Update Speculation thread

I'm starting to wonder what's the general direction for BeamNG now? Let's say the Career mode gets finished, fine, but what's the release version of BeamNG supposed to even be like in the end? The updates feel like they add seemingly random stuff that fit the engine's progress, but it doesn't feel like it's converging toward a complete game for now. Shouldn't we be a bit more informed about what it should look like for the official release version after a decade of development?
I'm not taking a swing at the devs, it's still my favorite car game as it is, it's just that the game is quite good already, but lacking some seemingly simple features (i.e racing and maybe more official maps) that makes me wonder why these haven't been added already, and where is the game is even going at that point?

 

Am I crazy or is the amount of times there is just the right number of unread threads so it fills an exact amount of pages far too high, it happens to me maybe every four days which should be statistically impossible. Is this a bug with the forum?

 

beamNG needs to up the price 20 pounds is a steal. but adding paid content to beamNG is just a bad idea to be honest dont want to see this game take the EA or rockstar route

 

I believe the fact that the game is only $20 spawned the biggest issue with the community (imo): people keep complaining that things cost money. I wouldn't like it to go EA route because that's ridiculous on its own, but I also know that the moment they release a paid add-on they'll need to hire another two or three forum moderators, because the outrage would be insane.

Absolutely. I wish we had some public road map for Beam. Now a lot of stuff added with the recent updates feels like it was added because something had to be added – say, the gambler content or some minor additions like the latch system. Don't get me wrong, those are cool and the amount of detail put in this game is already amazing, but it feels like the devs are now facing some wall they can't get through.

It's been discussed many times, but without some serious optimization, I don't see the career mode blooming. And I sincerely hope that at least a few of those blockers shared by devs some time ago were related to performance issues.

 

At it's heart, beamng is not a game but a simulator. The devs are probably working on improving it as much as they can currently, and they'll focus on the "game" part once the simulator part is more fledged out

 

Agreed. I´d rather see a price increase to like 30 and maybe 60-65 when the game is fully released but thats just future talk. Right now i would say step up to 30 to generate a little more income. This is one of the very few games that really is worth its money.

 

seeing how the recent updates seem to be slightly offroad focused, i imagine it will stay there for a update or two, then the devs find another niche they haven't milked for several updates /s


in all seriousness, the development, while we do get new cars that the community wanted (aka the Lansdale, i still owe the devs a half eaten whopper for it) seems to be a bit of a rollercoaster right now. sure, there are a few new features added here and there, but look at Career Mode: it pretty much hasn't changed since 0.26: its still a hidden freeroam with a funky menu and a forced Covet. although i imagine the devs are focusing on something else, and set career aside. although i feel like the devs are slowly starting to run out of things to add. remember, 0.27 was extremely fucking dense a pretty large update, so i imagine a lot of features that devs want to add (and that are possible without major issues) are being added right now, while they wait until they can finally add the other things they couldn't, or searching for new ideas. and seeing how the game is still alpha (not beta), i imagine it would stay in the "oven" for a bit longer

 

That's a very popular coping mechanism thing to reply to anything not blindly praising the game and its devs. Now, let's put PR talk aside, to me (a typical player that doesn't read too much into changelogs) it feels that apart from the content itself (cars, maps, etc.) there weren't that many significant changes to the game recently, arguably since the PBR update.

So we're going back to what I said, without some serious optimization (simulator), I don't see the career mode (game) blooming. And some announcement regarding the future of BeamNG would help us set our expectations without speculating whether 0.30 will come with career mode and/or multiplayer, or will it be just another content update with a new car and an updated map.

 

Since there are still so many parts of the game that need to be overhauled or even implemented before something full fledged like career mode can happen im almost certain every update in the near-ish future will be content/feature updates like it has been for the last years. BeamNG.drive evolved, no question. But it is still ways ahead of something like a career mode in my opinion observation. In the end we still talk about an Alpha for a little over 10 yrs so i reckon that it will stay in this state for quite some time. My take is that they will fledge out the bare bones like the engine and features and release content around that as they have done it over the past years and i think thats a good course. Never rush a product no matter how much you wanna have it finished. The video game industry has shown this so many times in recent history that if you rush it, you´ll very likely to bury it. Let them take their sweet time and let alone estimates. It happens when it happens and im personally fine with that as long as they keep releasing content and polishing the game further like they´ve done it for years and you can clearly see the progress. Sorry for the bad grammar. Im very lazy nor is english my native language. I can barely speak german.

 

Yeah i kinda misread your post, but i don't think it's as much as they are stuck than what they are working on is not visible. One thing we know they are working on is vulkan, as well as stuff like winches or so according to some speculation here. It's just that these things are not ready for release yet, so meanwhile the vehicle team is pumping out content.

 

I agree, however it could also be that they make more money with the game costing less and selling more than the other way round. Probably not though

 

Yeah I agree, though I also noticed the updates became more content oriented than fix oriented this last year or two, which is reassuring seeing the game becoming stable enough so the devs can focus on the creative side of things

 

With tire thermals coming in the future i really hope and pray we get a tire smoke overhaul,
doing a burnout or drifting causes smoke to realistically swarm the wheels and rise as the tire begins to shred
scattering smoke everywhere eventually and same with even handbrake turns we get realistic smoke effects. Its the little details like that which brings me so much joy!

 

We need a particle overhaul

 

That is a lot of stuff to read but I think we should have a t series remaster instead of a new atv

 

plus also it's been the same price since like release. They probably should put it up just to account for inflation. I highly doubt anyone would care. People with the game won't have to pay again, and people who want to get into the game would be fine because even $30 is still insane value for a game like this, especially considering the Triple A market is at $69.99 a game. Not saying this game is Triple A, but it's still a high enough quality that they really probably wouldn't have any issues with putting the game up to $30 or even just $25 if they felt like it. Plus they could release some DLC as well to generate more revenue. I know I'll be buying all the DLCs.

Personally, I don't see this game ever being worth $60-$65. Even on release. Not to say that it's low quality, but that's about a triple A title right there, and this isn't a triple A title. The devs would probably just lose money pricing it that high. More people would be turned off and more people would probably refund it. $25-$30 is where I definitely see this game, because, remember, it's an indie title with a small group of developers. It's not exactly a game like GTA 5 or COD MW2 2022. But, if it were $60-$65 I know I'd still buy it.

 

I'll admit I'm a little skeptical about the nature of the career mode as it is, though less due to its optimization. It's got good bones, but considering its inspirations, it seems silly if not tedious to require the player to use a developer-selected loaner car for every. single. individual. challenge.*

SLRR (ostensibly career mode's inspiration) had a good, strong gameplay loop. Win races to earn money, spend money to improve your car(s), win more races. Rinse and repeat. It's a tried and true system, but if the player has little incentive—nay, opportunity—to use their personal car, you remove one of those critical steps. And gameplay loops are like electrical circuits; they only work if they're closed.

*Yes, I'm aware that the player may often use their personal car after successfully completing the challenge once. However, there's often little incentive to do so: many of even the beginner challenges give you mid- or even top-tier vehicles, so unless you've basically maxed out your career save, you'll usually just stick with what you're given. And if you do have a better car, why wouldn't you just want to use it right away?

 

I'm hoping that the current layout is just to avoid having to balance the career mode while it's still WIP, I think a better system would be to unlock the mission in career mode, and the player must use their own car to complete it, then once bronze has been achieved, it gets unlocked in Scenarios, and there you get the option for a standardised car and competitive ranking.

You could still have occasional missions where a car is supplied, but there should be a logical reason as to why (e.g. the mechanic sends you on a parts run in his Lansdale)

 

Should we introduce a rental cost for vehicles borrowed for specific races ?

 

Would really like tire updates to include tire wear too