Hi Sam, I have seen many people complain that DTG does not keep promises that were given when TSW was developed. Personally, I think it may be a wise decision to redevelop parts of the game, using the learnings for the past years. But I also can imagine people complain that there is no editor, no multiplayer and it feels like DTG gives up on TSW and start over with a new game. I would appreciate if you can elaborate on this during the Q& session. Our major complaint is the complete lack of transparency to the fans. It think this is a good opportunity to make this up. I think DTG far underestimates what these fans are doing for the game by helping other people, giving feedback and answering questions about the game. On the other had, I understand the reluctance to say anything that is not sure, but I really love the dev blogs from Matt and for me it feels good to get some background information and know about the struggle to get this working. Sometimes I am surprised to see people not even noticing new features and the lack of interest of DTG to show them. I cannot resist to give one example. Did you ever take the trouble to use the free camera to have look at the roofs of the stations for GWE? This is so beautiful crafted, and almost nobody sees it ... I am not sure if it has been a wise decision to announce it as a new game, even though the improvements are significant. I think it would be more appropriate to say it is a paid upgrade and just offer the core as a separate item for a modest price. I have one small practical question. You call the game TSW2, how will the next version be called? TSW2-2022? or just TSW2022?
The FAQ says that another large engine upgrade before steam engines are likely to appear. Does this mean that the appearance of a paid version of TSW3? More generally will we end having new (paid) versions of TSW every time there's a large engine upgrade e.g. moving from UE4 to UE5 and beyond?
As far as I am understanding it, DTG aren't keeping any promises, they're just making the same ones and expecting people to pay again for little more than an updated game engine. The scenario "editor" on this announcement appears to be no more than the quick drive found in TS1. The livery "editor" is non shareable, so not allowing the huge community of creators to grow. Steam is being promised in the future! Same for multiplayer. I seem to have heard those promises somewhere before!
Sorry, I am not asking you. I ask DTG to give us all an answer during the Q&A. I know the opinions of a fairly large group in the TSW fan community, so no need to say it again here. Just wait for DTG's answer.
If you post in an interactive community forum then expect to receive opinions of the community. If you didn't want members of the community to respond then you should have asked the question in a more private forum such as DM or email.
Ease down from DEFCON1 there a little Longo. Your comments are valid, as are Rudolph's. All the questions, rhetorical or otherwise, are on the list for the Q&A.
Honestly feel they could have just called this a paid core update and branded it TSW2021 and allot of claims of broken promises ect would just not be a thing, instead it would fall to but why should I pay for an update ? Honestly feels your dammed if you dammed if you don't in these situations so agree Rudolf would like to see this discussed openly as to the challengers and technical reasons that drove the decision and the more technical the better. If people took a step back and looked at other games that are released annually and ask you to rebuy it to get the latest and greatest version maybe they would feel a little less hurt by all this but then level heads and all that never been a corner stone of online communities. At least our DLC investments are rolling forward. I am skeptical but also optimistic, its been made referenced multiple times the learnings the team had made during early CSX development to now and at times has felt almost like they where saying if we could go back and change X and Y in hindsight so perhaps this is exactly was is afforded by moving on to TSW2 to have a far more solid foundation based on learnings from the last what 5 years now ? I really hope the stream can go in depth to answer questions around what this update allows for the team, what learnings went into it and why this is the best thing for the franchise moving forward.
Personally I think from DTG's point of view there's two good reasons why TSW2 is the best option. Migrating and reworking simugraph, developing the new features in a later UE version as well as rejigging CSX so it could run on consoles whilst continuing to punp out DLC probably involved an increase in staffing. That additional cost has to be paid for somehow and TSW2 which has to be purchased is how that will be achieved. Moving to a new version whilst having existing DLC classed as "preserved" neatly avoids the inevitable clamour to go back and retrofit the new features to legacy DLC with all the additional work and cost that would be involved. Bear in mind that they probably still had to go through all those legacy DLC to tweak and test that they worked in the new version which will also have had an additional cost. Please note that I'm not saying that I agree with the solution DTG decided on; just giving an indication what their thinking might been and my theory may well be incorrect.
100% agree with you and my assumption is the same as yours around having a better feature base thanks to the updated UE version. I look at it from perspective as someone who works in development ( not for games ) and can rationalize the choice to move to TSW2 however out of sheer curiosity but also for the wider community I feel its valuable that rational and technical reasoning behind the decision is explained it can offer some clarity and allow some a better understanding. Hey might even allow some people to be excited that the product is evolving rather than feeling disgruntled ... or not lol
As we saw last night, the only promise to the end users is a promise that existing content won't be supported.
