Update Speculation thread

So some cases for towing up hills can also need 2nd gear. Didn't know that, it seems like I thought all towing scenarios are like pulling a boat out of the sea, in which scenario you lock it into 1st to get up the ramp of the port. Alright! :-D

 

*For this post I'm counting the Vivace and Tograc as 2 individual cars*

Why don't we need more old cars? We have a nearly even number of vehicles on either side of that 1980-2003 clumping even though the pre-1980 tail covers far more time.

-If we take 1930 as an arbitrary lower limit, we get 6 cars and 1 semi for the 50 years before the clump starts.
-If we take the Burnside's model year as our lower limit we still are covering a 27 year time span for those vehicles.
-After that grouping we have 6 cars in a 15 year time span.
-If we take 2000 as a hard cut off then we actually end up with 11 cars in 20 years since so many 1990 cars have model years up to 2003. Far more vehicles than what we have for vintage stuff even though that era covers 2-3x more model years.

I'm not saying I don't want new model year cars. I'm not going to turn this into vehicle suggestions thread but the 2 on the top of my wishlist are modern cars. I just feel we need to acknowledge that vintage cars are not outnumbering modern cars, it's the in-between era that we have so much of. If we want an even representation then both of these tails need attention, not just one.

 

Game is set in 2020 yet there are 3 cars from 2020 and 6 form 2009-2020. I think I don't need say anything more.

 

I don't see how the current IRL year justifies us having uneven representation of cars in game.

We have no German or French or Japanese maps, should those countries be under represented in the vehicle roster too?

 

There is the ETK Driver Experience Center, so we do have one small German map.

 

*No proper maps in which a significant gameplay setting is possible in their current form

 

Game is set in 2020 or at least this is "final" year.
1. There are no single car that have year production greater than 2020. Best example - Cherrier 2020-2020.
2. Validation stickers on Californian licence plate. In USA they give you sticker for few years if I remember correctly. Right now I seen stickers with 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Like someone mentioned before - ETK Driving Experience map still counts. European cars have European map - Italy.

About French map you probably think about gendarmerie skin for Sunburst. That actually was created to memorize Paris attacks in 2015.

I will agree with Japanese map... kinda. So far we have 2 RHD cars. One old (can be used for vintage or banger racing) and one "joke car". Still majority of cars are made for American market.

So yeah, I will stay with my statement - we need more modern cars rather than older ones, for now at least.

 

This game takes place in 2021, they just haven't updated the descriptions for the Cherrier FCV and also haven't updated the license plates. The game definitely takes place in 2021 because, well, 2021 is the current year. That's like saying that when they started development and only had the D series, Covet, and GM, the game takes place in 1997 because that's when the newest car came out.

There are no vehicles in this game that are, as you say, "joke cars". This is a serious simulation game, there is no reason why they would make a so-called "joke car". (What car do you even think is a joke car?)

I don't think we need any modern cars, we already have 5 cars spanning the past decade (2011-2021), while there are only 6 cars spanning the two oldest decades (1953-1973).

 

You have a point about having a few cars spanning this past decade, there's not much, or anything really, in terms of mid 2000s cars. The Roamer facelift is the only one goes up to 2005 and then there's a 4 year gap to the Sunburst. So here's how I see it:

Pre 50s: Needed; completely empty besides mods.

50s to 70s: Could use more but not anytime soon in order to keep some balance

80s and 90s: Not much more needed except for maybe stuff such as a Covet coupe/sedan or Pessima coupe and (both of which can be done in revamps rather than major releases)

mid 2000s: Needed; rather baron with only 2 vehicles that hardly count (D-Series and Roamer facelifts)

2010-2020s: Game would be fine without another vehicle in this range for at least another couple of years

I personally think they should go for a mid 2000s vehicle in the next update (considering we just got an older one) and then cycle back to pre 50s to keep that new -> old -> new -> old pattern going

 

This doesn't address what I said at all. I'm not denying that the game takes place in 2020, I'm denying that the setting of the game justifies having uneven representation of the roster.

The game's setting based on current maps is Italy and USA in present day. Being that the ETK test center is just a test center for the driver school campaign and Automation map is just for the collab, I'm not counting those as gameplay settings. By the logic of "the roster should follow the setting of the game" we would only have modern USA and Italian cars. Nothing (or at least an under-representation of) pre-2000 or Japanese/German/French/British/Australian/Soviet/Sweedish/Canadian vehicles by that logic.

This is a vehicle sim, it ought to have a reasonably even representation of vehicles. Part of being a well rounded car sim is a well rounded car roster.

 

While I do agree with most of this, how do the D series and Roamer hardly count? Just because they started production earlier than the year 2000 doesn't mean they count any less than a 2000's car than a vehicle that started production between 2000 and 2009.

Also, I doubt the developers will keep a new > old > new > old pattern much longer because they don't want to oversaturate the game with modern cars while there are still plenty of older categories that haven't been filled.

 

I struggle to understand how you can assume a game that is currently just a sandbox/simulator can be set in any specific year. I would wait until Career mode comes out before making such bold assumptions...

 

I meant that they don't really count because they're just facelifts, not independent vehicles.

 

This isn't Forza. This is a free roam simulator.

 

The answer is simple. That time defines that uneven numbers of cars for that year UNLESS game have specified events. Just like IRL you won't see many cars from 70s UNLESS there is specified event like car show, vintage race, banger etc.

So yes, for now it's logical that game should have even numbers of cars in each decade. Game still don't have story, it's just a sandbox. The best scenario will be when each vehicle will have it's own competitor (eg. LeGran vs Wendover, Pessima vs ETK I-series etc).

However it would take also decades to make car list even on whole timeline if we count everything from 1950 to 2020. That why many games have uneven number of older cars OR modern cars (if there is a story that take place mostly in the past). Of course there are games that trying keep it even, but let's face it. I would love to see that but I don't think there is enough workforce to accomplish this (with full respect to the devs, don't be mad).

 

i know

 

Its good for career mode, but not at all for freeroam.

 

yeah
especially since you could just freecam and teleport to it

 

So you're saying we need to focus on cars for the gameplay setting that make sense in IRL driving? Because that leaves us with a roster of 2000-2020 American and Italian commuter cars, commercial vehicles, and municipal vehicles. This is sounding like an incredibly boring hypothetical vehicle roster.

BeamNG is a car game, not limited to present day daily driving. Videogame devs of every studio need to consider the sort of game they are going for when they pick the roster (at least for games with smaller rosters, so Forza Horizon and GTA V aside). NFS Hot Pursuit games are nearly completely limited to modern and modern-classic high end performance cars because that's what they are going for. Wreckfest has a roster limited to classic and modern classic cars because that's what they are going for. So again, if we want a well-rounded game, we need a well-rounded roster.