Anyone Done The Winter Survey Yet?

Lots of questions about new features, but fair play for the following

- Asking about save game improvements (one for OldVern - I put 10/10!)
- Actually having a question about whether the #1 focus should be core and performance improvements rather than new content and features

There were some interesting omissions like asking about all content released in the past year or due to be released, but not including All Aboard Studios content (Birmingham-Crewe or the Class 805). Perhaps they want them to get a fairer hearing once more fixes have been released. Also in a very long list of other simulation games we are asked if we also play they didn't include SubwaySim 2 which despite it's graphical limitations implements a lot of operations quite well with far fewer bugs than you get with TSW.

Any thoughts on the features/content asked about?

 

I hope everyone gave the correct response to this.

 

Paraphrase- Would you like an in game marketplace to be able to purchase mastery rewards and/or cosmetics for cash?!

This one stood out the most..
No DTG I don't want to give you more money when your doing less and less bug fixing!!

But my overall take on the survey was how much can we get away with removing from the game before its too much..
(Please rank these features on how important they are to you, ect)
With the occasional sprinkle of a popular fourm topics to keep us all happy.. ie "if you could choose 1 loco what would it be"
"Would you like multiple save slots"
"Insert question with obvious yes answer here"

Could just be im not exactly 'happy' with the recent quality of TSW and im looking at it with a pessimistic attitude.. but definitely feels like TSW is going to be stripped to bare bones/maximum profit model in the not to distant future.. 3rd party only content, less and less bug fixing, "new content" thats just held back content with a quick tsw6 spit shine..

Just feel like the writing is on the wall.. and the survey didnt fill me with confidence.. personally that will effect how much I 'invest' into tsw moving forward

 

That question about the marketplace was very leading in that the previous question was about what would give you the most incentive to complete masteries with extra timetables/scenarios mentioned. So just thinking about what would make me do it, sure if that's what's on offer. Only for the next question to suggest that's really part of a monetisation strategy similar to mobile games. This came across as cheeky given that the DLC is not exactly cheap relatice to other games. So suffice to stay I voted that one down.

 

Definitely less new content and much more of a laser focus on solving performance and rendering issues within the game. Performance needs a significant boost and many issues still need to be resolved.

 

We shouldn't be having to vote for performance and core fixes though IMO. The game should really work and run well on the platforms it's been released for otherwise people will stop buying it. This should really be taking focus at DTG by now and shouldn't need a vote to change that.

We also shouldn't really be needing to vote on save slots either with the amount it's been talked about and I swear we were told at one stage it was "with the engineers"? But if voting does get it pushed through then there's that at least.

 

I suspect a fair number of us will have given save slots a 10 and agreed with the concept of working on the core instead of churning out unfinished DLC as fast as possible

I left feedback with ways the scenario planner could be made useable I mean improved, as well as features that would make the live map fit for purpose. Very nice to see a few questions about legacy routes too, that sounds promising. NTP and TVL got my votes, alongside another which I can't remember

DTG definitely need to change strategy if they want to avoid killing the franchise, the era of day-one purchases seems to be over for many of us.

JB

 

I didn't see one. Where was the survey posted?

 

Gave up. The form is completely unusable on an iPhone. It’s survey monkeys fault not DTGs though.

 

It was in the various "Season of Reveals" threads and posts: https://bit.ly/TSWPlayerSurvey2025

Yeah it was quite a struggle on Android as well, the page kept automatically scrolling back up and you ended up selecting an answer for a question you'd already answered....

 

Glad it wasnt just me then.. it got worse the further through i got too.. made me chuckle that even the surveys DTG use are buggy! (Obviously im aware its a 3rd party.. I was just making a funny)

 

Yeah it’s pretty gross, you can already see where that’s leading to…

“well it wasn’t the most requested so we aren’t focusing on that”

 

I did it on Android and half way through it made me go back and re-answer the questions I'd already answered

 

You know, looking at this stuff, I see things like this in the options.

And it feels like this should all be stuff inherent to making a train sim, this just seems like ways to either drive down certain options, or try and justify cuts elsewhere.

This also stands out to me.

Like, I agree with most of that, but I'd argue a price increase should actually be unneeded. Less content means more time for it to be in the spotlight, and ideal increased quality should drive more people to buy it, and others to buy it earlier on without a discount.

Also, even assuming that I do want to pay more, I mean, how much are we talking here? Because there's a difference between paying only a extra $5 for a 90 mile that quality wise utterly wipes the floor compared to anything DTG's put out. Versus say $10 for a 60 mile route that's been rushed to hell and back, which frankly is probably what DTG would want to do.

I think I said this in a way last year, but when you don't know how DTG are interpreting things it makes it kind of hard to actually answer this. It's like political surveys that ask loaded questions, and you have to spend ages wondering how they're going to spin it.

 

I like to have more in dept gameplay, more detailed routes with branch lines and more complete, with more trains included and I'm willing to pay more for it. However, the quality has to go up, before I'm willing to pay more, first go fix all the outstanding bugs, also the ones on older routes, fix the core, then bring quality routes worth the money.

On this moment I expect more ftom DTG, but without wanting to pay more. First prove yourself, so we can see more expensive routes are worth it.

 

An interesting survey! Will be curious to see which additional gameplay features they look to implement in future. I suspect, as we've seen previously, whatever they decide to go with it'll most likely crop up in an occasional scenario before being implemented in perhaps the next installment of the game.

Whatever happens I hope players give honest feedback!

 

Well it was definitely 10/10 on the save slots for me. I also voted yes on the longer less frequent routes though was getting boss eyed at that stage and missed the bit about more expensive, so apologies for that. I would make it 100% clear to DTG I would not contemplate paying more than I already do for route content (already overpriced IMHO and certainly compared to SCS) unless it was something that went to 11 on my personal LAMPOIL rating. So yes, £40 for Perth to Inverness in the 70’s with authentic Class 26’s. But not for Waterloo to Bournemouth in 2019 with modern electric units.

As regards the Mastery, I know it will never happen but I did suggest a small discount voucher (even just the equivalent of GBP£0.50) on the platform of our choice would be a powerful incentive. And I made it crystal clear on the other topic, I would not pay micro transactions just to unlock mastery awards. The game costs us enough as it is.

Further to previous comments in this thread, I didn’t see anything in the questions that indicated they intend to revisit steam traction, but there were quite a few questions it must have skipped presumably because I answered no to any of the Thomas stuff.

 

Questionnaire in the style of DTG... Messy

 

Quickly done. Took awhile all the same.
Questions quite specific and needed contemplating.
Those up/down lists are a pain.

 

There wasn't a questionnaire into a subscription model? I cannot remember, and I have already taken the survey and it isn't opening anymore.

As for the monetary rewards of XP against a future purchase, according to DTG's strive for equallity on all platforms, all these platforms will have to cooperate and need to offer the same incentives, right?

 

One thing I forgot to mention somewhere in the survey, or there was not really a spot for, is to fix the z-fighting and sound popping on Xbox. This is quite annoying and really ruins the experience for a long time now.

 

Most of my responses consisted of "No", "Hell No", and "Oh, HELL No!"

The consent manufacturing went hard on this one. I could not express my disinterest in their proposed nonsense quite hard enough to match. But at least there was an option to say "Stop making new broken content and focus on fixing what's there", as well as to say "Never repeat that unplayably awful, counterintuitive control scheme in a future Thomas DLC"

 

Trouble is DTG have got us by the short and curlies when it comes to a SP train simulator game so it’s pretty much the only show in town, aside from a very limited German subway sim and the mostly MP Simrail which doesn’t interest me in the slightest.
What they really needed to buck up their ideas was strong competition and for a while it looked like that was coming with a game called Train Planet for which a free demo was released (from the makers of Fishing Planet), but that appears still born now after a long period of inactivity. Hence at the moment they have it all sown up and there’s not much more we can do than moan.

 

No I don’t recall there being a question about subscriptions, unless it was locked behind a response to one of the previous questions. Hopefully they got the message last time around. I mean, popping my head over the fence to TSC, I can’t see many people there have taken it up either. So hopefully a big flop, never to see the light of day in TSW.

 

Well for the US (PC only) there is Run 8, but that is hampered by the @2002 level graphics, the arcane e-commerce system and the fact it can get quite pricey, particularly if ordering from outside the States with their one at a time purchase basket. And they are not the most customer friendly company, a recent attempt to increase their presence on social media seems to have flopped, with the guy they recruited to do it already moving on.

The best alternative to TSW does remain DTG’s own TSC, but again from looking over the fence that is now largely unsupported and recent patches have wrecked havoc on many add ons including DLC bought from the Steam store. So it’s not in a happy place at present.

TBH in my personal playlist at present, the biggest competitor to TSW are the two truck sims, Farming Sim 25 and good old Snowrunner where I have enough left to do with all the content until I’m old and decrepit!

 

Well, we've already had this Bidstack in-game advertising on the Tube's billboards.
I can understand a publisher like DTG wanting to generate some extra income, and some people even might like actual real world advertisements over fake or blank billboards since advertisers are usually very sensitive over their exposure, and no advertisement is timeless. Displaying commercial advertisements can pose a moral or ethical dillema, and despite the best intentions still offend some part of the player's population.

Consoles offer a Game Pass, right? At least that's what I keep seeing in Windows Store and XBox app pop ups.
But DLC is not included, only some base game for a restricted time period?

EPIC and other publishers release their older games for free, though IIRC Sony's PlayStation network still requires you to pay your monthy subscription in order to play them.

 

This time around they pivoted to proposing a cosmetics store, with things like cab decos and driver clothing that could potentially be unlocked ingame but also, crucially, they specified as being also available as standalone purchases for real money.

 

Yes that was the one I answered an emphatic “No” to. Leave that LOVE to the tablet games like Hay Day or Clash Of Clans.

 

I still fundamentally believe displaying advertising in a paid product or ticketed event should be a civil offence punishable by a fine of no less than 200% of the revenue from said advertising. Yes, I am looking at you, Football and F1.

 

Do some games have an option to play ' for free ' at a higher price than ' with commercials ' at a discount?

 

Yes it’s ironic that the only real competition to TSW is DTG’s own TSC, talk about keeping the monopoly on SP train games! The two combined are certainly a breeding ground for bugs.
I briefly looked into Run8 but like you say soon stopped looking after seeing what they charged for a prehistoric looking game. The convoluted buying process I’m afraid was typically US and aimed to extract every last dime from the potential customer. It reminded me of another US indie game producer called Battlefront dot com that does strategy wargames. The greed of these people knows no bounds, for example releasing the Battle of Normandy at some grossly inflated price and then having the nerve to sell both British forces and the Waffen SS as overpriced dlc! Multiply that by separate games for various theatres of war and you’d spend a fortune.
I don’t trust them I’m afraid and in actual fact TSW comes out favourably in comparison,

 

Wouldn't know, I assume they would not be games I'd have heard about.

I do however sometimes fire up the original Crackdown and oh boy have some of the billboards in that game not stood the test of time. In certain markets they were used as a test bed for ingame real advertising, which if you looked at for a while it would shift to displaying leaderboards. But when the company hosting them went bust, I think in the 2008 crash, all the live billboards just ended up displaying nothing, as they had no offline fallback the way DTG's ones display the delightfully quirky yet believable ones like Double Decker Time Machine.

 

Yep answerd 10 out of 10 for those as well.

Yes

Which of these potential new Game Modes of Train Sim World sounds the most appealing to you?,

Shift Designer - design a daily shift for a driver, drive it, and share it with other players on Creators Club

Freight Hauler Mode - freight cars will be spotted in locations around a route and each has a destination. Take cars from the arrivals sidings and deliver them to industries, and then bring the cars back from industries to the departure sidings. Fully dynamic and completely up to you how you complete your tasks and deliver the cars.

Yard Manager Mode - While the AI drives the train, you run around the yard operating switches and couplers to work with the AI engineer to build the train.



Got to say i quite like all of these options to be honest, Although I think one or two would mainly be used for the US market. Think I went for Yard Manager mode to be fair.

Also I gave a fair assessment of question 21



Hentis

 

Concerning they asked about an in store game and about hiding additional game play behind completing mastery as well as simplifying physics. Clearly they are planning on moving TSW further away from simulation to pay to win. The day that happens is the day i uninstall

 

Meanwhile I treated it like a streamer creating a Skyrim character. Everything fully to the rightmost extent.

 

Did anyone request a class 56 apart from me?

 

I'm totally not interested in the new modes they suggested in the survey. Fx. the shift designer: If you don't have a route with a sort of network so the player can make use of multiple route segments, it is rendering useless. A yard manager ... come on the german yards are mostly laughable. And freight hauler mode ... with limited branches on the routes ... fun for 2 minutes. Sorry but thats not interesting at all.
Concerning the question about the quality of the game as a train simulator (aka are we still the best train simulator on the market) I had to strongly disagree. Tramsim or Subway Sim 2 are way better now.
I am very disappointed with the game today and projection through the survey have less hope for its future.

 

I was extremely unsubtle in requesting the class 599.

 

Where does one fill out that survey? Please and thank you

 

https://bit.ly/TSWPlayerSurvey2025

 

I done the survey, I highlighted the passenger system, extra saved slots and put station manager at the top of the suggested list. There was a freight haulier, shift designer and yard manager ideas I didnt like. The mastery asked what rewards, I put extra timetable/scenario things you can play with, a post on a wall is nice, but I want entertainment.

I was asked about simulations, which I thought was weird, but I put down forza, bus sim and microsoft flight sim which is launching on the playstation tomorrow, so that's gonna change things.

The survey asked me if I could have one train, what would it be and I requested Deltic. What did everybody else put? Deltic right?

P.s I got "LOVE" in one of my sentence, damn it I didn't put "LOVE" in there, then I realises I spelt "shift" wrong woops

 

Nope because what’s the point they never listen to feedback from the community so why should I waste my time

 

Actually there is a question asking specific about that, soooo maybe you give it a go. I think I was through in about 6 to 8 minutes?

 

I would always do the survey if you have any opinion on the game. This is the best and most direct chance to get your voice heard.

 

I voted for the Class 91, although I did consider a Deltic, but opted for the 91 on the basis that it could be just be dropped into the Peterborough to Doncaster route, whereas the Deltic probably needs a route of it's own really (unless of course they made it specifically as a railtour loco)

 

#1 How did you reply to which countries that are in TSW would you like to see new content for (note: not UK, USA, DE)?

#2 How did you rank the new roles?

#3 What rewards for Mastery did you select?

#4 How did you reply to question 42 (as shown)



?

Note this question confused me. By that I mean, would I have to pay even through I made progress in game?

#5 What about the Thomas & Friends, standalone game?

#6 How did you reply to how you find out about new content (ex Youtube) ?

 

I put "Not at all appealing". Keep microtransactions out of tsw. (Unless I also misunderstand, but not sure what else "purchase them directly" could mean in the context of tsw)

The forums or YouTube content by ambassadors, mostly

 

I had a feeling they were leaning towards micro transactions. The Roblox thing they made was a dip of the toe in the water as that is what keeps Roblox going ie microtransactions.

 

I'm just happy they put audio in as something to comment/select!