PC Getting Tsw Back On Track

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Digital Draftsman, Jun 3, 2018.

  1. Daniel Bloch

    Daniel Bloch Well-Known Member

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    Yeah that is what DTG is telling us since two years, but no more information is given.
    I only believe it when i see it released.
     
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  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    The only DLCs that need fixing by DTG are those released under their name.
    Those shouldn't be blamed on DTG and as you say "depending on the workload" applies to you fixing your own content. People should not blame one company for another's failings
     
  3. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    On the editor - whether or not it's on the way, think about the problem from these angles

    - I'm pretty sure that DTG, to get revenue, want you to buy from them. Think 'GWE Winter Wonderland, 5 exciting scenarios for when winter comes to Great Western for you to purchase from DTG on Steam'. An editor, to some extent, is like going to your local restaurant and asking if you can use the kitchen to cook your food and eat it there. It may add for some value to the product, but it also reduces the clients reliance on them to play the game.

    - they don't own the engine and I'd question whether or not when they licensed it they included some concept of a user editor in that agreement. Presumably it means opening up the engine to users and the licensee would expect that DTG pay an license amount for every user who has already purchased the product and then for every future sale. It's likely to be a fixed amount as well (so no discount on the license if it's sold as part of the game during a Steam sale). Given the small number of users (and perhaps questions of the viability of the product) I doubt if DTG want to invest further cash at this point. One alternative would be to add the license fee to the main pack. Would people pay for the editor separately (and how much) and how many do you think DTG would sell?

    ARuscoe I think that the primary reasons are a) the development for whatever reason didn't keep to the time lines and budgets b) it wasn't the product the existing TS community wanted and c)it isn't interesting enough (or at least value) for the casual user.
     
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  4. 85Leaf

    85Leaf Active Member

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    There is, no matter how you cut it, a long list of DLC for 20XX published by DTG. Fixes made by DTG will also affect 3rd party developed routes from JT, Thompson, Aerosoft, etc. until they sort them.

    And as to your remark about the Workshop scenarios, I never blamed DTG even though their fixes to 20XX would most likely affect the currently available scenarios, routes, stock on the workshop-- let alone the Marketplace.
     
  5. chelmo

    chelmo New Member

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    First of all, I have to admit that I'm more of a flight simmer than a train enthusiast; in terms of flight sims I have both FSX and FSW plus most of the other main players.

    I came to trains with TS2014 and have added a fair amount of DLC since most of which has been through Steam. However, as my main train interest is UK branch and historic lines there has been absolutely nothing of interest to me in TSW until WSR came along. But to play that, at the moment, I would need to buy the main game at £24.99 plus the add on at £19.99 = £44.98. Sorry, but absolutely no way. And this is the problem; you will not get casual users with a pricing structure which is completely daft.

    I remember suggesting, on the Train Sim forum on Steam when TSW was first mooted, that they should offer the base game free to existing TS users and for, say, £2.99 otherwise, with something like a short tutorial route included. Everything else would then be extra. That would undoubtedly have generated more users; whether it would have translated into higher sales I don't know but it's clear that Dovetail have absolutely no idea how to actually sell it to the PC user. The forthcoming package may help but at £45ish a time; I doubt it.
     
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  6. Corvan

    Corvan Well-Known Member

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    If DTG could easily make TS 64 bit, without breaking everything in the process, they would have. It would only serve to benefit them. But, there's so much content out there from DTG, 3rd party developers and on the Steam Workshop that the prospect of doing that successfully and easily seems slim to none.

    There's no guarantee there are 64 bit versions for the 32 libraries used to code the game, for example, so you're forced to change libraries and that could invalidate everything built using the old library.
     
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  7. pschlik

    pschlik Well-Known Member

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    The whole ideas of "base game (almost) free, actual content costs money" or "every DLC includes a copy of the base game" has always been interesting for the potential freedom it offers. As the free weekend showed, it is definitely possible, as folks who got the game free got the .exe and such...but no actual routes. That's the way Steam DLC Depots work, after all.

    Of course, this makes a lot more sense in TS2018 where there are utter gobs of routes, and TSW still has a ways to go before the bundle offers anything different than what you want. If the bundle doesn't have it, it's not there :P

    Now I'm not sure how this would do for the game though. There aren't tons and tons of people out there not getting TS2018 because the route they want isn't in the base bundle. It is just too hard to be picky there, so maybe the effort isn't worth it. But surely they could make a bit more and also make some more people happy if the bundle wasn't the only way to get the game.
     
  8. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Ah, fair enough... then these issues should be directed to the writers rather than DTG

    Yes there are certain core issues that affect globally, and those could be the focus of the devs, but this would likely mean no further routes during the time taken to look at it. So as always it's a trade off between new content (which makes them money) and fixing things (which doesn't)
     
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  9. ProfCreeptonius

    ProfCreeptonius Well-Known Member

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    Hello folks!

    Quite the discussion burst out whilst I was away, now I need to put this nuclear disaster back into order *cough* *cough*
    </bad jokes>

    Yes, kind of logical too isn't it. Until the company completely dies, which is very unlikely, they'll certainly be producing content. What, however, and if they are listening to us is indeed difficult to determine after the last announcement... PZB *cough*
    Okay I promise no more bad jokes.

    Good question. Nobody knows the answer. So wait until it happens. I'm certain DTG wouldn't be purposefully denying us the editor, as that was one of the main 'selling points' of TSxx. Details, unfortunately, we do not have.

    Well play any game on an antique PC and it'll crash. No game is immune to failing. Yes, TSxx crashes a lot, but not TSW. If that is the case, likely your PC is faulty, not the simulator. Third party addons causing crashes is solely due to their poor implementation.

    Finally I'd like to give you my opinion on this matter. I think we should all settle down and actually be constructive. Crying out for features is not the right way to go. If DTG doesn't want to communicate, then you're wasting energy typing your requests. If, to the contrary, DTG is indeed listening, let us think of a few but very vital changes to TSW and let DTG do their work fixing them. It's really difficult to take conclusions from the discussion above.
    What I get the most people want is:
    -Bugs fixed.
    -Third party editor.
    -More DLC for existing routes.
    (optional: announce 387!)
    OK! Enough with the memes
    Let us stick to these couple of wishes, which then DTG could work-off implementing.

    Nuclear disaster resolved.
    Cheers,
    ProfCreeptonius
     
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  10. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

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    Good post ProfCreeptonius but is it that simple?

    I don’t know the size of the team at DTG working in this but let’s say with Devs, PM, Marketing, Art and Management oversight it’s eight people. Let’s say the fully loaded cost of each person is around GBP 6,000 a month. That’s around GBP 50,000 a month. Might be more, might be less. Doesn’t include other factors like cost of capital they may have borrowed.

    By now the project is at a point where sales, rather than initial seed money, should be funding development. I’d suggest that sales are nowhere near that level (and you need to allow for Steam sales deductions) so that’s a big hole in cash flow each month. Yes, they might be cannibalizing TS DLC revenue to fund the development but there will limits on that. Roughly to get the money to cover the development team they need to sell what 2,000 units a month (remember Steams big percentage). Perhaps they have that level of sales. I doubt it. In fact my guess it’s a fraction of that.

    So DTG’s ability or desire (or their investors desire) to fund anything other than things that may get cash in the door (think PS4, new routes) at this point I would think is questionable.

    Now this isn’t a message people will like (I get plenty of down votes) but I don’t think DTG can (or would be wise) to continue to fund this without some light at the end of the tunnel. And that light is probably going to be some level of sales or users by X and every decision will be focused on that. In the end they can’t continue to develop a product that’s had long enough to ramp up sales and hasn’t. The track record to date is unlikely to support new investment at this time so it’ll be their own comfort in how low their cash cushion gets.
     
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  11. Fabrizio520

    Fabrizio520 Guest

    I am a customer who is waiting for news.
    Fortunately the money is not a problem for me. So I'm waiting for content, an editor that allows me to create a train(with the number of cars I want) or move a tree to my liking.
    I'm not a developer.I do not care to be and I'm not able.
    So if DTG reads this forum, will have understood that many people are just waiting for DTG. I ask a question to DTG :
    do you want my money or not?
     
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  12. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    We don't know when the editor will come. But I believe it has a huge potential for creating excellent scenarios. In the scenarios published you already can see this:
    • Very detailed instructions for setting up the engine
    • Multipart scenarios (though only seen as services)
    • Scenarios which gives you a choice of several sub modules, e.g. choose a ride, perform tasks in different order etcetera.
    I'm really looking forward to this editor. Despite all critism, it really is a next generation sim. Please remember, Kuju railsimulator also was not very interesting during its first year.
     
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  13. Steve Cummins

    Steve Cummins Member

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    At the very least we need a dispatcher to allow us to escape the yards and travel 'freely' on the mainline. By including a dispatcher in service mode you'd have plenty of ready made AI traffic whilst you potter around. The dispatcher should include the service mode timetable so you can decide when it would be the best time to journey out onto the mainline.

    A scenario editor could come next which would allow for specific tasks to be given to the player.

    As for a route editor, well 'we' already have that in the Ue4 editor however DTG need to supply the content creator community with the tools to allow their creations to be setup and imported into TSW. I don't believe we'll see DTG supply an editor akin to 'Surveyor' as seen in Trainz.

    At the moment the end user is limited to what DTG have supplied with their product. It gets stale very quickly. With even basic tools, such as a dispatcher, it would allow some customization and start to make TSW OUR sim.

    That's the key here, customization allows for the end user to have some control over play-ability which in turn keeps people coming back for more.
     
  14. Lombra

    Lombra Well-Known Member

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    I don't know how these things work out economically, but obviously there are a lot of games that does have mod support without it bankrupting them. I'm going to use Euro Truck Simulator 2 as an example again. Any DLC they sell is stuff you can get by modding, yet the game is still extremely well supported with both (free) feature and (paid) content updates. Their map expansions are always very popular. If you're going to have modders compete with your own products you're just going to have to put some effort into it. There's always going to be a lot of people preferring not to use any mods for any reason. Personally, though I'm fully capable of installing mods I generally much prefer official content which I know is going to be supported for future game updates.
     
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  15. 85Leaf

    85Leaf Active Member

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    ETS2 is very enjoyable. I just picked up the Italy map DLC and can hardly wait to start trading paint in Rome ^.^ (sorry for off-topic post)
     
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  16. ProfCreeptonius

    ProfCreeptonius Well-Known Member

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    Medellinexpat Thank you for your kind reply :D

    I didn't speak of DTG's financial state in my post and I think it's best we leave business to the company itself - we neither have the necessary information nor the position to discuss the income of DTG. I'm not complaining about your post, I just want us to focus on doing what we're supposed to do: give accurate and constructive feedback and tell DTG what we want/don't want.
    I will say, however, that DTG missed out a big load of opportunities to earn money. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to say more, so please have understanding.

    Cheers!
    ProfCreeptonius
     
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  17. SamYeager270

    SamYeager270 Well-Known Member

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    From what I've gathered on other forums the size of the TSW team was fairly large; a figure of around 50 has been mentioned. However once you take into account that they were developing for three different platforms then that figure doesn't seem as large. Now that the bulk of the initial development has been done for each platform then it's quite likely the size of the team has shrunk.

    In terms of modding TSW I gather a big sticking point for quite a while was that it appeared that DTG would need to give access to their proprietary code. Naturally that was never going to happen. I gather that a workaround to that issue has now been found. Presumably work on the editor(s) is in progress. although I doubt whether anything will appear in the immediate future. I would suggest that releasing the editor(s) in beta form might be a good idea for DTG.

    I mention editor(s) because I feel that creating scenarios should be separate from route creation. Scenario creation is something that most users are likely to try their hand at and needs to be as user friendly and intuitive as possible. I can remember Matt P on one of his twitch streams saying he wanted the modding to be better than the TSxx equivalent. Route creation IMHO on the other hand tends to be done by rather fewer users and of course also involves third party developers, both of whom don't require things to be as simplified for them. Route creation and scenery obviously require some form of SDK to be defined, documented and published which requires resources to be allocated to accomplish these tasks..
     
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  18. pschlik

    pschlik Well-Known Member

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    Well heck, you don't make modding tools because everyone will use them, you make modding tools because a lot of people will use the mods that other people make. I remember this "1% rule" that largely describes the internet in general: 1% of people will actually create something (like a route) 10% will participate in it (like commenting on it) and the other 89% will just view/download it, without saying or doing anything involved. Of course, more people will do X kind of modding than the Y kind of modding, but when arguing for modding, it's never really for the sake of the creators, it's for the sake of the consumers. Heck, DTG's treating Raildriver as taboo because few people use it, but then Matt is quite sure to push the editor...even though few people will use that too. It's because it will effect a lot more people than just those who use it.
     
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  19. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    I don't understand why the source code would have to be compromised for modding? There shouldn't need to be a workaround if the game was built with support for 3rd Party content in the first place. If they initially built the game in such a manner as to preclude 3rd Party content without access to the source code, that would suggest to me that they don't intent to ever make Developer Tools public.
     
  20. Anthony Pecoraro

    Anthony Pecoraro Well-Known Member

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    I would certainly use all the editors and RailDriver!
     
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  21. SamYeager270

    SamYeager270 Well-Known Member

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    I can only repeat what Matt said on one of his twitch streams when people complained about the lack of editor(s). Having never developed with UE4 personally I have no real idea what's possible or not.

    In general I tend to take the "screwup rather than conspiracy" point of view. For instance the reason the executable is called TS2Prototype rather than just TS2 is apparently because DTG didn't realise how much work it would be to subsequently change the name. To me this points to a lack of experience with UE4 and possibly lack of planning when first developing TSW.

    My guess would be that DTG just didn't realise they needed to build in explicit support for modding when they first planned TSW development. Given that more than once both Matt and Jay have made firm statements that DTG intend release modding tools at some point I feel that this apparent oversight may explain some of the delay in providing said tools rather than any deliberate policy.

    pschlik's point about the amount of people using mods made by other people just reinforces to me the benefit to DTG of providing modding tools to the community.
     
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  22. iAspex

    iAspex Active Member

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    So, train DLC? Well...

    First of all, DTG need to make it so that we can use different trains on different routes, for example; The Class 47 could be used as a railtour on the GWE hauling MK1's. So to do that, we need a consist editor or something related to that.

    If DTG release a train for the UK, players from around the world will go "You didn't listen to us, we said we wanted (country name here) trains. I hate you forever and will never buy anything made from you again." The same goes for each country, from seeing the messages being posted.

    No matter what DTG do, people won't be happy, there's not much they can really do about that. People will just have to be patient and give DTG a chance to do what they want, it mightn't come instantly, but they know what you want and I'm sure they're doing their best to do whatever it is.
     
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  23. LastTrainToClarksville

    LastTrainToClarksville Well-Known Member

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    According to Wikipedia, Rail Simulator (originally from Kuju Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts) first appeared in 2007. The first edition of "Scenario Tools: Timetable View", indicated as "Release Version 1.1" appeared in 2010, but I'm pretty sure that the editor itself became available somewhat earlier than that. I'm noting this to provide a possibly useful comparison.
     
  24. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    Rail Simulator was released with the scenario and route editor, as was MSTS and Trainz. TSW should have released with these features as well. It's been over a year and there hasn't been any update on the editors; no release date, no alpha/beta versions, no feature list or even a screenshot showing the GUI. Absolutely nothing.

    I don't think we'll get any tools or editors. I think either their business model precludes third party development, or they have made such a mess coding the game that they can't create tools and editors which work reliably. If they had something to show, I think they would have played that card this week, after they managed to rile the community up. Most of the speculation for 'the big reveal' was a hope for scenario and route editors. I'm sure if they had anything at all to show they would have shown it to the community to appease them after the disapointment. So why don't they have anything to show over a year after release?
     
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  25. Amtrak America

    Amtrak America Member

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    The fact is that TSW has so many missing features and so many broken promises. The game has managed to churn out 6 flawed and bugged DLC in almost a year and a half. They promised multiplayer a long while back and it still hasn’t arrived. The suspension is passive and doesn’t really work, it’s just animated to look like it does. Not to mention very few people can get into the games files and create skins, sound mods, physics improvements, etc.
     
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  26. chelmo

    chelmo New Member

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    The recent freeplay weekend....why did Dovetail promote Train Sim (which far more people have) rather than TSW?
     
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  27. Digital Draftsman

    Digital Draftsman Well-Known Member

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    That's a good point. I assume DTG thought they could get more new players with a freeplay weekend for a 9 year old game than they could with the self-proclaimed 'future of Train Simulation', that's a bit of an indictment of TSW really!
     
  28. 85Leaf

    85Leaf Active Member

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    The thing about TS20XX is DTG still needs it to continue making money for them and getting people to try it by offering a freeplay weekend must generate some sales I would think. That would have been great for me back when I took a chance on RailWorks2- I hadn't been sure of how my PC at the time would run a trainsim and I had friends using MSTS but I liked the looks of RW2 just didn't want to layout wads of cash for something I couldn't run or enjoy-- I managed to get it on a Steam sale iirc. I have supported RSC/DTG quite a bit over the intervening years lol.

    I would like to see them offer a freeplay weekend of TSW too in order to promote it more once they get their bundling and such settled. :) Moar players= better future
     
  29. chelmo

    chelmo New Member

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    As I'm sure others did I received an email from Dovetail beforehand basically apologising for promoting a freeplay weekend for a game I already had. Wouldn't it have been better to send me an email promoting a game I didn't have? All very odd.

    But the cynic in me always comes up with an answer especially when I look at the minimum and recommended PC specs quoted on the store page. I can just imagine all those people firing up TSW for a freeplay weekend, notching the settings up because "I can do this with Train Sim and this game must be much better optimised" and then watching the slideshow. Perhaps Dovetail might have felt that wouldn't be the best publicity. And yet it does make you wonder, when (if) you get third party developers anxious to add quality detail in their offerings, how the sim is going to cope.

    So perhaps Dovetail do see consoles as the way forward in selling this game with Train Sim being left to the PC brigade.

    Now I'll take my "Mr Cynical" hat off!
     
  30. Growler374

    Growler374 New Member

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    I'm not sure what you mean there? Rail Simulator on release included 4 x routes (1 x US, 1 x German, 2 x UK), 10 x locos (including Steam), had plenty of default scenarios, and also included an Editor. i.e. there was plenty to do to maintain interest. In comparison what did you get with CSX Heavy Haul on release.
     
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  31. Rudolf

    Rudolf Well-Known Member

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    Yes, you're partly right, we indeed got a lot more content initially. I think the editor came later, and was not very worakble until the 2D editor was added. Coming from MSTS I did not play a lot with Railsimulator in that time. It took long to get used to it for me and after my first attempt to create a scenario, for a long time I did not touch that feature because it felt so clumsy and cumbersome. (With MSTS I created a low number of scenarios, due to complete lack of stability).

    There is alot we can say about TSW, but I'm still glad it exists despite all criticism. Maybe we tend to forget that it even now runs much more stable than TS ever will. For TSW I never verified the cache, no need for that.

    So I am not very unhappy with the product, but I fully agree DTG as a company fails in many aspects, particularly in quality and in customer relationship, though the support team has improved a lot last one or two years.
     
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