Do Dtg Tell Us About 'upcoming Content' Too Early?

I believe we have to look at both sides:

DTG: Premature announcements can create false expectations, as happened last year with Thomas, where the vast majority expected something unprecedented, which it was, but aimed at a specific niche. There's also the issue of the GWE Remaster, which was announced a long time ago and still hasn't been released, as it's a personal project for someone with other commitments.

Users: Most of the time, users complain if there are no announcements of new routes or trains, especially in the monthly schedules, saying that the schedule is disappointing because it has no new offerings.

I believe the main focus should be on keeping the game as stable as possible across all platforms, and temporarily "giving up" on new releases. Of course, this is almost impossible because they need to stay afloat financially, but the game has reached a point of bug after bug, in a vicious cycle that seems endless...

 

The 420 is still coming for the Frankfurt Sbahn route.
Various reasons why release takes that long mostly origins from the developer not having enough time to work on this side project.
Not sure how long it will take if this cycle continues, so you only can wait.

 

I honestly can't see the problem. I like to know what is coming up, there is plenty to play with in between. If it's something I'm interested in then it's something I can look forward to.

They are moaned at for not announcing things much of the time, now they announce too early.

Are "we" going to try and find fault with everything?

The EP had horrible socks on during the last stream, DTG have the wrong make of kettle in their kitchen!

 

I can remember the times when DTG told us nothing and Sam (for those that remember him) introduced the roadmap. It was good but despite warnings that, sometimes, there wouldn't be anything to say, people soon started to complain about boring roadmaps. So I understand why DTG try to keep a stream of new announcements going.

Do I think they a announce things too soon? Sometimes yes. If it's a developer that doesn't communicate and the product doesn't seem to move then I would prefer they left it later when there is some certainty. However I'd counter that by saying that some things are announced too late. Just Trains for example used to start dev blogs really early, for TSC, and you could see how things were progressing. In TSW they can't start until DTG tell them. I'd love to see the development of their routes from an earlier stage.

Ultimately I think it's fine and we need to have patience. But it wouldn't hurt to have more regular updates on the things that are delayed or even cancelled to set our expectations.

 

I would be fine with "It's ready when it's ready". Worked fine most of my life. I don't need to know anything about a game until it's done and ready to play.

 

I'd maybe push it to 3 months but otherwise I agree. I seem to remember Tadami being officially announced back in the TSW5 launch stream, only to then come up on the TSW5 Season of reveals, and again for both events for TSW6. It feels a bit "cheap" announcing them when they are so far from releasing.

 

I think it is nice to know that things are coming, even if they are a while off. It of course means we have to treat things with a pinch of salt, but it can be made interesting when we are allowed to follow the dev process through the roadmaps and dev blogs

 

Dovetail direct Spring 2024 TSW4 announcements!


That whole first batch of Tadami screenshots we got all had a TSW4 watermark on them.

 

Another reason for not holding back an announcement too long, is that sometimes the community can point out something wrong or missing from the route.

It is, as others have said, a double-edged sword with arguments both ways.

 

IMHO from the perspective of players that just wait for a release it would be better to have the announcement like 2 weeks before release.

Now, for those of us that sometimes want to give our opinion on what should be included, or what parts of a route or services are more important, etc ... The sooner we know a developer is working on something the better.

You cant tell a dev a month from release that you would want many changes and expect them to be able to do it.

From a developer PoV, i think the sooner they can get feedback from the people that could be interested in what they will want to sell us the better.

 

If we take a look at the Editor Discussion section of this forum, there are so many passionate people writing and showing off their projects. It's awesome to see, with a lot of engagement of different people. However, as soon as they are part of the team creating official addons, they are not allowed to talk about these projects anymore. Yes, I think this is a huge problem.
Let's take the BR 420 as an example. It was announced very early on (you could say too early, but only because of this yearly TSW realese nonsense), but TSG/Maik could keep us engaged through the waiting time by sharing picture etc. with us. But he is not allowed to, because every bit of communication has to go through DTG. And I think this is a huge problem. Different developers have different strategies, and this is fine. However, I really do not undestand, why DTG doesn't allow third party developers to take us onboard their journey of creating routes, with pictures, blogs etc. This would make this whole discussion unnecessary, because some of them would share it early on with us, while others would share it with us later in the process.

 

Yeah, i wish i never have done that. No one would know about it, no one would make their jokes on it, no one would expect extraordinary high quality after 4 years in production (what is not even the case, it is just 4 years since the first mention of it in public, no one worked 4 years constantly on it). It's better to keep things secret because of the nature of the audience, especially in the train simulation genre.

 

Personal opinion here, so firstly, the nature of games development is timelines can change. Something could be announced at a time that the people involved feel like its in a good position to announce and won't be too long away from wrapping up and releasing but ultimately for any reason, this can change. Routes especially take so much work, they are like their own game within a game with how complex things are from gameplay to tech to trains to environment art, etc so naturally things with timelines can change.

I don't really get why announcing something "too early" would be an issue personally but maybe as a developer I have a different perspective on things entirely, who knows. I mean the games industry as a whole announces new titles, etc years in advance, I mean hey, look at GTA 6 now lol

Ultimately, it would be great im sure for a product that gets announced to be out within 6 months but the reality is that can't always be the case.

 

I think the nature of the announcements plays into it. I don't necessarily see the announcement of a project that is being worked on as an issue, where it becomes a problem is when timeframes are given or implied and then they just go by the wayside. Tadami is a good example, it being announced during the TSW launch would imply that it would be out within that game's lifecycle. Same with GWER (although I understand this was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances and this was communicated as best as it could be).

With situations like the Class 104, I believe that it should be announced that a product is indefinitely delayed or cancelled (even if the developer hasn't communicated as such). I don't know how the partner program operates but, in the jobs I've done throughout my life, if you start a project you have an estimated timeline. If it looks like this timeline will become unachievable, you give your relevant excuses and try your best to come up with a new timeframe for delivery. If the project gets repeatedly delayed or there is a lack of communication about the status of it, it is shelved. Sure there will be complaints from those who were looking forward to it, but it's so much better than something just vanishing into obscurity and becoming this enormous elephant that everyone refuses to address.

DTG has recently stopped giving exact release dates for products unless they are within a week of launch, I personally prefer this although I know others don't. I do think overall the way that this is being handled has changed for the better, the issue is we just still have products leftover from their earlier way of doing things. Where possible, if a product is announced very early in it's development, it would be good if semi-regular updates could be given (something JT has always been very good at). You can see DTG starting to do this with things like New York Stamford.

 

Personally, I like the early announcements because it allows me to see the journey and either ask questions or have community engagement here and discuss what we hope we see vs what we actually see.

That being said, I’ve only been an active member of this forum for a little under a year and I don’t think anything will make it better for most members of the forum. It’s gotten significantly more toxic here for various reasons (some valid, some not valid) and 95% of the responses to how DTG handles updates and news is negative.

So whether they provide early info on projects or waited until the last second, the community would have some sort of uproar about it not being good enough. It’s turned into what the Flight Sim community did where it was a great place for conversation with other members and 3rd party devs and eventually got overrun by all of the negativity. Which is a shame because there’s plenty of good discussion here, it’s just being overshadowed by the negativity and making it a place that’s less fun to visit.

 

Personally I agree with what Mich said earlier in regards to dev logs etc.

It’s great to see a route announced & getting dev logs throughout the year.

When you get something that comes on the roadmap, just keeps getting pushed out & we don’t get any comms it just feels abit pointless. 313, 420, BR Green pack were/are all examples of ways not to do it.

The announcements I take the biggest issue with are the ones that appear from nowhere into the 0-3 month category & we get the bare minimum in terms of detail. Seems pointless to me to announce a product, put it into an imminent release timeframe & then be overly secretive on the details.

I think overall the way many announcements are handled are just a symptom of how poor DTG is at communicating, they tend to speak a lot without really saying anything.

 

This happened with the Morristown line. There was an issue with the Arrow III cars where they were linked way too close with no gap between. Mind you this was already fixed and it was from an earlier build, but several people raised it and it was communicated that it was already fixed. But a good example of how this community can have constructive conversation and feedback.

 

I'm going to guess that the GWR HST Farewell pack will be releasing alongside the GWE Remaster so I would hope that the 104 pack is still happening but is on the backburner until DTG Liam does a remaster for Peak Forest..

I would like DTG and/or Simtrack to confirm if this pack is still happening or if it has been canned. I've had a empty file on my computer since its announcement in June 2024 awaiting the first proper screenshots of the 104 on Peak Forest

 

Yup. If it can't be in a few months (under a year, preferably 6 months) then don't try to sell it.
Too early.

 

more infomation was confirmed in last week's Season of Reveals. It was announced in the October roadmap and has regular updates since

 

I'm pretty sure Liam said GWE was his last remaster.

 

He did and Peak Forest doesn't really need a remaster. Just a realistic timetable and a train or two to run it.

 

Totally agree, I love the route it looks great just as you say the issue was steam and the timetable. Which is why the 104 would've helped so much

 

I know it's maybe asking too much, but could a bit more detail in the hows and whys be appropriate to show progress or lack of progress? We get that third party DLC is third party. Things happen. Timelines change. However, something a bit more detailed like "we had to go back and redo this" or "it's tougher than expected to get this feature to work to our satisfaction" would give more evidence that work is happening, it's just been delayed for a reason. If something is probably not going to happen, then that would helpful too, the earlier the better. Something like "we haven't heard from the guy in 6 months...." I know I don't expect miracles. Life happens. Just the more transparency the better.
I've said that with the "no way in hades" stuff too. If there's things people keep saying and you KNOW there's no way it'll happen or a 98% chance it'll never happen...just be honest and tell us. If it's something like "we can't get our hands on any examples of this locomotive to create it and it doesn't go on any of the routes in game right now" then that's just being honest.
People come up with these conspiracy theories to fill in the gaps as if DTG is hoarding the Holy Grail in a warehouse somewhere.