rec.autos.simulators

Give me your estimation of the % and number of people who've bought N4
because they wanted a sim to race online, and wouldn't have done so if it
didn't provide that option.

Don't cry. They're just games.

David G Fisher

Andre

David, here's the problem with a max of 6 drivers.
Look, most GPL races I join have more than 10 drivers, very often I
have a full grid. Some of the drivers are newbies, some are mediocore
and some are good drivers.
With good drivers I don't mean fast drivers, but I mean drivers who
can keep the car on the road and know racing behaviour.

If GPL would only allow 6 drivers to enter, the margin of good drivers
would only become smaller!

Another thing is league races. I'm in a league with 20 drivers. We
race every 2 weeks. Allthough some drivers are faster than other
drivers in our league, the racing behaviour of all our members is
excellent.
Our full grid races are often very exciting.
If GPL would only allow a max of 6 drivers, I don't think the races
would have the same e***ment they have now with 20 drivers.
If I spin, I can still have some good fights with backmarkers.
With 6 drivers, if I would spin, it would be a very lonely and boring
race.

By the way, how often did you have good connection with 6 drivers in
F1RC?
I did quite some online testing, and 4 drivers was really the maximum
I could get in F1RC. With 5 or more drivers, races become unplayable
with way too much warping.

Andre

   Andre gave a very good explanation of why bigger grids are better,
particularly when they are full of competent, dedicated racers.
Pickup races are like fast food; they get the job done, but you really
haven't eaten until you've had a gourmet meal.  :)

   And along the lines of "something pretty darn interesting", I got
1NSANE because I'm interested in its MP games like capture the flag...
something that no other racing game/sim offers (at least that I'm
aware of), even though it's MP is limited to 8 players.

   Just a few percent.  Probably about the same as those who had
connection problems with GPL?  :)

   Funny, the way some people carry a chip on their shoulder about
certain companies, you'd wonder...  ;)

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

Not at all.  I just set my player.sts file to read-only.  I consider that to be
a bit different...

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +28.67...F2 +151.26...

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

Two sets of software companies. As soon as the other companies give us a
product we (in general) enjoy as much as a Papy sim, they will be
treated the same on this ng.

--
Cheers!
Graeme Nash

| > How about giving Ubi Soft some time to work on the multiplayer?
|
|
| But wait, you said the multiplayer was excellent.
|
|
|
| > It's just amazing the way developers not named Papyrus are treated on
this
| > newsgroup.
|
| Who cares?  I'll treat whoever I want the way I want.
|
|
|
|
|
| --
| -- Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard>
| -- May the Downforce be with you...
| -- http://www.ymenard.com/
| -- This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez
| Corporation - helping America into the New World...
|
|
|

| >>well didn't we have to wait for patch 1.2 and VROC to have DECENT
| >>mutliplayer in GPL ?
|
| >   Simply put, NO.
|
| Agreed. GPL 1.0 was excellent. The only online trouble I've ever had was
| with the buggy v1.1 patch.
|
| --
| Cheers!
| Graeme Nash

It might, but what's the point? The tracks in GPL far more than do the
trick, and Nurburgring is probably the best/largest track ever modelled
in a racing sim. I don't think any track for F1 RC took as long to model
as that. Again, it's the end result that matters, not the time spent,
that's their problem.

True, something we all miss in GPL.

Maybe in modern F1, but it isn't as important in the season modelled in
GPL. If you have an incident free race, there is absolutely no reason to
pit in GPL. The programming effort was better spent elsewhere (like
physics)

If you call FF effects in F1RC force feedback, then McDonald's must be
gourmet food. It has nothing to do with the grip of the front tires, and
GPL is way ahead of it. You must also know that the FF wheels have
become standard only recently, and way after GPL was first released (as
far as I recall, MS wheel was the leading one at the time, and that one,
according to the reports, seems to suffer from processor taxing and
latency the most even today). Also, I've added support for FF in my sim
in one day, so it's not all that big of a deal to do it, you only need
to want (and know how) to do it properly.

Again, not really an issue in the season modelled in GPL (unless you
constantly overdrive, which you wouldn't in a long race), so it was
hardly necessary to spend time on it.

Adjusting AI that doesn't work quite as it should doesn't do you much
good, does it? I'll give you the properly adjustable difficulty as not
being true for GPL; but, then again, this is rec.autos.simulators,
right?

True, GPL doesn't have it. I can't believe Papyrus didn't model the
complex computers they used in 1967!

If you check the above points, you'll notice why. Papyrus tend to spend
their efforts where it really matters, and never fail to provide
comprehensive simulations of the series they model (taking the
capabilities of the machines they run on at the time into account). F1
RC might have its looks, but strange faults in physics modelling, AI and
ff effects don't give it that quality that Papy products have. It's that
simple.

And all of the above is even before I go into comparing F1 RC to Nascar
4, which would be a far more appropriate comparison considering the
respective release dates.

-Gregor

Andre

http://www.camtp.uni-mb.si/camtp/veble/sims/readme.html

;)

-Gregor

I was trying to win without doing that.  Yes, I know that it performs the
function of an adjustable AI setting.  It's an ego thing, I guess.
Actually, I've recently used it to speed up the really slow cars.  Closure rate
is pretty serious with cars that can be 20 seconds slower(!) per lap.

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
F1 hcp. +28.67...F2 +151.26...

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

The point is accuracy, not estimation. As far as the Nurburgring being the
best/largest track ever modelled, have you ever seen the tracks in RC2000?

Pitting was a significant factor in F1 in 1967.

Some people find the FF very good in F1RC. People with Logitech wheels seem
to be having trouble. The point is, it's there in the sim when it was
released.

Adjustable AI not being in GPL was a HUGE complaint, and many said it was a
reason a lot of people returned it to the stores for a refund. The AI in
F1RC only needs to be tweaked in a patch (out soon) to make it excellent.
It's also a learning AI. Also, on of the features of F1RC I forgot to
mention is the ghost mode. The ghost mode is considered by many to be a
great feature to have in sims today.

It still took time to put it in the sim.

Remember N3? Papyrus "never fails"? N4 has shitty AI, the FF is up for
debate, the graphics aren't nearly as good as F1RC's nor does it run
anywhere near as smooth. Strange faults in the physics modelling of F1RC?
Again, I doubt you have the full game, so how can you say that? The physics
are superb. The only areas where N4 has a clear advantage over F1RC is
multiplayer and FF. Of course, Ubi Soft is has the FIA restricting what they
can do.

There is a time limit on the development of EVERY sim, and when a high
quality one is released that is a more complex undertaking than almost any
other, why not be willing to give the developer a little time (as many did
for Papyrus) to make it even better?

David G Fisher

Is that patch really accurate though and wouldn't the feel people get from
it depend greatly upon which car they were driving? The cars for each team
were given different settings, if I'm recalling the proper patch. Also, the
settings from team to team varied to such a huge extent that I wonder how
legit the whole thing is overall (perhaps the settings for one of the teams
are very realistic, if not for any or most of the others). I kinda doubt
that the intertial factors could really vary by such a huge degree from car
to car. Between a nascar car and an F1 and a CART and such, sure but
between cars of the same class?

Again, no sense to argue about preferences. GPL was detailed for it's
time, and did look gorgeous. But as these are personal observations, no
need to argue about it.

I've seen the track in the RC 2000 demo, and they truly are a work of
art. I haven't seen all of them, but I believe you that all of them are
great, so maybe I indeed wasn't quite on mark with my observation,
although for me personally it still stands. Like the above point, it's a
personal thing. On the other hand, UbiSoft might have used GPS for all
the tracks (did you ever find a quote that they actually used the
technology for ALL of them? I didn't), but since they failed the grip
levels (check lap times), what good are they?

 >

As said, pitting was only important when something went wrong, unlike in
modern F1 where all races are done with at least one pitstop. It wasn't
part of the regular strategy in '67, and while it would be very nice to
have it, it's not as essential as, say, good AI.

Again, a personal thing. I have a Logitech wheel, and I indeed felt all
of the things other felt in the demo and full release (wheel getting
heavy at speed, kerb effects). This, however, doesn't approach the level
of GPL or even GP3.

Of course it hampers GPL as a game, but we're not discussing it in this
manner.

In view of what you said at the top, point taken.

 >

N3 didn't fail as a sim, it only failed in the eyes of the community as
it wasn't built on the GPL engine. But it was still by far the best
Nascar sim out there, and quite above all the modern F1 sims at the time.

N4 AI indeed has issues, but even that only happens on certain tracks.
On road tracks, it's superb. I'll take your position here and discuss
how much effort is needed to produce AI that will run in such a limited
space with 43 cars and maintain proper separation. This is a much harder
task than the one in any F1 sim, and glitches are to be expected. On
longer tracks (road courses), it indeed works great. FF isn't up to
debate as it is simply the best implementation of any sim I've seen,
including GPL, except mine, of course ;) .

About strange faults in the physics modelling of F1 RC; it's the
traction that is problematic. I've noticed the issue in the demo and a
few reviewers (High Gear, and, yes Gamespot UK) mentioned it as well.
You know what I am talking about, and it indeed dectracts from the F1
experience as keeping the tail under control is one of the main tasks of
an F1 driver (until Spain, that is ;) ).

I agree. I do hope that the things I don't like about F1 RC do get
patched, as it obviously has huge potential! I have my doubts, though,
considering that it will sell well nevertheless. However, if traction
modelling, FF and AI do get improved, you can be sure I'll buy the full
version and play it to no end!

-Gregor