Tsw: Switching In The Subdivision!

LOL - I was fully agreeing with you... but... in a very very silly way . using a nonsensical vague word-salad disputing the clarity of what is wrong and right.... I should probably get some sleep or something... ;-)

I will make this clearer below....

 

I hope that DTG chooses to do the right thing, as laid out in the three steps that you have suggested, or something similar.

 

Anyone know how he did this? I would like to at least be able to roam around without the risk of abruptly ending my scenario if I make a wrong turn.

 

Well... I was asked the question about an alternative for a next gen train simulator... and I gave a suggested answer for an approach.....

You could be right, of course. But I wasn't suggesting taking the Auran route... I was suggesting a distributed development path, with distributed ownership for the developers and contributors... and distributed incentives (where development is also considered a "contribution"). There might only be one office, for say ten people, planning and tracking the project, and managing a 500 or 1000 strong widely distributed team - and in three years, you could have something very nice, maybe.... and if you can then sell 150,000 units, across three platforms, then you break even. If you don't break even, then the loss in time/money is distributed, and nobody goes broke... or to prison.

Project Cars came about when the competition in car racing games, both arcade and simulation, was (and still is) utterly cut-throat. It was doomed to failure from the start - arguably, the approach that Slightly Mad took was because the risk of failure was so incredibly high.. but.... hey... you know what.... it worked out just fine in the end....

Maybe it would be a mistake to think that nobody could compete with DTG and their methods. Maybe you are right. Maybe they are operating at the absolute height of all possible efficiency. But maybe they are not....

Oh, I certainly make mistakes. And I certainly take risks. But I do try to manage those risks, and I do try to learn from my mistakes. Let's hope that DTG are in a similar mood next week....

 

Very optimistic. That's ok, but not a realistic scenario for a train sim. More a "absolute chaos" candidate. Way to risky for everyone who gets involved to that 10 person core team. There is always the one who takes all the care and risk about such a project. Without such a person it will end in that chaos. Who want's to do that for only a train sim game. DTG is doing it, because they have experiences with selling train sim stuff and needed a new, more open core game plattform to drive their business further. TS1 could not reach the point where TSW was starting. That would call for much more money than making TSW because of the depricated, proprietary engine that then need to be rewritten from scratch. Open-Rails is a good example of how it could start, but ends in a not finished thing after 10 or so years. There were various approaches to a new TS. All are dead or not what TSW is. Even MS canceled a nearly finished new TS the days back. That tells alot about all that.

They will handle that in a proper way. But i'm afraid that the moaning goes on and on until the next DLC is out, then the moaning starts there again. That's not really new. That was going on since TS1 DLCs. And i guess even MSTS and Trainz DLCs got these harsh comments. That never ends. Train sim game fans (train freaks, yeah i call them so) are a special group of customers. I never seen such personalities before i went into making TS DLCs. Was a hard lesson over all the years

 

Yeah, I am an optimist at heart.... ;-)

I hope so. I hope that they don't use the same process that created this (credit to Factor41 for originally posting the image):



NB: I liked your posts very much. It's important to me to have my views challenged robustly, and you cetainly did that...! So, Thank You.

 

That was obviously tongue in cheek,
DTG are making good money out of us all so why should we "do it ourselves" that's what DTG are in the business of doing surely and they are making a piss poor job of it.

 

Thank you! Finally someone was able to express our opinions as railfans to the public, especially those who may not understand what is currently going on in terms of the latest dlc for TSW (no offense to anyone tho). It’s just, as he said, we all want DTG to do better, and not end up buying a dlc that is said to be the route of ur dreams to suddenly end up being something like a garbage dump, and all that money that was proudly earned with hard work and determination to be spent on a supposed dream of a railfanner route to suddenly end up not worth spending. All that work and money down the drain

 

But what about GWE and London Paddington? Wasn’t that tough to build, especially the buildings adjacent, the station itself, as well as the complex track and signal layout? And it still runs smoothly no consoles.

 

That’s kinda what everyone’s saying.

 

What dt

What DTG should do vs what DTG is currently doing, wow DTG has changed a lot since the release of Sand Patch

 

The real issue here is that DTG has no competitor, so they can sit back and do whatever they want, whenever they want.

Perfect example of the importance of capitalism and competition.

The end result currently is a product that looks like a half-assed middle school project done by kids who really didn’t try. And when they did try, they did it in all of the wrong areas.

Dovetail,

Please listen to your customers. Your job is to please us, not please yourselves.

Make a statement apologizing for the misunderstanding and state that you will fully develop the areas that were marked as playable in the manual, then release an update for FREE including those changes AS WELL AS fixes for these atrocious sounds that you pulled from Kuju. Leave those sounds where they belong, in the trash.

If you don’t have the perfect sounds now, put something better than what’s there now, then add the perfect sounds later.

I don’t understand why DTG pushes a DLC out the door, does one small bug fix, then pushes it aside and never touches it again.

Fix and update your content after it’s released.

You’d make more money doing higher quality content than the high quantity of poor quality content you’re current producing.

And you don’t increase revenue by increasing prices. Lower the prices and more people will buy it.

Focus on things you told us you would do a long time ago such as introduce some sort of an editor, even if it is only beta.

You guys seriously need someone who actually knows how to run a quality company in charge that can focus on customer satisfaction, a quality product, frequent bug fixes, and better communication with what your end users actually want.

What we see now is that you just want money and don’t really care about your customers or your company image.

We want QUALITY NOT QUANTITY. That means quality bug fixes, quality sounds, quality scenarios, quality textures, quality rolling stock, and quality locomotives.

You spent too much time on Oakville’s scenery and not enough on what your customers want.

If people gave that much of a LOVE about how everything but the train looked and sounded then Railworks - TS2020 would’ve been a flop.

Stop developing TS2020. Move all of your assets to develop TSW, and you will start making a lot more money. TS2020 has over $9,000 in DLC currently and the engine is from like 2009. Stop beating a dead horse. You’ve been rebranding the same heap of garbage for 10 years.

TSW has so much potential but all we see is the same garbage over and over in each DLC. The only difference is you get a new pretty stretch of track to drive your buggy and poor sounding trains around on.

UE4 is a very powerful engine. Use it for its full potential, not just for making a route that only looks good in still images.

Examples:
Add an advanced task completion mode. TSW gets boring because all of the objectives hold your hand and make you do the task one way and one way only. Make an expert mode more similar to the tasking system in TS2020.

Further develop the computers in the locomotives

Add an equipment defect detector system.

Model the inside of the locomotive’s engine bays

Add more diverse textures for the same rolling stock.

Make all of the rolling stock have a use. Not just tank cars, but all cars should have loading scenarios.

Add semiautomatic brakemen that will switch tracks and uncouple cars for you when instructed and could ride on the front or rear of the train when switching.

Add a working hump yard

Add workers that load the trains for you.


I could list hundreds of ideas. Please try to come up with new things for your DLC instead of the same thing every time with slightly different trains.


We love you DTG, but you need to show us that you love us back.

 

true and if we ask another game company like Microsoft if they be interested make there own train game they might say there already train simulator game made by dtg.

DTG take your time, step back from pushing out dlc every month or so. if it take 4 or 5 months to release 60 or 70 mile route i think a lot of people are willing to wait and let them save money for it.

 

I wish people would stop saying there's no competition. They are competing against other games, movies, books, real trains, photography, family, DIY, sports, shopping, socialising, life etc.

 

It doesn’t have to be long. They just need to spend less time developing the route and more time developing the locomotives, rolling stock, and scenarios.

It feels like they spend 90% of their time doing the route and then just half-ass the rest in so they can release it.

 

They don’t have any direct competition.

 

The funny thing is you all are writing novels on here about typical DTG bs, and it's a waste of time because nothing has changed with them - even before TSW. They're laughing because they make money from EVERY DLC, even if you don't like it or a lot of people get refunds - Someone always buys it and that's that. Money in their pockets.

 

Jesus Christ! He killed him! I can't seem to find the original comment, was it deleted?

 

We've been saying the quality will rise for about 3 years now. The problem is that the quality varies. We get almost 50 mile long routes like Peninsula corridor, with both passenger and freight modes, then we get OSD, only about 20 miles long with freight only. Also we don't need to go into "pity dtg" mode.

 

Without marketing and sales data it's impossible to be certain, but the model "variety" over "extension and optimization" is the way of this company.
Otherwise it doesn't make sense to not go all the way to optimize and exetend existing routes, you already have the knowledge, the 3D assets, the licenes so it's little effort compared to start from scratch every time they do a new route, i'm very sad because i would pay and support that but i feel i'm not in the majority out there...

 

This scattergun approach is inevitable if they're trying to provide routes for 3, now 4 countries and different eras to suit different tastes. So far I've only found three routes to my liking and I would prefer that they extended them rather than keep churning out brand new stuff. That is a selfish attitude though as there are people out there who haven't seen their country or era represented yet. Until either the company gets a lot bigger or others are allowed to create routes I don't think things are going to change.

 

One should not only see the negative things. For me TSW offers a lot of fun and I love to play TSW. I have already invested a lot of money in DLCs and I hope that existing bugs will be fixed. So far this has worked well but also partly not so well. Nevertheless I hope that DTG will not lose the trust of regular buyers and players and will continue to provide nice hours with TSW. I think that a loyal customer base is important for such a niche product.

In the case of the Canadian Oakville DLC, I'll wait for Dovetail's feedback and possible bug fixes and decide if I buy it again.

 

I agree, I've been playing TSW for a year now and I've had a lot of enjoyment from it. Whether I buy the Oakville route depends on what Dovetail do about the off limits areas. If they aren't completed and we can't access them, I won't be buying it unfortunately.

 

"One should not only see the negative things." Getting harder by the week.

"I have already invested a lot of money in DLCs" I did the same, hoping one day, those DLC would reach and stay at a level where I can by them out of convincement, not just to feed money into the establishment of a new franchise. A kickstarter replacement if you will. Seems I was wrong...

"I hope that existing bugs will be fixed." Hope dies last. But die it will.

"I hope that DTG will not lose the trust of regular buyers and players" I think you got this one the wrong way round

"customer base is important for such a niche product." I couldn't agree more.

 

I find it regrettable that in the first minutes of the game you have to think about: How much time do I have left to request a refund?
I guess these are signs of dying hope

 

My guess is that, historically, that about 10% of people that buy the base game, then buy a route DLC. And then 10% of those people then go on to buy a loco DLC for that route (so, 1% of the base game buyers).... so there is a buying base, but it is potentially very sensitive....

You could infer (from published data) that with TS20xx (and FSW, etc.), that DTG ran themselves into the ground - very deeply. But.... with the release of TSW, and many sales of the base game over three years, in the console market, they have pulled off a remarkable recovery (and potentially paid off some debt).... but.... that might reach the "Limit of Shunt" pretty quickly if the annual sales of the "base game" (which is really just a collection of "discounted" DLC content)...... tails off, and if this is then coupled with a downturn in premium-priced DLC sales, then the recovery will be for nothing.

In short - DTG might want to be a bit more careful.

My second point is simply this - These Forums are not read by every TSW customer, so if a customer out there trips over OSD's marketing blurb, buys the OSD DLC, and then gets profoundly disappointed at the shortfall, those customers will never come back again - and you'll never hear from them, ever.

 

Yes - I think that you have just summed-up the whole of this thread, in one sentence......!!!

 

If they stop making DLC for a while, they won’t have income. Duh. Every DLC comes with bug fixes for other content.

 

The weak class 47 still doesn't seem to be fixed

 

There are still many left.
Some of which will never be repaired.

 

It's cheaper.

 

And this is exactly what every single person I know to have tried TSW did. Took a look, and mostly within a few weeks uninstalled it again. In fact, here in Germany, if you say "TSW isn't completely terrible... just 90% terrible" you get yourself a reputation not unlike that of Pecaro in this forum.

 

Ooooh - Hello....! Welcome back....! I was wondering when you would pop up*....! ;-)

How was your trip to the Serengeti...? Did you catch any lions...?

Did you follow-up your safari with a trip to Ontario, to go elk-hunting, per-chance...?



*(or......, um, .... be..... um... errr... deployed....LOL.... ;-) )

 

Still no response from anyone at DTG?!

 

When DTG said they'll get back to us after the weekend (which is unacceptable anyway) is it going by DTG's idea of after the weekend, ie the editor is coming in the new year. Which new year, which weekend.. Who knows!

 

I'm not expecting it at this point lol

 

No - I think we have had the full explanation given to us now. I don't think we need to hear anything more from DTG - everything has been fully explained. I like the number.... #286*... don't you....? I am, of course...just joking.......

*Aside: Actually, my first computer was a 286 - them were the days they were......! None of this Plug'n'Play nonsense, or a visual UI - give me DOS, an autoexec.bat and a config.sys to play with to while away a fair morning, to optimise the balance of core RAM, and allocate enough memory to play Grand Theft Auto

Kids these days, expecting stuff to just work when you hit the Play button - it's like they don't even know that they were born....

 

And it's still for sale with the same misleading bs!
So they've had the whole weekend and most of Monday to change it and still nothing.
That shows the contempt they have for the customer basically screw you pay up.

 

I actually disagree, they would have income even if they stopped making DLC. People will still purchase the game as they discovery it and take interest in it. It might not as much as a DLC release, but they would sitll make money even if they didn't make new content.

 

Does anybody know if DTG staff have been on discord today?

 

Certainly not enough to keep the lights on.

 

Not that I’ve seen.

 

Well until I hear what they intend to do, my £25 is staying in my wallet.

 

Whose to say the lights would still be on? DTG could become a shell of what it currently is and someone could still pull in something from sales

 

I reckon this is all just DTG trolling Anthony by seeing how far they can tank their DLC quality before they actually break him

 

Most likely this route will be a part of whatever TSW2021 becomes so I do believe in a sense, this route might get attention in the future, but at this point major fixes to get sales from us aren't gonna happen

 

If they were smart, they’d be making a hell of a lot more than what they are now.

Sounds a bit like DTG right now. Depressing.

So much potential being flushed down the toilet.

 

I never said DTG/TSW was perfect. People just make them out to be way worse than they are.

 

*TSW customers at DTG office after OSD release shenanigans*