If you've not seen already, Ben will be implementing a few rational changes to the layout of the forums in the new year. This will hopefully avoid duplication of discussion while still enabling platform-specific and focused conversations but in a way that avoids forum users needing to bounce between multiple boards. This thread is your opportunity to tell us what you reckon before these changes take place. Your feedback will be taken into consideration but that doesn't mean it'll be acted upon. After all, if we were to act on every single piece of feedback your had 3 individual forums and 86 specialised boards and only 2 forums with a board shared between them with tags and no tags and a forum mascot named Gertrude (who won't be visible to those who either don't want a forum mascot or who have disdain for the name Gertrude). Ultimately, change is always a little disruptive but the proposed changes should make life a little easier. The only way we'll know for sure if this is the case is by doing it.
I broadly support the proposed changes, at the moment there are just too many sub forums - almost as bad as UKTS (sorry Matt ) got at one point. The TSW3 launch forum should be locked down as people are posting articles in there which should go on the main board(s) or Technical Support. I play exclusively on PC, so unless the last post on one of the console boards catches my eye in the index, I tend not to go there. And I still think "Suggestions" needs a tidy up to remove some of the sillier one line ideas, or every other day extend GWE style posts. Ideally, like on N3V's Trainz Forum, posts in this section would need to be approved by a moderator and follow some sort of pro-forma, like the Save Game bug thread.
Fully support the changes. I’ve almost missed so many interesting discussions that weren’t really platform specific but happened to be in the PC/XBOX/PS forums just because the Op has that platform. This should make for much better discussions. So long as there is a way to mark something that really is platform specific, then I think it will be a big improvement.
I think they should be improved so it'd easier to find what you are looking for. Example: Suggestions_Train Suggestion/Route Suggestion/Other Suggestion And Xbox_General Chat_Questions_Glitches I think this will Greatly improved the forums but in the end it's up to you guys. Can't wait to see what you do. Have a merry Christmas! From Nathan
I agree with everyone above but regarding the PC, Xbox and PlayStation Discussions merger, keep PC Discussion as it is to keep the PC gang happy then join the Xbox and PlayStation Discussion together and call it Console Discussion and use prefixes 'Xbox' and 'PlayStation', other than that, I agree with the changes
These forums have always been missing a general, cross-platform, on-topic, discussion forum. So I'm happy to see DTG finally willing to make that move. I'm not sure there's any point in keeping platform-specific forums, considering we already have a Technical Reports forum. Are there enough platform-specific subjects that aren't of technical nature to warrant platform-specific forums (or tags)?
I keep saying this but make sure the TSW sub-forum names are unique across the whole of DTG’s forums so they are identifiable as TSW posts in the New Posts page. So no ‘General Discussion’ as this name is already used in the TSC forum and others and that’s what appears in New Posts as the identifier. Other than that it really doesn’t matter what form the forums take. An added note about general posts. The ultimate goal should be to make people’s posts and threads visible to more of the TSW community and platform specific identifiers for general posts should be discouraged unless the topic is actually platform specific, such as for bugs, controls, or PC mods.
Why keep the PC community and Console community apart? We're playing the same game, and probably have a lot to talk about. And yes, I'm a PC player. Never used a console. Not sure they're my thing. But I'm happy to see console players being able to enjoy the same game I've been enjoying. Wouldn't mind sharing a forum with you console folk (we've been sharing the Suggestions and DTL Article Discussion forum for years, without any problems in my experience)
It is just an idea I understand the point you are making here, I just thought instead of shrinking discussion forums from 3 to 1, to shrink into separate PC and Console Discussion threads, but like you, I wouldn't mind blending into the PC players like yourself, as a matter of fact, I go into the PC thread anyway if topics in there suit my style
Me who does not speak English, and who passes everything by google translation, it will complicate the reading of the forum. Unless there is a possibility of being able to sort only what is for PC, for me.
I don't know if the "general discussion" forum will be better or not, so I hold no judgement until it is implemented and I experience it for a while. I would also like the TSW3 launch feedback and the technical reports forum combined in some way, or to simply remove one of them, to make it easier to find the bug reports.
Out of curiousity, why do you want to filter out PC topics? I mean, looking at the current list of topics, the first one that's specific to PC is the bottom one of this screenshot, about the Steam Winter Sale. All the other topics are cross-platform subjects, that are just as relevant to console players as they are to PC players.
I agree. I see no reason for the TSW3 Launch Feedback to exist, especially since TSW3 launched a while back. Topics there are either feedback that could be posted in the new cross-platform general forum, or a bug that could be posted in the Technical Reports forum.
I'm hoping that each post will be tagged in some way (perhaps color coding?) according to platform. As a PC user, I almost never take an interest in any other platform's messages. I can easily foresee that having to wade through all posts on a single "page" would push me away from reading the forums at all. Why do you see this change as necessary, anyway?????
Please make it clear which tags should be used for each platform so that we have consistency eg. Xbox-S, Xbox-1, etc.
I think perhaps that, besides "General Discussion" or whatever you decide to call it, there should be one "Bug Report" forum for apparent programming issues with the game, and then individual "Technical Advice" forums for each platform; a place for Playstation owners to talk about DLC limits, and for PC users to discuss engine.ini files etc..
It's a good thing that none of these opinions will matter when things are actually implemented. It would be impossible to please everyone. My suggestion: There are currently a number of known issues that affect the base game and various DLCs. It would be nice to have these listed neatly, to avoid people posting the same thing over and over again. If DTG can also keep the list updated, it would be nice to have a status (e.g. reported, under investigation, testing, etc). Telling us a blanket "issues are currently investigated" doesn't mean much anymore. Let's see a JIRA report, if one is available.
Good idea. There’s lots of duplication between the PC, Playstation and Xbox channels. I often look through all three even though I only play on Xbox. Happy Christmas to all at DTG.
As a further to your question... IMO the 3 main platforms PC, Classic, & TSW series absolutely SHOULD by all means remain separated to eliminate and reduce confusions and in some cases persnickety members getting all bent out of shape because a member from a different platform posted in their platform's section. Usually due to a lack of proper separation and/or titling or ID of platform. Yes - speaking from the negative side of that experience. Also, I do believe that these 3 platforms are in many ways specific and unique to themselves in certain aspects that do not and are not carried over between them (ie: you can do things in one or the other that you can't do in others). This then leaves a lot open for confusions and misunderstandings. Yes - also experienced in that aspect. Though as has been mentioned "we are all playing the same game" the various versions of the game (PC, Classic, & TSW) are not all the same in functions, options, & details that can be generally discussed appropriately together without making a mess of the forums and of peoples' patience and .ability to understand the games nuances. Most of what has been mentioned sounds practicable, but there definitely needs to be some specific separation or this will fail big time and likely cause a loss of forums use due to frustrations between disorganized postings and game versions. Which is kind of where we are at now, lets not accidentally make it worse by combining things that should not be combined.
Merging the PC and console sections is long overdue. My other suggestions : 1. Get rid of the TSW3 launch feedback section - TSW3 launched 3 months ago and this serves no purpose any longer. Feedback and issues can easily covered in the discussion or technical reports sections 2. Make all staff topics in the DTL article sections locked - Just let the discussions generated by announcements and articles flow naturally to the (single) discussion sub forum. Too many times discussions currently get split between 4 sections (DTL articles : often multiple for the same DLC on the run up to and during a release / PC / Xbox / PlayStation).
The change seems a good idea to me. I normally browse all of the discussion forums anyway despite being Xbox. The one thing I would add is to moderate some of the posts in the suggestions thread because the amount of people just saying "Add this route" really buries the good suggestions that people have put time and effort into researching.
Worth noting this is NOT about combining the TS Classic and TSW forums. Just combining the PC, PlayStation and Xbox discussions inside the TSW forum.
I still think the use of labels should only apply if the issue raised is platform specific. Also, we need more labels. At the minimum: PC/Steam, PC/Epic, PC/Msft, XBox, Playstation. Subsequently, the console labels could be more descriptive, e.g. XB1, XSS, XSX, PS4, PS5. When I first saw "Fire sale" thread in the PC forum, my heart jumped. But then I realized it was Steam only. If the forums software doesn't support multiple tags, we can use a convention in the title, e.g. "[PC][Steam] Big sale on now".
There only needs to be a few forums, within those there could either be sub-forums or those coloured filters: DTG Announcements (including DTG live articles) General Discussion Suggestions Technical Support Mods (including creation centre) Off topic So this should tidy things up plus move suggestions and technical support further up so they are easier to spot for newcomers, who probably first come here because they were told to "post it on the forums".
Would keep the “Getting Started” section to help beginners, but completely agree with your list other than that.
I fully agree. A help forums for guides and the like is very useful. The only change I would propose to prevent everyone dumping everything in 'general discussions' is renaming that to something that makes clear that bug reports, suggestions, mods and off topic posts don't belong there. Also, please let the mods move topics to the correct forums if a topic is misplaced. E.g. bug reports should always be posted in 'technical reports' and have some tags mandatory to aid with triage and in solving them.
I fear labels would only be misused for topics not related to a specific platform. It really makes the forum less easy to read IMO. I'm not a fan of the "Train Sim World 2" and "Train Sim World 3" tags recently introduced either. I agree people should be titling their topics better, but I doubt that's a realistic thing to expect. I lost count how many topics titled "suggestion" I've seen in the Suggestion forums...
This is exactly a good example of why I believe things should NOT be combined. There is too much of this confusing stuff already with things as they are. More separation (or ID) of the platforms is necessary to avoid this kind of thing. The tags are nice but I am finding them pretty annoying at the moment since the addition of the TSW2/TSW3 ones. There's too many tags now IMO. And you are correct - getting people to properly title a post is not going to happen. So the only true option is more separation and specific forums. I'm not saying this will eliminate the problems, duplications, and confusions all together, but more specific forums will serve better than more generalized forums.
But how is PC like console? They are different platforms and function differently. Combining these would be confusing. You mention Classic in your reply, that is where some of the problems come from. IMO there should be no cross forum results when searching or looking at New Posts or Recent Posts. That alone is a big part of the existing problem. Even when you go to each section and "Mark Forums Read" to get only what you are seeking to view you still get cross forum results. Find a way to eliminate cross forum results and you have a winner. Or maybe even the ability to turn off other sections? Example: I come here to look at TSW posts... not Classic, not Fishing, not Catan. So why should I be getting Classic threads in my results even when I mark those forums read trying to avoid them? Why is it on me to identify & filter my results? That's not how forums are supposed to work unless you have too many options combined into one. See where this goes? Don't get me wrong I appreciate these forums absolutely, but the organization and cross results has always bothered me. It just shouldn't work that way. I have never experienced this anywhere in forums except here.
Because the bulk of topics are things like "How do I set up multiple locomotives" or "The service timings on Tharandter Rampe are too tight," which have nothing to do with any platform, and it's a huge pain having to skim three separate forums for game content.
It also doesn't help that there doesn't seem to be a way to change a topic title after it has been created, unless I'm overlooking something? Is there anything that could be done so topic titles can be edited by its author?
That's an... unusual... location for such an option. I'm used to editing the first post to edit the title...
Good point. I agree. But by the same token it's also a pain to have to read through a topic only to find out that it is unrelated to your platform because the results are not separated or filtered properly. Honestly the more we get into this discussion the more I think this is less to do with separating and/or combining topics and more to do with generally bad forum operational parameters.
the first thing you should do is remove the PC-PS and xbox x thread and put general TSW and I will see a update on the thread suggestion
What the Game needs is a General Discussion forum thread for all platforms that TSW 3 is in. TSC has this feature and the TSW 3 feedback forum can be renamed as TSW 3 general discussion. For General discussion it needs to have the flair PC Xbox Playstation to know which platform is the forum user is talking about
Lets just name it after TSW, as a franchise, rather than just TSW3. Firstly, that also gives people a place to discuss TSW2020 and TSW2, and secondly, DTG wouldn't need to rename the forum when they release TSW4. Not sure I understand you correctly, but are you suggesting a seperate "General Discussion" forum, in addition to the "TSW 3 General Discussion" forum? What kind of general discussion, not TSW related, do you expect that can't be posted in the already existing "Off Topic" forum? As for platform tags; I personally expect platform-specific topics to be few, and I fear tags would be misused often, causing more harm than good. People can always just type out their platform in the topic title, if they can be bothered thinking about a good topic title...
On another note, may I suggest getting rid of the "Train Sim World 3" tags in the Suggestions forum? There's little point in suggesting something for TSW2020 or TSW2, and the topics suggesting something that's not related to TSW are probably even fewer. In my opinion, these tags are just making the forums harder to read without adding anything useful.
Sometimes it's helpful to know if an issue is version specific. For example, TSW2 routes that are TSW3 compatible have some issues that are only on TSW3, but were not issues on TSW2.
I agree that labels should be used with moderation, and only when required. The labels should also be short: why use “Train Sim World 3” when “TSW3” can do the trick.
It seems a good idea. It would better if it was also possible to just ask Matt or anyone else what's on for fixing or developing. A special forum before every stream?
I'd rather not have pc merged with consoles, i don't want to have to scroll past loads of unrelated posts.
