Both of these are great points that I don't think have been recognized enough. This thread has received regular traffic since Tuesday, which means it is repeatedly showing at the top of the forum list for this category, just below all the pinned threads. To go along with the rest of the communication channels for this game, it has felt like a point is being made not to comment on it, only after pretty much directly replying to CMs on discord about the topic to get any response. Like hello, this is a major issue, even when its a minority of the players that it effects, even if it is just a "we hear you, we are working on it and will continue to work with epic to get the content that you have paid for" instead of something ending along the lines of "we can’t provide a timeframe for when this content might be available on TSW6 – if at all". As I said on one of the discords yesterday, I think it is important to keep the topic alive so this issue doesn't get swept under the rug. The second great point you made is the counter to the argument of support, CMs, and the other community members who seem to be tired of Epic players complaining, sure we can be told that we can still enjoy our content on TSW5, and yeah it will probably be the same experience on TSW6 for everyone else since new features usually aren't backported onto older DLCs. However, this presents the space issue of having 2 clients installed, and the fact that TSW5 will (as is tradition) become abandonware. There are those rare occasions where older DLCs get bug fixes on a new platform, and those won't come to TSW5. So effectively we get to play potentially broken and abandoned content. Given the way the DLC spread on the stuff that does carry over is, this would definitely be a benefit to everyone, but non UK stuff the most. Also something I would be completely fine with given I only play North American content, although it would be an inconvenience storage wise for those who play multiple different regions.
Nice points you made here. I agree, we should keep this topic/thread alive until they do something to resolve this, so that awareness can keep being made, especially because I've been hit severely by this since I have a lot of DLC. It's great to see it active, at least for now. Let's hope something can be done soon and ASAP.
There are more than 128 addons on epic ...when i count what i have and not i end up above 128. However Steam says 129
And DTG Jamie did respond to this topic. Probably with all that is confirmed at this point. I've been in the same situation as software developer, where a 3rd party suddenly decided to be ''incompatible''. So i understand it a little. Different to DTG communication is that we did is explain the exact problem to our customers so they would understand what why when, and what they could expect. Even if that is waiting for epic games responses. At this point i don't really care what the problem is (certainly not the yearly release), but there should be at least some assurance or confirmation that they actively work on it (that famous "if at all" is just a major ******** in *** for ***** and ****) . I hope something is announced before 25 September. Then i'll need to decide what to do. PS: don't try to guess the stars
I count 129 DLC items on Epic at current. Though one of those is the bundle of the Festive F125+HKA Hopper+DB BR 111, basically the three little addons that were released early on in TSW5. So 128 actual addons plus one bundle. DW
As a developer you'll understand it's absolutely preposterous as a concept that this is some hard technical limit. Epic using a SIGNED byte as a limit for number of add ons? It's not totally impossible that there is a limit on number of add ons of some kind. In fact it's a racing cert because this is a thread about a limit on add ons! But it's not a technical one if there is. Someone just picked 128 cause it's a power of two. If they actually did which I find highly unlikely unless it's some sort of anti scam thing in which case it should be easy to resolve in the next few weeks.
For anyone willing to flee to Steam for safety (?) due to current issues, you could migrate your profile on PC from Epic version to Steam version. Method is as follow: Make sure the game on both platforms are not running. Navigate to Documents\My Games\TrainSimWorld5EGS\Saved, and copy the entire SaveGames folder. Navigate to Documents\My Games\TrainSimWorld5\Saved, and paste SaveGames folder here. If a SaveGames folder already exists there you probably launched it before, delete it because there is no way of merging progress at the moment. You can now launch the game on Steam. You will be prompted to log in to DTLive again, and regardless you log in or not your progress will be intact. Technically if you want to become a second-class citizen, you could do vice versa.
That makes no sense, in the grand scheme of things it costs a digital store relatively nothing to host one more sku among a gazillion, regardless of how well any individual thing sells. This isn't a physical marketplace with actual limited warehouse space for voluminous stocks of a product.
Of course it isn't a 'physical' market place. One is charged for using space though (e.g renting allocations on GoDaddy etc). There must be reasons why Epic decided not to fully implement the full catalogue most likely due to some cost unknown to us (labor time etc). It may be myopic from our perspective, however from their vantage point there is a reason. I tried Epic before being tempted by their marketing lure, however, realized that I would compromise the rest of my Steam DLC content.
This is technically true but I promise you the costs of space / bandwidth are so miniscule that they are not the issue here. A few hundred gigs may sound a lot but it's pennies. (I've no idea what the actual issue is)
Sadly there’s nothing we can do anymore. Epic doesn’t know anything about this and DTG just ignores epic players…
I just deleted TSW5 completely - how Epic players were treated by both DTG and Epic just ruined it for me, and I will always remember this fiasco. I'm out, and I'm sure more will follow. As a consumer, I don't really care which party is responsible for this. Gonna stay away from both the platform and DTG. Maybe there is a DLC limit, maybe not, but I am 100% convinced DTG caused this by re-releasing the same thing every year, and the stress regarding entitlements and compatibility is caused by them, not Epic. If they behaved like any other game devs with common sense, then they wouldn't have considered this business model, to re-release almost the same game annually, multiplying (almost) the same DLC every year, not to mention that we have multiple iterations of the same locomotives over and over again. If they packed rolling stock/routes separately (maybe even created a PAK file for a common library), then the whole game's size could easily be cut in half. But all they want is a few quick bucks, with zero pre-planning. Enough is enough.
I asked Epic Support specifically about an upper limit of DLCs a game can have on the EGS. The answer was "There is no publicly stated upper limit on the number of DLCs a game can have on the Epic Games Store (Epic Games Support doesn't have information regarding on that.)" So either there is no upper limit and the reasons for this situations are something else or there is a limit and the support does not know about it. Or this answer wasn't true but I'm not accusing that...
Thank you! The idea of a 128 hard limit because "muh 7 BiT InTeGeR" sounded utterly ridiculous anyway. I mean it's 2025, not the 80's.
I must admit I can't be absolutely sure that this isn't an AI generated answer and that the AI just couldn't access the information. After all you can't be sure about that. BUT at least it's something. All there was about the DLC limit so far was speculation anyway.
There are many assumptions about what is happening behind the scenes. If the root code is being modified to enable new functionality (e.g. random faults) then it is quite plausible that the old code and the new code is not backwards compatible. Each to their own.
DLC becoming incompatible with the new version of the executable on a specific individual store but not on the others due to a version iteration? That's not how any of this works.
If that in fact works, which would be a surprise to me given how used to seeing a few more checks than that in games' DRM systems I am, then I'd be curious to see if come launch day, someone is able to pick up the free starter pack on Steam, grab a backwards compatible DLC for Steam that's no longer listed for Epic, install the TSW6 version of it to the Steam version, and copy that over into their Epic folder.
So, if I order a Sony TV from Amazon, and it is dropped in transit and broken, then Sony is responsible because they received money from Amazon?
There is no publicly stated limit... So, this doesn't mean there isn't a limit. We still don't have clarity.
I think we can all agree now that the yearly game model needs to stop. It's not like the new features are worth a whole new game anyway.
I got an (more or less same) update on that matter from Epic (20:30 EEST). Here's a summary. Their support stated that: "There is not an 8-Bit limit for DLCs. If there was, it would be 256 not 128. The '8-Bit cap' is only applied on friends list with a Maximum of 1000 friends. There's no evidence that Epic Games enforces such a cap, and certainly not without disclosure. If you’re seeing an error or limitation referencing “128” or “256” DLC items, it could be a game-specific issue (e.g., engine limit), not a policy from Epic." As of EU Laws (yes, I stuck with those EU laws) they said: " Epic publishes Transparency Reports under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), demonstrating some level of regulatory compliance in EU reporting standards. Epic is actively engaged with EU regulation—but mostly in areas like app store access (DMA) and general transparency (DSA reporting)." What they said about DTG. "DTG is not enforcing a numeric “DLC cap”, but curating which older content remains compatible. That may be problematic under EU law if not properly disclosed before purchase or game upgrade. They listed the DLCs, but failed to provide: The reason for incompatibility, the impact on future purchases, any remedy policy (refunds, discounts, or free equivalents). That doesn’t satisfy EU transparency standards. The law isn’t just about “telling you what doesn’t work” — it’s about full disclosure and ensuring content matches reasonable consumer expectations. That answer from support seems a bit sus (like it is written by AI). Do what you will with that info.
Specially after Epic games disaster whit dlcs not ported over next iteration, if they plans another title and this happens again maybe on other platforms, a lot of players would be angry
On Steam DLC is linked to the specific base game’s AppID. So, If you release a new version of the game with a new AppID, the old DLC won't be compatible by default. You can re-upload the same DLC content under the new game, but it will need new DLC AppIDs. Steam Does Not Forbid Content Reuse From a platform perspective, Valve doesn’t block you from: 1. Re-releasing the same DLC under a different version of the game 2. Selling similar or identical DLC under different AppIDs
of course not, they're waiting for the storm to pass. Matt, JD, Harry, Alex... don't care about Epic players, they're waiting for them to pre-order the TSW6 version like good and docile customers. That's the life of business, good communication in streams with a smile but in their head it's money, money (that's all....)
On Epic What Epic Allows: 1. You Can Reuse DLC Content You can sell identical or very similar DLC for a new or updated version of your game. There’s no built-in technical restriction preventing you from reusing assets or content across editions. Epic allows you to programmatically grant entitlements, so you could: Give users who bought old DLC access to the new one Or not do that, and sell it again
Deleting it really doesn't mean anything when you can just download it again at any time. You could just not play it in protest I guess and they wouldn't know the difference. But even then... over what? Something that we don't know enough about, DTG didn't do and hasn't even actually happened yet?
Man, this is really chilling. Sure, when DTG want you to buy something, then "Train Sim World" is all one game. Buy this content, and look how your other content will add to it! Buy this content, and look how it will add to your other content! It all works together, so you you can buy it all and not worry! But then there are the times when it is more convenient for DTG to pretend like these are all completely separate and unrelated games. Oh we're sorry, did you want to use all your TSW5 stuff on TSW6? Well you can't, and by the way these are completely different games. Also don't expect an update to your old stuff either; we don't support that game anymore because we have a completely new game that is absolutely not the same. And also going forward we can do this as much as we like, because your content will still work for the game you bought it for. But not necessarily for the new game, which is a different game. But also the same game. See? Using just one example, you need NTP and TVL for some Shap services. That is now TSW5 only, but you will probably need Shap on TSW6 anyway because it might layer onto the new JT route. And what if the new route needs NTP and TVL also? Totally screwed. Although, as DTG will tell you, the solution is that you don't have to buy it! As an aside, I have been following TSW for years, and DTG like to talk about the popularity of certain DLCs, but how do they determine this? Downloads? Hours played? Services played? AP earned? They have never said. "We've ported the most popular routes." "Oh! How did you determine that?" (Silence.) They strung Epic players right along and let them buy stuff right up to the end, didn't they? And then buried the bad news in the FAQs, of course. This is a bad day for TSW and it is not good for anyone who plays the game going forward. The least they could have done is let the people choose what gets brought over. I guarantee Brighton would have made the cut. In any case if you play in Epic then I am sorry that you have to go through this. I am sure it is coming for us all eventually.
How do you know this is not how it works? TSW6 clearly has added functionality threaded in the code which was not in TSW5. They may be releasing newer versions of every available pack to accommodate the new executables.
Epic Games don't owe us that. This is a DTG Forum, not an Epic Games Forum. And even IF it is a problem with the EGS it should be DTG to be communicating with their community!
This one is especially funny because if they're blaming the engine... That's uh... Their own engine. And it's not a limit on other platforms than Epic's store, as it would be if it were an engine issue, since the engine is store-agnostic. So clearly it's something to do with one of their products somewhere along the line. There should not be any conceivable way in which how a game's engine is coded would ever interact with a single storefront in such a unique and different to all the others way as to limit the available addons for it. A store is a delivery mechanism for abstract packages. The storefront itself does not interact with those packages, they can contain anything. They don't even need to all be made to run on the same operating system as each other, or even one the store itself can run on. Fundamentally at its core, all any digital store is, is a tool for verifying a given user has purchased the right to download a given package, and delivering a download link for it.
Let's be careful here. The community managers/ moderators are not responsible for content. Their silence on this matter is not at their discretion. What is released and what is excluded is a management decision. The people you mention by name are communicators not policy makers. I'm sure they do care about Epic players, indeed all players. They just are unable to respond at this time. If you have a beef with DTG, direct your ire toward mangement not the innocent moderators.
My strong suspicion is a) that is AI response cause it makes no sense to talk in 3rd person like that, although it could be outsourced fellow in Bangalore or something... b) this is a commercial thing and we're never going to hear why properly. It's not as if DTG can pee off Epic given they write the Unreal Engine! Best plan to find out is to go out drinking with the DTG crew somehow. They go to 'cons right? Not my kinda thing personally but I bet some of ya do - collar them and get them smashed.
Ive made that point already, I was more referring to the core DLC itself. I can play NYT, or Boston-Providence on TSW6, without owning the acela, and I will most likely get the same experience as I would on 5, but yes those with layers will suffer, ive made this point on Boston Commuter, where my playability of the route will definitely be heavily impacted with the loss of the very many freight DLC requirements needed to get the full experience of the route. The main point of that post was more of how DTG rarely updates DLCs from previous games (or much at all post release), ie I don't expect loco faults to be a thing on something like Boston-Providence
Indeed, I've worked customer support and had an epically (no pun intended) stupid script to work off, and a massive lack of actually helpful information to go with, often being told directly to deny obvious facts about flaws in our parent company's system that everyone in the office is aware of and some of us have personally verified with testing.
Ah yes, I guess I meant only the moderators/ community managers, named and not named. They are caught in the middle, as it were.
But yes, there's a blurring when it comes to a company's customer-facing avenues for announcements and feedback, when there is engagement via those avenues from a blend of both community manager-type staff, whose job is handling civil discourse, and who are by design limited in what they necessarily know or can say on certain matters, and also actual internal higher tier people within the company addressing and responding to users of the product directly.
At a guess, DTG and Epic are engaged in negotiations, and while those are going on nobody is going to breathe a word publicly lest it screw things up. Clearly this is a bilateral thing with Epic and not the other platforms; if this were some (bizarre) new DTG policy it would affect Steam and consoles, but it doesn't.
Epic caused the issue. DTG is just responding to an Epic policy on their own platform. It's a bit like if one driver is stopped at a red light and the other runs into them... you decide to rant at the guy who was stopped at the red light? I mean... yeah he's "involved" in the accident but it's not his fault.
