General Discussion Is Gone

thank you for all of the input and attention you’ve given us over the last couple of days. i absolutely agree with the idea of this community corner; whilst general discussion in its current state may be gone in a few days time, i think it’s still crucial that we have an area that has the same functions and purpose

 

Just start commenting on another thread man and let this one cool down for a bit.

 

Can we get yellow and red flags too?
And a proper conductor's hat too of course.

 

It seems like negotiations between the Forums Community and DTG are underway.

It seems like all eyes are on Monday, for the final verdict.

A large number of DTG staff members are currently off due to it being the weekend.

I imagine Monday is an ample time to come to a conclusion on the matter. And put this to rest.

whatever the verdict is, this choice is out of our hands, if DTG goes ahead with this, despite the backlash to it, we have no control over it.

if this goes ahead, it will be the end of the forums, and a sad day.

 

I'm extremely sorry to be losing the beating heart of this forum, but I'm also sorry because for me it feels symptomatic of a deeper malaise.

In the context of longstanding, ongoing and seemingly insoluble issues with the TSW core, plus DTG giving the appearance of washing their hands of new route development and leaving it to third parties, plus the cancellation of a much-typed new IP, plus the almost unbearable pressures on the gaming industry in general, it feels like another nail in the TSW coffin, and potentially the DTG coffin too. Sorry to be so negative, but we've had few reasons for optimism for some time now, and with so many devs going to the wall the relentless problems and rancour we're seeing surrounding TSW and the community which sustains it feels like a very bad omen.

Regarding the forum specifically, hopefully talk of an independent alternative will be more than just talk and we can find a new home to chat about our hobby. I'm not going to waste time debating the economic and practical considerations to DTG's decision to shut down General Discussion, except to say that in the short to medium term at least it will undoubtedly hit DTG in the pocket as I and others will buy less DLC without the excitement, insights and hype generated in these threads.

I've been playing TSW since the 2020 iteration, have owned and played the arse off every single subsequent 'annual update' ever since with a total XBOX playtime of around 2,000 hours at least, and have purchased around 100 DLCs. From the very beginning this forum, and specifically TSW General Discussion, has been an absolutely invaluable source of information and inspiration and I will miss it. Thanks to all of you that have made the forum a place I've enjoyed regularly visiting, and all the best!

 

The timing of all of this, given the inevitable announcement of Train Sim World 7 in the coming weeks, does seem to indicate that Dovetail Games wants to avoid the bad publicity of the annual release instead of actually making the game worth buying. As others have discussed, we have reached a point where the Train Sim World codebase is nearly a decade old. It is clear to me that this game is getting pushed really far. What Dovetail Games should be doing, in my opinion, is fixing Train Sim World 6 and then putting focus into developing a UE5 Train Simulator instead of a Train Sim World 7.

 

I have been a member of these forums since the day they opened and to be brutal, I can say I have not seen any instances where DTG squashed legitimate constructive criticism. Yes some post have been deleted but more from the caustic personal attacks, comments spammed across multiple threads, plane out arguments for argument sake. Some people have been banned not for criticism of the product itself, but their presentation of such criticisms.

So to state the conspiracy theory they are doing so to squash criticism to me is ludicrous. As some CM s who are still in these forums have pointed out… is the constant need to quell useless arguing, trolling and really unnecessary angst such causes. Calling Developers lazy, incompetent, liars, uncaring slobs that only care about money would probably never happen in a face to face conversation, but only by those that hide behind keyboards.

While I dislike the approach or decision to end this category, we, as the community, are culpable for some of the current situation.

I know I am of much older generation, but one of my guidelines while interacting in the forums ( or any social interaction really) is “ what would my Mother think of my behavior”. Laugh if you will, but it does give one pause if that snappy comment, name calling or angry rebuttal is really necessary.

 

I don’t fully lean into ‘quashing criticism’ reasoning, but I do think it’s at least a factor.
DTG have been getting flak for a few years now over the renumbering & release tactic, along with a very widespread complaint over the console issues. So much community media around TSW now includes ‘blurry textures’ as a talking point.

Outside of TSC & TSW communities, DTG has a very poor reputation, to the point it’s difficult to bring up these titles without the first response being negative. I think that broadly bad reputation is now becoming overwhelming behind the curtains, simply because of how terrible the console experience has become.

I think DTG has always struggled trying to become bigger, whether it’s doing yearly releases, building for consoles, publishing for other devs or making new games - they’ve pretty consistently fell on their face. I think this forum decision is both a PR & big business oriented decision. They’re probably not happy we’ve been consistently able to guess when the next game comes out & the first thing we do with it is say we don’t want it. They’re equally likely unhappy that searching TSW stuff often leads to their forum where one of the most consistent & prominent issue is the console experience.

Overall I think there are several factors built into this decision & it’s faulty logic to say ‘they haven’t done it before so they aren’t doing it now’.

 

There’s nothing I wouldn't say on here that I wouldn't say to the dev’s, CM’s faces directly. I’m certainly not hiding behind any keyboard.
Indeed, some of the responses from certains mods on here are questionable and abrasive imo.
Contrary opinions are what move things forward. It would be a shame if everyone were coaxed to think the same way.

 

Maybe instead of having an annual release cycle DTG could do themselves a favour and release a new version every 2 years or so thereby giving themselves a bit of breathing space to sort any issues out?

 

Yeah it’s always been my stance that they never had enough time between TSW3 & 4 to properly develop it, then when they were playing catchup they compounded the issue with 5.

Honestly I think the biggest reason they do it is so they can ‘sunset’ content from fixes & they see it as a bizarre way to keep the game optimised by boxing off core variations. I know they’ve always used the line it’s the best way for visibility, but it’s not like there aren’t ways to spotlight your game updates & also I’d have to wonder how their strategy is fairing given the ever increasing wave of AI slop releases on storefronts.

I guess we’ll see how TSW7 shapes up with DTG effectively letting Rivet develop for them, I thought TSW6 was really great in the first few weeks but it quickly became clear there was still no focus on core health or quality control.

 

I share Es4t's opinion. I would also say something to the members here that I could also say to the devs, as you have probably seen yesterday. As professional as they are, and they are productive in how they make their games, they can say some questionable things that I can disagree with. But then again, I can be questionable and abrasive and loud. Contradicting opinions are probably what make a communication so enticing.

Whatever happens with this discussion, it’ll be upsetting. But we are all human and we have our own lives. It’s going to take a lot more than a discussion forum to tear us down.

 

People are human. Sometimes honest criticism does appear as "mean" even if it's honest. If I say well, you can't get a date because you're fat... you should exercise more and watch your diet".... that could be objectively true but also "mean" and NOT what the other person wants to hear. That would be called "rude" by quite a few people. The person having the problem dating might even recognize that or be "working on it" but they still don't want to hear it.
That's often compounded because let's be fair some of us are very socially awkward at best.
Yes there are people that are mean or insulting.
However, much of it is perception, tone and social awkwardness.
Add into that frustration with something people are passionate about, and you get quite a mess sometimes.
Very few however if you asked them would say their intent was to be insulting or rude.
Again... it comes down to perception and that's a very personal tricky thing to judge.

 

Maybe if they addressed the criticisms about the blurry textures and stopped the yearly releases, people wouldn't complain about them anymore.

 

Consider the criticisms about the blurry texture?
They shouldn't even be selling a product like that.
What would you think if a car dealer saw a car with patchy paint?

 

Nothing wrong with contrary opinions and nothing in my post even comes close to saying everyone should think the same. And if one puts forth criticism in a respectful manner, there is no need to hide behind a keyboard. I concur that difference of opinions put forth in a respectful and non emotional manner does lead to improvements. But stating devs are incompetent, lazy, uncaring does cloud the debate, moving away from the just of the debate to put others into a defensive stance. You can disagree, but that is what I learned over many decades of conflict resolution in my career…

anyway I do hope this sub- forum remains

best

 

Well if people still bought the cars, the dealer wouldn’t bother spending money to sort them out.

It’s exactly the issue with blurry textures, it’s obviously not enough of a problem to drop sales. Just look at the feedback threads, you can see the same handful of people talking about how bad they are in that route, but then they’re saying the same thing after they bought the next one & the one after that. Even ambassadors have now taken to saying things like ‘they’re there but I’ve seen worse so it’s not that bad’. An easy thing to say for people who get their content library for free after moving it over to PC.

Customers putting more money into TSW has never solved any issue we’ve had with it, other than increasing the quantity of DLC.

 

I think there is definitely room for discussion and for finding a middle ground. As far as I’m concerned, the general discussion section can remain open, but very simply: if you want to start a thread, it should always require approval from a moderator first. This way, we can limit the number of threads, and people who want to discuss something will first need to search the forum to see whether a thread already exists and whether they can find the information there or contribute with their own story or question. This could take a lot of work off the moderators’ shoulders.

The question, however, is whether they will keep all existing threads. Ninety percent of the threads are duplicates that basically say the same thing, so it might be an option to only keep what the community considers truly important (which has already been mentioned). The forum really needs to be reduced in size it currently takes up so many gigabytes of data, which means extra server storage and costs, so cleaning it up is definitely necessary.

In short, there is plenty to consider in terms of what can be done, but people will also need to accept that not all expectations can be met.

 

They would say "that's extra lightweight paint, it makes the car go faster".

 

Whatever they need to do to keep a general discussion area open is fine with me.

The difference between a hobbyist forum general discussion area and my experience with various Discord servers over the years is that on a forum, I don't have to read about someone's UwU furry feet obsessions and other such nonsense when I'm just trying to discuss my hobby of interest. I'd like to keep that. But hey, maybe the TSW Discord is different (I doubt it). I won't be joining it to find out. Much like this forum tends to skew toward a given demographic, I find that to also be the case for Discord. The platform's reputation speaks for itself.

No online community is above reproach. In many cases, they simply have different expressions of similar problems (egoism, etc.).

inb4 "oldmanyellsatcloud" etc etc.

 

Are duplicate threads the REAL huge issue? A thread that's not commented on just drops off quickly and one that is getting commented on is popular so it's justified having it.

Isn't the bigger issue moderation of the community guidelines on attacking other users?

 

Agree totally. Not to mention that duplicate threads can be easily merged by the mods...you know, moderating and all.

 

Sorry, I think you misunderstood my point about the double threads. What I meant is that for the moderators it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep an overview because of the sheer number of threads. When you look at everything that happens in just one weekend, it’s almost impossible to manage it all with the limited time available. That’s why I mentioned limiting the number of new threads. Merging threads also has its downsides as users we end up with very strange storylines, which makes it less appealing to follow.

 

I get what you're saying... but that's the good part of volunteer moderation, you're not on a fixed schedule with tiny number of mods. Also, by deleting or merging it also doesn't always work because a) someone's thread gets priority over the other person's, making them THINK it's favoritism, and b) it's entirely a judgement call. Often there are 3 different threads that are 3 entirely different discussions but on the same subject. Say the horn on a train on a route.... another on the scenery on a route... and another the timetable on a route. Yes they're all the same route... but those are very different things and smashing those three conversations in the same thread can be insanely confusing and garbled.

I just don't see having more than one thread on a topic to be a major issue. Many of them get a couple posts and disappear if they're truly redundant. I see the bigger issue being behavior.

 

The difficult thing with volunteers is that checking someone's background isn't straightforward, so there's a high risk of trouble. Besides, we've already seen enough of what's been leaked, so I'm almost certain that's not the route DTG wants to take.

 

Again, I don't see the major issue. It's a very low-stakes position. No pay. No benefits. No connection to the company. Limited actions available. The volunteers wouldn't even be doing the "enforcing" in all likelihood, just triaging things to only send up higher for "punishment" in serious situations.

 

The flip side is that people end up posting the same thing to multiple threads as the conversation in each inevitably flows towards the same things. Then you get other users not remembering which thread had which slightly different point; for example, see the multiple Crewe to Preston threads, with JT not always seeing the various feedback across those.

It's really not so difficult to have one official feedback thread and one official discussion thread, then move posts to those threads if some people think there opinion is so important that it deserves its own thread (clue: it isn't).

 

The problem is boosting of the same discussions. So a thread is died out with reactions then you get people they try with a small different approach to re-start the same discussion again

 

If people didn’t want to discuss those things (even if they’re the same point across different threads) then they wouldn’t be discussed, that’s the reason you’d see them (or not) in the first place.

There are several examples of older discussions being ‘necrobumped’ or duplicated discussions started & they never last long because most of the discussion does happen in only one thread or people just aren’t interested in it & it dies off.

To your point of feedback threads and devs not seeing things, those threads just don’t get looked at by devs after a few days, staff are responsive for a short while & then anything posted a couple of weeks later just gets no response. The only way things get traction is on the back of GD, even if if is just someone wondering why an issue has been seemingly ignored & the community discusses that point.

I don’t think anyone is making the point that absolutely everything in GD is worthwhile, but some of it is & when it comes to route & content discussion it’s by far the more popular way to do it.

I’d be less against the removal of GD if DTG would be willing to setup discussion threads about content as soon as it becomes known, but we all know that DTG do not like to discuss anything up until the release is on top of us. We’d get a roadmap with 10 routes on & 8 of those wouldn’t get an official discussion thread until months later - we could discuss it on the roadmap thread but how much of a mess would it be having every subject discussed within one post?

Even outside of content, there are still several other topics that members like to discuss that are still relevant to TSW, which don’t have a place in official posts.

 

I do hope DTG reverse the decision to close the General Discussion forums. It has gone down very negative with the community and like many decisions taken recently, people are angry. Appreciate DTG are a business and it is all about ensuring the parent company gets bang for its buck! I think I speak in parallel with most, in that we don’t want DTG to fail. We like Train Sim World, that’s why we are frustrated when things don’t work as they should or as expected.

 

Very disappointing news. Discord sucks.

 

I must say the England V Panama game has left me in higher spirits. Well done!

 

Just because you are respectful doesn’t mean others here aren’t. Too me that’s the main issue I see is that while many here are respectful and provide constructive criticism, the louder ones are completely disrespectful and their “feedback” is nothing more than berating, name calling, and baseless accusations.

I’m part of several forums for different sims/games and over the last year, this has become by far the worst to visit for general conversation around TSW. It seems like most threads end up becoming bickering between members or accusations against employees or mods. And I’ve said it here a few times, but based on responses and commentary here from that loud minority, you’d think the average age was no higher than a teenager when in reality is grown adults.

It’s just become a chore to visit here these days and while I don’t agree with the upcoming changes, I hope it filters out the noise and we can get back to proper conversation and constructive criticism so we can make the product a much improved one going forward.

 

One of the biggest issues to overcome, which will not be achieved by reducing the forum structure are those who are convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong and go to extreme argumentative lengths to try and shout down the opposite point of view. Even in this thread we have seen it. The barrack room, or keyboard, lawyer syndrome. Sadly that’s a wider issue with human nature in general and something probably even I’ve been guilty of on occasion. So what’s needed, whether by the forum CoC or just appealing to common sense - by all means disagree with what someone has posted then agree to differ and leave it there. Don’t keep berating because you feel you need to win a war.

The other slightly irksome tendency is third parties discussing a named individual. Happened to me a few weeks ago when the performance and optimisation of Preston to Crewe was under discussion. Yes, I have a potato PC and yes I’m happy to try and melt my GTX 1650 by running 4K and being happy with 25 FPS. But that should not be the object of scorn or ridicule. Luckily I have broad shoulders and shrugged it off with a belly laugh and a few expletives in the general direction of those making the comments. However again, that isn’t going to disappear because GD and OT are gone, in fact that discussion probably happened in the Dovetail Live or Official Feedback thread for the route.

 

Discord.
The very name puts me off.
Life's too short for any of that nonsense.

 

That's the most perfect description of Discord I've ever seen.