It works well to keep us informed and interested. Any less frequent and I think it would fail to do that and any more frequent and there would not be enough new information to make it worthwhile. I think they have the formula spot on.
I think it's fine as is. We used to have bi weekly roadmaps which turned out to be a little too frequent, I think it's important for DTG to have them so we have some idea on future content
It’s fine as it is. It used to be too frequent, but any less and there will be complaints that we’re not getting told enough and more random speculation than there already is. The problem with roadmaps is that sometimes they will be boring with nothing much to say and that should be fine. We used to get no information at all and I don’t want to go back to that. I personally think they could be more open. If we are going to see a summer release of either a route bundle or TSW5 tell us it’s coming and stop all the speculation. I don’t see what good it does keeping quiet.
I think they can't win. Leaving a little bit of suspense is no bad thing. If they advised everything that has been set in motion, Including what's in the pipeline for the next 6 to 9 months, somebody will have a meltdown that nothing on that list is what they want or will pay for and TSW is dead. Bandwagon will roll and the negative spiral starts.
Not enough options in the poll. Personally I think it should move to bi-monthly or even quarterly so there’s a bit more meat on the bones.
Well, this will cause more "DTG's radiosilence is deafining" and "DTG doesn't communicate enough with the community" threads. I think once a month is perfectly fine. People should rather manage their expectations.
People moan when they're too frequent, moan when they're too infrequent. DTG just can't win. Monthly is the best format for a roadmap. Yes, sometimes there will be little to nothing, but the roadmap can't always be expected to have every minute detail.
In 2021, they announced the TSW2: Rush Hour bundle. They did this in the first week of May. They promised London to Brighton, Boston - Providence, and Dresden to Riesa, Meissen, and Dresden Flughafen. They promised a release date of mid-August, and a price of £24.99 for all three. When August came around, everything changed. They said the price for all three had to be increased to £34.99, Dresden's Meissen and Flughafen branches had been cut out, and the routes had been delayed significantly (London-Brighton was supposed to come out in August, and came out in October). In the end, we got the Reigate branch, and the Meissen branch was later patched in in an update. It showed that they simply announced the summer release far too early. It is better to announce it much closer to release, when promised features and routes are actually confirmed to come.
I wasn’t specific enough. I just think they could kill a lot of speculation by saying either there is a summer bundle or TSW5 coming, not necessarily what it will contain. Though as someone else said, it’s a lose lose situation for DTG. Some are going to hate it whatever it is.
I haven't found the Roadmaps to be very useful for some time now. They are usually exercises in PR and ignore any difficult questions from the QA or chat. I'll sometimes skim through them after the fact, but not often. I used to watch them when Sam was present for the entertainment and also because he used to hold people's feet to the fire, as did Natalie to some extent. But these days they're very rehearsed and everything is " cool ". I'd rather just read an article when something important is announced, even though they are also infused with too much hyperbole.
Though there sometimes isn't much new content I would be interested in, I like the opportunity the thread that DTG Alex opens allowing us to ask questions. Sometimes, due to the volume, they aren't all answered - but I was pleased to have my ones about the amount of ScotRail and the Azuma problems addressed recently. Maybe more time on the Q&A would be good though. I think monthly should remain.
It's good the way it is now. Too often and it will start to seem like it is regurgitating the same information as I doubt much changes in terms of new content on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. Annually wouldn't work as the development schedule always changes over Time, like the Simtracks(?) DMU which has been pushed back to improve the quality. There may be things they plan to release but later on in the year realise there are issues and decide against releasing, but will be seen as a disappointment in the community. Monthly is perfect as it shows us what's likely to come in a reasonable timeframe with good accuracy.
I like the current format. Of course having been involved in many long term projects, I understand what is planned and what actually comes to be are not necessarily always the same. I view the roadmap as what is their best predictions at the time, knowing much can be subject to change. With that view, I feel the frequency is about right to see the trending of things.
The problem isn't the roadmap, it's DTG's unwillingness to listen to the player base and the community, the lack of communication on important topics like bugs, features, constantly announcing or marketing things that later turn out to be absolutely broken or underwhelming (if they even get released in the first place), etc. It's like those higher up at DTG completely disregard anything from the community/player base and only care about quantity, even though they are capable of producing quality content.
All in all, I would say, a monthly update is quite ok. Just regarding the number of new third parties, after the release of the editor, I guess there would be quite a couple of topics to talk about, once a month, in a quite near future after the summer break, I guess.
the roadmap before was a little bit better with a vintage route or modern route with the area of the route for me it's the only things maybe with the code of the route that could be back
Not that it's really important to me (I found it quite entertaining when Sam was still there, contributing in his unmistakable style), but since Youtube has introduced the Constant Volume option, I can watch it. Still wonder why they don't have the funds to buy proper microphones - there's streamers with a few hundred subscribers using better equipment. Often it's just hard to understand, which is made worse by the painful "erm, uhm"s of one of the hosts. In the end, the only thing that's important is what lands on my machine, not what is being said.
This 100%. There are so many instances of questions that players have about bugs that go completely unanswered. They announce things way too early as well. Look at suspension. It's been almost a year since tsw came out and it is stlll nowhere to be seen. I really did enjoy the roadmaps during the tsw2 era. Tuff questions were asked and weren't avoided as much like it is today.
correct me if I'm wrong but in my opinion dtg is accommodated and hungry for money, which would explain why they don't care much about bug fixes and quality of dlcs and just about quantity, and the point of this poll is based on may roadmap where there were literally no announcements of new releases, just updates on things that are in development, in other words, boring and disappointing
Perfect as it is, also it is quite clear that anything said on it is what they want to do, not what will eventually will be delivered
Well if players are expecting new things to be announced every month, they should lower expectations. DTG aren't going to announce new things every month nor should they be expected to announce new DLC's every month.
I must admit that the monthly roadmaps seem to consist mostly of stuff they can’t tell us these days! It would be nice if 3rd party devs provided DTG with a screenshot or two each month of their progress on various projects, I’m sure that wouldn’t take long and would serve to make future releases more exciting and garner sales.
Current method seems the best Being informed too much leads to disappointment when things are changed and being informed too often is often being told their is no news.
Keep the monthly roadmaps. It helps massively to engage the community and from a community point of view, it shows us what we need to save our money for and more importantly, what the companies are doing to fix their DLC’s..
Keeping it monthly is the sweet spot if it became more frequent would be less new things to say or little no new information
