Taking a look around

Introduction

A while ago I posted a thread by the title of "Where are we going?". Said thread was very critical of BeamNG and the way progress was moving along in 2018. Many people supported that thread, many others were critical of it. Regardless of how certain people viewed the thread, it did allow for somewhat of a discussion in the community about the progress of the game. Some did see it as fear mongering and intended to cause drama, which was in fact correct. The purpose of the thread was not just to stir up the community, but to bring to the attention of the developers many major issues plaguing the game. One thing that I did not tell others was that I had always planned to create a second thread, which is in fact the thread you are reading now.

After the original thread, I intended to wait a little bit to see if anything changed. Originally I planned to wait until Italy was released, but once I found out that Italy would have a WIP release, I decided to wait until 0.16, to give a fair judgement of recent work. This has taken a while, and we are nearing 0.17, but I strongly believe that we are finally at the point at which I can post this. This will not take the more extreme tone that the original took, as creating that chaos again is not the purpose of this thread. The game's development appears to have finally gotten back on the right track, for the most part... In this thread, I will focus on analyzing the progress since the original thread and two key issues in which BeamNG still needs to improve.

Taking a look around

Since the original thread, the developers of BeamNG.drive have worked their tails off. There have been many highlights of their recent work, including:

• Italy - The largest and most detailed map in the game
• The Autobello Piccolina, a highly customizable Italian compact
• The Hirochi ESBR, BeamNG's first electric vehicle
• Remodels of many official vehicles
• Remakes a number of older official maps

And of course:

• Many physics improvements and optimizations

One of the main concerns of the original thread was the fact that a large amount of older content was becoming highly outdated. Visiting some of the older maps, such as Port or Industrial Site feels like taking a time machine back to 2014. Hopefully very soon it will no longer be that way, provided the updated versions release in the next update. A number of vehicles have also received new models, although some may have been controversial, the redesigns have made the vehicles far more believable and accurate. Hopefully over the next few updates, all official content will be at the quality levels of Italy and the Autobello Piccolina.

A number of major projects are also works in progress. The UI, a horribly outdated major part of BeamNG.drive is in the process of being reworked and modernized. There has been talk of AI improvements, and hopefully the infamous brain-dead AI will be a thing of the past. BeamNG has also hired a groundbreaking modder to hopefully add AI traffic to the game. All of these improvements will change how BeamNG is enjoyed by the thousands of people who play the game. Also, career mode is still a work in progress, and will hopefully turn this sandbox into a true game.

Unfortunately, there are still two major issues plaguing BeamNG that can hopefully be solved in the manner that outdated content was.

Time

Back in late 2015, Tdev stated that BeamNG.drive would reach 1.0, or the full release in 2016. Although he later stated that release date would not be realized, this was not the last time that a statement regarding the release of 1.0 has been made. In early 2018, there was an article in the Weser Report about BeamNG.drive. There is a section which roughly translates to "'We have completely reinvested in the company.' The game is not yet available as a full version. Regular updates should keep the players happy. Fischer expects that it can be completed this year or next." If this was to be true, this would mean a release date in early 2020 at the absolute latest.

At some point BeamNG will have to inevitably move on to another project. They could continue to make games, and we might see a "BeamNG.drive 2", "BeamNG.fly" or even "BeamNG.coffee" in the future. The company might also move on to focusing on BeamNG.research. Last but not least, they might even package and sell their physics engine to other companies for their projects. However, BeamNG will need to finish BeamNG.drive at some point. From a financial standpoint, at some point everyone who would buy the game will have bought the game, and sales of BeamNG.drive would not be able to pay for business expenses such as salaries and rent.

The statement in the Weser Report is concerning. Will BeamNG meet the deadline they created, or will it be a repeat of 2016? Honestly we don't know. This conveniently brings us onto our next topic.

Communication

I get it, teasers are fun. If I ever opened up a video game company, releasing teasers and watching the community scramble to decipher the cryptic meaning behind them would be a great source of enjoyment. However, BeamNG discusses upcoming content mostly in this manner. This leads to wild speculation and confusion. One thing to note is that the developers cannot completely show WIP content. It is usually unfinished, and may not look pretty. It may also risk showing features that might not make it to release. That is understandable. However, the fact that most posts in the developer section are a line or two alongside some images or a video isn't the best practice.

However, BeamNG hasn't always been weak at communication. One of the best things the company has done was publish a blog post by the name of "Something is still on the horizon". This post was extremely valuable to the community. It discussed how far BeamNG has come, and the plans for the future. It was transparent. And that was what made it great. Understanding how the developers viewed the development of the game made it far easier to understand what BeamNG was trying to do. There is one major issue with the blog post however, as of today it is 3 years and two days old.

I strongly believe the solution to the communication issues is simple. It's time for another major blog post. A lot has changed in these three years in the game itself, and a lot more has probably changed behind the scenes. There are a number of points that might be good to discuss, including:

• Content upgrades - What is the process and at what point will it be safe to say that quality is consistent?
• Future content - Where are the major gaps in the existing content, and how is BeamNG working to improve it?
• Career Mode - What is it? How has it changed? What will it be like to play the game portion of BeamNG.drive?

And last but not least:

• Is the release date in the Weser report still accurate? What window is BeamNG aiming to release in?

Conclusion

I am very impressed with how BeamNG has improved over the past few months. Back in late 2018, I did not expect to be writing such a positive post, and honestly expected to be nagging about the same issues with the game and how nothing had changed. Although some may believe that I hate BeamNG and am out to destroy it, that is simply not true. I truly love BeamNG. It is amazing, groundbreaking, and one of a kind. I wrote the original post because I cared about BeamNG, and wanted to see it get out of the rut that it was in, and unfortunately taking more extreme measures was the only way I believed that it could get out. Fortunately, for the most part it did get out of that rut. However, there are still these two major issues affecting the game. At some point the game does need to leave Early Access, and I strongly believe that time has been steadily approaching. I also believe that the community does have a right to know what BeamNG intends to do with the game, and hopefully some transparency will help the community understand what BeamNG intends to do. BeamNG has proved that it is capable of fixing some of the major issues affecting the game, and hopefully it will continue to do so.

Similar to the original thread, I hope that the community and the developers are able to have a polite discussion about the future of BeamNG.drive.

 

I like the idea about this. a game like cooking simulator, but with BeamNG physics...

back on topic, I agree with your statement about wanting more transparency, however I think one other reason they might avoid making blog posts is not only due to the aforementioned fun of deciphering cryptic messages, but also the annoyance of people seeing things in the blogpost, which are perhaps a long way from completion, or which may get cancelled, and then getting people complaining/nagging about them when these features aren't in the next update.
not that I think that alone is enough reason for them to not make one, but its probably part of it.

 

A well structured and thought out post. It was a good read and you brought up some interesting points.

I do agree with pretty much everything you said, and I would also like to know more about the development of the game.

But that also brings me to another point you made, one that I don't entirely agree with.

We do not 'have a right to know', sure it would be nice to know, but they don't need to tell us everything...

The developers are actually pretty good when it comes to communication, we get sneak peeks, teasers, and we get asked for our opinion on certain ideas.

Other games have next to no communication from the developers. For example in 'Mudrunner' there is pretty much no communication from the developers in that community at all. Its been months without hearing a word about the games development, or really any news on Mudrunner 2 either...

Basically I'm trying to say it could be a whole lot worse.

 

Don't even get me started on how awful Focus has been... And there's the back and forth with Oovee on top of that, and whatever the hell Zane has been up to.

As for BeamNG, I really just want to know what we should be expecting for quanitity and type of content in the forseeable future and if we will ever get realistic racing classes (with appropriate changes to properly introduce them, such as rally navigators).

I hope BeamNG gets to the point of being a car culture simulator essentially; judging by some of the official comments from 2012-2014 it seems that it was the plan at some point in development but I can't tell if it is anymore. ("SLRR but with simulator physics", "cover every archetype of vehicle", "massive player customization", and so on)

As for the "right to know" thing... I'm not saying everything needs to be known, but keep in mind we are kinda paid alpha testers so in a sense, we kinda do. Not saying any opinions on current levels of communication, just that there is some foundation for rights lanuage to be used.

 

beam.ng coffee:
make a hot drink without breaking your kitchen

 

This is exactly what I meant.

BeamNG isn't like most games where you know exactly what you are getting when you purchase the game. You don't walk into a store and buy it. It's early access, and subject to change. I strongly believe that there needs to be a bit more transparency in regards to development, for example, we don't know much at all about career mode. There is lot of potential for change in that alone, and I still believe the best solution is another major blog post.

 

I will say, just from messing around with some of the tuning options, I will say that there is still a dearth of content going on. The Burnside's 313ci V8 has no tuning options other than the ability to add a rev limiter. The Gavril 4.1L I6 doesn't even have that, or anything else either. You can add N2O, but since the engine overtorques with the default N2O setup there's really not much point to it. Furthermore the best available radiator gets overwhelmed quickly with any more than about 500 horsepower thrown at it. I absolutely love the way the Folk ZT55 rims look on a 200BX, but they are only available in 16" or 18", the former being too small and the latter being too large/wide to avoid clipping through the inner fender even with the narrowest possible tires. And on it goes.

 

I don’t think beam is gonna reach SLRR levels of car culture (I hope I’m wrong tho). As of now beam is just kind of giving little samples of each type of car culture, but doesn’t go as in depth as games which are more focused on those types of car cultures.

 

It is possible, it seems that was the goal back in 2014. Once tire physics, the new UI, and career mode are in, they can start focusing on content. It wouldn't take too many updates focused on vehicle content to get that to a good place. If the Bluebuck gets alternate body styles then it can comfortably have versions spanning many different types of racing classes and areas of car culture. A couple more cars as versatile as that and things could be looking good, especially if the team tries to get the most out of cars already in game.

Example on the possible Bluebuck content: A Bubu wagon + coupe plus the Barstow would be 3 cars in a Super Stock/Nostolgia Super Stock drag racing class. Those three plus a variety of period correct skins would be fine. The same can be done for gassers, with the addition of a '53 Special coupe and wagon. Add a modern drag week unlimited style and that's drag racing comfortably covered already.

Example of another car that'll be good for variety: A 1932 Ford style car could have an insane number of racing and cultural configs without breaking a sweat.

The next big issue would then be maps, as we don't even know if they are planning to have any more at all, let alone any more full sized maps.

 

Thread hasn't been giving notifications, so I've missed a ton.

I suspect there are stages to vehicle improvement. Firstly, older vehicles require remodeling. This has already happened for a number of cars. Next I would assume parts would have to be remade, similar to the remodeling of the Gavril V8 engines. Once the existing content is brought up to the newer quality standards, then I would assume vehicles would receive new content. It wouldn't make sense to produce new bodystyles or the like if they're based on an outdated model, it would cause there to be more work down the road. However, I do believe Gabester said that vehicles would not receive alternative bodystyles, and that may stand.

On the map front, I would expect there to be at least 2-3 more maps. We haven't heard anything about new levels since Italy, and it wouldn't make sense for ljfhutch and B25Mitch (Although he has been helping with map upgrades) to not be working on anything. I highly suspect an Australian map for numerous reasons, and it would make no sense for a German company to not release a sizable German map in the game. On the topic of other locations, possibly Japan?

One thing to note is that BeamNG does have to release at some point, so for all we know they might slow down on new content and focus specifically on finishing existing content. However, I suspect 1.0 may include a number of pieces of content that we have not seen.

 

Gabe's comment about alternate body styles was a response to something I asked years ago, his response was basically "It's a lot of work for what it would add". Things have changed a lot since then though, so I'm not sure if that still stands. Community support for it seems a lot stronger now than when that comment was made, and with career mode/1.0 a couple of years closer that it was at that point, vehicle variety is more important now. A wagon body for an existing car is a lot easier to add than a whole new platform for a wagon. Plus the vehicle team is bigger and now includes Stoat, whose mod has 2 and 4 door versions. So I'm not convinced that the "No alt. Body styles" will be forever, but as you said it wouldn't make sense to add anything big like that until the updates to older content are complete and the new UI is in (more body styles, facelifts, and so on, will be difficult to deal with in the current UI). We still don't have a huge idea of how much content is planned though. There was a comment that the Bluebuck will be more customizable than the Autobello at release, but outside of factory configs and the Baja and street machine config, that isn't even all that customizable TBH. Most of the "customization" parts are similar factory parts.

As for maps: I don't expect much news until map updates are done, but I would still like an idea of what to expect. We don't even know for sure if we will get any completely new full maps. A lot of people are saying an Australian map is likely; I still say a Japanese map and a full winter map are necessary (and a Cuban map would be awesome for how incredibly unique it would be, but that isn't exactly likely).

 

I doubt we will see extreme vehicle customization. I also doubt that there will be alternative body styles for non-utility vehicles. We need more cars that drive differently than one another much more than body styles, as of now there are very few different cars that would be in the same class competitively.

On the map front, it would make sense to make the Australian map set in the winter. Similar to the Automation Test Track, it is in the southern Hemisphere, and would probably wind up set in winter, as BeamNG seems to be set sometime when the Northern Hemisphere is in summer and the Southern Hemisphere is in winter. This would also kill two birds with one stone.

Queensland in Winter to provide an example:

 

I want realistic class racing just as much as anyone else, but at this rate of development adding entirely new cars to widen the variety for every class would take ages. Alternate body styles would take significantly less recources to make than entirely new cars; it's a cheap way to add variety to racing classes. Take gassers for example. Right now the only cars that would make sense for gassers are the '53 Special, Bluebuck, and Barstow. We could get a fourth car, which would be great to see, or for a small fraction of the recources we could get a wagon version of both the '53 Special and Bluebuck, which would visually be a big improvement for variety. I would rather race a wagon Bluebuck against a sedan Bluebuck over two sedan Bluebucks. Sure it isn't as good as racing againt a Chevy Nomad style car ontop of the current lineup, but given real world limitation of recources that very well could be our options.

And as I said a couple of comments ago, I would love to see this game get enough content to be a car culture sim, which wouldn't be easy without adding visual variety within the company's recources. It doesn't have to be NFS Carbon levels, but enough to make our cars our own to some extent would be huge.

 

I would like to redirect discussion to the matters of time and communication, the original purpose of this thread.

Some stuff I said in the first post:

Some discussion points to consider:

• Is a 1.0 release in early 2020 even possible?
• If not, what would be a reasonable time frame for 1.0 to release in?
• If an early 2020 release is not met, this would be the second time BeamNG has announced a release date and missed it.
• How important is another major blogpost in the style of "Something is still on the horizon"?
• What should be included in said blogpost?

 

Just wondering why to hurry?, I'm very happy of being paid 20€ for a game it's in constant development, once they finish, what?, stop whining about the early access state, is just a good thing for us, just think about it, for the early access buyers is a good value for money, so it takes time and so?

 

1. It probably won't be possible… There isn't much to the game to make a 1.0, there are still a lot of things to rework/do completely from scratch, so I strongly believe that that date will be put off.
2. I can't really say a reasonable date for the complete game, my guess is probably 2/3 more years from the start of 2020 to complete the career mode (if it's still in development, I really hope it is) and add more stuff to the game to make it as finished as possible.
3. That could be more of a marketing problem than something that hits us, "old" players (it will probably make the company be seen less reliable than before): some new players may buy the game expecting it to be finished in 2020, but it will not be ready in by that time; surely BeamNG GmbH will take a substantial economical hit and it may probably end up with players getting away from the game and discouraging other potential buyers to spend their money on something that will not be completed.
4. Very important. I'd like to see another "Something is still on the horizon" soon just to let us know buyers and players what direction is the game taking and what is still in developers' minds.
5. Something like the old one. What are they currently doing, what are their future plans for cars/maps and what is the state of career mode or maybe another mode they're developing under the hood.

I think I've summed up all my thoughts in this small post. I really, really hope some devs will read this thread and maybe clarify some of the raised questions.

 

Interesting topic. To be honest I didn't even know their initial plans involved pushing for a full release back in 2016 and that it was then moved to 2020 (if the source is to believed). Got my first version of BeamNG.drive back when it was nothing more than a tech demo on a shady website and the idea of full release never even crossed my mind until now. To me BeamNG.drive just seem like the kind application that will never truly be finished, but instead remain in a constant flux as technology and automotives change around it.

In hindsight I do see problems with this trail of thought as at some point BeamNG would have sold a copy of the game to every interested party and thus start to run into financial trouble. So even though I wouldn't mind it remaining in a permanent beta state they'll probably have to announce a "full release" at some point. Will it be in 2020? Hell no! Not unless they just intend to slap on some quick bandages to claim it's done in order to satisfy the most immature portion of the community (and possibly some investors). Without knowing BeamNG's financial status, current sale chart and possible deadlines, a realistic bet on a "full release" would be in 2-3 years in my opinion.

As for future funding and development of BeamNG.drive I can see a lot of potential real world applications for a driving simulator with realistic soft-body physics like this. There has already been some interesting posts about how it can potentially be used by movie makers and car companies for testing purposes to simulate crashes, and with future development it may even be valid as an actual training simulator for student drivers. I honestly don't think BeamNG's future lies with actual games like NG.drive2, NG.fly or NG.coffee, but rather a licensend Pro version with more advance tools that allows for real world locations/cars to be implemented and then rented to companies on a subscription basis much like with Autocad and such. This way they can keep during what they're good at while still maintaining support for BeamNG.drive and use it as their personal play/testing ground.

Can't really say I care much about development feedback in general, nor do I use any of the those fancy facebook, twitter, or instantgram apps to follow them either. Can understand that some people like to keep tabs on what's going on, but in my opinion developers should be left alone and only share information when they got something concrete. Otherwise you instantly got a bunch people getting their panties in a bunch the moment something doesn't match their expectation.​

 

Sorry for the late response, have been quite busy.

You have brought up some good points, and made it clear that I may need to explain how I envision the potential future for BeamNG.

A possible timeline for BeamNG's Development. The following are my thoughts only and are not backed up by any hard evidence whatsoever.

Between now and 1.0: BeamNG continues to add the last pieces of content required for career mode, works on career mode, adds essential physics improvements, adds additional features to the game, and makes it so all content is at nearly identical quality levels. To reach 1.0, BeamNG would have to be polished enough that it can leave early access. It is not clear how long this period will last, but it will likely have to end sooner or later.

1.0: 1.0 is the point where the game shifts from feeling like a tech demo and becomes a true game. The main feature of 1.0 is Career Mode. Besides Career Mode, 1.0 may feature additional content such as maps and vehicles coming out of nowhere, as 1.0 should feel major, as BeamNG is leaving Early Access and moving on to a "complete version". 1.0 is not the final version, but rather the exact point in time at which this jump is made. I doubt BeamNG will finish the game and forget about it. There will definitely be some support for the game in the future. At this point the price of BeamNG.Drive will increase to that of a normal game.

Post 1.0: BeamNG splits. One smaller set of developers works on BeamNG.Drive, and the others work on commercial BeamNG software. Of course, some staff such as management work on both.

BeamNG.Drive post 1.0: Due to fewer developers working on Drive, development slows, but doesn't stop. There are likely occasional updates that may add vehicles, parts, career mode content, scenarios, maps, and so on, but they are a lot less frequent due to the fact that all resources are no longer focused solely on Drive. Drive may or may not see further physics improvements, it might be possible that further improvements are only featured in the commercial version. At some point, likely a few years after 1.0, development will completely cease and resources will be allocated to other projects.

BeamNG's Commercial Version: I see BeamNG moving away from games and releasing a commercial version of the software. Said commercial version will likely be very expensive, and would not be purchased by the current community, but rather companies. It would likely feature all content from the game, such as levels and vehicles, but not feature the game aspects such as scenarios and such. This software would likely be updated much faster than the game, and may feature numerous physics improvements not seen in the game. There would likely be very good user support in this version, for example, let's say I own a car company. I don't want to potentially destroy valuable prototypes, so I decide to test a certain thing in BeamNG instead of real life. I could buy the software for my engineers and have them do the tests in BeamNG. If my engineers have any issues with the software, they could contact BeamNG for support. Another concept for this commercial version is the ability for companies to contract vehicle designers to assist for projects, for example my car company could pay BeamNG a certain amount of money and BeamNG would set my company up with a skilled vehicle designer who could help my team make the car usable in game so that it could be tested. Obviously, there is a lot more that BeamNG could do in the commercial software sector, and this is the place that I see BeamNG thriving in. One thing to note is, I never see BeamNG's physics engine entering traditional video games. The reasons are twofold. First, it would be a long time until computers and consoles are powerful enough to load massive amounts of vehicles with BeamNG physics. Secondly, BeamNG's physics are extremely unforgiving, and could make games unenjoyable. Imagine running from the cops in GTA, tapping your wheel on a curb and breaking the axle, and then getting arrested/killed because of it.


The main thing that I disagree with in regards to your post is your assertion here:

The thing about BeamNG being in Early Access is that we didn't really know what we were buying in the long run. Of course BeamNG.Drive can and will have changed over the course of it's development, but the possibility of things changing over time shouldn't block developer feedback, in fact it should encourage it, and they should keep us updated as things change.

As of now, it feels like driving a car in thick fog. What we see of development is like the road in this metaphor, we only see a short distance in front of us. The area we can see is usually just as long as the distance between now and the next update (3-4 months). 3 years ago, with the "Something is still on the horizon" blog post, the fog lifted temporarily, and we saw much farther down the road ahead. Obviously things have changed in the past 3 years. The road ahead likely looks very different from back then, and the destination might too. This is why I would like to see another major blog post, so the fog can lift once again for a bit. Sure, things might change, but knowing something that might be slightly wrong here or there is better than nothing that at all.

 

Wow this thread's messages are getting too long for me to read right now.
Everyone has the right to ones own opinion and I always like the spirit here on the forums.
So here's my opinion :

1 - I don't want BeamNG to be like any other game(sim) out there, I just want it to be like BeamNG and that
is in fact what it is.

2 - One hell of an amazing soft body physics car simulator with continuous growing feats and improves for 20
bucks ?
I have NONE complaints for this kind of business towards a customer, only gratefulness and respect

3 - The devs are extremely helpful to all users with problems of all kinds, from technical to modding. They
have thrown this project completely open to us so we can mod the hell out of it ourselves.

4 - Adding up the above I rest my plea.

NC

 

I personally would like to see the Beamng team make frequent and consistent blog posts like the Factorio developers do.
They do a blog post every Friday called "Friday Facts", and I would love to see the developers for Beamng do something similar.
https://factorio.com/blog/

I really can't complain though, we are getting a really good deal, even if we don't exactly know what we are buying in the long run.