Tsw: Switching In The Subdivision!

Oh WOW, Anthony's "boyfriend" has decided to join the show.

I could"poke" so many holes in your remarks it's not even funny.
But unfortunately your post is completely void of any logic or sense so i won't bother.

Something tells me Anthony can take care of himself.

He is JUST as able as anyone to express himself or "opine" any way he wants.
No one denies him that.

And speaking of opining, you sound like someone who just wants to shout at someone because you are bored and petty.

 

That’s fundamentally the opposite of what happens. DTG was built on the PC market and consoles were just a way to expand their market and profit margins. Consoles will greatly contribute to the future of DTG, but eventually PC players, and more importantly the third party developers, will ultimately keep the game alive over the next decade just as they are keeping TS2020 alive as we speak.

 

At least an apology, good.

 

Yeah, that's a good starting point.

Me: Let's hope they update the DLC to include all of those areas, and don't just update the map in the manual to remove them.
DTG: We're updating the map in the manual.

 

I'll be interested to see what exactly this means. Will it mean building out those areas fully or removing the tracks and/or adding buffer stops so we don't get booted if we stray too far?

I'm going to remain optimistic for now.

 

I think it means updating the manual.

 

Hi Dmitri

Setting aside the misrepresentation of the OSD product, and the quality of the scenery/track build-out at Hamilton.... have the team at DTG had any thoughts about testing DLC before release - in the future? Or to put it more directly...

Will the next DLC be tested before it is released?

I set the question out so starkly, because I could not help but notice the sheer amount of bugs, errors, and build quality concerns that were flagged up by players, within just a few hours of the release of OSD. And I wondered, if the product had been tested, even briefly, whether or not these issues could have been picked up and dealt with, before deploying the final build of the DLC for sale...?

 

Of course the DLCs get tested!

 

Hi Anthony

Thank you for your comments, but my question was explicitly directed to Dmitri, and I would like an answer from DTG, at some point in the future, on this issue (when they are ready).

But since you responded - I think that you might be a little optimistic with your view (on testing), and the evidence clearly bears this out. Not even the key new features in OSD worked (ethanol tanker animations).

However, regarding your earlier post (on the OSD manual).... I think that you are quite likely to be correct..... I get the impression that the drawing of the map in the manual..... for OSD.... will be updated. This is possibly partly to resolve an outstanding legal issue. If OSD owners are lucky, then maybe the redundant track in the Hamilton area will be removed from under the building scenery, and/or will no longer be highlighted on the in-game map (say, if the track is just "switched off" from the view of the mapping widget). It all depends on just how much work/time it will take, to clean it all up... to the satisfaction of DTG's QA/QC people...

 

Pretty disappointing that they're only going to update the manual/in-game map, but not too surprising, I guess.

The strange thing to me is that there IS a tiny portion of trackage (near Bayview junction IIRC) marked as "represented railway, non-player accessible" in the manual, so obviously someone took the time to make that distinction- how was there not a follow-up conversation of "are we sure this is the only inaccessible trackage?"

Perhaps it's a result of crunch, or people wearing too many hats? We did have a loco DLC and a route DLC release one week apart, which perhaps has happened before, but I don't remember a specific instance. It's hard not to think that OSD was rushed a bit, considering the Baby Bullet DLC is at a much higher standard. Clearly management needs to do some work here to improve the process.

I still think the route is good (not great!) despite it's faults, and I've put quite a few hours into it doing journey mode. As I've said before, I really like the industrial setting and focus on freight and switching, so perhaps that makes me a little more forgiving than I would be otherwise. I'm slightly optimistic that they got an update out pretty quickly for some of the more egregious bugs, but I really hope we see better Quality Control going forward. I also think a generous (e.g. free or very cheap) follow-on DLC for this route could go some ways towards mending fences with the community, but I understand the view of those who are just done at this point.

 

Every DLC gets tested by QA and others. I can promise you that as an active 3th party and 2nd party developer for TS. So please stop your guessing on if things get tested. But you can also imagine, that there is not a 500 people testing team available that plays 12hr a day TS/TSW. Even QA testers doing mistakes or just being bit blind by testing the same stuff every day. No idea what kind of people doing the QA and testings, but they do it. I 'love' these reports that i get every time when my products are in QA. And i believe it is the same with every DLC for TS/TSW. I said earlier exactly that what Dimitri was writing later. It was a mistake in the manual, and it was not intended to make these areas accessable. Tracks get often layed further than needed. Common thing in TS for years. There are many routes for TS out there where you have tracks layed in blank areas. Nothing really new yet.

 

Thanks for your response. Maybe the question should have been: Will the next DLC be tested effectively, before it is released?

But.... I actually quite like my original question, which I still think is a completely fair question: Will the next DLC be tested before it is released?

The answer might be a simple "Yes". And that would, of course, be perfectly satisfactory. I am just making a suggestion. I think it would be really helpful to test things before publication - it just looks better to have a tried and tested product. That's all I am suggesting. Nothing controversial.

 

Thank you Dmitri.

This answers one of the questions everybody here wanted to know, as in whether the inaccessible tracks were ever meant to be accessible. It appears that they were not.

This still leaves the issue with the marketing including phrases like "Indeed, the expansive industrial trackage around the Hamilton area is virtually a route unto itself!" because it implies that the whole Hamilton area will be included as part of the playable route, which we now know was never the plan This is not a result of a mistake or omission, it is misleading advertising. That's my personal disappointment while looking at this route for a future purchase.

 

Yep. I think this is just the kind of stuff that would be useful to debate in a "continuous improvement learning point quality circle" internal seminar, sometime later in the year, after a testing programme has been introduced. Might be useful to have the marketing person in the room as well. And a lawyer, to keep the marketing person on the right track....so to speak.

 

im sure when i watched the pre release stream we was told we could go anywhere on the map except on the mainline when doing the free roam thats what made me buy this game not the manual

 

I have a funny feeling that the DevStream video that you saw will be taken down, at some point soon, if that hasn't already happened. Just a feeling.

 

Sorry but you can't count to infinity

 

I’m not really involved in this (except as a concerned TSW fan) as this DLC simply doesn’t appeal to me.

Just an observation however...if that track is actually removed from the map doesn’t that make the route crazy short? I thought the whole point of this switching business (& the justification for the length of the route) was that all the actual mileage was concentrated in yards with greater detail. If a huge chunk of those yards are not actually available, how many miles of usable track will this DLC actually contain?

 

Sorry if this has already been answered..
Is the locked part of the route included in the calculation of the route lenght?
"24 mile (41 km) route of the Oakville Subdivision between Hamilton and Oakville"

 

I don't know what this means. Are you saying that you originally intended for the route to have even less track than it currently does, or that you're going to include more track?

 

It means the amount of inaccessible track (as it stands) was intended from the outset.

He is saying the real life route contains alot of trackwork which was then represented in-game (albeit in an inaccessible state).

The issue ended up being...the inaccessible sections were poorly communicated to the player in-game, in the manual and prerelease info

 

I hope I am not breaking any rules about speaking out on this if so DTG can delete it but, the issue is not about things being tested its more about DTG having the will to change things when told while testing. Rest assured all the scenery problems with the route have been brought up and brought up again. Yet there is so much we can do. We can't make the edits ourselves so we try to get their attention and hope they take the feedback and use it. The Peninsula Corridor suffers from this as well. Prime example look at the north-end of San Mateo. Not even close as a representation to the area. Or even look at Bayshore. Or Peninsula Corridor itself. A lot of reused assets, very few custom scenery items besides the stations, static grade crossings, etc. All these things have been brought up by testers during development. Yet usually anything that requires rework of scenery or rework of the model gets ignored. Then eventually myself and other testers become extremely frustrated and tired. There is times though were things do get changed but it is a rare case. I have advocated for DTG for a long long time. Heavy supporter. I try to help them where I can in production. They have a lot of capable bodies and is even proven in some of their work visually. Such as for example the MP36 DLC. Best recreation of a locomotive and cab car I have seen to-date. Yet it looks great but it is only that, eye candy. They do not in its current state represent fully on how they function and how they sound. I've worked for the railroad and have been graced with having the opportunity to being able to be inside of similar equipment and know how they function and sound. They are loud, rattly, and fast equipment but not as fast as they are being represented. Nor do they sound like anything that they put out so as a beta tester this information is relayed to them. Still nothing was changed so we continued to relay the issues over and over and over again to the point were I and others become frustrated. Eventually we just give up and let it be. Quality control is a problem with this company. And it is sad that it took for this DLC to come out and people to finally realize that this is not the quality we want nor want to pay for. We need more out outspokenness on the quality of DLC that is being fed to us. DTG needs to slow down and take their time. Take into account as to what their beta testers are saying and actually do something about it. If more time and resources can be allocated to projects then a lot of these DLCs could be masterpieces.

 

Speaking for myself I try to find out how many hours I probably enjoy a game / DLC I'm willing to buy and how much it costs. If its at about 1€ per possible playing hour it seems like a reasonable purchase for me. I read about that price per value - ratio in a german gaming magazine about 15 years ago and am more or less successfully trying to adopt it since then.

The feedback on this DLC also seems to be better on other platforms as well. In the FB console group many people also seem to enjoy it. I remember this contrary mood during the release of ECW too. But I think this is due to the higher amount of casual users on FB because...

... there might as well be grown up train enthusiasts using a console on whatever reason, I know at least one of them

What could explain the higher ratings is the lack of any alternatives on consoles though. So many people tend to be happy with the offered content because there wasn't any at all before TSW.

I find myself being a bit less critical as well - because I really like the opportunity to play a train sim since MSTS on PC.

 

Welcome to the Forum....!

This is the most interesting first posting by a Forum Member that I have ever seen.... Thank You for de-lurking... ;-)

 

I think you’re mixing apple and oranges here. When you advertise a product, and put a price range on it, where people spend money on it, they expect to get every bit of what was mentioned in the product description.
You’d go to a restaurant where they advertise a dish you found to look delicious and got something you didn’t expect. Wouldn’t you be displeased? Or shrug it off as if you got the very thing you went there for and then say you’ll make a return there?

Something went very wrong here, somebody behind the scenes is certainly to blame. It may not have been the team or not the whole team. It may have been due to poor management. But clearly, someone is more concerned about profit margins, and not the quality of the product put out. So for those who have paid their money to support a product and not gotten entirely what was marketed, deserves answers. Because if this how content is going to be distributed, then TSW is in a lot of trouble.

The sniping.. Ha. No shame on my part in saying I took part in that. But, when one seemingly has an answer or objection for everything that doesn’t fall in line with their perspective and thinks everyone is supposed to be on board with how they see and view things. That is a sign of not respecting opinions. So Yeah, they’re opening themselves up for it.

People are allowed to have opinions. And while some of us a bit blunter than others. What needs to be understood it’s not okay to try to act as if it’s a crime that others have objections, especially when they’re valid.

Anthony needs to learn that he can love something all he wants. But it doesn’t mean everyone has to, or that it’s wrong if they are speaking some level of truth he chooses to ignore or make excuses for.

 

So - anyway. Here's a thought....

Does anyone think that by the time we get to 1st March 2020 (so just over four days from now), that this whole OSD thing will have blown over... and become a faded memory of bygone days.....?

 

DTG will hope that’s true, especially once they announce the next route. OSD will be a bad memory come whatever the next route is announced, then there is a whole new chapter of bugs to deal with. I don’t envy their job but they don’t seem to make it easy for themselves either.

 

Maybe not that fast but at the latest when the release of TSW 2021 is nearby I would say so. Or, hopefully not, some other catastrophe in a similar extent happens...

 

A little care that opinions dont become devalued as a result of an entrenched point of view might be in order..

 

I would like to agree with you but if the route had been tested like you say it has then while I was walking the route I would not have fallen through a hole in the world. I think that only pick and test what they feel that needs to be tested and nothing more.

 

Here he goes again!

I’ve got a console, and I’m also a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society. certainly not a ‘console kiddy’ Then again I’m possibly also prejudiced about keyboard warriors on their pc’s making out that they are the lifeblood of the Train Sim community over and over again until everyone’s sick of hearing the same old LOVE

 

Catastrophe is an exaggeration...it was more poor communication on DTGs part on the represented trackage (which they have acknowledged).

I will say the backlash may have been less severe if the end to end route length was longer than it ended up being. Most were compensating for this short length with the yardage at Hamilton...

 

I entirely agree with your whole post. I have snipped your quote down to the above sentence, because it speaks volumes. This isn't complicated stuff.... If the proposition for OSD was clearly made, then some people would have bought OSD and some wouldn't. Those that bought it would then be raving about it a bit more (and posting lovely pictures)... and some more people would have bought it. Not complicated....

But then DTG made it way too complicated.... by:

- making vague hyperbolic statements about how much there was to do, when they could have just given the numbers: six industries, two plants, five yards (or whatever the numbers really are)
- talking about expansive yards making up for short route length, when they are not actuallly real
- demonstrating the fake yards on DevStream and clearly telling people you could use all of them to your heart's content under "Hamilton Explorer" and "no-one will judge you" for it, when this was absolutely untrue
- not (effectively) testing the key feature content
- not making any attempt at all to optimise the track/scenery in the Hamilton area
- not proof-reading their own documentation
- hoping that they would get away with it (over the weekend)

It's a complete process failure, end-to-end. Shocking really.

 

Hi Dimtri,

Thank you to you and the team for the apology I know is wasn't easy to do but it is a big step in the right direction order to make TSW what it should be. Looking forward to further updates and progress for the Oakville route and anything new down the line.

 

How could we forget the strict "no fun" rule on the forums? To be fair the first joke was a little to far but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun.

 

My personal view is that as soon as the next DLC is announced, that some simple direct questions should be asked, such as:

- Have you tested the DLC on a PC, PS4 and XBox?
- When you do a DevStream, would it be okay if one of the followers randomly chooses a Scenario for you to demonstrate?
- Are you telling the truth about the scope of the track area?
- Have you checked that the manual is correct? Will there be a manual?
- If you put a Press Release on the Forums, will you make someone available to do a Q&A on it, before you start selling the DLC?
- etc.

The next DLC must be bullet-proof.

 

BTW there’s an update for TSW especially for Oakville DLC only on PS4

 

It’s for all platforms.

 

I meant that he isn’t good at making jokes.

 

Nothing is ever 100% bug free. Ever

 

Your next post must be.... not being written at all -> i think you got it, if not, hmmm....well....... Your "mission" here will not bring you what you are dreaming of by all your "output" over the last days. It gets anoying, really.

 

Small bugs will always get through and that is fine the problem is the bigger bugs that seem to get passed the team only for us to find them, I myself is not saying they do not test, it's the effort that is put into testing to find those bug before it reaches us.

 

Yes - you probably have. And you do appear to be quite prejudiced... at times... I actually quite like your humour, by the way, most of the time. But, I am not keen on the anti-console player Fascism though. And I use that F-word advisedly.

I am a PS4 player, when it comes to TSW. It's actually quite a neat machine, and I happen to be a fairly well-aged engineer that is reasonably tech savvy, and I have been so for about thirty years. PS4 is absolutely useless for TS2020, but it is ideal for TSW. Really really nice - to sit on the sofa. No keyboard needed (thankfully), just a reasonably-well mapped DS4, which is a joy to use for controlling trains, and going for a walk-about. I enjoy TSW on PS4 - and I don't understand why some PC players can't handle that.

The ironic thing is that console players of TSW are the people that are supporting the financial viability of DTG to support TSW on PC, and TS2020 on PC. So, you (or, well, the people that actually use TSW and TS2020 on PC), should probably give console players a lot more respect, and some thanks.

 

Aaah yes. Free speech = bad. Of course. Well done Sir.

Look, I have absolutely nothing against 2nd/3rd party DTG partner programme people making stuff for TS2020 on PC, and not testing it very much. That's absolutely fine. When you build a model of a loco, texture it, anchor somebody else's out-of-date generic script to bits of it, and put it up for sale, at a random price... that's great. Really. I have no problem with that at all. It's actually quite cool - because you genuinely get a lot of variety and innovation, etc. And you can't test for millons of configurations of PC, with various versions of various routes...etc. I get that - you'd rather be developing the next partially tested loco, and selling that. It's okay by me.

TSW is different. TSW on PS4 - a wonderful closed system for development, is different. You can easily optimise and test for PS4 - and knock out cracking software. I'd therefore expect stuff appearing on PS4 to be tested. Properly tested. That's all. Don't care about PC much (although my new sim-dedicated PC will no doubt have TS2020 on it - and probably some of your stuff too... and I look forward to buying it from you).

 

What i mean is, every 2nd post is yours. You can stop it now. We all know what you want. You dont need to tell it again an again. I believe even DTG was reading it more than twice. So your mission is successful and over now

 

True, but in the case of OSD, I really didn't expect to see 50% of the mapped area turn out to be one massive bug. How did they miss that...? Seriously...? How was that possible...? How come not one single person noticed...?

Do you see what I mean?

 

Have you a very hard time not writing. You have to account for half of everything here.
so tired when I see your name that I don't want to be here soon. and that must apply to dovetail as well

 

You fell through a hole in the world? Then what happened? Where abouts in the map is this hole?

Bug? It's no bug, DTG have blocked it out on purpose. Did you not see Dimitri's post? (page 9)

 

Well... to be honest... I think you are right. It would be great to be doing something else. For instance...

I'd very much prefer to be running the DB BR 155 on RSN (on PS4), and enjoying the wonderful sound as it enters tunnels.

But I can't. Because it gets silenced. And do you know why that it is?

It is because nobody tested the DB BR 155 through tunnels, on RSN, on PS4. That's why. Which is really odd, because you only need to run anything on RSN for a few minutes... and you'll go through a tunnel.

And despite very many people asking for the tunnel sound bug with the DB BR 155 to be fixed.... nobody bothered to fix it - and it has been like that for years.....!

 

I have nothing against console players the game, but as a PC player I know that a lot of the stigma is that console players want TSW to be more like a "game" rather than a "simulator". The introduction of action points, medal, and journey mode are often pointed to. I don’t believe this is accurate and anybody should be able enjoy the game how they want to regardless of what you play on. Also, as a side note, TS2020 is essentially irrelevant to DTG at this point and they are only keeping it alive because so many third party devs are still doing wonders with it. Most of the dlc released on Steam for it are made by third party devs.