rec.autos.simulators

Isn't it refreshing to see posts from the Papyrus guys - it makes the group
seem somehow even more worthwhile to think our discussions are being read &
entered into by the makers of our beloved software.

Having produced the best sim currently - it would be easy for Papyrus to
leave it at that. RAS is a critical place - we seek perfection - so we want
more from GPL & voice it.

Unfortunately that voice can range from the the constructive to the
downright rude. Despite the general agreement about how good GPL (& other
Papyrus products) is, there always will be some who will refer to their
products as "sucks" & significantly worse.

I remember the guy working on the Cart Presicion Racing sim, putting a great
deal of effort in to RAS - eventually it got too much & he left. Now CPR let
the guy down, but it was still a shame that he was forced out.

Papyrus have the advantage in terms of excellent products. But there are
some problems that need fixing - which are voiced on RAS.

It must be galling to see some of the less constructive comments about your
own product. (Imagine if there was a newsgroup about the work you have been
involved with), so I take my hat off to Randy et al for sticking with it.
I'm sure they have seen it all before & can filter out the relevant threads
to get involved in expertly.

I'm not naive enough to suggest the group cleans up its act - I might as
well ask Soccer fans not to make fun of the opposition. Just to air my
thanks to Papyrus for tolerating us as I believe we have something to offer.

Cheers

Tony

Very good post!

// Johan

I'd like to salute Randy too, for posting
here and actually joining in the GPL racing
on VROC.  It's nice to see someone who
really cares about and enjoys their product!

--
Pat Dotson
IMPACT Motorsports
http://www.impactmotorsports.com/pd.html

John

Rickard for President!

Oh, sorry...

Rickard for Prime Minister!

This is definetly something that is good.  Its always nice to know that
somewhere what matters to you in a racing game is at the very least being
read by the developers.  :)

Sometimes too critical or not critical enough in the right places however.
Often times I think that "we" (and I use that very loosely) get too caught
up in either praise or flames of particular companies/publishers/developers.
Not to mention, it must be understood that not everyone, and this includes
the developers or maybe more specifically includes the developers, sees
"prefection" the same way as everyone else.

Yup....but hey, poor EA just got lamblasted.  And Microsoft/TRI did before
them instead of dealing solely in constructive critism.  Speaking of
Papyrus, they have always done a good job and generally produce a fairly bug
free game, but they also have their work to do in other areas such as
graphics or sound.

Yes, it was.  Too much flaming and too little constructive critism.
However, TRI did produce a pretty bad product for what the marketing said it
would be.  Perhaps thats what developers and PR people for
publishers/developers need to realise about RAS....marketing hype will NOT
fly here and if a racing game does NOT live up to its hype then critism will
happen.

Nothing is prefect. :)  I'm still waiting to be able to adjust the null
zones in Papy products.

It SUCKS to be honest...it truly, truly does.  However, I can attest that
often marketing hypes a product beyond what the developers had in mind and
so the expectations of the buying or using public can often be ruined not by
what you produced but by the marketing gimmicks.

offer.

Yup..the computer racing community does.  Heck, the game community does.
Many people doing side projects such as mods, hacks of track and car
editors, model editors, map editors, 3d artists, etc are getting picked up
by game developers because of their work.  This is especially prevalent in
other sections of the industry and not so much so in the computer racing
maybe because instead of using proprietary tools, a lot of racing developers
tend to use large and expensive modeling packages to design tracks, etc and
then port them to their format.

Well it is real easy to post about  products that haven't been
produced... (MGI not included).  Personally I'd like to see more posts
by the developers that give us insight to the reasons behind their
decisions.  We get to know these games so intimately sometimes that it
is really nice to understand the background to their creation.

Jeff

All the same, there is no excuse for much of the vitriol seen here.
Magazines cost very little, demo downloads are available and online
reviews are free - any reasons for buying a real turkey are your own
problem.

Much of the problem with MGPR2 was not over whether it was a great sim
or not, it certainly was. The problem is as with N99 - is it a
sufficiently "new" product over F1RS to warrant another 30-40? I
ranked F1RS in the mid-high 80s when reviewing it for Sim-News, and
niggled over only a few points which have been done to death here
since. MGPRS2 is little different and while reviewed on a standalone
basis would rank the same as F1RS (perhaps slightly lower since time
has moved on and the goalposts have shifted), but taken in context
with F1RS would score pretty low for me.

We have no voice with which to convince EA. GP2 sold millions on the
back of the Crammond name and an excellent arcade/sim mix - F1RS sold
far less than that despite an F1 license and an equally good
sim/arcade mix. Psygnosis F1 massively outsold them all, with no sim
mode whatsoever, Outrun style gameplay and a Murray Walker voiceover.
the arcade market is very much larger than the sim, easier to program
for, console friendly and offers far larger sales potential - with the
_massive_ cost of an F1 license I'd be surprised to see EA target sim
racing except as an afterthought. I'd like to be wrong, but I don't
think we have enough of a voice to be heard, nor to make a whit of
difference versus the cash mountain which argues the case for arcade.

IMO Papyrus make far and away the best products for sim-racers, in the
sense of quality and also volume - the number of titles released. If
anything I'd like to see Papyrus incorporate more and more arcade
principles into their releases, provided that would not compromise
development and quality of the simulation side. I think that not only
would that provide an easy path into sim-racing for people (rather
than jumping into the GPL deep-end) but it would also open Papyrus to
a wider market, increasing profits and providing more backing for them
to further develop simulations. This is all just speculation on my
part from observing their market, and without seeing market analysis
and their sales volume/demographic it's impossible to know, but it may
be a good direction. Only they know for sure, and they're marketing
department have looked at it I'm sure.

Cheers!
John

What galls me is that anyone arcade racer or sim racer, alike, would prefer to drive
a car that didn't behave like a car over a car that did. Even more galling is the
typical arcade slogan "Hyper-realistic physics" which turns out to be hogwash.
Doesn't it contravene the trade descriptions act?

Yes, but you don't go down to the race track and expect a race car to behave other
than like a race car. Why should you get into a '67 Lotus and expect it to cling to
the track like it was on rails? I think the marketing department should emphasise
this - "This is like a real car" - and the hardcopy reviewers should back this up.
They, the latter, should say "NFS3 okay, arcade, but nothing like a car" and "GPL -
yes, this is the best yet". Jeez, is that a pig flying up there?

They've caught a niche. It's almost a captive market - we WILL buy Papy products. I
doubt whether any arcade title can be so sure of it's minimum sales figure.
Data, data, data, we need sales data.

Cheers,
Paul

Tony

I suppose it depends upon exactly what is on offer and what is
important to the consumer in question. Take your example of GPL. If I
offered up two new tracks, no car licenses and improved netplay would
you say that was worthy of 40? How about NR99, with truck bodies and
physics etc, substantially the same tracks and drivers? I would be
unhappy about paying 40 for a couple of new GPL tracks - that's not
to say I wouldn't buy it, I truly enjoy GPL and to be able to add more
tracks to race one would be great. I would see it as exploitative
though. NR99 did, IMO, have the saving point that essentially it
bundled together N2, BGN pack, 3dFX support etc and added some
features also, so depending upon what combination of products you
already had it was more or less of a bargain.

Dangerous path there, and would require a supremely good knowledge of
the market. Put simply, I utterly fail to see why EA should reap the
same money for NASCAR Revolting that Sierra/Papy would recover for N3
- that would be unfair in terms of the effort put in and the quality
delivered. On that reasoning I, and many others here would, as you
said, happily pay a truckload of money for N3 (100? Why not? In the
last year I've played GPL easily four or five times more than any
other product, in fact the only other things I've played in the last
year for any length of time have been Tribes, Unreal, Quake2 and
FIFA98/99 - in terms of Value For Money GPL is streets ahead).

OTOH it instantly lifts Papy out of the arcade and casual purchase
market and into the specialist market, for those wanting to race
online or on NROS. If the casual buyer is 5% of your market that's not
a big deal - your overall revenue will be up. If they make up a
significant portion you could end up losing money and market
perception, which may be very bad in the long run. I doubt you could
even develop the arcade side of the sim to capture a market - if I'm
forking over 100 I expect more than Need for Speed! Mind you, with
console titles (some of which are utter pish) are costing 50 and up
then the world is totally screwed up somewhere. Mario Kart is quite a
fun little game, but no WAY is it worth anything like what GPL or Gran
Turismo are. That's a good game too - others (like Cruisin' USA?) are
just as expensive, AND crap.

Cheers!
John

therefore, more broadband appeal, more sales, higher product profitability and
more likely a sequel will be.

Pushing the price up to a 100 level is simply silly. For one, no will stock a
~50 (cost to retailer) product, competing for shelf space against ~15
products, especially as the ~50 product has only a tiny niche appeal.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Z.

Please remove NOSPAM from my email address when replying.

-Larry