Some YouTube Goodies

We'd like to say "Hi!" to Keralis, a famous pro YouTube blogger who is showing a lot of love for Euro Truck Simulator 2 on his channel. His list of ETS2 episodes is now up to #22, and he still keeps going - and handing out free ETS2 Product Keys in the process! ;-).

The second video is showing something really incredible for us. This is a true confirmation that Euro Truck Simulator 2 is now going mainstream. Our Polish distributor cdp.pl is crazy enough to promote the game on football matches of Extraklasa team Podbeskidzie Bielsko. Over 300k people are watching those matches on TV and seeing the ads!

A Coach Bus?

It has taken us almost exactly a month to edit a "making of" video we have taken while recording sounds and taking tons of photos of a Scania Touring HD Bus, but finally it's here.

A small team at SCS Software is exploring an opportunity to go beyond just trucks in one of our upcoming games. You will not see or hear this bus just yet in the world of Euro Truck Simulator 2, even though down the road it's not so hard to imagine.

On a very related topic - would any of you be able to gain access to a Scania Irizar i6 bus to be able to take high detail interior and dashboard reference photos?

ETS2 available as digital download in Japan now

Our Japanese may be a bit rusty, but it looks like the game has a good start among digital downloads in the country. It's #3 now on DLsite, and also #3 at Amazon.co.jp in PC category! What a company! ;-)

We are very grateful to our volunteer translators from Japan who have helped us make this happen! Domo arigato!

Trying to help broken mods - Update 1.3.1

We could not stay deaf to so many complaints as people were struggling with mod incompatibilities. So we spent the day today reproducing the most common issues that you guys were reporting to us, and trying to implement workarounds that would mean that the game doesn't crash when it encounters the problem.

The result is a new Euro Truck Simulator 2 update - version 1.3.1. There are no new features in it, not even any fixes of game functionality itself. All that's new are a few extra robustness improvements in the code when the game loads savegames/profiles with problematic mods created for older versions of the game.

Find the patch here: http://www.eurotrucksimulator2.com/update.php

Note that we have created a very small version of the patch if you are already running 1.3.0, but also incremental patch from the 1.2.5.x  edition and a full patch from any previous version.

If you are not using mods, or haven't bumped into any mod-related crashes, there is no hurry for you to update. But if you had trouble even reading the player profile, or crashing when using retarder, or using physics mod, this is the patch you should look into, it may help.

Patch impact Fallout

After reading various reports of problems, we would like to give you some tips to work around problems with the patch versus moded games.

The patch changes a lot of things "under the hood" in physics code, but the result is that some properties (variables) were changed or removed. Any physics mods out there may now have values stored in them which can crash the game. If you are using a physics mod, switch this mod off, it can be done individually per-profile and per-mod - you just need to go to Profile Edit screen. Really, for any mod user, the Profile Edit screen is now important for you.

If you acted hastily and decided to nuke all mods just to make sure the game doesn't crash because of mods, you may in fact hurt yourself. As described above, for the time being switching off any physics mods is a good idea (until you obtain fixed mods from their authors). On the other hand, many cargo mods people are using have become embedded into their save game files, and their removal can be a source of a different type of crash. So you need to be selective about which mods you remove and which you don't - it may be the case that both removing none and removing all mods may be wrong, and you need to find the right mix.

It's not just physics and cargo mods, there are also problems related to sound mods, as the updated game has changed some stuff and added retarder sounds, if you sound mod is "masking out" our new sounds by an old sound bank, the game may crash when it cannot find expected sound effect.

If you are a Steam user using mods, the situation may be even more complicated - with mods embedded into save games and the game automatically updating to version 1.3, players may have been caught by surprise. The above suggestions should help, but in case you want to revert to previous version of the game on Steam, it is now possible, we have made the older version temporarily available through Steam, see for more info here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/227300/discussions/0/864959088248519109/.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 - update 1.3

At last, we are releasing a new update to ETS2! Lots of fixes and improvements, and a new patch application which should hopefully make the updating procedure a lot smoother.

It may be a good idea for you to back-up your player profile (look for it in Documents > Euro Truck Simulator 2), especially if you are using mods which may have compatibility problems with this update. This way you would have a fall-back option to temporarily revert to a previous version in case of problems.

Steam edition of the game will be updated later today, please have patience with us, this patch is applicable to all retail as well as digital editions of the game except for the Steam build.

Find the update here.

What's new in this update:

• official licenses from Iveco and Volvo
• ability to change the company name, logo or preferred brand
• retarder (automatic or manual)
• per-profile mod selection (can be overridden using -force_mods command line parameter)
• support local currencies of each country in the game
• gearbox accessory selection
• new online radio stations (now up to 190 stations)
• physics takes into account different weights for trailers and cargos
• Renault Premium upgrades
• Renault Magnum side-skirts are now an optional upgrade
• hired driver log
• hired drivers more likely to find suitable cargo on the way back
• re-hired driver issue fixed
• ferry fee is not charged to player for quick jobs
• UK distances in GPS fixed
• fixed memory leak when playing mp3 files using radio
• improved handling of corrupted save files
• improved resiliency to some types of corruptions caused by mod removal
• fixed cabin blur during rain
• over 200 map changes and fixes
• several German roads thoroughly tweaked and prettyfied
• bump causing damage on German A3 fixed
• powerline columns in the middle of the road removed
• gas station in Bremen
• AI curves fixing on some prefabs
• increased vertex buffer sizes to improve game stability with more detailed vehicle models
• Product Key verification step added, only genuine keys in good standing accepted as of version 1.3+

Any new bugs to report? Please report them on forum.scssoft.com.