Images from La Rochelle

With the Vive La France DLC for ETS2 we are trying to raise the bar on quality and realism once again.  As you may have noticed, with the Going East and Scandinavia DLC we were step by step increasing the quality of towns and cities. Going East gave you your first chance to drive through small towns - even though there were no delivery options there.  With the Scandinavia DLC we made an essential step forward by offering a new level of complexity and diversity in cities.  But these two DLCs are definitely not our last word in the matter!

Case in point, it is our pleasure to introduce you to La Rochelle - one of new cities which provide the chance to taste the natural beauty and variety of French cities and countryside. You will no longer be restricted to entering industrial zones via arterial roads but instead the cargo depots here are fully integrated into living city.

With the new DLC you can explore the medley of times and styles French cities have come to be revered for. Enjoy ancient architecture and narrow, winding roads back to back with fully modernized complexes and detached houses. Vive la France!

    

    

Adjustable Steering Wheels

In both American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2, players already have the option to modify their interior camera viewpoint by adjusting the seat position, changing head position and modifying the view angle. In earlier game updates, we've also made the in-cabin camera more lifelike by simulating steering and blinker camera rotation as well as physical camera movement. But we still felt the job wasn't done, so now it's time to go one step further in order to fully simulate the range of possible adjustments you could make in real life.

So without further ado: in the following game updates, we are going to add a small new feature: adjusting the steering wheel column position. With this feature you'll be allowed to modify both the height and the angle of the steering wheel in order to give you the chance to create your perfect driving position. With this we're one step closer to making the cabin in ATS and ETS2 just like the real thing. Last but not least, in the Seat Adjustment UI screen we will add the ability to modify the Seat Adjustment window values with the mouse wheel.

We hope you're as excited about these features as we are. In the mean time, here is a short GIF showing it off:

New Box on German market, New Paintjobs, New Photos

Astragon Entertainment - our publishing partner for the "GAS" market (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) - is about to release a new limited Legendary Edition of Euro Truck Simulator 2. This probably isn't that exciting for most of our readers as we're sure you already own a legal copy of the game... right?  The software itself has actually been on Steam for quite a while already as the ETS2 Deluxe Bundle: a combination of the base game and a sizable collection of DLC plus some older games of ours. But we really like the cool content in the box, so we thought it was worth mentioning as context for the second part of this blog post. If you do own ETS2 already, it's not anything amazing - but if not, or if you are looking for a gift for somebody you know that's a potential truck sim addict, the overall value isn't so bad.

As the release of the Legendary Edition box set is almost here, today we are publishing two new paintjobs that are going to be added to the Deluxe Bundle and, in turn, also become available to anybody who will purchase or has previously purchased the equivalent of the Legendary Edition on another market such as Poland or our very own Czech Republic. The choice of countries is definitely not arbitrary - the Austrian Paint Jobs Pack and Swiss Paint Jobs Pack for Euro Truck Simulator 2 have been created specifically to appeal to players from the "GAS" region.

Last but not the least, based on your feedback we are fulfilling our small promise to show you some more photos from our trip to Mid-America Trucking Show. You can find them in a dedicated gallery on our SCS Software facebook page.

Glimpses from our PACCAR Research Center visit

We have finally managed to create a short video from the second leg of our trip to the USA this spring.

A small expedition team from SCS Software received a kind invitation to spend three days at the PACCAR Technical Center in Mount Vernon, Washington, USA. It has been a great adventure for us, we have recorded a ton of truck engine sounds, photographed and scanned whatever we could get our hands on, and spent hours discussing trucking topics.

In addition to recording various engine and truck sounds, our priority was also to acquire reference photos of Peterbilt 389, as we did not have enough quality references to build the truck's interior at that time. We have been working hard on the truck ever since coming back, and we are looking forward to introducing it to American Truck Simulator once the 3D model is finished and approved.

Do you ever abandon World of Trucks contracts?

Most of SCS Software was on a vacation last week, and we have not updated our blog as frequently as we usually do because of it. We'll try to make up for that with some informative posts in the coming days.

First though, we would like to ask you about something. We have noticed that almost 1/5th of all World of Trucks jobs ends up getting aborted. We are wondering why is that? It's possible that there is something going on that we do not know about but should. This kind of feedback may help us improve the World of Trucks service for you.

Vive la (Tour de) France

We do not live only in the World of Trucks, we are fans of real life events and of course sports. The timing of National Window Flags DLC release happening right at the start of Euro 2016 was not a coincidence. International sports competitions provide many more opportunities to proudly wear national colors; the 103rd edition of Tour de France is here now! A photo from the event that we have spotted actually happens to be an inspiration for this blog post.

We can show you a comparison between a real place and an the same location in the game. Behold windmill Gué Sainte Marie near commune Les Trois-Moutiers. On the accompanying screenshots, you can see the mill and its surroundings courtesy of Google Street View, a photo from the current Tour, and finally a screenshot from our upcoming Vive la France! DLC.

Mid-America Trucking Show Impressions

If you follow this blog or SCS Software's Twitter closely, you may remember that back in April we mentioned that a bunch of guys from SCS Software were going to visit the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky.

While there we took thousands of reference photos every day for use in future projects - but aside from the occasional random photo we posted straight from the show floor, we didn't do much detailed reporting on what was really a very exciting trip for us.

Although everyone was very busy after returning to Prague, we always thought that it would be nice to sift through the footage and make a wrap-up report from our time at MATS, but there was always some higher priority task to handle first.  Finally though, with the help of some friends, we managed to create a short compilation of video footage from the trip:

Now we're asking - would you be interested in seeing more from the show floor?  This may not be the best platform for it but we could definitely select a hundred or two interesting photos from the trip and publish them, for example, on the American Truck Simulator facebook page.  Let us know!

Mighty Griffin

If you've ever been to a truck show, you would be blown away by the love and dedication some truckers devote to their trucks.  The effort they put into their vehicles is unbelievable - tons of chrome, hand-made parts, lights and paint jobs - these truckers take a regular truck and turn in it into a work of art!

   
We have decided to turn our observations from European truck shows into some cool new stuff to help players pimp out two of ETS2's most popular trucks. A new batch of gorgeous tuning content is joining our roster, made especially for the truckers who keep a griffin in their heart!



The Mighty Griffin DLC is joining our Steam roster today. It will enhance your tuning sets for the Scania R and Scania Streamline with dozens of new parts for both interior and exterior decoration...

   

Chassis covers, rear bumpers, exhausts, front masks and grilles, stone guards, bull bars, front and rear mudflaps, wheel hubs, door and window trims, paint jobs, front badges, and various cabin accessories like curtains, mugs, LED logos, a dashboard table - The Mighty Griffin DLC will help you make your Scania truck look like the king of the road!

   

National Flags Event Wrap Up

Early in June, we announced a little event on World of Trucks, asking you to deliver three online jobs and promising a free key for the new National Flags DLC as a reward. Now that the event has come to a close, we'd like to share with you a few statistics that we have compiled from it.

The World of Trucks project is still in its infancy, so we were really happy to see the level of interest that you guys and girls showed. We were honestly pleased to give away even more activation codes than we had anticipated. The infographic below shows some interesting numbers about the event:

As a side note, we've noticed that some of you have earned a key but haven't redeemed it yet.  If you want to check that you are not missing out, log in to www.worldoftrucks.com, choose "My Page" and go to "Events." If you have an unredeemed key, there will be a message waiting for you there.  And, of course, if you missed the chance to earn the National Window Flags DLC key for free, it's available for purchase on Steam.

You might also be interested to hear that Rock Paper Shotgun approached some professional truck drivers who play our games to get their opinions on American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2.  It's called Hitting The Virtual Roads Of Euro And American Truck Simulator With Retired Truckers, and we recommend taking a look.