rec.autos.simulators

I'd like to compliment you on a even handed review. Although I disagree with
you on the physics model of CPR (I still think it has an unrealistic amount
of grip regardless of setup) I agree with the rest of what you say and value
the obvious work you've put into expressing your opinions.

I think its must reading for anyone considering buying CPR.

I too read the review and think Randy did a great job. Since
I have been *** him lately, I figured an atta-boy couldn't
hurt.

It does seem like the AI in the game is as lame as in the real
released product. And it seems that UBIsoft is using the same
AI in their F1 title :-)

--
Header address intentionally scrambled to ward off the spamming hordes.

Thanks :)

 has an unrealistic amount of grip regardless of setup) >>

Oh well, at least I mentioned that some people disagreed completely with the
 physics, obviously when opinions vary so widely no one can really tell anyone
 else what they will think of it.

the obvious work you've put into expressing your opinions. I think its must
 reading for anyone considering buying CPR. >>

Thanks for the endor***t.  Its gratifying to see that the hard work pays off.

Btw, did you see Mo Gugelmin's eval of the game on the MS web site?  Of course
 <include disclaimer about how you have to take anything on vendor web site
 with a heavy grain of NaCl>:

"Finally there is a race simulation game with the real feel and characteristics
 of a CART racing car. The speed perception, GRIP [emphasis mine] and braking
 capacity, mirror exactly what we have on the 'real thing'. Also, all the
 possible set ups we can change in the real car are available in the game. The
 race tracks graphics are fantastic and absolutely real. What will happen is
 that those players used with the so far available race games, will have to re
 adapt their playing, because what they've played so far are games that don't
 have the feeling of a real car."
?
Doesn't it sound like the CART team went to Big Mo after reading from the 'net
 about how unrealistic their grip was?  It seems to be directed right at
 peoples' complaints about the grip and unfavorable comparisons to ICR2!   As
 you know, I tend to favor the grip level as its done in CPR and we disagree on
 it, but you have to admit that in order to refute the statements from the
 drivers, you kind of have to allege that they were paid to lie.  Mo's comments
 don't leave a lot of room open for alternate interpretations, do they?

Randy
Randy Magruder
Staff Writer
Digital Sportspage
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

 Sure they do, we don't know if Mo was paid or not, athlete's are paid
to endorse products all the time.

Well, the particular aspect of Mo's comments that interested me was...

...the reason being that the above comments strongly suggest that he
has also spent enough time with the other race games to know that they
are wrong. Had he only played CPR he would be unqualified to make the
statement he did, wouldn't you agree? Soooooo, do you think Mo has sat
and played ICR2, GP2 etc, has he only played CPR when requested by
MS/TRI, or is he really just comparing CPR with other race _games_ as
he said? :)

Cheers!
John

Before you send me UCE, I know what you're thinking...  Did he complain
to five or six postmasters last month?  Now, you must ask yourself one
question: "Do I feel lucky?"  Well, do you, punk?

It does sound rather like that <g>

There is another interpretation: CPR has a very realistic model when
driven in a realistic manner with the default setups (or slight
variations of them). This would almost certainly be how Mo was driving.

But the fact that we were able to break the "sim" within just a few days
by demolishing the lap times proves that the model CANNOT be right when
driven by a simmer who does not have real world experiences to shape the
driving style. For instance, if Mo "knows" that he has to lift quite a
bit for T6 in real life then he is going to do the same in CPR,
especially if he can feel the rear end starting to slide.

But we're not that intelligent <g> We just increase the speed through the
turns until we find that we can't get through them anymore. Yes the rear
end slides, but it is miracuously caught again, so we can get through T6
flat out.

So the model is both very good & , in places, very bad. Drive within the
limits of the model and it provides a "just so" feeling - but it allows
unrealistic driving. Some tightening up of what happens when the grip
level is exceeded would do wonders for the model. I don't think it would
actually take a particularly large change to the model, but TRI really,
really, REALLY need to get one of the better SIM drivers on board to
advise them and test the product. As it is I just cannot believe that any
experienced, fast sim driver (and especially a hotlapper) had any input
whatsoever to the model - or if they did then they were ignored /
overruled :(

BTW - nice review; well thought out, balanced and a nice turn of phrase.

Cheers,
Richard

Randy

John, I may be in a position to answer that question at some point,
and lets leave it at that :)

Randy

Randy

Can you elaborate?  All I did was write a hands-on preview, not a full
blown review, and I believe I fairly indicated it to be an arcade
game, which it more or less is.

Randy

Well, that's what I'd think, but I have been contacted by TR.  They
say I did NOT get the final, final product.  I told them to send me
something in shrinkwrap and I'll look at it to see what, if any,
difference it makes in my review.  But we WERE told by Microsoft that
the gold version I had was final.  Stay tuned... :)

Randy

drivers, you kind of have to allege that they were paid to lie.  Mo's
comments don't leave a lot of room open for alternate interpretations, do
they? <<

Lie is a extreme term, but regrettably its sometimes warranted. What
happens more often,
I dare say, is that a would be endorser is sat down and shown a product.
They are fully aware that its hoped they'll find something nice to say
about the product. They are also fully aware that if they cannot find
something nice to say about the product then they are of no use to the
products' promoters and therefore won't get paid anything. They will no
doubt realise that the promoter would then simply find another seemingly
creditably endorser who will find something nice to say, and who will then
enjoy the remuneration that they could of had had they found something to
prase about the product. There're not being asked to comment on a objective
level but on a subjective level, and therefore any praise about any part of
the product that they see fit to make is always an 'in my opinion'
endor***t anyway. In this case the issue of lying is conveniently
irrelevant.

I don't believe that any serious thinking person would give any weight at
all to these kinds of endor***ts. The only kind of endor***t that is
worth anything is that which comes from expierenced, intelligent,
unsolicited, unpaid for, and fully independent outside parties. This kind
of thing is not as easy to get as the other kind of course.

The logic that goes - " these are real world drivers and therefore their
opinion must be creditably" is flawed IMO, for the above reasons as well as
for other reasons.

IMHO - In making comparisons between one sim and another, the endorser must
be very competent at both. A two or four hour stint on the particular
product you're being asked to praise is completely inadequate. The fine
subtleties that can mean the difference between bad, reasonable, good, or
great, cannot possibly be properly accessed in this time frame even by
people familiar with the gene. The very fact that this inappropriate kind
of endor***t approach was made makes it entirely obvious that this was an
exercise in endor***t for endor***t sake, IMO. Its meaningless and is
not worth a fig - but good luck to the drivers concerned who ( presumably )
'got money for old rope'.

race games, will have to readapt their playing, because what they've played
so far are games that don't have the feeling of a real car." <

This is an arrogant claim to say the least. Perhaps its true of some arcade
style games but by tacitly claiming that games like GP2 or NASCAR2  "don't
have the feeling of a real car" is an insult. One perhaps could remind the
writer that GP2, for instance, was modelled with a considerable amount of
input from the Williams GRANDprix racing team. To claim that your cars'
feel is superior to GP2s' you're either, 1) a liar who's counting on the
gullibility of your readers, 2) self deluded with your own achievements, 3)
ignorant, 4) a true genius of the car racing simulator gene, 5) or just a
loud mouthed idiot. I suspect that at least item 2) is the case here.

CART PR has some problems. Its an acceptable racing 'game' as it stands but
its too far towards the poor end of the simulator scale to say it's a great
racing sim. Although I think its too soon to say this too sternly and only
time will tell.

IMHO the following are just a couple of obvious issues of either large or
small importance that come to mind as I write here.

The Road Surface.

The road surface is too dark. It's a fact that real roads are very dark,
and nearly black in some cases. So if you just took a snapshot of a real
road surface and used that to depict the sims' surface you could rightly
say that you were 100% realistic. But this is a case of what's technically
realistic being functionally unrealistic. ( You must always go with what is
functionally realistic IMO, else your facts will be right but the feel will
be wrong ). The point is that in the real world, even with a very dark road
surface colour, the unlimited resolution and frame-rate of actual vision
allows a driver to distinguish enough detail and subtleties to read the
road surface. This ability to read the road surface is the major point, not
the incidental colour of the track. In order to achieve the same real-word
surface readability the colour in a sim needs to be lighter. This is a
point that every creditable racing sim to date seems to have implemented.

Also the road surface needs to 'stream' in the direction of the cars'
travel, or track-made-good, or velocity, call it what you will. The road
surface texture streaming effect, as can be seen in other sims give the
essential feel of car grip and slide. The best exponent of this I feel was
actually GP1, or World Circuit as it was called in some places. The
streaming road surface gave a great sense of feel for how the car was
sliding on the track. Even GP2 seemed to have lost a bit of ground on this
score.

The***pit View.

This is only passable as far as good looks go. Its below passable as far as
car perception against  the forward track is concerned. If you look around
on the net you'll quickly find some really excellent looking***pits
designed by amateurs for GP2. If I may be so bold to say, there are quite a
number of these that are a lot better looking than yours. I would think
that you might find this as a source of embarrassment. A facelift is in
order here I believe.

Apart from***pit aesthetics, the real problem is the feeling one gets
when looking out from the***pit that the track seems too narrow. Much
narrower proportionately than it really is. You can make the car the real
width, you can make the track the real width, these things are just points
of fact. But the perception of 'where you are in space relative to
surrounding objects', depicted from the drivers position, are not a simple
mathematical formula. The job is to simulate on a flat 2D glass screen the
sense of ones' position amongst their surroundings as you'd get in the real
world. This is a tall order and will require an 'unreal' solution as there
is no real-world equivalent. Plain mathematics won't do here. You need to
play around with false perspective's until you get the 'feel' as good as it
can be. It'll never be perfect, but I think it can be better than you've
achieved so far.

The issue is to simulate the unmeasurable experience, not just the cold
hard measurable facts. Real-world-facts LESS
allowances-and-compromises-for-the-flat-glass-PC-world EQUALS
a-bad-feeling-sim.

For what its worth which may not be much.

In any case best of luck. I do hope the CART team can do a good job of
this. I'll buy the game in any case. It'll be interesting to see how some
of my favourite circuits feel, eg Vancouver and Mid-Ohio.

Cheers

Phillip McNelley

On 17 Nov 1997 01:00:47 GMT, "Phillip McNelley"

<a most thought-provoking post>

   I had mentioned this elsewhere.  A member of the CART team (sorry,
I forget who) pointed out that the + and - keys can be used in the
***pit view (much as they are used in the replay) to alter your
viewing perspective.  Trying fudging with that.

   This high degree of customizability of CPR is one of the important
factors in its favor, IMO.  I still haven't made the plunge yet,
though (although I haven't found it on the store shelves and turned it
down yet, either :).

Before you send me UCE, I know what you're thinking...  Did he complain
to five or six postmasters last month?  Now, you must ask yourself one
question: "Do I feel lucky?"  Well, do you, punk?