Tsw5 Features Could’ve Literally Been An Update For Tsw4

It's not about pressing a button within 30 days. It's about the fact that the game may be of such poor quality within these 30 days that it is even worse than its predecessors. Then you have received a lousy game for free, even though the predecessor was better. You don't want to have your DLC installed for both games because you don't have space for it. When you move your Game Profil to the new version, there is no way back. Maybe the first patches for TSW5 won't arrive until months later and only then will you decide to get the game. Unfortunately, it won't be free anymore and you'll have to pay for updates again.

For this reason, the 30 days free are simply a bad joke.

 

I think you misunderstand. If you claim the TSW5 upgrade within those 30 days, it's free and you keep it forever. You won't have to suddenly pay for it after the 30 days is up. The only way you would have to pay for the basic upgrade is if you didn't claim it during the free period.

 

The free Starter Pack is supposedly a key way to draw in new players - which they're trying to tell us is the main reason for having the whole new game in the first place, so why isn't that always going to be free? There's very little content of value without any of the routes, so why put a 30 day limit on it at all?

Maybe the real reason for it is just to try and get as many existing players as possible to 'claim' the new game (whether we actually download it or not), so they can report fantastic initial sales to their stakeholders - then it's up to us whether we go through the crappy process of re-claiming and re-downloading all of the same content AGAIN on the new version, even if we don't want any of the new bundles.

Having an always-free entry pack to the game that people can try out with the Training Centre and a couple of trains makes perfect sense. Rebranding the same old game as TSW5 and chucking in a time-limited offer to pick up something we already have, not so much.

 

Problem for me is how horribly clunky TSW is from a technical perspective. It’s bizarre that we have to download literally hundreds of Gb of DLC yet again. Also, given the inevitable teething troubles, I’ll no doubt keep TSW4 + DLC installed until we can be sure that TSW5 is reasonably serviceable; both games plus DLC for each will fill half of the internal SSD.

Still, if TSW5 manages to cut down the lengthy wait on start-up while all the DLC loads in it’ll be worth it; Series X + SSD and yet I’m still waiting for 5 minutes each time for the game to load up which is very poor in this day and age.

 

You don't have to install TSW5. Just claim it and install it whenever you think TSW5 is up to your standards. Or if it installs automatically on your platform just delete it afterwards and download it again on a later date.

 

Get it for free in that first month and you don't need to install it until TSW5 has routes which you are interested in playing.

 

But know that by clicking the "Add to library" button, you're saying, "Yes, I'm on-board with this new-version-every-year LOVE, go report to your stakeholders that I've bought the new version within the first month of release because that's how excited I am about it!"

 

Not necessarily. Remember that it is free. If you get the free starter pack, but then don't get any TSW5 DLC, that's lost revenue, because there is a chance that you'd have bought TSW5 even if it wasn't free, and TSW6 will probably not have the free starter pack and we'll go back to a TSW4-style release.

On the other hand, if you buy TSW5, then only buy good quality DLC, DTG may see that quality pays off, but I doubt that will happen because of people like me whose quality standards are much lower than some others.

 

People are addicted to "new."
Marketing TSW 4 for 5 more years isn't as "cool" looking as selling TSW 5,6,7,8,9....
That's just how gaming works.
Customers BUY more when you market it like that.
I guess it's easier to blame DTG than it is to blame customers....

 

Dtg could do it as a update yes. But they don't. No matter how much people complain, its dtg pulling the strings I'm afraid. It comes free now which is a step forward.
Yes its not ideal having to download the entire dlc library again.
Trust me, where I live we are still in the dark ages! And it will take ages, 2 or 3 days. Or I can box up my pc and take it to a friend's house and hang around there for several hours!
You are not the only one who feels that way mate.

 

I fully agree with you. Let's take Euro Truck Simulator 2 as the best example: you always get new updates and features and only pay for the DLCs. And they always advertise well that they simply don't need a new version. It's been around for 12 years and is constantly being developed further. DTG can simply take a leaf out of their book. SCS simply does the best marketing.

 

With the exception of DTG upgrading the Unreal Engine version TSW is running on, all features from one release could be in the previous one, and I expect were prototyped on the previous release anyway.

 

If they do their marketing so well why did I not know the game existed? I visited their website for the first time and immediately understood why I don't know the game and why they can have only 2 versions in 12 year. It's PC only. When they ever move to consoles I can guarantee you you will see a new version every year.

 

Don't look at the platform but instead look at the release date for all of these long-standing simulator franchises. The thing is, they all had their first release 10+ years ago and that defines many thing including their business model. Then when someone comes out with something new, they will instead make it according to today's standards including yearly re-releases and so on.

Not having a console release is probably just a side-effect since older generations of consoles weren't viable for such a long-term project with several major core updates down the line, continuous support, emphasis on mods etc.

 

I have to look at the platform to understand why they have only 2 versions in 12 years. Not being on consoles explains why that is. Not being on consoles is probably also the reason why their marketing did not reach me and the game has never been on my radar.

 

I would pay all the pounds in my pocket for ETS console version

 

There are a lot of PC only games I'm aware off but those mostly are games of big studio's I suppose. Probably studios with a big marketing budget.

Euro Truck Simulator 3

 

Ok, the question of why do they stick to their game for so long is quite a lot more complicated than I thought but at least it's clear why they picked PC as their target platform to begin with.

You see, being on consoles was quite a big deal back in a day (and still kinda is) so you either had to be a big studio or had to have a well known publisher who would cover the costs. If you look into the history of SCS Software, Eagle Dynamics or other one of these "PC only" studios, you will find that they started very small so publishing on PC was probably the way to start and get anything out there.

Also DTG Matt, I know that you've been with Dovetail since the very beginning so do you have any first-hand insights on this saga of game dev and how Dovetail worked it's way to the console market?

 

Nice theory, and Dovetail seems to follow this with Train Simulator Classic: A PC-only game that was released in 2009.

Now that DTG are much bigger, we have Train Sim World.

 

Pure excuse, the Train Simulator Classic was also only for PC and has lasted until today. And some people still prefer it.

 

You have no evidence to make this conclusion.

Whether DTG were retaining their new customers or losing them, the decision would be the same. Let me know if you can find a for profit company that doesn't want to grow it's customer base/profits, I'd be very interested to see one.

 

My bad, TSW of course has a 100% customer retention rate.

 

I think the middle ground is the most likely - there are definitely players of one TSW game who aren't interested in the next one, but there are plenty who are really into TSW and will move to the next game at launch. The third group, which I fit into, are those who don't like the new games each year but will move on for the right price. For me, the TSW4 Humble Bundle is what I got TSW4 with, and the free version is what I'll get for TSW5. I don't know the proportion of the three groups, but I expect it's 10% not upgrading, 50% upgrading immediately, 40% upgrading over the life of the game.

 

Let me full you in on a little secret trick: you don't have to get it if you don't want to.

I can't wrap my head around complaining about something you can get for free. Like honestly even if TSW5 is buggy in the first 30 days press the stupid button, keep playing 4, and eventually 5 will be the version to play and you have it.

 

I faintly remember TSW being announced as an Xbox One console exclusive. Was the release of the Founder's Edition on the Xbox One only because of that, or was the reason to do with the development of the game?

 

If you decide not to claim a free upgrade because it's not as good as you would like; then it later becomes good, but paywalled (which you were aware that it would become) - then that is entirely your problem for not claiming it.

Nothing stops you from claiming it and not installing it, sticking with TSW4 and then only moving to TSW5 when it becomes good enough for you.

Anyone who doesn't claim a free upgrade because it's "not good enough" is just shooting themselves in the foot - especially as it doesn't override the existing game.

 

If you didn't get the free upgrade during the 30 day period, wouldn't you automatically acquire it when you buy a TSW5 route sometime in the future, MBTA for instance? I'm sure it would be bundled in.

I don't really understand the 30 day restriction. I mean if it's free now, why would it cost anything later? Aren't new players even more likely during the holidays, for instance? Seems a strange kind of business plan.

 

I assume then that GWE being chosen was because of the performance issues with the original version of CSX Heavy Haul?

 

So Matt has confimed what I have said on these forums to people who knock consoles and complain it shoud be PC only.

It was alway the intention to be on console...so you have us to thank for funding the development of the game and for TSW existing.

And you are welcome.

 

People who complain about consoles don’t fundamentally understand how computers work.

Modern consoles are simply x86 computers that happen to have a proprietary operating system that only runs games. The PS5 and Series X are mid spec gaming PCs basically with a fenced in OS and store.

8th gen doesn’t hold the game back any more than low spec PCs do. I wouldn’t be against them killing off support for 8th gen and raising the minimum specs but acting like somehow consoles can’t handle simulation titles is asinine. Just look at MSFS on Xbox, with full support for flight yokes, pedals and other peripherals. This isn’t 1997 anymore.

Also I don’t know what DTGs balance sheets look like but console user base might be what carries the game at the end of the day. I know it seems like in the forum and on Facebook groups console players are well represented.

 

The " PC crowd " as you call it, doesn't hate console players or their hardware. There might be a few who wish that 8th gen consoles would go away because they are misguided enough to think they hold back the development of the game, but most of us recognize that console players constitute a majority of all players and, as you point out, those of us who were here from the beginning, understand that the game would likely not have survived without them.

 

There have been a loud minority of PC players who have called for the game to drop consoles completely on these forums.

Which I never understood why there would be hate, I play on Series X and I don't say that people who own PC's with minimum specs should be dropped or are holding the game back.

It's mutually benificial to be on both.

 

I don't think so, at least I haven't read that. Plus I did some searches and what comes up is what I mentioned in my post: a number of misguided players from both the console and PC sectors want DTG to drop 8th gen consoles, but that's the extent of it.

( " Hate " is a very strong word and misplaced in this discussion. )

 

I think it really needs to be emphasized that game development, at least with games with realistic high fidelity visuals gets expensive. And increasingly it's getting harder and harder to make games for top-end consoles without having to publish on multiple platforms. Third parties now either do timed exclusives, or go full on multiplatform from day one. And even Sony & Microsoft have been making major pushes into the PC ecosystem after years of publishing games just for their respective consoles.

When many of these huge AAA next-gen showcase games spend five years or more in development and have $200 million budgets it just doesn't make sense to limit them to a single platform. And while that's talking more so the console side of things PC development ain't gonna be any different in that regard. No developer's gonna want to spend all that time and money only to then exclude any user with less than a 3090 in their system.

 

No, buying a DLC won’t entitle you to a free copy of the game. If I remember correctly then Steam (and many other platforms) won’t even let you purchase DLC without owning the main game.

 

IIRC, arn't there a few routes for TSC that do grant you access to TSC if you buy them?

 

Unfortunately there is a tendancy on these forums for anything seen to be 'dumbed down' in any way to be seen as catering to the 'thumbstick' players. Short routes?, must be due to the thumbstick brigade. Simplified controls?, yep, that's us thumbstickers again, despite the Expert 101 working just fine on consoles. Toy trains?, apparently that's because thumbstick twiddlers don't like noisy diesels.

I love this game, I enjoy interacting on this very informative forum, but I do get fed up of the very thinly veiled insults hurled in the direction of those of us who prefer to play on console, especially when I very much want long routes, complicated trains and the more noisy diesels the better.

 

Does it actually matter? Players play on PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Epic…so what? Doesn’t matter what devices we play on, we are, at the end of the day, players, who play this game.

 

Yes, a couple. They're pretty much the TS equivalent of the regional versions of TSW.

 

High quality pc only routes are not economically viable according to Matt. Producing high quality pc only routes also runs counter to the recurring revenue model of DTGs business strategy.
Not much more to add to that really. We play to relax, and it makes this niche genre accessible to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford high quality hardware. TSW is still the best at what it does, and for whom it targets. It's easy to forget that

 

I remember my first console. It was an Atari something or other. They have come a long way since then.

 

I'm intrigued as to what you would be expecting from a 'high quality pc only route', are Niddertalbahn, Blackpool Branches, Suffragette not high quality?

Also by PC only I'm guessing you mean something suitable for 4090 owners only? According to Digital Foundry the PS5 performs in line with a 3060, which also happens to be the most common PC graphics card in use, according to Steam's hardware survey. Scrolling down said survey, you would be lucky to see even a third of PC players with a graphics card superior to that in the PS5.

So no, a route that could only be run by less than a third of PC players wouldn't be financially viable, for any game, made by any company.

 

That's a good question, and would probably just result in a personal shopping list of features. It's also pointless because of the recurring revenue limitations outlined above, on that we are agreed. That's why I say there's little more to add, and that we should enjoy what we have which is very good at what it does.

 

Or you can get the free version on 17 September and then you wont need to buy a regional edition and you won’t need to moan about it not being free after 30 days because clever old you would have picked it up for free before that.