PC Class 90 Announced

Yikes that is not a good look, to be clear from a customer side I don’t think anyone particularly cares exactly who is at fault and why a mistake was made, just that a faulty build was pushed.

The lack of accountability is shocking, while it may not be a particular individuals fault per se there is clearly something wrong with the processes at DTG that lead to the wrong build being pushed at launch multiple times now. These issues can only be fixed if DTG accepts that the mistakes are on them and that they need to slow down and rework their processes so this stops happening.

 

It can be done, but it involves effectively driving both the lead and banking locomotives at the same time by jumping cabs continuously throughout the run

 

Clinchfield is a classic case of fire and forget abandonware that still leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many of us.

Fixes to numerous issues were promised and those promises were promptly broken and are still out there to this day

 

You've said that neither are to blame, the problem is that ATS already effectively blamed DTG for pushing the wrong build so clearly some conversations are needed and there needs to be some transparency on when these issues are going to be fixed timeline wise, the promise of patches that seemingly never come needs to stop at this point. Either that or pull it from sale and refund those who have yet to refund the product.

In the past DTG would post if a wrong build had been pushed, that hasnt happened and based off comments that you have made it seems that actually the correct build has been pushed so then ATS are using the wrong build narrative as a scapegoat, either way, both parties are to blame for what has to be one of the worst releases to date. But again, its time to get stuff fixed and give customers some transparancy on what that timeline looks like

 

That's a issue too, there's also a mainline service that softlocks because it encounters one of the shunting ones.

There's also a portion of the line where there's no grass for a whole mile or two.

Clinchfield is a very broken route, I'm just not sure DTG's ever committed to fixing them in the same way they committed to doing the horns.

 

That does make me wonder if that would fall foul of consumer protection laws, since the product is defective and does not work as intended. Like they advertise the 24 hour timetable but it softlocking is a defect.

 

Sadly Clinchfield is long gone from DTG's *to do" list and far down the list of forgotten content.

However it was not without charm and still is on an enjoyable route to revisit a couple of times a year. Probably more than we will be saying about this Class 90 in 5 years time! (Clinchfield was released on 8th April 2021).

 

Brushed under the carpet like most things unfortunately….

 

They didnt add train faults(one of the selling features off tsw 6) to the trains they promised they would add post release(class 802, nj alp-46, nj multi levels, db ice-t, db 146 and db 185) and we re 6 months in, i doubt they ll touch the older routes again

 

Now, thats not a very 'productive' attitude (lol /s of course)

With all of the bugs/issues that have had my attention, i had forgotten about the Class 802.
Thats a first party core TSW6 train, from TSW6's core launch - if thats not getting fixed, what hope does anything else have

 

It's not just the 802 that has problems. The class 220 Voyager has broken cab lighting and the AWS sunflower doesn't work at night.

If they are Rivet Games products, they are never getting fixed.... just like the class 385.

 

Here's a thought DTG.

You have so frequently released broken dlc that people no longer find it prudent to purchase content for the game until it has been confirmed to work. At that point, a sale is often closer than not and people who would previously buy your content at full price are getting it discounted, or by the time its fixed, not even bothering with it.

You are the publisher, release is your responsibility, trying to present the situation as blameless comes off as childish and amateurish.

This shoddy approach to releases is costing you potential sales, not to mention the additional man hours required to fix problems post release due to greater complexity.

It's time to take some responsibility and sort out your process for releasing content for TSW, or you will undoubtedly pass the cost of these mistakes onto consumers which will depreciate your sales even further.

Regards, a player that would prefer this franchise didn't die due to incompetence.

 

I’m not an expert, but is it difficult to ensure you are delivering the correct build when making the product available?. We’ve heard this a few times, so I’m just confused how this can even happen?

 

If QA is signing off the final release build the surely they would hand it direct to retail team for release. The fact that retail are getting the wrong build repeatedly makes me suspect that QA aren’t signing off the final build and its devs passing the build over to the retail team which would imply QA aren’t testing the final product before release.

Unless this ‘wrong build’ is just an excuse and DTG are knowingly releasing unfinished content which haven’t passed QA, either due to internal or external pressures.

 

It might just be me, but I start to get the impression DTG are losing interest in their flagship product. On a recent stream (might have been the Czech route) the EP even admitted he hadn’t had much involvement prior to demonstrating it. I get the issue about toxicity but it is now rare to even see the CM’s on the forum and to some extent if you’re putting out an often flawed commercial product, it’s no good going in a huff when people post something caustic about it or the management of the thing (given of course that personal attacks are unacceptable). From Steam DB it looks like Wonders Of Sodor has not entirely been a runaway success so where do DTG go from here? They certainly need to tighten up, starting with QA brought back in house and testing of British products actually done by people in the UK, preferably with some knowledge of how the railway works. And certainly no more rubber stamping of inferior products just to get a bit more cash through the door to pay the Chatham rent!

 

I’m not sure Steam Database is that great a yard stick for children’s games, when mine where younger anytime they wanted to play computer games, the internet was disconnected and they played off line and I’m sure I’m not the only parent who does that.

 

That’s something else I don’t buy either, these are DTG owned and managed forums. The toxicity needs to be managed by them, retreating to discord is not the ethical way to deal with the problem and they have a responsibility to other forum users to stamp it out.
Again I feel it’s more of an excuse than an issue they care about.

Because if I was in charge and was getting staff telling me they where suffering from abuse on social media I’d be hauling the director for social media and community director in front of HR and demanding they do their jobs or clear their desks, not telling my staff to hide away from the problem.

 

It isn't, and even with automated release pipelines, it's something you always triple check manually. Releases are always tagged with dates, versions, build numbers, etc. But the fact that they didn't release the correct builds as a "hotfix" as soon as ATS notified them it was the wrong one makes me doubt some of the explanations we have been given.

 

I beginning to wonder if ATS where contractual obliged to release in FY25 and this is as far as they got with it by the deadline. As as you say if it’s just a wrong build they could have hot fixed it within 24-48hours with ease.

 

For those on PC if you want to get more out of the 90 a new updated 2019 TT for WCMLOS is out over at the TSC website, adding in 16 playable services for the 90 as well as some scenery adjustments to bring it up to modern day with new PIS and the reposition of Morecambe station to the the tiny thing it is today!

 

Hi everyone,
Well, it's been a week since this supposedly faulty version was released. If that's really the problem, where is the final, correct version, the one we should have had on March 30, 2026, properly tested and verified ???

Best regards, tof

 

My guess would be still in testing, as i don't think they want a repeat of what happened at launch.

 

If it was simply a wrong build being released the correct build should have already been tested though

 

- DTG have a QA team.
- DTG have an army of Beta testers
- DTG Ambassadors get early access.

Somebody is finding and reporting every single bug before release, but nobody is listening.

 

1st thing i learned in any business is S_1T rolls downhill mate not uphill ill leave the conclusions to others

 

Probably in India, Romania or the Phillipines, and more than likely not railway or train experts certainly not for the UK.

Most of the decent ones probably got sacked after the leakage over the TSW5 routes. Again, how many are actual railway people or people with extensive experience playing these games?

H'mm and without starting the usual back and forth, how prepared is an Ambassador in receipt of free content going to fire it back at DTG and say, "Sorry Matt, this is utter cr a p, you need to pull it mate", or then go on to say that on their streams?

Sadly the only protection the more discerning customers have is to wait and see what the initial reviews say then wait and see if the 3P/DTG show contrition and actually repair the thing. And the more DTG just rubber stamp any old MSTS level junk in their pursuit of money, the more people like myself who will simply not bother on Day One - even extending that mantra to the more reputable stuff.

 

Really poor. Clearly someone has dropped the ball. Not the first time this has happened. Then to expand that it might not be fixed till following week. Really letting down the fanbase of the game.

 

Here’s a little fun fact about the beta team, you remember the post Matt made looking for new people for the beta….well they are still looking through the 100s of applications lol hence they don’t have many anymore

 

it’s not a one off, once would be a mistake - the umpteenth time it is sign of serious problem and until you drop this attitude that no one is to blame and actually address the failures and lack of control points which are causing this it will keep happening. But sure blame the community instead being unproductive as that’s cheaper and easier than to sort out the mess you are in behind the scenes.

So we should be grateful that they want to fix something we paid hard earned money for? And any way apparently it was just a wrong build so shouldn’t need fixing any way?

It’s your forums…. if it’s so bad as you say it then clean it up and make it a community people want to be a part of, not hide away from. Theres a big reason that this forum is a toxic mess and I could tell you who isn’t to blame for it.

And as there’s atleast one 3rd party dev staff member who’s been cautioned by the police for online threats that I know of I’d say the abuse goes both ways…

 

I’ll move past this “mistake” when I can enjoy a dlc I’ve paid good money for.

Mind it will be the last money you get from me.

Your attitude is appalling, I haven’t missed quoted you at all, this isn’t a one off and the blame game is entirely appropriate because it’s not an isolated mistake, far from it.

Just delete my account please, the toxic nature of these forums are down to the community teams failings and I want nothing more to do with it. Yes individuals shouldn’t be sending abusing DMs but it’s your back yard and the buck stops with you.

 

Regardless of build versions or anything else, all this could have been averted if someone at DTG had turned round to ATS and said, “Sorry this isn’t good enough”, when presented with a Class 90 which comes across as something Abacus (remembered for a reason), might have made for MSTS. But from the customer viewpoint, and without labouring the point, it starts to look as if DTG are just rubber stamping any old crud offered up for sale in a desire to swell the coffers. And your prices aren’t cheap compared to add ons in other simulation games. If you’re going to charge premium prices then there needs to be checks and balances in place and long before any of this stuff gets declared as gold/final QA.

 

Thought i give the training ago but why cant it move once attached to the empty wagons . No safety systems on apply power amps jumpy so there is power . Can't belive they released this janky piece of rubbish. Edit but it could have been a really good loco plenty to layer into nice to drive ATS what happened we had such high hopes for this loco .

 

I’ve driven the Class 90 a few times now and I’d like to give my two pence on the loco.

To start off with I’d like to say that the model looks pretty decent and I’m so happy to finally see Freightliner in game (hopefully this leads to a FL Class 66 at some point) The horn sounds decent enough but does go weirdly wobbly (best way I could think to describe it) when moving at speed.

As I console player, I haven’t really touched it after doing a few runs due to there being no button mapped for the safety systems which I absolutely cannot drive without as it feels wrong and slightly boring, so I’m glad to have read that a fix is being worked on for that.

And the last thing I’d say which is a let down to me is the lack of playable services (15 last I checked) and on a timetable that has 200 less services then the default WCMLS timetable making the route itself feel unrealistically empty.

This loco has a lot of potential to be amazing, and as the Class 90 is my favourite Electric Loco of all time I really hope that it is able to reach that potential, wether it’s added to other routes like ATS’ own Manchester Airport Route or it has more services added for the WCMLS.

 

I dont agree with anyone using bad language or insults = out of order. But theres been no communication on the fixes for the Class 90 whatsoever from DTG - a communication vacuum. Not the first time theres been a disaster launch and the fanbase are understandable getting frustrated.

Fair play to ATS who put out a YT video on the day. If we had some transparency and honesty from DTG on exactly what happened then people might not be so frustrated - though again this doesn't mean using bad language our insults - it's not difficult to make your point in a respectful manner.

 

And the slow demise of the forum continues unabated............

 

Hi everyone,
So now, could we please have a roadmap regarding the update of this faulty version to the final version which, according to what we've heard, exists but hasn't been shared with you, or for some other reason? Because honestly, I don't understand this DLC situation anymore. It's not a bug problem, it's a version issue. It's starting to become a real problem for a game that's also becoming increasingly expensive, so please do something about it. To date, no fixes or other improvements have been provided, so you can understand the growing disappointment felt by a large number of passionate community members who were expecting so much from this addon, which seemed to be a concentration of TSW6 and future optimizations, and then disaster struck. Everything the community hoped not to have with this DLC (traditional bugs to patch, blurry texture problems for console players...) well, we have all these problems, no fixes, and now we even find ourselves with a blurry texture problem on PC, something that had not happened before and which was originally intended to improve the handling of blurry textures on consoles. I'll admit right away that I'm a complete novice in this area, and even finding truly credible explanations isn't easy. So, the most important thing right now, for me (because I'm not speaking from other ), would be to have a release schedule so we can finally enjoy the DLC I paid [£12.99/€15.99/$16.99] for, like everyone else who is also primarily asking for a quick fix and for DTG to finally implement everything they've announced for the future.

I wish you all a good week and happy adventures with TSW.

Sincerely, tof

[PS: This is my personal opinion and therefore only reflects my own views, thank you.]

 

By any chance could you pitch an idea to both DTG and third parties for me?

so basically it goes like this just push releases until after the end of holidays meaning you guys have more time to make sure it’s correct and if not it’s still faster to fix (if was ready before the holidays still hold it back until after they are done)

unlike the unfortunate events that happened this time around where it was pushed out too late and people were on holiday so couldn’t fix it

just my idea ( definitely beats the April fools riot)

 

People have tried for years to deliver helpful feedback, but as much as people like complaining about it they'd often rather engage with posts they feel are "low quality" than to engage with people who they feel are in good faith. Yes, DTG to some degree tries, but I think we can all agree it's not entirely working when multi-page arguments still often happen every week.

It's one thing to not want to play a blame game, but the issue is if you play that game too hard you start to ignore perfectly valid issues the company might have. In aviation there's a concept that nobody's to blame per-say, but that's it's also worth noting every angle a incident could be prevented. And that includes people who might be considered "innocent" ironically enough, because but if they had more info or better training that could've prevented the whole thing. It doesn't matter who breaks the chain, if even the most innocent party can break from the Swiss cheese model it's worth critiquing that and make sure they have a better chance next time.

Not having a blame game doesn't mean accepting everyone's innocent, because nobody ever 100% is, it actually means accepting everyone is a part of the problem and needs to do their part. I remember when first hearing of TSC's Donner Pass back in the day and how much of a disaster it was. It's astonishing that after all this time it feels like at least once a year there's some release repeats the same story. Just in recent times we've had DTG's WCML, High Iron's ATSF pack, and now this ATS Class 90 that all have launched in such bad states they had (or in the last's cast is planned) to get major patching done after the fact. Like honestly, how much longer is it gonna be before these sort of massive release problems are left in the past?

DTG might very well be putting in effort behind the scenes, but it really doesn't show itself that well from ourside.

 

I'd like to highlight the exemplary work of the Firefly team in handling feedback and resolving issues. Yes, the release went without any critical bugs, but there were some rough edges. The team is always in touch, issues are resolved or workarounds are suggested. I simply can't bring myself to reproach them for anything. It seems to me that this kind of support should become the standard for all content. Everyone makes mistakes, but there's no need to remain silent.

 

As I said before Candace, people have paid money for this content. The content doesn’t work. They have a right to be infuriated. The wrong version was sent out, that just isn’t acceptable. Your company is a professional outfit and should never have released the wrong build. To tell people (as I interpreted it, perhaps wrongly) that they should just wait for the fix to come is poor. That said, nobody has the right to send you insulting messages or any of the things you’ve described. That’s out of order and people should behave better.

That is the problem right there and that’s what makes me think perhaps DTG are done with this ‘game’. We should not pay good money for a product and then ‘hope’ it gets fixed.

While I appreciate that your job is to defend DTG, I’m afraid I take issue with the tone coming out of DTG (not you personally, the company you work for)

At the risk of going off topic, there are numerous download content which are still waiting to either be fixed or have the fix released and yet there’s no sign of that happening.

So, perhaps to allay my and the others here concerns might I suggest a new thread or announcement is made detailing when (approx if not precisely) when updates for the broken content (E Coastway, Birmingham Crewe, WCML South, Manchester Commuter etc etc) will have their fixes released?

 

Why are people buying content which "doesn't work"?

I doubt DTG are done with TSW, there might be less of their own content. I suspect they might soon be done with the forums, it seems some people are trying their best to accelerate this.

Whatever issues you might have, sending insulting private messages or public messages is never acceptable, walk away if the sim is that awful.

 

Preaching to the choir a bit there, I seriously don't think anyone that stupid is going to listen to a random forum message.

If anything, to take a bit of issue with DTG here, letting people know they do get stupid messages and that it gets to them is actually probably going to add fuel to the fire. There's people who get a kick out of harassing people, there's a reason that "Never feed the trolls" was such common internet advice. You show weakness, there's going to be people who use that against you, especially those who are trying to be helpful, sucks, but it's true.

 

Well Candace looks like the forums like to prove you right.

Wow you all just seem to want to argue with everyone and never accept fair answers when given. Then complain there is no communication.

Instead of arguing with DTG staff and 3rd parties maybe just say what issues you have encountered so they can fix them.

Besides if you haven't learn't by now not to buy anything day 1 then its on you. You should know buyer beware by now or do you just like torturing yourselves and by judging from all the "this has happened more than once" talk obviously you do know.

So whats the saying fool me once....

So guess you are fools.

 

You can watch the dumpster fire from afar and see it keeps happening, Also your argument about 'accepting fair answers' Candaces post was pure deflection and rather than saying 'We're sorry, we are going to rework our QA processes so this stops happening in the future', it was some 'oh well it happened' garbage.

 

Haven’t yet seen one of these fair answers you’re talking about. I’ve seen excuses and people being told that mistakes happen but not a genuine answer or apology from DTG about the state of recent releases.

Nothing is getting fixed though. There are releases from last year (Birmingham Crewe for example) that still isn’t fixed.

And in response to why people buy on day one, it’s the hope that gets you. There’s nothing wrong with hoping that something that’s been waited for will work. However, people do need to refund things when they don’t.

 

Let alone the even older stuff… 1442 sounds on Rapid Transit, the G6 Journey that can’t be completed, Class 380 brakes, Class 385 sounds, Class 700 sounds, wrong speed limit on St Ives branch, Class 170 and the cloned Class 171 issues… Yes some of that is Rivet but DTG accepted and signed off on poor quality content so the buck stops with them on directing the fixes and getting them published.