Background map update - discussion

[olaf28]

Sorry, but how do you actually expect us to "care" about dozens of maps that are released? And how are we supposed to do it?

So basically you say ... We set the standard and the rest can just go to hell?

[Vøytek]

If that's how you understand it...

I asked 2 questions. If you can't answer them, then it's clear that there's no better solution. Actually, there's no solution at all. We can't make anything "easier" for other maps. It's just impossible. We can only try to be more consistent with assets used by all maps (like the issue I resolved with FLD prefabs or the background map being fixed now).

We don't set any standards. We just create a map. Like all other modders. We do nothing against them, they do nothing against us. There's only a little bit of cooperation that can be done, as I mentioned above.

[scan720]

Btw which BG are you using there. The border lines are so thick And you said the one from PM is worse?

[Plum™]

I always want to point out a huge amount of work was put into making the background map and moving stuff around. Many hours of hard work were invested in making it more accurate, we would never change something to break other mods.

[erikdaderp]

Sorry, but how do you actually expect us to "care" about dozens of maps that are released? And how are we supposed to do it?

SCS does their thing. We do our thing. If you have an addon for ProMods (just like we're an addon for SCS map), how can we adjust to that addon, if we don't even know what it adds and where? How can we adjust what we do to so many maps, especially when some of them overwrite each other by covering the same area?
We don't know what SCS will do in Iberia. When it releases, we'll have to check all roads and start on working with connections. SCS won't adjust their Iberia beforehand to ProMods, so our players have no issues

You're talking about a tiny group of players using a background map, which isn't yet updated for new Middle East, so it can't be correct. The author couldn't adjust it yet, just not. Wait for an update from him and that's it.

We had an outdated map background, which didn't match SCS map background (they changed it a long time ago). That caused issues with other background maps as far as I know. Right now we fixed it and they don't have to create 2 versions (one for SCS and a completely different one for ProMods). We actually kind of helped others in a long term. Yes, right now their maps won't match, but when they adjust them, everything will now match better and it'll save them a lot of work. We didn't do it for such modders, nor we broke anything on purpose. We just fixed an old issue with our background map, that's all. If we kept the old one, we could run into some issues if SCS expanded their map in certain directions.

It wasn't fun or easy for us, especially that it required moving whole Middle East to a correct location. We don't do such things to break other mods. We don't even use them, so we can't know what to change to break them... Most of us don't have time for playing when we just focus on modding.

Look, i love the entire promods team and all the work you do, so dont take this as me hating on you or something, but saying "Sorry, but how do you actually expect us to "care" about dozens of maps that are released? And how are we supposed to do it?" is quite stupid.
No one expects you to care about every single map mod out there, but atleast the major ones, namely
ROEX/YKSRSK
Rusmap
The Great Steppe
Southern Region
And then ofcourse there are many smaller ones like road to aral, north macedonia rework etc etc.
I get that Mandelsoft and Arayas have issues with eachother, and i respect that, but whoever is causing it should stop being petty.
What this update changed wasnt that bad, im not mad about it, most of the issues have been dealt with and the only one remaining is a new rc from YKSRSK to PMME, which was inevetable anyway, but either way promods really should work with the rest of the maps. As a player, i do not really care about what specific map i am using, or what disagreements the map creators have with one another, all i care about is the map im getting in the end of it. I know you are all doing this in your spare time blah blah, i respect that, but whatever the reason is, unless its other mappers being knuckleheads to you guys, its stupid.
I do not know the reason, but if it is that you think promods is the best map and everything else sucks, then get a fucking grip because whilst promods is one of the highest quality maps, that dosent mean that people dont want to or shouldnt use anything else with it. I know none of you ever said it but i honsestly dont understand what the else issue is. ATS has some really good coordination, Russian maps (sibirmap, southern region, the great steppe, volga map, rusmap) are all working really well together to make sure none of their maps overlap so they can all finish russia together without spending hours fixing issues the other guy made. Why can't that be done here?
Like i said i love you all, and i know saying this makes me sound like an asshole, but think of this as a parent who is shouting at their kid. The parent still loves their kid but what the kid is doing is stupid and therefore the kid needs to get shouted at. (no im not trying to be your parents, im just trying to make it clear that my intention isnt to shout at you and ruin your day)




(sorry for rant)

[Plum™]

1. The creators of these maps agree that it's their responsibility to work around our updates, just how it's our responsibility to work around SCS updates DLCs ect. Like SCS we are willing to help these maps in some areas, but we are not obliged to
2. We have immense workload ourself, we are already very stretched with manpower, so we cannot help every mod to get their map working on our background map, we are physically limited. We also do not think everything sucks, lots of our team members play with these maps too, we have nothing against them but it's not our job to make our map compatible with our map, as I said, we have enough work on our hands already.

We try to work with as many modders as possible, but for a lot of them, it may be hard to communicate and there is a long list of other reasons why this is not possible. And as I said several times before, it's not our job to get their maps working on ours, we will help them as much as we can but it's their job to get it working with ProMods.

[PerrydPelle]

Maybe you should find people who can join PM team, and only focus on compatibility between PM and other maps, this way the rest of the team can focus on PM only, while the new compatibility team can ensure compatibility with other maps

[Vøytek]

My point was - we can't do anything to care about any maps. Big or small. It doesn't matter. It also doesn't matter if we like any modder or not, because we can't favour nor punish anybody, even if we wanted.
Why do you actually expect something like that from us? Because few modders said "Big, bad ProMods broke our mod"? Who are we? We're just creating a map mod, like all those other guys. We don't have superpowers. Only some people, who hate ProMods for whatever reason, say that we consider ourselves the best. Did we ever said something like that? Let me know if you find it, because I certainly didn't.

That said, we just can't do any "magic" to don't break other mods. It just happens, the same way as it happens for us when SCS releases a new game version or changes something in the map and we have to connect roads. We depend on SCS and it has its cost. If any other map depends on ProMods, they have to face some consequences as well - if we create a new country, we can cover some other mod's area. He'll have to somehow fix the compatibility if he wants. We can't do anything to make it easier, that's how it works in this game. He has some serious benefits though - he's using our assets, which we have to update and fix with every game version (or at least once every few versions when a major change happens). He can just work in peace. We have to do the hard work of making sure everything works. I think it's a fair deal, especially for new modders who can't fix such things themselves.

We created a new background map. It had to be done to fix our issues. Issues about which people complained (including all those players that currently complain that we fixed it...).
Remember they were saying "Istanbul is on water"?
Now it's not. Because we fixed our map.
But it still didn't satisfy them, because now their background maps don't match and now they have to fix their work. And nobody likes fixing things he worked on. But that's how it is. When we fix stuff, nobody notices the hard work. Then one person complains he has to fix his mod and all the blame is on us. Not really fair.

And about the cooperation - that won't happen. Remember Project Balkans? They had a lot of time to cover the area they chose - instead they rebuilt our Maribor IIRC and wasted time on arguing which one is better. grega finally decided to work in Ukraine, which was a good choice but... It was too late. Because we got a new developer and he started expanding our Ukraine. If grega's project started 2 years earlier, it would attract some players.
RoEx started with Romania and then went into many other countries. As far as I know, it's overwriting our Serbia, Ukraine and not sure what else. Why? Where's the cooperation if new maps don't cover free areas, but instead go to the same countries where we created something already? Our plans are pretty clear and everybody can adjust to them. And it's a good idea for them, because they can get some new players interested in their map. I would like to see some more small islands for example. And nobody did... Let's say, Malta.

Now you'll say "See, you want people to adjust to ProMods".
Yes, because we have to expand somewhere too... Imagine there would be 50 new modders, every one of them claiming one country. What's left for us, if you want us to cooperate? We can't go anywhere, because all areas are "taken" by smaller maps? We can work where we want, just like them. We don't want to limit ourselves, only because one person won't be happy about it. Otherwise our developer won't be happy, right?
Besides, as I said before, if a small map goes to a brand new area, they can attract many players to use it. If they cover a country we already have, players will have to choose between ProMods, his map and maybe 2 other maps for that area. And you end up with no cooperation and incompatible maps, for which creating "road connections" would be very hard...

We don't block anybody, but we also can't guarantee we won't cover a new area only because somebody decided to cover it first. Those maps do exactly the same, building where we did already. So... That's not a valid argument for such cooperation

[PerrydPelle]

RoEx doesn’t overite PM currently, except two Ukrainnian cities... do some research

[ETS2-User]

Maybe you should find people who can join PM team, and only focus on compatibility between PM and other maps, this way the rest of the team can focus on PM only, while the new compatibility team can ensure compatibility with other maps

And how is this supposed to work? The developers do their thing and the "cooperators" just suddenly change everything to fit to some 3rd party map instead of the rest of ProMods? You're a map developer, you should understand that your suggestion is just plain impossible.