VTXcnME wrote: ↑13 Aug 2022 10:42
The only reason we had DLC that big was because that's the size of the state. A lot of folks said it before- I think you included, @flight50 . Montana and Texas are exceptions not a new norm for dlc size. That seems like a correct answer- and I just haven't seen anything to indicate they've changed their stance on that. Arizona and New Mexico could have been bundled. Washington/ Oregon could have been bundled. They weren't.
Financially it just doesn't make sense for SCS to make giant bundles.
Actually the size of the state itself is not the only reason. You are forgeting one main part..........the size of the team during those years. I'll see if I can get this right so take this with a grain of salt:
2016 - ATS had like 5-7 mappers to start the project. They split off from ETS2.
2017 - NM released 7-9 mappers
2018 - Oregon released. Team was around 12-15 but expanded as Washington was now in the works.
2019 Summer - Washington released. The team split into to officially. Patrik became a map lead and Andrej (no longer with SCS) finished up Oregon. I'm not sure how many mappers but enough for 2 teams
2019 Winter - Utah. Now Jakub is a map lead as he lead the Utah team of iirc 8-9 people. SCS continued to add a few more mappers
2020 Summer - Idaho. Jakub split leading the Utah team and the Idaho team. Each team was roughly 8-9. Some mappers worked both. This is why the quality of these 2 are not on the same level as post Idaho.
2020 Winter - Colorado released. Patrik was busy with this since Washington released. Even making a trip to the US for research with a small team. The was like 10-12 on Colorado iirc. SCS did a mass hiring for mappers to head up a 3rd map team staring 2021. Texas gets announced on 2020 xmas stream and a new map lead (Simon) is in charge. Pavel mentioned on the xmas stream he wanted 20-25 people on Texas. Rebuild now announced as well. More gets hired for that purpose
2021 Summer - Davido is now a new map lead so now we have 4 map leads. He now leads this new map team of newbies. We know he had like 10-11 people For Wyoming
2022 Summer - Davido lead Montana with his same team of 10-11. Later swelled to 15 to push Montana head of Texas. Pavel mentioned ATS now has over 30 mappers on the Montana stream. Early in the year, Jakub mentioned that Montana and Texas took his rebuild team from 13 down to 3.
So we didn't get bundles in the past imo for 2 reasons. We didn't really need it because the states were large enough and 2, Pavel acknowledged around Oregon/Washington that multiple map teams would be needed to push ATS along much much faster. The capacity just wasn't there to bundle prior to now. Whether SCS bundles before or after the Mississippi doesn't really matter to me honestly. I'm already committing to buy all states no matter what. I just want a minimum of 2-3 maps per year. I'm fine with one more year of 2 states. In 2024, we must get 3 map dlc's a year minimum.
In regards to me saying Montana and Texas, well before we got into the chats about 100-11k sq mile limits, I've always said bundle Arkansas/Louisiana, Alabama/Mississippi, Georgia/Florida, North Dakota/South Dakota, North Carolina/South Carolina, West Virginia/Virginia. Now outside of that, I never really said much else. To bundle but others have and I might co-sign with that. But never really push it. Obviously the Northeast will get bundle as it contains the smallest states in the US.
I'm on board with the 100-120 sq mile limit but I also think the common named states....Dakota, Virginia and Carolinas make since to bundle. The Dakotas though is the one I'd bump to $17.99. I'd throw every thing I could at it to make that happen including licensed Agriculture partners to help offset licenses with them. I'd pay $17.99 for the Dakotas for that cause but SCS has to seriously justify that price. Otherwise, people will complain about its price. SCS can easily make the prince $13.99 to $15.99 as well and just continue like they do now without a huge wow factor for the Dakotas. Both together are Montana size but Montana was an $11.99 state. People will look at that. So $17.99 might be a bit much but I'd still throw a lot at the Dakota's to make it just as exciting as Montana. Its tough following Montana so make the Dakota's worth the bundle price.
At the end of the day, we are all just speculating. I'm sure SCS has a plan already. What makes sense to us, could be something totally different at SCS. Bundles will come one day. What we don't know is will they before or after the Mississippi River.
Financially it doesn't make sense for SCS to make giant bundles? That's how ETS2 comes. No particular reason why ATS can't do that now that they have a map team the size of ETS2 now. We didn't get that before because ATS had 50% the size of the ETS2 map team. Now i can say that the US is much easier to keep doing individual states but the prices will be all over the place which is why we speculate the 100-120k sq miles concept. SCS doesn't even know what they will do at this point until things get closer to (x) state/area.