This is the first in a long series. Each ambassador sent Giants Software questions from the gaming community in order to answer some questions about Farming Simulator. In audio format (.ogg) download, or Spotify below), and about fifty minutes, it's DJGoHam who takes the microphone to announce the answers in English. I offer you a translation of this question / answer below.
Why “Farming Simulator”? How about a driving simulator or something like that?
It’s a basic study project, we had already talked about it on Simulagri.fr. Stefan Geiger (CTO) and Christian Ammann (CEO) developed the Giants Engine at the university. One day the question arose of knowing what to do with this engine. It was a friend of theirs who suggested, "You know what I would like to do? I would like to drive a tractor. "From there was born the idea of Farming Simulator ... A simple suggestion led to this huge project.
Will there be more content (DLC) for Farming Simulator 19?
All that can be said is that FS 19 is not yet "Dead and buried". So yes there will be more content, moreover there could be announcements very soon ...
How many members is the ModHub team made up of? Is the mod test enjoyable ?
It is not easy to answer this question. The QA team is made up of 6/7 people but there are also 2/3 additional testers in case of "Blow of fluff". That is a total of 10 at most.
Can we have bigger farms?
This is a question that comes up often, especially from the console community. The problem is that developers have to keep the consoles in sight when creating a map. But not that, a lot of people play on low power PC setups. Everyone must be satisfied.
Do you think fans enjoyed Farming Simulator 19 more than previous titles?
YES ! FS 19 is the most played episode of the series. We don't know how soon the next Farming will arrive, but for Giants Software, now that the “big” mods are here (Season, etc.) we need to give players some time to enjoy the game even more. There is also a good chance that this 2-year cycle will be definitively broken. This allows more features to be brought into the game.
Can you add more scripts and give modders more freedom in creating mods?
Mods bring a lot of possibilities to the game. There is a big disparity between PC mods and console mods, but Giants try to be as close as possible to modders on projects like Seasons or StrawHarvest mods. Adding scripts natively is more complicated because it is part of a long validation process. However, the more complex scripts (like those of the seasons mod) are added from one version of Farming Simulator to another.
When modders license a brand, does that open up the brand to other modders?
Yes of course.
How does the licensing system work for brands and machines?
There is a team at Giants that takes care of licensing and partnerships. Modders can also bring in the licenses. They are compulsory for a passage on consoles. This is a restriction on the part of their manufacturers. Sometimes it's the manufacturers who want to get in the game. Giants Software and the manufacturers always try to agree on the hardware to integrate. In absolute terms, the door is open to all manufacturers.
The game is marketed as a "simulator" but looks more like a "sim-cade" (Simulation / Arcade). Why ?
The hardest part is gauging the balance between simulation and arcade. Giants Software seems to be satisfied with the current operation, namely to offer a basic game open to all, and to let players install mods such as "precision farming" to push the realism of Farming Simulator a little more. “It's a game. A game needs to be fun. " Remember that children are able to take charge of the game, classified as “For Everyone”. "In Germany, FS is rated USK 0. Which means you can play there as soon as you are born" laughs the Giants Software team.
What constitutes a “slot” in the console-based slot counting system? Is it a matter of file size?
More info = more solts. A mod with a lot of polygons, heavy textures, etc. weighs more heavily on the scale and overloads the consoles. The slot system prevents your console from “exploding”. The slot system is an indicator of RAM consumption. Let's take a map to illustrate the principle. If you load a tree, but duplicate it 100x identically, that will only have one tree left to manage and take up little RAM space. On the other hand, if you place 100 different trees, you load 100 trees in RAM. Which is more complex to manage and can cause slowdowns.
According to Giants, if you do not "cheate" the game with money, it is very difficult to have enough tractors or other vehicles to saturate the memory ... Remember that the architecture of the PS4 and Xbox One is almost 10 years old!