Euro Truck Simulator 3 concept map

[xXCARL1992Xx]

ETS2 can expand beyond Europ because it is about EURO TRUCK and not about Europe, same is ATS is about AMERICAN TRUCK and not the USA

[Mohegan13]

There would likely also be a lot less trucks in ETS3. New game = new licenses.

You could say good bye to Renaults, old Volvo, old Merc, Ivecos, old DAF & MAN. I wouldn't be surprised if such a game started with only Scania S/R (assuming there wasn't a newer model by then) as the only trucks.

Also I wouldn't be willing to buy a game like ETS3 if we lost all the existing map DLC, not because of cost, but because we are suddenly getting a game with far less content. Even if ETS3 came will all base game areas kitted out in top notch new graphics and textures, I would miss the countries from the DLC too much. I'd end up being one of those people who wait a few years and buy the game dirt cheap in a sale when it has most of Europe added. That said I would make an exception if ETS3 came with dynamic weather and seasons. Because that is my biggest want for ETS and ATS. I would even accept stark season changes like Forza Horizon, a little cut scene saying it's changed or even just an options setting to pick what season you want.

I would honestly rather than just keep on updating ETS2 so long as it is a viable prospect. I'm happy with the map size, but I wouldn't say no to increasing it to UK current scale either.

[terag51]

*Quote Removed - 2.12*

I agree, and I honest think that ETS3 is a very bad idea. Just upgrade ETS2 / make it better.

[worldisblack]

ETS2 is became a legendary game now, so its not really necessary to make ETS3. Because we have really big map (and it grows every year), quality graphics, more realistic sounds and so.

[Myquandro]

I just came across this thread and to me it is an interesting idea of rescaling the map. I've been thinking about a possible rescale for a while and actually made a same kind of map. My idea for a rescale was fundamentally a bit different. I chose a 1:6 scale as it gave me some round number (almost exactly 10x the map size and very close to 3x the distances). And my main concept was not to get more cities in, but to get a more realistic feeling for city sizes, driving distances and population densities.

To start with City density. I always felt it was odd that a city like Amsterdam in-game didn't really feel any bigger than Groningen and later this problem seemed to increase as even smaller cities in Scandinavia and the Baltics had similar sizes. The problem I figured was that the map size of 1:19, with a decent number of cities has a big limitation on city size. If you want even the small towns to have more than one street, you can't just logically scale up the very large cities like Paris, Berlin and London as the room those cities would take would be too much. A city like London would extend to the port of Dover while there should be empty farmland between the two. So, increasing the scale can partially solve this problem. It still would make sense to actually make London be a thousand times bigger than Paldiski or Travemünde, but the size difference can be emphasized more. So, in my map I distinguished 7 sizes of cities. Ranging from very small towns that basically only exist for a port function or specific industry, all the way to the mega cities like Istanbul, London, Paris and Saint-Petersburg. The size would then also have an effect on services and such in those cities. The smallest ones would only have a gas station and factories while the mega cities have two or more garages to buy, dealers from every manufacturer and ten or more different companies.

The other aspect is driving distances. This is something that has a close relation with the effort you need to put in to drive through all of Europe. In the current map I can fairly easily drive from Sicily to Helsinki in one evening. It certainly doesn't feel like a breeze, but it also doesn't feel like I have just simulated several days of non-stop driving. And the other side is that short distances feel extremely short. I can drive through a country like Luxembourg without noticing and get through Lithuania within what feels like a few minutes. With a 1:6 scale the distances will feel much longer. Now driving from Sicily to Helsinki will take me 7,5 hours or so, which means I have to do it in two to three days or one very long day if I want to do it in one. And crossing a country like Luxembourg will now at least take several minutes.

The last aspect is population density. This to me is not just a visual thing (do I see many villages or cities along the route?), but also something based on how many actual locations there are. This is something that also feels off in the current ETS2 map. It seems as if there as many as possible cities fit into the map without regarding the population density of a country. A country like The Netherlands has only 3 cities while much less densely populated places like Corsica and Sardegna have twice the amount. Here it also seems a bit of a difficulty with map scaling. If you take the population density of the Netherlands and have 4 cities represent that, than an island like Corsica will only have 1 or at best 2 cities. This would make for the best playability as it would leave little reason to drive around the island. So, with a 1:6 scale map more cities can fit into densely populated areas and thus the balance can be restored without removing cities from low density regions. In this it also helps to have different city sizes. Adding several large cities in a tight area of the map, like the Rhine-Ruhr area, can really make it feel like it's one urbanized area, while a small village in Northern Norway might give good reason to drive there, but doesn't change the feeling that it's a desolate area.

So, with those three ideas I started made my own map and this is the result for what I've mapped: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mi ... sp=sharing

I've put in all the cities and ferries, I just hadn't come around to putting in all the roads (maybe I do that some day). At least it gives some insight into my thinking. And for me it was never intended to be an ETS3 map or something, but simply a thought experiment of what a 1:6 scale map could do for the experience of the game.

[krmarci]

@Myquandro I like your map (although western Hungary is a bit too empty). However, I think this map could also be done at a much lower scale (e.g. 1:10-1:15). For example, Austria has exactly the same number of cities in your map as currently, but with 3x the distances, there would be a too big gap between cities.

[Myquandro]

Well, my aim was to get big gaps in areas where population density is low. So, my goal was to only fill in gaps where population density is really high. Otherwise the map would just feel like ETS2 on a bigger scale, to me that wouldn’t be a good enough reason to start over. The only reason to start over is if the whole concept of the game feels differently.

That said, there might definitely be places where an extra city should be added.

And gaps between cities can still be filled with some industries like forestry, mining and farming.

[Some newbie driver]

Or scenic towns that depic what there are IRL, maybe surrounding isolated companies, but that don't require neither need to be marked on the map. We have lots of those in the recent DLCs updates and obviously a bigger scale map could include lots of those where necessary and appropriate.

In general Myquandro I like all that kind of projects like yours. They are laudable for sure and it's nice to dream on we having such possibilities where to play for. Unfortunately, as I explained other times, they are of an scale not doable by game developers (SCS or others) at the current level of technology and interest that generate this games. 10 times more surface to cover it's (considering there will always be holes) no less than 8x times the amount of work SCS already has to do. So a combination of extra resources and time combined up to x8 to have the same DLC released in your scale. Unfortunately, not feasible actually.

Regards

[Myquandro]

I know it’s likely unfeasible at this moment (but who knows in 10 years time). To me it was much less a proposal for ETS3 and more of a What if? scenario to see what could be done at a larger scale. That’s also one of the reasons I chose 1:6. At a 1:2 and maybe even 1:3 scale you can basically recreate the real world. There is room enough on the map to include about every small village. So that scale is not too interesting for a thought experiment. And anything over 1:10 would be too similar to the current scale, so I would soon get to a very similar result. With 1:6 the scale is so much different to 1:19 that you have to rethink the fundamentals and it’s still so far from 1:1 that you have to make choices and can’t just recreate the real world.

Though, after reading this post I started thinking a bit on how to implement this. And I think it would take a massive amount of effort, but not 10 times the work. As the density in most regions is significantly lower and in many areas I don’t add any or just one or two cities I think you could bring over ETS2.
Say you take all the cities, but remove the highways between them. You place those on the new 1:6 scale map and all you need to do is design the highways. What you’re left with is basically a rather poor map that’s in many ways similar to the way ETS2 started. The cities are of good quality, but not reimagined and only the highways feel great.

What you do then is make DLC’s for Germany, France, Benelux, Italy, UK, etc. Not to completely redo the country, but redo all the cities and their ringroads. Add more towns in between. Then after the DLC you can really notice that the countries become great. No longer a small London with a massive ring road, but a fully developed city with a city center and industrial areas.

And even if it truly is just day dreaming, what’s wrong with that? And perhaps out of that day dreaming comes some idea that can actually be used for ETS2.

[Some newbie driver]

Of course, nothing bad in dreaming. As I said you, I like those kinds of What if? projects, in its theoretical side. In your case I like that exercise of thinking about the reason of why to choose an specific scale. Most people just take an arbitrary bigger scale that they think it could be OK and done; mostly "round" numbers far away from the dd 1:19 (really, SCS, why that specific value? I will never understand...)

And of course too, that would be a what if thinking in lots of years in the future. Some people speculate if SCS would use some technique like Microsoft has used with the recent flight simulator; but that's not really useful for a point of view near to the ground, near to the objects depicted. The quality would be atrocious even if the scale of the map could be way bigger than actual one. I recently saw an article about Facebook (I recall it was Facebook) that developed an IA procedure to generate "realistic urban environments". I didn't read the whole info but something like this (more polished, more evolved and in several years in the future) could indeed be a real alternative to create realistic real immense game worlds. It wouldn't even need to be aiming realistic precision, the software could be tasked to do the basic main layout over the one the map designers could start to work to tur in really a good realistic depiction.

A bit more than 10 years ago we had no "smartphones" and today a lot of people can't imagine their life without them. We can't even imagine what technology could bring us in another 10 years lapse. Rigids maybe.