What Are Peoples Thoughts On Rivets Attitude?

Just reading through a post about iow and it was normal “this is yet to be fixed” post and then I read Jaspers reply.

I know Sam says similar but I don’t think jaspers translates with as much diplomacy. Good customer service?

https://forums.rivet-games.com/forum/general-chat-en/3730-iow-its-been-6-months

 

This head in the sand comment too

 

I was really looking forward to Arosa... I'm pretty glad I have neither of these routes now

 

I think this is why there are many who are cautiously optimistic about the upcoming West Cornwall route

 

Arosa has its own problems too. I'm not talking about he background scenery. I'm talking about serious bugs like the train not being able to accelarate after using the dynamic brake (after well over 10 secs, and 30 too).

 

Possibly just a (language) misunderstanding?

I haven't seen many streams with Jasper, but he's never come across as dismissive or uncaring to me.

In general, I think people who work at Rivet and at Dovetail typically are train fans, and sincerely care about what they are making and doing. Not convinced they have a negative attitude.

 

To me, they've looked frustrated lately. I feel a little sorry for them (...) but every mistake is also a lesson.

 

There was another thread and someone said that is prototypical behavior for that loco. My biggest issue is the time table. I am consistently 10 to 15 minutes late even when running full speed.

 

I doubt it is prototypical that you can't accelerate after more than 30 secs of having stopped using the dynamic brake. 10 secs might be prototypical, as it is what happens with other locos (US ones, for example) but not 30 to 60 secs. Something is probably not right there.

 

I've raised several issues relating to both IoW and Arosa on the Rivet Games forums. My posts are mostly (but not always) acknowledged.

However, the response from Rivet is often woolly and non-committal. I've gone to the effort of reporting issues, and am left with no idea they''ll actually address them.

A typical response is along the lines of "Thank you. We've made a note of it and will pass this on to our developers".

However, this is not the same as "thank you. We'll pass this on to the devs and will fix it. It will be included in an upcoming patch".

Alternatively, if the issue will NOT be fixed, communicate that clearly and early, so the customer knows. That's effective expectation management, even if the outcome isn't desirable to the customer, they have clarity.

Software ships with issues. I get it. It happens. That's forgivable when the dev subsequently commits to fixing the issues that shipped to make the product enjoyable.

I don't have that feeling with Rivet. Unless there's a significant improvement in taking action to rectify some glaring immersion issues (IOW - trains operating without lights at night, rain not hitting the driver's window, making wipers obsolete, the dreadful sea texture) I will not be purchasing any future Rivet content.

I've supported Rivet twice by purchasing both Arosa and IoW, but right now, I do not feel like my support is being reciprocated.

If Jasper reads this, I'm happy to discuss specifics in more detail with you. Thanks.

 

I can’t help but think they have a tough gig at the moment. I held off iow because of the length and reviews I saw and then arosa the streams killed it for me . I do hope Penzance is a good one for them but when you dig through their forum that’s generating a lot of questions

 

I’m frustrated by The lack of information coming from Rivet. I used to be a big fan, I have all the TS2021 Swiss content. But I won’t buy anymore from them until there is an improvement.

The problem is that they start out with a lot of enthusiasm to fix bugs and you get a couple of patches. Then silence.

The most annoying one is the timetable in Arosa. A Swiss railway that it is completely impossible to actually run on time. I can live with the mountain scenery but I should at least have a reasonable chance of arriving on time. They’ve said they will look at it, but looking doesn’t make it work.

I hope it changes. If they clean up the remaining issues, then I’m prepared to try them again.

 

That seems to be a lot of the conversation there, fixing things and then nothing appearing to happen

 

In the specific link being shared, the complaint being responded to is basically "your content is overpriced and copied from other content", so I really don't see any surprise that the response from Rivet is along the lines of "don't buy it". If someone goes out of their way to be rude, it's not surprising they don't get a highly engaged and sympathetic response.

 

I've never experienced that happening and have used the dynamics to stop. The 10 second from into our out of dynamics is quite normal on a locomotive and some will physically prevent you from doing it. 30 seconds would seem excessive to me - can you tell me how you're making this happen and I'll give it a crack and see how I go.

 

Totally agree. I must admit that I enjoy both IOW and Arosalinie. Yes there are problems but, for example the scenery issue has been explained as being a trade off between that and performance and I personally think performance is more important.

I think many people are influenced by the comments on the forums. These are usually perfectly valid but in some cases they relate to issues that are not bugs as such (e.g scenery) and may not be noticed by more casual players. For example I didn’t see any problem with SEHS until the complaints started to roll in and though I am grateful for the updates that have improved things, I would have carried on blissfully unaware without them.

The main issue with Arosalinie which seriously affected gameplay i.e. the derailment problem, was resolved quickly. The issues on the IOW, apart from not being able to use livery editor (which they say is fixed and awaiting release), are not game breaking in my opinion though I do realise that for some, realism such as lights on AI trains is important. It certainly hasn’t stopped me driving up and down it. My biggest issue is the lack of hovercraft but I can live without it. Being able to walk along Ryde Pier (and round Arosa Lake) is a great bonus, something you don’t get with DTG routes.

Rivet aren’t a big company and fixing all the issues arising does cost money (some of which they probably didn’t even realise were issues during development) and they have to prioritise accordingly. I am hopeful that following their two initial route DLCs, they have learned what peoples expectations are, particularly in regards to realism and scenery and potential issues can be addressed ahead of release, thus saving them further expenditure and us punters frustration.

On this basis, I’m willing to give them another chance but mess up what is probably my favourite branch line in England (St Erth - St Ives) and I might be less charitable.

 

This mod by Will adds the hovercraft to IOW along with PIS: https://mods.trainsimcommunity.com/...i851-isle-of-wight-working-hovercraft-and-pis

 

Thanks. I’m actually playing on Xbox so sadly won’t be able to use it. The thread is equally valid for all platforms though which is why I responded.

 

Rivet has released DBBR 204. The locomotive is excellent, but its services at DLC MSB are poor. I wonder if Adam's team can redo these services, or only the RIVET manufacturer can make these adjustments.

 

Personally, I think it is absolutley nuts for any representative of a company that sells things to say, in writing, and in public:

"It's absolutely ok for you to think that we overprice our routes (product) - in that case, just don't buy it."

Wow, wow, wow - oh wow.... and wow again....! Oh how marketing principles have changed.....! I have no idea where this trend has come from, and I find it absolutely bizarre that anyone ever says this to customers, ever, in any context.

I don't just find this surprising - I find it utterly shocking. Every response from a rep should be highly engaged and sympathetic, or at absolute worst, and only in the face of what can sometimes be undiplomatioc language/behaviour...... neutral. Not mocking and dissuasive. Oh my dear... these guys really need to go on a Customer Service course.... I understand that Disney contract out a really good one for those in most need of their help.

 

You say ‘utterly shocking’. I say pointing out common sense. The post in question was actually quite polite in my opinion. But I don’t go through life looking for things to be offended by.

 

I think that it is always useful to remember that there is no formal customer relationship between a TSW 2 player and Rivet. Rivet's involvement is incidental (as a third party developer), and you have no need to contact them, ever, about any issues whatsoever.

Dovetail is the publisher.

All issues should be routed through Dovetail. Anything produced by Rivet for TSW 2 goes through Dovetail. Dovetail has the Publisher and Developer Agreements with Valve, Microsoft and Sony, and.....

.....it is therefore Dovetail that takes responsibility.

If Dovetail attempt to pass the buck, and says that any "Rivet" DLC is nothing to do with them, then any issues can then be directed to Valve, Microsoft or Sony, and you could ask them to pursue your query with Rivet.... but they would go to Dovetail, because they have no relationship with Rivet, with respect to TSW 2.

Because Dovetail owns the responsibility for all TSW 2 DLCs, and Rivet is merely a supplier to Dovetail, and it is Dovetail that is selling all of the DLCs to you, the customer.

Your relationship is with Dovetail. Ask Dovetail.

 

Rivet's attitude is appaling and unexcusable. IOW still has bugs after so many months and they can't even pretend they know about it.
Arosa is still messed up, the timetable is wonky and the train cannot accelerate after using the brakes. These bugs are still here, and we have no updates by Rivet, just some vague promises they won't keep.
Then we must not forget the whole brake usage thing. They kept claiming their made up procedure was the correct one and that there were no issues at all with the derailments, even after Matt himself explained how they messed up train weights and buffer physics.
This is unbelievable. Rivet Games and their attitude is detrimental to TSW's imagine and even to DTG, which is saying something!

 

Not if you want to maintain the goodwill of that potential customer, or any other customer that sees that interaction. As I said - this "Don't buy it" trend seems to be new - I have never seen it before. Maybe Apple, Ford, Pepsi, etc., have missed a trick with this... and will soon be urging customers to not buy their products... I will watch and wait, and see what happens..... ! ;-)

I am not convinced that saying, in as many words, "......if you can't afford it, then why don't you just Facebook Off, and get out of my Facebooking Face.... you worthless piece of Snapchat...." is particularly polite.

Other response choices were available to Jasper. Very many other options existed.

If someone said to me: "It's absolutely ok for you to think that we overprice our routes (product) - in that case, just don't buy it."..... then I wouldn't be offended. I would be shocked though. I might even still buy the product if I want it enough (I do this all of the time with every single TSW DLC that I buy, all of which are over-priced). But I am very confident that I can afford to buy the product, whether it is over-priced or not, so it is not possible for me to take offence, because I have more information than seller, regarding my capacity to buy the product. But....... others might consider such a statement to be a personal attack on their status and/or wealth level.... and would consequently be offended... and I would find that completely understandable.

Edited by DTG Natster.

 

Rivet have a "support" section on their forum, designed specifically for players to report issues with content Rivet have developed, which is what I have - correctly - been using to communicate with Rivet, and vice versa.

 

Okay - thank you for the steer....! I will make sure I don't veer into politics again - you are absolutely right - that was a poor example to use to compare "shocked" and "offended".

I will assume the rest of my content in the rest of this thread (so far) is not objectionable (to you).

 

Well, Rivet, it's an interesting case.

As someone who've played Train Simulator in the past, I gotta say Rivet has released some top notch quality products, which are considerably better than ANYTHING DTG ever released, both in graphics/scenery and advanced features. Rivet really seems to care about the quality of their products for Train Simulator.

Then, they got into Train Sim World. Obviously they had to learn the tools, familiarize themselves with the new software required to develop anything for TSW, and I wasn't surprised their first product was a rather short route. (Isle of Wight).

I had high expectations for Arosa. It was one of my favourite routes and it'd be a very welcome addition for my TSW collection. Obviously Arosa isn't perfect, and I think it shows that Rivet struggled with the limitations that TSW has. I do think it's a very bold move to develop a Swiss narrow gauge route, which not only would require creating a lot of assets, but also creating a landscape unlike anything else created for TSW. (You could say that Rivet raised the bar quite high for themselves, while DTG played relatively safe and took the easy way). I also think that both Isle of Wight and Arosa Linie, regardless of their issues, are very nice add-ons, and I do not regret buying them at all. I enjoy both routes, and am still happy that Rivet was bold enough to venture into Switzerland (something that I don't expect DTG to do, ever).

In that regard, I still have more faith in Rivet than I have in DTG. I also believe that the lesser quality of Rivets TSW product is to blame on their inexperience with the limitations of TSW, along with them setting the bar high for themselves. Considering they have a history of releasing extremely good quality products for Train Simulator, I do not expect they suddenly changed their mindset and stopped caring about the quality of their products.

However, it seems that communication with the community may not be Rivets best quality. Bugs are reported but I don't have the feeling they're being acknownledged, or even being worked on. And bugs aside, I don't know we can expect any improvements being made to Rivets products in a similar fashion that DTGs preservation crew does for DTG products. Considering both Isle of Wight and Arosa Linie aren't mentioned on the roadmap, the best we can assume is that it is not being worked on. I do hope (probably wishfull thinking) that during the silence, Rivet is secretly working on bugfixing on both DLC. But I think it wouldn't hurt if Rivet would improve their communcation with the community, at least acknownledging the bugs are noted and being looked at. (Or be honest and tell them they won't get addressed, if that's the case).

Either way, I'm looking forward to their new DLCs and still haven't forgot about them devilvering awesome products for Train Simulator. They still have the benefit of the doubt, although I gotta say I do start to have doubts they can produce the quality they might want to produce.

 

That's fair enough, as an informal channel to Dovetail's supplier, if you want to use it.

I wouldn't use it myself, because there is no compulsion for Rivet to do anything at all with any feedback you give to them, no matter how serious it is. They literally do not have to do anything at all, unless Dovetail requires them to do it. They don't have to acknowledge you, or give you any feedback or progress reports in return. You have not purchased anything from them. You have no legal/contractual relationship with them.

As a consequence, if you are not satisfied, you might stop purchasing Dovetail's DLC content, where that content is known to be developed for Dovetail by Rivet - and that is completely your choice. As Jasper says.... "Don't buy it.....!"

If you buy some carrots from a supermarket, and they turn out to be rotten, and you then turn up at the farm where they were grown....... then the farmer does not have to replace your carrots, refund you, promise to make better carrots in future, or do anything else except say "Would you mind awfully, if you could please remove your personage from my private properteeee...." or however farmers phrase that kind of thing when being polite. You should return the carrots to the supermarket where you purchased them. I know it seems silly, and it might seem easier to talk to the farmer, but that's just not how the client relationship works.

I have not actually had issues with products developed by Rivet, as published by Dovetail, so I have't had to ask for support. I actually recognise some of the issues that people have raised, but they just don't bother me much, or shock me, or indeed, offend me. I actually really like Arosa Linie as it is - but I might be looking for things in Train Sim World that others are not. I know there was a huge backlash over the quality of the distant scenery, but for me (personally) their focus on the train itself, and near distance scenery was the right approach, and I appreciate the product (probably more) because of how they chose to optimise it.

 

That's the worst part. I do not think I do something different when it happens. It just happens. IIRC, it happened several times in DTG's pre-release and release streams for the route, if you want to take a look.

 

I think that Sam mentioned in the last stream Tuesday that 3rd party items aren't on the road map as it isn't managed by DTG and they have their own 'fix lists'. Maybe Rivet should do their own 'road map' with possible fixes for the future?

 

Happens to me regularly as well. I work around it by releasing the brake as soon as the gradient starts to lessen, but it’s quite annoying. If it is like that in real life then fair enough, but I really don’t know. I’ve been on the line a lot, but you can’t tell from the coaches and despite my great knowledge of driving trains from TSW, they won’t let me drive!

It’s mostly Allegra’s now anyway.

 

That is prototypical, not s bug. Just not what you would normally expect.

 

More than 30 secs is prototypical? I'm not an expert, but it is difficult to believe.

 

30 seconds is not prototypical. 10 seconds is prototypical.

Paul

 

I have drive the route a lot, but never had to wait 30 seconds to get started after using the dynamic brakes. 10 seconds yes, that is the normal transition time. You may do something wrong, maybe it is platform dependent (I play PC). In general the route works nice and I decided to completely ignore the timetable, which is a major flaw that should not have happened.

 

Interestingly I just tried this descending from Arosa towards Chur and I was unable to make this happen. I was able to go from powering to dynamics to powering with no delays. Thinking it was perhaps actually rolling rather than powering I picked one of the scenarios that starts you off at Chur so I could give it a try on the rise from the siding into Chur. I was still able to rove back and forth to my hearts content between Fahren and Bremsen. There were no delays Inkar

 

Here is a video so you can see what my experience is, what I do and what happens. Then you can tell me if you have the same experience and if you think it is normal.



At 0:14 I stop using the dynamic brake -> Driving control wheel OFF.
The loco is not able to apply power until 0:54 (40 seconds later).
At 1:02 I reduce the driving control wheel to 1 to make sure it does not accelerate anymore, but I do not use the dynamic brake at all.
At 1:05 I try to accelerate again, but the loco does not accelerate (as if I had used the dynamic brake).
At 1:25 the loco starts to accelerate (20 seconds later).
At 1:34 I reduce the control wheel to 1.5 (dynamic brake is not used). The loco correctly stops accelerating.
At 1:44 I try to accelerate, but the loco does not accelerate.
At 1:56 the loco starts accelerating (12 seconds later).

My guess is that 10 - 12 seconds should be the normal time that it takes to switch from dynamic braking to applying power, but it should never be 40 seconds and it should never happen if I do not use the dynamic brake.

 

Inkar
It's the same as you, I think it's completely broken.
And before the update they did I don't remember this happening, it took a little while to accelerate after using the dynamic brake but not as long as now.
And without using the dynamic brake there was no delay.
But hey, at TSW they often fix one thing and mess up two.

 

I have also found this, and this mixed with the timetable issue means arosa is now sitting unused until fixed for me

 

Same for me. I can work around it but due to this and the timetable issue I've abandoned it. I can live with the scenery but the whole point of the game, for me, is to drive as close as possible to how you would in real life and to run on time. You can't do either in Arosa which is annoying as it's the nearest line to where I live.

 

I remeber in one stream, Jasper said that they were working on adding freight into service mode. Does anyone know if there has been anyone progress or news on this ?

 

Nothing that I know of so far.

 

thomastl59374 I believe it is filed in the following folder on their hard drive.

 

This is not so good. I have not noticed this bad behaviour. Did you report it as a bug with Rivet? If not, please do so. This video and timing makes it an excellent bug report. I did not yet see it reported, but I may have missed it.

 

Thanks for the video, I was able to reproduce the problem this time. I had to watch your video closely. Interestingly I cannot reproduce it going uphill, only down hill and now that I've done what you've done in your video (release vacuum brakes before releasing dynamics, it ALWAYS happens to me now - I had never experienced it before).

This is pretty LOVE, at least you can keep playing because gravity can be your engine. This must have been introduced fairly recently as I went back through my other videos and I've been able to play it only a few weeks ago. I'm going to submit a support ticket to see what they have to say.

Paul

 

Well, the control wheel is a speed selector, when you set the control wheel to 1 or 1.5, you tell the loco, that you want to reduce your speed to 10/15 kph, therefore, the loco shuts down the engine completely, because your current speed is above 10/15 kph. It restarts the engine ten seconds after you select a new speed above your current speed. And for the dynamic brake change-8ver, the control wheel wasn't 10 seconds in "Off"-position, as it should be.

 

Nope, I did not since in the preview stream they said they knew about the problem and they would take a look at it. It seems it will be a good idea to send them a ticket as a reminder.

 

It was in the preview stream, so it is not new. Next time I play I will try to release the dynamic brake before releasing the vacuum brakes and see if it makes a difference. If it works for me it can be a good workaround for the time being. Thanks.

 

I know that the control wheel is a speed selector. I know it is the normal behavior to stop applying power if the control wheel is set lower than your current speed. The problem I'm talking about is related to the dynamic brake. You should not need to wait 10 seconds for the loco to apply power if you did not use the dynamic brake previously.

AFAIK, we should get 10 secs penalty when we change from dynamic brake to acceleration and the other way around. The waiting time is because the engine needs to change the way it is working. So, if you are Off or accelerating and change to dynamic braking, it should take 10 secs to apply the dynamic brake. And the other way around, if you are braking and you change to acceleration it should take 10 seconds before you can apply power. This is not what is currently happening in-game.

PS: There should not be any wait to apply power if I do not use the dynamic brake. Example: If I'm traveling at 25 Km/h and I have the wheel set to 2.0, the loco should not apply any power. The moment my speed drops below 20 Km/h the loco should start applying power immediately.