Poll: Which area should SCS add to ETS2 next?

[Impersonalization_VD]

I was expecting new irritating images for the new map expansion that will come after HoR for the 9th anniversary of ETS2, unfortunately this did not happen, I agree with you that the next map DLC is the Balkan DLC

[oldmanclippy]

Barring a change in SCS's map release strategy for ETS2, I still think Western Balkans for 2023 and Further East for 2024 is the most likely course of action. The only wrenches that could be reasonably thrown in this plan is Ireland + rest of UK, or Northern Scandinavia/Fennoscandia. The former should not under any circumstances come before the UK rebuild is finished, and the latter I think is slightly more likely due to my repeated insistence that the Scandinavia DLC is very popular with the general playerbase of ETS2. But if SCS shifts to the UK rebuild sometime in 2023, then I think we can expect Ireland + rest of UK to have a much higher probability of coming. But at the moment, the two DLCs that make the most sense to follow Heart of Russia are Western Balkans and Further East.

I maintain that yet another Russia DLC without Further East is a non-starter. Yes, SCS will have to keep up the pace with Russia DLCs if their goal is to reach the Urals, but that pace cannot come at the expense of a giant hole in the map like the countries that would make up a Further East DLC.

As said by others, it is possible however unlikely that Greece comes with Anatolia, not WB. In which case it's not impossible that this hypothetical Aegean DLC would come before WB, although touching Asia in ETS2 before finishing the bulk of Europe would definitely cause backlash (even if that's not fair as SCS has said that the Euro refers to the truck type not the continent).

For the same reason, I think North Africa probability before 2025 is extremely low as well.

Iceland is the only country missing from my calculations. It is a wildcard and could potentially come in the same year as Ireland if a map release strategy change was implemented in that special case.

[Mohegan13]

Ever since SCS changed the map release strategy from anti-clockwise to Clockwise to "throw a random dart at a map" I don't know where they might pick.

I honestly feel the main reason More East and West Balkans never came sooner is the contention areas. I feel they intentionally skipped those areas because they want to delay as long as possible any potential fall out from those living in those areas.

I think where SCS goes next depends on whether they want to move into Asia and Africa or not.

If they aren't, I can see Northern Scandinavia being high probability as it's one area that has been asked for ever since the Scandinavian DLC came. However if they want to go Africa/Asia then I could actually see them adding the rest of Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Then doing the rest of Russia to meet up with them later on.

I am disappointed that they didn't do Belarus along with HoR, as it is going to give us an awful choke point coming in from Western/Central Europe.

Iceland I am not sure we will ever see, AFAIK in real life the only way to get there with ferries is via Denmark. So even with a UK rebuild if they were to put more of Northern Scotland in there, they wouldn't add a ferry route.

Ireland I've covered before, also not sure we will see it even with a UK rebuild. The real issue is that as they start to push these bigger maps like Baltics, Balkan (E), Iberia, HoR, it's seeming less and less likely we will see smaller area DLCs like Ireland or Iceland as the price vs content will seem off given the larger map dlcs we've been getting. Ireland is in that too big for free, too small for DLC category now IMO.

I also don't think they will go with a "larger scale" option for these islands, as I fully expect the UK rebuild to include a rescale, hence Pavel stating the UK would be done in one bulk update and not in stages like Germany.

[Space_Night]

@Mohegan13 I think UK will be redone as part of a basemap update, however Belarus is a tricky one due to political situation there, I don't think SCS plan on being labled "enemies of the state" by the government there. (Belarus did pull off a move of piracy by forcing an airliner to land in Minsk to arrest someone on it so if they are willing to do that, is it worth trying to map the country. I think not)

Most likely I think it could be northern Scandinavia, then maybe southern Russia to the border of the caspian

[AlexxxF1]

@Space_Night this is not the first case in history, when passenger aircraft was forcibly landed )
in Austria ( to land in Wien) for example, in 2013, a Dassault Falcon 900 passenger aircraft of the Bolivian Air was forcibly landed with Bolivian President Evo Morales on board.
this was due to suspicions that former CIA officer Edward Snowden could be on board )

I do not know what political situation in Belarus you are talking about) do not judge without owning all the information) TV can easily manipulate you and use you)
on TV will never tell you everything. for you they will only formulate the desired point of view ) and for you)
there is nothing in Belarus that affects the movement of goods and cargo) or what affects the borders between countries, such as Kosovo or Crimea for example )
to force the plane to land, this is the decision of only one person, and not of the entire people of Belarus or ordinary players from other countries who simply want to pass through Belarus in order to get to Moscow more conveniently. even if it's just a game.
it will be a great pity if due to politics, we suddenly may not see Kosovo or Crimea. I would really like to see these beautiful lands and territories in the game and drive through them.
politics should be left to those who own all the information, and not only partially and try to impose their opinion on everyone through TV or something else.

when the president is one person you don't like. why should all other common people suffer from this? ordinary players. who just want to play and love games. is it right?
I can cite many countries as an example with the same situation.

recently, during the last presidential elections in the United States, there was also a difficult political situation there) so what? the development of ATS and new states for it had to be stopped?
this is all so silly )) don't bring politics into games. politics - is divide and conquer ) games - it brings together different nations and different people. how ETS2 ATS does it all the time)
Thanks to these games, I met and communicated with many people from other countries and cities. other nations. via Twitch, via Steam playing in MP, now there are even more of them via Convoy.

[Impersonalization_VD]

If it were to be in my opinion I would like Balkan DLC after HoR and after Balkan DLC, DLC which will add the northern part of the northern states (Finland Norway, Sweden Russia) then DLC Belarus Ukraine and Moldova and in the meantime DLC which he adds Ireland and Iceland in one DLC, I would see the completion of the map of Europe to 4 DLC and 3 Russian DLC + HoR or to 3 DLC and 3 Russian DLC + HoR, Ireland and Iceland could be part of the update and expand the base map and raise ETS2 sales

[Shiva]

I suspect that it might be West Balkan DLC. But not Fennoscandia after it, but either Belarus parts of Ukraine? or, wait?
Or rest of Sweden and Norway. Then Belarus, parts of Ukraine. And after that rest of Finland + road to Murmansk.
Parts of Turkey? then more of Russia?
Nope, no clue.

[oldmanclippy]

The only instance in which politics should impact whether or not SCS decides to map a country, in my opinion, is when the politics influences what the depiction would be on the ground. I.e. how SCS maps roads and buildings and environments and signs.

I will not be commenting on the substance/my opinion of each of these areas, only on the facts relevant to ETS2, as it is against the rules here to go deep into political discussions:

In Donbas, SCS would have to depict a landscape of war, which is something we cannot expect them to do IMO. Although war does not mean that trucks aren't needed, we cannot blame SCS if they don't want to depict a real ongoing war in their family friendly truck simulator. And I'm not sure I would want it either. There is value in showing that the normal people who live in these regions cannot be and are not forgotten by the trucking industry, but I don't know if ETS2 is the appropriate platform for that.

In Kosovo, no war needs to be depicted at the moment. The only controversial parts that are relevant to a truck simulator are signage (which is a part of the physical landscape and it is what it is), the world map, and the advertising. Draw the dotted border on the world map, and put Kosovo in parentheses on marketing material and you're good to go. No one can reasonably blame SCS for that. The fact is that it is contested, so a dotted line / parentheses is the most factual and unbiased way to do it. It makes no statement either way on the matter, it is merely a recognition that some people want the border there and other people do not want the border there, which is 100% undeniable truth.

Crimea is a gray area. As far as I understand it there has not been any conflict there in the past few years, but 5 years is too close for comfort IMO. Maybe in another 5 years if there has not been conflict, then it would be safe for SCS to depict it. But as of now I don't think there's any way to depict Crimea in-game because you would have to include a military presence in order to get to and from it, at the very least.

Perhaps most crucially, if SCS wanted to map areas in conflict without depicting the conflict, that in itself is making a political statement. They would have to decide how to represent it: if there is no conflict, then that means the matter has been temporarily settled at least, so if they depict Donbas as a peaceful part of Ukraine then that is a political statement in and of itself. No need for SCS to shoot themselves in the foot in this regard.

So it is best that SCS either depict a country as it is on the ground, or don't depict it at all. Any other way is inappropriate and insensitive IMO, and will only serve to alienate people. People cannot be reasonably upset if SCS depicts situations as they are on the ground, draws dotted lines on contested borders on the world map, and uses parentheses or another similar technique to refer to contested regions in marketing materials. SCS is not a party to any of these conflicts, and since their fans are from all of these countries then there is no reason to pick and choose sides. If they approach it from an unbiased and academic perspective then they will be just fine.

@AlexxxF1 I do not wish to speak for SCS, so I will only say what I would have done in their shoes. If I was planning a Belarus DLC before the aftermath of the 2020 election, I would have cancelled those plans. Not because I am for or against the Belarusian government, but because the business risk was too high. We didn't know if the protests were going to escalate to revolution, and if that happened then at best signage could have changed, and at worst conflict would have needed to be depicted (which as I have explained above is a non-starter), and many things might have had to be remapped. It was just too risky at the time from a business perspective.

I know that is not fair to fans from Belarus and non-Belarusians fans like me who are very excited to truck in that country and learn about it via ETS2, but SCS is a business so they must make their decisions based on what will be good for the business. We don't know if Belarus was ever meant to be part of HoR, but if it was then I can understand why it no longer is.

That is all I will say on the matter, as I don't think it's appropriate (nor allowed by the rules) to go deeper into discussion on this.

[AlexxxF1]

do you think all gamers are interested in politics?
almost everyone just wants to just play.
players interested in politics 3-5%. the rest 97-95% do not care at all what is happening in the world ) they just play their favorite games.
it can even be seen by how many people play ETS2 ATS every day )) and how many of them use this forum) 99% are just interesting to play ) everything else is no longer interested in them)

In my opinion, on the contrary, all sorts of scandals make any game, even the most not interesting and boring one, popular and famous)))
and this applies to everything.

for example, no one knew or heard about Belarus until 2020)) now that it was shown on all TV, on all radio, everyone found out that such a country appeared on the map)
and in my opinion from a business point of view, this, on the contrary, increased the possible sales of Belarus DLC in the future.
when everyone hears something popular on radio, on TV, which everyone talks about, it becomes more interesting for them to see it with their own eyes and study for themselves)

for example HoR, there is no such variety of nature, no mountains, compared to Iberia. there is already BtBS DLC near. but HoR, when even before the release a couple of months, already in top 25 Steam wishlist from all games. and no less popular and desirable than Iberia was. good or something bad, but everyone has heard about Russia. thanks to scandals, it became more popular and famous) and many became more interested in learning something about it) to drive there, to see how people live there. in these harsh conditions) when it is -30 -60 degrees Celsius in winter)

okay, all this is not relevant to this topic of the post. so these are my final thoughts on the last couple of sayings here. better back to the topic )

[oldmanclippy]

But it's not about the scandals, it's about the risk of the mapping requirements changing mid-development. It wouldn't even need to be related to a scandal. Let's say that tomorrow Greece proposes a law that says "in 1 year we are going to replace every single road sign on all of our freeways, and we will require all buildings taller than 5 meters to have a cute little hat built on top, to scale". SCS would have to make a decision. This law may or may not pass, but they won't find out until Greece is well under way in the speculated Western Balkans DLC. Do they a) map Greece as normal, knowing that they might have to redo significant portions of the map later on if this law passes, or b) leave Greece out to lower their exposure to risk? It's not a cut and dry question. This is what I mean, it doesn't matter actually what the politics themselves are since SCS should of course remain as neutral as possible, what matters is whether or not those politics have the possibility to change their mapping plans.

Fortunately, no such cute little building topper hat law has ever been proposed in any country to my knowledge, so it is a problem SCS will not have to worry about