I like this game, But I see a bunch about “It can be something in a DLC” for examples such as Wankels.
Why is this fair? I’d rather wait longer for a game, and then the game being worth more at an initial price, rather than just trying to sell what almost feels ‘incomplete’ and then trying to offer DLC for stuff that should just be in the original game itself.
If you can give me a decent answer, I’d be okay with it. Right now, however, it feels like the Devs are just trying to milk it as a cash cow by taunting us with bits and pieces of the game.
They’re unsure whether or not to even make the items since it requires more programming and more work, which requires time and money. So it’s better to make what’s important now and focus on the less important items later after the core game is completed, thus it would have to be released as a DLC. There’s a schedule, too, as the game has been in development for a bit and the devs want to complete the game quickly while making sure the quality is as good as it can be.
I’m not a dev but I’ve been around long enough that I can answer this for you.
It may take a while to go through the full process of development, but that nobody else here is complaining about the prospect of certain features being designated DLC demonstrates how those of us familiar with the game’s scope and its progress understand the conceptual and structural limitations of the original vision. To get that, you’ll have to discover what the game was intended to be.
The things that are considered DLC are things that the developers acknowledge are interesting and hopefully will be developed, but are a much lower priority due to the balance of their being sufficiently removed from the original concept (cylinder and camshaft operated, petrol powered internal combustion engines) that it would take significant amounts of time for relatively minimal gain to the game’s overall scope. Wankel rotary is a perfect example of such.
Keep in mind that we’re this far into development and only the scenarios (which are a small part of the game) and the sandbox are available. Things are actually progressing nicely in that we have several engine types and the basic mechanics for building a car decently is there and working, aside from the fundamental “component modules don’t like to talk to each other.” The Tycoon campaign part is the major bulk of the expected gameplay, and the foundation for this part hasn’t even been integrated into the UI of the public release. This involves integrating the fiscal, engineering and management components and (I think) developing procedurally generated competitor market for the continuum of 1940-2020. That’s what they have to concentrate on, plus porting the game to the new Unreal engine to iron out module communication inconsistencies plus a whole lot of other optimisations, plus adding in the rest of the cylinder formats (V12 turbo, new modern turbo systems, supercharging, V16, i3, V10- this is more time consuming, data-intensive work than most people imagine). The tycoon framework part alone will probably take until July…? As for the rest…
After all that, then they can think about other stuff. Like Wankel rotaries. But I don’t think anybody else here is going to be particularly looking for waiting several extra months for that while all the above needs to be done, hence later, as in, DLC later. There’s no cash milking here as far as I could tell, just trying to get the job done.
I’d rather have more features and wait until its fully released, otherwise it becomes a model like destiny where every few months the Devs decide they want another 60 dollars so they pump out some random DLC. The Road to hell is paved with good intentions. Besides, I view some of these features, such as Air-cooled engines, as just as important as Water-cooled engines. Or Wankels. They’re part of Engine making history and just as important in my book. So It should be released as part of the main game, or if they are going to release it as DLC, it should be free. I shouldn’t have to pay for an incomplete game, assuming I was buying the game brand new when it came out.
Who said you have to pay for it? 
Have they explicitly promised that they will release all future DLCs as free? If not, then I will throw my tantrums and fight this until the bitter end. I do not support the DLC model. It is corrupt and enables developers to be lazy.
You and everybody else who has their own soap-box on the subject buddy. Use the search function and read the discussions before you throw any further tanties, because it’s more than just forum moderators and admins who get annoyed by seeing the same argument repeated over and over again except with less maturity.
[quote=“strop”]
You and everybody else who has their own soap-box on the subject buddy. Use the search function and read the discussions before you throw any further tanties, because it’s more than just forum moderators and admins who get annoyed by seeing the same argument repeated over and over again except with less maturity.[/quote]
I figured that since I did purchase it, and I thought the whole purpose of a Early Access model was to allow people to buy into it, along with being able to give their opinions to help possibly shape the future of the game, rather than just sitting there and taking it.
But, if this is a topic that essentially won’t be changed, I’ll just move on to greener pastures and hope they don’t screw me in the end.
Shaping the future of the game is all well and good when you’ve got a reasonable platform to start your discussion. But the idea of ‘reasonable platform’ varies considerably, and given the timeframe of this project, you definitely can’t make suggestions without doing a considerable amount of homework first. This is why jumping in guns blazing is likely to net you a less-than-receptive response from the old hands.
Searching the forum for DLC yields this old thread, which, if you’re not able to going through every dev video to figure out exactly what’s going on (I know I haven’t), will at least give you somewhere to start.
[quote=“strop”]Shaping the future of the game is all well and good when you’ve got a reasonable platform to start your discussion. But the idea of ‘reasonable platform’ varies considerably, and given the timeframe of this project, you definitely can’t make suggestions without doing a considerable amount of homework first. This is why jumping in guns blazing is likely to net you a less-than-receptive response from the old hands.
Searching the forum for DLC yields this old thread, which, if you’re not able to going through every dev video to figure out exactly what’s going on (I know I haven’t), will at least give you somewhere to start.[/quote]
I understand more now. I was expecting a different scope of a game than what was actually being developed. I was expecting more of a full ‘create any engine you want’ scope, rather than what the game is more offering. Not that it is a bad thing, its just I went in expecting one thing, and unfortunately, got another. I’ve enjoyed it, to an extent, just not what I was exactly wanting and regret spending the cash on it, especially finding out the DLC will more than likely cost money.
Thank you for clarifying a bit more.
Yeah, same old argument, but let me state it this way: would you expect us to spend 1 year and ~$250000 after the game is released with the promised features people bought into and hand out the content produced within that year for free? If so, you have a warped understanding of basic realities of life, such as having to eat and needing a roof above your head. I doubt you’re that guy though. Why all the hate for DLC?
I think the DLC hate is because so many big companies (cough EA *cough) release half-baked products and then add the features you would have expected in vanilla as pay-to-play DLC expansions. In this respect, I’m also against DLC. I also think the OP did not understand this was about making a tycoon platform and not just a car building platform. Automation is not one of those big companies, and DLC is warranted for lesser-used specialty aspects of the auto-industry in this case. How many cars really use a V16? Sure, they sound fantastic, but they’re crazy heavy and very expensive, so they are actually very rare. I5s are also not super common, and Wankel rotaries are mostly used in aircraft motors, though made quite famous by Mazda automobiles. Being fully-functional > having every single detailed possibility out of the starting gate for me, and seemingly most everybody else on this forum including the super-dedicated devs who are working to bring it to us.
DLC is a good idea if done correctly. For example, this game has been in early access so long that the full version launch has to be prioritized.
Then after the launch, people are always looking how many patches and updates are released and also DLC - that shows how much effort
the dev team are putting into keeping the game relevant in the future.
I can understand some people don’t like the DLC model but I can guarantee many gamers (like me) support the idea.
Some of the best games I have played have been major updates through DLC a long while after the initial launch.
DLC and freemium is not the same thing. I have no regrets about buying the Fallout DLCs, for instance, although I would never buy anything in the Dungeon Keeper or Theme Hospital remakes. Keep in mind that the base game itself is only 1/3 of what you pay for other games.
Well, no, there won’t be DLCs before the game is even released fully, we’ve never said we’re going to release any kind of DLC before the game is finished.
Basically what we’re saying about things like Rotaries, is “They are not something we’ve ever planned to include in the main game, and they’re not something we think would be worth the huge amount of work to add, compared to other more important features. So if we WERE to add them, it would be after the game is entirely completed, and it would be as DLC to pay for the sizeable development time they’d take”
I’d say we’ll most likely follow the Paradox Interactive sort of theory, of after release continuing to add a bunch of free updates, but also releasing DLC for other features so we can afford to keep making Automation stuff.
[quote=“Daffyflyer”]
Well, no, there won’t be DLCs before the game is even released fully, we’ve never said we’re going to release any kind of DLC before the game is finished.
Basically what we’re saying about things like Rotaries, is “They are not something we’ve ever planned to include in the main game, and they’re not something we think would be worth the huge amount of work to add, compared to other more important features. So if we WERE to add them, it would be after the game is entirely completed, and it would be as DLC to pay for the sizeable development time they’d take”
I’d say we’ll most likely follow the Paradox Interactive sort of theory, of after release continuing to add a bunch of free updates, but also releasing DLC for other features so we can afford to keep making Automation stuff.[/quote]
In terms of major and complex features that were never planned to be in the game (e.g rotaries) we basically have three options.
- Don’t make rotaries (this would be the default plan)
- Make rotaries, and hope that the huge amount of cost is covered by people buying the game because it has rotaries who otherwise would not have bought it. (likely a dangerous bet for the company)
- Once the game is finished, make rotaries as DLC to cover the development costs. (probably the best way to make rotaries happen)
It’s not lazy, it’s just the realities of game development. It costs multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to run even a tiny game development studio. Our employees need to be paid.
One thing I need to clarify: V16s are an early supporter preorder bonus that needs to be made into DLC to work out the logistics of it. We promised that over 4 years ago and stick to that promise. People who have not bought into this premium version (which cost $10 more) early on will not get V16s for free and will be able to buy them after launch. While “on disc DLC” is not something we like, this is a consequence of running an early crowdfunding campaign which made the game possible in the first place.
A developer cannot promise everything and especially not for free. In the 90s when games had to be finished at some point 
extra features were sold as expansion disks and today there are DLCs.
The way I understand it, camshaft could have said: no flat engines, no diesels etc. The other option is DLC after the game is finished, which is the normal practice.
V16 and other stuff as DLC is fine with me too. I was already wondering how I would get them because I did not become a premium user.
P.S. It’s impossible to miss that V16 was promised as a bonus item and it’s written everywhere all over the store, so this is really not the same as day one DLC. Giving it away for free would be a real kick in the groin for those people. I am rather surprised that they put up with waiting so long.
To be fair the only thing that imo are missing are diesels. Other than the other options are cool but not worth it.
If they are doing an expansion (let’s not use the word DLC since some publisher gave it a bad name) with wankels, hybrids or electrics, I would understand it.
Think about the wankels: in the campaign that would be an option you would barely use and if uou decide to, it would be something you would use from the 60s till the 2010s in a company really focused into that, not something you would use in all your gameplays like Inline 4s or similar common layouts.