Will we get to see any results from this? Just me being nosey to be honest, but I would like to know what the community thought
More fluff added to the core game while ignoring bugs or instead of features that would add value such as random events.
Yes I do too, but no doubt similar questions were asked in the 2023 survey and instead we got route hopping (basically a menu shortcut), some screenshot thing which didn’t bother me and an updated 2D map which seems responsible for most of the performance issues the game now has.
To be fair... Simulation Game Communities are probbaly the hardest ones to please type of customers out there. They always find something that is not "right" or "real" and sometimes have absurd high expectations of what level of detail should be implemented. Im not happy with many things as well, such as prioritising new DLCs over fixing was is obviously broken. But thats how the gaming industry works. As long there is still enough revenue comming in from customers that obviously do not care about every detail and just want to drive trains, regardles if everything is implementet correctly, you will have the usual pattern: - Release new contet at a given deadline - Look what people complaining about - Release a patch.. or if lucky 2 ... - Focus on next DLC
Sadly, no - if they published the results of the survey, they'd just be doing free market research for their competitors.
Without seeing the actual results, of highest interest to me at the surveys is when they ask us to rank suggested new features. Why? Anyone remembers when they asked us among other options (such as route extensions, modular routes, remastered routes), if people wanted expert locos in one question back in the February 2024 survey? And ta-da, a few months later the Expert BR 101 DLC was released. At this moment in time, the Expert BR 101 clearly must have been in developement already, however I guess they wanted to know a bit more about the reception of an expert loco beforehand. Giving this as single evidence (but still it is one), it's not so unlikely that at least one of the new suggested features such as Career Mode, Announcements, Dispatcher Mode, Shift Designer, Random Events and even Multiplayer, we were asked for in the latest survey, could potentially end up in the next Train Sim World iteration and I was very pleased to see that DTG seriously considers features to be implemented, which I thought would never be possible to come into the game.
They could be seen as such, unfortunately they are not though. The community asks regularly for random stuff to make every run have a chance of being different. Yes we got dynamic weather but that is not any where near real. TSW5 appeared with features that appear to give us the ability to hop between routes that have different TOD systems and set in different times and quick travel a bit like star trek from one end of a route to another which of course only Star Trek and Dr Who can do in real life. I really do wonder what is cooking this year.
I think there was a question in the survey like: "Do you want routes without new rolling stock?" Obviously I answered yes and I was listened to immediately...
You will never see the full results of the survey posted online. If they did they would be handing free market research to every developer working on a train sim. So I wouldn't expect to see anything. Unless you are management at DTG or in marketing for them.
That's the thing, there isn't lots of developers working on train sims. Simrail is a slow burner with one country. Trainz is another world and TSC is DTGs own. As for Zusi and the rest could be seen as niche. The sceptic in me says the survey is just a show of community engagement and the end product (DLC) is done to make max profit and always released on schedule no matter how much is missing or bugged.
Still, it would grace DTG is they publish. Transparency is the key here, since there is a growing disconnection between (a part of) the community and DTG's management. Roadmaps don't mean that much to me, it is just talking, what actually gets delivered is important. The lack of quality and disregard for feedback other than the same canned reasons and excuses isn't instilling any confidence in me. After seven years of development, five iterations of the game, DTG seems like exhausted and incapable of really improving the game. Limitations of UE and all of its consequences like draw distance, sound, physics, scripting, it's all on DTG's developer 'teams'. And we still don't know what the focus of TSW is under DTG's new ownership by Focus Entertainment. DTG only a cash cow or the key to the future of 'ultimate realism in train simulation'? Third parties like JT and TSG seem to be willing to deliver quality and their efforts are to be praised, and need to be purchased obviously to make their efforts worthwhile and financially viable for follow up routes and trains.
Very true, To me the roadmap has largely become the “deferred for another month map”. I do also get a sense they are running out of ideas both for content and what direction to take the title in - more game, or more sim oriented. As regards core fixes, well how often now have we been told reports or requests (such as improvements to the save game, slots etc.) have been “passed to the team” and that’s the last we’ve heard of them. I don’t expect Matt or anyone else to be wading into every thread and keyboard warring, but an occasional state of the sim briefing wouldn’t go amiss. The content is getting stale, think the latest German route is evidence of that. As you say, thank god for TSG and Mitten. And yes the competition is scattered and has its own flaws. Even Run 8, offered as the PC solution for American based simming, is quite expensive and has an arcane e-commerce system and the most user unfriendly user interface. Zusi 3, the proferred solution for Germany has a spreadsheet for a menu and you can’t save a run in progress. Trainz still can’t really tear itself away from its model railway roots. TSC has been pretty much abandoned by DTG, just pay a visit over to its forum area.
The free market research argument makes sense, however at least for me there is no real competitor to Train Sim World, yet. All digging a bit in their own niche of Train Simulation, while TSW tries to focus on the mainstream train simulation market, so to say, quite well. Now that more and more countries slightly come into the game, the more people of these areas will also get into the franchise. Which other train simulation game offers more than 2 or 3 countries and regular new content of each of these? Trainz is still focusing on american, british and australian content (and even that only to some extent) and their subscription-based standard and gold models of 70/130$ yearly will never focus on the main market, SimRail still only hovering over Poland (although it has been said that new german content should come but when?), Run8 over America and Zusi being german-focused I also wouldn't consider a mass-focused train simulator as rather focused for the enthusiasts. Where is the competitor these informations should be useful for? I really would want to see studio crafting a franchise like TSW with its community (Train Sim World YouTube channel has over 80.000 subscribers) almost overnight. Lastly, many questions were TSW-related anyway. I think the only real competitor for Train Sim World is house-own Train Sim Classic. In fact, the large amount of content for TSC will never be caught up by anyone else (maybe even not TSW itself), and this with the fact that DTG does not even directly develop new content for it, but third parties. Third parties are the essential source of new content for TSW and TSC and a weapon none of the current competitors of TSW will ever have to such an extent.
There are plenty of competitors, just none approaching DTG's size. For the biggest player in the game to make public their survey results just to help the smaller players would be nuts.
If DTG publish the results, that opens competition even from those currently not in the train simulation market. I can guarantee that if the survey revealed people want more steam routes for example, and these results were in the public domain, someone (whether or not they're in the market) will want to exploit that. It's not only current competitors that need to be considered, but also those that do not yet exist.
LOL, let them new compeitors jump into the market for those gaps supposedly revealed by this survey ... DTG is a sinking ship to me for quite a while already, and keeping 'everything surveyed' under the corporate hat does not improve my faith in the near future of DTG at all.
This is a good thing in itself , competition is not a bad thing for DTG, it could allow them to improve after if one day serious competition will arrive (which I don't believe)
I agree a competitor coming into the market would focus (pun intended) DTG on pulling their finger out and not being so complacent.
How are they supposed be focused on ultra realistic sim when they can't even get what they have to work properly as it is. That would require more features and the core already can't handle the features we already have. Also when did they ever say they were going for and ultra realistic simulator? Please show me as I think I missed that memo. The description of the game since TSW 2020 Where does it say the most accurate and realistic simulation? In fact it states perfect for everyone which means from the casual fan to the hardcore.
The other question I have is why do all these "hardcore" players think they are the majority. To me it seems that most who play TSW are casual simmers so they would be the ones who dictate the direction of the game not the small amount of hardcore simmers.
The number of "hardcore" players, as with any game, is relatively small compared to the more casual gamer. That's why places such as this forum only form a small number of the overall player base.
