Baltic States Development

[Claus62]

I feel the same - ProMods was better. Granted that they didn't have the assets that SCS created but I sincerely miss ProMods Riga, Tallinn, downtown Kaliningrad, the road from Kaliningrad north, Panevezys-Jekabpils (the Estonian Islands and the Curonian Spit - but they seem to come back in 2.50) - to name just a few.

[brainiac]

They think that nicer textures and models means more realistic maps and they are very wrong. I like much more their older work than SCS newer work because it is just more realistic. They should listen to the community.

[Horizon™]

We are listening to the community, but some of you are looking thru rose-tinted glasses or having nostalgia-esque effect to the old ProMods areas. Our areas were okay at the time and not necessarily most realistic representations, as compared to what Beyond the Baltic Sea has done to the Baltic States and Finland, considering it surpassed our road layouts, scenery and cities/towns.

Many of our areas were under detailed, as compared to the DLC, therefore, we used the DLC as a base. Curonian Spit's representation was dull and uninspired in the old version, yet DLC helped to improve it drastically. Kaunas, Panevėžys, Šiauliai and Klaipėda were pretty generic, and some of them did not appear to be based on their real-world counterpart, besides the road network around it. Latvia, Finland and Estonia were at the same position - a lot of them were of the poor quality as compared to our more recent work or the DLC, and some of them were so old, like Helsinki, that there was no chance we could make it any better.

We are aware about downfalls of the DLC, such as lack of more content, sometimes unrealistic layouts or areas that require general improvements.

Thank you.

[Claus62]

Thanks for your kind answer. I understand what you're saying but in some cases SCS has left us with a void - there is no way across Riga anymore but the ring-road - someone from Riga might very well recognise the road-layout and know that they are in Riga - maybe even marvel at the detailed representation - but for us it is just any generic ring-road. If they had put it around Kaunas we would not doubt it. You on the other hand created a tangible Riga - which was different from Kaunas, Tallinn etc. - maybe for a Rigan it was not recognisable but for us it was, ProMods Riga was different from Kaunas and Tallinn and had its own flair and so had the other two. One could do it differently, better certainly but a bad (i.e. the old) Riga would be better than nothing at all. That's why I always use Piter when using RusMap - as outdated as it is, it's still better than the hole SCS left us with. As beautiful as new Romania is - I still miss old ProMods Bucharest, not soo much as the rest of the content is superb and I'm used to teleporting now but still. And every time I have to go west from Dijon I long for the old road that was there in ProMods, now there is nothing.
So for me it's not rose-coloured glasses but the distinct feeling that something is missing; I certainly don't feel nostalgic for old Flensburg - because it's been replaced by something far better. But when the alternative is a hole, your old outdated stuff will be better than nothing - until you can brush it up.

[MCELcreeper]

I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t know that much about the accuracy and realism of the DLC version’s roads or signs in SCS Russia, Lithuania and Estonia (although they seem unrealistic as well), but when thinking about Latvia it’s often very inaccurate. The signs back in PM2.33 were much better and realistic, except maybe the size and detail of the texture. SCS seems to be oriented around detailed models and vegetation rather than accurate mapping, which is mildly infuriating. However, when I drove in PM Latvia I actually FELT like I was there. On thing that really irritated me with the DLC is that there are redundant signs just pointing straight and not even acknowledging towns that you can drive to in real life. With the DLC the experience is a lot more grim. I know that PM doesn’t take suggestions, but I would be happy to see references in road signs to places that are not mapped, e.g. Talsi sign in Roja. Bottom line being: realism over prettiness of texture

[Kristofburger]

Thanks for your kind answer. I understand what you're saying but in some cases SCS has left us with a void - there is no way across Riga anymore but the ring-road - someone from Riga might very well recognise the road-layout and know that they are in Riga - maybe even marvel at the detailed representation - but for us it is just any generic ring-road.

The Riga ring road is the A4/A6/A5 combination and different real places are rather recognizable (even for someone like me who isn't from Latvia), including interchange replicas like the junction of A5 and A8. Of course they had to cut some corners due to scale limitations. That ring road really is captured quite accurately, it's not an urban environment. SCS is about simulating places where trucks mostly drive in real life, and this tends to be mostly outer suburbs and ring roads instead of city centers.

As for driving through Riga with a lorry, it's not very feasible considering it's very restricted in real life. The scale also comes to play here: Riga airport and the Marina depot look to be close on the map, but in reality they're at least 7 km apart. Allowing through access there would break the immersion of scale. To avoid this, ProMods would have to ditch the airport in favour of another road connection and possibly rebuild the western side.

[Claus62]

I don't doubt that if you've been there often enough you'll recognise it (I should have said someone familiar with Riga to avoid misunderstanding). I've never been there and there is nothing that makes that area unique, it's sterile and could just as well be around Kaunas. Maybe the way SCS constructed Riga prevents a ressurection of parts of the old Riga (in the way Piter from the old RusMap could be inserted by Sergey and Shura into the SCS roadsystem) but I stand by my point that PM Riga had much more individuality and most importantly felt plausible and that is why I miss it.
Some Romanian cities and Istanbul do have that feel so I think that SCS is recognising the appeal of that individuality (as does the blogpost about Boise downtown in the upcoming Idaho DLC in ATS).
As far as trucks further towards the city center - a quick look at google streetview shows that there are enough trucks to make modelling the A10 and/or the A8 plausible until they meet the A6.
Or take Helsinki - in game to go from the port to the containerport it's 140 km in-game. - I doubt that trucks that arrive at that port will take such a detour to reach destinations east of Helsinki and again google shows enough trucks on E75 to make it plausible from the RL angle to have that connection in-game (again whether it's impossible or too difficult to make that link is another question but if I look at beautiful PM cities from London to Nuremberg I don't think it's impossible)

[Kristofburger]

Or take Helsinki - in game to go from the port to the containerport it's 140 km in-game. - I doubt that trucks that arrive at that port will take such a detour to reach destinations east of Helsinki and again google shows enough trucks on E75 to make it plausible from the RL angle to have that connection in-game (again whether it's impossible or too difficult to make that link is another question but if I look at beautiful PM cities from London to Nuremberg I don't think it's impossible)

Trucks have exactly one route out of the center of Helsinki depending on which port they arrive to. From the western port, which is in the game, they're strictly directed west through route 51 and onto the ring system. Driving on any other route is prohibited which is pretty accurate in the DLC, though they added an alternative if you need more room with a double trailer. You're correct about E75 but it's the exact same deal; trucks arriving to the south port have a strictly marked eastern route towards the rings. They probably decided to go with only one port because both weren't scalable.

[Bradshaw]

But road ring in Bauska town (with shopping center, central square) between Riga and LV/LT border was REALLY AND REALLY REALISTIC DONE in ProMods! But now there aren't such things anymore..

[martinusK]

Hopefully our future developments and SCS' excellent asset range will bring the best of both worlds then.
As Deus said, we're aware of the problematic or unrealistic layouts and I personally (to not speak for the other devs) would like to fix them. So, just patience