Dovetail Games Upcoming Changes To The Dovetail Games Forums

Hello folks,

We wanted to share some upcoming changes to the Dovetail Games forums and explain why we’re making them.

As a summary, we will begin adjusting the forum structure across all subforums. These changes are intended to help us better manage the space, improve the quality of discussion, and allow our Community team to spend more time engaging with all players, prioritising our time around feedback, and elevating key topical discussions to make a more meaningful impact.

We want to be clear that the forums are not going anywhere. Our goal is to continue supporting them, but in a way that allows us to create more meaningful impact and maintain a healthier, more manageable space for everyone involved.

What changes are we making?

• Removal of General Discussion and Off-Topic subforums for TSW section
• Removal of Off-Topic & Introduce Yourself subforums for TSC section
• Removal of CATAN and Fishing forums, instead redirecting to Dovetail Support
• Removal of the TSW Tycoon, TSW VR & CTS forums
• Merging of the Formation Designer and Creators Club subforums into a single section
• Stricter moderation of toxic, inflammatory, or quarrelsome behaviour going against our Code of Conduct

What won't be changing:

• Feedback: Official, dedicated open feedback threads will continue to be shared for all releases in our feedback channels
• Troubleshooting: Help and game troubleshooting will continue to receive our support
• News & Announcements: The latest news & articles will continue to be shared as before
• Suggestions: Our suggestions forum will remain open for game suggestions and ideas
• Creation Hub: All creative designs and content sharing will remain open for you to share and participate

Existing threads will remain available unless stated otherwise, and users will still be able to post in them. We will continue to create official support and feedback threads for new Add-Ons and updates, as well as discussion threads for DTL articles. These will remain open for replies as before, and the TSW Troubleshooting & Issues subforum will stay open for users to create new threads in.

The forums will therefore continue to support discussion, feedback, and troubleshooting, but in a more focused and manageable format.

We will also be taking a stricter approach to moderation going forward. However, constructive criticism and honest feedback will always be welcome and remain a core part of the forums.

Our goal is to create a healthier space where discussions stay constructive and don’t get derailed by conflict or repeated arguments.

Why are we making these changes?
When the Dovetail Games forums were first created, our communities were smaller and easier to manage directly. Since then, both our player base and the volume of discussion have grown significantly, and the way our community interacts has evolved.

While the forums have expanded, the platform itself has remained largely unchanged and is now more difficult to manage compared to our newer community spaces. As a result, more of our time is spent dealing with reports, spam, duplicate threads, and disputes rather than engaging with the community directly.

These changes are intended to help us focus our time more effectively and improve the overall quality of discussion.
We recognise that this is a significant change and that some members of the community may have thoughts on it.

Importantly, nothing changes in terms of what the forums are here for. They will continue to be a place for news, feedback, suggestions, creation sharing, troubleshooting, and direct support from our teams. Your ability to engage with us and share your thoughts remains unchanged. We are simply adjusting how the space is structured and moderated to improve the overall experience.

These changes will be going into effect next week, on the morning of Tuesday, 30th June 2026.

After we've made these changes, we'll continue to review and adjust based on player feedback using the site.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and feedback.

 

Hey folks,

Following our news about upcoming changes to the forums, we wanted to acknowledge the community's thoughts, personal experiences, and feedback to help share our commitment to you and this space whilst we proceed with the planned changes.

We have decided to keep the TSW General Discussion forum open and unchanged, continuing to allow users to create and share threads as they do now.

We appreciate the value you’ve found in these threads over the years, and we want to ensure that you continue to have a space for meaningful conversations. Our intention has always been to enhance the forums, not to silence anyone, by making navigation easier and directing feedback to the appropriate channels.

We recognise that in our efforts to improve, we may have inadvertently taken a misstep, and we apologise for that. There are still structural changes we plan to implement to create a better environment, and we’ll share more details about these initiatives further down.

At the same time, we want to reiterate that our resources for moderating the forums are limited. Therefore, we will concentrate our efforts on the feedback forums and other areas that directly contribute to positive changes in our games. We will also rely on our recently updated, stricter forum rules, aimed at reducing toxic behaviour and cultivating a more welcoming atmosphere for everyone.

Senior Community Manager Alex has also prepared a video message, outlining what will happen next:


Forum Restructuring
With General Discussions remaining open, we would like to make navigating the forums easier. One way to achieve this would be to restructure the overall design of the forums and create new boxes and drawers to sort discussions into.

We hope that this change will facilitate a wide variety of topics, while keeping everything nice and tidy.

Below is a list of proposed design changes:

• Announcements: Will remain mostly unchanged. DTL articles previously hosted in DTL Article Discussion will move here as read-only.
• DTL Article Discussion: Rebranded into “Official Content Discussion”. Threads for existing, previous, and upcoming content will be created. Want to discuss a recently announced route? This is the place.
• TSW General Discussion: Remains unchanged
• Player Feedback: Create subforums for each Add On type (Loco, Route, Gameplay Pack), Core games, features, etc.
  • We hope that this would make finding specific threads easier, resulting in feedback reaching us more quickly.
• TSW Troubleshooting & Issue Discussion: Rebrand into "TSW Technical Issues & Driving Help" to facilitate users getting help with getting trains moving or when they have issues with their hardware
• FAQs & Guides: Potential to be folded into the above
• Creators Club, PC Editor, Formation Designer: Folded into new “Creation Hub” subforum. Want to show off a useful mod, an awesome livery, or a fun scenario you created? This is the space.

The above changes would be implemented over time, so you can expect subforums shifting or new ones appearing.

Community Moderators
We appreciate the suggestion we've received regarding adding community moderators. While we understand that having more hands on deck could ease our workload in the long run, we aren’t considering it as a viable option at this time. Initially, the process of recruiting new applicants involves several steps, including evaluation, signing an NDA, onboarding, and monitoring their performance.

Although we recognise that this approach could benefit us in the future, we are currently focused on restructuring the forums as a first step. Thank you for your understanding, and we will keep this in mind as we plan for future growth.

Final Notes
We at Dovetail Games are committed to fostering a positive environment in our Forums, and we value the ways players engage with one another. While we have established rules in place, we recognise that there are opportunities for enhancing our moderation efforts.

As we move forward with our current plan, we will remain vigilant in assessing the need for additional improvements. Although there is no immediate pressure to implement changes, we are aware that external factors, such as the Online Safety Act and Age Verification laws, may influence how we think about our forums.

Our ultimate aim is to cultivate a healthy community while taking responsible actions. We sincerely appreciate the insights and feedback you’ve provided, and we look forward to collaborating closely with all of you in this journey.

Thank you!