Montana Discussion Thread

[Quark]

So, its a fact that Montana was "rushed" or what? Let me ask, what exactly is the difference to DLC's that came before? Like Tristam mentioned above, cities of somewhat "poorer quality" we've already seen before (though Grangeville in Idaho is not one of those IMO). Nothing new. Every map suffers from this, just like with a few missing roads. These talks arise everytime. Heck, even Colorado, for many apparantly still the best DLC ever, has a couple roadsegments and cities of poorer quality (+missing roads as well) so was it rushed too? And just like Joe Alex said above, this is just the result of the work of several different people. Damnit, 15 marked cities in Montana and people act surprised that one or two of them are supposedly of inferior quality as if this is something never seen before idk guys...

[JoeAlex23]

Montana doesn't feel or look rushed at all, sure, they made some compromises here and there and probably missed a few roads that were planned but they decided to skip due to time constraints, but the quality is still up there on the whole map of Montana, and we are already getting one of those misses in 1.46, to me personally anyone who sais Montana was "rushed" as a bad thing is just nitpicking.

[Quark]

Yep, "feel or look rushed" i should've said rather. It doesn't for me either. At all. Agree, just the same old compromises and mistakes like with every other DLC before. So yeah i also cannot see anything specifically different or even worse compared to the other DLCs. Overall quality of Montana is damn all right. Cities look partly insanely detailed, and the scenery in the rural settings is at the very least on par with Colorado and Wyoming, sometimes even downright fantastic, all considering the limitations of that engine. And again, in "ICC" department definitely the biggest improvement since Oregon.

[angrybirdseller]

Montana is not rushed at all. Just think quality and benchmark is reached you beta test and release the content.

Montana overall is good as Wyoming and Colorado with content and detail.

Actually, think scs should limit the time on and detail on maps if takes over 12 months to complete the content.

There balance between getting decent details and qaulity vs spending too much time building the map. Montana taking extra six months is not worth it. We as players do not live forever.

[saur44l]

Like I said before,for me personally,with the emphasis on the personally.Helena and Laurel are not good enough,honestly I am disappointed with how they were handled,this is happening for the first time ever in ATS and that is why I am voicing my concern,and I have bought every map dlc day one.I am trying here to find a city that in terms of appearance or quality(paid map dlcs)is at least close to them,and there is none.Why am I writing this,cause I hope this will be the last time I see a city being handled like this in ATS or ETS2.I am not bashing SCS or the guy working on them,I am just saying,next time try better,that is all.

[oldmanclippy]

I think it's pretty undeniable that Helena is substandard, and the most generous explanation for that is that it was rushed. The alternatives I wouldn't accuse SCS of because I know they're better than that, which is laziness, poor resource management, insufficient research, etc. I'd like to think that the DLC being rushed out the door was the reason rather than those other reasons.

Laurel I don't have a problem with at all personally. They chose an industrial part of the town to model and that's what we got. All the industry in Laurel is right next to I-90 anyways, there wouldn't be much benefit to getting us into town. I see Laurel as sort of a bonus marked city. And besides that weird intersection that's been mentioned here (another potential sign of rushing) it's pretty good from my perspective.

I also think that in general, if Montana had received the same time/resources per mile that for example Colorado got, then we would have gotten roads like US-20 on release, and maybe one or two others. Colorado still has its misses but they're very small in comparison, IMO.

Colorado is so highly regarded because I think it did the best job of any state thus far in terms of taking advantage of what the state had to offer. That's really the only fair metric to judge a state by since some states are naturally more interesting, larger, or busier than others. So you have to look at it in terms of, did they really capture what is unique and valuable about trucking in this state? Did they make as complete and useful of a road network as they could given real life constraints?

New Mexico was a solid start, while Oregon needed some updates before it was in the same boat. Washington was a step up by focusing on density, elevation, and unique things like the ferry and forest roads. With Utah and Idaho, they stumbled for sure. Beautiful but their road networks were poor even considering the real life constraints in those states. Colorado was similar to Washington in that it packed a lot of punch and took advantage of the geographic and industrial diversity across the state. Wyoming while missing a bit on launch is now in the same boat as Washington and Colorado, IMO, since it does include most of the important roads in the state besides the far east, as well as having expanded cattle and mining from previous states.

Montana is a bit of a mixture. On one hand, it has the best elevation changes of any DLC yet, its mountain models took a page out of the Austria playbook and are a step up from Wyoming even, and cities like Butte, Havre, Glasgow, Miles City, and Kalispell are all really well done and accurate. Butte is probably the only town in the game that can match Jackson in terms of quality and accuracy, IMO. On the other hand, there are some quirks for sure, missing US-20 on launch (which I commend them for adding so quickly after launch), making amazing decorative depots galore along MT-59 and WY-59 but doing absolutely nothing with them functionality-wise, not taking advantage of the forwarding centers even though it's clearly on their radar for Texas, missing out on opportunities to connect Helena better to the west and east, not having a bigger emphasis on rail for Billings which is its defining industry, etc. And don't get me started on the 3 Wallberts in Helena. I'm not gonna mention I-94 further because I think it's pretty much just me and @yukonjack_ak who share that opinion, and that's fine. There's legitimate counter-arguments to be made. I know a losing battle when I see one

Now I have to end all this criticism by saying that I still think that Davido has had an impressive first two DLCs as map lead. No they're not quite Patrik level in terms of what they brought to ATS in the context of their original release, but I think Davido has done a good job of making decent maps appear out of seemingly inadequate resource allocations. He lead a small team of mostly newbies to crank out a very solid Wyoming in 9 months which became really great after 1.45. Then he took a larger but not huge team 11 months to crank out a mostly good Montana DLC, the 3rd largest state in the lower 48, while bringing some roads that are among the if not the best in either game.

That's why I'm really excited to see what Davido does next, provided that Pavel gives him the resources he needs. I think Davido's team has shown that they have the talent to pull off a Patrik-level DLC, heck maybe even a better than Patrick-level DLC, if they are given the same ability to do so. Whether that means a bigger team or a longer development cycle or a visit to the US to research, that's up to Pavel and other decision-makers. But I really really want to see that chance given to them.

[Tristman]

^ Very well said, I wholeheartedly agree with this.

[flight50]

Ditto on @oldmanclippy's post. Especially the last paragraph. We all know Patrik as been great for ATS. Patrik is locked up on Texas the past 2 years though so Davido pretty much shined in that time frame. Once Texas is out, we get Patrik back leading a team as well as Simon and Davido moving on to other projects. I too think Davido can and will be just a good as Patrik. Both have now released 2 dlc's but to be honest for me, I'm more impressed with Davido's team. Wyoming and Montana are no Washington nor Colorado. 2 busier states. I am enjoying the less busy states a lot more. The sense of distance is there without over doing it and lots of detail. I compare everything to the base map and the detailing by the newbies is sooo much better. The base line was set with Jakub's Idaho team. The visuals is good. No quality drops there since Idaho imo. But there are compromises and misses. That's not the same a quality for the types of misses I'm referring to. Even I-80's cities in Wyoming don't bother me like many because if you get of I-80, the mapping is great. Montana is just as great to me as Wyoming. Very nicely done dlc's with a team of rookies. Rookies no longer as they are heading into their 3rd dlc. I find myself sticking to Montana and Wyoming a lot when I do play.

I still haven't explored all of Montana either. I have the entire Northeast to discover but I'm taking a break from ATS. I'm putting time into ETS2 until Texas releases. To be honest, that industry blog for WB did me in. Its frustrating to not see ATS get the same level of love as ETS2 and I needed a break from actually playing ATS. Its really starting to get to me more and more as each ETS2 dlc reveals the focus is ICC......which is the way it should be. Montana did put a small dent into ICCs for ATS but its not enough. Texas and California needs to step up and start the charge for ICCs. Both those states have huge economies. Montana has the greatest impact since Oregon but we need consistency with EVERY dlc moving forward. People are starting to tire of the same over used things. New companies/new prefabs...new new new. ATS is getting too large and over used things are becoming a lot more noticable.

Although I'm very pleased with Montana, its no exception either to a few minor issues. US-20...check Mark that one off. Helena....I talk about that one enough so people know that issue. The other are missing roads in Montana but its not a deal breaker for me. It would be nice to revisit in the future once more capacity frees up with these smaller states coming and once the base map is completed. Nothing is set in stone in the game. SCS can change anything whenever they want. The game's ICC's devotion can change whenever SCS wants it too. So the question is....do they want to please its fans, or please themselves by continuing the easy way out. Eventually dlc map in ETS2 will stop unless they expand into Asia and/or Africa. Putting the same level of love into ATS can only help gain more fan support.

[Quark]

I think it's pretty undeniable that Helena is substandard, and the most generous explanation for that is that it was rushed. The alternatives I wouldn't accuse SCS of because I know they're better than that, which is laziness, poor resource management, insufficient research, etc. I'd like to think that the DLC being rushed out the door was the reason rather than those other reasons.

Well, let me say i agree with you to 90% with everything you mentioned (which i usually do anyways btw). I will adress a few of your points. OK, so nobody really denied that Helena might be substandard, first compared with other cities in Montana. But, and that's a genuine question since i personally delivered only once to Helena and that was shortly after release and since then only drove by there a couple times and hence cannot remember much of it; what exactly makes it even the worst city since New Mexico as you said in another post, in your opinion? I really have no clue. Besides the 3 Wallberts Sorry if that was already explained in more detail some weeks ago here, i might have missed it since i took a month hiatus from the forum in August. But yeah as you say yourself could be very well the result of some kind of laziness or poor research too, why not. Mistakes happen, of course this shouldn't happen but it can. And again we're talking about ONE poor city apparently, not a few or many. Maybe somehow slipped through. Or maybe it was really due to a rush. Whatever the reason was, at this point its speculation.

I also think that in general, if Montana had received the same time/resources per mile that for example Colorado got, then we would have gotten roads like US-20 on release, and maybe one or two others.

Maybe. But yeah fact is Patrik got a comparatively huge long time for the development of Colorado, especially compared with poor Jakub (but also Davido)

Colorado is so highly regarded because I think it did the best job of any state thus far in terms of taking advantage of what the state had to offer. That's really the only fair metric to judge a state by since some states are naturally more interesting, larger, or busier than others. So you have to look at it in terms of, did they really capture what is unique and valuable about trucking in this state? Did they make as complete and useful of a road network as they could given real life constraints?

Yeah agree and i think a huge role played the trip to Colorado, this experinence must have been priceless for them. Still, to be fair there were a few of at least somewhat questionable decisions by Patrik('s team) that people seem to forget or turned a blind eye to. Omitting CO-14 in exchange for the addition of the touristically interesting but trucking wise useless US-34 through Rocky Mountain national park is such a thing. Usually a big uproar would happen in these forums in such cases but in case of Colorado people turned a blind eye on it somehow. Also, people at that time talked about some missing roads in western Colorado a lot too, just like they do with every DLC. I also think that in general the cities aren't that great too in Colorado, compared to a couple other states (Alamosa is probably the worst city here, while on the other hand Denver is probably the best major city in the game so far). Probably not the strongest point of that map. Here i think Jakub's and Davido's teams did overall a slightly better job in this regard with their DLCs. At least if you ask me. Some may disagree. That being said, Colorado IS of course an excellent DLC and Patrik deserves a lot of praise for what he's done he's (or was?) obviously a great map lead, no question about it. Colorado was, and for many still is, the best DLC for ATS.

New Mexico was a solid start, while Oregon needed some updates before it was in the same boat. Washington was a step up by focusing on density, elevation, and unique things like the ferry and forest roads. With Utah and Idaho, they stumbled for sure. Beautiful but their road networks were poor even considering the real life constraints in those states. Colorado was similar to Washington in that it packed a lot of punch and took advantage of the geographic and industrial diversity across the state. Wyoming while missing a bit on launch is now in the same boat as Washington and Colorado, IMO, since it does include most of the important roads in the state besides the far east, as well as having expanded cattle and mining from previous states.

Agree with (almost) every word here. Just one correction. Wyoming did not expand cattle from previous states, in fact it introduced it and the cattle auction farms just got added i believe with the Wyoming compatibility update to Fort Collins and Grand Junction. This was a miss by Patrik's team already forgotten by many, this industry should've come already with Colorado of course. I know flight was sure for a long time that it would come. Got misled by that one blogpost .

Montana is a bit of a mixture. On one hand, it has the best elevation changes of any DLC yet, its mountain models took a page out of the Austria playbook and are a step up from Wyoming even, and cities like Butte, Havre, Glasgow, Miles City, and Kalispell are all really well done and accurate. Butte is probably the only town in the game that can match Jackson in terms of quality and accuracy, IMO. On the other hand, there are some quirks for sure, missing US-20 on launch (which I commend them for adding so quickly after launch), making amazing decorative depots galore along MT-59 and WY-59 but doing absolutely nothing with them functionality-wise, not taking advantage of the forwarding centers even though it's clearly on their radar for Texas, missing out on opportunities to connect Helena better to the west and east, not having a bigger emphasis on rail for Billings which is its defining industry, etc. And don't get me started on the 3 Wallberts in Helena. I'm not gonna mention I-94 further because I think it's pretty much just me and @yukonjack_ak who share that opinion, and that's fine. There's legitimate counter-arguments to be made. I know a losing battle when I see one

A good bunch of the quirks you've mentioned are more or less found in pretty much every DLC so far, to a lesser extent in Colorado though. Admittedly.

Now I have to end all this criticism by saying that I still think that Davido has had an impressive first two DLCs as map lead. No they're not quite Patrik level in terms of what they brought to ATS in the context of their original release, but I think Davido has done a good job of making decent maps appear out of seemingly inadequate resource allocations. He lead a small team of mostly newbies to crank out a very solid Wyoming in 9 months which became really great after 1.45. Then he took a larger but not huge team 11 months to crank out a mostly good Montana DLC, the 3rd largest state in the lower 48, while bringing some roads that are among the if not the best in either game.

That's why I'm really excited to see what Davido does next, provided that Pavel gives him the resources he needs. I think Davido's team has shown that they have the talent to pull off a Patrik-level DLC, heck maybe even a better than Patrick-level DLC, if they are given the same ability to do so. Whether that means a bigger team or a longer development cycle or a visit to the US to research, that's up to Pavel and other decision-makers. But I really really want to see that chance given to them.

Agree with this.

[Tristman]

I think people complain less about the lack of CO-14 because with US-34 in place, there is no opportunity for it anymore. I think not connecting US-24 between Colo Springs and Limon was a bad choice though. Some other roads could be added in the future, but are not too important right now.

I personally don’t have an issue with cities in Colorado, we finally got big distribution centers as well, which have been lacking in both Wyoming and Montana. Regarding the worst city, I think Alamosa is one of the better ones. It has an interesting road layout, and even though it’s small, it has distinct districts. Montrose would probably be the “worst” to me, because there’s not much to it. Burlington I also think is not that interesting, but that has the excuse of being a typical Great Plains town.

Cattle auction not coming with Colorado was probably not Patrik’s fault. Maybe they were not yet finished by the asset team or the cattle trailer wasn’t finished by the vehicle team, not much the mappers can do about. But it’s clear the two locations in Colorado were already prepared in advance to have them, they don’t feel like late additions at all.

Regarding Helena, I think the blog post about it was already a sign of things to come. It spoke of “no lack of landmarks”, but in the pictures there wasn’t much to see. Now in-game, you can see the state capitol in the distance and that’s it. The 3 Wallberts is an obvious disappointment, but the main gripe was that in their irl locations, there are other companies thar could have come instead. 2 out of 3 were entirely different businesses irl I believe. It just feels like a very barebones city, and it’s centered around an industrial zone that isn’t really accurate with how it is irl. On top of that, the city is only connected by the interstate north and south. Being the capital city of Montana, that makes it just feel like a miss.