Are These Minimalist, Low Effort Content Proposals Written By Children?

I can understand that proposing content isn't something everyone knows how to do well. But the number of proposals that are posted, is nothing more than just pleading/begging one-liners, that take up and bury proposals that do have substance to them.

To put it bluntly, it's a huge waste of time in posting them when even some of the most detailed, informative proposals end up not being fulfilled.

I know everyone here wants something in the game that is dear and/or near to them. But there needs to be a lot more effort and thought being put into writing these proposals. They need information. Pictures, visual key points of the route, and features of the locos that run them. Stuff that people who may or may not be familiar with the content request may take interest in.

So, I say this to say... People.. you increase your chances of having your proposals gaining any traction, and possibly the attention of the devs, by actually putting some real effort in your proposals.

 

I believe it, mainly the reason I posted this in the first place. This was a long time coming, finally decided today to express it.

 

It should be against the forum rules with these oneliners.
If you not provide any "source of information in a route suggestion post", (even if its a simple Youtube clip) the post should be rendering a deletion

 

To be fair, perhaps some content proposals are written by children.

I don't see how the simple wish of a minor is worth any less than a full blown essay written by an adult.

Every idea is worth a quick look.

Just my thoughts.

 

Why does a route or train suggestion have to be supported by an essay? Where is the law that says this is the case rather than a one line suggestion?

 

That's rather hard censorship.
Not only children as dunkrez points out, but we should remember that not everyone, including adults, has the same faculties.

However, we have to ask whether these requests have any influence on decision made by DTG.

 

Doesn't, but a couple of pics and a link to wikipedia shouldn't be beyond the scope of most people

 

But for some it is beyond their scope.
Every suggestion is as valid as the next. If interested enough in a proposal then surely you would do your own further research.
Don't get me wrong, I've read some very well written & informed suggestions. But to censor posts on the grounds of length and content just ain't right.

Of course one has the option to ignore the offending post.

 

I did say most... That leaves some
I'm the sort who will go into a suggestion and if it's a one liner do the research and post the links as comments. Done that a few times

I presume you mean length OF content... we should censor posts depending on content in several circumstances of course

 

It's either a great idea, or it's not a great idea.

 

Every idea is a great idea to someone, that doesn't mean it's a good idea overall (many notable historic examples)

 

Don't misconstrue what I'm saying. I did initially acknowledge that making proposals isn't everyone's strength. There just needs to be a little more effort put forth in the proposal/requests. I'm sure a good amount of these posts aren't actually just only written by children. But if children, in fact, know how to get on and navigate this site, surely they should capable of posting something of substance. Instead of putting up some generic post along the lines of "New route request," which you'll find plenty of on here, then it's just something that will more than likely be overlooked, nor gain much traction. Especially when/if the desired content is mentioned within the comments and not the header.

No way, did I say that anyone's request is less important, or valuable. Just a good number of them lack much to really spark up anything by way of conversation, other than those who just say they agree or disagree for their own reasons.

This post, here, has probably gotten more traction than most of the proposals I'm speaking about. Although some may agree or disagree, there was enough said on here to get something going.

There just needs to be more than "DTG can you make this [desired content]?"

At least give a reason, whether simple nostalgia, personal experiences.. Give some effort into what you really want to see in the sim. Just like we as a community would expect from the company making the content. It's a bit of a double standard to expect a company to put in the effort to make content, and do it well enough to the satisfaction of those who look forward to it, and not the community for what they want to see come to fruition.

 

Thank you Cat and dunkrez for adding balance and sense to this otherwise completely draconian, narrow minded and frankly ill thought out thread.

 

HA... You say that, yet it got your attention enough to throw a comment that added little to nothing beyond what your upvotes have done. I'd say this thread managed to do better than most proposals I've come across. So thank you for your participation.

 

I'm glad someone's shed some light onto these proposals. It's so annoying when you write a detailed proposal only for it to be hidden in the recent section by some "plz add [train or route name] here dev" suggestion. I don't think these proposals should be deleted or anything, but my gosh are they annoying.

 

I certainly agree that the one-liners are very annoying, they can end up burying proposals with actual effort put into them in a sea of pleading.

 

Isn't it pretty pointless to post anything on the Contents Proposals and Suggestions thread. I doubt whether the good folk at DTG bother to read it, let alone act on it. You might as well talk to the cat.

However, some posts create a bit of banter which is no bad thing.

 

I do hope that DTG still reads the Content Proposals and Suggestions because there are some very good proposals in there.

 

I’m still struggling to understand what difference a single sentence requesting a route is compared to a fully detailed proposal. DTG has not indicated in anyway that one way of making a suggestion is favoured over another. A suggestion is a suggestion regardless of length. It doesn’t have to be war and peace.

 

I think that a good way of figuring that out would be to read the proposals and see what they wrote. What information did they give? How much information did they give? How is it worded? Is there pictures? Or is it just yelling at anyone who reads it that this MUST BE IN THE GAME!!!

 

There's also a lot of users in here that doesn't understand english to well, imagine them making a thorough post about a route suggestion, or maybe they should be muted alltogether ?

 

Agreed. They should at least consider what some people suggest. Okay, maybe not make it immediately, but at least keep it in mind.

 

100% agree,

 

No one would disagree. My point is, a great idea poorly presented, is still better than a LOVE idea brilliantly presented. The Beeching report was a LOVE idea brilliantly presented after all. Not everything shiny and bright is actually good... in fact, it may be [cockney rhyming slang] shiny and bright [/cockney rhyming slang].

 

You do know that if look on the left of your screen you can click on the Loco or Route Suggestions page. Then, by using the mouse wheel you can scroll down through the posts to see if any are of interest to you. You can ignore the posts that annoy you and here's a useful tip, the post title is usually a giveaway as to the subject matter.

Now I realise that this takes time, mental and physical effort, all that scrolling and clicking but it just needs patience and the will to do so. Once mastered, the technique becomes second nature and you can avoid those nasty, annoying little one line posts.

 

Does anyone know the criteria DTG use to pick specific routes to develop???

Eric

 

749006 got his 86 variation. The Badger was mentioned in there and it did appear... may not always be DTG acting upon what the community want, but if you want something, you have to ask. It's not going to magically appear.

A random aside, but I'm surprised that there hasn't been a licence looked at for the Island of Sodor yet.

 

Not offhand, though it was briefly talked about in one of their recent streams. Can't really be bothered to remember or find out which one it was. Hopefully, maybe one of them will come and chime in on that to give some insight. Though I can certainly tell you, it's not as simple as just putting up a post and hoping for the best.

Some of the time, route proposals will have been put up, and possibly may already be under consideration and possibly in development. Or they may never be considered because there's a time factor element and the complexity of the route that they feel may not fit in with their schedule or whatever have you. Also having to come up with making new assets that they may not have already made that are unique to the route being considered, which can take a little time.

 

It possible that some people might not know about a loco/route because of the age of the loco/route or thiers not enough information on that particular thing plus no everyone has the time to make a essay or find info on youtube

 

A cop-out statement. Especially in this day and age, not to mention the current state of the world.

If one has time to sit and play a train sim, they surely have time to put in a little effort to do a little research. I mean you're on an internet forum, correct?

If one has the time to spend on social media or whatever have you. Then find this site and log in their information, surely they have the ability to do a little research or look up a youtube video and go off that. You folks have really got to learn to stop making excuses for lack of effort. Especially when a lot of us in the community hold this company to a certain standard. The same energy should, at the very least be expected of one another if we/they really want to see some desired content come to fruition in such a niche market. The internet pretty has put the world at everyone's fingertips. You can find almost and everything you want or need to know if you look in the right places.

Seriously..

 

Yes, fair point.

 

Playing devils advocate, let's say that _every_ person with an idea did write a full 5 - 20 page dossier on the route or locomotive that they want.

All of a sudden, we have a forum chock full of essays that most are not likely to read. Typically, route and locomotive suggestions interest the original poster of the suggestion mostly. Why else would they provide the pitch? Perhaps to get more people on board? It is a good way to sound out ideas to the TS community and gauge interest, but I would say that this forum is a walled garden of sorts, and the represented demographic is probably quite small and hardcore.

The collection of essays could potentially be a great resource for DTG and for TS's army of 3rd party developers. Might potentially save some work scoping out projects, then again, it might not due to time taken cross referencing the given subject matter from an unqualified source.

If the purpose of clamping down on short route or loco suggestions is to give extra visibility to someone who has written an essay, then I call shenanigans on the intent of the suggestion.

Nobody deserves to have their route or loco proposal put before anyone else's proposal, irrespective of how much their perceived deserving is. Last time I checked, this forum wasn't a Kingdom and the views and opinions of all are welcome here, well, within reason

 

There are some very well produced proposals with maps and photo's and they are very interesting to read. There are also one liners which say please "make the London to York line" for example, with little more and no reference to time period etc.

I have submitted some proposals, they have more than one sentence, usually several but rarely contain photos and never maps as quite frankly I haven't necessarily got the time or the inclination to go to that level of detail.

I think DTG have acknowledged that they take proposals on the forums as ideas for DLC, in fact I am sure on streams they have often said to make a proposal on the forums.

However, looking at the dearth of UK routes for TS1 in the last couple of years I am not sure they are seeing them all!

 

This is a great opportunity for enterprising types

 

Perhaps the dearth, or death of UK routes is the problem of lost franchises. Think Welsh Marches and the Wales main lines released and then pulled.
Lines set in the bad old days of BR could be the answer.

 

Speaking of the UK, when was the last time we got a UK route anyway? It feels like it's been ages.

 

To be fair most people probably don't do highly detailed proposals because they don't feel like it let's face people are lazy I think people should aleast provide some information about thier proposals

 

I agree with this, people should try and put some more time and care into their proposals. From my personal experience, I have noticed that my proposals with like one sentence and a picture get almost no traction on the board, but when I take my time and do research on the locomotive or route that I want to propose and put it together in an easy to read format with many pictures, people appreciate it and are more likely to support the idea. It just takes a few minutes to whip out Wikipedia or some other source and get more than enough information to put into a proposal.

 

It was Fife Circle and before that the SWML, or the short bit they bothered to do! We used to get several a year and even if you add in TSW we haven't had much in the last year. Yet for TS1 there seems to be plenty of routes being released, just not UK ones.

I would like to see more lines set in BR days as there is a definite dearth of those, and if you want you can use more modern traction on them, make a change to having to use BR traction on routes with post privatisation signage and modern signals..

Some more steam period routes would be nice to see too.

 

The SWML was just TWO routes ago? We really need more UK routes, pronto!

 

The next route from DTG should be a UK one, as the just released that German one, and the Clinchfield route before that.

 

Yeah. I'm just praying that they'll ditch the neon plastic trees. I know I'm unusually critical of the trees that you'll find on more recent routes but for me they just ruin the look of the whole thing. If you have some AP packs and RW Enhancer UK routes can look amazing but the plastic trees ruin the whole thing.

 

I did not know there were rules about how long a post should be, I am a member of this forum and entitled to post my views as long as i abide by the rules, if you don't like what i post don't read them.

 

Yeah... No one said anything about rules, Thank you very much!

But you seem to have felt a little touched by this. No matter, I still stand by what I said.

This community at large holds this company to a certain standard, and not amongst one another. I still feel that a lot of these proposals could use a little more effort than simple one-liners. I can understand if these are actually written by children, and even then, I know some of them are more capable of putting a little more effort into them, seeing as they can manage to navigate their way to these forums.

I understand that my view on this is a bit too much for some of you to handle. If you want to find an excuse for putting in lack of effort, I'd hope you wouldn't be as hypocritical about it when the company behind this put in just as much effort into the content you request, if they even feel there is enough demand for it.

I'm not saying the proposals need to be lengthy, but the point of one is to sell people on an idea and get people who are as equally like-minded, as well as the party you're presenting it to bring it to fruition. And a lot of them aren't doing that great of a job, honestly.

 

Doubt whether the good folk at DTG are bothered about the length of a proposal and let's face it, it is DTG that these proposals are aimed at.
I suggest the longer the proposal, the less inclined they would be to read it, takes up too much of their valuable time. If DTG wanted a snapshot of what us punters want, the shorter the better.
Bottom line is, do DTG actually read these proposal threads and do they have any influence on their decision on what they make.

If DTG really want to know what we want they could do a simple vote only, tick in the box survey.

 

Exactly Cat, as my old headmaster used to say "Hooley get to the point" Lol.

Mike

 

I'm with Cat and Mike here. I don't have anything more to add to the debate

 

If I was the developer and saw:

A) 100 users all post the same one-liner "I'd like to see Swanage railway in the game"

B) just 1 user write a very elaborate post with links, photos and info about the Plym Valley Railway explaining why it would be amazing

... then I'd probably decide to go with option A, as it seems it would sell better since more people are interested.


Even one liners are valuable, as they give an idea of what the community is interested in and what it is not interested in.

My 0.02$ for this discussion.

 

You know what, you got me to see the situation from a different angle with that, the short posts can also have their value in the general discussion. thanks for that!
Also, I am not sure if this is a good idea, but what if every week or biweekly, there was a poll on the suggestions board that people could vote on what suggestions they thought were their favorite from the week or last 2 weeks, not to find out which post is the best but to see what the general community thinks of the suggestions and which ones they support the most.Just an idea I had.

 

Wont work I'm afraid, too many biases, let me explain.

For arguments sake we'll say there are four route suggestions.
US route
German route
English route
And me with a Welsh route.

Over the course of the voting week you get 1200 US visitors 50 Germans 500 English and 2 Welsh.

Who has the better route suggestion by vote, the US one or the Welsh one?

Basically imo it would never be a fair representational vote.