PC Train Sim World Playtesting

Heavy Haul wants to chat...

Go to a tunnel.

The end.

 

Anthony, with all due respect, posts like the one you've just made make you seem completely obtuse, whether that's deliberate or not I won't speculate.

It's admitted by DTG that the PZB is broken on Rapid Transit, DTG have also stated that they have no plans to correct it for Rapid Transit, this is despite having corrected it for the RSN DLC. So by DTG's own admission Gascan's point Number 1 is correct.

 

Just because everything doesn’t get fixed, doesn’t mean that nothing does. Every dlc has had several patches. And more will come.

 

One thing that fundamentally needs changing is the communication on these forums. It's so inconsistent. Some days you will get a reply from a developer, other days you won't hear a single thing. Sometimes for days, if not weeks.

A year ago, I created a thread which asked members of this game whether they were satisfied with the communication from DTG on these forums. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/poll-how-satisfied-are-you-with-dtg-communication.3422/

As you can see, the majority of users chose bad. Below the middle line, satisfactory, and two below good.

Now if you'd ask me has anything changed since then, I'd honestly have to say no. Whilst communication can be good on some days, its just far too inconsistent for my liking. In fact it almost seems to be a part-time thing rather than a full-time position.

Resources are clearly stretched to the absolute max which is having negative effects.

 

A simple question asked over a week ago still not resolved.

When asked which trophies were fixed with the last update after being reminded was 'we'll share this info IF and when we get the list'?!

IF!! how difficult can it be to get hold of this list, aren't they in the same office?
Or does this list actually exist?

 

The issue is that the community manager (a singular employee) is stretched across 2 franchises and a multitude of community platforms for each, whilst in addition being a new hire who is still learning the ropes and familiarising himself with the company and the game.

As I understand, he is responsible for:

• Facebook Content
• Facebook replies
• Twitter
• Twitter Content
• TSW Steam Forums
• TSW DTG Forums
• TS19 Steam Forums
• TS19 DTG Forums
• Steam Communications
• Patch Notes
• General moderation
• Twitch Streams
• Twitch Moderation
• Youtube
• Discord
• Delivering feedback and user reports to the devs
• Stat tracking and analytics (for both franchises)

And additional behind the scenes stuff. This is a whole lot of work and it's going to be tough to juggle, especially so when you're technically acting as community manager for 2 independent franchises.

Dimitri and previously Luke have done fantastically considering the circumstances in my opinion and I'm sure Dimitri will grow into the role as he gets used to the new environment and sim genre as a whole.

 

Yet DTG staff can still find the time to chat on Discord (as I type)! !

But not on there own forum..

 

It was explained there was staff sickness on Discord so “we’re not to expect much this week”, I quote.

That’s fine but why it was only explained on an unofficial forum and not a word on here is just very wrong. It almost puts these forums into no use. We get more information on Discord than we do on here.

 

It appeared to be more difficult than you may imagine. Which is definitely a thing to pay more attention to moving on into the future updates. I don't like not being able to get that info either.

 

I'll quote part of my post from this thread several months ago: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...ity-manager-doing-better-than-the-last.13079/

The situation still hasn't changed. The management at DTG is appalling and if it wasn't for the fact they effectively have a monopoly on train simming games, TSW and DTG as a whole would have ended up sharing the fate of Flight Sim World.

TrainSim-Dmitri seems like a competent chap, but if he's not given any infomation and the management are telling him daft things like 'we don't release patch notes until after updates are released', there's not much he can do to improve the situation. Thus he'll have the same experience as the previous Community Managers, where he's stuck between a rock and a hard place until he becomes frustrated enough that he seeks employment with a company which conducts itself in a more professional manner.

 

Despite the misconceptions that are present among some users on this forum, there are still plenty of valid points being expressed. I don't think there is anything stopping us from improving in certain areas, including posting timely patch notes and being a bit more open about our development. Don't forget that there are many business-related issues that often stand on our way (that doesn't relate to patch notes, of course). But I am certain there are areas for improvements.

Just make sure you do not overlook those through the lens of negativity that is quite common here.

 

Negativity is largely because of your lack of dialogue.

 

It's DTG as a whole. Dmitri is new to the company, so I hope that he is looking to improve communication and not continue down the same path that created this "lens of negativity" in the first place.

There's not nearly enough communication. I'm not saying you have to write an article all the time, but a list of things that the team is working on will suffice. Here's an example of what you could communicate to us.

• Our engineering team has begun creating the Simugraph blueprint for the next DLC's locomotive.
• We have overcome a major hurdle in the public version of the TSW editor.
• Some performance optimizations are being developed that should improve performance once implemented.

Notice how those example statements are vague enough not to violate internal security but are descriptive enough to keep the public informed as to what the hell the team is actually working on?

The problem is that there is almost zero communication. We don't know what the team is working on at all. That's the problem. Fix it.

 

Let’s face it, DTG will never improve their communication. This is how it is and how it always has and will be.

You can have whatever community manager you want but at the end of the day it’s the people higher up which control everything. The people lower down are just puppets if you like.

They have an obsession of keeping everything super secret and quiet and have zero transparency.

There’s nothing to tell us how bug fixes or other things are being fixed or worked on. The Studio Update article, the one thing per month which tells us how things are going, is ironically delayed.

It won’t be until when third party comes on the scene for TSW which is when we’ll actually receive some proper communication and customer service. It’s exactly the same for TS1 and a new product is not going to change DTG’s ways.

 

It’s delayed because of illness, and never say never. Dimitri said he will try to improve communication.

 

I wish Dovetail live looked something like this. I know that Eagle Dynamics is kind of a model company when it comes to treating their community but DTG should try to get at least close.

 

Which there’s was absolutely no mention of anything at all of that on these forums?

It just highlights one of many communication problems with DTG.

 

It took a bit a digging like trying to find a needle in a hay stack but here it is.

Hi Digital Draftsman,

Apologies with the delay with patch notes delivery - James, who is usually responsible for creating and publishing articles in our live section, had to take a couple of days off due to health concerns. We always aim to get the patch notes released immediately after the update is live, so this case is an exception rather than a rule.

The team responsible for Dovetail Live is completely different from the QA team. We have released an update for consoles one week ago, and three weeks ago for PC. More updates are coming for TS1 and for TSW when they are past all QA procedures.

TrainSim-Dmitri, Tuesday at 1:17 AMReport
#3+ QuoteReply

 

Correction: the whole forums need fixed. There is a lot of A) trolls and B) people that don't really care about what they're typing. This is extremely true in the proposal section of the forums. Some sort of STG moderation or a clearer set of rules which are enforced would be greatly appreciated for sure.