Just been tidying my HD up, came across an old Viper demo, then looked
across my desk at the two flightsims I've just bought - MIG29 and F16. Two
separate sims that talk to each other. Hmmm...
Wouldn't it be rather cool to be able to buy, say, 'Porsche 911 Racing'
which worked in it's own right, but also could be added onto Viper (or
whatever). A few months down the line, F355 Racing - a new bunch of tracks
(preferably based on real locations), a new car, but the ability to race
those Vipers and 911s you've got.
The cost of the sims could be slightly lower given that you're managing to
sell many games off the back of R&D you'd have had to do for just one.
Maybe registered owners of previous versions could get a small cashback
rebate or each version comes with a money off coupon for whatever may come
next.
Keep the max number of players down to 16 or so - enough for a good race,
not so many as to bog down the processor.
Add in decent support for internet multiplayer and off you go.
I don't know if Viper sold well or not, but there's a fine physics and
acceptable graphics engine in there (it even ran fairly well on the old
P200/V1) which could be milked nicely. Even better would be the GPL engine,
but what are the chances of that :-( Come to think about it, what are the
chances of any of it. Nil I guess. Ho hum. If anything like this did
appear it'd probably be more NFS than Viper, anyway.
Damn, I started off enthusiastically then ended up thinking about how there
seem to have been nothing but disappointments lately in the land of
simracing (two wheels ain't my bag).
Back to online GPL. That'll cheer me back up...
Cheers,
Mark
Reading, UK