It's no secret that TSW is a game that is kept alive by DLC. What if DTG will give us one route per year/game chosen by us personally? I propose a simple scheme, which is very realistic and fully controlled by the DTG. Some time after the new game version release, DTG launches a "community choice" poll with 3 steps to vote. 1. Select a country for the future route. The list of countries is offered by DTG itself. This means that unrealistic options for development are excluded. 2. Select a region from the country that won the survey. Again, the options are offered by DTG itself based on its capabilities. This step may be excluded if the country is small enough 3. Select a route from the region that won the survey. And again, the route options are offered by DTG itself, which excludes scenarios that are unrealistic for development. But let's not take away the chances for the others. The country that wins the poll will be excluded from it for the next year. It will be fair. As a result, the community can choose the future DLC. DTG has full control over the survey, including only those regions that they can access to and will be able to collect all the data for development. Also many voters will buy this route, which makes this venture not the most disastrous in financial terms.
Probably the best suggestion since the start of Tsw 5. Would be a bit chaotic at the start but in a long term this would pay off as many important and community favourite railways are missing. Otherwise this concept has been done for years with the Minecraft Mob Vote and these nearly tear the community apart as some votes have a close outcome. On the other hand the winning route wont be the only one to be developed within a year which still offers enough content for others. To not repeat a country every year is probably my favourite step of the 3 mentioned.
Sounds like an interesting idea! Stick a poll choice on the TSW menu or something? A small pop up or whatever then you'd still reach people not on the forums/socials etc
I don't see any benefit personally. The winner would likely either be a modern UK or German route, seeing as they're apparently the biggest markets. Plus, we already get too many of those type of routes as is.
Everything is in the DTG's hands - they may not include in the survey regions that they are already planning to do in the near future.
Not complaining about it. Just that if the aim of this vote is to get a new region in the game, I see UK or Germany pulling a win. If UK wins, something other than another one handled EMU venture would be welcome though
Sounds like a terrible idea. If you knew how much work goes into selecting a route to be made and everything that has to fall into place to make it a reality you would know that they can’t put that amount of work into more options just to have the forum pick one. It would be a huge waste of resources. Quite often the route choices are part of a bigger picture with one route being made so that it can feed others later. It’s not a case of this route or this route let’s have a vote. It’s much more nuanced than that and the people who are choosing what to make know a lot more about it than us. For DTG to get to the point where they know they can make three routes, let us pick one, then scrap the other two would be exactly the wrong way to go about it. That’s after scrapping a potential three routes in two other regions and as many in how ever many other countries to get to that point in the knockout. It just shows how ridiculous the whole thing would be as a concept.
Obviously, if that's all we get, they're going to be the biggest market if there is little choice for anything else. Something like this could be beneficial, and would be a way for DTG to be more transparent around their choices.
I would argue we have got this. In most (if not all) published survey results, East Coast Mainline and West Coast Mainline have been #1 & #2 (not sure on the order)... TSW4... East Coast Mainline TSW5... West Coast Mainline (with the 390 which was also highly requested in it's own right) Also, Wales and "new countries" have both been highly requested and we've seen both, and, again, the Netherlands is an example of a popular pick. A vote is a decent idea but imo it's a case of trusting the process and results will follow, as they have.
The UK would almost certainly be the country chosen and a bus stop route with a toy train would almost certainly be the chosen route So, for anybody from another country, or anyone who doesn't like ultra modern content, it's a non-starter. Just another way of increasing the UK footprint at the expense of everyone else. Fuggetaboutit.
Lots of people, over multiple years asked for WCML south. They were presented with a beautiful big turd created for the most by Rivet Games. This was a project from the heart, a core route for TSW5. Even if we get a choice, is it going to be good.??? Personally I would like to see an Indian route, we had one in TSC, it was a third party route, it was a good start.
If DTG wants to survive they have to do the creation of content through India or China. And control test in Germany. Make less people for marketing and useless articles. Then they are good to go.
Totally agree. Where should this poll take place, if not here on the forum? So looking at the majority of people here (at least the active ones, not the silent readers) seem to be from the UK and prefer commuter routes with as-modern-as-possible rolling stock. Plus, it's the easiest thing for DTG to recreate anyway, considering research. Plus, if some newcomer country like Italy or Czech Republic might be chosen by "the people", there's a whole bunch of new equipment to build along with the route, not just the rolling stock but also the appropriate infrastructure. This automatically makes it less attractive. In the end, a UK route would win almost every poll. Perhaps a German route every 6 years or so, but that's about it.
If the forum members were objective and let their imaginations rule, they would choose a Czeh, Italian or Scandinavian route. Of course, as you imply, none of those would ever be built under current ownership/management. So the whole idea is pointless.
If DTG would seriously consider something like this poll, they might also consider excluding the main countries (which would only be UK, US and Germany at this point anyway) just for the sake of variety. And it would have to be more than just one route, like... three routes, to get more value out of the to-be-created infrastructure and rolling stock. This way, a research trip to the country would also be more viable. But the community would have to commit to getting three routes from country X this year, and none or only one from Germany or UK... and I doubt that many would accept that. Nah... what I would rather like to see from DTG is more support for independent developers creating routes as passion projects. Help them developing, quality-checking and especially releasing their work Many of the homemade routes over in the PC Editor forum look very promising! Granted, most of them tend to be UK or German once again, but there are also some interesting forays into other countries in there
Yes, but I think the main focus on this idea is that countries not represented in the game get voted for to be introduced to TSW. By including UK and Germany, you've basically got a fixed result as they'll win by default seeing as they're the biggest markets according to DTG. Better to leave off the UK, German and US regions from this poll and have it as a vote to introduce a new country to the game. If UK were included, it should be something much more interesting than the standard run-of-the-mill modern route, such as some new steam era content
I disagree about the US content. If you look at most of the threads about US addons, you'll see that it's mostly just a small number of the same users communicate with each other. I'm almost certain that if we were to launch the survey right now with three countries: Netherlands, France and US, then US would end up in last place. And so, if the UK wins in the first year, then in the second year those who voted for it will choose another country. They will most likely choose Germany, but what if not? I even became curious about which country of those already in the game(except for UK) would UK fans choose?
If the poll was set up by DTG, it would risk being steered to a particular route and then it would just be the illusion of choice rather than an actual community choice. If the poll was done badly and just a free for all we’d end up with the TrainyMcTrainFace DLC It’s been said time and time again that the forums are not representative of the wider player base. For these reasons I don’t think this idea has legs.
This is an interesting idea I think should be tested at least once. It would generate a lot of hype around the possible routes, especially if the poll is done in multiple parts like how it's proposed here. I share some of the doubts expressed by others here though, like how DTG could easily "rig" the vote by having an obvious choice being better than the others, or that some licensing/access issue would stop the route from being made after it was announced. Since DTG already take community suggestions into account I don't know how much difference this would bring other than the risk of announcing a product early. It would however still be cool to see a direct poll and it would most likely drive community engagement up.
As someone have already mentioned if the poll is not taking place on the forum, the results may be different. But on the forum - yes, there is nothing surprising here.
I always find that funny when people use that as an analogy when comparing EMU’s with the older generation of trains. Every locomotive feels like a one handled EMU in this game though. You accelerate, you brake. You’re not changing gears lol. (Minus the class 101) I’ll make an exception for her.
One addition problem with this is the development time of a said route, how long will the actual process be from the vote to the final product? Will DTG rush it to make it fit a desired timeline? Leading to a less than optimal route? And what if it takes longer to develop than a normal route, will the players not riot cause they are impatient? This just kind of seems like a bad idea that wont be executed well with TSW and DTG in its current state.
A poll doesn't translate to buys though. A lot of firms have relied on surveying a small group of users and the results haven't been great. An equivalent to Kickstarter might be better, people pre-order a future route to fund development and ensure route sales.
Well, I voted other. I want a nice hilly forested route in the western Czech Republic. Unsilenced “grumpy” 749’s hauling four or five coaches and those dinky little 810 Class 4 wheel railcars (which make the UK Class 142 look like a luxury liner) making an appearance too. Volary to Strackonice via the Hut.
The problem with a poll such as this, is that by and large ends up as an expression of the membership stats of the forum - so if the majority forum membership are UK, DE and US - then those will come out top, so I'm not sure it helps. We use the survey data a lot - we pushed for Dutch route this year because it was the top requested new country in all but one case (and it was second in that case), for example. In the past, we have dropped a feature and reprioritised something else on the back of feedback on the survey. Bottom line, this is already covered in the survey. We pay a lot of attention to them. The questions are carefully asked so as to try and avoid bias in any form, and to allow us to cross-check various things and back up the answers that come in as well. I'll say it one more time - when the survey's come out, make sure you take the time to do them, they matter and we change what we do as a direct result. Matt.
I suggested this because in many forum threads(especially in the roadmap) there are very frequent posts along the lines of "why A and not B?". I understand that many will always remain dissatisfied, but I also see that those who support still do not agree with everynything. I think it would be an interesting experiment to see if they would be happy if they made the choice themselves.
I also voted other. 162/163s, 362/372s electric or 750-755s "Zamračená" diesel ČD would be awesome! I love them, they're so iconic!
I mean, I think we already pretty clearly know the answer is "no". Bottom line, you could involve TSW players in the whole process from start to finish, right down to having them on-site personally recording the rolling stock audio, and many would still be dissatisfied with the resulting routes.
I like the concept actually, though may I suggest a slight tweak to it, that being a vote for already existing routes to receive a refresh, seeing as Liam's great work is coming to an end with GWE, it may allow other routes which are still in a more original condition to receive the treatment that Liam gave to other routes, but officially through DTG, rather than as private projects. Perhaps, to cover costs, it could come alongside a new loco/unit for the route.
Doesn't the dtg questionnaire already ask what countries/routes players would like to come to tsw? I assume this questionnaire is available on the likes of discord, fb etc...?
