The Death Of The Suggestions Forum?

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by jolojonasgames, Jun 27, 2022.

  1. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    Really I think even getting to 100 miles would solve most of the length issues, there's tons of good routes that are within that range. Even a place as large as the US has plenty of interesting areas that would fit in that range.
     
  2. OldVern

    OldVern Well-Known Member

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    That doesn't explain the odd choice of Crewe to Liverpool for Spirit Of Steam other than to indulge the whims of Paul Jackson. Something like the Riviera Line or Somerset and Dorset would have been far bigger crowd pleasers both on and away from the forum.
     
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  3. Like all these modern routes. Don't get me wrong I like driving my local from sittingbourne to London but they lack variety! Go back several decades. Every farm, brickworks, Mill, wood merchants etc.... had their own sidings. So on top of passenger services there's 1000s of freight activities. Pick up some fresh produce from a local farm and haul it up to the city. Run some sheep to the farmers market. Collect a consignment of bricks from point a and deliver to point b.

    With train companies competing against eachother take your pick of what line your going to travel on. Take the line that goes through the valley to the east or the valley to the west. Go up on one line come down on the other. Limits of route length no longer matters because both lines run pretty much parallel to eachother, but the scenery is different because there's a big hill in between both lines.

    Tsw can be so much more. I thought it was going to be so much more when it was announced. But the only difference is, it looks better.

    Look at tsc. Dtg said route merging couldn't be done. Routes that are too long couldn't be done. Yet the last route they released for tsc was merged and 80 miles long.
     
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  4. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    That was a special case. Why was USS Iowa the only US Navy battleship with a bathtub installed?
     
  5. Did it have a woman on board?
     
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  6. solicitr

    solicitr Well-Known Member

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    No, the wheelchair-bound Franklin Roosevelt. The boss gets what he wants.
     
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  7. gazz292

    gazz292 Well-Known Member

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    What's the point of owning a company that makes train driving games if you can't use it to make the route that lets you re-live your childhood? :cool:
     
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  8. stujoy

    stujoy Well-Known Member

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    And not forgetting that Spirit of Steam is WCML, so there’s one of the biggest ticked off the list.
     
  9. DTG Protagonist

    DTG Protagonist Has left the building Staff Member

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    Good topic of conversation, and I'll move this over to the suggestions forum since it's not only a topic that covers PC players.

    The suggestions forum is very helpful when we're deciding what to make. We take a "raw" selection by simply collating requests alongside those we receive via other means (surveys, social media, internal suggestions). This is then used as a guide for our decision-making when new routes are being selected. It can only ever be a guide for reasons you're already familiar with - is a route one we have licensing for, do we believe it would have sufficient activity to be a good addition, how well does it integrate with what we have, can we feasibly create the route in our standard development cycle, based on historic data is this likely to be popular. These, and other considerations are used to decide what comes next.

    Given that in most years we release 6-9 new routes that means the vast majority of suggestions look like they've been ignored. They haven't. They're just not the right fit at the right time. If we were to ask which 9 routes these should be we'd reach triple digits in suggestions before the end of the first week. Polling isn't a terrible idea but it's not practical. By the time we've narrowed down the selections, which tend to fall under (hypothetically) "we need a US route that includes both passenger and freight" as a starting point we're down to one or two that are viable. Viability is the key here.

    Every suggestion is read, if for no other reason that the work some people put into them is excellent. Not that there's anything wrong with the more straightforward suggestions, however the ones that generate the most commentary tend to be those that have the most effort put into them.

    The other reason for including the suggestions forum is that it'd be the first thing we'd need if we didn't have it as suggestions would appear everywhere. Pop along to any stream we do and you'll find a minimum of a dozen different suggestions crop up, regardless of what's happening on the stream. By collating them in one area we can get a greater sense of where there is interest.

    If, as several have suggested in this thread, the suggestions forum is believed to have no value to you personally by all means stop using it.
     
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  10. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    My post is largely talking about when they do factor in popularity, and they clearly don't always do that, see Cathcart Circle. There are other factors, mainly what routes can they make without investing tons of time and money making tons of new locos assets for, and that's clearly a area where Cathcart Circle accels. It's very short, thus no need to worry about making tons of building, and it only has the one trainset, and it's a rework of a loco which was already in development, 313. And clearly they did make some cost cutting decisions with SoS, like the decision to not do a shunter out of the gate, and the fact that it's a fairly short route.
     
  11. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    At least London-Portsmouth won't have Electrostars :)
     
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  12. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    I would say that calling this forum topic a suggestion in itself is a stretch though, I'd say it's more of a discussion for sure. And while this is indeed not PC specific, there's frankly a ton of topics that you could argue that within any of the three discussion forums. Really outside of bug reports I don't see the need for separate forums for the console platforms in the first place.
     
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  13. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    This is more of a discussion. Not really a suggestion. This is why we need a general discussion forum....
     
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  14. Blacknred81

    Blacknred81 Well-Known Member

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    Depends how close they are, look at Sherman Hill's Track 3. It was laid, but the scenery wasn't completed for it so it was cut from release. There is one point where the track is somewhat close to track 1-2, so they somewhat share scenery, but the rest of the area is unfinished.
     
  15. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    Yeah m8, I was being sarcastic and it is a certain type of Scottish nationalist that usually jumps on that, lol


    Wow, you have to admit that ability of DTG to point out the bleeding obvious is second to none. I didn't ask for a Liverpool steam route, and Sam guess what? I didn't buy it! I know right, it blew my mind too.

    But then Sam you could ask why are customers being forced to look at Pringles vending machines in game when they didn't ask for it?
     
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2022
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  16. Commiee

    Commiee Well-Known Member

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    And also for them to clear up a few things for the playerbase that there seems to be confusion/controversy around. e.g., as I noted recently, they could make it clear what scope of future development we can expect from them - as opposed to third-party developers. We all know how many people keep asking when/if routes from countries other than The Holy Trinity will start to get added, and - as you mention in the OP - DtG's only response is "post a thread in suggestions forum, we can't say anything else". In some people this response then generates an expectation that DtG can produce routes in other countries and they are seeking suggestions from the playerbase, while others then tell this first group that they should not expect routes from any other country because DtG doesn't have resources/etc. A simple comment on a stream would clear this up for everyone and ensure healthier expectations. Obviously people joining the playerbase afterwards would not be aware of the comment, but the people who were there when that was cleared up would let them know exactly what was said and that the possibility was definitely ruled out/is still there, instead of the current mix of speculation, confusion and vague references.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2022
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  17. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    I fear this discussion now gets lost between all the numerous suggestions. This topic isn't a suggestion, it's a discussion. I think the moving the topic is a bad move.

    And that's why we need a cross-platform forum for discussion. Even DTG themselves is abusing the suggestions forum for topics unrelated to suggestions because there is no cross-platform forum for discussions.
     
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  18. tallboy7648

    tallboy7648 Well-Known Member

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    I wonder how difficult would it be for dtg to make a general discussion page to be honest. If they can make a getting started page then I assume it shouldn't be that difficult
     
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  19. Purno

    Purno Well-Known Member

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    DTGs original reason not to make a cross-platform forum was because of platform-dependant technical issues being expected when TSW2 just released. Meanwhile, we have a cross-platform technical forum, a cross-platform off-topic forum, and a cross-platform suggestions forum that gets abused for non-suggestion related discussions because there still isn't any general on-topic cross-platform forums.

    I don't visit the PS and XBox forums, but I know the PC forums get used for plenty of discussion that's not specifically related to PC. So pretty much several forums get abused for things they aren't supposed to be use for, only because DTG doesn't give us the much requested general discussion cross-platform forum to discuss anything that's on-topic (TSW-related) but not platform specific (and also not a suggestion).
     
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  20. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yep, I visit all of them and find much of it isn't related to the platform it's being played on...
     
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  21. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps DTG want to bury this thread by moving it to suggestions?
     
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  22. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Too many people in the notification stream for that
     
  23. Dath Vater 208

    Dath Vater 208 Active Member

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  24. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    DTG have said many times they do not plan to do countries outside the main three but would be open to third party developers doing other countries. So unless you know of any Polish third party devs you are going to be out of luck, SimRail might be your best bet?
     
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  25. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    I think DTG are holding back third parties, it was interesting to note how many TS1 third party devs had no plans at all to doing TSW2 routes. Third Party's being able to make a route would be a huge plus for DTG or an editor like TS1 but I don't see that changing unless something in DTG changes for the better.
     
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  26. dhekelian

    dhekelian Well-Known Member

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    Perhaps it is more simpler than that and it comes down to money. Most things do. Perhaps it is just not 'worth' third parties to get involved with DTG taking to big a cut.
     
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  27. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    More likely the third parties don't want to sign restrictive licensing contracts or say that DTG and the relevant publishing store will take a large chunk of the money from any sales. It's worth noting that the parties who've devved for TSC and published on steam are the ones who are devving and publishing on TSW (either 2nd or 3rd party) whereas the remainder tend to publish by their own channels
     
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  28. UnlimitedMagic

    UnlimitedMagic Well-Known Member

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    Funny enough it was like that
     
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  29. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    They'd be knocked out by the licensing requirements... Unfortunately things are much more complex when you have Sony and Microsoft as publishing partners.
     
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  30. Mich

    Mich Well-Known Member

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    A editor would almost certainly be exclusive to PC, so PlayStation or Xbox really would be non-issues. If there really is issues with any external company I see no reason to think it would be anyone other than Epic Games/Unreal Engine.
     
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  31. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yes, if it was a public editor only on PC and there is no publishing path via DTG then it would be PC only but this would put a number of people off from using it as it has several issues, including when those new assets populate in game.
     

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