An Open Letter To Dtg

Discussion in 'TSW General Discussion' started by Mattty May, Apr 2, 2022.

  1. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    As was I, and that'll be part of what i'm asking the team as well.
     
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  2. speedy2972

    speedy2972 Active Member

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    Just a quick query, with the addition of the new QA director, does this mean the preservation crews release schedule has been postponed until the new person has seen and approved the work or has it past this stage already. I would much prefer work that's been done and inspected WELL not quickly and rushed.
     
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  3. Mattty May

    Mattty May Guest

    I’ve now watched last nights stream, at least from 25 minutes in where the discussion turned to the state of the game. I don’t know if my open letter to DTG triggered this or whether something like this was always planned for the stream, but it was good that DTG took the time to discuss things.

    A lot of what Matt said is very encouraging and it was interesting to learn that after the first steam release, the teams have a bit of time to knuckle down to help improve existing content.

    It was also interesting to hear about the new QA director and the position the executive team have taken in charging the teams with getting the game fixed.

    There was no mention of the much needed Boston Sprinter fixes e.g. badly curated scenarios and signalling issues so I hope they haven’t been forgotten about.

    We have all heard DTG making promises in the past and not seen a lot change, so they’ll still have to demonstrate that they can do what they say they’re going to do.

    As I’ve said previously, I love TSW 2 and the huge potential it has. I hated seeing the state it had gotten into. It’s not a total mess, but reliability has gotten so poor that I consider it a risk to start playing anything in case it crashed or the service couldn’t be completed. In my new job, I don’t have a lot of play time available now, so I don’t want to be wasting any time on something I can’t finish (or fully enjoy).

    I just hope they can really get a grip on everything. Maybe one day, we’ll eventually see bugs like the tail lights being stuck on by default on the Class 66 resolved - that annoys the heck out of me - along with many other minor niggles.

    I’ll be watching.
     
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  4. Monder

    Monder Well-Known Member

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    Matt pointed it out very well with what reactions to updates have turned into. Instead of going "yay, update, improvements" we're like "oh no, an update, what's broken now?" and it is really accurate. There are improvements made, but it always comes at a cost and it shouldn't be the case. Luckily it was quickly resolved, but getting better performance on SMH, but paying for it with glowing grass, it was... interesting... to say the least.
     
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  5. borg#1850

    borg#1850 Well-Known Member

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    Just want to say thanks to Nat for all she has done and may her role move within DTG, be everything she hopes for. There is never a perfect time to move on. If you do not jump sometimes to something new, you might regret it in a while. Enjoy your new position and I hope it comes with a nice pay rise, though money is not everything. You have to enjoy your job for it to be worth getting up in the morning.
     
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  6. SBos

    SBos Well-Known Member

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    Well I also watched the stream and the only progress I can see is the new QA Director and truly hope he has some kind of impact. As for the rest I’m afraid we have heard it all before and this time we really need to see some action.

    Once again Matt admitted that they did have the information about the PS5 download limit but missed it. Had it not been missed then maybe the solution would already be in place now.

    Like others have said I love the game but there are just so many issues the enjoyment is waning. Some of the things are just frustrating like having to set the crosshair visibility every time you start the game if you don’t like the default setting whilst other things ruin the game completely.

    One response I would like to question Matt on he clearly stated that all scenarios are fully tested. If that is true then how come there have been reports of people not being able to complete them once it’s released?

    I think somebody lost the plot on London Commuter if the number of services have caused the problems. Wether they just wanted to see how many timetabled services they could get in a game I don’t know but it seems pretty pointless given that many of them are just 3/4 minutes long especially if it is contributing to the problems.

    I also fail to understand why when new things are introduced such as the improved nighttime lighting or the wetness on platforms when raining why they are then not included on all new releases.

    We all have things that we see as priorities such as sounds or scenery but surely the number one priority for all is that you can actually play the game without the game crashing or being unable to finish a scenario or service.

    I think this must be the 3rd or 4th stream that DTG have had to apologise for the state of the game without much progress in any area but this must now be the time for players to see some action. Whilst I am not interested in the Horseshoe Curve route it will be interesting to see the feedback after release. Yes I realise it’s not actually a DTG route but the buck stops with them on the quality of the actual release.
     
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  7. DTG JD

    DTG JD Director of Community Staff Member

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    Quick update: have added in a summary TL;DW (too long; didn't watch), in my previous post around last night's VOD, with some of the key points.

    I do recommend watching the whole thing if you can, as there are a lot of nuanced points and additional explanation, but I think it covers the main points to get out of it. Completely understand that we need to 'walk the walk' from here.
     
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  8. antwerpcentral

    antwerpcentral Well-Known Member

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    I think the answer of DTG was sufficient. I can put my inner Karen back to rest for a while. But again these are promises so we will have to wait what the plan brings. I also want to give the QA director some time to get adjusted but note that I saw a "new German route" on the roadmap. He/She better has their stuff together by then because I will be keeping an eye on his work for that release ;)
     
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  9. borg#1850

    borg#1850 Well-Known Member

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    I listened from about 25 minutes in and then skipped the odd bit. while I worked (Yes men can do two things at once). :D ;)
    I am encouraged in what was said and do understand one thing, being the dev team seem to be working on their separate projects, which is why stuff slips through the net.

    Hopefully whoever the Development "Person" is they will have the wherewithal to improve things.

    Proof of the Pudding will be in the eating. Double Cream with mine please. ;)
     
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  10. longo239

    longo239 Well-Known Member

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    Couldn't be arsed wasting an hour and a half listening to the same bs they've been trotting out for at least the last two years.

    What I am interested in though, did anyone win on the Bingo?
     
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  11. stonojnr

    stonojnr New Member

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    quite agree, it often feels like a deflection tactic to say you cant please everyone, so kind of stop complaining about the small stuff, I bought TSW2 Rush Hour because I wanted to drive these trains on that Victoria to Brighton route and complete all the scenarios, I dont mind if a tree is slightly wrong or some of the lights are out of place or my console cant quite push a full volume of wandering passengers around because its not the latest gen console, but I do mind having a game I cant play a scenario because theres a bug thats been reported for months about the service spawning at the wrong time for the scenario so it can never be completed properly or the red light signals issue at Victoria that makes every service you pick a kind of will I play this for 40mins and get stuck again, waste of time.

    things like Valhalla had bugs, laughable bugs in some cases, but I dont recall any of them diminishing my enjoyment to keep playing the game and I dont recall every getting stuck. These fairly fundamental bugs imo in TSW2, and these should have been fixed by now as well its one thing to have bugs on launch but still months later with no fix and with seemingly no guarantee theyll be fixed at all, only maybe within 2 years, do diminish the enjoyment of playing it, and do impact my choices on either future DLC or games from DTG, because why should I buy more of the same thing, only to be disappointed again.
     
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  12. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    One tactic beloved of litigators is the "discovery dump:' if the other party has made a discovery request, you can of course try to fight it, but often it's more effective, especially if you out-resource them, to comply to the nth degree, dumping thousands of documents on them right at the deadline, meaning that it will take them forever at great cost to sift through at all, and very likely won't find the needle in the haystack.

    Sony's mention of the 64GB limit was buried in the fine print towards the back of a 500-page manual. And it was not the sort of thing which attracted any attention in game=developer circles, because few if any games use TSW's small-core-plus-big-DLC-modules structure. Some things only turn up in hindsight. For instance, software bugs.
     
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  13. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Am I the only person who thought the stream was full of rambling generalities while being woefully short on specifics. I didn't hear anything concrete about lighting, audio issues, the save function, console crashes or the points that were raised earlier in this and other threads. No target dates were offered.
    Is the hiring of a QA director intended to be the solution? I had assumed that there had always been someone in overall charge of testing.
     
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  14. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    It struck me that the discussion was more about preventing bugs going forward, not how, when or whether existing bugs might be fixed.
     
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  15. borg#1850

    borg#1850 Well-Known Member

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    Yes true i missed that, now you come to mention it. Though at least we can hope for better future DLC's :)
     
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  16. tcmikaelsouza

    tcmikaelsouza Well-Known Member

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    [I'm removing the posted content because I got the topic wrong.]
     
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  17. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    One other thing linked to this is the (negative) impact of Adam’s work. I know that TVL and the 3-car 101 may remain an isolated case but for me, it raised the point of “What else will Adam take away from stuff I bought?” Leaving aside the discussion about what is actually historically appropriate, I bought TVL with the knowledge of getting a timetable with 3-car 101s until Adam decided that that is no longer the case. I may be paranoid but that opens the door to all sorts of bad stuff to my mind.
     
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  18. DTG Matt

    DTG Matt Executive Producer Staff Member

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    On this point we're putting in place a process whereby if Adam's team asses that the "right" way forward might result in any reduction in any way this will be expanded to a wider group including myself and we'll make a team decision on it rather than it all being on Adam's shoulders. This should give Adam the support he needs and ensure that we only work to make the product better in future.
     
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  19. morph147

    morph147 Active Member

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    will hold off my opinion till I can listen to last night stream. Based off the highlights I can gleam from the comments here though, Need to see actions first and not promises. To many things broken. Really questioning how scenarios are being tested at the moment when everytime I play the ECW Double Trouble route the first train gets stuck. This is something they can test in a couple of minutes and see.
     
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  20. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    Glad to hear that and good to know that our feedback on the TVL situation is being heard (and acted upon).
     
  21. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Just way ahead of whatever's in second place! :D
     
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  22. SBos

    SBos Well-Known Member

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    I don’t care if it was a 1,000 pages long somebody in DTG should have at least gone through it all to see if there were any implications for their game and they clearly didn’t. You also mention software bugs which most people accept but to find a scenario doesn’t work, for example, is not acceptable.
     
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  23. morph147

    morph147 Active Member

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    After watching the stream, it seems like a lot of our concerns are being heard. My bigger concern is how long is this window they are discussing after spirit of steam is out to work on bugs? Too short and stuff will have been worked on but not much movement in fixes. Also curious if they will push for their partners to use some time to fix routes as well.
     
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  24. ukpetey

    ukpetey Well-Known Member

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    I don’t know, I step away from the forum for a few days and all hell let’s loose! Well done to Mat_Jam_Ca for the well thought out and well written opening post. He pretty much spoke for me. Reading all of the thread, it looks like the simmering pot of anger, frustration and irritation with all the issues - finally boiled over!

    I haven’t and won’t be watching any live stream. I don’t have the time. I play the game/simulator because I like driving trains. I’ve been driving trains with Train Simulator for over a decade, and before that MSTS. I come to the forums now and again to catch up with news on my beloved game/sim, but I really don’t want to watch live streams about the game/sim - I spend that time playing it. Or I used to

    It seems pretty pointless in any case, as what gets reported here from those streams seems pretty well like a rehash of what has been said before. And before that. Oh, and before that too

    Actions speak louder than words. As I have stated before I won’t be buying any further content until there are some real improvements with those routes/trains I own. And that any new releases actually work as intended/hyped/sold. I hope others will keep their cash in their pockets until we see real improvements. Because money drives business (obviously) and a cut in revenue should be the biggest wake up call of all

    I know there is real passion in the people at DTG, and I’ve no doubt they are equally pressured to get new content out of the door and the money coming in, which is what pays the salaries. So I’m sure these guys are squeezed at both ends, by customers and bosses. But that’s not my problem. I work hard for my money and I don’t waste it. So once I’ve earned it, if someone wants it they have to earn it from me, like I earned it before.

    I look forward to all the fixes and improvements that are finally coming. It’s what we deserve, however belatedly we will actually receive it
     
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  25. Railmaster

    Railmaster Well-Known Member

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    There is nothing to add.
     
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  26. frank1116

    frank1116 Well-Known Member

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    Since it was not mentioned: Ignoring customers and the community is non-verbal communication !

    There is never "no.communication", which means:
    nothing will be fixed, reworked, improved which is broken for a longer time !
     
  27. austinbrewer7868

    austinbrewer7868 Active Member

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    I get that the teams "aim" towards this game is realism, but what just ruined this for me is removal of sd70ace off of sand patch. You aim for realism but you need to set a bar for fun too. Every train sim Id played has that open ability to use dlc anywhere you buy it. I feel like this sim lacks it. Give an open variety of locomotives that we purchase and able to use on every route. Also Id like to propose locomotive crossover between cane creek and sherman hill. Since cane creek really doesnt have much to it. The route do get boring after a while once you complete almost everything on a route. Make the game more enjoyable for all of us.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2022
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  28. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Well does the sd70 even run on the route in reality? If it doesn't then it shouldn't be in the route. If you want to use the sd70 on spg, just use the scenario designer
     
  29. austinbrewer7868

    austinbrewer7868 Active Member

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    Its not on the scenario designer.
     
  30. borg#1850

    borg#1850 Well-Known Member

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    A very nicely worded post.
     
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  31. goochdog#5870

    goochdog#5870 Well-Known Member

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    I’ve found another thing wrong with the PS5 version as I just posted here .
    https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/mastery-is-not-mastered-on-ps5.53711/

    As I mentioned there . How can the Mastery switch between the two consoles but not the rest of the data ?
    Again this was obviously not tested on the PS5 .
    DTG never test anything on consoles , do they ?
    :mad:
    I find it insulting that DTG keep on pushing out new content with whistles and bells when we know
    1. They will all have problems
    2. They haven’t fixed soooooo much of the game I/we love
    These things cannot or should not be ignored
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2022
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  32. Nick Y

    Nick Y Well-Known Member

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  33. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    Not even on off the rails?
     
  34. docsnyder1911

    docsnyder1911 Well-Known Member

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    Last edited: Apr 9, 2022
  35. The_Drunken_Engineer

    The_Drunken_Engineer Well-Known Member

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    As much as we all want the product to be as good as possible, and thanks for the self reflection DTG but I didn't hear anything about the broken save function. I can live with smallish problems but have they just given up entirely on a fix?
     
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  36. arek#2842

    arek#2842 Well-Known Member

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    That's a good point. Is next gen consoles also suffering saves issue?
     
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  37. Lamplight

    Lamplight Well-Known Member

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    Every platform (gen 8, gen 9, Steam, Epic) suffers from the issue. Fixing this is on DTG’s long to-do list but unlikely to be tackled in the foreseeable future. From what I gather, it never really worked too well on TSC either, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
     
  38. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    Never had an issue saving on TS Classic or resuming. Plus you are not restricted to one save across the entire game or every route. Every scenario can be saved and resumed later. Talking PC here of course.
     
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  39. Railmaster

    Railmaster Well-Known Member

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    I think one of the biggest problems is the lack of standards which makes QA and bug fixes very difficult! The question is - why are such standards missing?

    With some DLC I have the impression that they were started from scratch every time.

    With some DLC night lighting is quite successful. So you know which settings are necessary. So make them the standard!

    On some routes there is a staccato of camera collisions due to power poles etc, so that driving outside is sometimes impossible. The collision query is switched off on other routes. So if you know how to do it right, you make it the standard.

    This list could be continued indefinitely. If everything works, you know the right settings and make them the default so that you do the same for the next DLC. And even a third party would stick to it.

    However, since each route has more or less errors, these are all the more difficult to eradicate when obviously different settings were used for each DLC. And that in turn means that one error has been eliminated, but two new ones have been added. worsened.

    They would make it so much easier for themselves if they set as many standards as possible and only use route-specific, individual settings. This would certainly eliminate 50% of all possible errors. Every further error can then be found all the faster and you don't have to start from scratch again.

    As a result, more and more mistakes are accumulating that it is almost impossible to overcome. A zero-defect culture is of course an ideal, but 50% should always be there. I don't see this here. And the later you want to strive for and implement this, the more you have to make advance payments here. That costs capacity again. A vicious circle.

    With all the DLC and experience that DTG (also with TS!) now has, this simply cannot and must not be the case. I would say that 80% of each new DLC "only" has to be clicked together and only 20% individual work would be necessary. Apart from the track construction. But it seems to me the other way round and that is very error prone. As you can see.

    I hope the new "QA Manager" recognizes where the problem lies, turns development to the left and then something can happen.
     
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  40. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I genuinely don't understand why the save issue keeps getting thrown to the side by dtg. Since one of dtg's goals is to make routes longer (which is good) they need to fix the save game function because there are some players for whatever reason can't play services for a long time so a save function should be a important and necassary function of this game. It is unacceptable after 5 years that they can't or aren't taking the time to fix it. DTG need to fix this function especially if routes/scenarios are gonna get longer
     
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  41. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I agree with this. I don't get why DTG can't make new features they make standard. Night lighting is a example of this. On Harlem line, it just uses the old original TSW2 night lighting but there are just more street lights on the streets in The Bronx and Manhattan. Why couldn't they use elements of the Dresden-Chemnitz night lighting at the very least for instance? For new dlc's players shouldn't have to be guessing if a certain environmental feature that has been introduced in a older route will be in a new one. It should be standard on all future routes going forward. DTG simply don't have a standard and just do whatever. If they know how to do something in terms of lighting for instance and have done it before, make it standard!

    Hopefully the QA manager will actually be much harder on DTG because it's clear DTG are ok leaving out features introduced on older routes and act like it's fine.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2022
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  42. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    I think the save function doesn’t work well because of the way they’ve built the game. I don’t know that much about the early days of the development of TSW but they do seem to have made several mistakes or bad decisions as they were learning how to develop things that are still having an effect on the game now. They say in live streams that they pretty much develop systems and features as they need them and then tweak them for each route with different versions of the dispatcher etc. ending up in each route. A robust save needs to account for all of these things and clearly hasn’t. I wouldn’t like to guess as to how much focus they have put in to trying to get a robust save to work but they obviously haven’t managed it yet. It’s like a lot of things in TSW, it’s there but doesn’t fully function as it should. A save needs to function perfectly for it to be of any use and I don’t see anything working perfectly in TSW. I don’t know if it ever will, despite being one of the most important things that should have been developed properly from the outset. You are right that after five years or so they should have sorted this but my hopes aren’t high for a robust save that works across the board any time soon, which is terrible for the players and their choice of how and when to play and for how long.
     
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  43. Slemcer

    Slemcer Well-Known Member

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    I'd say that is wishful thinking. Don't expect changes to happen quickly. The QA manager will also be bound by deadlines.
    While it's a step in the right direction, there are just too many goals (or too many bugs, if you want to look at it that way).

    I've been silent for a long time as there has been no noticeable improvement in quality, but I appreciate both this thread and the fact that there are at least some reactions from DTG.
     
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  44. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    I don't really understand this news about the new QA manager. Are we meant to believe that there has not, to this point, ever been anyone in overall control of QA, that there has been no supervision of that department? That would be hard to believe in any organization, but especially a software/gaming developer. I don't like to say this is something of a chimera but.....
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2022
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  45. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I think the thing that would answer almost all of the last few questions on this thread is "management", as in there is NOT a consistent management of routes, assets and development which means that new features become standard, old features get the dev time they need to be redone (without breaking what we already have) etc etc

    I know there was a big thing made of a couple of specialists doing the night lighting for dresden so I can see why maybe that would be "too much work" for every single DLC (and there was quite a large backlash against the lighting in that DLC with people saying they couldn't see a thing) but there doesn't seem to have been a discourse between DTG and the players on what they DO want in lighting and what they DON'T

    Same goes for the save game. I can think of a few ways of having a working save game and I'm sure DTG know more than I do, so this comes down to management, ie someone isn't sitting down and saying "This is an important feature, so let's get it working".

    I'm not sure QA has anything to do with either of these matters though, mainly because QA isn't going to be on here reading what the community or players want and testing against that criteria. They look for specific things that DTG ask them to look for in a specific asset or route or even scenario. Even Beta testers wouldn't necessarily be doing "what we want", and I sometimes think it's because DTG are trying to do too much too much of the time.

    As someone said above, ad hoc development seems to be the order of the day, hence having greatness on one route but dross on another.
    That's fine, and for those of us who've "worked with" DTG products for a long time almost expect it, but we ALL would like to have more, better and most of all CONSISTENCY

    Personally I would be happy with "This is the feature set we have between now and September. No new features will be introduced, but we will make sure all features we have now are included"
    And then next year the pres crew retrofit the new features to the existing routes...
     
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  46. nockwurst

    nockwurst Well-Known Member

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    Management. Root cause analysis says ask “why?”
    It all boils down to mismanagement. Whether they don’t care or just can’t, management is responsible.
    Sports team fails time after time? You know what happens.
    Same here. Maybe it’s time for change at the top. Not Matt, I’m talking waaaaay up.
     
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  47. chieflongshin

    chieflongshin Well-Known Member

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    I personally think it all comes down to bean counters being feature blockers.

    “Meh, this doesn’t make commercial sense, only 12% of played services are done at night, cut the feature!!”

    Players

    Im not playing anymore night services until lighting is sorted”.



    chicken and egg
     
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  48. arek#2842

    arek#2842 Well-Known Member

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    Managment? Managment don't know neither don't care how much bugged their products (DLCs) are. The managment care about the revenue to keep growing and about the strategy for company to keep growing alongside with the revenue. If the products, despite its quality, are keep selling it means they are managing the company well. Nobody will start to think about changes in compan's management because of the number of bugs. But if the number of bugs will result in revenue loss for a long time, then top management will start to look for the root cause of the poor quality of their products and will force changes that will result in better quality, but before that - do not expect any changes in management, top or mid-level.
     
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  49. Crosstie

    Crosstie Well-Known Member

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    Well, either way, the buck has to stop somewhere.
     
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  50. WVUadam

    WVUadam Well-Known Member

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    Could be due to the moon being made out of cheese.
     
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