rec.autos.simulators

by **John Simmo** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

First, Sierra can't make a converter because of licensing issues. And
the only reason there's licensing issues is that the track owners and
event promotors, and governing bodies (NASCAR, CART, IRL) are a greedy
bunch of bastards who can only see today's money instead of being
forward-seeing visionaries that might assume that if someone drives a sim
on their track, that same someone just might want to visit the real
track.

Second, Sierra has to find a new advertising agency and be willing to
make some commercials and pay for air time.

- A great commercial for GPL would be seeing a hell-bent-for-leather
race from the driver's***pit (careful not to show the edge of the
monitor), and have a disastrous crash occur. While the sounds of metal
twisting and other crash sounds are occuring, zoom in on people's faces
and have them all appear start running towards the sounds. Then, a
bedroom door opens and they find their son with oil and grease smears all
over his face and clothes lying in a heap on the floor. He looks up at
everyone and smiling says "WOW! Great physics model!" Closing scene, is
the cover art for the GPL box with an offscreen voice saying "Grand Prix
Legends by Sierra Sports - Racing as real as it gets..."

- A great commercial for Nascar Legends or Nascar racing 3 would be for
the same kid to be shown driving in a race using one of those sims
(showing the computer this time), with the scene switching between the
screen and his face being illuminated by the screen. As he drives, you
hear (offscreen) the spotter voices and the TV commentators doing their
usual thing, and suddenly the kid wrecks. Zoom out to see Junior
Johnson, Ned Jarrett, and Darryl WQaltrip all standing their with Mr.
Microphones expouding on what a stupid move the kid made and blah blah
blah. The kid turns around and asks the guys to "...give me a break -
it's just a computer game". Closing scene, is the cover art for the
Nascar sim box with an offscreen voice saying "Nascar Racing 3 (or Nascar
Legends) by Sierra Sports - Racing as real as it gets..."

If I can think of this stuff, so can someone else...

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by **Marc Collin** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

What other company designs their games this way? None. We are lucky the
tracks are as portable from one version to another as they are. And I have
a feeling that the only reason they are is because Papy did a good enough
job at the outset that they have been able to incrementally improve their
track model--not throw it in the garbage like every other track model from
that era has been by now.

By the way, look outside racing sims. to things like Quake levels, flight
sims or anything else you can buy--no one uses a modular design that spans
generations of their game engine.

Marc.

> > Why in the world didn't Sierra Papyrus think of this first. They had
> > all the resources available to them.

> If Papy had done it "right" Dave wouldn't have needed to make a converter,
> and neither would Papy.

> The game, from the strictly good design standpoint, should have been fully
> modular. Any track would than "pop" into any of their games.

> To a large extent the same goes for the cars. Look at what people have
done
> with SCGT. There are new cars, open wheel cars, even a KART ferchrisakes.
It
> ain't easy, but it can be done and dozens of people are doing it.

> Look at what it took to get closed bodies into ICR2. Just try to get open
> bodies into N3. How about closed wheel sports cars and wings in GPL. Only
a
> handful of wizards even consider the idea viable.

> Driving sims should be just as open as Doom and Quake, with end user track
> and car editors.

> They think they can't make as much money that way. Well, people STILL buy
> Doom! Why, because of all the add ons available.

by **Goy Larse** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

> What other company designs their games this way? None. We are lucky the
> tracks are as portable from one version to another as they are. And I have
> a feeling that the only reason they are is because Papy did a good enough
> job at the outset that they have been able to incrementally improve their
> track model--not throw it in the garbage like every other track model from
> that era has been by now.

> By the way, look outside racing sims. to things like Quake levels, flight
> sims or anything else you can buy--no one uses a modular design that spans
> generations of their game engine.

MS Flight Simulator ?

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

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by **Chuck Kandle** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

> Two words: LISCENSING

> Oh wait, that's just one word...

> Eric

I believe the second word is MONEY..... =-)

--
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K&S Racing
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Competitor in the TopGear MGPRS2 league at:
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And spit in your face,
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by **Zonk** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Status: N

can you say "scalable physics"?

Z.

Please remove my_pants when replying.

by **Benjam** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

On Wed, 05 Apr 2000 21:01:33 GMT, "Mike Barlow"

> I still have no idea why the physics model has anything to do with
>sales? Who buys game or Racing Sims because of the physics model? The only
>ones I can think of are those that frequent this group. Last figures were
>about 2,000 people mentioned in another post. That leaves out 3800 that
>never read the group. again, according to another post about the number of
>GPL copies sold.

> I would assume that most everyone that grabbed a copy grabbed it because
>it was on the shelf and the era of the cars were what those people were
>after(?) I would also assume that it didn't do well in sales because of the
>same reason... that type of racing.. I.E. 1967 cars. I don't think anyone
>who doesn't have a copy and doesn't read this group didn't buy it because
>the physics or the AI were too hard. I think the only way you can say that
>it didn't sell is if you had the figure for how many were returned. even
>then, some of those could be returned for other reasons.

> basically, I don't think the physics or the AI had anything to do with
>the sales figures.

I see several replies that tend to agree with the physics not being
the reason they purchased GPL - put me down as the physics very much
being the reason....

The first hint of GPL I read had me giddy with anticipation reading
the detail and accuracy that was being put into the physics - that's
where a racing simulation is for me. The era was also a big part of
why I bought it close to 6 months before I had a system that could
even think of running it. The fact that its goal was to recreate the
characteristics of cars so dangerous in as much detail as possible put
it in the "WILL have" column... It wasn't as much the Grand Prix
aspect as it was the attention to detail, the power, the shear
*** of the cars, the idea of trying to drive an engine with
wheels....

by **Tony Rickar** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

"Mike Barlow" wrote >

The physics got me hooked on GPL - not from reading about it on RAS or
anywhere else - but from driving the demo.

Personally prior to GPL I had little interest in 60's F1. I was disappointed
when I heard Papy were making a historical sim - I doubted I would even buy
it.

When I drove the demo I was hooked - it wrecked sim racing cos I had no AI
to race against but other sims just didn't feel right anymore.

This was the closest I had ever felt to truly driving a car on a computer. I
didn't need to know it was because it had the best physics model - just that
it felt the best.

If racing sims are aimed at wannabe racing drivers then the physics need to
feel close to the perception of driving a powerful car. Each sim seems to
claim this even if it doesn't deliver.

If it is a sim not an arcade game then physics has to be an important
element.

Tony

by **ymenar** » Fri, 07 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Even if the file architecture has similar elements, we need to remember that
GPL is on the new Papyrus game engine, compare to the old one for everything
else they have made. It is clearly not an easy task. It would be like
taking a map file for Quake and modifying it so it can play on Half-Life.
We can't expect Papyrus to give us such a thing...

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
-- May the Downforce be with you...
-- http://www.WeRace.net
-- People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise
how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

by **Andrew MacPhers** » Sat, 08 Apr 2000 04:00:00

Agreed. You learn to be cynical in this hobby, but GPL taught me it's ok
to dream. While this statement will make many throw up <g> it's true. 67
means nothing to me. I was 4 and more interested in Lego. But this level
of dynamic modelling is a work of art.

Andrew McP... preaching to the converted

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