Where are we going?

I joined the BeamNG community in 2016, and have been following the game since 2014. I bought the game and joined the community for the same reasons that most of us have, to drive (and crash) highly detailed and extensively simulated vehicles in various levels and environments, with a full game (career mode) later coming based on this concept. For most of my time here, everything has seemed stable, with game development having an obvious direction and vision for the future. However, over the course of 2018, everything has changed. Now I have no idea what is going on in regards to the future of the game. Therefore, I want to raise a number of obvious issues that are currently plaguing the game and it's development. I feel like bringing these issues to light might hopefully improve the course of this game's development, provided the developers take these as honest criticism and feedback, not just some random guy ranting about problems that don't really exist.

Let's go onto some things that I've come across recently. A former employee of the company wrote a long post on glassdoor.com about his negative experiences with the game's development. This list is actually quite useful, as it shows a lot of issues going on regarding development. However, we're gonna just focus on two major issues: Technical Debt and the Lack of Focus. Although the others likely will have little to no effect on the consumers and the community, these two do, and can quite easily be seen in the current game.

First and foremost: Technical Debt . Wikipedia can do a whole lot better at explaining this than I can.

"Technical debt (also known as design debt or code debt) is a concept in software development that reflects the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. " - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt)

BeamNG is an early access game, so some of this can and should be expected. However, the amount seen in BeamNG.drive is completely absurd. Remember West Coast, USA back when it was first released in 0.11? Many complained that it was completely unplayable due to the lack of optimization. It took an additional few months to edit the meshes and bring the map to a somewhat playable state. If the map had been done right the first time, those extra months could have been spent doing something else. East Coast, USA has already been reworked once, but at some point it's gonna need to be reworked again to meet the detail standards set be West Coast, USA, the Automation Test Track, and Italy. Establish quality standards and hold all content to them. As of now everything is all over the place. You can go from the extremely detailed map of West Coast, USA, straight to the almost unchanged and unimproved map of Industrial Site. The more classic type of technical debt is the programming variety. This is what usually breaks mods. It makes sense that certain aspects of the game are not finished yet, but sometimes this type of technical debt may still be excessive.

Secondly, let's discuss the Lack of Focus . Enough said, it's very hard to predict what's coming next. Up through 0.11, everything was very predictable. Just maps, cars, physics improvements, gameplay improvements, etc. 0.12 added the Wentward DT40L bus, and a bus gameplay mode. Although some were confused as to why this rather tedious mode was added, I honestly didn't mind it. It gave people something to do with the new vehicle. However, no one suspected what came in Spring 2018, when it was announced that BeamNG and Automation were going to do a collaboration. Many thought that this was an interesting idea, and that hopefully it would be done alongside standard game development. 0.13 rolled around, and sure enough, the entire update focused on the Automation Collaboration. A number of people were unhappy that a large portion of the update was the ability to import vehicles from another game into BeamNG, but the update still had some interesting stuff, mainly the Automation Test Track map. After that, all the developer posts and such regarded the Autobello Piccolina and the upcoming Italy map.

0.14 would have to be those, right, and we'd be back on the old track? Wrong. A few weeks before the update, tdev announced that there were some serious issues with Italy and the Autobello, and thus 0.14 would not include them. Many were frustrated and angry, but speculation started going around regarding the "something else" that tdev had hinted at. On October 30, 2018, 0.14 came out. What was the new content? A new car, map, scenarios, configurations? Nope. The improved track builder, and a new gamemode called "Light Runner" set in a futuristic city with synthwave music. However, Light Runner turned out to be a reskinned time trial mode.

Within one year, the game turned from what BeamNG used to be, to a bus simulator, to a software to test out vehicles from another game, to a game where you raced neon cars in a futuristic city with synthwave in the background. If you told me in January that 2018 would play out like that for game development, I would say that you need to go home and sober up.

I'm gonna add another thing here, Misguided Priorities. BeamNG has an extremely experienced and capable team. It's extremely frustrating when effort is put into the strangest places. For example, in 0.13, the billboards on West Coast, USA were replaced. That just seems like an arbitrary and random change, and effort spent on reworking something that was perfectly fine already. That time could have been spent improving some of the older maps, for example East Coast, USA. Also, BeamNG was far too early in development to consider the Automation Collaboration. Maybe after career mode, once the base game is finished, but not now. And I have no words as to why so much time and effort was spent on the Light Runner mode, when all it really is is simply a reskinned time trial mode.

Where are we going? Are we gonna ever reach the promised career mode, or are we gonna keep changing the focus every couple months? I would not be surprised if all the decisions and priorities are dependent on tdev's mood! Why is it that every time something gets released it needs massive reworks to work properly. Why is it that after every update, I debate about uninstalling the game and moving on? Is leadership asleep at the wheel and drifting all over the highway? What happens when we crash?

Long story short: Do what you said you were going to do. FOCUS. If you're going to do something, do it right the first time. Don't waste all your time fixing content that's broken because it wasn't done right initially. Most importantly, you need to make it clear that we're going somewhere with an end goal in mind. Early access is early access to a game to be completed in the future. As of now, it feels like the developers are completely comfortable with sitting in early access for eternity. Are completion and a finished product an afterthought at the moment?

It would be nice if the developers read this and improved their current practices, rather than giving their typical response and stating that I'm simply overreacting and not fixing anything. This is not intended to be hateful, but rather just a public statement of some obvious issues with game development.

If anyone has any feedback or other issues that they would like to raise, please reply accordingly!

 

*flamewar noises*

 

If this causes a flamewar, I will be super disappointed in this community. A community is terrible if you can't have a simple conversation regarding the future of the product.

 

Wish I was like this. It's surprising what someone else telling you something can change your view on something. Thanks for posting this. I agree with everything honestly.

 

I completely agree with Fera too, glad to see that this has changed some minds.

 

I miss the days of a new vehicle every month, but I'm just glad the game is still being developed and isn't abandoned. Good post, by the way.

 

I agree with Fera as well, but I would always value what the staff have to say on this matter here

 

Really well said Fera.

 

I understand that development has been quite rocky lately, but I would appreciate them acknowledging some of these concerns and trying to improve, rather than just a random blanket statement just saying that "You're overreacting".

 

The issue is also the repo, why the hell do we have a track builder thing on the repo? The repo is meant for hard working modders who put time and effort into mods, not some shitty automation mods. As an avid automation player, I don't even see automation cars as mods. Remember when skins and configs were considered low effort? Yeah, well now that's considered medium effort. Also, I miss seeing the new mods being something interesting, like a new car mod that I've been hyped up for, not full of terrible automation exports that some kid made.

 

Couldn't agree more, but at the moment I think the higher priority should be improving the game's development itself.

 

Exactly. I think the Track Builder suggestion is the worst one ever.
Like, have some fuckin' effort makin' your mods if you want to be classified as one of your best, and don't convince yourself if kids rate your mod in a positive way.

 

Well we can make the Track Builder repo a separate repo like the Automation repo so it doesn't 'collide' with the regular mods. But I have no control over that.

 

There really isnt much poiint overreacting sometimes the hard work needs to be rewarded on the Devs side of things as for the modders I mean there are some stupidly good mods out there like the ETK S-series for example and I would go through the entire Repository and pick out some of the best mods and then set about adding them to the game and to broaden the verity of vehicles some Forum mods that have exceptional quality and stuff like that need to be added to the game as Supported game content I know that Piston in Minecraft were a mod and the Devs saw it and thought it was such an exceptionally good idea they added it to the game, as I said the ETK S-series has deserved that for a long time, god I am going all over the place....

 

I agree, they aren't mods. They require little to no effort.

 

Well, honestly, in my opinion, the Track Builder is like Automation mods, but at least there's a bit of effort.

 

Back on topic though, I'm not sure about this games future. Things are starting to feel rushed with WCUSA being unplayable on decent systems, and the obvious snowman hunt reskins. Also, content is coming pretty slowly, but not nearly as bad as the time that it didn't come for a full year.

 

I feel like you can guage the effort on a Track Builder mod with how they built the track; using the more advanced editor or simple one. Still, pretty easy even if I'm stupid.

 

I have issues with mentioning former employee, there are contracts etc. this kind of thing is not quite ok.

How certain it is that former employee is not bitter and trying to harm company? How much one can trust such claims and how certain it is that it was post by former employee?

I'm not sure how would I put this, but complaining about things that are not like one would like them to be is not bringing much to table. There could be better ways to bring such concerns to table.


I can sense your frustration, stemming from the not knowing, yet you feel strong, but remember you are talking about work of live people, it is sometimes difficult to remember, but try, ok?

 

I just brought that up as the list in that review actually served as my inspiration for this post, especially regarding the lack of consistency in the game and the technical debt. And as said earlier, this is meant as feedback, not as hate.