Texas Discussion Thread

[TheAmir259]

Glory to Mark Wallbert and his dominance over the supermarket chain in the world of ATS! Hurrah!

[Tristman]

It all makes sense now, he bought out all of his competitors before they could make it to the game. Hopefully someone comes along and breaks his monopoly

[oldmanclippy]

Lol. Wallberts are a joke. See the link in my signature to get a grasp of just how bad it is. ETS2 companies have at most 37 depots each. Wallbert had 113 before Montana. If Texas doesn't bring some sort of Target or other Wallbert competitor, then I think that's confirmation enough that SCS just doesn't care about company diversity in ATS for whatever reason. Maybe ETS2 fans are more demanding and they think that ATS fans will just take whatever they get. But part of the value proposition for ETS2 DLCs is getting tons of new companies. ATS doesn't have that, which makes its already low value-per-DLC compared to ETS2 even lower. For 18 bucks in ETS2, you get about 2.5 ATS states worth of roads and cities, plus about 5-8 ATS states worth of new companies (or an undefined multiplier compared to Idaho's 0 ). For only 50% more asking price. The value proposition is not even close. Sure Texas will represent a great value at 18 bucks in terms of roads and cities, but if the companies aren't up to ETS2 standards it will still not be as good of a value. 15-20 new companies is the minimum. Texas should be ATS's big catch up state in terms of ICCs. In an ideal world, we get 30 companies like Beyond the Baltic Sea did alongside an update to filter those companies back through the existing states where appropriate.

I'll reserve judgement for when we get closer to release. I'd like to think that there was a loud enough backlash to seeing Deepgrove in that horrendous Texas Forestry blog that SCS understands that there is a growing discontent with the state of the economy in ATS. It's very possible that was an intentional placeholder, but it's equally possible they were planning to have Deepgrove in Texas too. So things are a bit shaky at the moment. They know that Texas will be huge for ATS, that there are lots of expectations for it to be good given how long it's been in development, how big it is, how important Texas is, etc. If they know all of that, but still the Texas team does not bring home the bacon in terms of company count, well then I think ATS will be forever seen as a side project to ETS2 and not a worthy equal. Because Texas is the big opportunity to set the record straight on ATS, to show the world and all those hundreds of thousands of daily ETS2 players that ATS is serious and ready to compete with ETS2 in all aspects, not just visual. If they let that opportunity pass them by then I don't think they'll get the chance again. Nothing until the East Coast is as relevant towards pushing the ATS brand forward than Texas. If Texas fails big time, then ATS won't make it to the east coast. If Texas is middling, then ATS will limp to the finish line. If Texas is great and brings ATS to the next level in terms of ICCs to compete with ETS2, well then the player count could start to rise over time.

[flight50]

Well said @oldmanclippy. That is exactly why I don't see Texas as just another state. I can careless about it being my home. I wasn't even born here. I was born in California. I care about what Texas brings to ATS. Not how satisfying it will be because I live here.

SCS knows exactly what it can bring to the table but if it's not up to par with ETS2's huge map's logistics, the ball was dropped when it comes to logistics. At some point, you have to think about other things than making the game look good. Idaho brought visual standards. Okay now what's next. Logistics has been forgotten and left behind. What is the purpose of this never ending game? Logistics....ICC's.

So if Texas fails, it won't be because it has too few roads and it won't be because of missed cities. It will be the logistics. It won't even be features because although Texas is huge, it's not the only state representing the US. New features are game wide. So technically, Texas does not have to do a thing for new features. That stuff can come with any update. Does not even need to be with a map dlc. It would be nice of course with Texas but what Texas must gain respect is with logistics and the fact that we are starting a totally new region.

The community wasn't in much agreement with me complaining about ICC's 3-4 years ago. SCS ignored it too. But now it's critical and now it's even harder to catch up. Using the largest state to play catch up.........catches up to you. I said many years ago, do nothing and it gets worse....well now it's at that hard point in ATS. They should have gradually added new companies at the pace of Oregon. Especially the retail sector. So many potentials missing.

[JoeAlex23]

Yeah, the monopoly of companies in ATS is getting out of hand, i really don't mind it that much in the West region states, but at least one competitor has to be added to all of those companies and replace some of the existing ones randomly and put the new ones added with Montana in the other states, but for Texas every one of those companies in the other DLC's needs to be left behind, Texas is a new region and needs new companies names to shine, if they separate companies per regions that would be ideal.

Sometimes it really annoys me how SCS treats the USA as a single country when it comes to ICC's, even me who is a complete outsider to the USA knows that every state is like a different country, some share a lot of common things but each one does things their own way.

A few nationwide companies here and there are not a big deal but each state should have it's own share of unique companies, that's the only way to fix the ICC's in ATS, it truly hurts me to see Wallbert having 114 (even more with Montana now) depots when ETS2 having a bigger map the max depots one companies has is 37, that is just sad.

[flight50]

Yep its definitely sad and to those that really love this game, its a slap to the face to be honest. It hurts me to even see ATS in this light as I try to be positive but even I have my limits. I'll call out the devs when I need to just like anyone else. I've been barking about ICC's for while now and Montana has responded to a degree but the foot should have never been let off the gas since Oregon. The problem is the devs don't play ATS.....they make it, develop it and go home and do other things. I honestly think it should be a requirement to play what you make. Only then would it be obvious of ATS's short coming. I don't mod the game. Even as a modder, sometimes you don't see what players only tend to see. You tire of the lack of when you know the same company is capable of more. What's being asking, they accomplish with their bread and butter title. Why short change ATS. If you make a competitor to your own game, you must develop it to its full potential like your other game. Otherwise, you're wasting resources. The mentality at his point should be all or nothing. ATS is not a side project. One day, ETS2 will have all its countries........then what? ETS2 will have all its European countries well before ATS gets all the US states. If SCS wants to continue either game long term, they have to go outside the current borders for both games.

ATS has a super long path ahead and it won't get any easier. Texas is jumping in this mix right now and being what it is, people are really looking for a lot to happen and when it doesn't, its going to be a hell storm. I don't think SCS would be please to know a 3.5+ year effort getting sub par ratings. The more SCS does to reduced the negative backlash that could come, the better. Things they can control, they should. On the stream the other day, Pavel clearly stated what the big push is right now. It Texas. He indicated that 30 mappers are on this push. With 30 mappers on Texas trying to push it, that is the same type of numbers as ETS2. Pavel also included that there are about 100 people directly involved with ATS. That is a lot of people. We know at least 30 of them are mappers. Sooo what about the asset team? How many are there? If I was Pavel I'd get them rolling on ICC's for sure to load up Texas. Between new prefabs, new companies, new industries, Texas must have a fresh patch of new. I've stressed new enough and if my words are ignored, people will definitely let SCS know by the time Texas releases. All we can do is talk, suggest and hope our words soak in. I'd hate for Texas to fail or at least not meet expectations. What they think they met, will be different than what a customer will think.

We have yet to see Texas industries beyond what the microsite has. Are they still working them? We're not seeing the level of new things you'd think a new region would bring like ETS2 maps do. The excuse I always heard was that ETS2 gets a lot of new companies because its a new region. Okay....practice what you preach. Texas and Kansas starts new regions for ATS. What will we get? We have a few cool new industries coming but how deep are they? Glass Plant, Oil Field/Oil Well, Cargo Forwarding, Grain Elevator, Cotton Gin, Pecan Farms, Logging Industry, Chemical Plans & Refineries, Quarries, Cattle Farms.......do we get more in the chain or just the one company introducing them. Do we get more industries than the microsite indicates? Do we get more companies for existing industry that deepen the economy? There's a solid dozen retail companies I could mention for Texas. There's another dozen manufacturing companies I could mention. Of that 2 dozen, I'm afraid we'd see less than half a dozen what I have in mind. I'd absolutely love to be completely wrong here. I await the upcoming Texas blogs though. I'd love to see more about what we could be getting with this state because the Texas microsite doesn't bring a lot for ICC's potential in my honest opinion.

[Tristman]

I think it’s clear that Texas will bring new industries, companies and prefabs, but of course the question is how many.

I hope they will consider the creation of more new companies that use existing prefabs (like NAMIQ). I think two things are needed for this, artists who do the company logos and trailers, give the company an identity, and perhaps make in-game ads for them; and people who do the technical side, putting the company in the game, choosing the cargo accepted and provided, and making sure it spawns jobs on the cargo market.

The artists we know are there, their team has expanded and we know they are very talented. The technical team or whatever you call them are the people behind the screens, who we don’t really know anything about. It’s also a question whether there are enough people doing this work, or if that team is understaffed.

[flight50]

Agreed. Ideally new prefab new company. But there are some that can get rebranded as well. The prefabs that are seldomly used, like for example the one I talked about in Helena, MT (below)...can get rebranded to something totally different like an H.E.B, a bakery, ice cream factory (Blue Bell), meat processing, cold storage.....something better than another Wallbert distribution center.

There are food manufacturing plants in Texas, household/personal product manufacturers, several grocery store chains, Ikea, competitors to Walmart, Home Store, USBB, Charged. Tons of logistics companies. Several oil/gas companies, several construction companies. New retailers like Kohl's, Sams, Costco, Hobby Lobby, new car larger car lots, textile companies, new quarry types, several new farms/crops, chemical plants. At some point, the industries will need to expand and get deeper within. Pavel mentioned this on the stream but how far into the future will focus shift to more ICC's?

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[parasaurolophus67]

@flight50 MAN I hope your right about that. I haven't see the whole stream. Just small bits. But I hope thats true. Would be nice to see more competition like Target (Can be called bullseye) or lows (can be called highs). etc

[angrybirdseller]

Target is upscale store it normally found in wealthier suburbs and cities its not as dominant as Walmart as the price they charge are higher. They should of made Costco and Target type store in places like Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix as there more retailers and shops. Still, think new industries and downstream companies where the cargo makes sense would be place to start. The logistics part will improve slowly overtime, but I think scs focus is expansion than refinement at this stage.