rec.autos.simulators

Remember nothing here is official PR... only speculation, but at least
stirring up the whole deal will help us get a straight answer hopefully

===============
 Nascar 3/2000

Ok, NASCAR fans, its on its way. I talked to PR from Papyrus about NASCAR
3, and heres the skinny:

The title will be NASCAR 2000, not NASCAR 3, and it is slated to go gold
September 1 and ship by the end of September. Two annual updates are
scheduled thereafter (NASCAR 2001 and 2002. Duh.)

N2000 will not, I repeat, NOT, be played exclusively on TEN anymore. Papyrus
will be setting up their own free servers, and the game will ship with a
built-in feature to help you find servers to race on. I asked if they were
going to reserve specific servers for fixed setup racing or for certain
skill levels, but it is undetermined at this point.

As you may have heard, N2000 will no longer be using the Gran Prix Legends
physics engine. Papyrus has decided that theyre going to try to make the
game appeal to a more mass audience, not just the 1% who will actually try
to adjust all 200 engine and chassis tweaks. The physics engine will be the
same as that from NASCAR 1999, which was the same as that from NASCAR 2.

Hold on dont get mad yet! Im told that the engine is going to be tweaked
extensively to make the handling much more realistic, and the physics model
is now 3D so cars can actually go airborne during crashes. In essence, the
engine will be much more realistic, but not quite as overkill as GPL (known
in some circles as "the hardest game in the world."). The switch away from
the computationally intensive GPL engine should also make players with older
computers happy.

You wont have the insane selection of car settings that were initially
listed in the N3 press releases, but there still should be plenty of
tweaking options available to keep you busy for a while.

Naturally N2000 will support the popular 3D accelerators out of the box, so
you N2 guys with Rendition cards may have to go shopping finally.
==============

--
-- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank>
-- NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.racesimcentral.net/
-- SimRacing Online http://www.racesimcentral.net/
-- Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s.
-- May the Downforce be with you...

"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."

Errrr... wasn't that the entire POINT of N3?  

If the physics are going to be N2 enhanced then I certainly hope some R&D was
put into AI and graphic quality.  Additionally, the info about multi-player
outside of TEN thru servers is GREAT news.

The "upside" to this whole physics deal is that when I trade in my p2-333 I can
now go ahead and get a p3-500 and not have to wait for a 600 or 700 mhz machine
to push 40 Winston Cup cars using GPL physics.... now it'll just have to push
the same ol' 39 cars with more eye candy slowing the framerate down and not the
realism.

Too bad.  I will not lie and say that I won't buy it... but, Papy has lost some
credibility in my eyes.  Final judgment will come after the demo hits and then
the finished product.  

Most of us want the game to be as real as possible, the entire premise of
"sim".  To do that, without a true physics model, the follwing MUST be
included:

1) Better Graphics.  
- Supporting resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 for us 21"+ monitor owners
- Color Depth at least 16bit.  I believe N2/N99 still utilize 256 as the
recommended??
- Support 3dfx cards in SLI mode.

2) Pit problems.
- Broken jacks, loose tires, missing nuts, the silly things that happen to make
every pitstop an adventure and not a 19 second consistency.
- Pit crews jumping over the wall is NOT necessary as in Revolution

3) Better smoke.
- For those of us with the PC horsepower, true smoke that is as thick and
blinding as it is on race day.  

4) Weather.
- Changing weather conditions throughout the race.  Effecting setups and
strategy.

5) Debris.
- Shouldn't be able to drive through a mass of body debris without sustaining
"some" kind of damage.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head.  

Andrew

Oh, yeah, Papyrus has decided to appeal to a more mass audience?  I DOUBT
IT.  IMHO this is not like Papyrus.  Sierra is at the bottom of this...

D.Cook

Unless you are using Glide which I believe has 16-bit (64K) colors.

--

Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

cisko [AT] ix [DOT] netcom [DOT] com

it. ie 1 update/year -->

  You got that right, they'll continue to develop what was gonna be N3 and
release it later. Those bastards, they ruined the trend of developing a
racing sim to the fullest. $$$ talks and this time they (sierra) is gonna
kill themselves. Papyrus has alot of fans, Sierra is making me dislike
Papyrus and its not even Papyrus' fault. They better change those friggen

put out? Oh yeah Craftsman Truck blah blah.. any more?? lol gggggzzzzzzz.

  Charles

Kyle

<snipped>

Does anyone else feel cheated by the lack of GPL engine in N3? (if its true)
Is anyone else madder than hell that Papy would make a nascar legends game
before another CART title?!?!?!?!? I think I smell a sellout.

Brian Fox

Av/Mikey

|
over
|it. ie 1 update/year -->
|>more sales. I am beginning to think that RIP post may be correct. Anyone
|>familiar with The FPS line of Gridiron games would be as concerned as me
|>about this. It is purely and simply a "milk it for all it's worth"
|>attitude by the suites. Looks like the genre needs new ***!
|
|  You got that right, they'll continue to develop what was gonna be N3 and
|release it later. Those bastards, they ruined the trend of developing a
|racing sim to the fullest. $$$ talks and this time they (sierra) is gonna
|kill themselves. Papyrus has alot of fans, Sierra is making me dislike
|Papyrus and its not even Papyrus' fault. They better change those friggen

|put out? Oh yeah Craftsman Truck blah blah.. any more?? lol gggggzzzzzzz.
|
|  Charles
|
|
|

Ugh. That spells doom for us types who want to strive for something, not
just the Try/Reset/Try/Reset/Win attitude I call the Captain Kirk mindset.

Mikey (There's a tear in my beer) the Slowpoke.

|I think the lackluster sales of GPL are probably at the bottom of this.
The
|suits at $ierra are scared that N2000 won't be the success that N1 & 2
|were.The size of the *** simmer market is much smaller than the
|"Deerhunter" market, so who do you think they would alienate first? I don't
|understand why they can't make it just as challenging and realistic as GPL
|and throw in an arcade mode to appease the people that just want to race to
|win.  I hope I am wrong, but I am not holding my breath.
|
|Kyle
|
|

|> http://www.racesimcentral.net/
|>
|> Remember nothing here is official PR... only speculation, but at least
|> stirring up the whole deal will help us get a straight answer hopefully
|>
|> ===============
|>  Nascar 3/2000
|>
|> Ok, NASCAR fans, it's on its way. I talked to PR from Papyrus about
NASCAR
|> 3, and here's the skinny:
|<snipped>
|
|
|

GPL physics in N3 are not quite as important to me as making the game
more graphically pleasing to the eye.  I don't care to have cars go
flying through the air, as much as I want top be able to read the small
contingency decals on the sides of the cars.

If they significantly improve the following areas, I'll be happy:

1) Stand-alone server support (including a Linux server), a la the quake
genre.  This would be a great method for running a league as well, by
allowing the user to write plug-ins for league race results and stats.

2) Multiplayer support (20-30 cars would be acceptable, but 30-40 cars in
a multiplayer game would be desireable).

3) Dump the AI cars altogether, and concentrate on the multiplayer aspect
of the sim.  If this isn't desirable from a sales point of view, sell two
different versions of the sim - one for offline, and one for online.

4) Improved graphic representation of the cars, including color depth,
round wheel wells, and better shape definition.

5) OpenGL support so I can finally dump my freakin Voodoo card.

6) Include the OLD versions of all the tracks (Sears Point and Atlanta
for instance), as well as the tracks that have been removed from the
Nascar/Busch circuits since N1 came out.

7) Include leaguie maintenance support, such as assigned car numbers and
league carsets.

8) Give us a damn track editor so we can make our own tracks.

9) Take greater pains to make the track formats more compatible between
sims (ICR2, N1, N2, N3, GPL, LON).

=========================================================
John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12)
http://www.members.home.net/jms1/index.html

John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector
http://members.home.net/jsimm/diecast_index.html

IGPS (Season 2) Director
http://207.104.111.77/igps2/igps2.html

If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's
shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame.
=========================================================

1) NASCAR Legends

2) NASCAR 2000

3) GPL 1.1 Patch -->  NASCAR 2001 after GPL 1.1 patch is released

Sound reasonable to anyone?

            -----------------------------
-Chris-     |   Two wheels are better   |
            |Proud owner of a 1998 ZX-9R|
            -----------------------------

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