Im kind of getting fed up with every new release from DTG getting slated on here.Every launch day the forums fill with 'evil' DTG trying to rip us off etc...in the intrest of balance this is my opinion. I think the quality of each new release has gone up despite the bugs.Graphics now compared to TSW 1 are hundred times better and there are so many new saftey systems and signaling systems now compared to two/three years ago...the new lighting system is fantastic. Look at some of the timetables and variations of traffic on some routes.Look at the attention to detail on some of these locos compared to say WSR relased many moons ago.There are clear improvements.Yes there are bugs..alot of bugs in some cases.. but normally they are mostly sorted out within weeks. Name me another developer who would go back through older dlc released years ago and give them a complete overhaul and update for free!..Boston sprinter (released in 2021) looks fantastic now after another update for example. I can't help think these forums are just used to bash DTG nowadays when I actually think they deserve a bit of praise sometimes for constantly looking at improving the game upon each release.I am certainly enjoying playing it more and more as it continues to develop. I'm not saying they are perfect and all is brilliant,but, let's give then some credit because most of this game,I think, looks a plays excellently.
I agree with most of what you said. Tsw2020 compared to tsw3 now is very different from each other. There's a lot to do in timetable mode. Timetabled services are more varied and numerous. There's many unique rolling stock and routes. Safety and signalling systems have been improved. Graphics are good for the most part. The extra features are nice like the announcements in tsw3. Sounds of the trains are better, especially since working with tsg, Armstrong powerhouse or using recorded soundsets and working with the beta community to get sounds. Lighting could be improved. Sure, it's much better but brights are too bright and darks are too dark. Some routes don't have a lit environments, headlights are weak, no station lights and the nights are pitch black. I absolutely dislike driving in the dark if I can't see anything in front of me. Big shoutout to Joe for the awesome timetables. DTG Matt DTG JD to name a few. The whole team at dovetail have done a tremendous job adding new features and improving tsw
Name me one game that still has the same bugs after one year. I'm very sorry but compared to other game companies game development at DTG is a joke. It would be weird if TSW3 had no graphical improvements over TSW1. Most other games have way better graphics by now because it's already 2023. You wanted just one developer that revisited the game and brought it up to spec? Only one? There are numerous examples of that: CD projekt red. for example released a FREE update to the game that fixed most of the problems. A free update and it's not even called Cyberpunk 2 or 3
Most of AAA games to be honest And they both share a lack of polish and quality control. Compared with TSW1 we are currently getting better content, but the recent releases have had wildly varying levels of overall quality and there is still weird mismatch in "standard features" (the wet platforms, radial motion blur, Rush Hour passengers,...). Sound levels are also all over the place between releases, with some sounds being way too quieter than they should be. This is getting better than it used to be, but still some sounds are really off. The releases are getting better, but also more inconsistent.
AAA games that are left in this poor state are abandoned by the developers. No new DLC every other month like with TSW
Summarising your post, all you are really saying is that TSW3 looks prettier than it's 5 year old predecessor. In your challenge to name a developer that would go over old DLC and overhaul it, I nominate SCS Software, creators of ATS and ETS. They only release one or two DLC a year, which is of high quality when it is released and they are constantly going back and updating older content and adding new vehicles and features for free.
Yes, TSW has come a long way, and a lot of features have been implemented since, such as Creators Club, Scenario Planner, Livery Designer, Multiple Timetables for a route, Dynamic Weather, etc. Those are all great But the inconsistency with DLC, and the quality problems that have come up since TSW 3’s release is what has some people talking. A lot of these issues are the result of cutting corners and rushing DLC. Dovetail doesn’t exactly have a great “reputation” per say. To name a few incidents - The Editor: Saying on stream “make sure to buy a bunch of DLC and build your collection for when the editor releases” to just silently cancel it and never talk about it again - Promising. Yes, promising, that Multiplayer and the Editor Tools to come “soon” in the original game, just to release two new paid games later (TSW 2, TSW 3) - Oakville Subdivision: Where they advertised Hamilton being a huge explorable yard with lots of switching activities, just to cut half the yard at release without telling anyone, the backlash was so great that they had to remove the cut out track from the 2D map. - Flight Sim World. That’s self explanatory of what happened there. To bad they deleted the forums for that. - Initially wanting Creators Club to be paid access through the New Journeys expansion. That was quickly changed to be free after the feedback that got. - The TGV loco pack from Train Sim Classic: Claiming a fix is in the works and close to release, just to have nothing done for 3 years, and for the DLC to be taken off sale and forgotten about. theres a lot more than what I just mentioned. But this is part of the reason why a small percentage of the community are highly critical about their products, because we know the kinda LOVE they’ve pulled in the past.
This is where DTG fail miserably, with them it's quantity over quality. I would much rather see less DLC every year if it meant the quality was vastly improved by having more time to work on the DLC instead of the rush jobs we get now. Release now, maybe patch later is what we currently get, hence I only buy in sales now, I won't be touching BCC and E-G until at least 60% off
Do we really have to be thankful that TSW 3 looks better and has more improvements than TSW 1? It would only be missing that after 5 years everything is still the same! They've improved the game because if they hadn't, nobody would buy it and the franchise would have disappeared, so they had to do it for their own survival. It's quite ironic because many of those improvements that the op is grateful for have been made because the community has been asking for them for a long time. If we had all had a passive and condescending attitude towards DTG's mistakes and decisions, the game would probably be a lot worse than it is right now. One example? After TSW 2 they wanted to throw all the previous routes in the trash and thanks to the community's reaction they had to step back by preserving them and making them compatible. If no one had said anything now we would only be able to play them in TSW 2020 in their primitive state without any improvements and they wouldn't serve to layer the new routes and we wouldn't be able to enjoy the traffic that the op likes so much. So these forums that some people think are only there to criticise are actually good and beneficial for both sides. The company itself often tells us that constructive criticism helps them a lot. I'm sure thanks and nice words on the forums are very welcome in the team, I'm the first to praise them and the external developers when they do a good job. But I'm sure the best thanks I can give them is owning almost all the routes and DLC and having spent infinitely more money on this one than any other video game franchise after more than 30 years as a gamer.
You can really tell when someone is relatively new to DTG. DTG’s issues cycle back over a decade and they still fail at the same things. I’m not sure that making a game look better after 5 years negates DTG’s core failings.
There is literally no sense in hanging around a community if you carry resentments toward the product and company at its core going back 5 years or more. It's a video game, that's all. Every time someone writes out this list, aside from getting an ignore (bye), whatever else they say loses any value. Because you're just loudly announcing "I think this is an awful company, and has been for years, but here I am every day of my life visiting their forums to talk about their terrible product". You've had, according to your long list, fair fair faaaaaaaaiiiiirrr warning that this company will not deliver what you want it to, and you have chosen to remain a customer. The problem in this case lies squarely with you, and all the others stuck on the same rinse and repeat cycle. If every single thing wrong with a new TSW route, big or small, brings out the same old tired debates about the above yawn-fest, then this is a toxic community doomed to spiral into nothingness, the forums are already on auto-repeat, and the never ending tone of negativity has, at this point, turned into white noise, and it's one of the reasons I think DTG pays less attention to this place, rather than more. It is possible to express disappointment in a piece of DLC for this video game, without turning it into a retrospective of everything DTG ever did wrong. It's is possible to encounter mild inconvenience in this game and say "well, I can move on to something else in the meantime". It is even possible to place this video game, playable from ages 8 through 100 (I daresay from some of the attitudes here), in the perspective of a piece of almost-all-ages entertainment that you can chose to engage in or not, if it's not making you happy.
I do agree that in most cases, stuff from a couple years ago shouldn’t be held against someone/something. however, these “incidents” happen way too frequently, some large, some very small. And those that are very small do add up. Almost all of TSW 3’s DLCs have had multiple issues with them, and a majority of them aren’t addressed. The feedback they get is what improves the game, I don’t think TSW would be as advanced as it is today without the community going “this is wrong, this is incorrect, this is what should be done for next time”. Unfortunately Dovetail has the monopoly on this hobby of train simulations. One game that comes up often right now is SimRail. It isn’t quite a competitor right now, but with the full editor, multiplayer, and third party content, it has the most potential to be a competitor to Train Sim World one day, and competition is very healthy for both games. TSW has potential. And I only want it to improve.
To be fair, if the list of issues is still being repeated, then it’s fair game. The thing you’ve overlooked though is that despite you stating the forum is an echo chamber of toxicity, there is always a general sentiment around each DLC, look at things like BML, DCZ, BCC, Bremen, DRA, SEHS etc - these are all routes with have good standing in the forum, and most of them have gotten that way through continuous discussion on the forum. NYT is a bad release, and that is the sentiment you’re seeing being built now. It will fall in with the lines of LIRR, eventually all the complaining will stop (until it comes up in relation to something), and people will just stick with the good content instead. There are always going to be immature threads asking for silly length routes with 5 cities and 4 new trains, but these are largely ignored or locked due to the inevitable childish arguing. You may love the latest content and that’s fair, but it doesn’t mean that an entire community has to, of course there is a lot of griping going on right now, DTG just released 3 DLC’s together which are of lesser quality than other releases. Ultimately if you dislike the logical pattern of activity, you should take your own advice and find a new community, because much in the same way you say DTG/TSW won’t change, neither will the community behind it. Of course there is also the option of making an extensive ignore list too.
I don't agree with this. If there was only one race game available the forums of that race game would also be filled with discontent members for years if it had the same development as TSW. DTG is selling trains, shiny toys boys like to play with. I had given up on TSW and had shelved like you propose but then comes the Acela, the bigger badass toy a boy needs to have for his train collection. So yes here I am again complaining like I did months ago. So yes when you fire up the game again and you still are confronted with the same audio issues as before, watch a preview stream where notes are being taken about the quality of a route that is about to release the next day you probably head to the forums to complain. Boys and toys, it's that simple
I am going to disagree on this front. When it comes to functionalities, we have pretty much never reached the depth of SDs and GPs from Sand Patch. When it comes to 3D models, nothing reached the details of the GWR HST. We're talking about some of the oldest TSW rolling stock and newer ones feel simplified compared to these.
There has to be a tone of negativity otherwise nothing gets done. You can't keep letting them think that it's all unicorns and fairies!
This forum is far from toxic. It is full of people who are passionate about train simulation and want the best. Unfortunately, in society today, people seem to have lost the ability to accept that other people have different opinions to themselves. If they don't agree with your opinion then they're fanboys or toxic, depending on what side of the fence you are on. Ironic really when we're supposed to accept without question men wanting to be women, women wanting to be men, men and women wanting to be them or it, yet we're not prepared to accept that someone may hold a different opinion without labelling them!
I think most of the forum members who are frequently critical of the game and DTG are happy to give credit when it's appropriate. Speaking for myself, I give credit to DTG for: Sandpatch Grade Great Western Express Brighton Main Line Boston Providence Express Cajon Pass Classes 31, 45, 47, 101,166 AC4400AC, GP40, F7 and, especially GP9rm. And these are just a few of the things they've done well. Yes, there are " DTG bashers " and I tend to ignore the worst of them. But there are also DTG apologists and I tend to ignore the most obsequious or fawning of them. I dislike verbal abuse and toadying about equally. I find calling out individual employees particularly distasteful. So, if you focus on those of us who try to be constructive in both praise and criticism, you can get a balance. If the forums lean towards the critical, that's because we're dealing with what is, for all intents and purposes, a monopoly and trying to influence that monopoly to make the game we love better is a source of frustration. If there was realistic competition, the situation might be different, I don't know. But I can assure you that very few of us are trying in any way to damage either the game or its developer. Quite the opposite. We simply want TSW to be the best it can be. And, if that means being negative at times, it's usually justified.
