Sorry but… at the risk of coming across as “whiny” I just have to say that in all the various states of brokenness TSW has saw itself in through the years, this is one of the worst I remember. No matter what route I play or what train I drive, it seems something somewhere is broken or not functioning as intended. Some think it unfair to harshly criticize Dovetail and to an extent, I agree. But I think it’s unfair for you to knowingly release broken or half-finished products with the full expectation that people will buy them anyway. It’s wicked and shameless and deplorable. I am a PS5 owner who loves driving trains and for realistic train simulators, TSW is my only option. It’s either this or nothing. I’m ignoring Train Life. Dovetail Games, you KNOW you can do better. So do I. You have the talent and the tools. I’m sure you guys work incredibly hard to release good content that works well despite the inevitable bug that creeps in and messes things up. I’m not a developer, I can’t even imagine what the process of sorting and fixing them entails. So while I understand, appreciate, and respect that to the fullest, I can’t look at TSW and truthfully think “they are doing the best they can”. I mean… Could there be a single good reason for releasing WCML in this state? You must have known it was like this prior to release. Lol I still love Train Sim World though, and I’m extremely grateful for it and I really appreciate you guys for creating it. If this comes across as mean-spirited or even rant-y, that is far from my intent and I’d also not like to be lumped in with the Thomasgate crowd. It just hurts to see such a great sim being fumbled so horribly.
I totally agree with you. I just finished a mission on MBTA Commuter (postponed I remind you to IMPROVE the game), and in Farmingham or Worcester from the HSP46, impossible to get off on the platform. IMPOSSIBLE. For 36 EUROS. It's shameful and it really annoys me. Dovetail Games take advantage of the lack of competition to allow themselves to take no risks, and to publish poorly botched and unplayable content. It's impossible on the last routes to do a mission without having to work around a bug that they know exists. It's high time that the community really complains about it and that Focus Interactive puts a good big push on them to start working properly.
For me the number one issue remains the stuttering and sound glitching. Doesn’t help that even though they are presumably all back from the Christmas break by now, there is pretty much radio silence (again) from the company about the state the game is in. Okay, it’s not unplayable but having stepped over to drive trains in TSC, Derail Valley and Run 8, plus getting going in Mass Effect with the Legendary Edition, it’s just disappointing how bad a state the code of TSW has been left in. Aside from the bugs and fixes needed, there just seems to be a lack of drive or ambition from DTG. Save game a good example, where the EP stated a few months ago they were going to look into additional save slots plus try and fix the ongoing issue of not being able to get back the objectives when you load a game saved on a subsequent run you took over by returning to free roam. As I’ve mused previously in similar threads, have to wonder what the proportion of technical and production staff at DTG now is, compared to PR and marketing. TSC seems all but abandoned as do Catan and the fishing games, so have they even got programmer(s) to work on the code at present? They can roll out the excruciating “Fireside Chat” for TTTE, but not make an open declaration about where we are with sorting out the many issues.
I must say the performance of TSW5 really, really lets it down, routes which run silky smooth in TSW4 are significantly lower performing, with noticeably more stutters and are more likely to crash than before. I usually let out a chuckle when I see someone say this, but sometimes I do consider going back into TSW4, but then the issue is WCMLOS isn't there, so I haven't gone back.
There will.be a roadmap, then some announcements of announcements then some look at Thomas in development, then a deep dive for Cardiff Valleys explaining everything but why most of the full routes are missing. Maybe if we are lucky there will be a fireside chat 2. We are in the Coca Cola era of train simming. Let's hope it changes soon.
I'm also on PS5 and for now i drive on bakerloo section of WCMLS. Micro stutters and sometimes when see one class 710 stopped at station it blurries
It will only change when the management changes. DTG has full control over timelines, QC and third party content as they are the sole publishers. Either they are too weak to push back and say "that's not ready" or they are sloppy and are driven by output at any cost, and are subsequently not being held accountable by their line manager. It makes me think the multiple "Chiefs" at the top are fully disconnected from the community and simply look at output and sales data and the countless hours used by the dev team to try and fix things is swept under the carpet.
Glossy, everywhere marketing. It is pretty apparent now the 'focus' is on shifting product and those of us wanting accuracy, attention to detail and a look at fixing past issues are just voices in the noise of 'look wow' what's next.
Well that kind of hits the nail on the head. It's not the constant battle with bugs and core deficiencies that irks me, though goodness knows there are plenty of issues there, especially for console players. It seems like the development of a serious simulator pretty much ended with the Rush Hour routes, three decent efforts that I still play. Since then we've had nothing of real consequence from DTG, just a series of electric commuter routes with trains that aren't that far away from toys like Thomas. Couple that with the effective abandonment of steam and diesel freight and you have a game that appears to be going nowhere. Frankly I could care less about TTTE if DTG were building routes and locos of real consequence. But the Roadmap offers little hope for that. I'm almost afraid to watch the coming Roadmap. After that " fireside chat " I'm not sure I can cringe any more without suffering some serious physical damage. And I keep hearing that developments like remasters are the province of some individual squirreled away in a garret somewhere in England working on their own spare time. What's that about? Does that mean that there is insufficient staff at DTG HQ to do serious dev work? These are certainly worrying times for the game that started with so much promise just 7 years ago with SPG. All in all it feels like a game that has no hand on the wheelhouse and doesn't know where it wants to go, unless maintaining revenue flow is considered effective management.
It's groundhog day! Tsw4 was launched, full of bugs, dtg slowly fixed them, by the time it looked like that was on top of it, tsw5 was launched full of bugs. Eat sleep rave repeat, eat sleep rave repeat! Tsw6 eat sleep rave repeat.
Exactly this. I just want to know why Focus acquired DTG if nothing is changing. Same old shoddy business practices and same old “fix this onething, break another 3 things” and no that’s not hyperbole. If it ever comes across as DTG simply not caring about TSW then what can be said about Focus…?
Both of these are infuriatingly persistent. At this point they might as well be considered core features. It is shameful. This is why we think they don’t care. We get antagonized but never do we ever get proven wrong. This is simply not true. I’ve never encountered a game developer as driven as DTG. They love making money and it’s exceedingly clear they’ll they’ll do anything to make even more. At our expense, naturally. As far as ambition goes… This got a chuckle out of me. Surely this can’t still exist…? That issue’s been around as long as save game’s been around, what a joke! Gotta wait for TSW 7 for Save Game 2.0. It is painfully disproportionate, and that should not be obvious to a consumer. Imagine one coming into TSW as a new player and the expectations one might have after looking at all the shiny graphics, misleading screenshots, fancy animations, etc. At times, it is blatant false advertising. If they’re wise they’d get their money back before getting in too deep. Priorities. Lol. And as a side note, I forced myself to watch the fireside chat just for a little context as to why such a decision was made. It was so corporate no matter how hard they tried to be casual. It couldn’t be clearer Mattel isn’t in it for nostalgia. They’ve been trying to do something with Thomas since the early days of the franchise, so what made them decide to finally take the leap 5 iterations later? Call me a cynic but it I believe this is simply a low-effort cash grab. A brilliant move by Mattel and DTG. And hearing Matt talk about how simple the new controls will be (yes even for a TTTE DLC. This is still Train Sim World, is it not?), it was something along the lines of “pick up a controller and it should just go”. That scared me even as a console player.
Ever since I first got into TSW back in 2019 with what was TSW2020, the franchise suffered from unacceptable levels of performance issues and stuttering. Every new iteration since has FAILED to address and fix this very central flaw and as such resulted in me relegating TSW to second or third tier level software not worth paying the full asking price for. Far from performance issues being fixed, every new yearly version would seem to make matters worse as newer features were added to the already clunky code with obviously predictable negative results. Many of those features were of dubious value to a train driving simulation which is crying out for improvement to the poor performance of the core program. I got the free starter pack of TSW5 and am pleased I did not pay. I recently got WCML (South) at a discount and agree with the general view that the level of bugs in it being unacceptable. Did anyone actually test out the scenario creator around the Euston area? Currently dreading the "update" to GWE! OK, it is an older and simpler route but it currently runs silky smooth. I would wager money that updating it to "modern standards" (LOL) will bring in the signature DTG splutters and stutters that absolutely destroy immersion for me. For 5 years I have heard empty promises that DTG will work on performance issues and occasionally some improvement is made to specific routes but over all the core problems not only remain but get WORSE with every new version. I have given up believing promises of performance improvements as they are never met and discussion about it is poisoned by the usual suspects of die hard "fans" who bounce between insisting they do not have any stuttering problems to accepting they do but are quite happy to put up with them as it doesn't spoil their enjoyment of the game. Perhaps if I received free content from DTG to create sales videos on YouTube I too would accept the failings of TSW but as someone who is expected to pay I expect what I BUY reaches a certain quality level to be deemed as acceptable.
That push is not going to come from Focus. Focus is likely what’s squeezing them harder to shorten dev times to decrease costs. They’re only ever going to look at it in one direction. If costs are saved by faster dev times and people keep buying, Focus profits. If people stop buying and sales go down, like we’ve seen with steam or historic routes like Clinchfield, they’ll just assume people don’t like the content and further scale back and take fewer risks because spending more money in the modern business landscape is a sin. They’ll cut until they’re still profiting with reduced sales. Corporate execs are far more likely to get grilled by their board or any investors over their budget and spending and profit margin than their overall sales.
as someone who was played Train Sim World since the Old NEC New York. era, this past month has been rather stale for TSW. the announcement of the Thomas dlc, whether people like it or not, has more than certainly put a bit of distrust and doubt in DTG as of recently. I get the impression that they aren’t a serious company. for the first time in a long time, I’ve been playing more of Train Sim Classic, and taking a break from TSW. I do not hate DTG, they genuinely try sometimes, I appreciate that and I don’t think they are a terrible dev at all, but their choices and judgement as of recently, and the lack of communication (not saying now, but just in general) is frustrating. Their decision to make the Day 20 announcement on the December Reveals, a non serious DLC, not appealing to a vast majority of the community, was very very far from a wise move. It’s like whoever thought of this DLCs concept, didn’t take into account who the community was. Or the interests they have so passionately. If that DLC was announced on Day 10 or 11, or during the start of the reveals, it would have been a fair enough thing, it really wouldn’t be so bad. It would have saved a lot of grief for DTG themselves. As I have said above. I’ve played this game since 2018, Personally, I have grown up with this game, and so has the Community. I was 12 years old when I picked this game up. Now I’m 18. And despite everything that’s happened, all the controversy, all the bugs, this game has grown massively since then, stuff that was impossible before back then, has now become a standard for any route today. This game is extremely personal to me. It’s something relaxing I can enjoy during my free time. But this game can be better. This game has the potential to be something greater, the community has seen it with their own eyes. I’m sorry for the TLDR there, but to see a “TSW is Hurting” thread makes me feel horrible, especially for a game I’ve played throughout my teenage life. It feels depressing.
I agree with all these points. I wanted to say the whole Thomas thing is a calculated business decision. Rather than put out content that will take a lot of work and still be met by endless criticism and demands for standards by the community (not excusing the toxicity but if you don’t like exacting standards, don’t get into sims. We’re tame compared to the flight and military sim communities who will grab torches if the power curve of a 30 year old McDonnell Douglas is 5% off at a single point), it’s a much better business decision to put out something hundreds or even thousands of kids will have their parents buy for them without question, without criticism, and without a mountain bug report tickets, and will leave positive reviews with zero constructive commentary. It’s free money with less of a hassle they get from the normal community. If they can shift this to a mindless kids game with no detail they massively reduce the cost with putting out content. Look at their horrible Roblox game. But they actually may not be able to read the room. I’m still dealing from Matt’s comment that the big reveal will be something that “everyone will love”. He had us all thinking about the things we see constantly asked for on these forums like the return of steam or US freight, multiplayer, announcements in trains besides just River and JT routes, new operators, ECML south, a huge patch that adds all the things they promised to fix over the years and never did, but nope. Every single serious player got insulted. I loved Thomas as a kid, and it would be a fun little side project. But to make it the main reveal was a startling inability to read the room.
This is absolutely true, unfortunately. I’m playing on PS5 and before TSW5, I’ve had maybe two crashes in all the years I’ve been playing TSW (not counting the infamous MML, which would add another two or so). TSW5 has easily doubled that number and more in the short time it’s been out - I can’t even play Frankfurt - Fulda anymore as every run I’ve tried in the last weeks crashed. As if that wasn’t enough, the blurry textures issue on PS5 is starting to spread now to routes unaffected before (e.g. LFR). Any route suffering from this essentially becomes unplayable as you cannot read the cab instruments anymore.
Try TSC mate, this isn't a serious train simulator rather its an enjoyable and pretty arcade game by comparison. Don't believe me? Try and go and get similar scores on TSC you get on this. I'm actually disappointed with a gold medal in this which says it all. I frequently don't get any medal in TSC and to do so I often have to replay the scenarios. That is for men, this is for boys.
As a newbie I looked at both and had to decide which one was worth the investment and I just couldn't see a long-term future for TSC with its graphics limitations, not for me. Its old and it shows so I chose TSW with Real Engine 4, baring in mind I had no investment in either, it just seemed more logical. I guess if you have invested in TSC you will favour it but for new people coming into the hobby, its just not as simple as "That is for men, this is for boys".
TSW may be UE4 but that doesn’t mean it was the best choice for a fast moving train sim game engine. There is a school of thought that UE is largely the cause of the stuttering and sound glitches which afflict game and are nowhere to be seen in TSC which uses a custom game engine (AFAIK). TSW can look better but TSC has better lighting than the awful washed out or adaptive eye effects someone at DTG think we all want to see in the former. And night time in TSC is generally better on the eyes too.
Its an old game with lots of time to iron out the kinks and its less demanding on hardware, I should hope it does run stutter free just like FSX does on modern hardware but the fact is modern games offering more up to date graphic can suffer from stutter to a degree, even the latest flight sim title does. In my experience its always been a case of software leading hardware and the endless chasing of a stutter free experience whilst graphics edge ever closer to photo realistic quality. I have largely eliminated stutter on my PC by implementing mods that people like Jetwash have created. I get micro stutters but only see sound drop out on a first run of a route, after which its generally pretty good. There are also some good night lighting mods too. From what I have read, the engine in TSC is not going to change, UE does at least evolve.
Yet somehow a small studio in Prague, no bigger than DTG, can produce a massive, densely-populated RPG in Cryengine, FFS (does anybody remember Cryengine? Remember Crysis, from 2007?), which runs smooth as buttah at (upscaled} 4k/60 on a PS5 Pro, and native 4k/90+ on a beefy PC?
Many people have been making this point ...and who knows, it might become true and make dovetail loads of money. BUT, why did they make such a big deal about the number 20 reveal and hype the community up? Clearly all these kids and total casual gamers, who Thomas is targeted at, are not hanging around on social media or the forum following the 20 days of reveal.
I play a lot more on TSC these days. At least I have the ability to tweak the code and have people on the forum who can help make things work. With TSW we expect things to work out of the box. I guess this is not always the reality.
One of the issues I have had in WCML is the textures constantly becoming low quality. I believe that it has been reported by others in the forum, but honestly the performance issues don't surprise me anymore. TSW seems to not have great optimization and it's unfortunate that these issues still haven't been sorted out. I enjoy TSW. It is a very relaxing game to play. But issues like the one the OP showed should not be happening.
ya i got xbox series x and tsw run better then xbox one i seen so far. i always wonder if they updated to 4.27 and add things like dlss and amd fsr to the game to little bit improve even know it might not work but by surprise it might. but dtg did try that and they saw no improvement's on there end that why they won't go down that road again. so i think tsw core update is finished.
That and just about everything else besides the select few routes and features that work irk me. And yeah, as much as some love to think console is being prioritized (admittedly the fireside chat reinforces this heavily), it’s still by far the worst TSW experience possible and somehow manages to be even worse for Xbox players. I would love to see someone refute this. I wish Rush Hour had a more substantial impact on TSW. I feel like the idea of a “season ticket” style gameplay pack was incredible. I think it would make a huge difference in the overall reception of the sim as well. The annual release format is an idea so many of us are opposed to because everything new could have simply been added to the core game and included in an update. The “TSW compatible” thing they’re doing with multiple versions of the same DLC is convoluted and clumsy especially when compared with the more obvious, smarter option.
I can't help but feel that if they just kept the same game, and then released DLC packs to add to it, the core issues would happen less often. I don't know how this is built, but it's partially the only thing that could explain TSW5s core performance issues being worse than TSW4. I get what DTG say about it being bumped to the front of store pages etc., but I was showing someone the game the other day and all they could comment on was the stuttering and fps drops - and they also felt motion sick when walking around. Surely it's better to just add DLC to a stable core, and add tried and tested new core features every so often, than rushing to push out a new game version yearly - and all the problems associated with that.
Makes sense to me. The less stuff there is to touch, the less stuff there is to break. Having only one TSW just sounds easier and makes more sense. Not to mention how disastrous every single yearly launch has been after TSW 2.
It’s baffling because there’s performance drops in areas that don’t make sense. Like the station I drove through in the video (though it could be mistaken for a PowerPoint presentation) has nothing going on that could reasonably justify that stutter. The texture glitch is so irritating I can’t put it into words. I need to see the gauges and the buttons. I don’t play with majority of the HUD on so I rely on them heavily. Also it’s just ugly and not characteristic of a modern game. It’s not just in the cab either… …it’s on the outside too. But it goes further. It’s even on the ROUTE MAP.
And it’s not down to performance either. In the relevant thread about it, I shared that it now happens on LFR in free roam (empty route with no rolling stock) and a single 110 manually spawned in. This is not an issue of consoles being pushed too hard, there must be some error in the core they actively introduced at one point. And as you say, any route suffering from it becomes mostly unplayable due to the illegible instruments. Some locos can cope with it better and leave some instruments readable. This needs fixing as soon as possible.
As I mused the other day, has anyone on PC at least, tested what happens if you drop the Shap pak file into your TSW4 DLC folder? Would it work?
Needless to say I haven’t touched this game for months. The last time I tried it was end of November for about 20 minutes on fulda. It still wasn’t fixed so I switched it off. I’ve now definitely resigned my self to not purchasing anymore content until I see a massive upturn in fixes. I’ll check periodically here, but no, I’m done purchasing dlc. DTG just can’t be trusted.
TOD4 is terrible in any condition other than sunrise or sunset. The only instance where the eye adaptation feature works well is when exiting tunnels. I like the effect but it needs to be toned down a bit, it’s painfully blinding at times. The lighting is so overly bright on TOD4 routes, the sky isn’t even blue anymore, it’s almost completely white unless you look directly up toward the sun. From the cab I can’t discern cloud from patch of “blue” sky and that is concerning. Niddertalbahn is the only route I’ve encountered that has a consistently deep blue sky.
It is sad point to arrive at that you are done with the game, a hobby I am sure you enjoyed. It has got to point where you are not going to buy any more DLCs, that is your choice and by the sounds of it is well warranted. Maybe DTG will improve?
i saw on one of the road maps stream when someone ask why they keep releasing tsw every year and one of the answers was to bring new people in to the tsw game witch i guess it understandable. i'm wondering if it working or if it driving people away cause you have to by the same game every year. i don't like it unless they big game engine update but if it just game features that not changing the core of game that can be add on there no need to release game. and it frustrating on consoles side cause of the achievements.
Yes, this comes hand in hand with it being on the front of store pages which I mentioned. I don't have the stats of course, and I doubt DTG would either as it would be difficult to gauge - but I would imagine that more are being driven away by the bugs - or just not purchasing DLCs/as many DLCs because of the bugs - than it entices to the game. Or even if more are enticed to the game, overall sentiment decreases.
WoW...that is lumpy as porridge. Errr...no, you can't play it in that state, it is not fun and it takes away from the whole exerience. The nonsense of it works fine on our test consoles, it was hear no evil see no evil with WCML, it should NEVER have launched in that state. I have a pro, if you want I can try it, but I would bet the same would happen, I think even PCs are struggling.
My dour chuckle in that vein was the other week when the EP asked me to provide video evidence of the sound squelching and distortion on WCMLoS, when it’s actually quite apparent from the preview demonstration they did. And it’s not just on that route, you just happen to notice it more as the smooth Class 87 sounds break up. Not so much with diesel traction but still a problem.
