On Wed, 10 Mar 1999 22:42:34 -0500, "Wosco"
>Besides, I thought that since CPR was released so long ago that the
>physics shouldnt be compared to modern physics.
CPR was released in Oct '97, about 1 1/2 years ago. Compare to
ICR2/CART (first release late '95, 3 1/2 years ago), NASCAR2 (released
late '96, 2 1/2 years ago), GP2 (released summer '96, almost 3 years
ago). Those were the games that had set the level for CPR to compete
with (all one to two years old when CPR appeared). (And F1RS was
released after CPR in the US, so it was not a benchmark at the time.)
With many of the systems at the time, CPR had subpar performance (I
had a P133/Rendition V1000 and thought so, of course, I had been
running Rendition ICR2 for a year by then - 640x480x16bits at 30fps
:).
I think a lot of the disappointment was with how MS/TRI handled it.
We had guys from MS and/or TRI coming on and telling us how this was
going to be the best sim ever. Papyrus & ICR2 - forget 'em! Geoff
Crammond & GP2 - into the dumper! This is the only sim you'll ever
want or need! (To be clear, they did not disparage the other sims
directly, but that was the clear impression given.) How they wanted
our feedback on the demo, so they could make the final product even
better. How they planned to stand behind it and make sequels (MS
Flight Sim was given as an example of such a long running series by
one rep). Great screenshots. It really looked to be open-wheel sim
nirvana.
Until the *** hit the road.
The demo came out, and was OK, but some people just could not set
things up to make the cars controllable. True, many of us were used
to Papyrus or GPx sims, and part of the problem was that it didn't
handle like them, but a lot of us tried and failed (I ran the demo for
a month and never got the hang of it). Frame rates were slow, and
drastically limited field size (like GPL). Dumb little bugs (like
incorrect speed calculations) and bigger failings (like poor AI or no
tire temperatures to properly evaluate setup changes). It had a lot
of neat stuff crammed into it (like the driving school or the setup
wizard), but it seemed unfinished.
The MS/TRI reps started getting the feedback and it wasn't as rosy
as they had hoped. Some folks were downright rude with their
responses (just like now). The reps tried to tell us that we needed
faster machines, or to tweak the steering setup, or to just drive the
ovals or race online (since the road course AI was so poor). The full
game was released only about a month after the demo, and it became
clear that the feedback that we were providing wasn't going to be used
in the final release (as we thought), but in later patches. Pity the
poor suckers who bought the retail product and never learned of the
patches. I think a lot of folks here thought that was poor behaviour
on MS/TRI's part. So things got uglier. Rep "Dean", in particular,
had at least one major hissy fit (quite unprofessional). There was
one patch released, but the plans for a long-running series of CART
sims from MS is deader than dead.
You really should take a look back on RAS via Deja News to the late
October/November 1997 period. It's fascinating. To summarize, I
think the RAS participants felt like they were taken for a ride with
CPR. If they had just put it out there and it didn't fly, fine, but
it was all the hype and broken promises that soured many (a bit like
what's happening today with NASRev's promise to displace Papyrus N2).
And that's why the mere mention of the sim brings back the
long-repressed bile.
So now you know. :)
"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark
