Hear hear!
Nice to see a sensible, non-emotive posting that actually details the
problems with this simulation, and there are definitely problems associated
with aspects of this product.
I received the distinct impression, due to the strange behaviour of the AI,
that this sim has been developed primarily for on-line racing with
stand-alone racing taking a back seat.
Is it not possible, therefore, that the primary objective given the
developers by Microsoft was for this game to shine as an on-line product at
the initial expense of stand-alone play? Is it feasible that they were to
concentrate first and foremost into getting it up and running for 'Zone' use
and, if other concerns had to be addressed then worry about them later?
Artificial Intelligence is not really a prime requirement when on-line
racing uses human players.
With regard to the performance of screen refresh I concur whole-heartedly
that there is something odd about how this game has been tested and
subsequently reviewed by some people. It is all very well for a development
team to test a product on a top-notch, all singing-all dancing system but
they simply MUST be aware that the majority of the home-computing public are
not using such equipment. Note....I say 'majority' and the majority of
domestic computer users DO NOT subscribe to RAS!
I think it is blatantly obvious that the "minimum requirements" stipulated
have not been given any serious consideration and are simply a marketing
exercise. "Cover as much of the field as possible" seems to be the
directive from Marketing. "Will it operate on a P75 with 8Mb?", asks the
Marketing Boss. "Well, yes, sort of, but..........!!", replies Producer.
"OK! Then that's the Minimum Requirement!", replies Marketing.
I note with interest that your (the USA) consumer laws appear to allow the
return of software if the purchaser is simply not happy with it. That does
not necessarily apply world-wide, the onus being on the purchaser to ensure
that the product will operate on his/her system. Here (Oz), for example,
the fact that a buyer may bring CART PR back to the shop complaining that it
is "too slow on my machine" does NOT automatically give them any rights for
refund or exchange; dissatisfaction, therefore, does not equate to automatic
redress. We see examples of this occurring more and more due to highly
debatable minimum specifications being listed on boxes. They seem to get
away with this false advertising as free as a bird yet if it happened in
other areas of consumer sales the proverbial would hit the fan in a big way.
I for one am sick and tired of software being rushed into final production
before it is ready. Whilst I realise and accept that all bugs cannot be
found by a development team and that they rely on the computing public to
provide feedback there is a distinct difference between a bug popping up
because of some random sequence of events or keystrokes input by John
Citizen on his computer and the release of a product that contains glaring
faults that even Blind Freddy could see.
--
Bruce.
(snip)
