rec.autos.simulators

Papy/Sierra,

In mid-november '95, you released a game called IndyCar Racing II.. It
is now the beginning of March '97, and you still haven't finished this
sim. Why?? It was terrible, so you release a patch mid-july '96, still
not completing it.. Throughout 1996, we heard so much about using the
hawaii engine and code to port to ICR2 for network support, where is it?
ICR2 and N1 use the same engine AFAIK, so it doesn't seem like it would
be too hard for you to make "Alaska".. Also, there is still many bugs in
the game, some new since the patch, some that have been there all
along.. Now I know you are gonna want $50 more from everyone for ICR3,
so why bother finishing ICR2, right?? It shouldn't be that way.. I think
before you release your little 60's F1 sim and your strategy game, you
should finish past projects.. Jim, since none of the ICR2 boys read the
NG anymore, will you please forward this message to them?? Thanks...

David Otterness

: Papy/Sierra,

: In mid-november '95, you released a game called IndyCar Racing II.. It
: is now the beginning of March '97, and you still haven't finished this
: sim. Why?? It was terrible, so you release a patch mid-july '96, still
: not completing it.. Throughout 1996, we heard so much about using the
: hawaii engine and code to port to ICR2 for network support, where is it?
<snip>

I was just thinking the same thing.  With the new interest generated by
the Rendition version, we need the final big bugs squashed in ICR2.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I believe that based on the announcement by CART regarding an
exclusive software license with Sony, Papyrus has lost all business
justification for working on subsequent IndyCar
releases/patches/utilities/fixes.  You can read the news yourself in
the news section of www.cart.com and I believe the release was
approximately one month ago under a heading regarding a new marketing
consultant agreement.

Speculation (please note that word) several weeks ago was that Papyrus
did the rendition work on ICR2 in order to get some experience for the
N2 rendition work.  Unfortunately, this probably is the last ICR2
update we'll see by Papyrus before the Sony contract take effect.

If someone from Papyrus would care to validate, dispute, or simply
provide a "no comment" to this post it would save us all a lot of
worry.

Cheers,

Pooch

                                          O-iiiii-O

Sony has the rights to Cart, as you mention, and I don't imagine that
an IRL sim would be profitable, given the current state of the IRL.
(If an IRL sim would be profitable, I'd imagine that Sony would have
already secured or at least attempted to secure the rights to the IRL,
and to my knowledge they have not... :-) )

From the above, you can probably determine whether or not we have an
IRL sim on our plate right now.

---Jim Sokoloff, Papyrus

Dave Sparks
IWCCCARS Project: http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars
Late Night League: http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html
Hawaii Handle: davids

Sorry to dissapoint you on this one, but Papyrus has no plans to update,
or even expand, current and future versions of ICR2.  :(

Best Regards,

Marc

Marc J. Nelson
Sim Racing News - USA
http://members.aol.com/simracing

1.) Sierra see's the need for nother indy sim

2.) They licence IRL

3.) With that comes indianapolis for nascar 2

Just a thought. I guese you never know.

--
--Kai Fuller
  Senior Writer of IOR (previously INR)

  GO Thunderbirds!!!!!!! (WHL)

Sorry about the double quoting, but I purged the original article
before replying.

There are currently no plans for an ICR3.

Define finish please? Should id go back and add multiplayer over IPX
to Wolfenstein 3D? Probably not. By the same token, I don't see any
reason to continue to pour development money into ICR2 for no return.
ICR2 as it current exists is a finished product as far as I can tell.
Sure it's not 100% perfect, and our latest NASCAR sim has some
features that ICR2 lacks. However, that doesn't make ICR2 unfinished.
It just makes it have less features than our latest product has.

I'll do that, but I'm not sure it's going to change anything.

---Jim Sokoloff, Papyrus

Well, couldn't find this bit of news. I am curious about this, because
I am not sure what it means. Psygnosis, originally with strong Sony
ties,  did a cool, although extremely un-papy-similar, F1 sim for
playstation. If they would do an Indy sim, I would buy it.

One of things Psygnosis seems to do better than Papy- they give their
cars a much more solid, crisp, firmly-on-the-ground feel. As much as I
love papy sims, I have to say that all their sims suffer from a
mushy-car syndrome. This is mostly a problem on the tracks; on the
ovals, once you are moving, it isn't such an issue.

if you can tell more about this sony contract, please post. I looked a
few months back (to november) in the News section of www.cart.com,
couldn't find it.

I'm no more dissapointed than I was when Rick Genter said almost
exactly this... I guess 3/4ths of a year ago.

But I *am* dissapointed! I figure I'll still be racing ICR2 5 years
from now... ya, I know, by then, we'll all have virtual***pits and 2
gigahertz 6-processor *** consoles. ANd I'll have replaced my 30th
potentiometer in my T2 to race ICR2 on my antique DOS machine.

I, after all, still occasionally pull out Indianapolis: the
simulation. Is there any way I can finally throw out the manual (i.e.,
make the program stop asking me to prove I am the owner?!)

Yep! Just find the Indianapolis track pack for the origional ICR and
convert it to ICR2 format with that track converter. I would look at
forsale newsgroups or bargain bins in stores or software re-sale shops.

--
Header address intentionaly scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

Here's the address for the news release.  It was in the January
archived news section of www.cart.com:

http://www.cart.com/ppg/news/ppg123972.html

Papyrus has a deal to port NASCAR to the Sony Playstation, but seems
to have no other plans for racing-related releases in conjunction with
Sony at this time.  After reading the news release at the above URL, I
suggest re-reading the posts in this string and much of what was said
will make more sense.

Cheers,

Pooch

                                          O-iiiii-O

My two cents here:

There was a time when software developers never released patches.
Products were released based on the best coding abilities of the
development team within a certain product launch window, and the
product was released, and then they moved on to the next product
release.  Sometimes that next product release was a follow-up, other
times it was a different program altogether.

As far as ICR2 is concerned, this is not a perfect program, but
neither is Windows 3.11, which has been out for many years.  Papyrus
DID release a patch which fixed many of the problems with the original
program.  ICR2 lacks network support, but few games released at that
time provided network support, and those that did were a lot simpler
than ICR2.  MOVE ON.  Papyrus is releasing an historical F1 sim, which
will probably have features that N2 doesn't, and then N3 will probably
have features that F1Historical doesn't, and so on, and so on.

IMHO, ICR2 (my favorite sim, despite the few shortcomings) will keep
me busy for years, and is by far the best entertainment value I have
EVER received (including the $3.00 I paid to see Star Wars in 1977.)
Papyrus no longer has the rights to the CART series on which ICR2 is
based, so they have no choice but to move on to other projects.  I am
certain that Papyrus' ability to create driving sims will continue to
escalate at the amazing rate that it has since ICR1, and by the time I
have kids I'll be getting concussions just from playing their latest
release.  (Just kidding Jim, please tell your developers to NOT
include virtual-concussions in any sims.)

Cheers,

Pooch

                                          O-iiiii-O

says...

Personally, I like Indycar 2 exactly the way it is. The rendition version
screams on my machine, and it works great.

So keep on rolling with the N2 patch, yeah, thats the ticket <BG>

Richard Scott

: Define finish please? Should id go back and add multiplayer over IPX
: to Wolfenstein 3D? Probably not. By the same token, I don't see any
: reason to continue to pour development money into ICR2 for no return.
: ICR2 as it current exists is a finished product as far as I can tell.
: Sure it's not 100% perfect, and our latest NASCAR sim has some
: features that ICR2 lacks. However, that doesn't make ICR2 unfinished.
: It just makes it have less features than our latest product has.

Jim, I'm not asking for any "new" features for ICR2, but...  There are
still some major bugs left in the last patch.  Some which make certain
tracks "unraceable".  If I remember correctly AI cars drive in between
the pit walls in Long Beach, enter and exit through the pit wall.  The
"yellow flag" bug was never really fixed.  If this qualifies as a
finished product, this bodes poorly for QA for N2 and future
Sierra/Papyrus products.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=