earlier they just had 3. Now they have 7. Will this affect quality of future routes, considering that you'll have to make more versions for each platform, which takes up more time?
I am also a bit worried about bugs, and their management. If all 7 platforms each have unique bugs to that platform, how will they fix it quickly? It'll complicate things even further.
Yes but it is no and should be not the excuse for the add ons full of bugs, to the point of their unplayability.
Well, you can already make your opinion judging this latest update... some people don't even have it, so ...
Seven platforms, but the same engine so the issues will be caused either by settings and tweaks needed for each platform that the engine sits on. We know there are some "platform specific issues" but this shouldn't impact how routes or locos (or MUs) are made, but it will impact on how they're then configured "down from the standard" to run properly on each machine
I’m not sure what it means to be honest. There are more builds to make and more testing to be done and there presumably will be some bugs that are specific to each platform but how many will reduce the overall quality of whatever platform you play on is hard to quantify. It may lead to more errors here and there or delay some updates but it shouldn’t affect the quality of the routes.
It will hurt the experience of the player, especially those on the older consoles and increasingly on lower spec pcs. Not with the route building but the way it runs and the limitations that some versions will have compared to others. We already have limitations on passengers etc and still there are issues with FPS in certain consoles in some routes. Its not anywhere near Cyberpunk bad but its origins lie in a similar place. It is a juggling act and compromises have to be made in some areas. But those compromises will be more severe for some of these platforms. Working out exactly what you can do before the game slows to 15FPS is complex on a couple of platforms and even more so on others. What is now helped by the special new versions of the game is that players on a ps5 console playing the ps4 version of the game do not exist or should not exist, there will only now be ps4 players on ps4 consoles and ps5 players on ps5 consoles. There needs to be a big push for eliminating this set of people who may not get the message it is a free upgrade. It was quite amazing that there is currently a discussion about whether console users want any settings or not. I would have thought allowing players maximum control over their game settings is one way of being able to support more different platforms at once.
The reason for this is that the publishing licenses with the console platforms include clauses which say something along the lines of "you must not include a setting or configuration option which knowingly causes the platform to crash". In other words DTG have to be sure that the settings they put into each version of the software will not push the limitations of that console to a point it has a brain fart and falls over... Obviously things like brightness, contrast and so on SHOULD be included because they won't cause these issues, but more layers, more passengers etc takes up more CPU and RAM so those could potentially be problematic
I don’t know. More platforms = more players, more revenue, more hires? (I think DTG hiring contractors like Brandon is a great thing, and seeing bugs quashed more quickly for Boston Sprinter will be a plus!)
I dont think the revenue will increase significantly, I hope they hire more people because to utilise TSW2's potential, they need more people who give more opinions and more skill.
I would fully support DTG taken a release window or two to focus their full attention on fixing and optimising the content that has already been released. Fundamental issues like badly optimised lighting and sky boxes continue to impact the enjoyment of ALL routes. Relying on the Preservation team to pick up the pieces with limited time and resources severely limits what they are able to achieve. Optimising the collection requires a full committed team effort to bring all content up to acceptable standards. Remember also the Preservation crew are not able to make core changes, which is why they are unable to address major issues like the signalling system on LIRR (as per Adam on the Stream).
Quality is always in the eyes of the beholder, so, even if the build or basic code is the same across all platforms, each player's experience will be unique because there is such a wide spectrum of hardware. Specifically, the quality of my game will decline over time because my PC or console will age and become less capable. As the game improves, adds more features and more demanding graphics, each player will have to upgrade his/her hardware to maintain resolution, graphics and fps. This has nothing to do with DTG or the number of platforms.
Right now it is hurting the final quality, since the engineers need to be working in things that previously they wouldn't need to, like making the DLC work or porting the PS4 profile to PS5. Maybe it will improve the quality in the future if the new platforms translates into many more users buying content, but that remains to be seen.
