ATS long term development map - all states, Canada & Mexico

[Roadkill]

I have no insider information about SCS's legal hassles but It appears they might be having issues trying to include certain monuments and copyrighted names like they have had with PACCAR and others..

Dealing with legal issues in America can be a long drawn out exercise in futility. Who really knows? SCS is certainly not saying anything. All we can do is speculate. I'm glad this forum is available to do just that. It relieves a bit of the anxiety and frustration.

I know there are many users who are tired of waiting so long for content to be released. Once there are enough states it wont be as much of an issue but with only three states that were significantly smaller until the re-scale and nothing new in over a year they're losing customers. It's a mystery to me how a company that specializes in the truck/bus simulator market for over 10 years seems to have miscalculated so much on how long it would take to create content. A simple formula would give you ballpark figures. X number of map editors create Y number of content in Z amount of time. Using historical data should give you a rough picture. Because they say so little about such matters I can only make assumptions such as that they were seemingly unwilling to hire enough staff to do the job in a timely manner prior to starting such a huge project. The term "Biting off more than you can chew." comes to mind. Deciding to expand after the fact seems like poor planning or wanting to see what the market response was prior to making a financial commitment at the expense of the customer. If I didn't love driving truck simulators so much it wouldn't really matter. Thank god ETS2 has had so much outside support. This next year will be the deciding factor and I truly wish SCS all the luck in the world to get this title moving. I await patiently for now. Sort of.

I find it necessary to ask that you don't attack me personally for my opinions but rather present your own instead.

[golcan]

Hi mates,

WujekBohun (polish youtuber who's in contact with SCS) confirmed (by confirmed he means the info comes from SCS) that the missing states DLC problem will be solved like this:
If you don't buy New Mexico, but buy Texas, than at the border of Arizona you'll have a transfer point (just like a ferry in ETS2) that will get you to Texas. Same thing with ETS2.

I don't think SCS would solve the conection that way. They always care EVERY detail to make their games as realistic as possible.
Europe has many seas, and that's why ferries exist in ETS2. America don't have seas in between continental states, so if they make such a weird solution I hope they call them UFO connections and remove the word SIMULATOR from the name.

Kind regards.

[angrybirdseller]

^Instead of ferry it's hauled by cargo trains like real life.

[canuckster]

With the announcement of New Mexico DLC coming, I was thinking about what would happen if I wanted my home state of Texas but didn't buy New Mexico.

I like the idea of a baseline set of Interstates that is either included as a part of the base game or as a one-time "Interconnect DLC". The idea being that as each state DLC is completed (presuming all DLCs progress from existing states), a set of Interstates from that DLC is designated as Interconnecting, allowing basic passage across the state and giving a "teaser" (in the vein of a demo or, for the old timers, shareware) to entice players to purchase the DLC package and unlock all of those closed-off interstate exits. I'd expect these would have an appropriate density of gas stations and rest areas to negate the need to open up any cities necessarily.

Also, since the first paid DLC is about to be released, I think SCS should consider offering an "All-American Access" option so that players who want to bet on SCS's continued development of additional regions can go ahead and make a single larger investment now rather than pick-and-choose from the smaller DLCs. (To clarify, this would be a single purchase that grants ownership of all future DLCs as they are released.)
Obviously, their management and marketing team would need to take a long look at how that would impact their short- and long-term cash flow, but that's ultimately just a matter of setting an appropriate price point.

I've asked before about something like your American Access option which I think is a great idea, but they said it wasn't feasible because they didn't want to take people's money and end up not being able to deliver. I think they said something along the lines that the amount of money they would get wouldn't be enough to significantly increase production speed anyways.

We'd probably have to fork out more dough per state

To give you an idea, let's just assume for a moment that NM will cost 18 like France, if you calculate the cost per square mile, it will eventually cost $462 to buy all the lower 48 states. It might be a bit less though since a square mile in a mountainous state requires more effort than say Kansas. But anyways then you have to count to speed up production they have to hire more staff so we have to pay more to offset those costs. Let's make a rough estimate that we have to pay $800 to double their production time. Then you also have to get enough people to buy into this, at least half the player base that would buy all the states eventually, let's assume we get half of that half, we'd again have to double the price.

I'd easily be willing to pay $800 now if it meant all lower 48 states in double the time, but I honestly don't think you'll get enough people to buy into it.

[Roadkill]

^^^^^^^^^^^^
$800.00

Quote canuckster "but I honestly don't think you'll get enough people to buy into it." Ya think?

No offense meant but your income obviously exceeds 99.9% of the other players if you're willing to pay $800.00 dollars. I do wish you and those willing to do so all the luck in the world though. The difficulty is that you can throw all the money you want at the problem but without people who can make quality maps and know enough about American geography and motorway systems and recreate a sense of the culture or the lack thereof are in short supply in the Czech Republic or anywhere else for that matter. Promods is having the same issue with regards to ATS.

BTW the Trans Canada Highway was incredible back when I crossed. I hope you make it soon.

[canuckster]

I mean to be able to drive it in ATS. Yeah it's very beautiful.

I've been all over Canada and the US in road trips since I'm from Canada. I live in Europe now and have even offered to help SCS, I imagine though they already have those people. If you want my opinion though I think certain YouTube reviewers are critical about the wrong things and find it somewhat irritating when European reviewers think they know what it's like there.

[Roadkill]

Agreed, and as I said that's part of the problem, not only would you need to be a map editor/modeler but also familiar with the area. A rare breed indeed.

I've heard many people say they are willing to volunteer their help but have never heard from anyone saying SCS has even contacted them. A cloistered group indeed.

[golcan]

Hi mates,

Europe has many seas, and that's why ferries exist in ETS2. America don't have seas in between continental states, so if they make such a weird solution I hope they call them UFO connections and remove the word SIMULATOR from the name.

^Instead of ferry it's hauled by cargo trains like real life.

Ok, could you please post links to official statistics showing how most of the deliveries are hauled by cargo trains in real life? Sincerely, I've never imagined that trucks with trailers and cargo from California to Texas were put in a cargo train and don't go by road.
What I read in official pages is that trucks replaces train for transport, so I cannot imagine millions trucks with trailers and cargoes put on trains every day to reach their destinations.
Thank you.

Kind regards.

[Max]

fyi, we have few american truckers among our beta testers, one of mappers is from texas, one modeler is from bulgary but worked years as trucker in US and so on. we have our sources of information and we gladly accept additional info. but you cannot expect we will talk with anyone who has something to say on daily basis - we do not have that much time ...

i meant, you can make research collect relevant data and post link to them somewhere here. we welcome such help as it can always be something we didn't know. but we can handle only so many directly cooperating people to be efficient.

[canuckster]

That's good to know Max, I think it has shown at least in the re-scale.

Seriously, if you ever start to do Western Canada, give me a shout.