General Discussion Is Gone

“It mostly spread hate”. Lol, you should work in a job where you see hate day to day, and you’ll realise this forum is nothing like hate spreading. People have a right to critique DTG without being personal, and if you like something that’s fair enough.

 

Please have a look at that.
And please let me know there whether I should go ahead with it and whether you’re interested, or not.

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/alternate-discussion-forum-options.98480/

 

i’m not stopping you from sharing your opionion?

 

I'm interested.

 

Two Words: Focus Entertainment (or whatever they call themselves these days). Ever since they took over, there has been much less focus on the user base in discussions and livestreams and more on only telling us what they want us to hear. They (probably under instruction from the bean counters) sound really enthusiastic about everything they do, even when users overwhelmingly give a different opinion (for example the original Thomas DLC).

Whereas they used to be fully interactive and answer most pertinent questions in live streams, they are just an advertising gimmick now. They say what their bosses want them to say and ignore any questions that are not on their script (Keir Starmer would fit well if he is looking for a job soon ).. Basically, they are towing the company line.

This forum is an inconvenience. There are too many awkward conversations.

Sorry., that's more than two words and it is just my opinion.

 

Well, one things for certain, the discussion thread DEFINITELY lasted longer than a certain someone from Downing Street.

 

I absolutely would buy it if it's good, but the fact that they are doing everything possible to curtail discussion here makes it hard to know. The first release from HiS was not great, so it's especially important to gather user feedback in this case, and not just the day it releases and DTG finally create a feedback thread- we all know major changes are highly unlikely at that point.

There are users on here whose opinions i consider very highly (and not necessarily the same users for every topic tbh) and it can absolutely sway a purchase decision one way or the other depending on their feedback

The only conclusions i can draw is that DTG have decided (or had it decided for them by Pullup) that either:

1. The increasingly negative reception to recent DLC (especially since blurries started in TSW5) is materially hurting sales to the point where they'd rather have no discussion/hype at all than face the current level of criticism.

OR

2. They literally can't afford to pay for proper moderation across their various social media. There's some evidence for this with Candace mentioning she's only contracted for 4 hours/day across all her duties. She's the most active CM i see on here by far, so they might really be running just a skeleton crew these days. The games industry is struggling across the board so that wouldn't be super surprising to me.

Either way none of it is good news for the future of the franchise imo.

I think some transparency would go a long way tbh. If the EP (or somebody at the decision-making level) said something like, "Things are hard right now- we're strugging to keep everything running with staff cuts alongside the massive effort to fix the texture issues, but we need to keep selling new DLC to keep the lights on. None of us is happy with how things turned out, but that's where we are", the response from the community would be overwhelmingly positive (not 100% of course).

DTG's current, simultaneous posture of, "we're taking the long-standing major issues with the game seriously, for real this time", "everything's fine just buy the new DLC", and also, somehow, "don't criticize us for the long-standing major issues" is really tough for me to take seriously.

Take some responsibility for the product you're selling DTG!

 

I'm definitely interested.

 

No, it's a European forum.

 

Train Sim Society’s video on the forums is coming at

6PM UK Time.

this video will give everyone in the community a clear idea.

 

I remember years ago when the BBC were shutting down their 606 football forum, everyone was up in arms but luckily someone decided to create a very similar forum site and many people moved across using their original screen names, though the BBC did give a few months warning, DTG have given us just a 1 week warning, hopefully someone here can create a site we can all move over to, but no chance of this with just a couple of days left and how would they get their message across

Poor poor show DTG, just poor!

 

HIS is very relevant to the discussion in that regard, for a while in TSC they didn't have announcement threads because of how poor the reception in the forum would be to them. It didn't matter all that much because would talk about it in general, in the current context though if they pulled a similar stunt again for TSW though under current rules they could full effectively stop discussion of the DLC altogether on here if they chose to be strict on off-topic moderation.

 

What an utterly bizarre choice DTG. Discord is no substitute for a proper general forum. If the issue is time spent dealing with people not behaving properly then get rid of those people, not the forum.

No issue with getting rid of the off-topic forum, having one of those is asking for trouble.

I strongly hope this decision is reversed.

 

Exactly. If certain people are repeatedly being offensive/abusive, ban them. Do this instead and prove that you don't have anything against general criticism and debate.

 

This is single handedly the stupidest thing i’ve seen DTG do. Why? i mean literally why? there’s no point. i’m not migrating to Discord simply because i don’t use it and don’t plan on using it. Thanks Dovetail!!

 

For anyone interested, I've put together a video covering as much of this as I can, considering the frequent developments. That includes the forum changes, the community reaction, & how I personally feel about it. Please note, I did not grab every single point raised, as it would be 1+ hours long, so if there are additional points you want to add, feel free to do so in the comments. I think it's important to get more eyes on this, specifically eyes that aren't in the social space of this franchise, so we can hopefully try and keep GD going. The goal was to be as fair as possible and consider all angles.

I also want to extend genuine thanks to the community team, who are clearly stretched thin & stuck in the middle of this.

To DTG Harry specifically, again, I appreciate you and the light that you bring. And candacedtg ,thank you for dedicating as much time as you have to moderating to the best of your ability given your time and workload. Much love to the rest of the CM team as well. I really hope this decision can be reversed. Cheers!

 

It was the same when the old Edge games forum closed down many years ago. Someone created their own mainly UK-centric games forum which is still going strong today and has a decent off-topic section, film&tv section etc and no problems with moderating it.

 

While deletion may be the easiest solution, what about threads with history of information that would be useful in FeedBack and Troubleshooting but which are currently in General? Seems a shame that they be lost.

Honestly I probably would've gone the way of some other games and made a clean break from Forums entirely in favor of Discord. Easier to moderate just one place. That doesn't solve the above unfortunate issue though.

 

So all whining like demonstrated in this thread will be gone soon. What a shame.

 

nice one... I also think that some folks read too much into this as it being an attempt to silence criticism etc., which is a bit conspiracy level stuff... I am sure there is some rationale behind this - they are not stupid, they knew full well it will raise some emotion among community, and did it anyway, so there must be valid reasons to do so, even though it might be painful... for a time

 

That's a fair balanced video TSS

 

Yeah, a fantastic explanation.


And a good shoutout to the right honourable member OldVern, It’s good someone who is very prominent on the forums is being mentioned here.

 

we kind of knew this was coming when they created their discord server, and it does seem pointless to have two separate places where you can talk. on one hand, I can understand the decision, BUT is this a move to make it harder for people to talk about issues with the game?
the forum you can create a specific topic to talk about and people simply reply to that topic, on Discord as far as I’m aware it is just a general chat channel and there’s no way for you to create a specific topic (Thread).

although I do understand that Discord is a lot more popular I just hope they are not making this move as a way of trying to silence the critics because of the state of the game?

 

I genuinely think you should be made an ambassador with the caveat of keeping your content how it is. You're out here providing high quality content, involving the community and doing it from a good place. You highlight the good and the bad which you've done really well here.

One interesting point is talking about Candace's post that mentioned how much the forums and community has grown recently.

If the community has grown this much and the forums is a big part of that (if it wasn't a big part we wouldn't be having this issue) why are we cutting half of it off?

 

Cheers for the video TSS and for what you add to the community. I agree with your points.
From my perspective, especially as a console player, trying to censor conversation whilst continually releasing content that is not always fit for purpose is not a good look and no wonder infuriating for folks.

 

Whatever happened to free speech and opinions?

 

DTG removing the General Discussion forum because they can't handle people criticizing their decisions? Are they only after people who say nice things about them and act like everything they do is 100% perfect with no errors whatsoever?

[EDIT - Jan - Insulting]

 

I know certain DTG decisions over the years seem a bit 'odd' but this one? I had to check it wasn't April 1st. To me it is like that old analogy where a schoolkid playing football decides to pick up the ball and spoil the fun for everyone else.

I sure many here have been on a lot of forums over the years as have I and been lucky enough to run a few really successful ones and even a few of my own but one thing they all have in common was the 'General Section'. The best way to improve a user base whether it is for a game or whatever is the 'General Section' where people can ask or discuss things or share advice, hardware etc why motive would you have in killing the most used part of the forum?

I can understand trimming the least used parts of a forum unless that have useful advice in it. I remember being told that a forum is only as good as its mods. imo I hope someone starts an alternative forum for people to join but then is this DTG's aim or people could just use the feedback area, lol. Abuse on forums can be really tricky, I have seen forums split apart because of it but that comes down to how mods operate is it a frustrated customer or personal abuse, I think if it is personal action should be taken but you don't shot down the most popular part of the forum. Strange decision.

 

I think they are tired moderating the forums that often have people attacking each other out of nowhere, and even DTG Matt stopped interaction in the forums (I think he even have said something about the forums). Currently moderators would not lock the forums until things spins completely out of control, but I do support giving bans if anyone is in violation of the rules often.

I do need to state that removing General Discussion would not be a valid measure to suppress critism, as if an addon is bad you may find critisms everywhere, including the feedback forums, DTL article discussion and the steam review sections where you make the purchase decision.

If anyone want the nearly same experience as here, maybe go to Reddit. As of my observation it has a pretty good moderation. But General Discussion is the spine of this forum, if DTG kills this off entirely they better off just archiving the entire forum altogether...

 

I don't think 'tired of moderating' should be an excuse. Successful forums I have seen had volunteer moderators because they have a passion for the game or whatever the forum is about. The answer could be in getting certain members of the forum to act as moderators. If you get the right sort of people the forums can be a blast. I was on an old PS forum for a driving game but we made it for adults so there was 'colourful' language, lots of banter but no personal stuff. I think we only banned a couple or so people from there and it was great at the time but we had good mods.

 

Maybe the forum is being secretly taken over by Kier Starmer, after all, he needs a new job!

 

Well, you can still have it as long as you don’t criticise DTG at all!….

 

Technically viable solution. Though I wonder if this forum have more efficient moderation tools than just manually inspecting each thread - or if the amount of postings are still viable for a few people.

 

I bought it and I'm loving it
they've improved a lot since the ATSF pack

 

Just pathetic.

 

Two entirely different platforms for different purposes.
It's like saying "we can close stop selling TSC because we have TSW."

 

I honestly think this is one of the FRIENDLIER forums I've seen.
If people think THIS is rude and insulting, I have no idea what their life experience must be like.

However, even if that is the case, the answer isn't to throw the baby out with the bath water...it's to focus on the few "offenders".
And if you don't have enough PAID people to do it, you've had at least a dozen people offer so far to help fr FREE.

 

…I think DTG’s angle is that this forum is causing them to lose potential income. So often when a new DLC is released it’s (rightly)…”got blurry textures”, “empty timetable”, “missing passengers” etc. to which the response is usually “not buying it ‘til they’re fixed/80% off in a sale…just saying without prejudice.

 

Diddums! Maybe they should actually listen to peoples concerns and actually do something to fix them! Jesus effing wept!

"We are going to shut out General Discussion forum because we don't want to hear about peoples issues with the game"

 

Where am I going to have a conversation with like-minded individuals now? Discord is run by the fun sponges. Rail forum is too serious and professional. This sucks more than doofy's vacuum.

 

…pretty much !

 

I agree with that. I haven't been at every corner of this forum, but overall, this forum is one of the friendliest on the internet.
If people think this forum is rude and oppressive, they're either huge bosses whose employees are afraid to tell them what they think, or they're just incredibly lucky to always be in good company wherever they go.

 

I was gonna say, biggest thing I would say is remove the "like" system. It's purely toxic. A lot of back-patting and reciprocal upvotes for saying "what people want to hear" and often "what people want to hear" is wrong. Like telling people a cold hard fact on reddit and getting downvoted purely because people don't like the truth. This is kind of the mirror image of it. If you don't have a 2:1 likes to messages ratio you aren't playing the game and saying what other posters, especially the chronically here ones, want to hear. Useless feature.

 

These people get indignant because their dissatisfied customers tell them the truth to their faces, and like little children, they decide that no one else can play with their toy anymore.

Do what you want. My response will be the same as it has been for the past year: I won't buy anything from them at all because I'm fed up with their shameful lies. I uninstalled the game from my PS5. It had been there since TSW 2020, and I've spent thousands of euros, but no more. The situation has become untenable, and instead of trying to get us excited again, they seem to want to push us further away.

Lately, they've been treating the customers who keep them in business like enemies. They're earning their demise, and I won't feel sorry for them because there are many talented people ready to take their place, and I will support them, just as I did with you before.

 

However, there are many sites on the internet or on YouTube where you can get an idea of TSW or a new dlc.
Just browse the web a bit.
Ultimately, I don't understand why some people take this forum so seriously, as if it were the sacred tablets of Moses.
I will no longer buy TSW or its expansions simply because I'm no longer satisfied with them.
It's old and beyond repair.
TSW 6 is what you see, and any TSW 7-8-9 releases won't change, because that's impossible.
I'm waiting for something new.
I use my head; a negative or positive comment won't change my mind.

 

Why should they pay for you to post and distribute that criticism? Doesn't make sense economically. If there is a loss of customers it exacerbates it.

I understand bugs are very frustrating, and a critical bug actually kept me from even trying the game at all for over a year after first buying (the Dosto cabs didn't work and that's exactly what I wanted to use the game for). Still, as some who knows a little bit about game development I think people have really unreasonable expectations about the degree of polish and perfection that is possible for a company this size with the complexity of the product. Is it a bad choice for them to tolerate the degree of bugs there is? Maybe so. But again, why should they pay for you to publish criticism of that?

If you want a forum, use reddit. No reason for the developer to host them at all. This is a common trend in the industry, focusing on Discord, which is popular with younger users who are the future, and is easier to moderate.

 

You mean the same Reddit that has a TSW subreddit moderated by DTG employees?

 

Start your own sub then, that's how reddit works.

 

I'll add my 2p.

Agree with everyone, the GD forum is where I end up daily, even when I haven't played the game for a few weeks, or like now, when at an event with some down time. I don't see the logical thought process here.

So, some personal thoughts.
TSW4 was the pinnacle for me and Blackpool Branches, the growing 3P roster and the improvements looked like it was going from strength to strength.
The launch of TSW5 was the polar opposite, with bugs and issues now starting to show. I actually have some sympathy here. Everything game, iteration and development should improve the game and push the boundaries. Unfortunately for console users, that was TSW4. The game is beyond the tech of that generation and we are where we are today.

That however is overshadowed (for me), by the things that have happened in the last year. This is all pure conjecture on my part by the way.

I fear the parent company/driving force behind DTG have moved the goalposts. Maybe it was like most takeovers or parent company acquisitions, they take stock, review and understand the product before making changes, which in most cases takes a while (years).
I feel that's where we currently are.

We had a flurry of activity and announcements like the VR game, the Minecraft style (kids) variant and the UE5 teachings of Metro Rivals. Two stalled with no follow up and the last was canned. You can kind of understand that if the numbers don't add up, but I believe they let all the staff go. No redistribution, or long term goal learnings being harnessed, just a loss leader.

You then have the disappearances of the CM team and the EP who were once on here daily actively engaging on most threads. The reduction in the link between developer and community, which i feel is one of the reasons the forum has become sour and sometimes nasty. No excuse, but it's born of frustration.

My gut tells me that something big is coming. It could be the end of TSW and the move to something else.
As I mentioned previously on one of my posts , I fear the DLC and core size now are so big, it isn't financially viable to fix. Doesn't mean they can't get another two years out of it, but if things are only going to get worse, then removing things that they have to moderate the fallout, may help.

It could be that the next raft of Focus 'improvements' is to streamline the CM team. They let devs go, have stopped making in-house DLC (at the rate they used to), so by streamlining the forums and Discord, you can see what may happen next. Hope I'm wrong for all involved, as that usually means more departures to be cost beneficial.

As I said, all conjecture on my part, just find it sad that we seem to be on a downward trend on a game that I really enjoy and is what I use to clear my mind, depart from reality for a bit.

They will inevitably do what they want, just hope they revise THIS decision. This place here is what made me spend £50 last week on the JT DLC. The buzz, the discussions and the 'what ifs' made it a daily visit and even with all the issues, I still bought it on an XBox Series S.
It's what keeps me linked. Lose the link, and it will likely mean I'll drop out the loop for the game and ultimately future spending.