Dtg Communication And Transparency

Hi everyone,
Today’s topic is DTG and communication and transparency. When TSW2 was announced DTG stated that they are going to do a better job with communication with the community. I would say leading up to the launch they kept to their word. Now that we are a couple months past the games release I can say they have been doing a much better job compared to how they handled TSW. I have noticed many people complaining on these forums, asking questions or making criticisms. If someone is upset about a bug or asking about how much QA is put into a route before release it seems like the only answer these community members are getting are generic “great feedback” or “we will look into” answers which absolutely is not helpful towards letting the community know that DTG is finding a solution. If there is an entire thread of people asking if DTG even QA their routes before release. At least try to give us some information to go off so the entire community can come to a semi factual conclusion instead of those people dragging the TSW brand through the mud for 8 pages on a thread and getting even more absurd with their assumptions, and all it takes is one new person interested in this game to look at that thread and immediately be turned off from this game, when all it takes a simple answer from the DTG team. Personally I believe DTG need more of a presence on these forums for the amount of members that have questions, not just a community manager trying to cope with all of it. I am grateful for DTG being more open with us and I think it’s a big part of not having your community implode.

 

Very nicely written. I'll just add from myself: maybe we exaggerate sometimes, but it's probably better here than in reviews on Steam because those ratings are probably processed more often than these elaborations here. But (almost) full agreement!

 

"Do you even QA your routes"
"Yes, we QA our routes on a PC in our office which is top spec, only has windows 10 and TSx on it, 64Gb RAM and an 8Gb GPU"
"So you don't test it on PS4 then?"
"Erm, no"
This is how world war III started...

 

Is that an actual reply from DTG on that topic?

 

No, that's an attempt at "irony"

 

But really, no answer DTG give will make people think any better.
Do they test their routes. Yes
Do they stop developing their routes before release giving the QA testers enough time to test properly and the devs enough time to fix bugs properly. No
Does this mean that "bit of things" aren't tested before release. Yes
Does this annoy people. Yes

 

Okay I thought so. That is the point, if we don’t have any information then people will assume and others may take it as facts and then they start telling people that and it snowballs.

 

I agree. Even if it isn’t something people want to hear, it’s the first step into fixing it. For example. “We spend 50 hours testing on the PC. With the team we have we are only able to test the console versions for 10 hours.” Its okay if it’s something people don’t want to hear, and by including the community we can give feedback and they can make the appropriate changes that make it better for everyone.

 

If those ten hours are enough to pick up all the obvious and major bugs, then that's quite fine. However, from the IoW release, we know that's not the case.

No matter how you try to sugar coat it, there is something in the sign off process that is not sufficient.

 

And the visual issues on PS4 Isle of Wight would have taken less than 30 seconds of play time to spot. Therefore IMO it’s one of three possibilities:

A) Testers didn’t run the release version on PS4 at all.
B) Producers were told about it and pressed ahead with the release anyway.
C) Testers didn’t think they were seeing a problem.

Choose to believe whichever one makes you feel better!

 

Or it was a bug that didn’t show it self until it was released. That’s also a possibility which is a great example on why a statement from DTG would eliminate this from happening.

 

I find it impossible to believe the issues affecting IoW on PS4 were not known about before release (unless in the highly unlikely event the final build some how became corrupted when being loaded on to PSN’s servers). So, the question is, who took the decision to press the publish button and why? And before they did, did they consider how their actions would impact the reputation of DTG? This happened with WCML on TS2021 and it happened on the very next release for TSW 2. They have to fix the process that allows this to happen before too much damage is done. Having to wait for patches and missing features (IoW trophies in PS4) is not cricket.

 

I would say that this can become a bit of a “through the looking glass” moment. If you really enjoy playing trains in TSW, then it’s best not to ask these questions!

Same goes for chicken nuggets - if you like the taste, don’t go on the factory tour ;-)

 

Bugs don't generally show up on every single PS4 and Xbox on release... I can understand some more obscure bugs, or one that affects only some people, however this is much more than that...

 

The fundamental problem is there is a lack of trust that DTG will reliably publish good content, compounded (by their own admission) by the substandard post-release maintenance/support/fixes.

Sometimes the content you get is really good, sometimes not, but it’s always been somewhat of a lottery.

However, with DTG/RSC of old, for the most part what you get on day 1 is what you end up with. They’ll try and convince you they have changed, whether you believe them is up to you.

If they want trust from the community, then they should publish their bug tracking information. Date discovered, date fixed, date released. I don’t believe you’ll ever see that from DTG as the resulting list would be sad reading.

When you report a bug the issue gets closed with no resolution - that should tell you everything you ever need to know.

Have you ever tried asking them how they are getting on with your bug report? Months and months later? I have.... :-(

 

That is exactly what they need and would make the entire community a better place. I would have said a roadmap was impossible as well before TSW2 but they have done a good job with how it is implemented. That idea is exactly the type of constructive criticism we need just maybe a little more enthusiastic that it could work.

 

Thank you for going into detail some of the things surrounding bugs and even more so for a meaningful response. The roadmap being filled up with preserved content that DTG are trying to get completed. I’m assuming bugs will take a prevalent role on the top of the roadmap once the team has more time to spend on bugs. Makes sense to me.

 

It’s an honest response, and I appreciate that. I’ve found your involvement in DTG to be a breath of fresh air, but like you say actions matter and there’s a lot of lost ground to make up - I like trains, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

 

People are also passionate about the game and that's good thing.

Very well written and said.

 

But Isle of White is not DTG route

 

DTG are the publishers (according to Steam) - and publishers have an element of responsibility for content they publish.

 

You are correct being by Rivet Games a 3rd party developer DTG is the final net to catch the bugs. We aren’t sure how the bug was caused but it could have showed up when they released the final version on PSN. Rivet released the DB204 which is one of the best locomotives in my opinion and the quality was great so I can’t imagine such a predominant bug passed through Rivet and DTG on accident and the quality of the DB204 I am sure is the quality level that they set so I don’t think they would release it like that on purpose.

 

Exactly right - if an audiobook plays on my computer, but not on my phone I speak to Audible, not the book author.

 

Yes, but he is correct Rivet games did create it. Has anyone heard an official word from Rivet games on the forums or social media? Well DTG published it, Rivet Games will be the ones to fix the issue.

 

Rivet were all over this forum as soon as any bugs were reported on the DB204 and not just acknowledging the reports but stating they were getting all the issues fixed. I’ve not been to their forums to check this time as Sam said on the second Isle of Wight stream that fixes were on the way for some stuff already, so that’s encouraging and faster than we usually get for DTG fixes. I don’t know if they’ll post here this time as DTG can pass any news back and forth.

 

This only applies to Rivet, as it seems that they don’t have a dev kit.

 

DTG have had their own issues on PS4 in the past, mainly sound issues from what i've seen, but issues nonetheless

 

These are two rather conflicting sentences:

- Apparently we're entering a period of greater support.
- Assume that we're not entering this period.

It's almost like you want us to not believe you're going to supporting your add-ons, instead of trying to convince us that you are going to get better...

 

It's more something like: "we have the intention of doing those things but don't believe it until it actually happens"

Seems like DTG is having a bit of PTSD for the whole "broken promises" thing from TSW1 and now is 200% careful of how they describe what's to come

 

I read that as "We're fixing some bugs as we go along, but the main period of bringing content up to spec won't happen until the preserved collection is completely released"
This correlates with what Adam has said on the roadmap streams

 

It think it’s more just trying to not create the backlash that happened with TSW. Honestly until all of the preserved collection is released I wouldn’t expect any non-major bugs to be fixed. I can understand why this is. Once the preserved collection is fully released I bet we start seeing a lot of bugs we have been reporting on the roadmap.

 

If being "bogged down" by preserved collection is such a time consuming issue then why did DTG choose to use that valuable time by developing yet more DLC alongside the preserved collection work instead of just focusing on getting the base content fully functional?
TSW2 is a mere couple of months old and after preserved collection development is complete it's going to have (I think) 16 routes with an absolute stack of things to do so I see no reason for more and more 'in production' new content added to the roadbook if it's simply going to push what has already been paid for by the consumer further and further down the development list. It's cool that DTG have grand plans for TSW but the very last thing I personally want is a scenario where everything that is released just adds to the pile of existing things that have to be fixed and we all end up spending half our life downloading an ever increasing amount of 4gb patches containing just a handful of fixes but never quite manage to get something that works as intended.

Maybe it's time to stop continually prioritising our wallets and instead just concentrate on what we've already spent our money on.

 

I don't understand why DTG has announced more German routes than other routes.

Although I've been complaining in the community that the line can't be longer? I hope the German route can be extended and connected

 

It’s because most train sim players are from Germany and it’s the most popular genre.

I for one didn’t touch anything that wasn’t British in TS original but now TSW has introduced me to German trains and signalling I now play on them almost exclusively. They are far superior in almost every way to British.
But I’d understand if you didn’t like them.

 

Because they are a company, and companies have to make money. Refurbing the preserved isn't going to keep the money flowing in.

 

Are you sure? I would’ve thought it was the US or UK.

 

I don’t think it’s a massive majority but yes they said once in a stream.

DB is also extremely helpful to the developers and there are so many tools to help them recreate the German routes. Not to mention they have lots of assets already. Germany is of course one of the worlds biggest railway loving countries.

The different parts of UK and US railways are very distinct due to different rolling stock and franchised liveries, I feel the Germans standardisation sometimes makes it feel like they are just repeating the same thing although it’s obviously not the case.

I for one am looking forward to the London Faversham but also interested to see what they do with the French TGV line and the Arosa Line. All the continental routes remind me of holidays

 

Do you have a source or reference for this, they've said plenty in streams that have not always been correct.I'd agree with zeenoz and suggest UK or US as the majority.

 

I remember something in a stream about Germany being their biggest market too. But it's irrelevant anyway, DTG can make whatever routes they deem most lucrative/enjoyable/viable for them as a commercial operation. Why exactly does it matter which country has most?

 

I agree they’ve said plenty that isn’t correct in the past lol!

As for the proof I can’t remember what stream it was.
The German games market is the biggest in Europe but as you say it is behind the US.
However the games each country prefers varies a lot.
Take a look at the amount of simulators available in Germany- it’s crazy. And it’s must be no coincidence that most of the big simulators like bus, farming and lorry driving focus a lot on Germany.

The Far East rule the top game markets but I assume they are primarily based on mobile games and probably have their own Asia centric simulators.

 

The competition has an extensive German offering, developed in Germany specifically for German routes. It has very little English content on YouTube but if you have a look you’ll see a number of people with hardware cabs, treating it like a proper simulator. Compare to TSW where LZB is limited to one specific train and it has a number of signalling and signage bugs.

In that respect, it actually makes sense that DTG have made lots of German content :-

A) Germany is a big, sim friendly market. Look at how many German developed sims there are.
B) Unlike the U.K., German hardcore sim drivers have an alternative product, so TSW is able to cater for and target “sim light” players.
C) German signalling makes it easier for a casual player to drive the route with the HUD, whereas driving a U.K. route relies heavily on route knowledge.

 

I like these sort of statements where people think every workforce within a company can do any job. Whatever team(s) they have that create new routes was surely not hired to do groundwork on core features and to do compatibility coding to import older routes. What job do you expect the landscape modelers to do for preserved collection?

According to their stream, apart from Adam, the core team is helping with preserved collection instead of working on new core features or improvements full time.

If you are a producer of cars, you don't tell your electronics, paintings and assembly teams to help out the engine team? Like what do you expect them to do there.

 

If I were DTG, I would simply make everything better and please everyone.

 

A team that builds new routes from nothing can of course rework a route from a couple of years ago.
A team that builds new vehicles from nothing can.... you get the idea.

But if the whole business model is based on pumping out new (I.e. chargeable) content every few weeks then obviously that’s not going to work.

 

And if you ran a company you would have to employ the labour force to do this, so the question comes down to "with what additional finance?"

Same comment as above. Fixing stuff (which can take months) costs money. Where is that finance coming from?

 

If I were DTG I would simply offer a sale on every platform forever, which would increase income tenfold and pay for a workforce the size of Rockstar's.

 

I take it from that answer that you don't have anything to do with running a company... If that's how it worked everything on the planet ever would be the smallest cost possible to maximise sales. Not how it works
Everything has a finite limit as to how many people will buy something, and charging as much as people will bear to purchase that thing is how the world works.

 

It is not reworked though. It is imported to fit with the new engine. So I still ask what is the track layout guy, the landscape modeler and the train modeler doing?
Maybe take the physics guy, but most likely he is from the core team that is already helping with preserved anyway.

 

They said a few times on stream that when they moved from the old UE (adapted) to the new UE (adapted) and ported the routes in they found all sorts of weird anomalies, including signals that had morphed into cars... That's what the signallers were doing. I imagine similar flaws were found throughout when the port was undertaken