When is the next SP for Tower3d?

[aoz]

It seems like it's been years since the game itself was actually updated. Feel there seems to only focus on making dlc airports. There's so much that can be improved in the base game in terms of aircraft handling etc. As there is continuous dlc being created and I assume bought (else why is there dlc being made?) then surely there's active developers that could work a bit on the core?

Many suggestions have been made in the past for how to improve things but I haven't seen any patches introducing new behavior.

Could someone elaborate on timelines or reasons or anything about this so we can manage expectations as a customer base?

[ATControl -- Joe]

There are no updates to the core.  This has been said multiple times.

[aoz]

There's no reason for such attitude. Your reply adds nothing, I'm searching for reasoning. It's a good game, with a bit more TLC it could be a great game, why stop with what's already here? It's a very curious way of developing a game in this day and age where virtually anything you buy is updated for nearly a decade (Esp if there's dlc coming out frequently).

[hexzed]

The developers have stated that they are not updating the base game anymore. That's why a lot of us are waiting on the next version before spending any major amounts of money. 

As to the reason why, only Feelthere can answer that question.

[crbascott]

36 minutes ago, aoz said:

There's no reason for such attitude. Your reply adds nothing, I'm searching for reasoning. It's a good game, with a bit more TLC it could be a great game, why stop with what's already here? It's a very curious way of developing a game in this day and age where virtually anything you buy is updated for nearly a decade (Esp if there's dlc coming out frequently).

FT announced over a year and a half ago that they were no longer updating the base engine. They've mentioned timelines in the past (new versions every 1.5-2 years, DLCs on short final, etc.) that have not come to fruition. As a result, I'm not sure what else you need to know to manage expectations. Regarding their reasoning, being a private company it is irrelevant and to expect them to share anything is naive.  Besides, who knows what butters their bread nowadays? ATC games? Airplanes? Steampunk games?

Personally, I'm not happy with their DLC only business model ... I too wanted base engine fixes. New DLCs? None for me thanks. But, obviously, there are others that don't share that opinion. 

 

[aoz]

Well given the forum search you'll forgive me for not knowing these facts, thanks for the information 🙂

Also naivety has nothing to do with it, comparison does. My expectations are created from experience with other game companies who are also private and some who are public. See the fantastic communication and transparency of everything from pricing, game engine/design to hiring by the Factorio developers for a specifically great example.

Of course not every game company can be as incredible, but it does shape general expectations of what's possible or thoughts about how things ought to be run even.

Like yourself I'm not happy with dlc only, and so I wanted to know what's going on. You've provided a great summary so I'll just throw all these high expectations in the garbage 😄

 

[ashman99]

14 minutes ago, aoz said:

Well given the forum search you'll forgive me for not knowing these facts, thanks for the information 🙂

Also naivety has nothing to do with it, comparison does. My expectations are created from experience with other game companies who are also private and some who are public. See the fantastic communication and transparency of everything from pricing, game engine/design to hiring by the Factorio developers for a specifically great example.

Of course not every game company can be as incredible, but it does shape general expectations of what's possible or thoughts about how things ought to be run even.

Like yourself I'm not happy with dlc only, and so I wanted to know what's going on. You've provided a great summary so I'll just throw all these high expectations in the garbage 😄

 

The way that I have wrapped my mind around things with the new version is thinking in terms of the business and market demand itself. FT is still able to make a profit living off of just producing dlcs only. It definitely takes time to produce airports but nothing nearly I assume as working on the next version. If you take their previous game  TOWER2011. They produced multiple airports before coming out with Tower 3d pro (which was considered the upcoming version). I expect a lot more dlc's to come out before any REAL mention of the new version is considerably talked about. If FT was somehow hit to the point where no one wanted anymore dlcs then they would be forced to spend time on the next version and produce a better engine. But like @crbascott stated; there are still customers out there that aren't bother by the current game's engine enough to stop buying the dlcs FT are producing. Hence why I've made one suggestion for the future version and haven't said anything more about it.

[aoz]

It does make me fairly curious why its difficult to create a new airport and why each one has unique bugs. Perhaps it's engine limitations. I have this weird feeling it's a unity game and every airport is its own copy pasted version of the game hence to change the core would require redoing all the dlc airports. You'd hope that wouldnt be the case but who knows!

[FeelThere_Vic]

I try to give my 2 cents as well 🙂

We are a small company and because of that, we can't please everyone even we try hard. A few months ago we ran a poll and we got the result most of the customers need new DLCs. We made lots of changes within the company to try to increase our airport add-on output. Previously we were working on one airport at the time, now we are working on 6. 

Most of today's FS franchises are well past of their 10th releases (FS, X-plane) and learned/implemented things during their new versions. Others still run on DOS because the developer abandoned them. Tower!3D is the second release of the franchise and each new airport add-on creates a new problem that we need to fix. As you expect we have an internal list of these issues that we plan to address in the next version. For example the infamous spinning planes. Currently, we must fix them at each gate. As you can imagine this is a nightmare 🙂 For the next version we will re-write the whole docking/pushback code to avoid this on the engine level. This is just one example.

I hope you understand we try hard to please you and stay in the business too. Some of the comments suggest we are greedy but I stated many times before; if we could sell the same number of copies of Tower!3D as AAA games sell we would gladly offer T!3D for a single dollar 🙂

Thank you

Vic

[aoz]

I very much appreciate the response Vic. I would make one small suggestion. Perhaps it could make sense to release some of the most requested changes as well as an airport or two as a slightly more expensive expansion pack if it makes squeezing in things like plane taxiing features or some such thing more palatable and keeps the business alive. Development of paid content shouldn't have to be mutually exclusive either airports or features.

Even though the dream in software is always to rewrite and make the next best thing and fix all the mistakes we made in the past it's not always feasible and so I have a huge amount of empathy there (been in the same situation many times). But as I said this product is good, it fills a niche very well it just needs a little extra polish to be great and so it's with deep sadness that I hear that the stance of the company is to wait for a rewrite (which of course won't have the same defects it'll have new ones that'll be there forever without a good update policy too).

I'd say that it is definitely hard to please everyone but choosing only dlc airports is far from pleasing everyone and seems to only please a single type of user. I also won't accuse anyone of greed because it's impossible to know your situation or business strategy as a complete outsider but I don't buy the airports because they're priced 2x higher than half of my steam library and then if I want the full version I have to pay another chunk of money just for the colors and the core game isn't getting updates. This is far beyond the normally called out "dlc greed" of other developers so even if it's simply done to survive (which I take your word for) you must consider the big picture of how it looks to outsiders who don't know what's happening, the real circumstances or how much effort goes into each airport release or their real colors.

Anyway, I'm stepping off my soap box now. Thank you for taking the time to reply to my question and help fill in the blanks. I now understand the situation even if it is regrettable.

[crbascott]

2 hours ago, FeelThere said:

few months ago we ran a poll and we got the result most of the customers need new DLCs.

What was the exact poll question? I don't recall seeing a poll of bug fixes versus new DLCs. Wasn't it more of what DLCs would we like to see?

[Sky King]

I agree with @crbascott. The poll was for what airport would you like to see next, not whether there should be new airports vs a new version/bug fixes.

Here is @crbascott's poll: 

Here is Feethere's poll (note the statement "our first poll"): 

 

Regards,

SK

[Braf123456]

On 7/5/2019 at 3:07 AM, FeelThere said:

I try to give my 2 cents as well 🙂

We are a small company and because of that, we can't please everyone even we try hard. A few months ago we ran a poll and we got the result most of the customers need new DLCs. We made lots of changes within the company to try to increase our airport add-on output. Previously we were working on one airport at the time, now we are working on 6. 

Most of today's FS franchises are well past of their 10th releases (FS, X-plane) and learned/implemented things during their new versions. Others still run on DOS because the developer abandoned them. Tower!3D is the second release of the franchise and each new airport add-on creates a new problem that we need to fix. As you expect we have an internal list of these issues that we plan to address in the next version. For example the infamous spinning planes. Currently, we must fix them at each gate. As you can imagine this is a nightmare 🙂 For the next version we will re-write the whole docking/pushback code to avoid this on the engine level. This is just one example.

I hope you understand we try hard to please you and stay in the business too. Some of the comments suggest we are greedy but I stated many times before; if we could sell the same number of copies of Tower!3D as AAA games sell we would gladly offer T!3D for a single dollar 🙂

Thank you

Vic

We know of Dubai Chicago Tokyo henida an Paris can u give us a hint at the other airports u are working on

[aoz]

43 minutes ago, Braf123456 said:

We know of Dubai Chicago Tokyo henida an Paris can u give us a hint at the other airports u are working on

Please don't hijack this thread for discussion about upcoming DLCs 🙂

[Braf123456]

11 minutes ago, aoz said:

Please don't hijack this thread for discussion about upcoming DLCs 🙂

Vic was the one that said they are working on 6 dlc airport in this thread so I'm not hijacking the thread 

[aoz]

2 minutes ago, Braf123456 said:

Vic was the one that said they are working on 6 dlc airport in this thread so I'm not hijacking the thread 

This thread is about making fewer DLCs and instead providing features and bug fixes to the core of the game. Using Vic's presence in the thread to ask the unrelated question of "what dlcs are coming" is a hijacking. Let's keep the discussion focused on the issue at hand please. As someone who seems to appreciate the DLCs I'd invite you to leave your opinion. Are you happy with the state of the game? Would you like to see fewer dlcs and more instructions for planes, or some particularly annoying bug fixes?

[Braf123456]

42 minutes ago, aoz said:

This thread is about making fewer DLCs and instead providing features and bug fixes to the core of the game. Using Vic's presence in the thread to ask the unrelated question of "what dlcs are coming" is a hijacking. Let's keep the discussion focused on the issue at hand please. As someone who seems to appreciate the DLCs I'd invite you to leave your opinion. Are you happy with the state of the game? Would you like to see fewer dlcs and more instructions for planes, or some particularly annoying bug fixes?

I love the game an I want to see more dlcs an the the bugs I just over look them an find ways around them 

[Sky King]

Thanks for the hijack Braf.

[xendra]

Releasing new dlc´s but not fixing the core bugs, isn´t the right way.

Spinning airplanes, take-off hopes, freezing landings, GPU collapses due to wrong or inexistent programmed taxi-ways runnings, not makes me to want to buy more dlc´s.

Thanks in advance!

Barcelona (The more abandoned and not finished dlc of the history)

SPAIN

[aoz]

The number of different opinions in the greater community won't actually be counted here in this thread (due to the title). Perhaps when I return from vacation in a few days I will create a community poll to find out the answer to the question "do people want dlc airports, bugs/features, or a combination of both"?

It seems as if it's the logical next step as the developers believe that their players only want/are willing to pay for new airports. Perhaps if we can demonstrate that that's not the only way the fund the project we can get something happening. Thanks to all who voiced opinions here and contributed to the discussion especially Vic for adding his thoughts as well.

[Braf123456]

24 minutes ago, aoz said:

The number of different opinions in the greater community won't actually be counted here in this thread (due to the title). Perhaps when I return from vacation in a few days I will create a community poll to find out the answer to the question "do people want dlc airports, bugs/features, or a combination of both"?

It seems as if it's the logical next step as the developers believe that their players only want/are willing to pay for new airports. Perhaps if we can demonstrate that that's not the only way the fund the project we can get something happening. Thanks to all who voiced opinions here and contributed to the discussion especially Vic for adding his thoughts as well.

They are ready did a pole for that if you don't like the game don't buy it then just stop complaining about it

[aoz]

2 hours ago, Braf123456 said:

They are ready did a pole for that if you don't like the game don't buy it then just stop complaining about it

You're really not helping anything here Braf. It's already been noted in this thread that there has been no such poll (see above). I already own the game, and 3 of the DLC. But as an actual pilot and a programmer I see a lot of weak areas in the game. I said already that I think it's a good game, but with some extra work it could be a great game. If you look at the bug reports and feature requests you'll see its not quite there yet. Don't you want the game to be better?

Wouldn't you appreciate if every time you bought a dlc your planes didn't spin? Or that planes didn't get stuck doing nothing randomly with no possible way to unstick them?

Even if you don't there's nothing wrong with collecting opinions and doing polls to help the developers make informed decisions. Even if it's not their current mode of business it might help them realize there's unearned revenue in creating expansion packs with features as one example.

Let's be honest, it's incredibly unlikely anything will come of my efforts. So just leave me to my own devices and you can go back to buying up all the new DLCs.

[Braf123456]

7 minutes ago, aoz said:

You're really not helping anything here Braf. It's already been noted in this thread that there has been no such poll (see above). I already own the game, and 3 of the DLC. But as an actual pilot and a programmer I see a lot of weak areas in the game. I said already that I think it's a good game, but with some extra work it could be a great game. If you look at the bug reports and feature requests you'll see its not quite there yet. Don't you want the game to be better?

Wouldn't you appreciate if every time you bought a dlc your planes didn't spin? Or that planes didn't get stuck doing nothing randomly with no possible way to unstick them?

Even if you don't there's nothing wrong with collecting opinions and doing polls to help the developers make informed decisions. Even if it's not their current mode of business it might help them realize there's unearned revenue in creating expansion packs with features as one example.

Let's be honest, it's incredibly unlikely anything will come of my efforts. So just leave me to my own devices and you can go back to buying up all the new DLCs.

I will an the spinning planes an planes getting stuck they have a delete plane 

[crbascott]

3 hours ago, Braf123456 said:

They are ready did a pole for that if you don't like the game don't buy it then just stop complaining about it

Braf, that email you received and posted in another thread invited customers to post comment, reviews, etc. Why are you telling people to shut up when FeelThere asked for the opposite?  And remember, at one time you even posted you were ready for the next version. And that pole (it'a actually poll) you mention, was only about what airports people wanted to see and nothing more.

Not everyone is willing to compromise their standards for software. As a former software (non-gaming) developer, my standards apparently are a little higher. Unrealistic workarounds, deleting planes, and overlooking bugs are not the answer for everyone. 

[Braf123456]

30 minutes ago, crbascott said:

Braf, that email you received and posted in another thread invited customers to post comment, reviews, etc. Why are you telling people to shut up when FeelThere asked for the opposite?  And remember, at one time you even posted you were ready for the next version. And that pole (it'a actually poll) you mention, was only about what airports people wanted to see and nothing more.

Not everyone is willing to compromise their standards for software. As a former software (non-gaming) developer, my standards apparently are a little higher. Unrealistic workarounds, deleting planes, and overlooking bugs are not the answer for everyone. 

That email has nothing to do with this conversation that's another post yeah I would like to see the new version not because I hate this one it because they will allow modding that is it an he ask how he could work around it so I told him to delete the airplanes