Joe McGinn
==========================================
Staff Writer for the Sports *** Network
http://www.racesimcentral.net/***.com/
==========================================
Mark
> I run on a V2 at home and the game detects my card just fine. Do you have
> DX6.1? Did you contact our tech. supt.?
> We have a patch due very soon which will address a bunch of collision
> problems.
> You can turn low-sides on (Riders:Realism screen).
> As for the limits we put into the model (i.e. your comments about an "arcade
> game"), that was a tough decision we had to make. The modeling of all the
> bad things that can happen on a bike are there, but without the physical
> feedback you get in real life of impending doom, enabling this stuff made
> the game very hard to drive. We didn't want to get into the GPL zone of a
> game that was "too hard." So we put in artificial limits to make the vehicle
> controllable.
> As for other complaints I've read this morning - we stated right up front
> months ago in various places that we didn't license the rider's names for
> the game. And without that, we didn't feel it proper to model their driving
> styles and performances without their permission. These guys are
> super-competitive with each other, afterall.
> Dave Sadowski *did* drive the game around as a sanity check on what we had
> done and felt things felt as they should be. The game drives different than
> the other bike sim's, so it could be that the unfamiliar territory is
> clouding some people's comments. I don't know.
> I'm not going to tell anyone they're right or wrong to like or dislike the
> game since entertainment is very subjective. If we get a lot of returns
> because people feel we rushed the game out the door, we'll live with that.
> We'll fix the problems. We'll make it Right.
> I can assure everyone here that a lot of people worked very *** this
> product, and that we're fully committed to fixing any and all problems. So I
> do ask that people make their comments constructive so we can fix things.
> Spreading early rumors that we're going to fold, or trashing us as a
> company, really does't help anyone.
> -MSM
> --
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Mark S. Miller "Be regular and orderly in your life,
> Director of Design that you may be *** and original
> Motorsport Simulations in your work."
> http://www.racesimcentral.net/
> >How does Superbike by EA compare to these sims?
> It's a good sim, but the AI is too easy to beat, and the mulitplayer
> doesn't really work. So it's good, but low replay value.
> Joe McGinn
> ==========================================
> Staff Writer for the Sports *** Network
> http://www.racesimcentral.net/***.com/
> ==========================================
Is it the best currently? No. However, the Motorsims business model is
superior to EA. They are not going to leave you*** like EA did with
SBK and not patch it, add to it, etc. Heck, there won't be a AMA 2000 you
have to buy. Instead, you get the AMA "2000" for free, plus all the other
patches/updates/additions/etc between AMA and the next release of it.
Go pay careful attention to how well GPL handles the physics of crashing and
collision detection too.
> Mark
> > A joke? Not really. What you see may not be what the engine is capable
of.
> > However, please remember that AMA is a WORK IN PROGRESS. What does that
> > mean? It means it will continually improve and you won't pay a cent for
> > those improvements [well, except download time if you are charged for
that].
> > And if you feel your money wasn't well spent, so be it. But you can also
> > download the online version which has everything almost that the box
version
> > does but no AI riders and monitor the progress of the sim that way.
> > And btw, I don't remember seeing any marketing slicks from Motorsims
saying
> > that they had the rights for the AMA riders to appear. Most of the
focus of
> > the title will be online play and that really doesn't need money spent
on
> > AMA riders does it? :)
> > Oh, there is an option to turn on low-sides if you haven't already that
> > helps somewhat. But if you think its "easy" then I challenge you to run
a
> > good solid 1:36 or under at BIR in a superbike or a 1:45 or under in a
> > supersport at BIR.
> > Nonetheless, two of the best features of the game as ymenard mentioned
are
> > a) representation of the tracks and b) the awesome control setup.
> > Btw, as far as smoke being blown up your asses, it has been said
repeatedly
> > that there was going to be an online version of the game you could
download
> > for FREE in a few weeks. ALl you had to do was wait a bit longer. :)
> > > In the physics department GP500 has SBK(AMA is a joke for sure
compared to
> > > either of these games).It really sucks though,I wanted an AMA sim
really
> > > bad.I should have saw this after they couldn't have any of the real
AMA
> > > riders in the game.Its sad but someones been blowing smoke up our
a$$es:(
> > > Mark
> > > > No, that was/is GP500 by Microprose I think. I tested it, physics
were
> > > > very impressive to me. But I don't know a thing about motor racing,
so
> > > > perhaps the real motor fanatics will think gp500 is awfull...
> > > > Andre
> > > > >This isn't the game which was going to surpass GPL in the physics
> > > > >department was it?
> > > > >Cheers!
> > > > >John
Cool.
We wanted to put in high- and low-sides. Hell, at one point when the wheelie
model was 100% on you could flip over so easily if you weren't careful that
is was dangerous just driving around. And the modeling was right - it's just
that without feedback it was impossible to catch the wheelie before it was
too late. So we asked Sadowski just how much wheelies weigh on a rider's
mind during a race, and tailored our limits accordingly.
We didn't want to put out a game where people couldn't even get around a lap
without wrecking all the time. We will turn these things back on once we can
dial in some feedback or "lifelike limits" to make it controllable. For
instance, on lowsides we'll probably add a fiberglass-on-pavement sound to
tell you that you're scraping your faring - and unless you pick the bike up
in a second or so, you're going to wash out.
What we focused on a lot was the racing. Can players do the same things that
the Pro's do? Trail braking, clutch braking, spiking the bike into a turn,
etc. All these things work. But its a very different ride than GPL or other
car games, you have to set up for the turn early, be at the right speed, and
lay it over just right. It's not as easy to recover from a bad entry as in a
car game.
We knew from past experience with all manner of games that frequent updates
were essential to overall quality. Which is why we went for best-of-breed
online update technology. Obviously our best efforts won't be right all the
time, so if we***something up, we can at least fix the damn thing and
get it into customer's hands in a hurry.
As for releasing too early ... well ... I can't make any official company
statements in that regard. I can tell you that I personally have worked as a
senior developer in technology for 20 years at places like Sun and Cisco.
Whatever may worry you worries me a hell of a lot more since I'm seeing the
other side of it. And I know all too well how a professional software
organization works - and that is our goal. Meaning that it'll get better - a
year ago we were only a dozen people, now we're 36 - this ain't easy.
Would we have liked another couple of months to work on the game? You bet.
It just wasn't in the cards. The players may have waited a couple months,
but other things couldn't.
If you feel disappointed enough to return your copy of the game, again, I
won't try to talk you out of it. But don't give up on us yet. Grab the
online version when it becomes available. And when the model progresses to
the point you're happy with (and we fix the lunar orbit collisions <g>),
consider going out and buying the box again. Or just race online.
-MSM
--
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark S. Miller "Be regular and orderly in your life,
Director of Design that you may be *** and original
Motorsport Simulations in your work."
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Mark
> Cool.
> We wanted to put in high- and low-sides. Hell, at one point when the wheelie
> model was 100% on you could flip over so easily if you weren't careful that
> is was dangerous just driving around. And the modeling was right - it's just
> that without feedback it was impossible to catch the wheelie before it was
> too late. So we asked Sadowski just how much wheelies weigh on a rider's
> mind during a race, and tailored our limits accordingly.
> We didn't want to put out a game where people couldn't even get around a lap
> without wrecking all the time. We will turn these things back on once we can
> dial in some feedback or "lifelike limits" to make it controllable. For
> instance, on lowsides we'll probably add a fiberglass-on-pavement sound to
> tell you that you're scraping your faring - and unless you pick the bike up
> in a second or so, you're going to wash out.
> What we focused on a lot was the racing. Can players do the same things that
> the Pro's do? Trail braking, clutch braking, spiking the bike into a turn,
> etc. All these things work. But its a very different ride than GPL or other
> car games, you have to set up for the turn early, be at the right speed, and
> lay it over just right. It's not as easy to recover from a bad entry as in a
> car game.
> We knew from past experience with all manner of games that frequent updates
> were essential to overall quality. Which is why we went for best-of-breed
> online update technology. Obviously our best efforts won't be right all the
> time, so if we***something up, we can at least fix the damn thing and
> get it into customer's hands in a hurry.
> As for releasing too early ... well ... I can't make any official company
> statements in that regard. I can tell you that I personally have worked as a
> senior developer in technology for 20 years at places like Sun and Cisco.
> Whatever may worry you worries me a hell of a lot more since I'm seeing the
> other side of it. And I know all too well how a professional software
> organization works - and that is our goal. Meaning that it'll get better - a
> year ago we were only a dozen people, now we're 36 - this ain't easy.
> Would we have liked another couple of months to work on the game? You bet.
> It just wasn't in the cards. The players may have waited a couple months,
> but other things couldn't.
> If you feel disappointed enough to return your copy of the game, again, I
> won't try to talk you out of it. But don't give up on us yet. Grab the
> online version when it becomes available. And when the model progresses to
> the point you're happy with (and we fix the lunar orbit collisions <g>),
> consider going out and buying the box again. Or just race online.
> -MSM
> --
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Mark S. Miller "Be regular and orderly in your life,
> Director of Design that you may be *** and original
> Motorsport Simulations in your work."
> http://www.racesimcentral.net/
> Mark you're definetely a class act and I admire you for being able to take
the
> critisism and explain what you guys think about for a game like AMA.Thank
> you,I'm not always such a ***,I just really anticipated this title.Any
chance
> you can work on a few more ridable camera views?I like the*** pit one
but when
> you lean you just aren't high enough to get a look at whats coming
up.Maybe a
> view that doesn't lean and is a bit higher so you can see past the
handlebars
> further?In my view you definetely need to add more low and high sides.I
know its
> tough to simulate and that it'll make it harder to drive but the way it is
now
> takes away from it being a sim.I can't say right now that I'll spend hours
> driving but I will keep checking back to see how much further it has come
> along.Thanks again,
No sweat. I've been where you're sitting more often than I care to think
about.
You can lock the head position (Alt-H I think) so that you don't get the
lean-in and your eyepoint stays higher off the road surface - more like a
car. In normal***pit mode, we model the physical location of the rider's
eyes - so when you lean over, you get to see grass up close. And you get to
hang out over the curbing just like you see on SpeedVision ... cool ... I
love T1 and T2 at BIR for that. This realism does come at the cost - as you
point out - of not having as much lookahead down the track. What I do is
learn the track from driving in chase mode, then move to***pit mode once I
have the rhythm down.
Even though I work here it took me several hours of driving one track in
***pit mode before I got the hang of things. There's a different rhythm - a
lot of my car driving habits had to be unlearned.
Lo/Hi sides will improve. Our aim is to make them penalties for obviously
impossible driving techniques rather than annoying impediments to driving
aggressively. It's a fine balance. And without proper feedback the vehicle
is unpredictable - which is self-defeating. And as we dial in these things
better we'll make it easier to select the level of simulation. The
sim-racers will want the full-boat, the people new to computer games will
want something far more tame. We kind of had to shoot for the middle last
month.
Anyway, hang in there with us. We're equipted to update our products on a
constant basis. Our business model *assumes* that once you buy a Motorsims
game, your investment grows. You won't need to buy Superbike 2.0 ... you'll
just get free automatic updates.
-MSM
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark S. Miller "Be regular and orderly in your life,
Director of Design that you may be *** and original
Motorsport Simulations in your work."
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Maybe because with the controllers available to us at the current time it
was impossible to control?
Yeah, I think thats it.
My copy is still on the way to coming to me, I'm still e***d to see it
and I feel that just the fact the Mark (from MSM) takes some time to
address people's concerns is a good sign of customer service. I'm eager
to play this sim more than ever. At least MSM is saying that they will
continuously be improving the game. That much can't be said from EA
(Nascar Revolution anybody?), Ubisoft (6 patches per version of Monaco
Grand Prix racing and the game still sux) or even Papyrus (almost a year
to get the first patch and no indication of anything coming).
All the best to Motorsims!
Philster
In many ways it sounds like you are going through what Parsoft did with
Fighter Squadron. They took some major hits early on but now, with some
time to correct some of the early issues it's really become a fantastic sim.
I wish you guys the best with AMA and hope it turns into one hell of a
motorcycle sim. I've just recently tried the GP500 demo and love it. My
interest in racing is really growing recently so I'm sure I'll give your sim
a try as well.
Hang in there. Just your being here says so much. Keep up the good work by
letting the racing community know where it all stands from time to time.
The fact that you and your team are so commited is great.
Pete Hawk
Fighter Squadron Extreme
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
I'll reserve judgement until I try it, but I've already been impressed
by the GP500 demo and looking forward to racing the full thing online.
Especially if it has a good Suzuka!
Cheers!
John
Remco
