Dovetail Games Has Successfully Lost Me As A Customer

Criticism and feedback aren't the same thing.

Go back to school and come back when you can comprehend English. - that's some feedback for you.

Your grasp of the English language is zero - that's criticism.

 

Why are people on this forum so toxic to each other?

 

If you cannot handle someone giving their opinion then why read it?

Constructive criticism IS feedback. A decent software company always welcomes feedback good and bad. No software will advance with simps saying how good the game is. Flaws need to be pointed out if you do not like it then that seems like a 'YOU' problem.

As for the insults, drop it and keep it civil for the benefit of others. It is strange that some of the most toxic people on this forum are the fanboys.

It might help to stop posting inane messages and go look at something else then the thread will die, no need to lock anything.

 

Insults? Where is the insult I was offering constructive feedback and criticism. Precisely like how you defended the OP giving DTG feedback in calling the quality.

Now either both are insulting or neither are, you can't have your cake and eat it.

 

This is about to be a long one, please bear with me…

DTG is not losing me as a customer at all. In fact, I’m still active on the forums and play the game a lot. However, the lackluster DLC releases since TSW3 came out last September (and frankly also many of the late TSW2 DLCs after Dresden-Chemnitz in early 2022) have ended up motivating me to explore more of the older DLCs and appreciate the polish and quality that is simply not there in the newer releases. For example, I play lots of West Somerset, Northern Transpennine, Tees Valley and Ruhr Sieg Nord now - all of those are routes I would have never expected to be giving a proper try if you’d have asked me a year or so ago.

It’s truly a shame because almost every route that has come out for TSW3 has been potentially interesting to me. But unfortunately, the quality (except for Niddertalbahn, which I bought on release day) and post-launch support has just not been there.
For example, I saw Linke Rheinstrecke on sale on the PlayStation Store a few weeks ago. Due to the higher price tags nowadays, the routes are still pretty expensive even on discount, but I nevertheless thought about it quite a bit. I ended up deciding I would buy the route once the first post-launch patch had arrived. It’s now about a month later and that patch is still nowhere to be seen… I think that one example describes my frustrations perfectly. We’ve got seemingly finished updates all over the place that are not getting released for some reason. Many routes that came out months ago are still on their “1.0” versions, so to speak. This all reminds me of the TSW2 days where some preservation crew updates had to wait an entire year to be released.

So many of the more recent DLCs are seemingly being neglected, but that also doesn’t mean older content is being looked after.
Peninsula Corridor’s and Oakville’s new timetables have been held back by a UI issue since mid-2022, but that hasn’t even been looked at yet because everyone responsible for it is apparently busy with the Add-Ons manager… but we haven’t gotten any news or updates for that since it came out for PS4 months ago. See? It’s all a very complicated and incomprehensible mess.

We’re deep in the “we’re reducing new DLC releases and focusing on releasing fixes” period right now, but no improvements are seemingly being made. The only concrete communication regarding upcoming patches is from Skyhook, a third-party developer.

I’m not one of those doomsday guys that’s predicting TSW to fail. In fact, I’m having tons of fun playing the game. I just think that unoptimized processes (lack of internal communication/prioritization) and faulty decisions in the background (focusing on new content over developing/releasing fixes) continue to prevent the franchise from reaching its true potential.

 

I have been here since the very beginning and can state the forums were not always in such a state. Many of us come over from the Steam Forums for what is now TSC since they had deteriorated to a very toxic state. I was hoping these would not follow in the same path. There are some very helpful people in these forums, but unfortunately the signal to noise ratio has become such they are hard to find and are usual drowned out by threads such as this.

My two cents to stay on topic -- The OP is entitled to his opinion... I do not have to agree with it nor do I need to refute it. I have my own opinion which suits me fine and is probably of little interest to others. I do hope the OP finds something he finds satisfying for his entertainment.

 

Wow, you do not recognise your own insults and the OP wasn't insulting anyone he just thought the quality was a bit shitty. In 2023 you can't handle the word 'shitty'? It is hardly a nasty insult and again did not insult anyone directly unlike yourself. If you find the game perfect then good for you but what are you doing here? Go play the game.

As a suggestion READ the second paragraph of the message above, it will help you.

 

That wasnt an insult, it was a suggestion. Clearly your teachers failed you first time around.

And calling someone's work shitty is insulting.

 

If I weren't to read it, I wouldn't know their opinion... Pretty illogical statement there.

Ignoring that, I am more than fine with people criticing the game as they see fit. I think - and will shout this to the hilltops - that if it isn't constructive, it's useless, apart from that, I couldn't care less what people think.

What I don't like, is people brandishing terms like "Fanboy" to try and belittle people other members who have a positive opinion of the game. It should be considered utterly unacceptable on these forums, because as soon as the word comes up threads crumble into flame wars. It's only purpose is counter reasonable discussion with insults. (Then the same people, ironically, go on to complain about people "shutting their views down." Funny, isn't it?)

 

I think people who use the word "fanboys" have little argument to make or find it so irksome that there are actually people enjoying the product, they then resort to pejorative insults in desperation. I have been called a fanboy and similar "insults" many times yet I have been critical plenty of times, but I try and be balanced as overall I enjoy TSW but there are things which irritate me and there are things which just shouldn't be happening in my option.

There are some on here who never have anything positive to say but suddenly turn up when there is a negative thread so they can join in. I wonder why that is? Why hang around a forum for a product you can't abide?

I have some sympathy with the OP's argument although I don't agree with it wholly but using that word in particular is not constructive and belittles the argument being made.

 

Some people need to take a step back and re-evaluate.
You're arguing over a game, where you drive digital trains.
Grow up FFS.

 

If he thinks the work is 'shitty' he is entitled to call it out. Your on about my teachers when he did not criticise anyone personally. My football team has been shite for months and I call them out on it but I would not go anywhere else. If you spend money on a product then you are entitled to an opinion on it in my book whether you like it or not.

Was that aimed at me? I used the term 'fanboys' to explain a point.

I think TSW2 is a good game and one of the better train sims out there but it annoys the hell out of me that this game could be the much, much better imo. I like listening to all opinions on this forum good or bad if they are valid and like you I too have sympathy with the OP with some of his points but some of his criticism is unwarranted imo of course.

 

He's entitled to criticise it, he's entitled to give feedback.

No one is entitled to just throw insults about the standard of a route, which despite your blinkered view is what he did.

 

It was aimed at people who use pejorative terms to try and belittle someones point of view and invalidate it. If you call someone a fanboy then you are basically saying that their point of view is invalid because they only have good things to say and are not objective. I have been called a fanboy yet I have made many posts and threads criticising decisions made which I don't agree with and comment when I find things amiss.

 

I mean if you take anything in that light then it's pointless.

"You're arguing about some people who sit in a room and shout at each other"
"You're arguing about some guys who kick a ball around"
"You're complaining about a letter on a piece of paper"

I'll leave you to guess what those three refer to.

 

I ran over 700 services in 2023 to date. Which equate to about 4.7 services a day on average with an average duration of 56 minutes, so over 650 hours of game play and covered nearly 24,000km/15,000 miles in game. Not sure I could play any more then I already do.

(Yes I'm a nerd with a love of excel so log everything, and some MH issues which makes leaving the house near impossible for days on end)

 

You do realize that giving criticism whilst providing feedback as to why is the same exact thing. The issue seems to be that it's feedback that you don't seem to like

 

Except this is a niche within a niche within a niche.

 

So? It's still something worth discussing. You could argue anything is a Niche within a Niche within a Niche if you push it.

 

Don't you just love a little nicheception, for that real niche so deep and absure that absolutely nobody has ever experienced it......

 

you seem to have an issue with self perceived insults

yet have replied in 3 separate posts, stating another member cant comprehend english, their teachers failed them, and that they have a wrongful blinkered view on a topic…

Edit: Grammar

 

You can't really have a "wrongful" view in this conversation because the two topics are:
A. Subjective (about the quality of the game)
Or
B. Chaotic (this arguement going on, with no rights or wrongs, just pathetic flaming)

 

not me who said you could/couldn’t, that’s the third post I’ve seen where the member I replied to seemed to directly insult then strike down/dismiss at a point of view from another member.

 

Yeah the white knights have arrived.

 

And thats the issues dtg have they just push out poor quality dlc and then have the audacity to say that when you dare to tell them you don't like it , but its fine they have the money already

 

Don't like constructive negative feedback, bury your head in the sand deeper and don't read it eh buddy

 

I direct you to this:

Before you start to pipe up.

 

It’s wrong to assume that a majority sides with a particular point of view, unless you know for a fact it does, which I don’t think any member or member of staff could possibly find out, so let’s accept no one here knows what a majority of forum members would think or lack of think on this, besides the OP is regardless entitled to a view not shared by the majority or minority or abstained positions.



My view on this who thing, is that everyone is entitled to praise or criticise or return feedback to DTG (hopefully sensibly) (most likely better constructive but no real issue with brief and not every feedback must comply to constantly suggest ways to improve (companies do know way’s themselves and have put them through when they decide))

if somebody is willing to take time to share why they are perhaps not happy with the game and have decided to withdraw from it or are very happy with the game and are finding themselves playing it more often, that is perfectly acceptable and generally constructively helpful.

If you don’t want to share on that, then that’s no issue and completely up to each and everyone.

I don’t think any games company would ask its player base to not share what they are concerned, put off by or most enjoying about their products. This clearly to me seems shared by DTG, as I’ve never once witnessed them disagreeing on threads of this or removing/locking threads because of this.

 

AtherianKing you've missed the point completely I made then..

I made 3 insults wrapped up as feedback/criticism because thats exactly what the OP did.

You and him took iise at that yet still continue to defend the OP while he's insult the Dev team.

 

That’s quite an absurd connection you made their, both completely different, the OP made no insults to anybody on this forum or any member of staff. And neither did they allude to do so.

One single use of the word “shitty” in the OP and that’s what you compare direct insulting too…

So if i made a post saying something along the lines of “I’ve found some quite shitty bugs that I hope get fixed” I assume from that you would see it as insulting and calling a failure to months of work by the dev teams… I certainly wouldn’t.

even if the OP or anyone else did make such insults (in which they didn’t) why would you want to take a moral high ground and then proceed to do the same… simply press the report button if a member of the forums is verbally attacking a member of staff and allow them to handle it.

 

Bugs aren't a fault of developers, it's just something that happens.

 

They don't add bugs intentionally, in TSW they're usually things that should be there but don't work with the game's systems (Red Light bugs, for example. The services are usually correct, but the dispatcher can't handle them)

 

Of course no developer adds bugs intentionally. But bugs are 100% the fault of the developer, they wrote the faulty code or came up with the faulty design.
I say this as the owner of/developer at Victory Works for nearly 10 years along with two decades of Systems Development experience in "the real world". Bad design/code is 100% down to development and if it's not picked up before release then it's down to QA. Often bugs sneak through, especially obscure ones that require a very specific set of circumstances to occur, but they are still 100% down to the development designs and/or code. Even if an external library causes an error, then that's down to bad implementation or insufficient QA not picking up that it's causing problems.
Sheesh, any developer on my team with buggy code who told me "Bugs are not my fault, they just happen" would very quickly be not on my team! What is it with you kids and responsibility

 

never said they were and never said they weren’t.

My above reply had nothing to with bugs… maybe you miss replied to the wrong person, all fine.

 

Bugs are part of any software development, regardless of its scale.
But DTG has problems dealing with these bugs. I don't know if it's due to internal processes or if the Steam/MS/Sony verifications cause this, but they tend to release one big patch with multiple fixes.

This results in VERY slow handling of the bugs, with outstanding issues waiting several months or even years to be fixed.
Linke Rheinstrekce has missing catenary and water since day one.
MP36 services aren't selectable since TSW3 release.
Tharandter Rampe has had floating tracks since release, never fixed.
The Cement Circle scenario was unplayable for something like 2 years.

2023 is this taken to the extreme, we've had multiple new releases in rapid succession without any patches for these releases, or in some cases months later. Some fixes are stuck in the release pipeline for months.
The current silence is DTG looking back and fixing outstanding issues, but so far we have no timeframe or scope for the fixes.

Bugs are a normal part of any software, but we as customers need to hold companies to a certain standard, otherwise the standards decrease in the name of effectiveness, saving on costs, increasing revenue, and so on.
One can only look at the recent "AAA game releases" and the downward trend of quality at their respective release.

 

I think most of us accept bugs will slip through. It is the obvious ones which are noticeable on streams or when you first play a route which irritate as you wonder how they got through testing.

For me it is how or when bugs are fixed rather than the bugs themselves which are the issue. DTG do get a lot of stick and the mantra "they don't fix bugs" is oft repeated but that isn't true, although some seemingly never get addressed. I do hope future releases get attention for their quality and not their bugs.

 

I was responding to the example you gave, highlighted in bold.

 

Well, weeks ago DTG was looking for new beta testers. (Ok, so far I don't know a single one that has been accepted),

but at least this would help that all chapters and scenarios would be played through before it was published.

At the same time, graphic bugs and the like would also be noticed and reported.

Whereby I stick to it; new routes should be drawn 4 weeks before release (or something similar), then assigned as a "beta key" (which will then be removed by steam) - this would also improve the quality.

However, since DTG, I assume, only selected big YouTubers as beta testers, the topic mentioned here will still be relevant in 20 years. DTG has been focusing on quantity instead of quality for ages.


Pinguinie

 

For me they didnt loose me as customer, i still have a lot of fun with tsw.

But for sure devs all lost me as a loyal backer. As owner / buyer of all dlcs until the ny trenton desaster, it was important for me to see spirit & vision, so i was even ok with a few bugs here and there.

Since tsw3, my impressions are a lower quality on top with a lot of excuses from the dev side. The spark of stopping the "cashflow" on my side are the short cuts on timetables, which is currently the biggest improvement compared to tsc.

If the bits from the 70% sales is helping dtg, good for them. If not, i really dont care.

 

As stated in that reply, that was an example of using the word “shitty” in a random sentence, I wasn’t questioning the origin of bugs.

I was questioning and challenging the understanding of another member in what they call an insult against staff members.

edit: spelling

 

I would not call you that either as I know where you are coming from.

 

Against my better judgement threw my name in the hat. Not heard a thing, yay or nay...

 

Perhaps they may not reply automatically to those who didn’t get into the testing programme

I considered applying myself, but I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to do it with effort, so didn’t, I may eventually apply if the option comes round sometime in the future.

 

I applied too but have never heard anything. I wasn't expecting to get selected tbh I suspect they wouldn't want users who were more active on the forums.

 

Oh dear!!

It looks like all the posters with honest/constructive opinions and decent spelling and grammar are about to be swallowed up by the " black hole " ( otherwise known as the NDA ).

Oh well, Mum's the word, I guess.... Or it will be.

 

I am afraid I missed the opportunity to apply. I was on Holiday in England and Scotland and when I checked the forums and saw the solicitation it had all ready closed. Pity - I spent many years Beta testing scenarios for TSC being developed by Golden Goldsmith Scenarios. Being I have reduced my consulting in half and most is remote any more - I have the time. Oh well, I did really enjoy my jaunt on the West Highland Extension on the Jacobite Express - A real treat for a Yank.

 

Glad you enjoyed your time over here. I have never travelled on the WHEL line although have holidayed in the area.

I am sure there will be more opportunities to apply in the future.

 

Some might view that as a blessing

 

Don't panic, as noted nothing has happened yet and there's not been any communication in the "snail mail" with papers to sign and send back either. Suspect everything still in flux with the Focus buyout.