Background map update - discussion

[MandelSoft]

The best helmsmen are standing ashore...

It's easy to claim that you know better how to run things in this team, but it's not that easy. You see, ProMods is more kind of a big map modders alliance, some map mods have been annexed by us. We can help each other out and we have one big project we contribute stuff towards, but there's also quite a range of differing opinions within our team. It is a bit of a challenge to manage and co-ordinate such a diverse team, and a bit stressful at times, and distracting from our main task (which is making content), but so far it still works.

What you propose is to add even more complexity to the mix by catering to third-party map mods as well. This would require managing conflicting interests (especially in places where map mods overlap each other), different overall visions and work philosophies, a bunch of technical issues and a whole lot of different combinations of map mods that players are possibly using. Would you wish to get overstressed for what is still technically a hobby-project? We sure don't want to saddle ourselves up with even more workload...

Furthermore, there are different reasons why co-operation maps has been lagging behind or why some of these maps haven't joined ProMods. Here are a few
- Russian Maps: A lot of these map developers may be talented, the main problem is the language barrier. Most of these devs don't speak English, and most of us don't speak Russian. If communication is hard, co-operation is even harder.
- Great Steppe: this is too far from our main area, and there's no way to establish a logical connection to our map. It's more geared towards Russian maps, which makes total sense in context.
- Poland Rebuilding: ... let's say that it was never a happy marriage... Also, communication problems and stubbornness ended this co-operation.
- RoEx: Reminds us too much of our "ex" . Jokes aside, there are some fundamental disagreements between the two teams how compatibility should work and which areas should and shouldn't be overwritten. This is
- Some other addons are not quite up to our standards. We do recruit people where we see good potential in them (see how DOWL recently joined the team), some people are still in the recruitment process, but we also see some people who are simply not there yet. We won't stop them from making their maps, but it's not our responsibility to cater to each and every one of them, especially when they are small. There are just too many of them for us to handle.

If co-operation were possible, it would've happened already. But the problems I listed above are a few reasons why it didn't...

[bengt.jensie]

@Vøytek

The following topic I created 13th of April 2020, and I asked one simple question, but NONE of the Promods team
has posted any answer to it. Would it be possible now then?

https://www.promods.net/viewtopic.php?p=289385#p289385

[Vøytek]

[...]do some research

If that's all you have to say... Consider yourself not part of this discussion anymore and let others speak. You're here only to add fuel to the fire and your comments don't help in any way. Clearly you're not looking for any cooperation.
If this attitude will continue, I'll speak with interested people (maybe Arayas will have something reasonable and mature to say) in private messages, because I'm tired of your arrogant and negative behavior.

No matter how harsh (or rather realistic) my replies are, I'm a person always looking for cooperation and friendly atmosphere (with people who want it too). If I was a "god" who wants to break all maps and create bad relations, I wouldn't help many new people get into modding, solve their issues and so on. I'm always here to help if possible.

Would it be possible now then?

MandelSoft will answer this hopefully as he was the one working on the background map. I think the difference is in the texture itself. If it's in the def files too, I'll check it during day time and let you know.

[bengt.jensie]

@Vøytek

Looking forward to that! Thanks!

[AoiWithAStar]

If I may interject. I think Promods should consider that even if their own domain is the focus, at least a bit more public information or at least information out to other modders may be necessary. A lot has changed over the last few years of modding and just explaining to some of the major mod developers on what's going on would be helpful. The Middle East situation was dropped out of nowhere. Yes, Promods did mention that they're moving locations around but not enough information was told.

Communication is key because you're going to end up in another situation with drama again and that's going to alienate some of the users that also use Promods or cause us problems.

The situation with Arayas is complicated because I feel like both sides are hardheaded and aren't willing to talk. Completely different mapping philosophies aside, I feel like both sides should at least have some sort of a formal relationship as opposed to no relationship at all.

[erikdaderp]

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

thats fair enough, i kinda feel bad about what i said haha. I agree that arayas is being a bit stubborn too when it comes to coordination and hes being a bit harsh, but some of his points do make total sense. i normally hate arguments like these and i tend to be the one who keeps out of this sort of stuff but the whole situtation where map modders who arent competing with eachother for publicity are fighting over dumb shit was getting hella on my nerves, even if it wasnt all your guys' fault.
as long as you guys arent the ones blocking cooperation i have nothing to say here. i dont know if you are or not and it isnt really my business, so ill keep my mouth shut apart from this

[Plum™]

We ourselves don’t like to fights either, I mean with any team at some point there will be some arguments, that comes with every team and is not necessarily a bad thing. It does get annoying when a tiny portion of our community ‘attack’ us just because they want things their way. We will assist them where possible. But we try to be we diplomatic as possible but if we have to we will put our point across.

[Frate]

Because Arayas got mentioned here, I´d like to ask someting. I never intensely used romania extended. From what I saw in pictures and videos arayas old romania looked way worse then the old Promods romania. It had many cities but I could never understand why some people prefered Arayas Romania over Promods Romania, as in my eyes the Promods version was superior over Arayas. For example he used many SCS Standard interchanges for the motorway intersections. I hope someone can enlighten me.

[anothercasual]

It amazes me that literally every other map modder is willing to cooperate with each other, but the PM team are the exception. Everything was good, especially with everybody working around the same background map and SR moving their map mod in the correct position and scale. but then the PM team comes in with an axe and fucks everything up.

Because Arayas got mentioned here, I´d like to ask someting. I never intensely used romania extended. From what I saw in pictures and videos arayas old romania looked way worse then the old Promods romania. It had many cities but I could never understand why some people prefered Arayas Romania over Promods Romania, as in my eyes the Promods version was superior over Arayas. For example he used many SCS Standard interchanges for the motorway intersections. I hope someone can enlighten me.

What you think about romania extended is entirely outdated. The version of romania in romania extended right now is built on the version of Romania made by SCS. Both the free and premium versions don't use any parts of the old romania from the pre-DLC days. Even the cities used to connect Romania to Moldova were entirely made from scratch with up-to-date assets and mapping techniques. If you look at his version of Romania after the release of the Black Sea, he did a solid job expanding on SCS's work there.

[Dr_J0nes]

I have the feeling that there are only two main key topics that have to be solved here.

The first thing is the BG Map. Atm there are two main used BG Maps. The one from PM and the one from Bengan. Both use the same Map Projection and both claim to be correct. Somehow someone should investigate which one is right. The main reason is that all mappers should use the same BG to align their map mod. The problem at the moment is that 2-3 (old SCS, PM, BenganJ's) standards are used instead of just one real universal BG. That would make sure every future map mod is aligned as it should. If you PM and Bengan don't find out why your both are different everyone of you will just say they are correct and ignore the other so we will have different standards that claim to do the same thing but doesn't.

The second thing is when ProMods sees itself as an SCS add-on and the other Maps as an ProMods add-on, then it would be helpful if they would provide more information at what changes will be done in the next update so the other mappers can prepare their map if it's affected. But again that can only be done by more communication and provided informations.

If these two things would be solved I am pretty sure we won't have these kind of problem in the future. I try to understand both sides and I just try to figure out what the current problems are and how they could be solved. It would be a shame if people would have to decide if they use ProMods or the other map Addons in the future only because the mappers force on their version and don't cooperate with each other. I hope you guys solve that and by that I mean providing more information so mappers can communicate with you and find out how they can "fix" their maps to be compatible with PM.

More and more maps will come in he future and the sooner these problems will get fixed the better. I don't want to blame the PM Teams or the other mappers. I just want to point out what I think would improve the ETS2 mapping community.