Is This A Concern

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by SBos, Oct 8, 2021.

  1. SBos

    SBos Well-Known Member

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    Yesterday on Facebook somebody posted wondering if last nights stream maybe on console. I replied that I doubted it would be in PlayStation as it never is. Matt then posted this:-

    “Stephen Bosley To be fair on this one, it's because I literally don't have one - dev kits are expensive. I am going to try and get one when I can but that's literally the only reason.”

    Firstly he mentions dev kits are expensive but surely DTG should have one and wouldn’t expect Matt to incur the cost. Does the lack of this equipment have any effect on developing and testing by DTG on our platform?

    Secondly does this lack of equipment have anything to do with all the issues PlayStation users are experiencing?
     
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  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    First, the DEV team have a DEV kit PS5, Matt "borrowed" it a few weeks ago to do some streams so we know this to be the case
    Don't forget Matt is a producer, ie a manager for the overall direction of the game rather than someone who gets involved in the actual coding. He used to do more of that than he does. The issue with streaming dev builds is that you need the SDK version to get the build on there, which the normal PS5 wouldn't be able to

    The playstation users are experiencing several issues, principal among which is that TSW2 is NOT a normal game for a console to be handling, so both the playstation store, and the Playstation OS itself are set up differently to how DTG would need them to operate. The recent "update" to the PS5 OS to limit DLC total size shows this as this basically breaks the way DTGs simulations (and simulations in general) work. For the most part large games put everything in one large file with paywall locks to hide content. DTG (and other simulators) don't work that way, instead having external addon files which can be huge (all the route and loco data is in those external files)

    Add to that the way that DTG have been uploading dev builds as placemarkers on the store, with a final release condidate uploaded last minute before going live and you can end up with all sorts of issues

    Why does this affect playstation more than anyone else? A mixture of things. The store, the PS OS itself and DTG's way of doing things all add up to several issues which compound to make an awkward whole, but in truth it's not ALL DTG's fault
     
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  3. SBos

    SBos Well-Known Member

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    To be honest whilst you might be correct it is still totally unacceptable.

    I can accept that DTG can do little on the the issue surrounding the limit on total DLC as that definitely is a Sony restriction. I do not accept your other reasoning and if they are incapable of producing a game that on release has so many bugs and issues they should have a hard long look at their procedures.

    It is not acceptable to release a route which is virtually unplayable, in this instance, and then ask the community to report the issues and I’m not talking missing scenery, textile issues or dodgy sounds I’m talking about things that actually make it unplayable. Every Rush Hour route has had major issues and are not issues created by Sony.
     
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  4. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely true.
    The issues NOT related to mess ups and crossed paths at release (also caused in part by DTG) shouldn't happen, and the only way of making sure it doesn't is to not be developing up to the date of the release candidate being uploaded, so a production shift in DTG
     
  5. DTG Natster

    DTG Natster Producer Staff Member

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    Hey everyone, so I am hopeful I can offer a little insight with the dev kits, how they are allocated and why they weren't responsible for impacting the development.

    So Matt is correct that we only have a certain amount and they do cost a lot, they get given to the most important members of the development team. If we ignore the cost for a moment, we have ensured that everyone who needs a Playstation dev kit has one.
    There isn't a shortage, but we don't have spares just lying about because of how costly they are, hence why Matt can't get his hands on one for streams, but he can for urgent issues that would require his attention.

    When we look further into why we don't stream from PlayStation very often, it's partly because of the dev kits being allocated elsewhere but also because Matt is the only person on the team who has a capture card for console. - Something we could arrange for the rest of the team, but Dovetail aren't able to purchase a standard "Work console" for the community team as they are considered 'leisure' items only. Which leaves us with the option of using a Dev kit or our personal machines.
     
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