What happened to BeamNG's community?

Yes, people from back then just disappeared over time- It might of been whether they lost interest of the game as the community grew and became less niche, or they grew older and had to take on other responsibilities, that happens all the time. I think the community, and it wasn't the same to them anymore.

Yeah, paid mods divided the community. when the picnic came, everything went to shit, frankly. the community was toxic and it wasn't the same, so I think that divide might of convinced some people to leave.

 

I first connected to the Internet in 1996. I'm 52 years old, retired early from a career as a software developer. I've been a hard core PC and console gamer, both arcade and sim, since the late 80s.

What OP is talking about is true and is happening in a lot of forums these days. I'm somewhat new to BeamNG.drive, and the first thing I wanted to do when I came here was ask questions and give my honest opinion of the game. But seeing some of the gatekeepers and how they treated other new people here, I stopped short.

I searched these forums instead and going back years anyone new coming in with even the slightest criticism or suggestion for the sim/game was met mostly with disdain from the gatekeepers and even the mods in some cases.

This has dashed my spirits concerning this community.

That being said, I saw many posts where the BeamNG.drive devs and team members admitted the shortcomings of the sim. But they often did so only after criticizing other sims/games. And other members of this community were allowed to say some nasty stuff to the newcomer who was just asking a question or giving a suggestion.

I enjoy BeamNG.drive immensely, and I will continue to do so even if I don't participate in these forums.

But I will say this: I hate gatekeepers. I hate members of ANY discussion board that just lays in wait for some new person to come along and then call them names or berate them. Kindness costs nothing.

BeamNG as a company may not care what's happening in these forums right now. Their product is flying off the shelves right now due to recent streamers posting videos on Twitch/YouTube/etc. They seem to be using the money to update the game, and that's great.

But if I were BeamNG management, I would get rid of the gatekeepers and mean people from these forums. Or at least warn them. Every newcomer that comes here with what the gatekeepers think is a stupid question is a potential long term customer. Don't sour their experience and scare them away. No they probably didn't Google issues with the game. They came here to the source like all software companies claim to want. Be nice.

/rant

 

Paid mods get the most amount of shit

 

Its for a reason. they sparked a bunch of argument in the first place. man I have bought a ridiculous amount of paid mods, you should see my gumroad- but I still think that they are one of the reasons why this community got worse.

 

Honestly, Change is Good! While all the useless drama (Especially paid mods.) does divide the community. People come and go, the OpenTTD forums, are slowly dying because there are almost no new players and the old ones are slowly leaving. In 2021 there was a new post everyday, now there are almost no posts/replies being made. Beamng.drive is pretty lucky for it to be something fun to play for all ages (Don't expect a 4 year old to play Pixelated train game). In a few years someone is going to say that the early 20s were better for beamng.

 

First of all, happy 52 and counting, your generation has better music choices than now, secondly, I agree with all the things you said. I was that mean bitch who berates new comers.

But maybe we can just tell them nicely. They might have not read everything, as with most people here in the forums. It's just plain bullying if you ask me. It is just sickening.

And don't get me started on the paid mods drama. That is a long subject.
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Kindness has become nonexistent in my opinion. There are the annoying bumps (sudden apperance of thread), people telling new modders that they should not make that car (which I get it, but is really discouraging, they should get advice and help along their modding journey). God, there is a lot more.

 

It's so strange, it's like you're all on a different forum to me...

I have nothing but friendly interactions on here with like-minded people.

Funny old world.

 

Well thank you! And nice to meet you!

Hmm. I think every generation when they get older has nostalgia for the music they grew up with. And many times for the music that was previous to their generation once they get older.

Imagine...Generation 'Alpha' growing up and looking back at someone like Cardi B as some kind of groundbreaking genius. It will happen. Lol We just can't conceive it right now.

I enjoy music from all generations. I know bangers when I hear them, even if I don't particularly like them.

But music has DNA. Some of the traits get replicated each new generation. And then one day no matter what song/score you hear you can say “Hey that sounds like so and so” going many years back. And then the young'ns will look at you like you're crazy because they think it's all new. Lol

“This too shall pass”.

Machines like cars also have “DNA” but you know that. I'll shut up now. lol

 

I am lucky to live in a world where old songs like from George Harrison still lives on.

His Telecaster guitar looks sweet too.
--- Post updated ---

Lucky

 

I've seen your posts. You are very kind and always willing to help, as well as very knowledgeable about the mechanics behind .drive. You are a gem

But I was looking up old posts about the apparent breakdown in the tire simulation physics at low speeds in .drive. I noticed it when I first started to do precision road/track driving in the sim.

One person mentioned it some years ago here, and then even a actual dev came in and talked about it. And even though the dev admitted that the tire physics code breaks down at slow speeds in .drive, he was still dismissive to the OP and basically saying it's too hard to simulate with complete accuracy without nerfing the rest of the physics of the game. And he didn't think that the trade off was worth it.

He could have just said that and left it at that. But instead he criticized other games/sims and started making excuses. And to make things worse, .drive fan boys then dogpiled the OP and insulted him. And they were allowed to do so apparently.

I was a developer myself, and I didn't like when someone criticized my code. But I never lost my temper or composure. If there was a reason why I had to do code a certain way, I told people plainly the reasons and left it at that. But I always took what they said into consideration, even if they were a tester/QA person that didn't know squat about code. Lol

I've gotten used to “driving on ice” in BeamNG.drive. Lol But I wouldn't want to lose the offroad, crawling, collision, and gravity physics of the sim just to solve that problem. The physics of road/track racing is a very different can of worms than dirt, gravel, ice, etc. even though logically you think it's all just a difference in friction, tire contact patch, and surface stuff. The difference is almost like the difference between General Relativity vs. Quantum Mechanics.

But if I were on the Beam dev team, I'd never give up on it. I've been to track days with a sports car and I know what it feels like. Maybe the management of BeamNG needs to pay to have their devs do track days. Maybe they already did idk.

To me the relentless pursuit of perfection is very profitable in many senses of the term.

I really wanted to give my 2 cents on that post...but it was an old post and people here already said they don't like it when old posts are bumped. lol

 

People can be against paid mods, and I'm against it myself. But I wish anti-paid-mod people weren't dicks to everyone about it. I have mature discussions about it and I have genuine reasons for why I'm against it. Whereas everyone else is just "paid mods bad, paid modders bad", and then harass the hell out of modders over it. People in general will be very toxic towards modders like that, and half the time that kind of attitude is the very reason why shit like this happens in the first place. Because modders get fed up dealing with people's crap and start gate-keeping to limit who gets access.

The more people here who are against paid mods, the more paid mods there will be. That's my prediction. Because out of like a billion discussions on here, I think I've only met one or two other users on this forum who were also against paid mods, but also weren't total pricks to people over it.

So yeah I think that's definitely added to the toxicity.

 

Blimey, don't think I've been called a Gem before!
Thanks.

I do like to help out when I can, but I've had so much help from others on here that it seems only fair.

I said it earlier, but I suspect because I stick mainly to the world editor and map making chats that I'm probably seeing the best of the chat behaviour.

 

All the cringe and drama aside, the BeamNG forums is such a nice place, you can talk to people who also enjoy BeamNG and also download so many good mods. Its like a whole social media platform.

 

I think the opposite.

 

If it was a really old post it could have been before they completely redid the tire contact physics: https://www.beamng.com/game/news/blog/tire-physics-changes/

This is also why people don't like replying to dead threads, you could have stired up a huge discussion about something that isn't even in game anymore. Especially if they were already going after guys this would not have gone well in addition to being a completely useless discussion.