Why Old Map Areas Are Unlikely To Be Updated

So with the [accidental?] reveal of 17 new French company trailer skins in the base.scs files, it begs the question will the existing parts of France see an update or are they just filling in the missing South/West areas and will we see Spain and Portugal included.

^{Disclaimer: Now before I begin I just want to say, because I am a beta tester for ETS2, I just want to make it clear that I do NOT have any more information than what is publicly available everything here after is purely my opinion/speculation based on what can be found in the open beta files.} 

Do I think the old parts of France will be updated?

No.

Probably not the answer most people would like, but I think it is very unlikely that ‘old France’ or any other original map areas would ever see an update. The reason for that is time and money.

So far all map packs have been paid DLC, making map areas takes a long time and the staff making it need to be paid and SCS as a company need income as well. So this means they really have to charge for these areas.

So why does that mean no updated ‘old France’? Simply put, the new areas have their own companies, their own prefabs and models. Just like with the Scandinavian DLC. If you remember update 1.17x came with new dealership prefabs to allow for the delivery of Volvos/Scanias to appropriate dealerships and just to make them look nicer.

This content update was technically done for the DLC, but was part of the public patch; why? Because it wouldn’t really be possible for SCS to keep the old prefabs for people who don’t own the DLC, but replace it in the DLC for everyone who does buy it. Even if they could make it work, it would be two versions of the game to update all the time. So those changes would have to be shared between both parties [those who do and those who don’t own the DLC].

So that brings us to why old map areas can’t be updated. The models, prefabs/roads and companies would all have to be available to both parties, so what would we be paying for? Essentially we’d be paying for content we already have, but felt like giving money away any way.

So that pretty much rules out old map areas being updated as paid DLC. SCS could always release old map updates for free, but given the amount of work it probably isn’t feasible to do so. That said they do give us free truck updates, so it’s not completely out of the question. But IMO I would honestly rather they add more of Europe that focus too much on existing areas.

Before I move on though, I would like to say if it was an option I would gladly give SCS money through a croudfunding/kickstarter type of way if they would consider using it for old map updates.

Personally I would LOVE to see all countries redone with their own unique companies as the Scandinavia/France DLC has.

Will we see more than just France in the DLC?

Well that really is an interesting question. So far the files suggest that only France is to be included, but we obviously have no idea how when the DLC will come/how early into it they are. Other than the trailer skins there are some other assets that can be found that all have _fr markers. There are no _sp or _p* markers that would suggest Spain or Portugal.

When the Scandinavia DLC launched it came with 17 new companies shared between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. There are also 17 new companies in the France DLC, whether they will be shared with Spain/Portugal or if they are exclusive to France there is no way to know for sure until SCS tell us themselves.

Right now my feeling is that the DLC will only be France, but I would loved to be proven wrong on that.