Dtg, Yellow Card

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by breblimator, May 13, 2021.

  1. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    I will summarize the latest DTG mishaps with an excerpt from my correspondence with support:
    Reply (the crucial part):
    Either you're so incompetent or you're making your clients idiots on purpose.

    This made me laugh even more (another ticket):
    Not funny.

    PS Are you suggesting that the changes described in patch notes are not available, and maybe they will be another time? Why are you posting this crap?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 13, 2021
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  2. fabristunt

    fabristunt Well-Known Member

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    I'd say it's unbelievable, but I also had to deal with DTG support and can attest that some people there are intentionally dense.
     
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  3. maxipolo12

    maxipolo12 Well-Known Member

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    Red card would be more appropriate
     
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  4. ralphy_porter2000

    ralphy_porter2000 Active Member

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    In its intent, I see nothing wrong. Me personally give it 10 days see if its resolved, THEN start calling them out IMHO
     
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  5. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    They didn't even read the content. They also asked which train it is about. That's where the add-on is chosen. I chose BR 182. No words. Incompetence.
     
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  6. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    I got another similar response:
    "The other issues [Talent 2 being too quiet and LZB ende not working] were mentioned in the release notes provided with Tuesday's update. Please note that some of the updates mentioned above may not be available until the release later in the week. If you are still experiencing issues after the second update please let us know."

    So I guess those things were updated on Thursday? I guess it's plausible if the RT 182 is somehow connected to the HHL 182? Sadly I didn't have the opportunity to play TSW today, so I couldn't see for myself but from that message I would assume tomorrow morning the Talent 2 will be louder and I will be able to acknowledge the LZB Ende
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  7. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    Latest update is 11.05, sadly :|
     
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  8. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    There was no update today (already yesterday in Europe)
     
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  9. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    So, I don't think there is a need to call anyone incompetent. If all you gave them is "LZB Ende does not work" then I can understand that they are asking for more information. While it might seen obvious to you and me what that means, a lot of people don't know and that's perfectly understandable. I do not know why they missed the affected loco, but mentioning it again in the main description is defenitely helpful.

    And yes, it is ridiculous that some of the patchnotes aren't released until two days after the main update, especially if that second update ceases to exist. But a questionable decision doesn't warrant insults.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  10. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    Indeed, something went wrong there. DTG_JD has been made aware of it and will pass the missing changes on tomorrow. I'd expect a post on the forums at some point on Friday.
     
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  11. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    This is not an insult, but a statement of an obvious fact.

    PS If someone does their job poorly, it's incompetence, at least according to the dictionary.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 14, 2021
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  12. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    No, calling someone incompetent is an insult.
     
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  13. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    For me, the person who responded to me is VERY incompetent. Better now?
     
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  14. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    One thing that I am noticing here is that even the members here who are usually DTG's staunchest defenders have hoisted torches and pitchforks. DTG are having a bad spell; I have a decent tolerance for minor bugs and modeling infelicities, but how on earth so many awful horrible very bad bugs made it into a release and a "patch" boggles even my forgiving mind.
     
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  15. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    I'm far from a "DTG staunchfest defender", but the update wasn't that bad in terms of bugs. Yeah, there were a few of avoidable bugs and the Ende Button not working is defenitely not acceptable. But it's not much worse than anything else DTG have released in the past.
     
  16. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    I'm not talking about sound drop-outs or whether the M7s are shiny enough. The objective/start point on top of a buffer in the S6 services is pretty darn bad, as is the Port Washington train being positioned across a switch straddling two platforms. How did these possibly get by QA? None of the S6 services are currently playable; if anyone in QA had even attempted one it would have been immediately obvious. The borked 500-Hz magnets are pretty unmissable (and game-ruining; nobody likes undeserved Zwansbremsungen.) LZB Ende not functioning is also game-breaking, or at least LZB- breaking, because it makes the system unusable.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  17. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    This is where the problem lies. These are not subjective issues. The game is broken now. Support is playing a fool. If that's not incompetence, then I guess I'll have to start cursing.
     
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  18. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Also, DTG supposedly also use volunteer beta testers from the community pre-release (not us paying beta-testers post-release). Where were these folks? Asleep at the switch?
     
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  19. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    I agree. While I wouldn't describe myself as a strong defender of DTG, I think it's fairly obvious that I have a mostly positive attitude towards them if you look through my post history. But even I am a bit fed up with all that's going on right now.

    The disappointing decisions for Hamburg - Lübeck were the beginning (referring to wrong DosStos, Br 112 inaccuracies, PIS, general lack of new rolling stock), then came the update for Rapid Transit + DB Br 182 which is horribly broken if we're being honest. We were waiting for these fixes since the launch of the preserved collection and to see the update come in such a state is disappointing. Especially after having to wait for it to pass QA for quite some time. Now, Hamburg - Lübeck is released: One of the first things I read on the forums is that all of the PS4/5 DB Br 182 bugs are also present on the MRCE 182 among various new ones. Then I watch the release stream and see that there is a distinct lack PZB magnets.

    I'm not at the pitchfork phase yet, but I think DTG are having a bad spell, as you say, solicitr. And I, too, noticed that a lot of people on the forums are more negative towards DTG than usual - this thread being a case in point, no offence breblimator.

    One thing I am curious about is the next roadmap stream. Maybe it's just me, but Sam seemed to hint at needing to talk about fixes to Adam in today's stream. Maybe that'll give us some answers as to what went wrong.
     
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  20. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    The main problem is defenitely QA, and I dont think anyone knows how or why the S6 services not working was missed. They did find out about it in the morning of the update and decided to release it anyway becasue the other services are still playable.The Port Washington trains being stuck between two platforms is not game braking, but defenitely one of those avoidable bugs.
    As I said before, LZB Ende not working isn't acceptable and the fact that it made it through indicated that QA don't run with Safety Systems on, which kind of defeats the purpose. And I don't know what the borked 500hz magnets are, so I won't comment on them.
     
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  21. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    In Hamburg-Lubeck, what are supposed to be 500-hz track magnets instead function as 1000-Hz, and so trigger immediate penalty braking.
     
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  22. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    Adam will definitely need to talk about what happened with this release. I've been told he was "doing a lot of shouting" or something like that when the S6 services were broken, so we'll see how that goes.
     
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  23. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    Hmmm. Given that the member of Adam's team responsible for gameplay, that is setting up start points and objectives and so on is...... Adam
     
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  24. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    yeah I can already see Sam dragging him over hot coals on that stream.
     
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  25. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    Serisously? Thats really bad. Basically, this means one of two things. Either QA runs without Safety Systems which, like I said before, kind of defeats the point, or they do use safety systems, and fail to notice that PZB is completely broken.
    If the latter is the case, maybe QA isn't the job for them.

    (Edited to remove unnecessary insult)
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  26. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    I think they were actually saying the people on support are incompitent. I don't understand how asking for more information about a problem means you're inept but apparently it does.
     
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  27. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, that's a good point. We'll see what he has to say about it on Tuesday.
     
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  28. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    Aran, You're right, I exaggerated, these are people, maybe they're tired. In my opinion, too much has been going on there lately.
    But I am a customer and I am really angry with them since yesterday.
     
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  29. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I think he was, and I still think that wasn't necessary. But I have to say, there are moments where the only word that comes to mind is incompetence.
     
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  30. Clumsy Pacer

    Clumsy Pacer Well-Known Member

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    That's not what incompetent means. It means you do not possess the skills to complete a task successfully. If someone on a support team is incompetent, they can't write an email or pick up and talk to a telephone.
     
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  31. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    I completely understand your anger, I've had those moments myself, a lot of times. (500 Hz Magnets acting as 1000Hz ones for example) But they are people and I don't like insulting them individually.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
  32. breblimator

    breblimator Guest

    Probably you are right. In my previous company, for writing something like this to a client, for the hint of even suggestions that it was the client who did not take care of something, you got public flogging. But this is Poland. Maybe I need to switch to the Internet.

    EDIT

    Let me add, these tickets were purely informative - Adam insists on doing this. The whole community knew about the problem, and support is sending me such a message?
    There are at least a few threads on this topic in this forum.
    I will summarize briefly with a picture because it's probably just me who is so demanding and cruel.

    temp 05.png
     
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  33. sequencer2k16

    sequencer2k16 Well-Known Member

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    The problem is that DTG does not love its own "baby" enough. Less and less heart and soul is put into the game.
    Sometimes this makes me very sad and I could cry because TSW does not deserve such a fate.
    They can do it if they want to but at the moment we get too many bugs due to too little dedication.

    At least that's how it feels.
     
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  34. cwf.green

    cwf.green Well-Known Member

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    I think you are wrong. It is absolutely appropriate to call DTG incompetent. Maybe not a specific person on DTG (because we don't know who is responsible for what), but with DTG's track record in accomplishing the main goal of a SIMULATOR how can you not call them incompetent?
     
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  35. FD1003

    FD1003 Well-Known Member

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    I never thought that DTG was lazy, but it's difficult to think of another explanation for HHL, as far as I know they ""only"" did track laying, signalling, timetable and the trains, because the scenery (the best part of the route by far) was done by Skyhook, of all things they did, only track laying and timetable are good, they can't be bothered to fix some wrong headlight, can't be bothered to make new DoStos, can't be bothered to fix something the beta team (unless they are all massively incompetent) surely flagged as a problem, can't be bothered to make new sounds, can't be bothered to fix the PIS, etc... I just hope RT and LIRR get some additional fixes and that Cathcart Circle ends up being at least not awful and filled with bugs, I have little hope for fixes to HHL, but if they come I might still buy it
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  36. maxipolo12

    maxipolo12 Well-Known Member

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    Negative, it's a statement or an observation
     
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  37. davidh0501

    davidh0501 Well-Known Member

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    I’m beginning to believe that Dtg needs to implement a rage quit button on the dashboard.
    So enraged simmers can eject from the cab and watch the spectacular explosion of their loco as they parachute out of the game and their computer shuts down in sympathy.
     
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  38. maxipolo12

    maxipolo12 Well-Known Member

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    thank you to all beta testers who bought the addon btw ;)
     
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  39. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    I’ve declined to be an unpaid tester for Hamburg Lübeck.

    The same bugs and mistakes keep cropping up. New bugs are being introduced and from what we’ve seen this week, fixes for those bugs are creating even more issues. Things seem to be a complete mess.

    DTG really needs to hit the pause button and reevaluate their approach. The current way of working is clearly not working and the community is getting more and more fed up. It seems people within DTG are being stretched far too thinly so not enough time can be spent on each aspect of each route. I mean, how can Hamburg Lübeck have issues with 500Hz magnets? Surely this is a fundamental, basic thing to get right. The whole thing is just bizarre.
     
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  40. maxipolo12

    maxipolo12 Well-Known Member

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    I think this is the only solution to recieve a potential reaction from DTG, like an overall no buy from all the players.
    But well there are still people who buy DLCs day one at 29,99 € so it will be complicated :D
     
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  41. 4-COR

    4-COR Well-Known Member

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    Can I take a moment to talk about how pointless reporting bugs to dtg seems to be too? I reported the broken sounds and TMS screen on the BR 143 8 months ago. They still haven't been fixed, nor has there been any word on the roadmap about a fix for them.
     
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  42. mclitke

    mclitke Well-Known Member

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    which falls in line with all route releases this year. Regardless of what each person individually thinks about the recent routes, steam shows that overall satisfaction with routes has dipped alot. From todays look at the steam store:
    Hamburg - Lübeck: 51% positive
    Clinchfield: 64% positive
    Arosa Linie (not DTG but should meet their standards nontheless): 47% positive
    Southeastern Highspeed: 68% positive

    Anyone see a trend? At least I hope DTG sees it and seriously considers changing their ways. When people on the forums moan it is one thing, but an item on the steam store not displaying a positive overall feedback will most certainly affect overall sales. Since this game is partly casual there are sure to be players who don't know that much about anything from each route, but just see mixed reviews and decide to rather not go for it.
    Will we see more frequent route releases to recoup from missed out sales due to bad reviews, ending in even more unpolished releases?
    Cathcart circle is coming up shortly as well, and I have already spottet people here getting there hopes DOWN instead of up.

    Oh and btw, this week is the first time that I have ever seen a patch being added where it states "here is the fixes, but not all of them are in the patch." Ehhhhhhhhh what? How can they proclaim going forwards to list everything they add via patch in the patch notes and then don't ship everything? They are turning on their own words every week as it seems. If not all fixes have been shipped, then why not build the list for fixes that HAVE shipped? Who could have guessed, that people will get upset when something in the patchnotes is mentioned to be fixed or improved, only to find out that it is not, with the answer to that being "oh yes, but we did mention that not all mentioned fixes came with this update!"
    I could go on and on and on about this issue alone, everything about it is wrong. And bad. Is this a cop-out attempt, so that if there are new bugs that they can just easily say "oh well, not everything we put in the patchnotes is exactly in this patch."??
    We do not even know when or if the second half of that patch will come, heck even if there was one seperate set of fixes to Tuesdays patch in the first place.
    Sorry Breblimator to hijack your thread for my rant...

    edit: while writing this HHl has dropped to 50% positive ratings.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  43. cwf.green

    cwf.green Well-Known Member

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    Imagine the work you've spent (hopefully) a lot of time on, is consistently rated as mediocre or even poor by players. That's gotta be rough. But ultimately it's your own (or your bosses) fault.
     
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  44. Mr JMB

    Mr JMB Well-Known Member

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    The problem of not knowing the content of the patches, the status of the fixes etc is a long-standing issue now. As more routes and locos are added and the preservation crew work alongside the teams in core and route and loco building it just gets magnified.

    Unless they look again at proper control of workflow then this will just carry on. Passion projects are fine when the company is about 6 people but once you have dozens you NEED to know the exact status and who is working on what, down to the details about specific bugs and fixes and which route/loco they pertain to.
     
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  45. LucasLCC

    LucasLCC Well-Known Member

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    Of course, DTG could just polish their products a bit more, as opposed to going down the half baked result.
     
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  46. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    The pre-publication QA process obviously didn't work out in this case.

    And nor did the publication QA process. As with the DB BR 101, DTG did not even check that the Hamburg-Lubeck route had been properly listed on the TSW 2 game page on PlayStation Store. It's literally absent from the game's list view. You can find it if you do a specific search, but very many people do not do this, certainly not if they do not already know about it.

    So very many PlayStation players won't be buying this route, because they will not know that it exists.

    As an aside - the PS XMB view of owned/unowned DLCs is still not working for TSW 2 - so under this view, none of the unowned DLCs appear at all (and they should), so it looks to the player as if they already own all DLCs (even if they don't).

    The lack of QA of the publication process is literally causing lost sales opportunity, and lost sales.

    No QA = Less Money
     
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  47. JustWentSouth

    JustWentSouth Well-Known Member

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    I think it would be a wonderful marketing idea and pump up a lot of enthusiasm here if every route were released in a beta version two weeks before the official release. The beta release could be publicized only on this forum and open to anyone willing to pay for the route to see it early and test it for bugs.

    The bug testing would be rigorous; we could all “forgive” DTG for the bugs in the first place because they would be willing to have us find them and fix them and the overall enthusiasm for the routes would be much higher than it is now. The enthusiasm would be appropriate to the quality of the route.

    This would produce higher quality routes, engage an enthusiastic community, and lead to better reviews and sales in the long term.

    just an idea .....
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2021
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  48. synthetic.angel

    synthetic.angel Well-Known Member

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    This is almost exactly what they do right now, but with the added benefit of tryiing to take no responsibility for fixing the bugs... let alone promising to fix the bugs that people report in the "public beta" period.
     
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  49. Aran

    Aran Well-Known Member

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    I don't have a problem with throwing those things at DTG as a whole, because they have made objectively wrong decisions in the past. It's when it turns into directing it at one individual in the company that I have a problem with it.
     
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  50. Luke8899

    Luke8899 Well-Known Member

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    This is the issue as I see it, somewhere the communication isn't working, because nobody customer-facing seems to know what is supposed to be included in releases or not.

    My personal take is that as per the road map changes, it's better to not say something if you are not sure what it is going to be like or when it's going to come. Even the most neutral attempts to set expectations usually end up setting them too high. I enjoy those streams for the banter, but it's questionable whether there's any point Adam being there as he has no idea what exactly will be going into each patch, so he's just giving us a long list of stuff his team has worked on, and then... We randomly get something a few weeks/months later that doesn't seem to chime with anything he said.

    I don't think it is a quick or easy fix because I suspect it points to some issues around internal communication and perhaps some issues between departments and their mentality around sharing info and whatnot, all speculation of course, but as I said, giving incorrect information is often worse than giving nothing, and I think DTG are trying too hard to 'engage' with players without actually correctly setting up a reliable stream of information to give to them first.

    All this said, there are lots of reasons why content can ship with issues, and I'm far more forgiving about that because I know how these kind of things work behind the scenes (not at DTG in particular I should point out), especially as this is a title with a punishing release schedule, and available on console, which drastically restricts the flexibility devs have unless they are finalising products months ahead of release (which is very clearly not the case with DTG & TSW).

    On the ever-present issue of testing, the game wouldn't exist without testing, they are not releasing content without testing, because if nothing else it would take a miracle to build something without ever testing it and still manage to meet all of the criteria laid out by Sony and Microsoft in their compliance checks. Testing is going on, and plenty of these issues are known about prior to release almost certainly I would say. What's happening is that nobody is saying there are too many issues to release the game in its current state, or nobody is clearly communicating to the customer-facing staff, and therefore to the customers, what to actually expect.
     
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