Survey Woes

oh, those nice Renfe bullets

 

Takes me back to my holiday last year

 

Saved a few questions as I don't have TSW4 and it was nice to be asked why not

On the subscription model, I think this only works for new players who have hardly anything, if you already have built up the collection over the years then you have most things and subbing gets you little extra.
But, there was one thing that I thought was a big red flag. That was the question about the rewards for regular customers, which included in-game currency.

Now, some sort of MTX in-game is really not something that should be explored, I can think of nothing useful coming out of that. Discounted future purchases, yes absolutely, but why would you need in-game currency?!

 

I've bought games where you get a certain number of points which can be used as an additional discount. Ubisoft for example, while not in game currency, gives points with a purchase or as a gift or buy it with real money and if you wanted, you can use the currency to get like a 20% discount. You can't get a discount for every single game of course since you'll eventually run out very quickly. But you get the idea.

 

I looked for Wales in the list of 'new countries' but it wasn't there. I don't particularly care about Wales myself but it is surprising there is isn't one there yet. Maybe one which crosses the border into England to make it more fashionable.

 

The survey has "Discounts on future purchases" as a separate option, and the in-game currency option specifically notes it's for purchasing "things in game".

 

Telling DTG what they can do with their class 66 in under 50 words was very difficult.

But I think they'll understand exactly how sick I am of that thing when they read it.

 

It’s Britain as the big 3, so it wouldn’t come up as additional, same as Scotland and of course England

kinda like they haven’t done Florida but it’s still part of the US category.

 

TBH as an outsider, the UK seems pretty much like a single country. If you consider Wales to be a different country than England, perhaps the Kingdom isn't as United as the name would suggest.

 

Wales is already covered by UK so it wouldn’t be a new country. I do care about Wales as I was born there and would like a North Wales route. We need some mountains in a UK route and that’s a good way to get them. We could even get a dragon as a Mastery reward. Even if Wales was listed in the survey, everybody would still choose Japan anyway. Japanese rail is different to anything we have so I want that as well.

 

United isn’t a word I would use neither, they’re quite separate in fact. But game wise it’s just the land to care about not political stuff.

U.K. is of course a separate thing entirely and not a country as any other, it’s more just politics and military control and not much else. UK keeps lands on Cyprus for example lands for strategic stuff not so much (not at all) people identities and culture similarities etc)

hence why I don’t think DTG mean to use the U.K. name as one of the big 3, as that name land wise just incorporates overseas territories for control what’s rarely used purposes.

Britain is more appropriate name for what they actually are doing with TSW.

though wales is a different country to England in the same way California is a different state to Texas, no doubt on that.

 

Nobody wants to have to type or say "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Station".

 

Technically, it's 4 countries.

England
Wales
Northern Ireland
Scotland.

I always saw the UK as part of America, but we'll save politics for another day.

 

So… did the Survey crash the forum for nearly 12 hours then?!

 

It's an odd case where a country is made up of countries, to make it confusing I guess.

 

It’s (the U.K.) not a country it’s a sovereign country (basically a union of countries under one sovereign)

Britain is an Island, Ireland is an Island

The island of Britain holds 3 recognised countries (England Scotland & Wales)

The Island of Ireland holds 2 recognised countries (Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland)


Edit: the USA actually has similar, another word for country is state or nation therefore the US is state made up of different kinds of states.

 

Well, not really. I'd pick the farthest away country from me available on the list, just like I picked Australia while living in Europe, though initially I was hesitating between it and Japan.

 

Uh oh… well all that would do is make the U.K. United for once in opposition…

 

I did the survey chose prefer freight operations commented would like to see more development of freight routes in TSW especially US freight is the dominant rail operation here over passenger but would like more freight on UK routes also ..for countries i chose canada but Australia be neat Brazil they use US locos on multi guage track was watching some YT videos neat stuff ..commented have some longer routes extensions ..selected too career mode freight passenger more yard shunting duties management more in game rewards currency for deticated TSWplayers to earn discount s on DLC loco etc paks

 

a

Also the one question i hated having only 1 choice was what era s i chose modern but also would like historical especially US UK older diesel s and cars etc

 

I suppose it needs to be one choice or anyone could say them all and it won’t find what it’s looking for in that question, that kind of question is looking for the most popular and that can be only one answer.

 

exa

example remasterd clinchfield with modern CSX layer since CSX operates the clinchfield today.. Santa fe layer for cajon ..Pennsylvania RR conrail for Horseshoe Baltimore and Ohio chessie system for Sand patch..

 

The only issue I had with it were on the subscription model question. I chose the option that were most against a subscription model, but the next page indicated I had chosen an option in favour of a subscription model.

If TSW goes fully subscription model I will turn my back on it and never look back. What JD said on the last page does ease my nerves a bit though.

 

Yes very frustrating. My preference is for BR Classic Blue but I would also like to plod along a single track branch line with a GWR Pannier tank or drive a Class 150 up the Rhymney Valley. Equally if chosen carefully not all modern stuff is bad and yes I do like freight as well. So I do think they should have included more parameters and not forced people to choose just one - perhaps it should have been a list preference like some of the other questions.

 

I found those " list " questions impossible to fully complete. I numbered the first 3 or 4 and ignored the rest because most of the other choices were last on my list.

I did the survey, then wondered why because I'm sure most players probably opted for modern electric traction on short passenger routes and, since I prefer pretty much the exact opposite, my opinions probably vanished into the ether.

 

Well using that format rather than just giving a 1 to 10 slider for each option was a bit flawed and could lead to some skewed results.

 

Wish some of those lists had an option to rate everything the same, as my lack of care of some things are near zero.

 

Ranking items in a list does not give as much information without giving me the ability to say how much I care about each item.
Instead of a ranking list, each option should have a "score".

In the example linked above, I could easily say:
1. Discounts on future purchases: 95% score
2. In game currency: 5%
all others, 0% (i.e. I don't care about the other options)

 

I wonder what the result for the One Big Route, Two Medium Routes, Three Normal Routes would be. That was a hard one to answer.

Each has merits. I would like to see one big route, with a decent length, branches, and lots of included trains but Im not so sure I would want that every year. It would allow something like a decent stretch of the WCML for example or a decent network somewhere but after plenty of players didn’t buy TSW4 because they didn’t fancy any of the three fairly sizeable offerings, I can’t see it happening anyway as one route may have a bigger negative effect, as it may not matter how big it is to players who don’t like that kind of content. I settled for choosing two medium routes as it is different to what we get now but not just limiting the core release to one country. Even that option would lead to one batch of players from one of the big three countries feeling short changed.

 

Yeah, like I wouldn't really be interested most of the time if the one big route was German for example.

 

You make some good points, which is why I voted to keep things as they are with 3 routes. To be frank, I wouldn’t like to see a big release that misses one of the big 3. No matter whether you go for 2 or 1 routes, at least one group would be left dry and might even get less content overall that year. That divide of “who gets content” is not something I would like to see in the community. And personally speaking, I enjoy routes of all the big three, so I like getting routes of all 3 in a release.

On the topic of longer routes, I do get the appeal. Zusi has a route going all the way from Kassel to Hamburg (that’s like 300km). It is nice to have the option of doing these long runs that feel like you’re really going from one place to another. But I feel like modular routes are a better approach to this sort of thing rather than doing it all in one go.

What I would like to know though is what DTG actually mean with the 2 medium or 1 long routes as in, what is medium and long length? What sort of routes are we actually talking about? It’s all pretty vague.

 

Longer routes I'd generally expect them to be high speed.

I'd expect that the shorter the route is, the more commuter focused it would be.

 

Then there's also the era the big route is set in. For example, I'd like a longer BR era route that's similar length to ECML, something like WCML Over Shap. The current selection of BR routes are enjoyable, but some mainline action in that time period would be most welcome.

It's going to be really unfortunate if all the longer length routes end up being modern.

 

24. What is your biggest motivator to pre-order a piece of content, rather than getting it on or after it's launched?
Pre-order Discount
Exclusive extra content (Livery Designer decals, bonus liveries, etc.)
Seeing pre-release videos or live streams
I like the sound of the content!
Other (please specify)

Sound as in the traction noises or the marketing portrayal ? DTG JD (sorry for tag JD, and if already aware, but two different results meanings)

Also -
42. What other games do you play? (click all that apply)
Only a Transport Fever 2 option, not 1, which I play

43. How do you find out about new content?
Roadmap option is missing

 

A bit of a weird one: I entered my email address for a chance to win a DLC, however I clicked "Done" for the survey instead of "Ok" to confirm my mail address - do I have to run the survey again?

That would also kind of distort the results if I do it twice.

 

Just finished the survey.

The problem I had with this question was that we only can select one country. I would have liked it better if we could have chosen several (multiple choice) or even better, rank them dependent upon interest, like it was the case for many other questions.

In my case, I selected "Japan" because this is the one I'm interested in the most (as the question says) new content from, but that absolutely doesn't mean I'm not interested in a country or countries which is/are listed there also.

For example, I would also love to see a lovely little french branch line in TSW, a long distance australian discovery through the desert or even a fancy full commuter in China or India.

 

Good points.

However, the price tag is not always the major issue. Especially with Dovetail Games, I would be happy to having the option to purchase something than not even be able to purchase it all because it's simply not made.

 

In my case, I knew Japan is coming, so I selected Australia instead, as it's around the same level of interest. But it doesn't mean the Japan stopped being the interesting. It's simply already coming.

In the past surveys there was no ranked list of countries, either. There was a text input field with a similar question about a single country. Some probably put there a few countries and maybe that's why this time it's a single choice from a list. However, at that time there was also another question about a specific route you'd like to see in the game, where you could write a route in another country than the one you selected that you'd like to see the most, so effectively you could pass in there 2 countries. As there's no question about a specific route in the survey this year, it's only possible to pick just a single country.

 

Did the survey end?

 

I don't think so. Try that:

 

I was on holidays, so I could not complete the survey.
But I could not find it. Where is the link to it?
Thanks for your information in advance.

 

I got the information now that the survey should have been officialy ended at 18th of February.

However, if I try to open this link (in a private window), it seems to work still:

https://bit.ly/TSW4PlayerSurvey2024

 

Yes, it is still working. Thank you!

 

No problem, JD. I think it actually helps to even got a bit broader transparence with the results.

By the way, I wouldn't mind if the people who entered after Sunday would be also included in the competition draw. But I guess it has to stick to the rules... However, I think in the end, sharing one's own opinion is what mattered here, not the competition.