Next week we will be starting with a Q&A with Exec Producer Matt and Sam, answering your questions on Rush Hour, the team's focuses, and what we've learnt. You can ask your questions in here. As always we aim to answer as many as we possibly can, but we can't guarantee we will answer every single response.
Hello Good Morning. I would like to know if you are aware of what caused so many complications on Rush Hours lines, the most visible in BML, Cabin Sounds inaudible, services unable to be completed by red lights, in Dresden the BR 101 causing the most part of the crashes, AI trains not behaving as they should, stopping midway, among other issues? [I really appreciate your work, I'm upset that I can't enjoy my favorite routes right away, but I trust your work] On the plus side, is there a sound fix forecast for the M7 LIRR that has been inaudible in the cockpit and front-facing camera since the Core update? big hug!!!
DTG Natster Please don't forget to add the "Top Concerns" in "London Commuter" the sound of the locomotive, which is inaudible, as well as the sound of the security systems.
What, if any, hypothesis have been made in relation to tests done for the services mentioned in the BML feedback thread which crash consoles? Is it to do with memory? Passenger bugs?
1. What is the decision-making process behind whether an issue or issues get fixed in a follow-up patch by the core team shortly after a route is launched, or is left for the preservation crew to pick-up months down the line? Is this decided individually on a case-by-case basis, or is there a methodology used to evaluate and prioritize certain types of issue found and/or raised by players? 2. Is there a possibility of bringing Rush Hour passengers into Brighton Mainline on PS4/XB1? Or is it simply too much for the hardware to handle for good? (This may have been answered already somewhere). 3. What steps can or will be taken going forwards particularly in relation to Sony and their updated requirements which may impede the development of a game like TSW on their platform? Are they likely to make an exception for this game (I assume not), and if not, what can be done to circumvent or provide an alternative to the limits Sony place on DLC, trophies and storage capacity?
For gen8 consoles, when will you release a separate timetable with the missing layers for HMA? The route's already a year old now... And the same question goes for BML
I am curious as to whether routes will continue to be optimized for gen 8 consoles, or if DTG has reached the limit of what gen 8 consoles can handle and will have to move on to continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. This is in reference to London Commuter. It is clear that DTG had big dreams for this route that may work wonderfully on a state of the art PC, but the route is clearly not built around the limitations of gen 8 consoles. Are the gen 8 limitations holding back TSW2? Will future routes be less ambitious to accommodate gen 8 consoles, or is it time for gen 8 consoles users to upgrade if they want to get the most out of the latest routes?
I have to ask - on behalf of everyone as well as myself. It’s a straight question and I’d like a straight answer. Q. Why would DTG release a route with so many major issues? Surely with even the most basic of testing these would have been flagged, I’m flabbergasted that the route can have passed through QA and green lit for release in its current state.
Sorry, I have another question, how is the feedback of the failures reported by the community handled in the two forums opened by Matt regarding Dresden and London Commuter?
How do you plan on turning the tide so TSW2 can become the quality product it deserves to be? It’s quite clear that the approach taken in recent months has acclerated a downward spiral that eventually will lead to an irreparable game if this trend continues.
Can DTG give any insight as to whether PS5 players will once again have to start a new profile from scratch whenever a solution to the current PS5 DLC limit is put into place? What solutions are DTG currently exploring? What do these solutions achieve in terms of the good, the bad and the ugly? When can we expect to see such a solution implemented?
1. Can you walk us through what exactly is your quality control process is and what systems you use when checking this? How much time is actually spent on the lets make sure it works phase before releasing. 2. If the quality control process is an issue. Is there a way to get the community more involved with beta testing BEFORE the route is released to everyone. I wouldnt be surprised if there are not several dozen people in the community who would jump on board to help if given the chance. 3. What is your process of saying wait we need to push back a deadline that we already announced because something is broken. 4. What discussions have there been internally about the need to slow down the releases a bit to get some of the major problems taken care of first so you do not add more problems to it? 5. Can you pay Matt more to do more lets just kick back with Matt and drive random trains on TSW2 more frequently. Those are the best streams.
1. Why was London Commuter allowed to release the way it did? You claimed that for 8th gen consoles, layers had to be removed to prevent crashes and when tests were ran before release there wasn't any crashes and yet memory crashes happened for 8th gen and 9th gen users. How was those issues not fixed before release? 2. What is the acceptable standard (if any) do you have when it comes to publishing third party content? The Arosa line still has issues that haven't been fixed and yet you are ok with allowing them to make new dlc's so why doesn't dtg say that they will not publish new content until they fix most issues with their content? The DB BR 187 probably shoudn't have been released either because of the audio. It makes it seem as if you are ok with just releasing whatever even if it has major issues just to make a quick buck. 3. Since LIRR is getting looked at again, will the correct PIS be added to the route this time since you already have the correct artwork for the lirr pis and will the M7 audio issue finally be fixed because the audio issue makes many players not want to play with the M7 at all. The motor sounds on the m7 can only be heard from the first two cars and the rest of the train won't make any motor noise. Then when trying to do a return journey, the whole train doesn't make any noise except for the last two cars. Also there are many instances in which the whole train won't have any motor sound at all thus killing immersion 4. How is optimization coming along because with the release of rush hour it clearly shows that this game is still not well optimizied for 8th and surprisingly 9th gen consoles with laggy framerate and memory crashes. 5. Will DTG consider no longer doing a summer route bundle release considering that the way rush hour released brought several issues to the game? 6. When will the texture issue on Xbox finally be fixed? I haven't played the game in two months because of this
Correct me if I'm wrong, but London Commuter doesn't have the Rush Hour passengers yet, despite being the third and final release of the Rush Hour Season Ticket. How is this not even listed in the After Care thread!? It seems pretty important.
What is the deadline for the Rush Hour fix? When can we expect the "re-release" or the "Rush Hour, the less rushed but much improved edition""? Will the roll out of fixes be a "we fixed everything, now eat your cake" event or will it be like "we finished Rush Route A, well not entirely, we still need to fix this and that but now we can finally start on Rush Hour route C, we know you all wanted Route B because the problems are more severe but ..."? When will routes like HAM, SEHS; LGV get Rush Hour passengers?
I see many people on here constantly complaining about how can you release a game so full of bugs and glitches. What I’d like to ask is, is there any chance that these bugs occur during the upload to Sony or Microsoft that maybe corrupt some files or do development machine operate different to machines players use so these aren’t spotted during your QA testing?
Im not answering this on behalf of Dovetail, but as someone who does Game Testing for a few games and Python Programming. Testing can be seen in many ways. Alpha & Beta Testing, stand alone testing or even Partial Testing as well as many, many more ways of testing. As someone who has created a basic 2D game before, its hard for me to test my own product on other devices. Lets create a small scenario here. I want to create a open world racing game. Therefor there are loads of factors I need to consider. Lets go with "What kind of gameplay do I want to create?". In this case, I want a casual free roam game where a player can choose who they want to race against, no matter weather they are AI or an Online Player. I want the user to select the car they want to drive, its modifications and how many AI they want to race against. Once I build it I need to test it, regular testing is key. After every lap I would record the data and analyse it. Compare how well the game performed. Lets say testing was successful. Brilliant, now lets test it with a different selected AI driver and test it. The difference between a perfectly working AI and a non-functional AI can cause the biggest of issues. To fix them, it would take time finding the source of the error and either correct the code or re-write it entirely. Both could which take time. Lets say I find the issue, great its patched and ready to go. After releasing that patch and players find new errors, it could well be because of that single patch. And you may well find yourself in a loop. When fixing after release, not so much of a problem. But when it comes to building the game and an error appears, it could become unnoticed due to the fact the previous test was successful meaning the next major issue could be worked on. These tiny little problems can grow and grow without anyone realising. That's the issue when building a game, the littlest of errors can cause the biggest of problems. All this is just one possibility. Now im not great at explaining over text so I do apologies if I have confused you. Lets summarise. The London Commuter, over 1000 services. That's a lot of AI. I dont work for Dovetail but judging by my gut and knowledge id go as far to say each AI code is split and assigned to each train & modified to create the basic timetable. Want to look at this another way? sure. 1000 unique AI codes is a lot, and I mean a lot, of memory. Memory is key, not just for gaming, but for a computer in general. My phone has 32gb storage and is full of photos, I dont need to check my storage to know this, I can tell based of of its speed and performance. This is the same concept for any other scenario including gaming. If the route was decreased from 1000 routes to lets say 750, I wont promise anything but Id say the performance would increase for the better. Having 3-8 trains arrive/depart Victoria alone at the same time bumps the memory usage and affects frame rate. Could this be a code fix, maybe, but never ignore the factors. So to answer your question, it was most likely released due to a factor not being taken into consideration either entirely or just not enough. Lets not forget, Dovetail may have acquired specialised Xbox and PlayStation consoles for game testing, far better than our own ones. This is a common thing for game testers to use to build and test in real time.
What are your thoughts on the state of the game? why do you continuously do electrostar routes and always choose the same old trains? how does internal management influence development of the game and time schedules etc? how do you plan to tAckle the ever growing problem of optimisation, and are you as a company doing enough? many thanks
How did you come up with the idea of making a train simulator? It could also have been a butterfly nature simulator. What do you want /wish from the community for the future? The not missing question; Multiplayer? What do you prefer to play your games with, hardware Controller, RailDriver, keyboard? What is your personal best achievement in the team, in the game and in the community? How much preparation time does a DLC need before it is created in the editor for the first time? Difficulty? We are dreaming; From the team's point of view, what is the biggest challenge for the game in the near future?
Another question came up, sorry, because we have two locomotives of the same type in the game? For example, Talent 2 and Dostos are justifiable, as they are different (in Dresden they have the VVO logo and the like), but we realized that they had two 185 MRCE, one from Dresden and one from RRO, if I'm not mistaken, as well as Class 377 for ECW and LBN, wouldn't it be better to keep only one, the most up-to-date, overhauled, than to have two identical locomotives with different versions?
Given that the PS5 trophy limit has just been uncovered do Xbox and Steam also have an achievement limit on their platforms (that may also be exceeded)?
I have a Xbox series x and had a xbox one s before upgrading. There has never been an achievement limit for any xbox game i've played and I haven't heard anyone report about an achievement limit on xbox for tsw2 because there is none or for any other game. Your just gonna get the same answer I am giving you
XBLA games used to have a limit of 20 Achievements for a total of 200 Gamerscore, this was then upped to 30 Achievements for 400 Gamerscore. I'm not sure if there were ever any restrictions on full retail games though.
1. Why hasn't Boston received even a fraction of the attention Dresden and Brighton have? Boston was all the hype for about a week after its release and then there was dead silence. A few changes, including Brandon's new catenary work, was *silently* thrown into the Meissen branch update, but numerous issues still remain. Dresden and BML have a thread for tracking timetable issues, why doesn't Boston have one too? Sure it may not have the performance problems of the other two, but there are things that have made Boston unplayable (for the "non-fatal" reasoning). Things like: ATC/ACSES (this is the big one), the high pitched relay noise in the F40 & Cab car that randomly plays, the extremely weak brakes on the ACS64 & lack of Amfleet brake sounds (which begs the question are the brakes even applying), the fact that the F40 brake stand was set up as lazily as possible as while it does work in the self lapping way it should, the notches and audio from the manually lapped version still exist. 2. What's going on with the major increase in stuttering since 4.26 update? It's gotten quite bad, even on routes that was never noticeable before (micro-pauses in the audio are where it's most noticeable during tile load). Also, many routes, when you first load into a service, moving the camera around can freeze the entire game for a few seconds, I guess while everything is loading. 3. Can you please remove that new thing where when the AI takes over after you finish a service you get booted from your seat right before the "how'd you do" screen loads. It doesn't create a great experience.
A couple of questions Considering the scale of the issues resulting from Rush Hour and the constant delays seen in the road map for bug fixes, isn"t it about time to rethink the roadmap to now include a time frame for at least the fixes and improvements you claim to be making. (I can understand your reluctance to include dates for new content) The reason for this is fixes sit for far too long on the roadmap giving the impression that they are just empty words meant to keep disappointed customers placated. Dates would make easier to hold DTG to account When will the issues regarding the PS5 DLC issue be fixed. Right now I have been forced to delete around £200 worth of content. Just being told to be patient is simply not acceptable What kind of time frame for transfers of saves to PS5 will be looked at. We have gone from yes it will happen, to profiles only, then on to nothing but still being worked (announced only days before launch) , then finally on to just in planning. As a PS5 owner I feel we have been nothing but an afterthought to DTG as far too many things have happened (such as above and appallingframerate) to feel we are valued customers
1. What was it that actually caused the routes in rush hour to be so buggy. Boston was far less buggy so is it to do with how quick the routes had to be out? 2. Has rush hour not going exactly as planned put you off from doing big releases like it in the future?
After experiencing several delays and somewhat mixed feedback on release quality of these three routes, do you think you would ever again try to do a 3 route release like this in such a short timeframe?
Since the sub par release of Rush Hour and the corresponding lack of communication with particular reference to PS5 players, what changes will be made to both the testing and communication aspects of releasing content? With regards to testing, well there wasn't any, apart from Boston. With regards to communication, surely dovetail should have asked Sony before release if their console could take the update. If the answer was yes, brilliant, if (as it transpires was accurate, at least for players near the supposed limit) no, for god's sake TELL US with instructions of how to improve the situation. Why were these not considered as alternative solutions?
With optimisation ongoing and better techniques for building routes and the systems the game uses, plus the extra power and memory the new generation of consoles allow for their versions, how come DTG always appear to cram a little bit too much into every release to the point where it doesn’t quite work smoothly enough for each platform (except maybe the most powerful PC)? Would it not be better for players if you to were to make the content to a level below what their machines can handle rather than always just above it, causing issues with most releases for many players. It seems the confidence in what the game can achieve is beyond what it actually can. In cases where you have gone beyond even that level of confidence it has resulted in numerous crashes and the game becomes unplayable for many.
Why are recent updates to the game causing more stutters? On a ps5 we had a few short weeks with stable smooth gameplay even with the ps5 version and its higher res textures. Since Dresden's release onwards the stuttering is back to the level on ps4 before rush hour. I can't imagine how the gameplay is for ps4 now.
I've got a few questions, across the board. I'll categorise them a bit, presuming that a variety of topics will end up being discussed on Tuesday: 3rd Parties - In light of the sub-par releases such as the DB BR 187, what could/will be done to help the 3rd parties do better? - For routes such as Isle of Wight and West Cornwall Local, will Dovetail work with rivet for features such as PIS? I ask this off the back of Last Night's (Friday's) Cornwall stream, and the PIS Discussion on there. - Will more Third Parties be given access to the programme? Such as Just Trains, for example. Gen8 - A simple one here, what lies ahead for content on Gen8? As a (currently) user of Xbox one it would be helpful to know what future DLCs hold for Gen8. Route Testing - What do you (Aimed at Matt) think could be done better in the testing process for TSW? - Would it be wiser to give a longer gap between Entering Testing and Release, so more flagged issues are fixed before release? Other than that, I look forward to the stream.
I think a good think to remember when asking a question is Sam's reply at the end of last year's end of year thread. Just so people don't expect their question to be answered
Have you considered or do you think you mite consider the option of either early access or a public/ open beta or some form of beta/ early access with the community and not just internally? personally I am more than happy to test upcoming DLCs and I feel the community would be more understanding and you’d technically get a bigger QA team without the extra cost.
Several threads and questions have been posted previously and on streams about trains on the rush hour routes- specifically Boston and BML- getting stuck nose to tail causing the timetable to basically collapse. Yet there is no indication it is actually being taken on board and dealt with. Can the Q&A stream actually provide an answer to that? Whether it is being looked at or not because it feels like this game breaking issue is just not being acknowledged at present.
1) If (when) it is deduced that the massive timetable in BML is causing game killing framerate drops on older consoles and less capable PCs, will the provision of a secondary greatly thinned out timetable be considered? 2) If the increased processing requirements for extra passengers displayed during "rush hour" causes performance hits on older machines could a menu setting be added to turn it off? 3) On consoles, how feasible is it to add a display settings menu option to control scenery complexity and density? ( 3 probably not required if 1 and 2 are implemented)
Thanks DTG for all the works for RH and others contents. My question is about performances, RH routes especially London and Dresden have significantly less performances on my computer than other routes. Are newest routes will request a better computer or future optimisations will ajust theses routes whith the others ?
How can you reinstall some of the trust back into the community after the problems in Rush Hour? London Commuter should be by far my most favourite route, but there is a lot of gamebreaking problems such as game crashes, endless traffic jams from red lights etc which is highly frustrating. Can you please elaborate on how DTG will aim to fix and, importantly, avoid similar issues in the future (such as a more comprehensive testing process before release). For example, today on Xbox One I tried four times to complete a London Commuter service without success - totally unacceptable, especially when London Commuter's release was pushed back for months. I love this game, perhaps my favourite, but I really start to lose interest quickly if it's unplayable.
Can you make the headlights light up the ground farther ahead for the American locomotives like you did for German Rush Hour route?
I'm going to add another to this, It's one I - and I'm sure many others would like to know: - Will Future Releases (with the obvious exception of West Cornwall Local) get Dresden's Night Lighting system? It's a huge upgrade from what we have on other routes and - whilst it's not quite perfect - it really could make or break night driving on a route. Thanks.
In the future will you be able to ensure that all add ons are thoroughly tested on ALL platforms. The current testing process clearly doesn't work.
What is DTGs strategy for the future when it comes to fixing bugs, both for new releases and already released routes? It sounded like the preservation crew will no longer do that, and for the Rush Hour routes it looks like some stuff is done by the core team immediately after release, but what will happen then? It would be nice to get some inside what the plan forward is.
Can we get a better explanation of the performance issues on last gen. We were told to be getting a performance based timetable without extra layers on London Commuter. As there are no layers and less services you would expect the PS4 version to be a smooth ride. Smoother than Dresden with all those layers and new layers being added still to the PS4 version. But what we got looks exactly as what PS5 got, a rather laggy soup. So why is it I can drive the DB187 on Dresden without seeing any performance drops but removing all the layers from BML does not give us a smooth ride? Why is there no enhanced timetable for last gen with more layers but less services on London Commuter? On Dresden there is this option. Let's say a service is an hour. How many trains will be on the route during that service? This depends on the hour I'm doing the service, so at rush hour and the least busiest hour? How many trains are involved? On the PS4 we know it can only be 2 different trains models on London Commuter. How many of them will we actually get to see and are useful for the "illusion" of having a busy schedule? Same question for Dresden. What if you replace the trains that will never get in the view radius of the player with "a pixel"? That should free up memory of a lot of trains I suppose