Sam's Secret (new Major Feature?)

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Doomotron, Oct 28, 2020.

  1. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I would hope that any benefits would begin with performance improvements, as the current iteration is struggling with that, and any visual improvements would be a bonus on top. That goes for any kind of upgrade or tweak that DTG make in the short term. Of course I would like all the improvements you regularly speak of but performance would be my priority.
     
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  2. w.lichko

    w.lichko Well-Known Member

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    Unfortunately I missed the latest stream, does anyone still remember when Adam leaked this exciting info? :)
     
  3. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    Finally, Sam did not announce anything, but he said it may cause a huge amount of speculation and because DTG staff will enjoy a (well deserved) holiday, they decided to keep this for next year so they can manage our expectations ...
    So let us enjoy our holiday and see next year what will come.
     
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  4. Callum B.

    Callum B. Well-Known Member

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    The only info leaked is that DTG is considering what version of Unreal Engine might they want to upgrade the game to later on. For some odd reason, some users here heard that as a Freudian slip meaning that TSW2 on UE 4.26 is ready for deployment in the near future.
     
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  5. w.lichko

    w.lichko Well-Known Member

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    Ahhhh, I see, thanks for the clarification guys. I’m even more excited for the new year now!
     
  6. hightower

    hightower Guest

    Spoilsport ;) Knew it had to be too good to be true.
     
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  7. Callum B.

    Callum B. Well-Known Member

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    Considering how much headache the transition from 4.16 to 4.23 has given DTG, I would not expect them to release another engine upgrade so soon. Maybe 2H22 at the earliest. That said, I would love to be proven wrong. :)
    I think that there is still much that has yet to be taken advantage of in 4.23. An engine upgrade does not present many inherent benefits, but it does present many new opportunities and tools for developers to build neat contraptions.
     
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  8. w.lichko

    w.lichko Well-Known Member

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    In this stream, Matt expanded upon the topic of dynamic weather and its implementation. I think he might have said a bit too much. :)

    Timestamps:
    1:08:10 - 1:09:40

     
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  9. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    We don’t know for sure. As 4.23 isn’t working out too well and investigation is going on to try and fix the optimisation problems that may jeopardise future releases, a further update may be their best bet. Long term plans may have been brought forward to fix the problem. Something made Adam say 4.26 as the version in use and something made Sam put his head in his hands and ask Adam if he’d just announced it when he said he meant 4.26 was “on the horizon” when corrected by Matt. Everything on this thread is speculation, and this may not even be related to the project Sam has been hyping, but ears and brain connect and speculation happens. It may mean they are just considering an upgrade but that wasn’t said either.
     
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  10. Callum B.

    Callum B. Well-Known Member

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    That is true, I misremembered Adam's exact words. For now I will take what he said at 50:04 as nothing more than Adam taking a personal interest in the release notes of UE4's latest update.
     
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  11. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    I was just watching what Sam was saying. From what he said it sounds like:
    - There's probably 2 things, that he'd intended to drop onto the roadmap
    - They're things that Sam had been working on
    - They need supporting documentation

    What sort of things done Sam work on? ( Other than his care in the community work obviously :) )
    (Community Service?)
     
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  12. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    Ooo, just watching the roadmap stream. At 47:50 they're talking about how some sound problems were introduced on the preserved collection. Adam was explaining how there was quite a lot of rework and re-plugging-in on the preserved lines to make them work in TSW2, and that something got missed occasionally during that process. He added "... and then we had to factor-in the changes to the audio engine for Unreal 4.26". Presumably Adam meant to say the version of Unreal used in TSW2 now. But it makes it sound like they've been talking about 4.26 recently in the office. Sam smiled.
    btw, I thought Matt did something similar on a recent stream mentioning West Highland Line. But that wasn't the big announcement that I first thought I think.
     
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  13. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    The joy of Freudian Slips. lol
     
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  14. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    "his care in the community work"
    Love it :)
     
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  15. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    Was that a statement from DTG?

    Unattributed comments like that make it difficult to distinguish customers' impressions, opinions, or beliefs, from official responses.
     
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  16. w.lichko

    w.lichko Well-Known Member

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    Sam's facepalm was hilarious :D
    at 50:10

     
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  17. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    No, that’s just a statement from myself, or rather the first bit of a statement from me about the current state of TSW2. I don’t think it reads like I was quoting someone else’s words. Just my observations.
     
  18. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    It was the more subtle reaction at 48:05 that I liked. (And you can also see Sam checking the chat at the same time to see if anyone noticed)
     
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  19. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps we’re wildly off the mark with this (including myself) but from what I understand, upgrading the UE version fairly regularly is ‘easier’ than leaving it for ages, where changes will be more significant and prone to things going wrong.

    I think this is why quite a few things went off the track, to say, when upgrading from 4.16 to 4.23. Because they left TSW running on an old version for a significant amount of time. Not to mentioned they were using their own, customised version of 4.16, before making a big jump to upgrade it to a newer version.
     
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  20. FeralKitty

    FeralKitty Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for clarifying! People were talking about the Roadmap video, and I didn't know if it came from there or not.
     
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  21. Averrnor

    Averrnor Member

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    I am just wondering, even if it is not the secret feature, but doesn't multiple timetables open a tiny little door for route extensions? Or even merging them together in one long experience?
     
  22. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    I don't believe Sam is a developer so his project(s) will not be to do with the Unreal Engine or anything like that. He isn't programming anything AFAIK. He didn't react at all when Adam said 4.26 initially and I think he misunderstood when Adam said what is on the horizon, as being something he is working on. Again, as part of the preservation crew Adam won't be working on core upgrades either, I presume like me he has been reading the 4.26 release notes to see if there is anything interesting on there that might be applicable to TSW.
     
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  23. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    Mr JMB Agree with most of what you're saying. That's what I meant about "What does Sam work on?". Difficult to think of something community related that also fits the exciting part of it (and I say that with a strong belief that Sam's a great help to Dovetail and has helped to improve both TSW2 itself and DTG's relationship with its customers). I disagree about Sam not reacting though. He knew that Adam misspoke. His first reaction seemed to be "Oops" and then you can see him looking at the chat to see if anyone's noticed.
     
  24. flyingpaul

    flyingpaul Member

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    I don't think so, I think you mean the reaction at 48:05 min, as you said earlier. I don't think that he was looking at the chat. This was the time when Jamie asked him a question, and as Adam said the thing about UE 4.26, he was writing to Jamie and propably didn't even notice what Adam said.
    But that is so much speculation, we will see what Sam means in 2,5 weeks.
     
  25. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    I think, like me, he assumed Adam had simply slipped up and was saying 4.26 instead of 4.23. I don't think there'd be any way Adam could talk that much about an upcoming release/update (especially one that's not been announced and is as major as an engine upgrade) without Sam cutting him off.
     
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  26. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Ah, what's the big deal. We all know that, at some point, they will upgrade to 4.26 or a later release, probably in the coming year, so it's not as if a trade secret was revealed. Anyway, by the time they get around to it, Unreal 5 will be out of the box. It's already been announced for late 2021. So y'all should quit getting poor Adam into hot water.
     
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  27. tbaac

    tbaac Well-Known Member

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    I don't think it is a major imminent release. My theory is that they've been talking about 4.26 quite a lot and have been working on it. By the time Adam had said 4.26, there was nothing to cut off, he'd said it.
     
  28. DTG Protagonist

    DTG Protagonist Has left the building Staff Member

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    Okay, let's get this one settled down a little.

    4.26 is something we've obviously been looking at it because it's what's next in terms of engine upgrades, but we're not actively working on it at the moment. As far as Unreal Engine 5 is concerned, we definitely won't be the first games company to take the plunge and as far as I'm aware (although correct me if I'm wrong) there have yet to be any releases beyond tech demos from UE5. We're a long way from that yet.

    There was nothing in Adam's 4.26 mention and it has no bearing on what is rapidly becoming just a little over-hyped.

    - edit typo correction
     
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2020
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  29. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    What can 4.26 allow developers to achieve that 4.23 can’t?
     
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  30. George1862

    George1862 Active Member

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  31. Tomas9970

    Tomas9970 Well-Known Member

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    Just bringing this post back up.

     
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  32. GrayDawg

    GrayDawg Well-Known Member

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    Saying things are getting "a little over-hyped" after just announcing the reveal is going to be delayed for weeks, well knowing that the hype train is just going to go even faster...instead of just letting us know at the last roadmap. Not sure that was the best course of action, ever made. Oh well, it was also said it was going to be worth the wait, or some such? Hope so... come through for us Sam, we believe in you!! <3
     
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  33. Yerolo

    Yerolo Well-Known Member

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    I remember last time we were hyped up for some big announcement and it ended up being the console release announcement. Set expectations people :/
     
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  34. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    FellowsFilm (a primarily OMSI forum) massively overhyped some big announcement. The announcement was a Euro Truck Simulator 2 giveaway.
     
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  35. fakenham

    fakenham Well-Known Member

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    Lol. yes, I think we all thought it was going to be either the editor or MP. Not particularly amusing at the time but funny looking back at it.
     
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  36. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    This is gonna be absolutely hilarious if it turns out to only be something really small.

    All Sam's really said is he's working on a thing and he believes it's worth the wait. Nevertheless, this forum has exploded with speculation that it'll be something massive and game changing.
     
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  37. londonmidland

    londonmidland Well-Known Member

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    After given it some thought, I’ve lowered my expectations dramatically as it’s probably going to be something (in my opinion) pretty irrelevant and boring.
     
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  38. Agent Qracle RUS

    Agent Qracle RUS Well-Known Member

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    Now im too :C
     
  39. hightower

    hightower Guest

    In my opinion anything that isn’t an improvement to the issues running through the ‘core’ of the game is niff-naff and trivia and only fiddling around the edges. Only when those problems are sorted should we be looking at adding and expanding features.

    Building a fantastic house on iffy foundations will always be a daft thing to do as you will always have to make compromises going forward.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 26, 2020
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  40. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Rapidly? It’s nearly two months since we picked up on something you started hyping. There’s nothing rapid about this, just a lot of people left dangling for a long time, trying to pick up on anything that may be intentionally referred to or an unintentional slip of the tongue. If it turns out in the end that the hype was too much, then it’s not our fault, we just want to know what it is.

    I know the decision to make an announcement sooner has been taken out of your hands but it is still DTG keeping it from us, when they (as a collective entity) know we are very interested in finding out.
     
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  41. Maik Goltz

    Maik Goltz Well-Known Member

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    Is there no patience available on the Steam store anymore? Damn..... :|
     
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  42. Yerolo

    Yerolo Well-Known Member

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    Because of TSW2's roadmaps and their changed philosophy of only talking about things on said roadmap....it just makes these types of announcements more hyped up than they probably would have been once upon a time.

    The flipside of having these regular roadmaps is most of the mystery has been removed..I kinda miss the days of the baseless speculation threads and partial image teases Dmitri used to do here. This thread kinda brings us back to those days somewhat...I think we all find it fun to speculate even if it turns out to be nothing of importance.
     
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  43. mrchuck

    mrchuck Well-Known Member

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    If it’s a preserved route extension I hope it’s Lirr Hicksville to Huntington or wood
    side to port Washington.
     
  44. bart2day

    bart2day Well-Known Member

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    My educated guess it that it is some sort of sharing facility for liveries (and maybe scenarios). As others have said, it's not clear that Sam, as interim community manager, is a game coder so I can't see it being anything core engine related or any route upgrades or anything as that's not his 'gig'.

    Also sharing would fit with the whole 'it's good but not as good as some may envisage'. My guess is that liveries will have to be submitted to, and distributed by, DTG and they can't have any company logos on them.

    I'll probably be proved completely wrong however, as usual. :)
     
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  45. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    Sam has other roles within DTG and plenty of other skills at his disposal. I would imagine he could be involved in anything that involves a closed beta, collecting info and such. Sharing facilities could be included within that, but so could any other number of unannounced facilities or projects. Despite the roadmap being hailed as being things the company is actively working on, there are lots of things that could be actively being worked on that are kept off the roadmap for various reasons. As far as we know, Sam has been involved in this, but we don’t know who else has. It could include every coder in the company as well for all we know.

    When it comes out what it is, I’m sure there will be a clear split in the forum of people proclaiming it to be either awesome or rubbish, irrespective of the amount of hype or speculation that’s happened already.
     
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  46. geloxo

    geloxo Well-Known Member

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    Sam also referred to the mistery as being "two things, or projects", and that is was going to be properly supported by documentation. So I don´t feel this is going to be a small feature, as then no supporting documentation at all was going to be needed. Even for some locomotives, which are quite big projects indeed, we don´t have manuals, so why for this thing yes?

    I still think something that we will like is on the way and they look quite confident that we will like it indeed. So either it´s steam, that definitely needs documentation for not experienced players, an SDK for custom content creation or a totally new game mode different to services and scenarios. For the rest of things such as a new engine version, multiplayer or whatever else, we would not need too many papers.

    Cheers
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2020
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  47. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    I agree with your take on documentation. It seems to indicate that what we‘re getting is linked to gameplay somehow for the reasons you outlined.

    I don‘t think it will be something like a SDK (which would of course need documentation) because I believe Sam would have downplayed the excitement more in that case. Chances are that not every PC player would really care about that (not all, I‘m not saying just a few), but most importantly, no console player would have any use for a SDK like toolset. Seeing how large the console community for TSW is, you can see why I think Sam would have downplayed it more in that case.
     
  48. volvolover1972

    volvolover1972 Well-Known Member

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    Kind of fits with the theme of baseless speculation... There's a door asset in LGV Marseille - Avignon that has Japanese writing on it. Possible hint to future route? Most likely not. Probably just a reused asset from some mega asset pack DTG purchased (given the low res texture). But I thought I’d put it out there. 6EE8C49F-3BEB-4FFE-B4C3-F958D29237F7.jpeg
     
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  49. BR125

    BR125 Well-Known Member

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    ^ that will be a reused asset judging from the resolution. I am willing to bet my forum account on the "thing" being over-hyped, trivial, useless and a waste of time. feel free to quote this when it is.
     
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  50. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    Well what's useless is subjective. I find the livery editor useless but there's plenty of people who quite like using it.

    I think this thread's going to give me whiplash. One day Sam's working on the best thing ever, next day he's working on something tiny and useless.
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2020
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