There Was A Mbta Gp40mc Planned For Tsw5? Thread & General Future Of The Forums

So i got home from work and checked the forums and came across the above thread which I was interested in contributing to, but as its been discussed on social media (which I dont use) and on Discord, we forum members are not permitted to discuss it because Candace has answered it already 20 times?

Sorry but thats your job and if you are now censoring the forums simply because youve seen it on multiple other platforms shouldn't mean we cant discuss it here. If you dont want discussions on the forums then be honest and shut the whole thing down entirely, but dont decide I cant discuss subjects just because Discord have discussed it while I was working.

 

Yeah, I don't agree with locking the thread either. I have nothing personal against anyone involved, but working in community management you're probably gonna get asked stuff multiple times. People in catering probably get asked about ingredients multiple times, train station staff probably get asked "which platform for Birmingham?" multiple times. Retail staff probably get "which aisle for bread?" multiple times.

The answer/explanation could have been posted in there, and then the thread left often for people to discuss if they choose. Especially since, from what I saw in the thread at least, it seemed a perfectly civilised discussion and no one actually broke any rules

 

They've made it pretty clear they're not interested in maintaining the forums any longer. Easier for them to control and shutdown unwanted discussions on Discord

I wouldn't be surprised if they just shut them down as soon as they think they can get away with it.

 

Yes, this smacks of that they have so much disdain for the remaining community members here that they cant be bothered having to read things that theyve read on discord or repeat themselves to us just because we have the audacity to refuse to join their Discord channel.

The disrespect they are showing some of their most loyal and longstanding customers is shocking.

 

times are changing, things are changing, DTG is changing
and no, not for better

 

To this point threads have only been shut down because of unpleasantness. This one seemed like a harmless discussion. A bit worrying.

 

Truly fascinating how such a simple thing can turn out in yet another pointless thread.
This forum wont be replaced by discord.
For a very long time there already has been a discord server which the DTG staff used in a very similar way compared to the new one.
If you think the situation changes, you are wrong.
The amount of extra information DTG would only post on discord didnt change and neither did the amount of interaction with the players change.
The only reason why so many threads get locked or deleted is because its either a copy paste of another one or just pointless.
Not DTG gets worse, but the quality of some discussion on the forum does.

 

It's news to me, and I am only learning about it from this thread, because that one was closed before I could notice it among the recently updated threads.

There was a satisfying explanation that it was a basic mockup that never made it into production, folks could have continued chatting about their thoughts on it and things like other potential locos they'd like to see.
I dunno, it comes across like this is a response to the specific ways in which conversations occur in a short-form engagement-driven format, being applied to a very different kettle of fish. Forum threads are nicely self-contained, they don't keep pushing a post to the top of engagement algorithms or dominate a more general purpose chatroom. If anything, this was the BEST place it could have been discussed from the start.

 

Find me another example ever where a thread has been shut down simply because the mod have answered it previously on a different media? This topic hadnt been repeated on the forums from what I can see, it was shut down because its a been discussed previously on social media including Discord. Thats great if you use discord or social media, but for anyone who doesnt its two fat fingers to you.

 

I mean, by that rationale, the logical extension would be closing every single thread discussing a livestream, blog post, or roadmap, which obviously defeats the point of the forum.

 

Are we meant to ignore our own eyes when we see literally 1000’s of open posted in this forums? Stop lying to your customers and treating us like idiots.

Maybe you should go into politics?

 

Spam now equals 1 civilized discussion on this forum.....ok i guess lmao.

But i guess we're being punished for bad behavior elsewhere.....seems totally fair

 

Did I miss the memo where it said community members have to be online daily and keep up to the minute one things? We don’t all live on the inter web and some have lives outside TSW as well. I’ve been caring for elderly dying parents this past week so the first I’d seen of this, by your logic me discussing something is spam because others have been discussing it on other mediums for the past few days?

 

Not even possible for posters to delete threads, Ive looked and tried. Stop with the lies

 

Have a look in this forum and see what percentage of threads historically have been closed and what percentage remains open yet dormant. Why the sudden change in how this community is managed UNLESS the end goal is to shut it down entirely?

 

Why does an inoffensive thread need to be closed? Just because it's not currently in development doesn't mean people can't discuss it- that would invalidate a huge number of threads on here if that standard was applied across the board.

Seems unnecessarily heavy-handed, designed to make the forums unpleasant to visit, and thus drive traffic to Discord.

Then they'll turn around and say, "site traffic is down X% ytd, so we're shutting down the forums to serve you better"

 

Or hear me out don’t lock threads in general unless it’s like the yesterday mad man and to add they shouldn’t lock threads over a few people arguing

like just warn people, not ruining it for everyone else

 

Anyways sorry, I just really dislike kinda pointless lockings like yeah we know the answer but some us still like talking about the what ifs and possibilities in the far future etc

In my view locking should only be used in certain cases like yesterday

btw this has been something I’ve been bringing up every now and then with multiple staff

 

I had a case of pneumonia that was caught before it became worse than mild, and it still sucked. Sympathy.

 

On the subject of spam, I think this thread right here exemplifies counterproductiveness, because now instead of having one thread on a topic, we got another thread on the same topic AND on the topic of the closure, and the potential for further ones based on people's speculations.

I totally get though that any workplace is often going to be "do as I say, not as I do", so am not at all going to get up in Candace's face over how other folks working for DTG have handled contributions to discussions here in the past by giving their feedback, answering questions, and letting the discussion continue, once the official stance has been made clear. If you're told to handle stuff a different way to how your boss does it, I get that.

I don't think any of us need to personalise it by being directly confrontational with the one person we have representing the company right here and now. One of the advantages of a format where we think longer about what we write.

 

Sympathy and best wishes to you in this rough time as well. Hope you have a good support system available.

 

On the topic of thread closings, it's not rare at all for DTG staff to close question threads when the question has been resolved. Possibly the original thread was interpreted as simply a question that had been resolved rather than a discussion waiting to happen.

Doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone who wanted to continue the topic as a discussion to simply ask nicely if the thread could be unlocked for that purpose, or to propose a discussion thread on the same topic (say, under Suggestions), rather than taking what might be a simple misunderstanding as "evidence" of an impending forum apocalypse.

 

I too can’t see why the thread was locked, there is zero harm in discussing what might have been. Of need be, move to the Suggestions area.

And redrev1917 , best wishes to you and your parents hope things pull through. My mother and father have been gone a long time now but we had an anxious time over the Christmas period when my brother (who is younger than me!) was taken into hospital with a stroke. Fortunately he’s back home now and recovering but there are a lot of issues to sort out.

 

Interesting. That request would have saved us all a lot of grief.

I think the reason the OP didn't ask is that, to the best of my knowledge, a closed thread has never been reopened because, as I said above, they've always been closed for poor behavior by one or two individuals.

I understand the OP's frustration, especially with the week he's had. I've been there. But I must compliment you, Candace, for remaining cool, calm and collected despite some unpleasantness.

Just to add: The GP40MC would have been a great addition to MBTA, but would have required a new route, opening up North Station and the line to Wachusett.

 

I defo think leave threads open unless they are very offensive, like that one on Sunday night!!!

Lord knows this forum needs all the traffic it can get.

I even had a thread closed the other day, that I did admit I started as a bit of a harmless troll (although hardly even that really) to try and stoke some discussion, but didn't really contain anything particularly controversial and no one had used any rude/threatening language.

 

Is it a possibility that Room8 could remake the model to be released? Could you also if possible, ask the team if the Amtrak Downeaster route is a possibility? It would add an MBTA route AND an Amtrak route while at the same time adding North Station and the very much wanted P42DC which are all great things! Also making a F40PH NPCU would be extremely easy as it's literally just a gutted F40PH with a cargo door on both sides.

 

I wonder why the GP40MC might be scrapped or vaporware? I am kind of surprised because from my understanding, MBTA works well with DTG regarding reference material/non-revenue service run. Well, the good thing is, we have the HSP-46 and F40PH-3C with the ctc-3 and ctc-5. The GP40MC would be a great addition to potential future MBTA releases. Hopefully there is room for the Amtrak P42DC genesis at some point

 

But the northeast signaling expert is no longer on the team, and the future of the routes in that region is in question. Unless just release them as the Antelope Valley or San Bernardino Line without working safety systems.

 

I'd assume likely simply because DTG's next MBTA line ended up not being one it has services on.

 

One of the reasons I don't use the Discord channel is because the answer can disappear in an instant with constant posts pushing it up the channel, meaning it's very easily missed and as the OP said, not everyone uses Social media either.

Locking a thread because you were fed up of answering a question is a mistake that just leads to bad feelings and other threads being opened up as a result.

Just post the answer and leave the thread open for others to discuss. It's a forum, discussion is what it's for.

 

are you referring to boston-worcester or somewhere else?
because it was clearly a job/project for tsw5 as seen in the photos

 

Yes, but as has been explained it was an early mockup that never made it fully into prototyping. As I say, I'd guess because they ended up not having a use for it ingame. I expect a few locos never make it past this level of the drawing board simply because there's not much in the way of routes in the works that they'd be useful to.

 

Harry's closing post:

"Hey folks, we've had multiple reports on this thread so I'm closing it now. Please refrain from posting flame/ragebait content against other forum users. "

 

Yes, if I recall correctly, the GP40MC runs mostly out of North Station to Watchusett and other destinations, though nothing prevents it from running on routes out of South. DTG have not modeled or plan to model routes out of North.

 

When you say that it's on your list does that mean it's planned for the future or what exactly do you mean by that?

 

That’s no early mockup. That’s a fully modelled and highly detailed loco (just the 3D art, not the workings). It was clearly meant for specific project(s) that have now been cancelled. I do have a sold theory as to why a project that got as far as fully modelled trains might get cancelled in this case but I’m not going to go into it on the forum. It makes no difference anyway, we aren’t getting the loco.