rec.autos.simulators

by **Richard Walk** » Wed, 14 Jan 1998 04:00:00

>That just serves to highlight the differing expectations of people.
>Only last night I was sitting thinking through all the things I did
>and didn't like about CPR overall, and that was one feature I
>concluded was a complete waste of time, money and programming hours!

>Working out and writing down exactly what the should say, paying him
>to say all the phrases, writing the interface, adding all the sounds
>into the game - would that same time and money have allowed the game
>to be shipped in better condition? I'd rather have cut that procedure
>after the first stage and just printed all the phrases in the
>appropriate section of the manual. Would have saved on hard disk space
>too.

Well I sort of agree with you, except that from a publisher's viewpoint
it is probably a lot cheaper to include such on-line help than a printed
manual. One-off costs vs a cost for every copy sold.

Personally, my driving style tends to mean that my setups are somewhat
different to the accepted norm, so all such features are a little wasted
on me ;-))

Cheers,
Richard

by **John D. Courtn** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

Hi,
One of the features I would like to see in future racing sims,
(and GP3 if all the rumours are for real) was one of the few features
I liked in CPR. It was nice in the garage, when you clicked on the
"speaker icon" you got a full description of what the setting was and
effects on the car. (it is a lot easier than flipping through a
manual, when you forget exactly what a settings change does!)

John

by **John D. Courtn** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

Hi,
Acutally this feature is useful to me because my circumstances,
I'am visually impaired, so reading those "small print" manuals is a
bit of a bother somethimes (it seems to take me a lot longer to read
something, than someone with full sight. Reading this computer screen
is somewhat easier because the text is larger, and it is on a lit
background (you don't want to know how close I am to the screen right
now, however!). Having the garage settings description/effects being
spoken to me is a lot easier. (I also seem to be able to remember
things better when I hear them).

John

by **JNR** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

Here we go again ...

Geoff or who ever is lurking around here for ideas:

The sim(GP2) is a classic.

Most people here are probably noding w/ their heads while reading this.

The support from Microprose was a brutal disgrace.

Please keep these two words in mind when the code is being written up
for GP3.

"Customer Support".

Jude R.
1996 AC Cobra(540hp)
1995 SHO(225hp)
1997 Windstar(It carries the kids and the spare parts)

by **Randy Magrud** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

>That just serves to highlight the differing expectations of people.
>Only last night I was sitting thinking through all the things I did
>and didn't like about CPR overall, and that was one feature I
>concluded was a complete waste of time, money and programming hours!

Money, okay, time and programming hours? I don't think so. They are
just buttons that play wave files. It probably took Nigel Bennett
half a day or so to go in and describe each setting, and each wave
file was hooked up to a little button in the UI. Waste? I don't
think so. How many people understand what freeplay is and the 3rd
spring?

Do you really think that Nigel had to have all that carefully scripted
for him? I'm sure he looked over the settings and thought about the
best way to describe each one, but I doubt great effort was expended
in this area. He *is* a race engineer and can rattle these things off
at the top of his head. And as far as whether they could have used
that time and money to ship the game in better condition? I doubt it.
From a monetary standpoint, Microsoft has enough money to throw at
anything it wants, so its not really an issue, and if money could make
products great in their initial incarnation, Microsoft would never
have shipped a buggy 1.0 of anything, including Windows! (Its the old
adage, 9 women can't make a baby in one month!). As far as time,
again, putting a little icon on the UI and attaching it to a wave file
is stuff any junior Windows programmer could do in very little time.
AI routines and grip physics...that's another story.

There's nothing I hate more than having to constantly dig through a
manual. Looking over the setup options and having Nigel Bennett
refresh my memory about the function of some option is rather nice.
Granted, I use the right click pop-up help now more often.

John, your background is such that you can go into these screens and
understand what 90+% of the settings do without ever looking at a
manual. How many people in the mass market have the same background
as you?

Randy
Randy Magruder
Contributing Reviewer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.digitalsports.com

by **Byron Forbe** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

> > One of the features I would like to see in future racing sims,
> >(and GP3 if all the rumours are for real) was one of the few features
> >I liked in CPR. It was nice in the garage, when you clicked on the
> >"speaker icon" you got a full description of what the setting was and
> >effects on the car. (it is a lot easier than flipping through a
> >manual, when you forget exactly what a settings change does!)

> That just serves to highlight the differing expectations of people.
> Only last night I was sitting thinking through all the things I did
> and didn't like about CPR overall, and that was one feature I
> concluded was a complete waste of time, money and programming hours!

> Working out and writing down exactly what the should say, paying him
> to say all the phrases, writing the interface, adding all the sounds
> into the game - would that same time and money have allowed the game
> to be shipped in better condition? I'd rather have cut that procedure
> after the first stage and just printed all the phrases in the
> appropriate section of the manual. Would have saved on hard disk space
> too.

> Nothing against your own opinion, and if the majority disagree with me
> then I must accept I'm wrong at least from a marketing standpoint, but
> I thought it a bit of a waste of time. The race engineer had potential
> though, that's something that would really help those who don't know
> their third spring from the third Stooge.

> Cheers!
> John

After reading what you have said and the replies to it I conclude
that it should be not much more effort to have a popup for all the setup
options in the garage. Saves printing costs and trees.
Also, since GP is already a proven product I think that real voices
would add to the atmoshere of the game without it being a case of
waisting time in unimportant areas at the cost of playability as is the
case with CPR. But I think the only real need for voices is with the
radio communications whilst on the track.

by **Byron Forbe** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

> How about having a "CAREER" mode. Imagine getting into, and committing to, an
> entire career of F1 racing. Every race finish has an effect on your future with
> a particular team. Challange the players to set themselves up with the right
> equiptment and people to eventually win the championship. It would be kinda like
> merging GPManager (whose ideas were excellent but came out all wrong) and GP2.

After my quest to find a good gridiron sim the best to date is FPS
Football Pro by Sierra. Because of all the career stuff in that game the
actual onfield sim is pitiful. Believe me, you dont want a company
compromising what goes on on the track with career stuff :)

by **Byron Forbe** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

> Vital:
> 3dfx support - better graphic performance
> better Artificial Intelligence (more than just horsepower and grip)
> 97 upgrade (circuits, cars, rules, no friday qual)

Actually, I have just been thru the fps thread titled CPR Bullshit
and it occured to me that there is no sim that evens out the trackside
graphics with reguard to fps. In GP2, the CPU OCC would be as low as 40
at times and then get up to around 100 because of, say, trees. So what
I'm saying is that rather than just turning off a particular type of
graphic (eg buildings) that the overall surroundings for each track
should be able to be smoothed out so that CPU OCC and fps remain
consistant ie take a building out here, a cluster of trees there. This
would then maximise the fps/performance of any machine.

by **Brian Bus** » Thu, 15 Jan 1998 04:00:00

I guess that makes it a ***y useful feature!

I doubt it took too much programming time, just play a sample when the user
clicks here. Is the dialogue the same as the manual?

Brian

--
remove 'bye' from address to reply

by **Ren?? van Lobbere** » Sun, 18 Jan 1998 04:00:00

I sure hope they won't change one thing, and that is it being
a DOS game. They should make their own _dedicated_ 3dfx support
, graphics routines, IPX routines, etc. , because dedicated
routines are faster than general ones. And when programmed well,
they will be a lot better and more stable than that Windows crap.
--
Ren van Lobberegt, The Netherlands.
Personal Web Site : http://www.toptown.com/INNERCIRCLE/1846/
Webmaster of AMCA Web Site : http://home.pi.net/~amcarcnl/

by **The Unexplaine** » Sun, 18 Jan 1998 04:00:00

Ren van Lobberegt heeft geschreven in bericht ...

You're hoping for a DOS-version?

What?

You live on Mars?

DOS=DEAD

If F1RS had been a DOS program, there'd been so much trouble getting it to
work. Different 3Dfx cards, different soundcards, different systems.

Grow up. Win95 is a blessing for us all, DirectX is the biggest step forward
in ***.

Bring on Win98.

Dos...jeesh. I suppose if Activision has released Win95 there wouldn't be
that much hatred, totally based on nothing, against Win95. It's Microsoft,
so I got to have a grudge against it.

Get real.

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