BML, along with a lot of other add ons in the past prove that DTG's playtesting process doesn't work well. Seeing as the most noticeable issues tend to get noticed by players first, I think it would be a great idea for DTG to release a beta version of a route or loco, let people access and play it for a couple of days and then gather incredibly valuable feedback. The community has too often been given unplayable versions of routes with glaring issues, and I think this would be a way to mitigate some of that. Not only would it show how well (or poorly) the route performs, but feedback on scenery, driving physics, and everything else involved in an add on could be gathered. Doing this may even boost sales- it could get people to purchase add ons they wouldn't otherwise be interested in. If the beta is free to access (but only playable for a couple of days or so), and the build performs well and is fun to play with, more people are gonna want to invest in the finished product. I know doing something like this is probably more complicated than it seems, but I think it's something that DTG should at least entertain the idea of. It would regain trust in the community and give them an opportunity to get involved in the development of a route, as opposed to people just posting on the forums and hoping someone at DTG notices.
The only other thing I play off of steam is Dead By Daylight, and they began doing these. Called 'em Public Test Builds that could be installed and they usually stay up for like 2 weeks or so and open a forum for bugs, etc. When they did this, their content started to get a lot better on final release. I'm completely here for it. With how upfront dovetail seems about bugs and whatnot compared to DBD's devs, I'm certain this could do a great amount for TSW2. I would recommend following DBD's timeline for PTBs though. About 2 weeks to try the beta, and then give about 3 or 4 weeks for it to be released and final.
I totally agree with you! There must be some way for people to be testing these routes because it doesn't seem like the effort of QA is enough, especially from dresden and BML because all of these issues and crashes are being found within hours and are so widespread. Because its getting unfair for the people like Matt, JD, Nat and Sam on streams who get all of the flack and I really feel for those guys because they're doing their best to make good of a bad situation!
This needs to be done I think. Testing a beta build of a route or loco add-on and then giving critical feedback to the devs would greatly improve the content before it gets shipped for public release.
When was the last time a DLC released without any glaring issues? Surely beta testing would help pick up on these before release.
I fully agree, it's desperately necessary and probably best for both sides. When was the last release without followed excuses and troubles? It would make work definetely easier for those involved.
The only issue I can see with this is that DTG are still developing right up to the wire, this is why we get a lot of the issues we do. Look at the PS5 and xbox issue, they put a development candidate online as a placeholder and then the release candidate didn't load properly. For them to do a public beta they would need to STOP development a few weeks earlier to give people a chance to play the beta and then development time to make the changes. This would be a complete shift in how they do their development cycle
I don’t think it will happen. People will take the beta and stream it. Some people will see these and take it as final builds as they already do on preview streams. Also to do it properly beta testing is a significant commitment in time quite often with no reward. It also requires a certain level of bug reporting detail, which is a lot less fun than playing the game. For me, the question is why aren’t the current beta testers finding the issues. I‘m far from convinced that sn Open beta is the answer.
Depends on who's asking the question From the community's point of view, if the bugs were less, the mess ups were less and it gave the team at DTG a chance to actually know whats in the route and get things like manuals done, yes From the community team's point of view they would know the route, get the pics and text right and have deent streams where they're not being bombarded with bile from the wolf pack, so again yes From the dev's perspective it would work both ways. You certainly lose your sharpness when stepping away from a project even for a few days but obviously having targetted feedback will always help sharpen the mind. Knowing what you need to work on and how to get it fixed is better than a wandering dev sweep From the producers and execs point, it would be a time in which money was still being spent on dev time, but nothing coming in, so they might not like it, BUT in the end they'd lose less custom through bugs and bad reports so it may well work both ways
It depends on what questions they're being asked... If it's "does the train run, sound OK, do the doors open etc etc" then that's one thing. If they're not walking every inch of the route looking for faults then they're not doing what the community do It also doesn't help that the QA is going on when the dev team are still devving (proven by the development between the two streams last week and this)
How about an “early access” release like DCS world do with all their modules? You pay full price for early access and play what is in the package, regular updates add features and fixes until the final release version when development stops. people can stream all they like, as long as DTG fix all the bugs and implement what they say they want to achieve it would be benificial to both development and players
What's the difference? If you're paying full price and not getting much back people would see it as the same thing
But you are getting the full DLC to own from day one with regular updates. Also the playing public highlight the bugs which would hopefully reduce development and QA time. It seems to work very well with DCS world
So DTG release all their DLC tagged early access. Then a few weeks later release bug fixes after we‘ve reported them. That‘s pretty much what is happening now, just without actually calling it early access and no commitment to doing any fixes.
All I’m saying is that process works very well with additional content in DCS World. Everyone knows on release there are areas lacking in detail and the software can be unstable.
I agree to a certain extent that at least if they call it early access, it sets expectations that there will be bugs. But on the other hand, it gives them an excuse to release software with bugs. I don’t know what needs to change, but something does. I try to only post constructive feedback and generally I‘m tolerant of minor bugs, but rush hour (at least the PS5 version because on my PC it’s nowhere near as bad) has really tested my patience.
I totally agree, and with the recent issues with Rush Hour I have yet to buy it. I have been trying to find an Xbox Series X (at a reasonable price and reputable company) for a while but I had almost settled for a Series S to get the additional layers and the positive feedback from Series S players etc as the stream last Friday sold it to me. And yesterday the complaints of crashing and out of memory errors has made me hold back from purchasing both and rethinking if I still need a Series X and the bugs to be ironed out. For an Early Access to work though DTG would have to be active in reporting progress and releasing updates with full patch notes. Something that we all know isn’t happening at the moment and I can see why posters have acted negatively to my suggestion of an Early Access release.
With Steam it is not a problem to offer open betas which then expire after 2-3 weeks. DTG had already mentioned it several times, but unfortunately no answer so far. The only important thing for DTG is that the people who take it have thousands of subscriptions. Not more. They don't care that this group of people create a maximum of 2-3 videos in 2 months. The main thing is that the game is shown. And real "hardcore" simulation players who spend dozens of hours doing it are left out. They could show deficits because more material is shown. Then I prefer the big YouTube that shows no real interest in the game, permanently, but cuts and trims the videos in such a way that no errors can be seen. Therefore I can only continue to offer it for myself, but we will not see in this life that anything will change in its politics. Incidentally, I remind you of the last survey, there you could indicate your interest. Once again, nothing came of it. Again just a castle in the air from DTG. And / or only other big Youtubers were taken who publish but have no idea about simulation games. Just because you put out a video for a simulation game every 2 months doesn't mean you are a simulation gamer. --- Bei Steam ist es kein Problem Openbetas anzubieten die dann nach 2-3 Wochen eben ablaufen. Hatte da ja schon öfters DTG drauf angesprochen, bisher nur leider keinerlei Antwort. DTG ist halt nur wichtig, dass die Leute die sie nehmen tausende Abos haben. Mehr nicht. Das diese Personengruppe max. 2-3 Videos in 2 Monaten erstellen ist denen vollkommen egal. Hauptsache das Spiel wird gezeigt. Und richtige "Hardcore" Simulationsspieler die dutzende Stunden damit verbingen, werden außen vorgelassen. Die könnten ja, dadurch das mehr Material gezeigt wird, Defizite aufzeigen. Dann doch lieber große YouTube die zwar keinerlei echtes Interesse am Spiel, dauerhaft, zeigen, dafür aber die Videos derart cutten und schneiden, dass keine Fehler zu sehen sind. Daher kann ich es für mich nur weiterhein anbieten, wir werden aber in diesem Leben nicht mehr erleben das sich an dessen Politik etwas ändern wird. ch erinnere übrigens mal an die letzte Umfrage, dort konnte man sein Interesse angeben. Daraus geworden ist wieder einmal gar nichts. Wieder nur ein Luftschloss von DTG. Und / oder es wurden nur weitere große Youtuber genommen, die zwar Publishen, jedoch keinerlei Ahnung von Simulationsspielen haben. Nur weil man alle 2 Monate mal ein Video zu einem Simulationsspiel raus bringt, ist man noch lange kein Simulationsspieler. Pinguinie
