The Missing Foundation - The Importance of Gameplay in BeamNG.drive

To keep it simple and thus easy to implement, I would refer to older games...

the best way I see of bringing it to the masses is mixing the realistic gameplay when driving with more arcade progression and concerns.

you start on one map and a few bucks to get your first ride, and progress through both the car and map options by completing events that earn you both cash and XP(or REP or whatever)...
don't worry about damage and fixing it, it would just subtract from your earnings if it happens during an event

events would be scattered in a map you freeroam, showing a description when you park on it, as well as rewards and restrictions. press a button and you're taken to the starting line do what you have to do... no need to tie in to storylines.

as your XP goes up, more events get unlocked, and once you reach a certain level, the next map options become available, as well as more cars and parts become available for purchase...

it's enough to get the feeling of progression and guide you through the game's contents and simple to allow mods to join the mix too.

it could be better developed to separate disciplines, or it could leave it open... why not?
you can be a racedriver who likes to crawl on weekends...
truck driver who spends his hard earned cash on street racing...
leave it to the players imagination.

you get the realistic driving and physics we love, you can still spend a lot of time upgrading and tuning as the Simulator we all love but now with a sense of accomplishment as you clear every event needed to unlock the next level in the Arcade style like NFS Underground 2, Forza horizon, TDU...

for those that prefer, the very same events could be in a menu. think gran Turismo...

the only thing needed to start working on something like that is AI. we all know that, and that they're working on it...
my only question is: can't they put some more money on it and hire game industry professionals to make it happen sooner than later? stop with the maps,cars and engine optimization and focus on the one thing holding it back from being an actual game I could pitch to a teenager...
because, once it is a full game, the money starts pouring in with higher sales numbers. then we can have enough people working on it to guarantee a new map and 3 new vehicles every month...

maybe what's lacking the most right now on Bng's crew is a Marketing manager lol

 

https://blog.beamng.com/ui-sneak-peek/

 

This is just my opinion, so don´t get mad, but Beamng doesnt need a Career- or Storymode..., The gameplay is fine as is... because its not really a game but more of a sandbox... i also dont think it lacks content, beamng is my most played game at over 1500 hours. I play beamg not because of the crashing physics, but because of the extremly nice force feedback and car handling, it may not be comletely realistic, but it just feels way better than ac, dr or iracing... But two things that imo are very much missing are VR (an absolute must for a driving game), and multiplayer, the beamngmp mod looks really cool (tho i havn´t got the chance to try it yet) (in this reddit post estema states that its theoretically possible to make it even better with compression or whatever: https://www.reddit.com/r/BeamNG/com...ive/ffnsjzu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x), id even be happy with a built in online leaderboard for quickraces, the mod repostory is alredy in the engine so i dont think it would be that hard, but im no dev....

 

We don't know much about the financial status of BeamNG. Obviously they have enough to stay afloat, but I'm not too sure that they have the funds to pay for tons of additional employees to make content development faster, because if they did they would have probably already done so. Stopping content creation and engine optimization is a terrible idea as even if they focused completely on gameplay as you said, we would still need content to unlock and optimization to allow for more complex scenarios and events. But then again you contradict yourself again by implying content is important by stating that hopefully we could then get a ton of additional content every month, which is highly unlikely given that it takes an extremely long time to produce a single piece of content and not to mention how long it takes to make core changes to the game.

And last but not least, a marketing manager is not essential. All they would do is create additional hype and raise expectations further, as if expectations and hype weren't high enough already. There are also other positions that are far more important, such as the User Interface Frontend Developer position, the Full Stack Developer position, and I'd argue that they probably need an additional person to help run the repository given how it seems that they're overwhelmed given some of the recent mistakes that have been made on that end, alongside an additional QA tester or two. Obviously, I'm not BeamNG's HR head, so I don't know what's actually going on, but those are some of the positions that I believe are far more important to fill than a marketing person.

 

Before we can start adding gameplay to BeamNG, we first need to implement/optimize/improve parts of the simulator first, because else without these, BeamNG wouldn't be able to support gameplay to any good degree.

- AI: AI is very, dodgy to say the least. There isn't any racing AI (mode, but if you use the ScriptAI feature you can make racing AI), so the average user may find it boring without races. The traffic mode is fine, but sometimes they do illegal actions like U-Turns on a double white line or go the wrong way in a race track. The flee AI is again, fine, but they don't push their car to the fullest (meaning you will dominate a class 8 race if you bring a class 8 car), and it's not good for racing because some of the cars will just go do another route than the one you wanted them to go to. The chase AI is absolutely incompetent as they don't even try to chase you (only going up to 50 mph). They prefer to destroy your car, which is good for demolition derbies, but not for pursuits. Plus they rather turn around and form "roadblocks" instead of keeping their lane and chase you when they you fly by them.

- Optimization: CPU optimization is okay, with my CPU being used 25% with one car, and I'm able to get 6 cars on a map (with my CPU having 6 cores) with ~35 FPS. Normal games are able to support ~30 cars on the map at the same time, but they have much simpler physics engines that don't need a core per car. GPU optimization on the other hand... ...100% GPU usage on normal settings in Hirochi Raceway. And this is with a GTX 980. Absolutely inexcusable.

- Tire Falloff: Most games have it, but this one doesn't. It would make pitting (a feature that needs to be in for long circuit races) necessary for longer races. Also, with the addition of tire falloff, is grade of tires (Hard, Medium, and Soft tires). Hard tires are long lasting, but don't have good grip, Medium tires are like the tires we have; a good balance of grip and endurance. And soft tires have very good grip, but wear out in a few laps.

Now we have that out of the way, it's time for my career ideas:

You start out as a chump (which you get to name, for added immersion) with no license and only $5000 to your name. You could spend the money on a car and go race, stating the street racing career (where you do illegal races which can give you big money, but you have to deal with law enforcement). Or, you could go the the DMV and do license tests (yea, license tests, but these are actually useful), which teach you how to drive like a sane person and how to not get in trouble with the police (and to control the car). Afterwards you can start any other career from there on (If you start a new career you don't have to do the driving license tests and you still start with $5000). Here are some of the ideas I have came up with:

• Street Racing: The first career you are able to do and the only career you can do at the start of the game (you don't need a driver's license). These races award the most amount of money and experience, but there is traffic and you have to deal with law enforcement. This career mostly consists of circuit races and point-to-point races on city streets/canyon roads.
• (Legal) Circuit Racing: Your typical sim racing career. Start out with low-class vehicles and work your way up to the GT3 endurance races. This career consists of circuit racing on race tracks. Requires you to have a drivers license and requires you to go to racing school
• Law Enforcement: Work your way up from being a meter maid in a Pigeon to being the chief-of-police with a high-power SWAT van by chasing down street racers, responding to emergency calls, and patrolling the open world. Requires you to have a drivers license and requires you to go to offensive driving school.
• Drag Racing: Try to get the best time, and beat other drag racers with your tricked out drag car. Only consists of drag races. Requires you to have a drivers license
• Off-Road Racing: Race down dirt paths, dunes, and rally tracks. Basically the circuit racing career but with off-road tracks. Requires you to have a drivers license and requires you to go to racing school
• Drift Racing: Show off your drifting skills and gain the most points by doing sick drifts! Only consists of drift events. Requires you to have a drivers license
• Derby Racing: Smash into other cars, be the last one to survive, and get paid doing it. Buy used cars, upgrade them by adding stuff like homemade bumpers, window bars, and much more, then crash them into other cars. Consists of off-road racing (with relaxed rules), on-road circuit racing, and demolition derbies. Requires you to have a drivers license, requires you to go to offensive driving school

Drag, circuit, and drag racing have strict driving rules and have cautions (which can be enabled). Drive like a jerk and you will get a black flag, which you have to serve by going to pit road. Do it again and you will be disqualified, resulting in an instant DNF. If there is trouble on the race track, like someone crashes or spins out, a caution will be thrown out, the pace car will be deployed, and everyone will be paced 2-wide for 1 lap. You can choose to pit, or not to pit.

Each of the careers are different so you can't grind the street racing career and then build a drag car and dominate the drag racing career. Damaging your vehicle enough will destroy your vehicle, instantly ending your race with a DNF (other racers can DNF as well). However, you can restart a race infinitely and you vehicle will be fully repaired. Damage doesn't save when you finish/exit out of a race, so no need of having 5 sets of tires and 2 extra engines.

This is just a wishlist, and some of these careers can be removed to improve the other careers.

 

Fwiw, the Marketing Manager is more than a “hype guy” position. If done right, and if it is something the devs want, the MM could work with car brands, materials brands, etc to have officially licensed items in the simulator. I could see an officially licensed Volvo or Subaru, say, where they work with the devs on the structure etc to simulate real-world crashes. Granted, the manufacturers would have to be open to seeing their vehicles destroyed in all manners of speaking... Haha!

The MM would likely also be responsible for raising capital among investors, possibly inking a major distribution label, etc.

Perhaps, the MM could also be responsible for getting model versions of BNG vehicles out there. Build yourself models or scale die cast et cetera.

Granted, a large portion of what the person does would be hyping it up: making clips for various platforms, etc.

Just a couple thoughts...

 

lol 4get it, Volvo has a policy that they do not show their vehicles being involved in crashes for their commercials.

Or so I heard, not sure if that's still a thing.

 

I can't see any IRL car brands wanting to be associated with this game. Plus, licensing sucks. Very expensive, license holders are picky (need to approve whatever you make), can't sell the game after the license expires (this is why some Grid games left steam), etc...

Not sure if there's any point in investors or distribution labels. Investors mean people to answer to and keep happy, which means our little indie company would lose that community focus that makes it special compared to the competition. And distribution is going fine as is. If they want to expand to more stores they should be able to easily.

Nadeox and the gang have been doing fine with media. Once full release comes they could just reach out to community contributors like they did with the Automation collab. Maybe do some giveaways and sell some merch as an advertising campaign.

As for models... They already got the papercraft thing. With how common home 3D printers are, they could probably easily release printable models themselves.