rec.autos.simulators

Before I had a PII 800. Now I have a muscular system; 1800, GF4, 512 ram,
etc. My God! Quelle difference! Racing GPL at 1600x1200 blew me away. The
clarity! Even the physics seem improved. I think I 'll skip the league race
tonite and do some laps at Adelaide.

At the risk of adding my buckets to the GPL nostalgia flood I have to say:
my God, you take GPL, and add the enhancements from N4 ad N2002, Jesus what
a game we'd have! The refined physics, weather modelling, deep,
comprehensive multiplayer (sorry, but VROC doesn't compare; among other
factors, the ranking system ensures that runners don't drop out of races).
Sigh.....

"Peter Oxford"
   I was almost gonna ask...what weather modeling?   But my head was not
hearing what my eyes were reading....Papyrus had excellant weather
modeling...watching the smoke slowly drift away on the breeze is worth the
price of the sim....but...
   I am still waiting for Papyrus to start adding things other titles have
had for years...like DYNAMIC weather.   Just as we are begging other
publishers to equal Papyrus' multiplay, we need to bug the Boys from
near-Boston to get cracking on real rain delays...(imagine that lap or two
before officals throw the yellow for rain...can you hang on???)
dave henrie

 >

A little unfair to Papyrus, Dave. In the N4,2002 series you have
temperature, wind and cloud cover. And they all have subtle impact.
Remember, NASCAR doesn't race in the rain except at the road courses (I
think....).

One online advantage that the NASCAR series have over GPL is that in the
former demands a high level of proficiency on the part of each participant
so as not to spoil the race for all. It's a harder sim. In N2K2 you merely
have to be decent and you won't ruin the party.

  You need to be proficient in either title IMO.

John

  agreed but they don't always throw the yellow flag the moment a drop
trickles down...there are plenty of races where one or two cars have 'a
moment' before race officials realize the rain is on the track.  That would
certainly bring some *** language from a leader that got caught by the
first drops I think....  :)

   I think you got it backwards...GPL strings out so fast the hotshoes never
see the average drivers.  With the shorter laps in Nascar, anything but a
sprint race brings the whole pack down on a slowpoke...(don't ask me how I
know these things!)
dave henrie

Seriously, that would be awesome, but I'm already imagining some huge
outlash from people who have problems with simulating long races, as
it is.  I'd also put in a vote for accident-caused and weather-caused
red flags (wow, that would almost be a nice "cheat" for those 40 car
AI pileups).  One of the few things missing gameplay-wise.  Actually,
before dynamic weather, I'd like to see things like oil, water and
debris causing irregularities to the track surface.  And
provisionals/all-star race in season play.  And a proper career mode.

Of course, I have a feeling some of these things may be in Nascar
Thunder 2003, based on the previews I've read, which poses an
interesting thought.  If Thunder 2003 has a proper career mode, a
plethora of single player options (I read it would ship with something
like 150 cars, including Busch and historical?  wooooooo), more
detailed/realistic handling (possible since they're using the newest
ISI engine), solid multiplayer, and a lot of little details that we've
been begging Papy for, will the Sierra Nascar 200x series go the way
of the Carrier Pigeon, Dodo and Crammond F1 series?  Not sounding any
death bells or anything (I expect Thunder 2003 to be a good first
effort but not particularly amazing) but there could be an interesting
battle for Nascar sim supremacy the next few years.

Jason

DC

  I hope Thunder does this things; competition is a good thing.  But I place
the odds at that happening about on par with WSC's release<G>

John

Eldred
--
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...

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Eldred
--
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...

Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

DC

A save game feature would be nice in the sense of allowing you to
periodically save a race in order to avoid losing your progress due to
a crash.  So I can understand it from that perspective, but I still
don't quite get the need to run longer races than one has time for in
one sitting.  It seems odd to demand the utmost in realism in every
regard except for the "stiff leg, sweaty hands" aspects.

Jason

I've come around a bit on ISI's F1 series, since my primary interest
is the experience of driving a car moreso than the actual racing, but
I do wish the replay/controller/multiplayer aspects were brought up to
the competition's standards.  Since Papyrus is the only competition, I
would hope they would take a look at GPL/N4/N2002 and appropriate a
few ideas.

Oh yeah - career mode is very appealing to me.  I love games with deep
career simulations.  I'm not talking about console sports games or
anything here - I'm thinking along the lines of Out of the Park 4 or
the Championship Manager series.  I'd find single player to be much
more fun if there were a proper career mode included.  The challenge
of building a race team, etc, which I believe is slated to be part of
Thunder 2003.

There is a smattering of information here, altho the writer of the
article doesn't really help build a positive impression of the game:

http://pc.ign.com/articles/362/362606p1.html

Jason