General Discussion Has Survived (just)

I see some still can’t read the room … normally, I would just ignore the comments, but seeing how close we came to losing the community I feel the community must do more to police ourselves. I know I will get comments, who made you moderator, no one, but I want to protect what I see as a valuable resource.

What is the purpose of this comment? , I can’t think of any valid reason except to cause discord in the forum. I see four other members have all ready commented and pretty much see as I do. And if you have followed this thread, it is pretty obvious that Candace was working to provide the other CMs with feedback with plenty of evidence as to her feelings toward the proposed removal, all the while toeing the line of her employment. Her efforts probably had more to do with the reversal of this decision than anything else, while such missives as “you are not part of us” do nothing to make DTG feel good about the reversal.

 

DTG made the correct decision and listened to the community.
Kudos to them for doing it, even if it had to be after a massive uproar from us, the users.

Still, it catches my attention that DTG did not foresee what would happen when they announced the closing of the General Discussion section. I know Alex said they figured there was a chance of the community not taking it well but from my point of view, as soon as I read it I knew there was going to be a riot.

Now they insist in not participating much in the General Discussion forum just after we just said that, for us, it is probably the most important part of it.

They want to concentrate their efforts in the Feedback section to catch more bug reports. Not saying it is not important to get the bug reports, of course it is. But lets be honest; most of what is reported there for a given DLC was already reported before by beta team members, found on the preview stream or known one way or another before release. It still goes out to the public anyway.

Most of the time the bugs are not there because they haven't been found but because, for whatever reason, there is no time to fix them. Often it is not even that. The bugs are fixed internally, but they are stuck at QA for months (sometimes years). Or they pass QA but then something goes wrong at the last minute with the build process of the release version of the game.

The elephant in the room is that the bottleneck is in QA and build process, and there is where DTG needs to concentrate their efforts.
Is that written in the Feedback section of any route? No, its in General Discussion. The idea of adding station announcements? General Discussion. Passenger Information System and station boards? General Discussion.

A lot of the changes that really make a difference in the game come from General Discussion. And yes, there is a lot of not so important chat in General Discussion and it can be a pain to filter the useful part but it's worth the effort IMHO because the best ideas come from General Discussion.

So, as a last reflection, do the CM and DTG really understand their community as well as they think they do?
From my point of view, it seems like they do not.

 

Thank you Alex for the video, it was very reassuring. Just one point, you did say near the end that General Discussion will stay "for now". Does that mean it is only a temporary stay of execution and could go at any time, or was it unintentional?

 

Shoutout to candacedtg for doing her part in keeping GD open, despite all the grief she got over the weekend. THANK YOU ♡

 

read some of his other posts. It seems to be a general theme.

 

I think the sad thing is this didn't need to have happened - it was pretty obvious to me as soon as I saw the initial announcement that there was going to be a massive reaction and backlash. Nonetheless, thank you for adjusting the decision.

For what it's worth, I think the rest of the plans for what was DTL Article Discussion and Player Feedback are sensible. On the former, I've said several times before that it doesn't make sense to keep a 'Coming Soon' and 'Out Now' article going for each DLC, as it only ends up splitting the conversation. I hope you'll consider my suggestion of having just the one thread for each bit of content, and amending the title as the content heads through its lifecycle; alternatively, lock the old thread once the new thread is created, but please don't keep multiple threads for the same thing when your goal is (quite rightly) to reduce the admin burden.

I do wonder what you'll do about content threads in GD, though. It's become common practice for somebody in the community to create a discussion thread in GD about upcoming content as soon as it's announced. Are you going to squash those and move posts to the relevant 'Official Content Discussion' thread? Otherwise we'll be back to parallel discussions across multiple threads, when the goal is to "create new boxes and drawers to sort discussions into".

 

Thanks, Jan - it’s really gratifying that the feelings of the community were taken into consideration here. Definitely a step in the right direction, and much appreciated.

 

Thanks everyone! o7

 

Took me a minute to find the Dovetail Live Articles tucked under the "Announcements" pinned to the top. Once you know it's there it's fine. The other forum updates seem reasonable so far.

Edit:
Ok, now it's back... was that just a glitch or an "oops we changed our mind?"
=-)

 

I have mixed feelings about this. One side of it is that I wonder why the CMs did not see what was coming and created the biggest forum drama in a while. It is true that we, the forum users, sometimes create our own dramas out of almost nothing but it is also true that most of the big explosions are fueled by DTG employees one way or another. To be fair, this is something that has been happening recurrently, and also happened before the current CM team came into the office.

The other (bright) side is that the removal of GD is cancelled (not sure if I like the "for now" part) and I would say, in general, this forum explosion was handled better (posts, video and more CM interaction in the relevant thread) than in previous instances.

I'm sure the beta team, QA, etc ... can't catch all the bugs. I understand that you need to read the Feedback threads to find out which are the most relevant bugs, what people complain more about, etc... But that doesn't give you the broad picture of what the community is thinking, which ties into why can't the CM team predict that a course of action is going to cause an explosion in the user base.

What I'm saying is that prioritizing Feedback (in the "bug report" sense) is one thing, and almost not engaging in GD at all is quite another.

Also keep in mind that in a perfect world, users would send the bug reports using the support website. But they don't. They (should I say we?) write many of them in the Feedback threads. Same is going to happen with forum sections. You can make a very thoughtful plan about what users should write where to make it all nice and tidy, also efficient so you can make the best of your work time but the sad truth is that in the real world things usually will not go as planned. There is a lot of important feedback that is not going to be posted in the Feedback section.

So, in short, its good that you guys focus on the feedback section but do not forget about GD. You need to find out what your customers are thinking about the company, the course of action, what the not related to a single DLC problems of the game are etc ... and for sure, if you see the community is understanding something wrong or not taking into account important facts in the solutions it is proposing, you need to engage and explain it so we can understand what is really going on and give better advice.

 

Completely agree with Inkar, there are so many bugs slipping through to release that recording more bugs in feedback is meaningless.

It’s not about things that can’t be seen by beta or devs, but many issues on day 1 are too obvious to have not been found, they just obviously aren’t being fixed. The only thing reporting more bugs is going to do is increase pressure on the fixes we seldom get, those fixes are almost always breaking something else too.

I’m not saying better feedback processes are bad & spending more time dealing with feedback is great, but it has to be meaningful in that A) something actually gets done with it & B) content isn’t just left to get mothballed a few weeks after release.

The absolute biggest problem is the obvious rush to get content out, along with the core game being neglected & issues within it are rotting every other DLC that releases.

I can’t imagine this ongoing severity of issues hasn’t reflected in sales figures, I know I used to buy most releases, but for TSW 6 I’ve only bought a couple of things & mostly I’m ignoring route releases. Surely DTG has to actually make a meaningful change at some point, and not just continue with silly decision making.

Even JT’s route has had some of the worst feedback I’ve seen for them, and I doubt most of the issues there are related to anything JT can actually change.

 

If TSW is to progress, a line has to be drawn under UE 4 and gen 8 has to go. Time to move to a new game core (UE 5.8?) that can deal with the detail that players demand.

 

I mean UE5 can handle features but it’s DTG handling UE5 that will be the issue. UE has always been an engine where care has to be taken with performance optimisation, but UE5 especially so.

Look at what DTG has done with UE4 in 10 years, they keep putting more in but are steadily breaking the game & that’s without some of UE’s more intensive features. DITTO goes for consoles. No one at DTG seems to pay any real attention to many of the technical caveats, until something has been implemented & it’s broken.

 

And the reason why we do that, is to draw out whether other users are having the same issue or it's something individual to our setup, or in my case potato PC. So any such reports still need to be captured by DTG with a process in place as necessary.

 

Yeah, I don't think UE 5 is some panacea. There is plenty to do with UE 4. The issue is just how much content is going into the games compared to the systems running it. People want more "stuff" with the same system to run it for years.
Optimization can only significantly happen only when you stop adding features and focus on improving the existing product.
I for one would be happy with the current features and tech solidified and optimized for anything else is added.

And yes, we are pushing beyond Gen 8 capabilities.

One thing I thought might help is working on some smaller, holistic "networks" rather than long high speed routes. Fleshing out a whole area for things. Not everything had to be a high speed mainline. There's plenty of branch lines, smaller short line freight, and local commuters that would work.

Something more like Cardiff I guess? Or Stamford?

 

Nothing really important to add but the feedback thread for the Glossop line is still here in general discussion so might be nice to move it to the new feedback forum?

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/glossop-line-feedback-thread.71112/

 

Isn't Stamford a big bigger than that? There is a lot of stuff in there, both trains and scenery. It does work very well though.

 

I'm not sure about the actual traffic, but there's a lot less rolling stock around than there is in real life, I'm thinking to keep the memory load down. Those stock yards and sidings would in real life being a lot more full. Honestly it'd make a good DLC add on just doing all the freight around that area to the different sidings and distributors, etc like you can do in Run 8.

TSC really had a lot of "filler" content to flesh the game out that TSW doesn't really get. Cheap scenario packs for a few bucks so you can replay a route some more.

 

I guess we are getting a bit off topic if the "danger" has passed. Onto new threads! =-) At least we know DTG is listening, some sub forums were cleaned up, and we have a new forum out of the deal. So... it all turned out for the better?

 

That would be a good point to lock this thread and move along.

 

Or maybe just move along.

 

Why?
Why can't it be kept the way it is already?

 

i personally don’t think any threads relating to the plan to close GD should be locked; let them remain as a reminder of how important these forums are to tsw and ensure that GD isn’t taken away from us in the future

 

Maybe the OP could change the title to something like, “General Discussion Had A Narrow Escape”?

 

But do we still know for sure it's staying for good? Alex's "for now" has left me with doubts for the long term.

 

We can't possibly know, and nor can DTG. Nothing is ever set in stone permanently. Always in motion, is the future.

 

I think you're both confusing 'locking' with 'deleting'.

 

not really; locking the thread would mean that whilst it’d still be visible and readable, it would slowly drop down the subforum as other threads pop up

 

Leaving it open serves no useful purpose in my opinion. It's either going to go off topic and weaken the impact it has had (like Enough is enough, which is more concerned with posting a picture of the class related to the page number and hasn't been on topic for a while). Either that or it will naturally drop down the list anyway until someone reads it in a couple of years and revives it because they didn't look at the date.

It was a good thread that served it's purpose. But there isn't a lot more to be said. I think DTG now understand the importance to us. I don't think there is any immediate danger.

 

In any event, this thread does in fact still serve a purpose, thanks to this bit in the latest update on forum changes:

"Finally, we are still discussing on how to best handle the DTL Article Discussion subforum. We agree with your feedback about multiple official discussion threads diluting the conversation and are still weighing different options. If you have suggestions on how to best keep discussions about official content as streamlined as possible, feel free to share them with us."

So here's my suggestion; merge DTL Article Discussion with Announcements and make it read only (i.e. as Announcements already is), then at the end of each article point users to General Discussion to discuss. Since every announced route and loco gets its own thread in GD anyway, it keeps the conversation in one place. At the same time, it doesn't matter then that you have 'Coming Soon' and 'Out Now' articles, as they'll all end with the same message to head over to GD to carry on the conversation.

In other words, everything is nice and neat; discussions in GD, articles in DTL/Announcements, feedback in Feedback.

 

a) We're not confusing locking and deleting. We want the ability to use the thread.

b) They don't really want people going to the GD first, they want people going to the DTG-created threads since those are more curated and controlled. That's part of the reason they wanted to get rid of the GD. The GD exists to be the voice of the mambership, as opposed to the official DTG created threads that are created and curated by the staff.

 

Just realised the model railway and real trains threads from off topic have been moved to general discussion

 

I was wondering if that's where they'd end up since there is no "Off Topic" anymore.

 

Perhaps, but to do that they'd have to lock or move every single post someone creates in GD for upcoming content. That would be an admin nightmare! Far better to accept the reality that people use GD to talk about future and current content, than try and stop that happening.

If it were me, I'd create (or tag) the first thread in GD on a piece of content as the official discussion thread for that content, then link to it from every article, and moderate other superfluous threads accordingly. It's what I've seen done in other forums.

 

By not liking to the GD, then DTG doesn't "have" to do anything all. They just link to their own one "official" threads (one in "Coming Soon" and once for "Out Now") Then they only have to monitor that. Like I said, the GD is player-run, and as such it can be narrower or wider than the DLC itself. It can also be put up for things that aren't "Coming Soon" yet like the Tadami Line or the upcoming route with the German steam locomotive.
At that point it's probably better for DTG not to be involved, then they don't have to answer questions they're not prepared for like "When?" "How much?" etc) It's more of a speculation and fan thread and not a definitive DLC release PR thread.

 

Yep, I flagged those in my "please keep" thread. Very happy that thread was useful.

I'm glad Off Topic was archived rather than deleted, but I have to question making it hidden rather than read-only. Seems to me that threads worth keeping are more likely to be found when someone searches for something rather than spontaneously from memory.

 

Gee, I go on vacation and manage to miss the biggest drama on here in years!

 

Fear not, others will follow.

 

TSW7 costing more than the estimated price of GTA6!

 

To be fair the price of TSW is getting to be an issue, it’s always been expensive but the value is nosediving now.

The technical state is the biggest issue of course, but other factors are becoming more of an issue. Variety is pretty much gone, TSW6 has just been a WCML & AT300 simulator, even when they’re re-doing the same trains over & over they’re not even keeping them all in-sync. We’ve got multiple sound & physic sets across the AT300 & 350’s now despite getting so many of them. Considering how much profit they’re squeezing out of those units they could at least be making the experience consistent.

TSW6 also went right upto the line for me with the deluxe not being worth the cost, I suspect TSW7 will take me over that line. US content is essentially pointless to buy anymore since it’s so bland or just more NewYork & the only hope of more than one route per year for it seems to come from a third party who find it acceptable to take an older train & resell it under the guise of being a completely different unit. German Content is just one big homogeneous collection of red AC locos where they still haven’t bothered to give us a better set of dostos despite them making up a significant chunk of gameplay. Stale doesn’t begin to describe how I feel about that side of things.

It’ll be nice to get a different collection of content for once, a UK route that isn’t set in IET era, a US route that comes with a bang rather than being a drab empty crawl or something using EMUs in NY & finally a European route that isn’t DB based. Above all else it needs to be content that’s actually playable quality on the majority of hardware the user base owns, rather than needing ridiculous levels of VRAM to run.

 

"TSW 7" likely won't cost anything.
Just the DLC that are packaged with the "bundles."
I just stuck with the base in TSW 6 and picked up content I wanted (mainly because the bundles weren't my taste)
The same should be possible in TSW 7.
If you don't like the bundles...like any other bundle just don't buy them.

 

Indeed, almost certain the core will be free - I was just being tongue in cheek.

But yes, the reprieve of GD doesn't mean I won't still be taking a more cautious view of what I buy in future, if only because I really don't want to clutter up HD space with stuff I drive once or twice then set aside. That extends to the TSW7 route bundle, ultimately I don't think I really got value for money out of the TSW6 one and with hindsight could have waited for a sale and even then probably just Riviera.

 

I guarantee you that people will speculate furiously in multiple threads on the same subject, if they're allowed to, if there are threads in both GD and a 'content' sub-forum.

 

Disagree. Are you saying fans are not capable of doing a 'fansite' forum? They do not have to know the inner most workings at all just a shared common interest for the game and workings. Years ago I was an Admin for a site which was just a 'MOD' for a game and we had over 20,000 members, it was a blast. It might be still going. We provided help, advice strategy all different stuff with a dedicated team of moderators. If the will is there it can be done pretty much easily.

And yeah we would have to host it but it isn't exactly 'Rocket Science'.

 

Well there is one...

 

I’d pay to support just to see this community try to self-moderate. At the very least I’d be entertained by all the in-fighting.

 

Klarna.

 

Ì find it incredible you have such a low opinion of people can do. I ran sites and was admin of sites years ago as was a lot of people I assume. Yes it costs a bit for hosting but you get help from your members especially if it is a decent site. You could also do it for free as some ISP's gave you a bit of hosting space for free.

I would say the 'unofficial' forums where no-one is getting paid were more enjoyable. If you have a good team of moderators you get a good site if you don't you get a poor one. And it was huge fun. It also helps to have a thick skin but we weren't afraid to ban the real bad ones.