Update Speculation thread

on the topic of map speculation, what are the chances of an eastern australia map? b25mitch has made 3 maps around his area of Brisbane, QLD (riverside expressway, mount coot-tha, and mount glorious), meaning he's become quite adept at it, and has a lot of assets and research into that particular terrain type.

 

We don't have any Australian cars though.

 

yes but it would provide an interesting and ever changing environment with many contrasting areas; Our general landscape is often forest, red desert and vast plain all combined into one, we also have tropics in northern Queensland. Something any European map certainly cant add is our diversity of the land, beside we have RHD car so we might as well use it. I dont count the automation map seeing as its more of a tribute (although i will add it is very well done and cool) and too small, much like the German map, i forget its name

 

Having a large map that's relatively flat with lots of dirt roads and a long, straight highway would be cool, something like the Stuart Highway:

 

We don't have any Australian cars yet.

 

Big Australian Oriented Update?
Possible, we got something like this with Piccolina and Italy.

 

yeaaaa, but thats going to be really unlikely.

 

Once the new UI eventually comes out, I have a feeling there will be better methods for selecting platforms, body styles, etc. I highly doubt the devs would not add more variants and configs to a car simply because the UI is getting cluttered, especially when it is essentially just a placeholder until the new UI releases.

 

Temporary or not, it is something that they currently have to work around. We have absolutely no idea when the new UI will come out, it's been nearly 3 years since we've even seen an official statement about it. Even then, the devs may just not want to add some of these body styles. We never did see a 2 door Roamer even though it would have been fairly easy to add as far as body styles go (just sawzall the middle out of the LWB body and put it on the Charro frame. Obviously I'm oversimplifying it but I think it's safe to say it's easy compared to the ones the Moonhawk could get). Configs were explicitly a concern for the D-Series (Hence why facelifts are sprinkled in unlike every other vehicle in game and why the Charro barely has any configs). Of course I would rather see more content now and organize it in the UI later, but I don't think the dev team would agree with me on that one.

 

On the topic of levels, here are my predictions for the future.

0.23 will most likely bring the Gridmap remake (at this point it really isn't a remaster, but an all new level inspired by the original). I do not see the current Gridmap staying in the base game, it will likely be moved over to the repository. It's reasonable to expect that Grid, Small, Pure will be receiving texture and lighting upgrades to match.

After that there really are only a few remaster possibilities:

Cliff: Besides texture, foliage, and lighting improvements, I can't see this map getting much more than maybe some more jagged rock faces and such. Cliff is an extremely simple map and will likely stay that way.

Template: Not a traditional game map, but it would be nice if it was given updated assets to better serve as a base for mods.

Obviously then you have the elephant in the room, ETK Driver Experience Center. I suspect that they have larger plans for this map, as if it was just gonna get a little touch up work that would have probably been done by now. ETK DEC is kinda empty and lifeless, with very little to do. I would not be surprised if it gets the Gridmap/Dry Rock Island treatment where it just gets replaced by a new level inspired by the original. A decently sized German map would be a very good addition to the game, giving us another European map. I'd predict this hypothetical German map might have a couple communities, a redesigned ETK DEC, countryside, forest, mountains, and maybe a racetrack.

If this is how things play out, at that point there wouldn't be anything else to remaster level wise, so the next logical step would be new levels. Given how we'd then have two good European maps, I'd assume the next logical place to go would be Asia. With that, Japan would be the most likely candidate, especially given their interest in making a Japanese level as indicated by the unused Japanese placeholder assets for JRI, which I theorize were scrapped because they might have realized that a Japanese setting would be better on a completely new map. There are a lot of directions they could go in with a Japanese map, so it's probably best just to wait and see rather than mindlessly speculate.

 

In reply to the current mentions about the new UI system, keep in mind that the most logical time for the UI system to come out would be the same time as the Career mode, which may not be out for a few more years.

 

I don't see a point in artificially delaying something the game needs so much just to line up with what will probably be beta 1.0. Of course if the development time is needed and it coincidentally is released at that point then it's a different story...

 

I tend to forget we are still not even in beta
Edit: Thanks @DudeMiserFlash for my 400th agree

 

Career would most likely be on its own and it would come out when the devs have added all of the features they have wanted to add, plus a sizable amount of content. The UI makes sense to add in its own before career (so they can update it over time to work with the Career gameplay). Seems like the main focus atm is updating older content and creating the foundation for career (walk mode and dealerships are the recent examples) while working on it in the background.

 

The hypothetical German map also needs something fundamental and you forgot to mention it: an Autobahn-like national road with unrestricted parts, bonding/bridging all the places of the map you mentioned together. The unrestricted parts in particular could present a new challenge to the Police AI, which is to recognize where the unrestricted parts are and when/where to pursue any potential law offenders.
And since you also mentioned the ETKs, I think there's a certain type of vehicle the role of which the ETK 854td (especially the automatic version) can support very well since it's a diesel wagon: the German banana taxi! There's the Polizei version already in the ETK 800 range and the German banana taxi feels like an equally important and characteristic variant that's however missing from the car's range!
Another reason why I propose such a variant is because no Taxi version we have now is based on a European/Asian vehicle, they're all based on American models (the Bluebuck, the Grand Marshal, the Burnside Special and the LeGran)! Something for a change would be good here!

Here's my makeshift attempt!

 

This is the only european taxi that we all secretly need
(for the ones that don't have the reference just search "Taxi 1" in google)

 

This could be a crazy variant of a Cherrier model!! Hehehehe!!

 

Ah yes, Peugeot 405 as a riced out taxi back in the 1990s

 

So I looked at the calendar, and the 3rd of August (Beamng will turn 8 years then) is Tuesday, so there is a chance that the update will be released then.
Small speculation from me

 

I just realised I forgot to update my update speculation spreadsheet so here it is :