Nothing Is Going To Change, That Much Should Be Obvious Now.

Well, ideally, don't release new content in an obviously broken state. Then you don't have to fix it up later.

But quite often it looks like there is zero planning ahead at DTG. A great example for this is the whole PS DLC size limit issue. The sizes of the DLC would not be that much of a concerning issue if they structured their content in a better way with shared asset libraries (like TSC does). But that's not the case. Every route will have their own set of assets, trains and scenery items even if these assets are the exact same copies of ones used on other routes. Like that generic warehouse building on every route? You can bet, every route will have their own copy of that building. Those ugly parked car models (the coupe and the SUV) we have in the game since GWE? Every route uses them and have a copy of those two cars, even though they are exactly the same on every single route. And this is true for every generic asset in the game, be it vehicle, building or foilage. Let me not even get started on the endless copies of Class 66s or Dostos. These endless duplicates of the same thing horribly increase the size of each DLC, which could be avoided if they used shared asset libraries like in TSC. But they do not. Why? God knows. Probably just lack of planning and weak execution.

 

I was wondering why the post ¨General Forum Etiquette¨ was created and then I found this thread which cleared my doubt instantly.
It brings that ¨You are free to say what I tell you¨ mentality, very professional. The excessive sarcasm rule is my favorite of them all.

Anyway... The pandemic left us with plenty, unfortunately, toxic and dangerous precedents.
Some of them are in the area of digital products, entertainment, such as video games. We pay (way) more for hardware which is used to play lower quality video games. The abused early access and beta releases are ever present.

Speaking about this product in particular, TSW3, the developer has a very big ace in their sleeve that they play with each release. That is the sentimental and nostalgia that this niche brings into play compared to the vast majority of other genres.
No matter how bad a DLC is, people will eventually go for it later during a sale most likely or not even that late. Why? Because they love trains. It´s why we see users here on the forum complaining how bad a release was only to see they bought it anyway.

There is a saying referring to the mafias that activate in the world of homeless people and organized beggars which finance a lavish lifestyle to some: ¨You fell pity? I got your cash!¨

I wonder if this business approach could make it in that etiquette thread!? I totally see it there as a rule for the developer. It does feel like a hit under the belt.

 

Oh, absolutely. But then the issue here is also that this isn't a "fire and forget" piece of software, things which rely on the core game files are then affected by updates to those files, so what was once "not broken" can easily BE broken a year down the line
They developed themselves into a corner on a few things. To my mind the game should START with the signalling, and everything builds up from there, but it seems to be the other way round in game with trains "calling" to signals and these being in some sort of order etc etc
And as you say, a central core asset library and even core blueprint library would have been better than bespoke assets (which then never get upgrades a la the class 66)

I think when they designed the TSW core layout they wanted to avoid some of the issues with TSC including long load times when it comes to assets being all over the shop, let alone compressed and decompressed folders and so on. Obviously as the game's got larger this has proven to be a bad call...

Not sure you're aiming this at DTG but they were pretty bad with bugs and communication BEFORE the pandemic, and have slid back from the heady days of Sam (and towards the end Nat)

 

Well I can understand this reasoning for things like signalling specific assets, or very maybe for rolling stock. But what could be broken in a simple scenery asset?

In any way, whatever their reasoning for choosing this method, it goes pretty much against all common sense in software development. Takes up more storage, harder to maintain.

 

Face it fixes DTG releases for any route no matter what they are trying to fix will also most likely brake something that wasn't already broken and show how little testing they do of there so called fixes possible negative side effects

O you want example ok heres one...There was a update the caused the scenario planner to brake and become usless until fixed again.This isn't some minor trivial feature that no one would care about,it's one the games most used features.How do you not test to see it still works before releasing any update.

 

Another example: red light issue fixed. Then some idiot released a patch that not only brought this back, it made it much worse. How the hell did that so called patch pass qa process? Does DTG actually have such a tem? If so they need sacking

 

One thing that i'm reminded of often is the statement something to the effect of "One should learn from ones mistakes and try not to repeat them" (I am aware that how i phrase this may not be totally accurate).But the real point here is not my phrasing but the fact that DTG has clearly shown that they have learned nothing about not repeating there mistakes and probably never will no matter how many threads are made about them.Then you have those who have accepted the fact that the flaws are just part of game and still defend them with nonsence like "fixing flaws cost money and dtg isn't a charity.Well let me remind you WE the costumers don't think where donating to a charity when we buy there DLC and wanting a product that works doesn't mean we are asking for anything free like fixes we paid for working product not broken.

 

That's not the case. Each DTG route for TSC is self-contained and brings its own assets. Only early routes were built using the old shared European / US Loco & Asset Packs, it's just some 3rd party devs make use of these nowadays. JustTrains have a shared asset pack (CommonLibrary) though.

 

Obviously I don't know about every TSC route, but I know for a fact that Union Workshop for example is using shared asset packs for their japanese route. Things like foilage and generic scenery buildings are in shared files between routes.

 

According to the CEO of PMDG Dovetail (as stated in that video I posted) bought the source code to FSX, there was no licence involved. I believe I’m right in saying you can still purchase FSW so again, that would be odd if a licence had existed and been pulled.

I think what’s more likely to have happened is that DTG put off anyone developing for them by locking the game down, then they got wind of MSFS and knew their product was going to get blown out of the water so simply closed it, leaving everyone who had bought it in the lurch.

 

If what you say is true and MS had no rights to the FSX code and therefore no legal sway over DTG's decision then quite possibly

Lighting, draw distance, shadow interaction, any sort of animation or interaction (thinking the recent buffer issues where they went solid for a while), reflections...
The things which would be most beneficial in a common asset library for me would be things like trees, standard buildings, but also signals, speed signs, standard signage (such as OHLE neutral section signs missing in the recent Edinburgh route). Almost all of those could be standard and common, but all of them can be messed up if someone changes a value or two

 

I can’t claim to know, just basing it on what was said in that video. He was obviously close to the situation at the time I guess.

 

I'm even willing to bet MS had plans for their flight sim successor as they handed off the old and dusty FSX sourcecode to DTG for that nice price. DTG really got the short end of the stick (practically nothing to speak of) on that deal.

Cheers

 

He did say that DTG ring fenced everything, killing off any third party freeware mods, thus preventing growth. Which is similar if not the same as what that appear to are doing / have done with the TSW franchise.

 

TSW franchise doesn't seem to be become smaller. More and more 3rd parties are joining the game. And surprisingly - there are tons of mods. With your logic, TSW should be dead by now. I don't see this happening anytime soon.

 

Going from three to six is not an especially impressive number.

Only for minor things.

 

It's basically doubling the numbers. Given the fact that it's not easy to develop for TSW, it's actually impressive.

You're underestimating the mods by miles. All the soundmods, the texture mods, the inoffical editor itself - they're far from being a "minor" mod.

 

It's not dead, but not really growing much either. Go into any train simulator group and TSW content will be a very tiny minority. Which is a shame, because the game has the potential to be much bigger.

 

To be fair it is a 50% increase, and wouldn't really correlate with a shrinking of the franchise.

Edit: if is of course 100% - you wouldn't believe I work with figures daily!

 

Uhm... is it not 100% increase? 50% means from 3 to 4,5 3rd party devs, wouldn't it?

 

As pointed out above, 6 is a 100% increase over 3.

Cheers

 

Duh yes you are right, my brain is addled, it is the end of a hard week in my defence!

 

Yes 6 third parties in what, 5 years or so, impressive! Just take a look at how much stuff is in the steam workshops for TSC, ATS, ETS, Cities:Skylines and numerous other games. That is true third party modding not 6!

 

Compared to TSC, replacing some textures and sounds is definitely minor.

 

You are correct. And the DTG FSW situation was brought up when MSFS was announced. Developers (both freeware and payware) were very concerned of another FSW situation coming up again. It took a lot of reasurances from Asobo that this would not be the case. That there would be an in game marketplace, but that they would not prevent external mods or marketplaces from existing (except on Xbox where it needs to be a closed sytem).

 

Steam usage statistics seem to show the "active" population of the game has dropped significantly vs. TSW2. Yes, more 3rd party developers, but it's not attracting the crowd the game once did.

 

But bear in mind that you have to at least triple the numbers because of consoles. And a bit more because of Epic. Sadly, Sony and Mircosoft don't give out any numbers, so it's hard to say anything factual.

 

The steam usage stats are a very small part of the sales.

There isn't really anything similar for the consoles and we regularly have the figure of two thirds or more banded about as their share of the TSW "market".

Seeing as consoles appear to be less easy to mod for and file swap than the PC and consoles are where the majority of the income must be coming from if the two thirds figure has any truth to it, in my opinion it stands to reason why DTG can and are apparently restricting access to third party freeware developers.

Add to that the inclusivity policy that DTG have insisted on implementing from day one of the TSW franchise, that everyone gets the same version of the game, then someone, be it PC, PlayStation or xbox is going to get held back to some degree because not all platforms are equal. They all have their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Maybe picking a platform and concentrating on one rather than three would be the better option for a more polished product.

There's a saying that you can't please all of the people all of the time, and if you try then you end up pleasing no one.

Now I am no way saying that DTG aren't pleasing anyone because there are people who are more than happy. But maybe, they're displeasing more people than they need to by trying to please every gamer on every platform.

Sure if they ceased PC development for instance, people would be more than annoyed. However, there's still alternatives for PC users to get their train fix.

Cease console development and there's nothing else and seeing as they have the monopoly on consoles at the moment for trains and that's allegedly where the bulk of the TSW income is coming from.

But if you have been around these forums for a while, you will see the wheel of changes, promises of openness and then silence keep rotating and the same issues keep arising.

In the end nothing will change. This is what you've got. And ultimately there's always DTGs answer of "If you don't like it, don't buy it!"