rec.autos.simulators

On Sat, 11 Apr 1998 20:54:18 -0400, "Charles Mak"

It's difficult to believe you when the evidence to the contrary is on
my hard disk in the form of the GPL demo, but even assuming GPL were
"arcadey", it's infinitely less arcadey than anything released until
now, so I think I'll hang onto it until something comes along that's
better.

Cheers!
John

LOL!!

I'm sorry you don't enjoy the GPL demo (really!). I don't drive (I'd love
to race for real, but day to day driving has always seemed a rather
expensive and tedious process) but I've raced driving games/sims since
Geoff Crammond's "Revs" on the BBC Micro over ten (twelve?) years ago.

IndyCar1 (and the flight sim Tornado) were what got me into PCs and I've
had a lot of enjoyment and superb value for money out of all the Papyrus
sims + GP2. I've never been particularly good, which may be why I dislike
F1rs, but I've always enjoyed myself.

But none of these has ever engaged me the way the GPL demo has. I'm
absolutely *certain* it's not perfect, and I'm willing to bet large
amounts of money that in a year or two someone will do a better job. But
here and now, I'm having the most satisfaction I've ever had out of
learning a sim, and that's all that matters. Best 0.00p I've ever spent
:-)

BTW, for the record, I've "driven" one of the high street arcade games but
I don't remember which one and it was only once. So overall I'm probably
the least qualified person to have an opinion on any driving game/sim in
the history of RAS. But then, if everyone had to be qualified to have an
opinion, this place would be a graveyard ;-)

Andrew... RAS's most under-qualified opinion

Boy, I was going to stay out of this one, but let's review the Charles
Mak quotes on this one:

"GPL is really made for the arcade racer..."
"GPL is nothing but a souped up arcade racer."
"GPL has got all the bounce and roll and swerve of any arcade racer."

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sensing a hint of inconsistency
here.

I must say, I thought I was pretty good at long-winded gibberish, but
your posts have taken the proverbial cake. First, this is a demo -- not
the actual game, so it may be a bit premature to draw too many
conclusions. Second, IT'S A GAME. I hate to be the one to break this to
you, but you are NOT actually sitting in a late-'60s GP car, you are NOT
actually at bumpy, lovable old Watkins Glen, the view you see in front
of you is ACTUALLY a computer screen, and you're NOT actually going
anywhere. Is this news to you? GPL, like GP2, F1GP, or any other racing
"simulation" is a piece of entertainment software. You keep blubbering
about how accurate GP2 is, but accuracy, like beauty, is in the mind --
specifically in the "willing suspension of disbelief" -- of the
beholder. To say GP2 is a more accurate simulation of modern F1 racing
than GPL is of late-'60s racing is like saying a wet dream is an
accurate simulation of real, live, waking sex -- maybe it is for YOU old
boy, but not for everyone! How is it that your personal opinion of
whether a game is accurate or not has somehow become holy writ?

Let me relate a little true story:

When John Frankenheimer wrapped up the shooting and editing for the
movie Grand Prix, he had a private screening for many of the people
involved in the film, including most of the drivers who appeared. Now,
to modern eyes, many of the crashes staged in "Grand Prix" look exactly
like what they are: old engineless F3 cars being shot from what amounted
to a pneumatic cannon -- not exactly Industrial Light and Magic. But
when the infamous Bruce Beresford/James Garner shunt at Monaco came on
screen, Graham Hill dropped in his theatre seat and tried to curl up in
a ball. He had quite a chuckle about it later, but my point is: AT THE
MOMENT, HE BELIEVED. Now here's a World Champion in the midst of a very
long career, demonstrating that the willing suspension of disbelief
happens even to the most professional of critical observers.

Yet you would have everyone believe, just because you say so, that one
sim is a sham and another is an accurate representation of the real
thing, and that there is some sort of difference between "arcade"
driving and "real sim" driving, and that one actually has some "truer"
relationship to ACTUAL driving than the other. Have you ever considered
the heretical notion that perhaps those differences exist in the
individual mind, and each person has a different, but equally valid,
experience of the things you do? Apparently not, from your signoff:  

"I may look like a heretic but hey I'm really only showing you all the
light."

No, what you're showing us is YOUR light. To my mind, it's a bit of a
dim bulb.

Bart Brown

Good points but why didn't CPR suporters hear the same thing? Could it be
because MS made it?

Dave

Don't confuse your lack of talent with how  realistic the sim is, I have
watched replays of guys do laps in the 1m07sec range that looked pretty
controllable, and thats without having access to the setup screen to adjust
the car to there style

--
Kevin Anderson



ICQ # 6769389
Oscar FB Div. 10

Keep on trolling... PLONK!

l8er
ronny

--
How to get rid of censorship in German game releases
<http://www.gamesmania.com/german/maniac/freedom/freedom.htm>

          |\      _,,,---,,_        I want to die like my Grandfather,
   ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_              in his sleep.
        |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'     Not like the people in his car,
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            screaming their heads off!

First, let me correct myself -- it was late, very late, when I wrote the
post to which David refers: it should have read "the Brian Bedford/James
Garner shunt..."; Bruce Beresford is, of course, an excellent Australian
director.

Now, David, I'm afraid that once again, in your zeal to ascribe ALL
criticism of CPR to the satanic machinations of the fabled World-Wide
Anti-Microsoft Cabal, Inc., you have gotten the cart (excuse the pun)
before the horse. Dealing with GPL and GPII, we are talking about,
respectively, a pre-Alpha demo, and a long-established, stable standard.
CPR fits neither of these categories, though it's far closer to the
former than the latter. I believe that the overwhelming majority of
experienced gamers/sim-drivers in this newsgroup who have tried CPR have
found it wanting, particularly in the areas of AI (not so much a concern
to those who race exclusively head-to-head over a network) and the
exceptionally poor or nonexistent implementation of specific technical
aspects, e.g., yellow flags and tire temp/pressure data and
adjustability. Where you've gotten it wrong way 'round, in my HO, is in
the attitude these discontented customers have displayed towards
Microsoft.

I would be willing to wager that a very large majority of those who've
expressed their disappointment in CPR own, use, enjoy, and praise many
Microsoft products -- if you're using a PC, it's a bit difficult to
avoid at least SOME MS presence on your system, don't you think? So
people perceive, with some justification, that Microsoft is a competent,
technically-advanced company with tremendous resources and a huge pool
of talent. Is it any wonder then, that these same people, having been
bombarded with MS' ballyhoo about the "greatest racing sim ever
produced" should be rather MORE disappointed when such an industry giant
hands them the load of unfinished codswallop that IS CPR in its present
form?

This has nothing whatsoever to do with individual perception of how a
game immerses one in its "world" -- the ludicrous and absolutely
subjective "argument" that Mr. Mak is currently waging as his personal
jihad regarding the GPL demo and GPII. With CPR, we're talking about a
failure to deliver on MS' promises; a failure only compounded by the
inept "patches", the stonewalling by everyone involved at MS' end about
whether or not the game will EVER be fixed, the smoke and mirrors/bait
and switch aspect of responding to complaints about the sim's basic
playability by offering track editors and an "awesome" Monster Truck
Game instead of delivering CPR as advertised, and this constant nonsense
which translates "If you don't love CPR, it's because you HATE
Microsoft". These are NOT the actions and response people expect from a
company of Microsoft's stature -- they wouldn't be acceptable from a
low-budget code joint in Lower Silesia, they certainly wouldn't be
acceptable from a company like Sierra/Papyrus or Microprose, so WHY on
earth should they be acceptable from Microsoft?

Your desperation in tacking this "Anti-Microsoft" *** theory onto
a discussion that has no bearing on Microsoft OR CPR just shows the
weakness of your basic premise.

Bart Brown

Wow. You just said a mouthful but you didn't answer the first question at
all.

Dave

Go watch some Nurburgring races. I dare you to say those cars at the track
didn't bounce, roll or swerve.

Stock cars?? NOT
Indycars?? NOT
Rally cars?? NOT
Trucks?? NOT
Street cars?? NOT
Mountain bike?? NOT
F1?? gee I wonder what those suspension are for
Charles Mak's BMX?? YES IT DOESN'T BOUNCE, we got a winner here

Hi Charles,

I don't agree with you. Why not? Because my lap times went down when I
did "clean" laps, with less sliding. If you say "GPL is an arcade
racer" you should say "Fast laps in GPL are archieved in an arcade
ride style". Now think. Why is that so? Could it be that the line
between sliding and not sliding is VERY small compared with todays
racing cars with a lot more downforce? Could it be that those
"unrealistic" fast laps with a lot sliding going on is just a start of
more to come? I predict laps in the 1.05 in a week of so, with a lot
less sliding. BTW,I think that the setups in the demo are pretty
loose, so that the cars slide more easily. Just for fun. In the
release version, with the possibility to alter the car, you can create
a much more stable car.

Cheers!

Remco