ATS New Mexico DLC news

[Kenadian]

Yep just watched the trailer, can't be long now.

Is there any info on how much they're going to charge for this Map DLC?

 

[Shilka]

Nope nothing at all. Never seen SCS disclose any dates or prices early on to be honest, not unless it was within days of release, or not at all. Which prevents a lot of whining and other excrements hitting ventilators tbh

 

[Skid_Marc_]

Wow, had to watch a full 1:00 into the video to see any terrain that looked 'new', and there were two shots, one of which was the bridge over water with trees, which was a picture we already had. That road into the mountains looked pretty cool, and hopefully it will get more interesting the further into the mountains they go. Obviously, the stacked interchange is iconic, but in two minutes, those were the only three things they could pick to impress the audience?

Oh, don't forget, there is more desert!!

They spent a good 30 seconds showing off accidents, in that video. Are we supposed to be excited that they added stationary police cars (traffic stops), fire engines (burned car), and ambulance (airplane on the... wait, what the fuck? An airplane on the road?)

Highly unlikely that any of those things will be dynamic... So while it might be cool to drive past the first time or two, how many times after you drive past a burned out car or a crashed airplane on the road before it becomes predictable and almost more immersion-breaking instead of immersive? Ken already drove past a burning airplane in a field in ProMods and it was cool to discover, but by the third time he drove past it in one night, it was dumb.

 

[Kenadian]

...the engine was still running too lol.

They would have had to gas it up to keep it going that long.

 

[Shilka]

Well, SCS has hinted before about having the wish to add random events to the game, so I actually thought the showing off accidents might have something to do with that, but we will have to see... I liked seeing some of the new industry and truck stop stuff up close, we got some views of the Rio Grande we hadn't seen before, and I'm almost wondering if that cargo plane is a drop off point, seems like I could fit a trailer in there

Have to agree, the smaller roads sure looked more interesting, but not having high hopes there personally about it being overly challenging, but at least they will be more interesting to drive. Wish there were more local roads, but I guess scs keeps the average driving skill level of their players in mind....

(btw, if you want a real challenge, try the latest version of the viva mexico map mod. The maker added a road nicknamed 'the devils backbone' in his latest update, and I can tell you the road deserves the name... haven't been able to take a trailer over it without scraping my bumper and dragging a car or two with me yet. It takes at least half an hour to traverse, with plenty of corner requiring you to use the full width of the road, and at times you'll have to worry about the top of your trailer not hitting the mountain right next to the road...)

 

[Shilka]

They spent a good 30 seconds showing off accidents, in that video. Are we supposed to be excited that they added stationary police cars (traffic stops), fire engines (burned car), and ambulance (airplane on the... wait, what the fuck? An airplane on the road?)

Highly unlikely that any of those things will be dynamic... So while it might be cool to drive past the first time or two, how many times after you drive past a burned out car or a crashed airplane on the road before it becomes predictable and almost more immersion-breaking instead of immersive? Ken already drove past a burning airplane in a field in ProMods and it was cool to discover, but by the third time he drove past it in one night, it was dumb.

I'm happy to say it turns out you were wrong about this. Those good 30 seconds (13 seconds actually) of accidents are now confirmed to be random events, which will be added in ATS 1.29 (along with compatibility for New Mexico and over 1000 miles of new roads in the states we already have).

There will be over 60 -dynamic- random events which, next to situations as seen in the video, will also consist of car crashes (ranging from a fender bender to large multiple vehicle crashes), road details (such as road repairs, fluid spills, spray paint markings, skid-marcs ), pulled over cars and trucks, broken down vehicles, road works (ranging from small repairs to larger asphalt milling operations), vehicles with lost loads and more.

And yeah, one of them is a crashed Cessna. Planes picking roads for emergency landings happens quite often actually , several dozens of times per year. It's often a better bet then the rocky field or forest next to it. Quite a bunch of videos to be found about it online, and numerous news items as well, although a plane landing on a road is actually so common it barely goes beyond local news these days unless it takes someones head off in the process. Hell they even make emergency landings on tourist packed beaches, baseball fields that have a kids game going on or a roof of an apartment building XD

Anyway, random events should be a great addition to the game

 

[Kenadian]

Nice, random events is an amazing feature to have for sure.

This all sounds really great to be honest but I'm still not sold on what SCS is doing with ATS at the moment. It's all going to come down to price point in whether or not I choose to pick this up.

My fear is they'll be asking for somewhere around $10 USD for this and that's just too much when you take into account there what, 46 more States to go? There's just no way I can justify $400 for this game even years down the road once all the DLC is added up.

The other thing I just can't get past is the amount of time it's taken to get here. I know you can say Team size and all but this doesn't feel that dissimilar to me than Day Z stand alone.

It's like Rocket promising we can wipe our asses and train a dog when all we want is zombies that don't glitch everywhere, vehicles and helicopters.

What they're talking about sounds great but given their timeline it appears as if it can be another 3 years before the game has all the States in it, maybe more.

I'd hope in 3 or even 4 years they'd have either a new or completely reworked game engine with improved graphical fidelity and multi-player.

Maybe I'm being too hard on these guys but this whole World of Trucks thing has been so underwhelming to this point that it's hard not to turn my thoughts to what we're missing rather than the few things we seem to be getting.

I hate to consistently come across as such a buzz kill in this topic but honestly this is the way I feel about the delivery of this product.

I've nearly doubled the amount of time I had in ETS2 since uninstalling ATS and can't think of any reason to go back currently, at least not for 1 State and more roads in existing States we probably should have had on launch.

 

[Shilka]

I don't see the comparison at all with DayZ to be honest, DayZ is still struggling to have it's base functionality, where ATS started out as a perfectly fine functional product? The version numbers of ATS and ETS2 got synchronised as both get added the same functionality updates, just the trucks and maps are different, but the functionality is the same.Of course ETS2 is larger pure content wise, but that's logical with over 3 years of a head start. ETS2 turned 5 years old yesterday, and it still is 60-70% of a complete map, so I'm not really seeing why expectations of ATS should be so different? With New Mexico ATS is on 19% (not counting Alaska) in 2 years. Take off the half year the rescale took, then 19% is basicly up to speed with ETS2?

Next to all functionality updates being free bonuses that never got promised beforehand. Same goes for WoT, that started out as a glorified online profile with picture sharing, then got updated so you can do events to earn free content, and lately got added logbook functionality. As far as I'm concerned, SCS is a school example of a company that keeps adding both free and paid content that never got promised beforehand, so I'm really in the dark why you're making it seem like the opposite is the case?

I'm not even sure we'll ever get all states in ATS. All we got promised was ATS to be just the state of California, and if any state would be added to that would depend on sales, with from the start stated doubts if it will ever even make it to even an east-west coast connection. What we got was double of what we were promised as a start, plus a free state after it, plus a rescale basicly adding 60% more area. The 1000 miles of roads update is there to ensure proper connections and functional routes to the upcoming state expansion.

I'm with you fully hoping that state releases will pick up speed though, Team size is 6 fold of what it was now (though half works on ETS of course), and the aim is to double that once over again. I really could do with more official truck brands too. What I'd really love is some old models to be added too, but apparently that's even harder then the latest model of a manufacturer...

I'd love to see more content, and faster, for ATS for sure. But as far as functionality of the game goes, SCS has gone above and beyond duty, and expectations as far as I'm concerned

 

[Shilka]

We have a release date: November 9th, 2017 !
So yeah, that's next week, and lets be honest, about time too!

Pricing will be: USD $ 11.99, € 11.99, £ 8.99, which is actually a bit more expensive then I expected it to be...
Of course the rescale means that every state will be 60% bigger then originally planned, but personally I didn't expect it to be over $10.
On the other side, judging by it's key features, New Mexico has more content (and brings along a lot more free game improvements) then for example the Scandinavia DLC for ETS2:

Key Features

• Over 4 thousand miles of new in-game roads
  
• 14 major cities, including Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Roswell
  
• 11 custom rest/truck stops for parking and refueling
  
• 600+ completely new 3D graphics assets
  
• Complex and realistic custom-built junctions and Interstate interchanges
  
• 8 new company docks and industries
  
• Unique landmarks both natural and man-made
  
• New Mexico achievements to unlock

I'll leave it up to you if you think the DLC is worthwhile I'll be most likely getting it on day one, and will let you know what I think of it then

 

[Kenadian]

After much deliberation I'm deciding to vote with my wallet on this one and actually give it a pass.

When I referenced DayZ originally I meant that the perceived promise of ATS (and World of Trucks in general) sounded a lot better to me than the actual product delivered.

I know there are counter arguments to everything I've stated but for me I want some diversity in this title and New Mexico is just not enough to supply that. Random events are a cool idea and all but you pass one and forget about it as they're not what you purchase a game like this for, it's for the driving.

600+ unique assets sounds great on paper but I'm willing to bet I'd only ever notice a dozen or so at the most lol.

For me I need to see forests and lots of greenery, that's what attracts me so much to ETS2, the landscape. The vistas in ETS2 are just so diverse and beautiful that I often remark on stream and find myself looking everywhere except the road oftentimes to my own peril lol.

I want to drive down the Oregon Coast and I'm dying to see how they map the Rocky Mountains.

ATS gives little of what I'm looking for and when combined with 1 Truck Manufacturer and a higher price point than I'd thought, $15, it's just not the ROI I'm looking for.

Certainly looking forward to your review on the DLC after you've had a few hours in @Shilka.

 

[Peeble]

I barely played ATS, but it'll be interesting to see more gameplay footage. The screenshots are showing a little variety at least, not just empty deserts:

 

[Shilka]

@Duke , if you're rather looking forward to Oregon, I came across this screenshot in the latest Blogpost of SCS about their improved signs in the game. I'm not making any promises here, and SCS sure didn't either, but it looks promising if you're hoping for Oregon:

(compare the screenshot with the real life spot, this isn't just a road sign test: https://www.google.se/maps/@44.0590602,-123.0495093,3a,50.6y,26.78h,93.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjUE-IRp2xZ0LIUrIC0swEg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 )


As for the random events, you'll get them anyway as they are part of the 1.29 update and not tied to owning the DLC. I expect them to be in the ETS 1.29 update as well, as that is why they synchronized the update numbers in the first place.

I've already experienced the random events in the 1.29 ATS beta branch, and I must say I like them way better then I expected them to. They are not just a visual gimmick, they are actually kind of a game changer (to my own surprise as well), especially when it comes to 'the driving'. What were long boring stretches before have become interesting again, and I notice I look way more ahead then before, which is frankly an improvement to my driving.

The large events cause miniature traffic jams (they still flow and don't gridlock though), and the larger events also have much more animation going on then I expected; AI characters go through a whole range of emotes, grab new tools etc, and one large road works surprised me by having a dump truck that tipped it's load, really forming a sand pile as I drove by.
And even the smallest 'events', like a simple road patch, have more to them then first meets the eye; you can feel it in your force feedback if you drive over them for example. Actually I'm so positively surprised by the random events that I'm starting to wonder if driving over an oil slick in a corner will have more then just a visual effect....I still have to find out though...

I actually was kind of worried about the random events to be too much of a gimmick, too often or too repetitive, but I'm honestly positively surprised by them. But you'll get to judge first hand soon enough when they make their appearance in ETS2

 

[Shilka]

Well, the DLC is out, and I got it

Here's a quick first screenshot of the road map for those interested:

I'll be playing and streaming it in an hour or two from this post for those interested

 

[Kenadian]

I wish I could watch but I'm at work, bummer.

Looking forward to your review after all is said and done.