Will 3rd Party Routes Be Updated With The Rush Hour Core Update?

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by paul.pavlinovich, Jul 17, 2021.

  1. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    This morning on the play for fun stream DTG Protagonist said something that I thought I would ask about to clear up.

    He said something along the lines of that its not clear if the Preservation Crew would work on 3rd party routes now or in the future or if that responsibility stays with the 3rd party. While I certainly empathise from both a Dovetail and 3rd party perspective it causes me to ask a specific question about Rush Hour and the Unreal 4.26 update on behalf of all players.

    If the 3rd party (currently Rivet and Skyhook) weren't in a position to migrate their content to the new core version would Dovetail do it? Would it get left behind destined to live only in TSW2 pre core update? This particularly worried me because the Core Update has been described as an update and not a new game. Would this 3rd party content disappear or remain in some possibly unplayable quasi state until its updated?

    It would be good to know one way or another the future of this content...
     
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  2. fanta1682002

    fanta1682002 Well-Known Member

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    very easy is work
     
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  3. L89

    L89 Well-Known Member

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    Maybe for a whole new TSW game but it would not be acceptable for DLC in the current game. There might be teething problems with the new update but I am sure they'll work on fixing anything critical with all the routes.
     
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  4. HeyYoPaulie!

    HeyYoPaulie! Well-Known Member

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    Typically, when third parties are contracted to produce content on behalf of another company, stuff like roles, responsibilities and commitments for ongoing software updates & maintenance would be contractually confirmed up front. That's standard practice.

    If roles and responsivities were confirmed as part of the contract negotiations, this is a very easy question to answer and communicate with us.

    I welcome clarification from DTG about this.

    When I pay for something, I would like to know who will be maintaining it. I believe that is fair.

    Thank you.
     
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  5. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    Assuming nothing gets broken, the DLCs just need to be re-cooked in 4.26, right? If so, DTG is responsible for bringing 3rd party DLCs to 4.26 since Maik Goltz from TSG confirmed that only DTG can cook stuff for TSW. No 3rd party can.
     
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  6. hyperlord

    hyperlord Well-Known Member

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    The 3rd parties need the updated SDK anyway so why not load the DLC and save it with the new version, bake and update done ;-)
     
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  7. Cramnor

    Cramnor Well-Known Member

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    Third parties are not contracted to produce content, that would be second party stuff (which both Rivet and Skyhook also do). Third party is more a thing of someone like Rivet going "We want to make this, how do we get it published" and then DTG providing the infrastructure to do so, but most of the stuff is in the developers hands themselves. So working on published content is nothing that would be set in a contract (from seeing the situation, that seems to be the case here), which is why there are discussions ongoing now on how to handle this. And I imagine it is not even about whether the routes will be updated to newer standards, there could also be discussions about porting them to the new UE engine, we will see how this will be handled :)
     
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  8. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    Third Party teams are responsible for their own bug fixing etc, though of course we tried to support where we can - it's equally not for us to just go in and make changes to someone elses work either, so the whole process is a bit more balanced with dialogue and agreement between us.

    When it comes to making it work on 4.26 of course we have re-cooked the entire content base to the new version and then we've undertaken re-tests on everything, where issues come up on third party content we will work with them to identify the best way to fix. It may be that its easier for us to simply just apply a fix perhaps because we're doing it already on all other content, however in most cases we'd be looking for the third party developer to update their own product.

    For any fixes regarding "making it work with UE 4.26" we would mandate those fixes as being required and come to some agreement as to who does them. This year, where the upgrade is "in-place" (i.e. the core tech update is mandatory, everyone has it, there's no option) there is simply no question about whether previous content will be made to work on the new version, it simply has to. Good news is that thus far there have been no major problems at all, so nothing to worry about.

    For any improvements related to adopting new features like skies, adhesion, level crossings or anything else those would squarely be with the third party developers to decide to implement and then action with their teams, though of course again we will support them in understanding how the features work, best ways that we have found to implement them and so forth. Nobody's left out in the cold :)

    Hope that answers your question.

    Matt.
     
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  9. paul.pavlinovich

    paul.pavlinovich Well-Known Member

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    That is an excellent answer and the one I was really hoping to hear TrainSim-Matt - awesome news, thank you.

    I think the DTG philosophy of dealing with 3rd parties is a good one that should promote further future content while also keeping all of us who buy the right to use that content happy too.

    Paul
     
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