Petition For An Apology From Dtg As Well As A Pledge For More Transparency In The Future

It's an Xbox Series X. I jokingly inquired with Microsoft earlier this year whether I had a dud system as every game runs perfectly except for TSW3 content. They put it back to the developer releasing content this way

 

I can only agree on Xbox. It was my worst TSW experience. I loved it on PS4, hated it on Xbox Series S and again love it on PS5. And the issue certainly isn't the Xbox hardware but a DTG issue.

 

As someone who exclusively plays Train Sims on PC, as to me personally it feels like the most faithful simulation experience, out of curiosity, is there any genuine difference in experience between PlayStation and Xbox gameplay other than how the controller feels in your hand?

 

There is an audio issue that ruined the entire TSW experience for me. I don't know if you have ever noticed when the engine sounds like a sample? On Xbox all the trains sounded like that almost the entire ride. If I hear such a thing I can't let it go, it's almost like misophonia.

I think it has something to with MS using their own audio format.

 

What have DTG done wrong?. At the end of the day, yes there are bugs, and there are issues, however nobody is forcing anyone to buy DTG products if they do not wish to buy them, but as DTG are like any other company, they bring out new products, but like other products we buy, nothings perfect, they have to make a profit, and bring out new and exciting products to keep the revenue coming in.

 

It's weird to see different perspectives. Others have commented that the series X ran it better than PS5. I guess it's just an oddball program. If you're lucky to have it running well on your chosen platform then you've won the TSW roulette lol

 

I believe train simulation does invoke an emotional response. When playing the game people can feel the joys and satisfaction of working the trains and enjoying the visuals without any kind of narrative storyline. Add to that the investment in time and money people put into such a hobby and the connection becomes deeper. To have expectations, promises or however you call it yanked out from under you and developers perceiving to shrug you off as "oh well ha ha just give us more money and we'll give you that patch you wanted", I think that's what's getting to people and why you see such backlash. I mean this doesn't happen with all games. I seriously doubt people would care as much if Shower With Your Dad Simulator was abandoned quickly after release.

 

I'm not talking performance, I was on series S so it's no reference point for performance. Don't know if Xbox Series X has less stutters than PS5 but when you have stutters and on top of that noises that should not be there I'm done. Stutters I was used to. On PS4 on TSW2 some of the trains had also this bad audio thing but on PS5 I only noticed the same noise only with LGV and even there that noise is not as loud as an Xbox.

 

I think you might have a point. Perhaps its to do with the fact that for many of us this hobby is the space we go to in order to relax, unwind and spend some time doing something inconsequential. Anything that intrudes on that then has a deeper effect as its disturbing of that.. Ive certainly noticed that Im far more irritated by various issues in TSW's public face than any other game that I own and that which also has its issues. Maybe its an expectation thing- DTG talk the talk but often fail the walking bit. Who knows. Perceptive observation though.

 

The problem with TSW is that the game gives you a lot of time to reflect on the game. Other games keep you so busy that you forget what bothered you five minutes before. If something bothered you at the start of a service it will still bother you when you finish the service.

 

Another good point!

 

I dont want to start another new thread so might as well stick it here. Does anyone know if this FAQ list is going to be updated as we go?
Train Sim World 4 FAQ : Dovetail Support (freshdesk.com)

 

Yes probably after the streams

 

But no one of the malcontent players thinks updated passengers already is worth the price of the special edition? Really no one?

 

Yes TSW is like DCS. Not a game but a simulator from A to Z. Ok for some of you it's not a simulator. "Look the M7A is too overpowered ! Look this isn't realistic ! Look DTG have failed to make this true to life again" You may not agree but TSW is a simulator in it's "hearth"

It's not perfect but it's main goal is to duplicate the real world on your PC. Train Sim World and Train Simulator are both "games" for passionate people who like trains and driving them.

 

Nah. Until real people get their hands on the game and try it out, you won't really know if passengers were truly fixed. Like previous versions, you may end up disappointed again.

 

Not sure why they should appologize, but i agree with the point with the hoses. DTG fail totally to connect main reservoir hoses on british locos, Some connect, some dont..., just keep it separate and let the player connect them.

 

Can I have a public apology for the time taken to read this nonsense please?

 

Probably. But then we can't say they did not try. For me it's pure based on principle. I'm an advocate for vote with your wallet. Have been saying this already forever. I asked a lot of these changes. Yes I can be very stubborn and say they did not fix stutters but I'm voting for what I see as DTG's answer to a lot of complaints. That's why I voted with my wallet and bought TSW4.

I know this is a DTG product so a lot can go wrong. But DTG is not after my meager fifty something euros. They are probably looking towards a much larger sum. How many routes does DTG make every year? TSW 4 will decide if they will get all of that money or just 50% from a PSN sale.

 

MFW (My face when) people complain about an unreleased game nobody is forcing them to buy.

 

Your face is the Elizabeth Line logo? lol just kidding

 

Im mindful of the difficulty of trying on the one hand to express support and appreciation for the creators of TSW who undoubtedly work extremely hard on delivering the best they can against criticism for the background against which they find themselves working. Ultimately though our relationship with DTG, its employees and its products is transactional. Its worth bearing that in mind.

 

already been said before but;
a big issue is that there are bugs in old versions of tsw that wont be fixed unless you buy the lastest (tsw4). "not forced to buy it" but you will end up having to buy it if you want a chance of things you paid for to work

 

Indeed but me and I guess probably everyone on this forum has indirectly said to DTG repeatedly "spend more money". Everything must be better, better features, better quality, .... for me the upgrade price is the bill we get presented. More people need to realise this. Sure you don't need to pay the bill before you try it but until we have seen what we are paying for you can't say the bill is too high and that's what I hear a lot and really don't understand.

 

To be fair, that's a seperate and unrelated thread I created a long time ago, but I agree either way and will stand by it still. Different connection types during coupling should be seperate actions.
I think it's actually pretty symbolic for the thing I'd like to see most personally in the future other than guard mode, which is dynamic failures.
I feel like currently there is really no need to monitor your locomotive other than direct driving related information, and currently speaking, TSW is far too "fool-proof" shall I call it.
Not that that's necessarily a bad thing when you're just casual or just don't want it right now, but I would prefer to be able to turn off that failure free experience where nothing ever goes wrong when I want to.

 

Yeah so, first, I'm personally not a big fan of "vote with your wallet" because the value isn't the same for every person. For people that have it tighter, €35,- is a LOT more than for someone who has their needs met and actual money to spend. So their considerations aren't the same.

And also, it's a bit about faith.
DTG have failed to deliver before, and if the TSW3 upgrade to TSW2 is anything to go by, especially because it's improvements that have been crammed into less than 1 year of development, that doesn't give much hope either.
With that said, if they'd just shown us exactly how much of an upgrade TSW4 is over TSW3 (supposing it is indeed everything that radical new experience I kept mentioning), and started out with that to why it's a full new version, they'd have sold it a lot better.

Instead, to me it came over a bit like this: "Hey guys, it's barely been 1 year, yet we're re-releasing the same game with some minor graphical upgrades, exactly 1 prominent new feature (sandbox), the editor which was promised years ago, and some technical background stuff! Anyways, if you wanna keep support for the game, you must buy it and this is anything to go on we might do the same thing again next year!"
Not saying that's literally what happened, it's a bit hyperbolic, but it's about how the message was received, which could be entirely down to just them doing a poor job of properly marketing WHY this all needed to be packeged into a full new game.

 

It's indeed impossible to break the engine or really mess up. When I started using no assits in F1 I could not even get 1 lap out of the car. But how easily is it to brake a train these days? Ain't those things like planes where almost nothing can go wrong because the computer takes over?

 

How does that argument even float? If €35 is a lot of money for you this is a bargain if you wanted to spend money on TSW. If you did not want to spend €35 on TSW what's the problem? What if they announced Rush Hour 2 or 3,5 or whatever some people wanted it to be called what would make the difference? The bundle would also have costed €35

You do realise a lot of people are discontent because DTG didn't force users to buy new hardware for TSW4?

 

Not really. Though it depends a little bit on the train as well, obviously.
Actually, even in planes, a lot might be broken, but as long as nothing from the Minimum Equipment List is inoperative the plane is still perfectly safe to fly, as well as there's redundancy in place for a lot of the systems.

I've been on broken trains multiple times actually. Though of course, with the implementation of a dynamic failure system, I'd also like an option for frequency as well as max severeness (like flight simulators already have btw)

An example of something that went wrong recently on a train I was on was a door malfunctioning.
The door was closed physically, but it didn't register in the cab as "all doors closed", so he went by the doors until he found the inoperative one and manually cut its connection after manually confirming it to be properly shut. So the train continued with an inopenable door.

I remember a story posted by someone I know who's a train driver where the EP (Electro-Pneumatic) brakes failed, and he had to drive without them, which is more annoying, but still servicable.

Had some kids throw rocks on the tracks once which required an emergency stop (we still hit the rocks) and the driver had to check the wheels for damage.
Currently there's never a situation that would require an emergency stop either, unless it's scripted like one of the Isle of Wight scenarios. But you can prepare for those. So it'd be nice for that too.

 

Is closing a malfunctioning door not part of a scenario somewhere or was that a bug? I don't remember. Sure assists off is fine. But I think I would turn them on as I think such stuff as malfunctioning doors will become annoying for me very quickly. But I can see how some people like that. Lot's of people on here like that kind of reality. I would be like "DTG fix the doors for god sake"

 

Because the difference with Rush Hour is that the base game was still supported because it was a seperate bundle.
This way, if you don't buy the route pack, you don't have TSW4 either, and you don't have support anymore for TSW.

If you already have TSW(3), and weren't planning on spending money on TSW currently, especially if you don't find the routes in the pack appealing, you're still gonna have to spend €35, which could be a lot depending on how strapped for cash you are currently, to just keep support for TSW with some upgrades that feel like they're just marginal.
Sure, free roam is great, but just free roam, when the core driving experience doesn't feel significantly more immersive doesn't really warrant a new game. Though it is a really good feature still, I will say that.
So basically, for those people, you'd be paying essentially €35,- for just an update and a new feature.

 

It is part of a scenario somewhere yes. Don't remember the route, but I do remember it was a 377. East Coastway if I recall right.
Similar with what I just mentioned on how there's never any real need for an emergency brake other than that one scenario on Isle of Wight if I recall right, where there's something on the track.

That's part of the problem for me though. I don't like scenarios because they're scripted.
It's fun once, but if you already know the door's gonna break or there's gonna be an object on the rails, you can prepare for it and the fun is gone.

Of course you raise a good point of it becoming annoying, which is why a frequency and severity selector is very important, as well as introducing a variety of failures at once, so you can't always just assume it'll be the doors again. Could also be you're losing air.
Some flight sims or seperate planes have a default setting of 1 fault per 10h of flight. Which I believe is fairly realistic (not necessarily major faults. Just A fault. Could be as little as a malfunctioning wiper) And you can edit the time between faults. So you can have a lot, guaranteed one per session, or just VERY sporadic.
Or of course just off, if you just feel like casual driving without distractions. Or maybe failures just aren't your thing. Which is of course fine too.

 

What does it really mean that legacy routes are being supported in TSW4? Are you expecting that many updates to legacy routes in the short term? I think we will see a lot of TSW 4 updates (or in an alternative universe Rush Hour 2 updates) and a lot of new routes that will also need updates. I rather see upgrades to legacy routes than updates. Can you imagine that an update to Dresden would mean you had to drive the vectron on TSW2 specs?

 

Btw, come to think of it. Other than what I'd already mentioned of a possible obstacle on the track, a lot of different things can happen outside the train itself too.

If DTG could ever get to get a more genuinely dynamic signalling system to work, which I do believe they did have some progress towards, though still not there yet, then maybe dynamic signal failures could perhaps be simulated as well, if you toggle it on of course.
Wherein the simulator will randomly choose a block to assign signal failure to and put it out of commission, rerouting incoming trains through the other side and perhaps even being able to generate other platforms in such cases on the same station, dynamically bottlenecking the traffic, causing delays and a more realistic driving experience.
Same with if they dynamically fail an AI train that the game can either simulator just causing a bit of delay before having resolved the issue, or by routing you and all traffic around it as well.

There's plenty of possibilities with such options.

 

This is a nice example of what I mean. This is truly great stuff for TSW and I agree it should be in there but if that was the kind of improvements TSW4 had given. Let's say totally hardcore, everything for the hardcore simulator enthousiast I wouldn't have been that happy. I would have said "make your game accessible before you start overloading us with even more frustrations" and I probably would have made a grand exit with much fanfare.

But DTG should look really look into that because being accessible is not all that makes a good game.

 

Not necessarily.
Speaking from how I would like to see it. I don't mind legacy TSW routes falling somewhat behind as they get older.
After all, open up a TSC route from the early 2010's and one made in the 2020's, and you can definitely tell which one is older, and that's ok.

Do I like that they're trying to update older routes? Sure I do.
But as long as already existing content is maintained to the degree that it's without significant bugs and remains playable. I don't mind it if the older routes don't make use of newer features aside from a few core ones such as free roam.

If the devs feel like an old fan favorite from TSW2020 needs some love I don't even mind if they do a full remaster of the route fully up to current route standards with a new train and rerelease the new version for a slightly reduced price (like how rivet did for its own isle of wight modern version)
Like I'd actually love if they remade Hagen - Finnentrop but actually extended it to cover the original TSC Hagen - Siegen line and perhaps with the much requested IC cab car this time.
Would be worth a full route price even if you'd ask me.

 

Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean?

From the way I understand it, I largely agree here.
I really would like for systems like this to make their way into the game, and given it would actually make for a radically new driving experience, I would feel satisfied if they did package this as a new version of the game, especially if they combined it with timetable guard and train manager modes and a graphics overhaul.

But you're right, they would've gotten critique, and rightfully so, that they should first finish fixing the current issues in the game before starting to make completely new modes and features.
Though to me, that's really just an argument that they simply weren't ready yet for a new version of the game.

 

I think TSW could be way more user friendly. There is a good post somewhere on this forum on how a new user grows into an experienced user. Very funny to read. The flow for a new user is weird as you stay a noob for a very long time. That's being addressed in TSW4. If it's any good we will see. That's not stuff you and I will use. I will test out beginner mode to see how it works but it's stuff I and most of the users don't need. But I think it's good they put it in for new users. It's stuff I asked when I started out and probably a lot of us did when we first arrived here because we couldn't get a train moving and could not figure out that a door was still open but it was not mentioned in the instructions of the tutorial.

 

That sounds like an interesting read. I suppose you don't have it linked somewhere, or have a few keywords on how to find it?
It's been so long for me since I started train simming, I barely remember what it's like. Though I do remember being a child and having a hard time catching on. But that's already literally about 20 years ago since I first started playing MSTS. (good memories)

Frankly though, personally I'm not entirely convinced yet on how DTG went about their solution to have TSW be a more responsive playthrough.
It's a great feature for newer players, I definitely agree, and in that sense it's a great addition, but as you mentioned, I already played HUDless, only using it for routelearning occasionally.
The way Matt described it "You can't just put up a YT video on the background anymore as now you'll actually be having to pay attention instead of just waiting for the counter to reach 0" doesn't really apply to the advanced playerbase that actually does have routelearning experience like us.
For players like us, the system as I described with dynamic delays and failures both on your own train as well as AI, and dynamic immediate response items, such as item on track (not game over if you hit it without E-brakes on, but definitely point retraction) would actually mean that we too actually have a dynamic experience and now actually need to pay attention!

I don't remember who it was that made that critique, but it is generally unfortunately true.
If you've done a certain kind of service to either end of the route, you've essentially had all services.
Sure, dynamic weather does change things up a little bit, but it's still largely predictable that way.
By utilizing the features I just described you actually make it so that possibly everytime you boot up a service, even if it's the exact same timetable service you did yesterday, it might be a genuinely very different experience based on how circumstances behave. More than just changing the weather dynamically at least. Even though that's not a bad thing still (I'd just which I could choose for the weather to not change AS much as it does now)

 

Maybe the best way to describe that is that TSW feels a bit like it's a bit too much in the middle on that.
It's just a bit too harsh and advanced for complete beginners to get into, which is definitely helped by being made more userfriendly.
But than at the same time on the other side, for the advanced userbase, it's again too fool-proof and arcade-like, protecting us too much to feel like a true simulator experience, where I'd wish to be able to actually have to have a use for proper brake checking procedures and stuff instead of just roleplay.

 

Well this thread has been good for a laugh

doesn’t look like the petition is going too well

carry on

 

I don’t agree with your poll, but I do respect your attempt to keep it civil and polite. +1 for trying to keep it even and real.

 

Also something else to consider . . . Health

Vastly extended periods of sat in one position, gaming, typing or working at computers can lead to life changing Repetitive Strain Injury, Tendon degeneration, and chronic pain. Prolonged micro-trauma within the soft tissue ( tendon, ligament, muscle and fascia ) can cause tightness, inflammation. If this is not dealt with swiftly, can lead to all sorts of major issues. Poor posture puts strain on the neck and back and then can often develop what we fall Referred Pain. Example - Pain in the wrist caused by an issue in the neck or shoulder is one example. Take regular breaks, get up and move around, do some light stretches and warm ups before each session, eat healthy and get some half decent exercise each day.

Small ache in your thumb after gaming? Neck aching ? Lower back pain? Don’t ignore it - deal with it early before it becomes a permanent issue.