We know that there are a lot of websites and message boards out there where fans of our games gather to discuss and share info about our games. But we are well aware that we do not know all of them by far, and that we may be missing a lot of what is going on.
So we want to hear from you - where do you go to praise or criticize our games, what is the website where you come to get new mods with impressive maps, models or paintjobs? Where are you putting the screenshots and videos that you make, or look for what others have created? Is a particular message board still active or have the users moved on already? What are the best YouTube channels to find interesting videos?
Do you maintain or moderate a website or message board covering our games? Let us know! We are compiling a list of all relevant places of the internet, both for our internal use so that we don't miss anything important, and also to share with you. This is especially true for non-English sites, with the language barrier not allowing us to follow them directly, but we would like help people find them.
Please post your recommendations as comments under this blog post, in a few days we will make a new post with a compilation of links based on your input. Perhaps it would be a good idea to revisit this research from time to time, to keep the list growing with sites that we may miss initially, so that we all always know that there is an up-to-date master list of all good websites easily available.
Thanks!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Revisiting Extreme Trucker
It is finally time to start showing you more from the second project under development at SCS Software currently - 18 Wheels of Steel Extreme Trucker 2. This game is actually supposed to be finished much sooner that ETS2 - to be available on the market very early next year already.
Extreme Trucker 2 is a project commissioned by ValuSoft. While SCS is the developer, we do not decide on the features and we do not own the resulting product; it belongs to the game's publisher - the game is created on order and budget provided by ValuSoft. Those of you who know the previous game are surely aware that the aim of the games is a bit different than where we are headed with "serious" simulator series - it is simpler, there is no deep "tycoon-style" gameplay included, it's more arcade-like, quicker to get into and enjoy driving in very diverse conditions around the globe.
Extreme Trucker 2 builds on the previous game, but it's not just a small facelift. We are adding two new maps, but all the older maps have been extended too. There should be a glimpse in the new game of the all-new physics system that we are developing, also the AI has undergone major upgrades (and we'll keep on improving it further). We also did important work on the effects system, it will be most noticeable on the way the truck lights work at night.
A few pictures here on the blog, a larger gallery has been posted a short time ago on SCS Software's facebook page.
Extreme Trucker 2 is a project commissioned by ValuSoft. While SCS is the developer, we do not decide on the features and we do not own the resulting product; it belongs to the game's publisher - the game is created on order and budget provided by ValuSoft. Those of you who know the previous game are surely aware that the aim of the games is a bit different than where we are headed with "serious" simulator series - it is simpler, there is no deep "tycoon-style" gameplay included, it's more arcade-like, quicker to get into and enjoy driving in very diverse conditions around the globe.
Extreme Trucker 2 builds on the previous game, but it's not just a small facelift. We are adding two new maps, but all the older maps have been extended too. There should be a glimpse in the new game of the all-new physics system that we are developing, also the AI has undergone major upgrades (and we'll keep on improving it further). We also did important work on the effects system, it will be most noticeable on the way the truck lights work at night.
A few pictures here on the blog, a larger gallery has been posted a short time ago on SCS Software's facebook page.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Working hard on new vehicles
We still have a long way to go to complete Euro Truck Simulator 2, but we are happy to show you the progress that we are making here on our blog.
Major effort is going into building quite a lot of all new 3D assets for the new game. There will be some re-use from older generation games, but a lot of things are going to be new - several tractors, certain trailers and cargoes, larger fleet of ambient traffic cars, buildings, vegetation...
Here is a few images from another re-built truck. Keep your fingers crossed that we are allowed eventually to ship this model the way it's been built. We feel quite optimistic about our negotiations with several truck manufacturers that we are currently involved in - let's hope that we can conclude the talks successfully so that there would be more of real world brands represented in the game.
Major effort is going into building quite a lot of all new 3D assets for the new game. There will be some re-use from older generation games, but a lot of things are going to be new - several tractors, certain trailers and cargoes, larger fleet of ambient traffic cars, buildings, vegetation...
Here is a few images from another re-built truck. Keep your fingers crossed that we are allowed eventually to ship this model the way it's been built. We feel quite optimistic about our negotiations with several truck manufacturers that we are currently involved in - let's hope that we can conclude the talks successfully so that there would be more of real world brands represented in the game.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Thanks for your suggestions
We really appreciate your suggestions for improving our future games in the discussions under the blog posts.
Rest assured that we read and note all the interesting ideas that we can collect. Your continuous feedback is very important for us - to help guiding us, to give us courage that certain features, even if hard to develop, are worth pursuing. Hearing your voice gives us strength to keep on going.
Many of the things are on our internal lists already - some of them as specific plans for the short- or mid-term, some on our own wish-list for things to achieve in the long run.
Just please keep in mind that as truck sims are really a small genre - these games will never be multi-million sellers - our ambitions need to be in line with their sales potential. We can only afford a small team to work on these games. Where AAA games like Grand Theft Auto series or Gran Turismo series have teams of hundreds of designers, artists and programmers working on a game, our projects like Euro Truck Simulator have been built with core teams of 5-7 people, and it takes us years to earn back even such relatively modest investment.
We would sure love to be able to pull off all the cool things suggested to us, but we need to pick carefully, to plan only what we can handle by the time we run out of money earned from our previous games. If you want to help us build bigger and better games in the future, frankly the best way is to help us make more money - recommend the game to a friend, start a fan page to promote truck sims, record a cool movie and place it on YouTube, discuss our game on your blog or facebook page, and last but not least, help us in our struggle against piracy - don't promote or use warez copies of our games.
Some of the suggestions seem to cover features that we have already addressed or at least paid some attention to in the generation of German Truck Simulator and UK Truck Simulator (and their latest patches). If you have only played the original Euro Truck Simulator, be sure to try out the newer games. They are rather different when it comes to gameplay, it's not just different geography in the games compared to ETS. Here are direct links: UK Truck Simulator, German Truck Simulator (1-hour free trial, demos as of 1.32 version).
Finally, another behind the scenes peek - here is work in progress on a new driver model. Right now we are working on a guy, but based on input from our fan base, it seems that we should also create a female driver option for ETS2 as well.
Rest assured that we read and note all the interesting ideas that we can collect. Your continuous feedback is very important for us - to help guiding us, to give us courage that certain features, even if hard to develop, are worth pursuing. Hearing your voice gives us strength to keep on going.
Many of the things are on our internal lists already - some of them as specific plans for the short- or mid-term, some on our own wish-list for things to achieve in the long run.
Just please keep in mind that as truck sims are really a small genre - these games will never be multi-million sellers - our ambitions need to be in line with their sales potential. We can only afford a small team to work on these games. Where AAA games like Grand Theft Auto series or Gran Turismo series have teams of hundreds of designers, artists and programmers working on a game, our projects like Euro Truck Simulator have been built with core teams of 5-7 people, and it takes us years to earn back even such relatively modest investment.
We would sure love to be able to pull off all the cool things suggested to us, but we need to pick carefully, to plan only what we can handle by the time we run out of money earned from our previous games. If you want to help us build bigger and better games in the future, frankly the best way is to help us make more money - recommend the game to a friend, start a fan page to promote truck sims, record a cool movie and place it on YouTube, discuss our game on your blog or facebook page, and last but not least, help us in our struggle against piracy - don't promote or use warez copies of our games.
Some of the suggestions seem to cover features that we have already addressed or at least paid some attention to in the generation of German Truck Simulator and UK Truck Simulator (and their latest patches). If you have only played the original Euro Truck Simulator, be sure to try out the newer games. They are rather different when it comes to gameplay, it's not just different geography in the games compared to ETS. Here are direct links: UK Truck Simulator, German Truck Simulator (1-hour free trial, demos as of 1.32 version).
Finally, another behind the scenes peek - here is work in progress on a new driver model. Right now we are working on a guy, but based on input from our fan base, it seems that we should also create a female driver option for ETS2 as well.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Work in progress - New FH16 cabin
Here is another glimpse behind the curtain - or rather a peek at a new 3D model under development as it previews in Maya.
This asset still has not been textured obviously, so it's just displayed with basic shading. With the help of hi-res photos that we took in Hannover a few weeks ago, texturing it should not be such a big problem hopefully.
One of the comments from a previous post raised the question if we have all the brands licensed already. Sadly, we don't yet - it's a long process with uncertain result. We are trying to talk to the "big guys" of the truck industry now, keep your fingers crossed for us!
At the moment, the work on any truck models that we do is based on the assumption that we will eventually persuade the brands owners to be officially involved. However, we may end up the same way as before releasing Euro Truck or German Truck/UK Truck generation games, and have to hastily remove all the brands and all the real names shortly before release so that we don't risk being sued.
Well if this blog happens to be followed by anyone with access to employees or even decision makers in the transportation industry and you can help us connect, or if you have any tips of whom to contact about brand licensing, we would certainly appreciate hearing your suggestions.
This asset still has not been textured obviously, so it's just displayed with basic shading. With the help of hi-res photos that we took in Hannover a few weeks ago, texturing it should not be such a big problem hopefully.
One of the comments from a previous post raised the question if we have all the brands licensed already. Sadly, we don't yet - it's a long process with uncertain result. We are trying to talk to the "big guys" of the truck industry now, keep your fingers crossed for us!
At the moment, the work on any truck models that we do is based on the assumption that we will eventually persuade the brands owners to be officially involved. However, we may end up the same way as before releasing Euro Truck or German Truck/UK Truck generation games, and have to hastily remove all the brands and all the real names shortly before release so that we don't risk being sued.
Well if this blog happens to be followed by anyone with access to employees or even decision makers in the transportation industry and you can help us connect, or if you have any tips of whom to contact about brand licensing, we would certainly appreciate hearing your suggestions.
Finally Patches for all retail editions of German Truck Simulator!
Finally the update patches to version 1.32 are ready and available for download for all retail-distributed editions of German Truck Simulator.
This patch contains all the new Edition Austria (aka Austrian Truck Simulator) content as well as a few fixes and improvements.
This patch contains all the new Edition Austria (aka Austrian Truck Simulator) content as well as a few fixes and improvements.
- Edition Austria content now available as a free update
- 4 new Austrian cities and scenic Austrian roads
experimental support for playing MP3 format songs in "radio" (via DirectX internal functionality)
- experimental support to tune-in to Internet streaming radios playing in MP3 format
- graphics engine tweaks for improved graphics drivers compatibility
Friday, October 1, 2010
New cabin screenshots
We are creating a ton of new assets for Euro Truck Simulator 2, and we thought perhaps our fans would enjoy seeing glimpses of the things to come from time to time... so here is a small sample
