Virtual Farmers…are you paying attention? There’s a whole lotta goodness coming our way this fall. Yes, Giants is set to release Farming Simulator 19 for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 20 November 2018. The ability to pre-order your very own copy is available directly from the Giants website, Steam and even places like Amazon. At the present time, the going rate for FS19 is $34.99 on both the Giants website and Steam. Amazon appears to want $5.00 more with their price set at $39.99. If you want my advice, pick the Steam version and enjoy automagic updates and a carefree method of managing the install/licensing etc. But whatever purchase method you choose, I firmly believe the very best agricultural based simulator to date will be Farming Simulator 19.
Will you Buy FS19?
From all that I’ve read, from all that I’ve heard…Farming Simulator 19 will break a trend in which we’ve seen with past releases of this popular franchise. It’s been argued in the past that the differences between versions have been minimal at best. While I didn’t play FS11 or FS13, I did come onboard with FS15 after perhaps 2-3 months after initial release and of course I’ve played FS17 for over 800 hours. Personally speaking, when I look back and compare FS15 to FS17 I see the value in upgrading. After all, with FS17 we were introduced to the amazing Seasons Mod which truly changed the way FS17 is to be played and gave us a much, much higher level of immersion than we’ve had in previous releases. Yes…even including the Soil Mod which truly lifted the imaginative game play on FS15.
Going out on a limb
I’m going to go right ahead and crawl my big ole bear butt right out onto the limb and state for all to read….Farming Simulator 19 will be the very best agricultural based simulation ever released by Giants AND will be the very best of all of these genre based games currently available to us at this time.
My Excitement
I’ll admit I found the Missions/Contracting options in FS15 and FS17 somewhat boring after a while. I felt in FS17 more could have been done to make it more of a real job by allowing us to use our own equipment and also the ability to do tasks such as empty the combine. In FS17 the combine could hold an infinite amount of whatever and this sort of blew the immersion out of the water.
Yes, we will need to find a way to contain ourselves until 20 November. But I truly believe the extra few weeks we’ll need to wait will be 100% worth it. Want more info on FS19? The Giants website is always a good source, PC-SG will also have all the latest and greatest news and YouTube….There are a number of YouTube videos discussing all the wonderful new features FS19 will hold and I would expect we’ll all see preview videos from the usual suspects when they received their pre-release copies and showcase game play on their channels. So get that popcorn ready, get your farms all tidy and ready to sell on FS17 and draw a BIG circle around the 20 November date on the calendar and be prepared to work hard.
When one is bored in a hotel room and there’s basically not much worth watching on TV, I often find myself surfing the internet and catching up on news related to my favorite simulation based games. To my knowledge, the official release date for the much anticipated Farming Simulator 19 is only known to Giants. In other words, I’ve seen nothing official come from Giants regarding a release date. As I mentioned back in April in my posting titled “T-Minus Six Months and Counting…” history (based on previous releases) had me speculating that FS19 would release in the late October/early November time frame of this year. However….
Again…too much time on my hands (I think I recall some music lyrics in that sentence STYX????) anyway, while reading some Facebook postings I discovered this little tidbit of information on Amazon. Now before everyone gets excited….I have no idea if this is actually true and no idea of knowing if this is legit software. I remember hearing some stories about folks selling vaporware on Amazon and other sites and customers never received their games. But this states a release date of December 31, 2018 (New Years Eve).
I absolutely see no reason for anyone to rush out and purchase this. Even if you typically purchase the boxed versions versus Steam, I would suggest a “wait and see” approach on this and wait until Giants actually announces a release date. But hey…I’m stuck in a hotel room in Orlando and bored out of my skull….so I thought I would share my boredom with you all.
My apologies for communicating to you all this way. I had every intention to record a short video to announce my break from YouTube over the weekend. But time simply got away from me. I’m writing this on my flight to Orlando and plan to create a short video consisting of a title slide just asking everyone to read this note so you’re aware of what’s going on. It’s the best I could come up with and I didn’t want to leave you all wondering what was going on another week.
For those who have been around from almost the beginning of my GBS YouTube channel, you know I live a fairly busy and hectic life. If work isn’t keeping me pulled in a half-dozen different directions, my darling wife and her almost never ending project list certainly keeps me busy, busy, busy. This past weekend was a good example, just before it was time to drive to the airport for another work trip I wrapped up some outdoor work which consisted of replacing a few cedar boards which were showing signs of rot along the side of the house. Anyway….
Between the previous business trip, the weeklong visit with my parents and all the other tasks required to keep an almost 40 year old house running…I’m out of videos. I have more work travel and other work related projects which I’ve scheduled during July and early August…then thankfully, my two week long European vacation will happen in late August/Early September and trust me when I say, the vacation can’t get here soon enough.
Basically, let me get to the point before this turns into another novel. I need to take a break from YouTube for a while. This doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be playing my favorite sim games and it also doesn’t mean I’m going to disappear. I may actually live stream from time to time (if time permits) but I just simply don’t have the time at this point to devote to creating recorded content for YouTube.
I will do my best to touch base with everyone on Discord and most likely you’ll continue to see some activity here on my blog site. It’s much easier for me to continue to write about simulation gaming while traveling than it is for me to produce content for YouTube.
I sincerely hope you all understand. Life is busy for all of us and we must always ensure we focus on the areas that matter most and while I consider each and every viewer a friend, I need to take some time away and I hope you’ll understand.
You know the saying, “hell will freeze over before” ______________ (insert what ever comment). Ladies, Gentlemen and Children of all ages….things are starting to get a bit chilly in the devils playground because I woke this morning to the news that John Deere will be included in Farming Simulator 19 due to release sometime this fall.
As I typed on Discord this morning, “It’s 5:20 AM, the hotel coffee is weak today…but OMG. History certainly was made today. John Deere and cotton. WOW…Just WOW. What exciting news. Now hopefully the next time we see anything regarding FS19 it will be actual game footage as I’m not a big fan of CGI”.
So I had my shower and I watched the trailer again. But I’m still not trusting things….on my way to the office I managed to get lost (briefly) then find myself, to get lost briefly again in search of coffee before finally making my way into the office. With a good, strong cup of coffee in hand (and pouring down throat) I watched the trailer one more time. Yep…it’s really, really true. John Deere is coming to FS19.
This is really awesome news. While I’m fully aware we PC users have always had JD green equipment to choose from, and pretty much every single map I’ve ever played (once I was introduced to mods) have had at least one green tractor or other green piece of equipment installed, not all John Deere mods are created equal. As a matter of fact, some of the poorest performing mods I’ve ever come across have been John Deere. So with Giants now having a license to distribute John Deere equipment in FS19 it most likely will mean a much more reliable set of JD equipment which will truly benefit us all.
Hang on a minute…let me watch this just one more time…..
OK…I’m satisfied I’m not dreaming. Here’s the CGI trailer revealing John Deere. Enjoy….I need to get to work now.
From the San Francisco Bay Area….have a fantastic day!
Before anyone gets too excited, let me state for the record that I don’t have any official information regarding the release date for Giants Farming Simulator 19. But we all know the saying, “History repeats itself” and today marks exactly 6 months to October 24, 2018. What’s the significance of this date? Well…Giants released Farming Simulator 17 on October 24, 2016. Of course, we must also keep in mind that FS15 wasn’t released until October 30, 2014. But that adds an extra week of waiting and I’m sure none of us want that. Right?
But seriously, at this point in time, only Giants truly know the date they are marching towards. We can certainly hope in the coming weeks/months Giants will ramp up the marketing hype (as they did with FS17) and share more details, hopefully with actual game play video and all the specifications of any new equipment/features we can expect to see. But we also know the agricultural simulation gaming space is becoming quite competitive, so perhaps Giants will be a little less likely to release all the details.
We do know a few things we can expect in FS19. Based on earlier communications from Giants, FS19 will introduce new farming activities, new animals (including horses), brand new mechanics and new crops. In addition, improvements have been made to the Giants gaming engine to allow a much more immersive “eye candy” experience including shadows. All very cool stuff and all reason enough for me to give them my money. But what about the things we don’t know…or the things we hope will be included?
Unfortunately, we’ll just need to wait and see what happens. Many will argue and say there wasn’t much difference between FS15 and FS17. But I have a feeling FS19 will surprise us all in many ways. While it may still not tick all the boxes for all players, I really am excited and can’t wait to learn more and of course experience it all first hand on release.
But for now….I’m headed back into FS17 to do a little field work. Oh I do love this game….
Since late December I’ve really been enjoying playing the early access release of Cattle and Crops (v. 0.1.0.1). If you haven’t visited my YouTube Channel, please do so and watch my Cattle and Crops video series showcasing the available missions in the game.
While my level of enjoyment has been high, it hasn’t been without frustration. I’m a really picky simulation gamer and practically refuse to play simulation based games (especially driving type games) without my trusty Logitech G27 steering wheel, pedals and shifter console. Unfortunately, Cattle and Crops is yet another simulation based game which is available where controller support appears to be somewhat of an after-thought.
After several hours of some trial and a whole lot of error, I have determined the best configuration settings I need to configure my Logitech G27 hardware with Cattle and Crops. While it’s not exactly the way I would like to have things, it will work until such time that hopefully the CnC Devs will better enhance their controller support for the game.
I’m not sure if these steps will work with older or newer Logitech controllers. I only own the G27 and only have that model to test with. In addition, I’m not sure if these steps will work with non-Logitech branded hardware. But my hope is that you might get an idea from this video which may work with these other setups. Good luck!
If you have questions regarding any of the steps I’ve outlined in the video, please leave a comment on the video or alternatively you are free to join my Discord server and contact me there.
Just before Christmas I wrote a blog article discussing my holiday video release schedule on the GBS YouTube channel and also discussed my early opinions on Farmer’s Dynasty and also briefly touched on an older blog article I wrote in late 2016 regarding my outlook on 2017 being the year for farming. After writing that article, two things happened.
First, a reader of my blog contacted me via email informing me of an update to Cattle and Crops which he felt I should look into. Second, Wonko (the owner of PC-SG) also posted his review of his experiences with the new update. After reading Wonko’s posting and also looking into the changes made to CnC, I decided to reinstall CnC with the updates and check it out. I’m really…REALLY glad I did.
Looking back to the early stages of 2017, most (including myself) was really excited about the release of Cattle and Crops (CnC). Initially we believed the early access version which many of us had helped to support in the CnC Crowdfunding campaign would occur in early Spring of 2017 with the official release of the game to be in the late Fall. Unfortunately this time schedule began to slip and the actual “Tech Demo” of CnC wasn’t made available until early summer. As Spring turned into Summer, I was still excited for the release, but that excitement quickly turned to disappointment once I downloaded the Tech Demo and spent a few hours with the game. During much of this time I was trying to get my Logitech G27 working. If you are a frequent reader of my blog and watch my videos, you’ll know that I make every attempt for full immersion with the simulation based games I play. In addition, I’m a firm believer if you are a game developer and wish to create a simulation based game, you MUST include support for 3rd party hardware such as steering wheels and pedals. Without this support, the game is just that. A Game!
For full disclosure, the few hours I spent with the Tech Demo (during the early summer) resulted in me forming a less than positive opinion which I’ve expressed in previous articles and during discussions on my videos. I uninstalled CnC and figured not much would ever come from the game.
Things change and so must opinions, since reinstalling CnC (v 0.1.0.1) my opinion has changed and my level of excitement has also changed. While the current version of Cattle and Crops is most certainly not ready to be considered a complete release, much has changed over the past 5-6 months and I truly must credit the development team for their hard work.
Of course, I’m not going to go out on any limbs and say that CnC will become the simulation game we may once thought it would be. Also, I’m not going to say CnC will become a Giants killer (at least not yet), but I do believe things are on the right path. Yes there are lots of wonderful things about the current state of the game and equally there are also many annoying things as well.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I plan to record my game play and commentary as I re-experience Cattle and Crops. To start, I plan to play the missions (I believe there are 12) and get a feel for the current state of the game. In addition, I’ll spend more time researching the current and future plans.
But for now, here’s what I’m calling episode 0 which I recorded recently. During this episode I discuss some of the challenges I’ve experienced in getting my wheel and pedals setup. But persistence did eventually pay off and things are looking up. Thank you for watching!
It’s been over a month since my last blog posting. The busy travel schedule has ended and as I write this, I’m down to the last two work days left in 2017. I’m hoping they both go by as smoothly as possible. As a matter of fact, at the present time I’m enjoying a big cup of coffee while watching it snow from my 4th floor office window. So I guess this should tell you I’m pretty bored and really just marking time until I can walk out and not have to return until next year.
2017 The Year of Farming
As we were closing out 2016, I wrote a blog posting where I predicted that 2017 might go down as the year of farming. After all, Giants had just released Farming Simulator 17 and we were all salivating over the news about titles such as Cattle and Crops, Pure Farming 17, Farm Expert 17 and others who all were saying their products would be released in 2017. Of course, we all know not all these things ended up coming to fruition. Cattle and Crops delayed their “early access” release by several months and what they released in the early summer was simply not ready even for EA. Pure Farming 17 ended up changing their name to Pure Farming 18 and a release date of 13 March 2018 is now being advertised. Farm Expert 17 appears to be anything BUT an expert as reviews are quite poor for this title.
While we may have been left disappointed by those other titles, I’ve got to say that Giants really helped make up for it this year with the release of their Kuhn, Big Bud and Platinum paid DLC packs along with the unexpected bonus free Horsch Packs. Giants single-handedly saved 2017 and placed themselves squarely in the drivers seat for 2018 and beyond.
Farmer’s Dynasty
I only began hearing about Farmer’s Dynasty a few months ago. Most likely with my busy work/travel schedule (which kept me away from just about everything related to simulation based gaming), I began seeing information popping up on forum sites like PC-SG and began seeing some preview videos on YouTube. I honestly wasn’t planning on involving myself with another “Early Access” game title (especially in the agricultural simulation genre) and had pretty much convinced myself to just wait and see what happens. Especially after learning the developers initially hadn’t planned to add support for wheel/pedal type controllers. (more about this in a minute)
But my dear, dear friend Eustace Pharmer pulled the trigger and through a most convincing preview video featuring Creepy Oliver, the bait had been set and I took it “hook, line and sinker”. According to Steam stats, I’ve spent approx. 1.3 hours in the game and all-in-all I’m not disappointed in my purchase. Is Farmer’s Dynasty the Giant(s) killer? NO! At least not now and certainly not from anything I’ve seen in my short history of playing the game. But, the 1.3 hours I’ve spent playing Farmer’s Dynasty does have me wanting more.
As previously mentioned, Farmer’s Dynasty is an early access release. There are bugs, there could be more bugs coming and obviously the game will most likely change for the best over time. Again, in my 1.3 hours of game play, I’ve not experienced any game crashes, errors and performance has been fantastic running on my high-end gaming machine.
I would best describe Farmer’s Dynasty as a mix between Farming Simulator 17, The Sims and perhaps the upcoming House Flipper. Essentially Farmer’s Dynasty allows you to do some farming, interact with other characters and make repairs to your old, run down farm which you’ve inherited from the death of your grandfather.
In the 1.3 hours I’ve spent playing, I’ve taken the time to repair Oliver’s barn. In return, he gave me his old run down tractor and I’ve spent just a bit of time repairing a few things on my farm. I probably have more questions than answers at this point. While I’m enjoying grinding away in these early hours to build up my equipment, repair my farm and gain social status points. I’m curious just what the future holds. For example, will other maps make their way into the game? Will we be required to grind away each and every time we might choose to start a new map?
Controller Support – Including Wheels/Pedals in Simulation based games
One of the biggest disappointments I’ve seen with Cattle and Crops and also Farmer’s Dynasty has been the lack of support for external hardware controllers and specifically wheels and pedals. While I’m not a software developer, I wish the first line of code that would get built into these types of simulation based games would be for 3rd party controller (wheel/pedal support). Game titles which I’ve previously mentioned all involve some form of driving. While much of the work we’ll do in the early hours of Farmer’s Dynasty won’t involve much driving, eventually more and more will. After all, we’ll be driving a tractor to plow, fertilize, seed, harvest and sell the crops we grow. While not everyone will use a wheel and pedal setup, many do. And from reading comments, many have decided not to support the EA release until such time wheel and pedal support has been added. So gaming developers, if you are going to build a simulation based game that has any sort of driving involved, YOU MUST add support for wheels/pedals.
GBS Holiday YouTube Schedule
I’ve been working hard the past couple of weeks in creating a small backlog of videos to cover the Christmas and New Year Holiday period. My wife has a rather long list of “Honey Do” projects lined up and while I do plan to spend time playing simulation based games over the next 10+ days, I most likely won’t have time to edit, render and upload anything new until after the new year. But don’t worry….here’s my release schedule which covers from now through 1 January.
Wednesday – 20 December – MidtownUSA Ep 3
Thursday – 21 December – MidtownUSA Ep 4
Friday – 22 December – Thornton Farm Ep 13
Sunday – 24 December – GBS Christmas Message
Tuesday – 26 December – Thornton Farm Ep 14
Wednesday – 27 December – MidtownUSA Ep 5
Thursday – 28 December – MidtownUSA Ep 6
Friday – 29 December – Thornton Farm Ep 15
Monday – 1 January – Thornton Farm Ep 16
If you’re not yet a subscriber of my YouTube channel, please consider subscribing. Just visit www.youtube.com/c/grizzlybearsims and click the Subscribe button. You’ll find 100% G-Rated, Family Friendly entertainment suitable for all ages on my channel.
Well….I need to seek out another cup of coffee and take a stroll through the data center. I hope you’ll tune into my channel for my FS17 videos and a special Christmas Message on the 24th. Thank you all for your support and friendship.
Until next time….
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you next year!
Geez…sometimes you have to wonder if all this is really worth it……
It’s been brought to my attention that someone using the name or handle of GrizzlyMan has been doing some pretty despicable things with various Farming Simulator mods (including maps) and re-uploading them to various mod hosting sites including modhub. One specific example has to do with the Hobbs Farm map. Grizzlyman made some edits, created lots of errors and then re-uploaded Hobbs Farm (calling it Texas Dedication of Hobbs Farm) to modhub.
One of my viewers contacted me about this and wanted to bring it to my attention. Note: My viewer DID NOT accuse me (GrizzlyBearSims) and GrizzlyMan as being one in the same person. He was simply bringing this to my attention and simply mentioned some could get confused. Especially since I’m originally from Texas and proud of it.
My internet persona or identity is GrizzlyBearSims. With exception to just a few forums where where I may go by FarmingSimJT, my YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, PC-SG, 3DudesGN and of course my own website/blog site are all branded as GrizzlyBearSims. While I’m not opposed to having my real identity revealed…I prefer to just do everything related to my simulation gaming hobby handled under my branded name of GrizzlyBearSims.
Of course, those who know me…know that I rarely do any modding and again….those who really know the real me, also know that I would never sink to the levels of those who steal from our modding community and violate their wishes by uploading to these dreadful websites. In addition, while I’ve heard about the Hobbs Farm map, I’ve never downloaded it, never installed it and have never played it. The only connection I have with the Hobbs Farm map is to be a member of the Hobbs Farm Facebook community.
I don’t know who GrizzlyMan is (also goes by Grandpa Grizzly) and truth be known, I don’t care to know him. I (Jerry) do not have any sort of trademark or exclusive use to the word “Grizzly”, but I could see where someone might confuse the two of us.
Anyway….I just wanted to write something stating my case and placing it into the interwebz so hopefully there will no confusion going forward.
So I return to work on Monday morning (10 July) after having spent 10 wonderful, relaxing days on vacation. Over half of this time off was spent near Estes Park, Colorado and the beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park. This was a much needed, highly anticipated and just honestly what any doctor could have ordered break for both my wife and I. The last few months have been tough on both of us and I honestly think we began counting the days down to this get-away back in the early spring timeframe.
Between meetings on Monday morning, I decided to catch up on a few of my fellow YouTube friends and the videos they released while I was on vacation. My friend Farmer Klein was the first name that popped up in my list of video recommendations and I noticed the video title was “Old Guy Farmers Single Player Challenge”. Challenge??? What’s this about seemed to be thoughts that entered in my mind. Obviously I know who Old Guy Farmer is…that’s Mr. Jerry Ott who created the wonderful Mountain Valley Farm map which I’m currently running a “Let’s Play” series on. If interested, you can follow my progress on my Mountain Valley Farm series on YouTube.
Anyway…back to this challenge. I watched with excitement as Farmer Klein started game day 1, episode 1 of the special Goldcrest Valley Edit map which Jerry Ott had designed specific for the challenge. As more minutes passed, I began thinking…I want to do this. I want to play this map and I want to participate in the challenge. I quickly read through the rules/guidelines of the challenge….”Must Use Seasons Mod” Ok…that’s good as I just simply can’t play (nor am I interested in playing FS17 without the Seasons Mod. “Game mode must be set on Hard”. OK..that is also OK as I’m playing on MVF set to Hard mode. “Game play time must be set to x15 speed and can only skip time from 9pm to 6am” That’s also just fine. “Game play must be streamed on YouTube or Twitch” This is also great because I’ve really been wanting to stream my FS17 game play more. Etc. etc. I’ll let you read the rules/guidelines at your own discretion.
While I did say several months ago I had no interest in playing another GCV edit map, on Monday afternoon I downloaded the GCV edit challenge map and fired up OBS and kicked off episode one (of 72 total episodes) of this challenge series. Yes…you did read that correct. This series will consist of 72 episodes as each episode will be precisely one game day (6 AM ish to 9 PM ish). 72 days is what 3 Seasons Mod years, set to 6 game days per season calculates to. Yes, this is a major undertaking…but I have until 1 November. There’s a lot of time between now and 1 November! Right? Right????
I’ll admit, my game play during episode 1 certainly was not my finest hour. I must have appeared as if I was a nube to Farming Simulator 17 or perhaps even a nube to simulation based gaming altogether. I really do have over 500 hours of game play recorded in FS17 (and over 700 in FS15) and I’ve been using the Seasons mod since early January.
The truth is, I completely underestimated the stress in knowing that from the moment you enter the game, time is ticking away at a fairly fast pace (game play set to x15). An entire game day (6 AM to 9 PM) passes by at near light speed in just over an hour. As most of my viewers know, I farm at a fairly relaxed pace and I may spend a few minutes painstakingly comparing tractor specs before making a decision (or no decision at all). In this challenge, TIME is definitely of the essence.
Long Story Short….so yes…GrizzlyBearSims took the challenge and I’ll do my level best to not only survive the challenge, but also complete it and also try equally hard to win it. While the rules are clearly defined, I’ve made the decision to follow my own guideline of “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right” way of doing things. Meaning even though time is quickly speeding by, I won’t take shortcuts…I’m not going to drive through my crops etc. I’m plowing fields, applying fertilizer, cultivating, seeding and then fertilizing again. Regardless of the outcome, FUN is the absolute number one priority for each episode.
While I don’t believe it’s too late for others to take part in this challenge, if you are interested in participating…please visit this website for complete rules and information. But don’t wait too long as while on paper there are many days between now and 1 November…trust me, before you know it…summer will be over and just remember, time is of the essence.
For my wonderful friends/viewers of the GrizzlyBearSims YouTube Channel, Are you interested in winning your very own copy of the Giants Farming Simulator 17 Platinum Expansion Pack DLC? I’m gifting a copy to three lucky winners of this expansion pack (via Steam) at the end of the challenge. All you need to do to enter, is watch my livestreams (either live or via YouTube recorded playback) and listen for me to provide the daily code word. Each episode will have a unique code word which I’ll verbally announce during the game play. Once you hear the code word, just follow the information I’ve outlined to enter. You can view these contest guidelines and how to submit the code word on the GrizzlyBearSims Discord Channel. You can enter up to 72 times, pending you watch (and listen) for the code word. Obviously, the more episodes you watch, the better odds you’ll have at winning. I’ll do the drawing and notify the winners on Sunday, 6 November.
