Hi There!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by TrainSim-Dmitri, Jan 9, 2019.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Hi everyone!

    I'm Dmitri, I'm the new Trains Community Manager here at Dovetail Games, following Luke's move to new ventures. I will be looking after the forums and I am also one of the lucky people who gets to appear in front of camera on livestreams along with Matt and Adam.

    These forums will be just one of the places to meet me, as I mentioned you will see me on livestreams which we really want to have more often. We will also go on with our regular community activities such as screenshot competitions, adding new things as we move forward. We are playing with a lot of ideas so stay tuned.

    I think it's important for you to know that my background is not in trains, so please give me your support and expertise as I adjust to trains. I will do my best to get to know all of you in the coming months, and to kick things off I would like to announce that we will be running our next TSW livestream on Friday, 18th January, so come along to say hi! Details will follow.

    Looking forward to meeting you on the forums and in our streams very soon!
     
    • Like Like x 18
  2. ragn05

    ragn05 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2018
    Messages:
    242
    Likes Received:
    366
    Welcome!
     
    • Like Like x 2
  3. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Thanks for the welcome ragn05!
     
    • Like Like x 2
  4. MarkusLiberty

    MarkusLiberty Active Member

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2017
    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    152
    Welcome Dmitri! Better start reading up on trains and railways :p
     
  5. The7Train

    The7Train Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2018
    Messages:
    150
    Likes Received:
    66
    We havent heard a single thing about editor for a while, and we were told that after the break we would get something. It is no Janurary 9th, what is going on?
     
  6. Alex01

    Alex01 Active Member

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2018
    Messages:
    380
    Likes Received:
    166
    dont ask here this is TS fourms not TSW
     
  7. ProfCreeptonius

    ProfCreeptonius Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2018
    Messages:
    265
    Likes Received:
    652
    Greetings Dmitri!

    It is a pleasure and an honor to welcome you.

    Prof.

    PS: Is my Russian correct? Добро пожаловать!
     
    • Like Like x 2
  8. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Thank you ProfCreeptonius, pleasure to meet you too.

    This is correct, I appreciate your effort :)
     
    • Like Like x 1
  9. Michael Newbury

    Michael Newbury Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2016
    Messages:
    4,025
    Likes Received:
    3,260
    Welcome Dmitri,

    Welcome to the forums glad to have you as the community manager and looking forward to seeing you and Matt on live streams soon.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2019
  10. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 9, 2018
    Messages:
    10,832
    Likes Received:
    10,482
    Welcome Dmitri! :D

    May I ask what your background IS in that is relevant to the product you're supporting? Obviously there is much more to designing, implementing and most of all supporting a product on multiple platforms outside of the items that are being controlled
    I doubt anyone who was supporting Mario games had expertise in Italian plumbers but there ya go
     
    • Like Like x 2
  11. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Thanks for the welcome ARuscome, it's a pleasure to meet you.

    It's a valid question that you are asking, thank you. I have professional background in gaming and community management. Different products, I must admit, and a different audience, but the direction is similar.
     
    • Like Like x 4
  12. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2018
    Messages:
    541
    Likes Received:
    682
    Welcome.

    On the live-streams I know that there are a lot of people on here who enjoy them and the ability to interact with team.

    For me it’s often a scheduling commitment, the sessions tend to be pretty long and I’m just not that into watching other people play the game. The problem is that so much information is passed out on the live streams, and Discord, that you can get out of the loop if you don’t attend. To me that doesn’t make commercial sense for you. You should want to make the information as widely available as possible.

    If you do have more live-streams, fine, but please look at other ways of informing the community. For example why not canned videos of development updates or ‘how to’ videos? At this point if new entrants want information on how to do things (e.g. the TS1 editor) they’re pointed to content that the community has produced. Some of that is excellent, but some of it is pretty dated. DTG with TS1 64 bit and TSW give the opportunity for DTG to do something more professional.

    I’m sure many will argue that the live-streams contain the information. They may well do but 20-30 minute structured videos, or even ‘highlight’ versions of the live streams might serve a wider audience.

    On not (at this point) being a ‘train person’ unfortunately I think that is going to be a challenge for you. If nothing else I think it’s something of a wider problem for DTG that there might not be enough ‘train’ people on board. In the past I’ve commented that marketing might be more effective if it had more of a train enthuastist slant in it rather than the ‘Wikipedia’ cut and paste that it does now. If you understand trains, it’s easier to see what frustrates people about DTG product features and bugs. Minor details and the correct sounds aren’t unimportant in having a successful product for example.

    Lastly consider having a dashboard showing (at least for recent releases) the number of unique bugs reported, the number confirmed and those that have been corrected and resolved. Not only would it demonstrate to this forum that someone at DTG ‘gets the problem’ it also might help your management understand why, for a product and hobby that has a lot of positive support, DTG isn’t always that well thought of.

    Anyway good luck. Suggest to DTG that they fund a weekend for you to the Railway Museum at York or a good heritage railway. If you catch the bug you’ll be able to understand us strange people far better.
     
    • Like Like x 6
  13. Alex01

    Alex01 Active Member

    Joined:
    Jul 17, 2018
    Messages:
    380
    Likes Received:
    166
    The7Train Really This DTG Community Manager is saying hi and you are asking about the editor ask somewhere else not here
     
  14. Buynot

    Buynot Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 5, 2018
    Messages:
    853
    Likes Received:
    2,505
    Welcome! It's great to have a new community manager! Best of luck to you and your community managing endeavors!
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. StratPlayer62

    StratPlayer62 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2016
    Messages:
    452
    Likes Received:
    506

    I totally agree with the above and you said it probably much better than I could have.

    Welcome aboard. One thing I'd like to say is that people that are into trains are not always the typical "gaming" type person, at least the ones I know aren't. So just a suggestion, along with what has been mentioned earlier, I'd get to know some people that are really into trains, understand why they like trains, and what they look for in a simulator.

    I hope you are able to do a better job of communication with the community than what has been the status quo in the past, honestly won't take much to improve upon it.

    Looking forward to hearing from you!
     
    • Like Like x 2
    • Helpful Helpful x 1
  16. pdxmark77

    pdxmark77 Active Member

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2018
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    103
    Welcome to our niche community! We will teach you about trains, I did not know anything about them and this community taught me alot.

    One thing to know is that the Pacers are the most important train and nothing beats then ;)
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
    • Like Like x 1
  17. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Medellinexpat

    Thanks for the welcome and for your message. I do really like the idea of visiting some events/museums in order to get a better understanding of the trains 'culture', so to speak. I am a bit of a car geek actually, and generally like everything to do with machines, and I am really hoping that you guys will be patient while I'm adjusting.

    We will run our first stream and see if we can somehow get those highlights done. Currently thinking about making notes during the stream in order to get time stamps for relevant questions or topics, and then placing those time stamps in the description, so that you could quickly jump to the topic of your interest instead of watching the whole thing.

    StratPlayer62

    Thanks for the warm welcome. I appreciate the fact that the way it works here is that it's a game built around a hobby, rather than a hobby built around a game, like it usually is in gaming.

    Looking forward to speaking to you too.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  18. pdxmark77

    pdxmark77 Active Member

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2018
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    103
    Taking notes during the steam is not a bad idea, I have thought about doing that and posting the questions/answers on here as not everyone can watch the entire steam.

    I know someone usually does that with the SCS Software Dev stream and it helps alot.

    Hopefully we will see you on Discord soon, we have a nice community going on over there
     
  19. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2018
    Messages:
    541
    Likes Received:
    682
    pdxmark77 out of interest how big is that community on Discord? My concern is that in focusing on Discord and the Live-streams DTG is only reaching a small, hard core (nothing wrong in that), group of people and again commercially I don’t understand that approach. Perhaps the Discord and Live-stream crowd is much bigger than I think?

    I’m happy that Discord has a nice community but is it having any impact? I think most people would agree that the software bugs in DTG published content (a historical issue in TS1 and a real barrier to growth in TSW) is the biggest gripe. Is the Discord group getting leverage in having bugs resolved? If Discord and the Live-streams are the main focus group for DTG are they enabling change? If they’re not aren’t they just chummy clubs?

    One other thing as on TS1 DTG is increasingly just the publisher and not the developer. Why not have the developers on this forum to answer questions about their content and issues people have with them?
     
    • Helpful Helpful x 1
  20. pdxmark77

    pdxmark77 Active Member

    Joined:
    Feb 22, 2018
    Messages:
    76
    Likes Received:
    103
    We have about 300 people or so, it's not huge by all means but there is pleanty of action on there. I view it as an extension to the community, I stay active on here as well.

    The nice thing is that we can talk to some of the content creators and development staff that we really can't on here. They have a NDA they signed of course so there's stuff they can't talk about but it gives you more of an inside view of the workings of the game.

    I welcome everyone to join, it's not everyone's cup of tea of course
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
  21. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2018
    Messages:
    541
    Likes Received:
    682
    pdxmark77 it sounds useful, but does the NDA ‘issue’ prevent discussions about when bugs might be recognized or fixed? If that’s the case where can we talk about those issues? TrainSim-Dmitri didn’t seem to exactly jump at my idea of keeping a dashboard of progress in resolving bugs on this forum.

    On the content creators and developers is that for TS1 or is it just for TSW? My impression was that nearly all new TS1 development (at least new DLCs) is being produced by third party developers not DTG. Are the third party developers on Discord as well?
     
  22. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Medellinexpat don't get me wrong, I'm not brushing off the bugs dashboard idea, I just don't have anything to say about it at this point.
     
  23. Medellinexpat

    Medellinexpat Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2018
    Messages:
    541
    Likes Received:
    682
    TrainSim-Dmitri fine I know it’s early days yet. Your predecessor talked about interfacing with the development team on the issue but there wasn’t a significant improvement at least as I saw it.

    Bugs are a huge issue. On TS1 the community is probably so used to it that it’s no longer a significant derailer for DTG; people sort of accept the situation and much of the issue is with historical DLC. Sure it would be good if things were fixed but addressing the issue going forward would be helpful.

    On TSW I think you’ve a much bigger issue with just about every release having some sort of issue and promised features like trophies not working. I can’t believe it isn’t hurting the roll out of the product. If I was you I’d start there first.
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Helpful Helpful x 1
  24. VION

    VION Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2016
    Messages:
    269
    Likes Received:
    90
    Welcome Dmitri. have a nice and happy time pass on the DTG staff member. I surely watch the next stream on the 28th January only to see your nice face
    Cheers
    Gerard
     
    • Like Like x 1
  25. TrainSim-Dmitri

    TrainSim-Dmitri Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 4, 2019
    Messages:
    973
    Likes Received:
    3,127
    Thanks VION, and nice to meet you too.
     
  26. 749006

    749006 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 10, 2016
    Messages:
    8,421
    Likes Received:
    2,675
    People are complaining that the Editor does not work in 64bit - which I'm sure you will be aware of.

    Some official comment from DTG and what they are doing to solve the problem would be nice

    Peter
     
    • Like Like x 1
  27. ChooChooKeith

    ChooChooKeith Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2018
    Messages:
    293
    Likes Received:
    43
    Welcome!!
     
    • Like Like x 1
  28. LT586

    LT586 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2018
    Messages:
    576
    Likes Received:
    676
    Welcome Dimitri
    Don't mind the expert train enthusiasts I worked in the bus industry and experienced the same upturned nose vibe.

    Great to have a new manager, fresh eyes from outside as sometimes those that know often miss things an ordinary man wouldn't.

    So welcome, thanks for checking the screenshot thread by Alex01 as well
     
    • Like Like x 1
  29. HDE

    HDE New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2018
    Messages:
    13
    Likes Received:
    5
    Welcome, our only concern at this time is really how it goe's with 64bit TS Editor bugfix :love:
    No, it is really the most burning problem we are faced using TS, we are waiting and of course we are patient ...:cool:
     
  30. Daytona

    Daytona Active Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2018
    Messages:
    300
    Likes Received:
    196
    Welcome Dmitri!
    Thanks for the 5XP livestream the other day - as a TS newbie it was good to watch you learning about driving steam locos - the issues that you asked about taught me things. There's so many variables with steam locos, initially I experimented with one variable (cut-off/reverser, fire mass, water level), at a time on a flat section of track and this helped me to learn quickly.

    I'm fascinated by how DTG intend to transition from TS to TSW. Will DTG keep supporting TS until Microsoft make a major change which makes it too expensive to change, then MS can be blamed for ending TS. Until then perhaps TS can be used as an entry level for people like me who do not have powerful enough hardware to run TSW (and will not for another ~5 years). I'd guess a huge amount of goodwill has been built up and TS is at the peak of it's development so it's the correct time to evolve the product.

    I love historic routes such as WLoS and Riviera50s but am interested why there are no European equivalents - ie before 1960. Is it a cultural/demographic thing ?

    I've been surprised at the level of abuse directed at TS/TSW developers - I'd guess a lot of users suffer from Aspergers syndrome, which may explain it, so watch out for that.
     
    Last edited: Feb 18, 2019
  31. ChocoboPete

    ChocoboPete New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 19, 2019
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    2
    Can you sort out the store? I can't buy anything as I can't load the checkout page, when I log in it takes me to a spinning circle. Cheers.
     
  32. Blacknred81

    Blacknred81 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 24, 2019
    Messages:
    5,569
    Likes Received:
    11,839
    Dmitri left the forums a few weeks ago, replying to this over a year old post wont get you an answer sooner.
    https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/moving-on.21798/
     
  33. ChocoboPete

    ChocoboPete New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 19, 2019
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    2
    Obviously I didn't know that but thank you for letting me know. The thread was on page one so I commented, that's all.

    No luck from customer support and running out of options. Been waiting for the pack I want to go on offer and now can't even access the store.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page