better spent on other places, especially in development. Not here in the forums.

 

I mean how many people work for DTG? You'd think at least one person would be at least trying to respond to some people. Besides the moderator doing his job here n there..

 

Can relate to you there. The lack of U.S content is certainly having an effect on the game for me. Playing the same routes over and over is getting a little boring for me. I’ve been playing other games for a while now and slowly moving away from the game..

 

They talked about on the last stream of year that the next roadmap would not be until February.

 

A company with what sometimes feels like countless Community Managers and almost zero community engagement. What is up with that?

 

Many developers don't engage in the forums because of the toxicity. Matt would normally be responding but since he's on break, he isn't here. It's really only community managers who can only say certain things depending on what news they get from the developers

 

It does seem all rather stagnant at the moment. And "vigorous" discussion of quite key issues such as the rumoured closing out of any further steam (traction) in TSW should not be putting official noses out of joint but eliciting confirmation or denial as to whether it is a fact. It does seem like rather there is no captain steering the ship at present.

It's certainly possible thing will pick up in February especially if we get a Festival Of Rail sale on Steam, even if everything I want is over in TSC at present...

 

They said there wasn't one in January as by the time the teams get back from the holiday break, there wouldn't have been much reportable progress.
Given that most of the big players (JD / Matt) have been absent (holidays, I understand) it's not surprising.

 

There would be that much toxicity if there weren't many problems with the game (thst are rarely acknowledged never mind fixed). That's where most of the toxicity comes from.

 

Is it toxicity, or players becoming more and more exasperated with the ever growing list of problems that are never sorted out, or which break other things when finally fixed.

 

While it is frustrating that there is no communication from DoveTail Games, their last major communication did come quite close to the start of the winter holidays, so maybe they are simply waiting for something worth talking about.

Although, I recall them saying they wanted to do something similar to the DTG summit they did in February of last year - so perhaps it is better to wait.

 

Oh dear! No soothing talk from the moderators, eh?

I'm thinking of starting a fundraising site so that we can hire a nanny for those players who feel neglected.

I think we can all suck our thumbs until the Roadmap comes in a couple of weeks, right kiddos?

 

I am thinking Matt might have gone to the United States for a month or so since December. (His Wife is American).
Mike.

 

You'll hear from the Community team when there is content to peddle, but otherwise seems like radio silence.

 

After all, they are only the puppets.

 

What ??

 

It is toxicity.
Regardless of the cause, there's been an uncountable amount of toxic/head-loss/normal one incidents on this forum.

 

They said it will not be a January road map it will be in February

 

Given the way the game is marketed these days, that seems to be their target audience.

 

What do you need a roadmap for? Your game runs without it. And it's already known that the next roadmap will come in February.

 

I had not known this til reading the replies on this thread.

Roadmaps are a good way of giving us something to look forward to in the game and giving us an idea of what content is being made and/or coming up for the game.

 

And they mentioned that the roadmap will probably be later in the month on the Bernina line stream because of festival of rail.

I figure the US route annoucement will be diring that.

 

It's so quiet I reckon there working on TSW5

 

This happens ever year;
The Christmas break happens,
Everything slows down,
In January it slowly starts back up,
We get a small roadmap,
Then Festival of Rail dumps half-a-year's worth of release announcements on us.

If TSW5 is coming, this is not the tell.

 

In what world does a Christmas break (which is normal for many industries) mean a new version of the game will come out?

 

We should be grateful we get monthly roadmap’s. Look at other huge game developers. GTA6 as an example. Lucky to get any kind of plan on what’s coming with that, never mind a monthly update on what’s coming in the game.

 

We know more what's coming in GTA 6 than what's coming in TSW5, or TSW6 for that matter, which will probably release before GTA 6 at this rate..

 

The big unanswered question Alex is the postulation on Discord by someone claiming to work for DTG, is that steam traction in TSW is dead both in terms of any further improvements or new content. Appreciate this is something that might need to wait for the EP or equivalent grade to return to work for a comment, but those of us who have invested in steam traction within TSW and were looking forward to more content, maybe a GWR pack for WSR, would appreciate confirmation or denial whether this is an actual fact.

 

No offense, just curious: your source for that is?

 

That’s because GTA6 has been announced. TSW5 although probably in the works isn’t a thing. I think we all know it’s coming though. My point being though, they could choose to give us very limited information, a bit like what Rockstar have provided. So, thank you DTG, for providing us with mostly monthly roadmaps on what’s coming to the game - some of us appreciate it.

 

Thanks for the update DTG Alex.

 

Surely you must have read the original comment (not mine) in the New Year Resolution thread? And my subsequent abstract into a separate topic for discussion...

Dtg New Year Resolutions For Tsw | Page 2 | Dovetail Games Forums Page 2 by MattWild55 and I requote for clarity:

"Steam physics have apparently been abandoned at the Peak Forest level, per a dev on Discord that worked on them. No interest internally in pursuing it because PF sold poorly and there's no plan to do more steam content. (FS was a one-off that uses the broken 4F physics model)"

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/so-dtg-have-you-abandoned-steam-in-tsw.77537/

Which yes it may be unverified but still a worrying assertion which has gone unanswered for over three weeks. You would at least have thought if there was no substance to the statement someone from DTG would have been on to deny it.

 

Uh oh. Somebody's gonna get fired.

 

It's always great to hear, that the release of the editor is leading to more and more people getting in contact with DTG to release something officially.
I hope in this interesting thing you teased for February, (new) third party developments, new community projects and the status of the editor (with some desperately awaited fixes) are also part of it

 

But isn't this creating something like a catch 22? Steam physics have been abandoned because the route sold poorly - the route sold poorly because of unfinished steam physics.

 

This claim actually logically needs a proof.
While we think 'yeah we all railfans can see that steam physics are poor' it's wishful thinking that actually everyone who plays tsw is able to see that. I'd argue that the majority of younger players hardly know what a steam loco should behave like. Tbh, I've hardly ever seen a steam loco in action. How should I be able to know steam loco physics?

I personally think steam locos didn't sell well because of the young age of the majority of players. That's the (sad) truth: younger players just prefer modern stock. That's part of the annual evaluation that DTG does.

So while the claim 'Steam locos didn't sell well because of poor steam physics' still needs a proof, there is good indication that the logic is rather: 'steam locos didn't sell well, because a majority of players prefer modern stock'. Because there is indeed (on a non scientific level) empirical proof of that.

And because that's the case, DTG for now stopped developing steam. Because it's very cost-intensive, but it doesn't generate enough revenue.

 

Then what's your explanation of Spirit of Steam apparently selling well?

 

orb personally, I'd say it was more of a 'this is the very first time we have steam in tsw', so there was more interest in general. Even from non-UK players. Because it was something new and who doesn't love to try something for the first time?

 

I thought TSW was the king of train simulators and so much better than TSC and all the others? But folks seem to get frustrated and bored after a month without "updates" and new DLC. Strange how that works...

 

Well, that might an observation if you spend time in the forums. I think outside the forums, it's acutally not that bad

 

My view is DTG may well be correct regarding the current TSW player base, as until SoS was released TSW was viewed in the train sim community as being modern image only (60s heritage diesels included, some routes set in the 80s onwards, but chiefly current lines and motive power).

However, there is still a very large player base for TSC who have not made the jump over to TSW due to the lack of steam content, despite TSC.now looking and feeling very dated indeed. There really is an untapped market out there who are already DTG customers, and to a lesser extent a small market who would be tempted into playing a sim with some steam content.

There can’t be any question around what sells better and is more marketable in terms of the target demographic, and that’s the modern image routes and locos we have at present, but I really do believe DTG would be mistaken to write steam off and not progress it, or perhaps as has been alluded to today, third part developers effectively ‘fixing’ the steam physics with new locomotive DLC, as there would be a whole lot of content to sell or even resell to customers moving over from TSC. I just have, and TSW looks and plays so much better I’d be happy to repurchase the vast library of steam content I have in TSC in TSW if it were available.