Dirt Track Racing - Developer interview & comments :
[very cool]
==========================================
http://www.cybercomm.net/~otwino
Interview With Ratbag on DTR and Powerslide
Interviewer: David Matrix
Interviewies: Paul Murray/Jay Weston Interview Date: 08-17-99
Release Date: Late 1999
The next game to come out from Ratbag is going to be Dirt Track
Racing.
This racing simulation will have 15 to 20 Speedway type racing tracks
in the shape of Ovals, D-ovals, Tri-ovals, Eggs, and Figure 8's.
Through the course of your racing career you will be able to upgrade
and fine tune your vehicle with the money you are awarded from winning
races.
Some of the Features in the game will be:
Racing a full career - starting with nothing and over the period of
several years managing your cash and working through the various
championship series to become one of the Late Model Champions
Changing conditions in track surface over the course of the meet, and
the effects of the watertruck - the watertruck varies the track
conditions between practice, qualifying, heats and main events
Car damage is in, which has a large impact on gameplay - no more of
this raming someone to get the inside line on a corner
Cars can be bought, sold, upgraded and fine tuned - your cars
appearence will change to reflect this
Multiple classes of vehicle; and 20-30 tracks, 15-20 different
vehicles, and up to 8 separate series
Resource Management: The player can spend their money on purchasing
new vehicles (a garage will store all the player's vehicles),
upgrades, repairs, entry fees, fuel, tires & track hires in practice
1. What was your Inspiration to do DTR?
A fair portion of the office are into racing in some form and a good
percentage of them like playing sim racing games, after doing
Powerslide which was essentially a dirt racing game with a good
foundation of physics, we wanted to do a dirt sim and we thought that
this style of racing was one of the most exciting styles of racing out
there. Dirt Track Racing also seemed the logical choice given the
number of emails we had received from fans after the release of
Powerslide expressing that it would be perfect for that style of game.
2. Are there plans to allow for new tracks/cars to be downloaded from
the internet?
Unlikely, since we're still using a lot of stuff from Powerslide.. the
engine still isn't that plugginable. The new engine we're working on
in the background though, is being built from the ground up with this
sort of stuff in mind. You will be able to alter any of the currently
available car skins / textures though, with any commercially available
paint program out there, which will be great for personalising your
car.
3. I hear there are plans to have an arcade mode, what will the major
differences be between Arcade and Sim mode?
Arcade is essentially much easier and much more forgiving. For
example, if the car isn't setup right.. you won't be penalised with
the car over or under steering excessively.. damage probably won't
effect performance.. alot of this can be tuned though to suit your own
preferences.
Richard Adds: Easy mode and simulation mode are the two poles of a
continuous range of simulation difficulty settings. In the easier
modes the car autocorrects more so you don't need to countersteer. It
also provides more grip the more you slide so spinning out or running
wide and hitting a barrier are less likely.
In addition to the simulation level setting you will also be able to
independently control damage severity.
4. Powerslide has been toted the "Unreal" of racing games, what can we
expect from DTR as far as innovations in graphics?
There won't be any major innovations in the graphics department..
except that it'll look better than Powerslide since we now have a pile
more experience behind us artistically. It'll also be more colourful..
Powerslide was limited to drab colours due to the Post Apocalyptic
setting.. we don't have this sort of limitation anymore, obviously
since we're basing it on the real world today. [Jay's wise response:
It has lots more alpha objects and we painted the code red so it goes
faster]
5. Was it difficult to make the transition from the Arcade style of
Powerslide to a serious Sim Like DTR?
I wouldn't say it was hard, just different. One of the things that was
the hardest was actually sifting through the tons of information on
this style of racing and getting the hard facts for rules and series'.
Unlike NASCAR of Formula 1, each series (or championship) in dirt
track racing has its own rules and regulations and even some tracks
within each series has its own rules too which made it very hard for
us to know which ones were "right" and which ones were "wrong". For
the artists it is actually easier to make the tracks than it was for
Powerslide because we can just copy real life, we basically just had
to make a facade all the way around the track which is walled in so
you cant go and drive up to it, or over it like you could in
Powerslide, for the physics programmers it was more a matter of, make
it handle exactly how it does in real life rather than make it as fun
as possible, and they had help doing that from guys that actually race
these cars for a living.
6. How much has the Ratbag Staff grown now that DTR and Leadfoot are
being developed?
Believe it or not we haven't really changed size at all, we lost a few
and gained a few. A number of the people we lost were external
contractors which you can't really call a loss (sorry, that sounds a
bit harsh... they were great.. really 8) ). One of the fellas has gone
back to Uni. to do his masters in some field of programming.. while
others left to pursue other areas that they were more interested in.
Quite frankly, I'm surprised that most of us are still here
considering the amount of stress we went through last year to get the
game out on time. I'd always heard from other game developers plan
files etc. that there were times when things were crazy... but nothing
could've prepared any of us for the exorbitant amount of hours that we
would be required to put in.. they were the most intense 9 months of
our lives.
7. Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more advanced these
days, how smart will the computer controlled drivers be in DTR?
Well, you know how smart they were in Powerslide... according to
someone (I can't find the posting on the forum).. one AI had some sort
of vendetta against him and as such cut across the middle of the
speedway to wipe him out. I don't know how true that is, but I do know
that they're gonna be able to dodge and slip stream as they do their
best to win. In Powerslide they weren't afraid of a bit of nudging and
ramming if you got in their way, in DTR this is likely to put you and
them out of the race so they are now being taught these new rules...
it'll make for some very interesting 'tight' racing.
Richard Adds: They will be very smart. They will need to be too. The
computer controlled drivers will have to deal with the huge variety of
tracks in Dirt Track Racing. Things are further complicated by the
array of different vehicles, upgrades and tuning parameters.
They will also need to alter their racing lines to cope with traffic
and changing track conditions. Over the course of a night the track
will dry altering the fastest lines around the track.
To achieve all this we use a much improved version of the neural net
technology which we started with Powerslide.
8. Have there been any major stumbling blocks thus far in the creation
of DTR?
Not to my knowledge.. but hey, I don't run the company now do I ;)
9. If you had unlimited resources and could change one thing about
Powerslide, what would it be?
It's a toss up between a number of things. I would've loved to have
seen in cockpit views for all the cars, that would've been awesome.
From an artists perspective, more eye candy would've been nice plus
more tracks (maybe not.. would've been a pile more work for us, not to
mention it would require unlimited patience from our fans... ;) )
better engine sounds would've been nice as well.
10. How many companies have shown interest in publishing DTR?
Can't really give exact numbers.... the best I can give is "LOTS"!! 8)
11. Powerslide has some pretty amazing physics, can we expect DTR to
be as true to life as possible?
The physics as I'm sure I've mentioned in the GA-source interview will
be much more complete and realistic. Powerslide was still essentially
an Arcade style game with good physics as a base.. these were then
tweaked to enhance speed, jump lengths etc just to make it more fun.
DTR's primary goal is to provide a realistic racing experience that
hard core sim racers will love... this calls for the physics to be as
true to life as possible. Hence why we've got professionals testing
the racing experience on a regular basis. We also realise that there
are other gamers out there who don't go for the full Sim thing since
it's too hard.. especially if you haven't got a wheel, accordingly
they can scale down the difficulty to a level of Arcade / Sim that is
enjoyable for them. This means anyone can race it.. and love the
experience without getting too frustrated.
12. Are the mischievous little Ratbuggers from the Intro screen to
Powerslide going to make a return appearance in your new games?
Yup.. they'll be back.. probably the same as before though, unless we
find some time to redo them being caught in someother mischievous act... ;)
================================================================
http://www.ratbaggames.com/home/G_forum/forum.html
Date 23 Aug
From DemonBoy
Subject RE: dirt track racing
IP Address 208.199.67.151
---------------------------------------------------
Hmmm. Maybe you should be Visiting my Website.. Here is a Snip from a
recent news post
[snip]
Yes, we do have plans for a cockpit view. We've been following the
newsgroup discussion and have decided that this would satisfy the
sim
...
read more »