Dovetail Games Mattel’s Thomas & Friends™ Is Coming To Train Sim World!

Followed by a vote of no confidence, the fall of the government, a general election and a victory for Thomas and Friends, a new cabinet led by Thomas and posts for Bill, Ben, Donald, Douglas and Oliver.

 

They are ruining the game they own? Also even if do support Trump, I'm not sure their political views indicate what DLC's they'll make in the future.

 

Well, sure, I don't think people on the forums being disappointed is unreasonable given that few people in Thomas' target age bracket are to be found here. Nor do I think DTG is unreasonable for celebrating a deal of this size and potential. Hopefully everyone involved wins.

 

If DTG had said "something unusual" was coming for the 20th, rather than "an extra special reveal", there would probably be less disappointment. Personally I was hoping for train and station announcements on all routes, others hyped up other things.

But oh my gosh, starting a petition to Parliament is just embarrassing. I said previously I had little to no interest in this DLC, but now I'm tempted just to oppose such nonsense.

 

If he was, I'd be very interested to hear what he has to say. Unfortunately I don't think any of the politicians I have met play TSW.

 

Good idea time to add in Thomas and Friends pack for the following locos Class 08 Paxton Devious Diesel Iron Arry and Bert Class 101 Daisy Classes 40/45 D199 D261

 

Well they couldn’t do much worse than the current incumbents!

Anyhow I’m with the majority here, no great love for Thomas or DTG’s decision to bring it to the game, how they’re doing it and how they announced it. But on the scale of things which annoy me, well SimRail coming out of early access and still not having a save game, Run 8 never having a Christmas sale on their older items, MSFS2020 being more like MSFS Download Sim, MSFS 2024 minimum spec being above my hardware, the current dreary foggy weather in the UK - it’s a minor ripple in the pond of life.

 

How the f*ck can a discussion about a bad dlc turn into a debate over who’s the worst president? Quite amusing tho

 

„TrumpTrain Coming 2025“

 

I think the term Hell will freeze over before that happens seeing as its really you being such a diva and having a hissy fit over the dlc.

Hentis

 

For goodness sake people, don't be such Grinches! As a small child I loved rushing to the local town library shelf that had the original well-used little Rev. Audrey Thomas the Tank Engine books. I thrilled to looking at them and having mum or dad read the stories! Having something like this - a Thomas Engine that I or dad could drive would have blown me away! Yes, to us it isn't relevant now, but I have small grandchildren who are taking an interest in steam trains and would love this!. I think it is a master stroke of DTG to make it and perhaps the other characters and be able to write stories into scenarios. Look on the bright side, it won't have the dulcet tones of Ringo narrating the story...

 

I literally learned to read thanks to these. I memorised all the stories my parents would read to me from the books, and would skip ahead to books we'd not done, working out the words from the ones I knew in the earlier ones.

 

Gen 8 Consoles owners should bei very happy about this Thomas DLC. Because the Gen 8 Consoles haters couldn't tell us anymore, that Gen 8 consoles can't handle that advanced new TSW stuff. Because the Thomas DLC is an evidence for the opposite exactly.

 

I've made my feelings clear on the DLC I wont buy it but if people want to thats up to them I wouldn't boycott the game over a DLC I'm unhappy with thats just ridiculous there's plenty of good stuff coming and I look forward to that

 

Too much message to read it all....
A very hot or disappointing argument uh?

Well, let's do this Thomas train and see if they nailed the DLC or not...
I'm not interested and not buy it but I'm quite sure there are other people that buy in the next month, and for them I'll hope can enjoy it!
And hope DTG having a good and happy new year time and comes back January with grat DLC's for us!

 

I seriously think that with Mattel as the liscence holders they will be telling Dovetail whats not quite right here or there. Or needs to be re worked. So I think we will have a pretty spot on model.
Hentis

 

Someone else brought up "The Polar Express." I think that would be a great scenario for another DLC. And DTG didn't say so, but I'm wondering if the Thomas DLC might be Christmas themed? I know they already had one Christmas DLC, but putting Thomas in a Christmas scenario would be cute and kids would really love it. Also, Mattel has a licensing agreement with Warner Bros., who did '"The Polar Express," so conceivably you could have Thomas in a "Polar Express" scenario. There are a lot of possibilites ...

 

why release a christmas dlc after christmas?

 

Why not?

I've already seen Easter eggs in shops. At least a Christmas DLC just after Christmas makes more sense.

 

I've already eaten 3 Easter eggs and crimbo is bearly a week old at this point lol......

 

You'd probably have to take some time to explain it to him.

 

I'll say one thing, this forum sure is entertaining at times.

 

Surely is I, for one, am having a blast reading grown men ranting about a choo-choo train with a face being introduced to their r4ILwaY siMUlat0R!

What is even more interesting, is the fact that these people have currently 7 real-world routes in the pipeline to be looking forward to, and numerus locos and gameplay packs on top of that. But no, pitchforks are in hands because there's going to be a completely optional purchase of a few locos making funny faces and a story to accompany them. I also love the fact that they call the DLC "poor" as if they know what it contains and see have all the details on the quality, price point, etc.

Now I can understand some criticisms, for example being disappointed with this being on the WSR instead of some sort of incarnation of Sodor, or other such arguments, but the loudest voices here surely are childish and failing to have any merit in their arguments

 

It’s more complicated than that.
First as you say, this should have come with its own little fun route based on Sodor, even if cut down. A fully realised model of Thomas on the WSR is more than a little absurd.

DTG slammed the door on doing steam traction, yet are quite prepared to revive it after a fashion for this - but not give us a Jinty or LMS/BR Standard tank loco to use on SoS and PFR.

There seems a real danger this Thomas caper is already abstracting from what DTG should be doing to fix the core bugs present since TSW5 and its botched updates plus various route issues. They are gibbering on about it like kids on Facebook.

Most of the routes announced for 2025 are from third parties, not DTG themselves. And a cut down Cardiff Valley network nice though it may be, is not exactly an AAA route DLC.

 

l agree with a lot you say, OV.

l am of the opinion that if DTG want to partner with Mattel and produce Thomas, then surely a separate game with the island of Sodor and a steady flow of the different trains, wagons and coaches etc., would have created not only more interest but more money too. Especially if the controls were more simple than TSW. I think the kids would love to see the FC striding around the platforms. Properly marketed this could be a hugh success for DTG, but not so in TSW. I would have bought a separate game but will leave TTTE alone for TSW.

 

The fact who is working on DLCs should matter little to people who want more content. I just want something that I can enjoy and I don't really care if it comes from DTG, JT, TSG or whoever else. Also, whatever constitutes "AAA route DLCs" varies for a lot of people. I, for one, am looking to everything in the pipeline and am likely to pick everything up at one point in time or another, Cardiff included. But OK, for the sake of the discussion let's highlight that not all seven routes are Dovetail's. That is true, but at least three are, right? So it's not like they completely stopped catering to the current player base and moved on to Thomas.

While I generally am critical of some the game's quality, as I am pretty sure everyone is, and I would love seeing bugs fixed, content being released in a more polished state, etc., I am aware that it is not as simple as people claim it to be. DTG have a certain business model, in which they utilize their available resources to release a set amount of content at a certain quality level and specific price point, and they generate revenue to cover the resources and make a buck. This model surely must work for them, as they have been following it for years now. People are quick to make statements that more resources should be added/quality should be increased/DLC output should be reduced or increased, the prices should be lowered, or whatever else they would want their perfect world to look like. In reality it's the bizdev that decides how they operate, and it's the bizdev that pushes them in a direction.

In Thomas' case a limited number of resources is working on a piece of content that we know nearly nothing about. What will it contain, how much work will go into it, how will it be priced, etc. My hunch is it will be rather small, hence WSR instead of Sodor and such. I would argue that this means they are just testing the waters and the pool of assigned resources is small, and certainly not in the range of making an entire route. Also, we don't know how will it play, maybe it will be extremely simplistic and toy-like in the simulation aspects, and arguments that they should be doing more steam content that's not Thomas is irrelevant. Or maybe it will be low on content and priced at a ten or fifteen dollars and will show that not much of resources were diverted in the first place.

I may, of course be wrong. It can end up costing forty bucks, for five scenarios, and rehashed and simplistic assets, who knows. But at this stage - no one does. That's why I am critical of the people with pitchforks in hand - they don't know either, yet they throw very radical opinions left and right.

 

We also don't know what else DTG might be working on.

If DTG were working on a bespoke route for the TTE add-on, there would be even more complaints that they were spending even more time building a fictional route.

 

It’s not. We can break down the following into why none of them are true.

This wouldn’t have made the response any better. It may have made it worse. It would certainly involve a lot more dev time and would require many more of the characters from the Thomas franchise to be worthwhile having the island. Having just a couple of characters visit an existing route means this Thomas DLC is a manageable size. If we want to propose that DTG make more Thomas DLC then a Sodor route would be the ideal way to go but that would surely be worse. As it stands, Thomas will take up the dev time of a loco DLC or two and is therefore having minimal consequences for the rest of the game. I don’t see how having it have more of an impact by making it a route would have made the response any better. Toys will still have been thrown out of the pram.

The two are separate things and in a world where the Thomas DLC wasn’t happening, neither would any more work on steam. Thomas may be based on a steam loco but he won’t have realistic controls in the game. The two things are being linked erroneously in the response to the Thomas DLC. There is no connection.

The marketing department have spent an hour or so coming up with a couple of posts on social media. This isn’t going to stop the software engineers at DTG continuing their efforts to improve the situation with TSW5. There will be around the same resources going into Thomas as there are on any loco DLC and then about the same again for the supporting characters. That isn’t going to take away from any bug fixing as it will be the same as any other loco DLC being made. DTG don’t stop content development to fix bugs. Thomas is just the next bit of content. The licensing team may have had to work overtime on it though. It will not affect anything else in the game.

It is a route DLC and one that is taking more dev time than Thomas will. Maybe the Cardiff network should be what everyone projects their negativity onto instead of Thomas as it is just as likely to get in the way of the return of steam, core improvements, bug fixing etc. In reality though, it isn’t and neither is Thomas.

The reaction to Thomas has been a whole load of crying by people who should know better and given that its existence will have minimal negative effect on TSW, absolutely none from where I’m observing from, any attempts to extrapolate it into a disaster or blame it for the state of the rest of the game just make the people doing so look a bit more silly. It really is just a DLC. Nothing more.

 

Well, there are clearly two points of view here. One is that TTTE is wholly inappropriate for TSW, the other is that it's just another dlc.
These opposite reactions are not really reconcilable.

I will say, though, that if " Thomas " were a completely separate game like the Tram, Fishing and other games, it would not have caused the negative responses it has. It would, perhaps, be an object of amusement at worst.

I think that promo picture of the little toy engine on the WSR is likely to cause even more fun-poking. It looks really odd.

 

You do understand that a separate game would be leagues above the time and effort it will take to do the the DLC, right? So as stujoy argued objectively it would be much, much worse for the TSW community interested in keeping the DTG resources on TSW instead of anything else?

The thing why I found that whole discussion ridiculous is neatly highlighted by your wording: wholly inappropriate for TSW. Who is this god emperor pope of train simming, one that has the power to say what is, and what isn't appropriate for TSW? Decides what some person can or can't enjoy? If there is content for TSW I don't enjoy I simply don't buy it, and I advise everyone to do the same. From this perspective this is just another DLC. For some in this thread Thomas in TSW is a super lame thing. Fine, for me cash grabs are a lame thing, which means heritage skins for american locos, or a millionth game pack putting the 66 on another route, or another 47 that has a specific number plate that will probably cost an arm and a leg. To each his own. Yet I don't boycott the devs and claim that TSW is as dead as a dodo.

Did the Christmas Express DLC cause similar uproar? (honest question I wasn't that into what the community thinks back when it was released)

 

Thank you Mr Keyboard Lawyer!

Anyhow regardless of what you say, I’m sticking to my point of view. Your Honour…

 

So for Thomas and Mattel.

My theory/opinion, so it counts for bugger all lol.

I've seen fan made maps for Sodor and it's railways but nothing "official" by Mattel and Britt or whoever owned it in the past, which means creating a new rail network for Mattel would leave DTG on a hiding to nothing, as either Mattel could say it's not official and carry on doing their own thing, leaving DTG with yet another fan made map, or Mattel could say it's official and leave them with their hands tied for any future work and possibly a lot of annoyed Thomas fans (Who probably outnumber TSW fans by 100 to 1).

As for slamming the door on steam and then doing this, from a business point of view Thomas will make easy money for DTG and Mattel and with it being potentially played by children and amateur players the controls will more than likely be simplified like they were for the Christmas DLC.

DTG will probably make more money and sales from this DLC than all their other Steam stuff combined.

 

The White Knight Brigade is out in force.

 

Think I will step away for an hour or two or I'll end up saying something I shouldn't and end up getting sent down the road...

 

I really can't imagine matt saying no to Thomas and friends.

 

You needn't get so worked up over a game

 

Without your point of view OV, like others we wouldn’t need a forum. For what it’s worth, l can see and appreciate both sides of the issue, but would prefer TTTE to be a separate game in spite of it costing more!

 

Oh I’m not worked up about Thomas, just wish some would accept there are differing points of view about the situation.

Exactly.

Anyhow I’m chilled.

 

IIRC, Awdry pere or fils made a Sodor map

 

Not all that absurd; many heritage railways run a full-size "Thomas" mocked up from a Jinty or something similar. Face and all. Good moneymaker for them.

 

There are users who are outraged with those who have expressed a negative opinion of this DLC, and what I find most amusing is that they are also expressing very negatively towards these users, going so far as to insult them in order to defend DTG. So they are being as vehement or more so than those they are criticising.

Opinions are like asses, we each have our own. Let's respect each other and not want to make our opinion prevail at any cost.

I am not happy with Thomas, but maybe because these cartoons or whatever it is, never came to our country so I doubt very much that it is sold here neither for adults nor for children because of that circumstance. So for me personally, that they spend resources on this is hard for me to digest, especially when my ps5 has crashed at least 20 times lately when TSW is running. I'm not enjoying the game as much as I should and so I'm playing it less and less, so in my view the priority should be to focus on improving the game we all love here, which I guess is what unites us on the forums for the vast majority of users. So I don't quite understand at what point they thought of making this the BIG revelation of the year, and I think it's actually the management of this that's got us more fired up, rather than the project itself.

That said, I understand the other side and those who are excited about it in some way for themselves or for their children or grandchildren.

Sorry for my bad English, I hope the message is understood

 

I won't complain on a Sodor route as long as it is -
A) based off Awdry's map and not any other versions i.e station placements as they are different in TV show compared to the Railway Series
B) Done right and not dulled down for the sake of the children.
C) not based off the CGI-era in any way even though the 'Thomas visits the WSR' dlc is clearly using the CGI-era Thomas.
D) have plenty of references to the North Western Railway (Sodor's railway operator).

 

I think a Thomas one is awesome, and I’m in my early thirties. I would definitely call myself a big kid in some ways

 

I don't think there is anyone who wants this thread to be devoid of different opinions. Arguments however are being provided for some of the points that try to reason with different opinions. Discussion basics, let's not get offended by that.

Regarding your point - I think this DLC greatly limits the appeal of TTTE as far as fans of the IP should be concerned. A DLC to a niche game is going to have a much less limited appeal, than a fully-fledged standalone game. However - this is always a matter of balancing cost of resources and potential revenue, and DTG seem to have chosen a path of severely limiting the cost, while at the same time making a product with less appeal - they made this choice based on data that we don't have, such as market research, internal schedules and budgets, contract agreements with Mattel, and others. If they made this choice it must mean that it must have been a more rational choice, as businesses are rational entities, otherwise they go bust.

To summarize: from a Thomas' fan pov this is a worse choice. From a TSW fan pov (such as myself) it is a better choice, as the resource load for the team is smaller and I don't care much for the content in question, I'd rather have more routes.

I don't think there is anyone here that doesn't accept a different opinion. Providing counter-arguments to an opinion is not an attempt to erase it or shut down the author, let's be reasonable about this.

I don't know who this bit is directed at, I certainly hope no one is accusing me of hurling insults.

I can totally get behind this, wherever the quality is poor I think effort needs to be made to provide fixes. Now, historically, the community has a hard time agreeing on what those fixes should be, and while I agree that crashes or softlocks or missing features should be worked on, when I hear criticisms that pendolino is the wrong way around on the tracks or the rolling stock numbers don't match realityvI just let out a quiet sigh.

Now, to claim that Thomas is the culrpit of the game being in this state is simply wrong. One can make the same argument for any other piece of content DTG is or was working on, that they put resources on, such as MBTA. Surely development time on that route would do wonders for the quality of the base game, but DTG operates on a different business model, where revenue from MBTA is more preferable to their bottom line than putting this effort into polishing the game, as it is unlikely this will translate to more sales and equal revenue stream. You and me might not like it, but it is what it is.

 

The problem and the backlash isn’t the fact that they are releasing a Thomas DLC which, as many people have said is an optional purchase and good luck to anyone wishing to purchase it.

The backlash is because that this was the so called “big reveal” for which the tension was built up over nearly a month.

 

DTG aren't to blame for people thinking it was a class 91, route extension, announcements on platforms and trains etc etc.

I myself thought it was a brand new country, am I upset I was wrong? Not even remotely, as for it being a "niche market"...yeah Train simulator is absolutely a niche market and TSW is never going to be a triple AAA game that'll appeal to the masses, but it is a big deal for them to get a license from Mattel for Thomas the Tank Engine and presumably future DLCs.

Some People act like it's being forced upon them, it's not. It's optional, if you don't want it, don't buy it. I myself will be buying it, it'll be interesting to see what it does...and I hope it's successful.

 

But thats not DTG's fault people all had different expectaions a bunch of us thought it wasn't going to be a big reveal if you read the what is the guess the big reveal thread.

Alot people were telling people to taper thier expectations, I thought it was going to be just an xmas video.

Some even mentioned it was going to be Thomas and they were scoffed at.

So those who are overly hurt because you expected more is not DTG's fault that you fell for the oldest marketing trick in business.

 

That's exactly my point.. I believe people aren't furious that T&F is coming to TSW, they are furious that DTG have hyped the big reveal only for it to be something nobody asked for. We have plenty of brilliant suggestions for routes and locos on the forums that have so much support but (as always) the only people that are deaf to the suggestions are the people they are aimed towards aka The Developers.

 

As usual people set themselves up for disappointment then get "furious" with DTG rather than with themselves. Frankly it's quite amusing how some have reacted.

 

No, no! It was DTG that set people up, and DTG that disappointed a whole lot of people.

It may be " amusing " to you but it was upsetting to many others.