rec.autos.simulators

Part 2 "The Final Word" of the Multiplayer review of "The Patch" brought to
you by Pepto-Bismol.

Now some ?'s...

Player Lists:

From what I've gathered you want to make sure all the list are identical on
all machines in terms of field. BUTTTT they don't necessarily have to be in
the same order which is great. Is this correct? Or will there be some bugs if
they're not in exacltly the same order on how their placed? Thanks!!

Before I ask the next question let me elaborate.

With the new patch it allows for Arcade Racing. Now before I lose everyone
becasue it's not set at realistic please read-on.

First of all everything seemed to work with Arcade under multiplayer, good.
Thanks Charlie!!

Now most probably know that in Arcade more the cars go quite a bit faster plus

the car hugs the road much better. What makes me scratch my head is I really
feel (other than lap speeds) the control of Arcade is actualy more realistic
than realistic. Now I don't speak for myself, as I confine these questions to
a group of others as well. Although the realistic is a challange of such but
we also feel that the squirlier behavior in realistic isn't that realistic.
For example when (most) you review the replays you see your car is a bit out
of control as to what you see in real Nascar racing. My point is that they
would never allow you on the track racing like that. Now since this is a
simulation where to you draw the line. To make things pretty difficult to
control to simulate the fact it's not easy to drive a Nascar at top speeds for

the average man. Or do you simulate the look and feel by making the cars
easier to control. This makes the average Joe drive like Earnhart. Now if I
were to vote I would take the later. I want the race to look realistic, the
car to handle like the car should with an my average driving skills. I want to

be transformed into a great racer. IMO even when your good as I know a few
that are they still glitch way more than what you see at the real tracks.

When in arcade mode there are more lines you can drive without becoming very
unstable thus looking like a drunk driver. This makes you have much more
control and makes a race safer and IMO funner. Now there are still faster
lines to obtain and a better driver is still a better driver so it's not like
there is no challange. In fact I feel the challange is still there but the
cars are just many times more controllable and forgivable

I guess I'm asking for others to try it out and let me hear if you think it's
more realisitic with how a real car would handle around the track.

Some examples:

Rockingham, I believe it's turn 3-4. First in realistic we have to brake
fairly hard and then the little whopdee do coming out of 4 low is a bit tricky

and not always smooth. I believe most brake a bit in going into both corners.
Now in arcade mode first you don't brake at all in 1-2 and 3-4 slightly or you

can take a hihger groove. The trickness of 4 is all but deleted. Now maybe you

feel you like that challange in the realistic mode. I'm not debating that at
all, my point is if you watch the real thing. They run around the track and
have no suce twitchyness in any turn in fact when you watch all the real races

the cars always seem smooth and stable. I can't say for sure but it doesn't
look like they brake at all at Rockingham but again in realistic mode I'm sure

the majority have to brake much more than their realife counterparts. Again in

arcade the braking is almost non-existant which I believe is more realistic
like the real guys.

You see a lot of examples like this on all the tracks.

Another track for example is Richmond. Imo you really got to pay a lot of
attention to keep your car looking anyware near sane in realistic mode on this

track. When you put it in arcade mode. Wala the cars drives around the track
much much smoother. Again looking at the real thing they seem to go around the

track smoothly. Also in arcade mode your torque in 4th is much stronger,
you can stay in 4th all the way around Richmond without ever thinking about
3rd. Again the real guys stay in fourth and don't bog terribly by staying in
4th like we do sometimes in realistic mode, thus making us go to third more
often the the realthing.

I'm asking for you guys to take a look and let me know how you feel how the
car handles as compared to the real thing and realistic mode.

You'll need to adjust your setups a bit. What I find as an average is this.

4th will need to be longer since you'll be going faster.

Your cross weight should be around 25-45 lbs to the right.

You front-rear will probably end up in the 48-50% range.

And the steering lock for most tracks should be 5-7 the bigger the track the
smaller the #.

Now by doing this take the car out on the track and see how much more
controllable the car is. IMO it's more realistic to how a real car would
handle instead of the very touchy realistic car in which you have to mostly
hit every line (usually only 1) perfectly to get liveable results). Again in
arcade mode you usually get a choice of several lines on each track, some
better than others but the bad ones are drivable and survivable like the real
thing. The only thing unrealistic about Arcade IMO is the top speeds, it would

be nice to make that more in line with the real thing a toggle or something.
But the sensation of speed is really exciting though I must say with the extra

horses. The game is quite fun running multiplayer in Arcade mode, the other
plus is the car is much more forgivable for those not so experinced buddies
and recover much more forgiving from scrapes with others.

This leads up to the BIG QUESTIONS!!! I'd love for someone to answer...

With the extra horses your car really flies. By setting the AI to 120% you
still are a bit to fast for the competition. An example of the speeds were
talking about is at Charollete you can run over 200 mph laps without ever
braking. The AI cars are still a tad to slow and you come up on their rears to

hard which makes for some scary situations.

How can we speed up the AI. I thought other like Mr. Busch have in the past
printed some stuff we can do in the track files to help this out. Any info on
the such is greatly appreciated.

The one bug you get with 120% AI is they qualify much faster than human
drivers but they drive much much slower when the actual race starts. How can I

make the two more in line with one another? Again I believe I seen stuff like
this in the past that we can adjust in the track txt file. Before however the
speeds were close for me when running around 99-100% strength.

Please. :)

Also to Charlie. In Arcade mode in single player the AI cars adjust to your
abilities to make the racing close. But in Multiplayer Arcade this doesn't
seem to be happining. Is this correct?

Thanks everyone and I hope this helps a few.

Satisfied with the patch on my end.

Q.B.M.

Glad to hear most of the multiplayer fixes seem to have worked ... sorry I
don't have time to comment in more detail on some of the questions you
brought up.

After the patch, your MULTI.LST entry list doesn't really matter except for
the first car, which is the one you'll be driving.  Probably best practice
is for each machine to have an identical MULTI.LST except for the player's
car though that shouldn't really matter except that there might be more
disk grinding if the entry lists don't match up.

You were probably correct that you saw a duplicate car with the revised
multiplayer entry lists; there are still a few rough edges to work out in
allowing each player to select their own car.  Give it a good working over,
and report any problems back so we can get them resolved for NRO -

Charlie Heath / Papyrus

Sounds like we got 'em by the short hair this time. They have to have
everything working before they can release NRO so report everything as soon
as possible and help old Charlie develop the first bug free sim.

--
Chuck Stuart
Mesquite, TX

Nascar2 is your premiere product right now and it will be even after
your next two are released.  You need to be putting more effort into
making it as good as it can be.  Unless you have an arcade mode for NRO
the vast majority of Nascar2 owners will have no business racing
on-line.  They will simply not be competitive.  They need to have a
solid product with which to develop their skills so they can be
competitive when they jump to multi-player racing.  You want everybody
to join NRO but you arent' offering a product with any kind of integrity
behind it.  I don't think your priorities are straight here.

Dana Bailes

Dana still hammerin:

R:

Charlie in the next couple of days I'll get a hold of ya there is one
noticable problem with multiplayer. That being the clients who are racing have
their car plus a AI of their car in the race as well which cuases some
confusion. This probably won't matter in NRO though since there won't be any
AI racers. I still need some more time experimenting. Overall it's quite a bit
better though. Yeah I wouldn't mind being on the beta group for the upcoming
products specifically for multiplayer debugging as you already know. I'd be
happy to do it.

I agree. You guys make a great product but IMO your marketing of the product
really could be upgraded to hit the masses squarely. Nascar 2 is difficult
enough where it's a niche product of sorts. You don't get the arcade racers
$$$ as much as you could (which I feel is a large segment). Knowing arcade
racers though I don't think you have to make them as crappy as the standard
arcade racing game, basically that is completely unrealistic physics arcade
racers just so happen to have crappy physics. What an average enthuisiast
wants is a car that is controllable from the get go, with no hours for a setup
ect.

To do this I would suggest your arcade mode with good setups built in along
with the game being perfectly tweeked on the AI for real good racing. These
setups are not modifiable or only slightly on gears possibly. These figures
are not visable for the pro racers to look at. I only state this from
experiences with average players and players without pc's. They appreciate the
realistic mode for it's percision. But they'll gladly race the home brewed
tweeked arcade mode version if asked. It's overwhelmingly a winner for the
average racer over realisitc mode.

Again the realisitic would be left alone as is for the serious few of us/you.

Now to tie this in with what Dana stated with NRO. 1 out of every (how many)
owners of Nascar 2 are really gonna be good enough to run realistic against 15
humans plus without having disaster after disaster on NRO? Again I think it's
great to have the realistic for the top dogs. But I feel the majority (not the
diehard group here) would feel much more at home running an arcade NRO. I
would think your looking to please as many people as possible. Actually I've
raced the***out of this game and I still don't feel I'm ready for NRO and
may never under realistic conditions. Now arcade mode is more my speed due to
better handling and less accidents to get frustrated over.

To state this over the net and to get people to buy this in this group is hard
I know. There used to realisitic realistic realisitic to the point they think
realisitic is realisitic which I question a bit, but that's another story. The
thing is you really have to make a lot of AI adjustments to get the arcade
mode to play you a good game. But again everyone that has played it comes away
extremely impressed with the fun experience.

Q.B.M.

: >
: > Glad to hear most of the multiplayer fixes seem to have worked ... sorry I
: > don't have time to comment in more detail on some of the questions you
: > brought up.
: >
<snip>
: > You were probably correct that you saw a duplicate car with the revised
: > multiplayer entry lists; there are still a few rough edges to work out in
: > allowing each player to select their own car.  Give it a good working over,
: > and report any problems back so we can get them resolved for NRO -
: >
: > Charlie Heath / Papyrus

: What does NRO have to do with this.  Are you saying there isn't going to
: be another patch?  Will there be improvements to the standard game
: included in the NRO add-ons?  I don't understand what is going on here.
: If I don't get the NRO stuff will I be stuck with the current product as
: is until Nascar3 comes out?  You guys seem pretty confident that
: everybody will want to pay the extra money for NRO, you better make it
: worth our while.  It sounds like you are using us for beta testers right
: now.  You should be giving QBM whatever he wants for all the effort he
: puts into testing your stuff.
<snip>

I understand your concern and it is a valid one.  There was one MAJOR
bug left in N1 (the infamous "traction" bug).  Papyrus fixed it, but
only for "multi-player" versions of the sim.  This, in my opinion, was a
BAD decision.  Those of us who purchased the sim and couldn't afford Long
Distance charges to Boston or didn't have a friend to race via modem
where screwed!  I guess Papy was afraid that if they fixed N1's last
"major" flaw, we wouldn't purchase N2.  Whether this was the case or
not, that decision is reflected in your concern that they may not be
willing to fix the code for "single-play" versions of N2.  

If this indeed turns out to be the case, once again Papy will be
shooting themselves in the foot.  Much more of this and they will
walking around on ***y stumps.  Hardly the position one needs to be in
to compete against all of the car/race sims "flooding" the market.  If
they want to stay the course and come out a winner, they have to depend
on customer loyalty and referred customers.  Someone needs to remind
their (and Sierra's) bean-counters about where their money is and will
come from.  You can't continuely short-change your loyal customer base
and hope to stay in business or be competitive for long.  It's a new
world out there and the global competition is only beginning to heat
up.  

(Charlie Heath and other Papyrus represtatives, you are more than
welcome -- in fact your are encouraged -- to forward this message to the
powers that make the decisions on what gets fixed and when.)

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

There are a number of flaws left in N1, the most significant being the
physics bug, followed by the "HOG" bug. However, from what I've heard,
there was no ulterior motive for withholding a patch, they simply didn't
have the resources to do everything, and they were focused on N2 and
Hawaii.

A new patch is in the works. Papyrus understands perfectly well that they
shot themselves in the foot this time and are hard at work correcting that
mistake. I hope for everyone's sake, they ignore the cacophony coming from
this newsgroup and take the time to make sure it's right.

Dave Sparks
IWCCCARS Project: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Late Night League: http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Hawaii Handle: davids

What do you want, a letter from Ken Williams guaranteeing that the next
patch will make the game perfect???

They made a mistake, they admitted it, and they're doing their best to fix
it. That's a heckuva lot better than most other software companies I know.

Dave Sparks
IWCCCARS Project: http://www.theuspits.com/iwcccars
Late Night League: http://www.sequoia-dev.com/Hawaii/latenite.html
Hawaii Handle: davids

Wait a minute now who said this next patch will fix it?That's what they
said about this one.So what if it doesn't fix it then what another patch to
fix the patch that should have fixed the game?

Unfortunately, I missed it on the first pass.  However, I was up here the
day after the patch was released and heard about the problems, and I was
back at work on it the next morning, and I was able to identify the likely
source of the problem.  With a bit more work we were able to find a
probable fix for Pentium-based systems, and a possible fix for Cyrix based
systems.

Initial testing results look good, but as always, I can't predict when a
second patch will hit the street, nor can I promise the code will be
flawless when it is released.

Charlie Heath / Papyrus

-DG-