Re: DLC Beyond the Baltic Sea [reviews]
Posted: 06 Dec 2018 08:49
After doing some research this is indeed true. E18 used to go through downtown Turku before it was moved onto route 40, and these days heavy trucks are banned on the old route. Google Street View is therefore out of date on signage. Technically you could still drive through without a trailer though...Ranchester wrote: ↑06 Dec 2018 08:45Also concerning the city centers, I think it's a good idea not to have those because a) Trucks are banned in almost every bigger European city centers (for example Turku, it's actually accurate to IRL to route trucks to route 40 around the city)
I do not agree with you. You can very well have large cities with city center that respects the scale eg: Vienna, Brussels, Nuremberg, etc ... For me, just an industrial area makes a city ugly and bad.Ranchester wrote: ↑06 Dec 2018 08:45b) Making accessible city centers kills the sense of scale if you have space to put just few houses there. ProMods Riga is a good example, it does not feel a big city, at all, compared to SCS's version of it.
I also don't agree. Cities without centers ruin feeling. When I come to big city, I want to get feeling that I am in that city, not just one more deliver point. If you want realism so much, you don't have to drive through centers. Also, there are many things which aren't realistic: hunger, illness,... but primarily, you can't get out of truck. You aren't woried because game isn't realistic because of those things, but you want to remove city centers because of realism? What if I get car mod and want to see city, as in real life?Ranchester wrote: ↑06 Dec 2018 08:45b) Making accessible city centers kills the sense of scale if you have space to put just few houses there. ProMods Riga is a good example, it does not feel a big city, at all, compared to SCS's version of it.
It is an official DLC for a truck simulator - of course you will not be able to see whole city with its old town and residential areas, because this game is concentrated more on the logistics of cargo and its delivery to industry, not residential areas or city centres that bring no value to the main aspect of a game-play.Cities without centers ruin feeling. When I come to big city, I want to get feeling that I am in that city, not just one more deliver point.
1. City centres don't add any value to the game's main aspect - delivering cargo from A to B, as such places have no huge supermarkets or any industry that would be valuable to the game itself, therefore, they are not included in the game. In addition to that, city centres would require a lot of space, for no or little gain to the main game-play aspect as the roads in the city centres would mainly be used for sightseeing, and game is not primarily about it. Lastly, lack of city centres is also realistic, considering that all of heavy traffic would go via ring roads and bypasses, especially trucks, due of prohibition of trucks in the majority of European towns and cities - for example, my hometown (Ukmerge) prohibits trucks to enter city centre, therefore, all of the truck traffic goes via a bypass, therefore, exclusion of city centres is a good way to expand other important area of a town or a way to optimise a city to perform better, which, I personally want more.You aren't worried because game isn't realistic because of those things, but you want to remove city centers because of realism? What if I get car mod and want to see city, as in real life?
Accurate simulation doesn't come from slapping a big city en route just because, but from what actually is there. The vanilla Helsinki can't get much better considering the scale, locals would recognize most of it even though there's not a whole lot of urban looking stuff. The last quoted bit is still valid because this is a mod after all; by all means add more urban areas in moderation, but good simulation shouldn't be sacrificed just because it doesn't match someone's flawed perception of the environment.
I guess the main point was that some people seem to think some cities are something else than what they actually are, when you think about driving in them every day.
And then there's me who thinks ProMods can achieve both, to an extent. One thing I noticed about the Baltic DLC is it makes better use of the whole map than the base game and older expansions, so in theory ProMods has more room to put in some city center areas and less need to overwrite vanilla things. I also understand why old parts of the game are described as poor, because when delivery points are bunched up everywhere it makes areas look the same.There are 2 types of players: those who prefer main point and those who prefer side point. First stick to strict realism and want to exclude city centers and second (in which are most of Promods team and me) want to see Europe and ask developers to enable it at all.
This. ProMods have many beautifully crafted cities which have this balance between urban central areas and industrial achieved perfectly, for example Berlin and Belgrade. But then there are those ProMods cities that do not work very well (Riga, Frankfurt and some of the old Finnish cities) and by making the central parts, it has actually broken the immersion of proper scale. Sure the old SCS cities(England, Germany) are pretty dull and even more far from the reality than the worse parts of ProMods.Kristofburger wrote: ↑06 Dec 2018 15:31Accurate simulation doesn't come from slapping a big city en route just because, but from what actually is there. The vanilla Helsinki can't get much better considering the scale, locals would recognize most of it even though there's not a whole lot of urban looking stuff. The last quoted bit is still valid because this is a mod after all; by all means add more urban areas in moderation, but good simulation shouldn't be sacrificed just because it doesn't match someone's flawed perception of the environment.
Thanks for your answer, ScuL!