THE GP2 WISH LIST
This list is based on a wish list by Chris Katakouzinos. Although he's got
a great homepage, he' s really overdoing it when it comes to defining what
should be changed or improved on GP2. If we really want Microprose to put
some effort in improving or updating the game, and I'm still afraid this
won't happen, we should at least come up with a more realistic wish list
than the one by Chris. I'm sure that some of his suggestions were meant as
a touch of humour, but lets get serious: if we consider the limited time,
energy, research and money Microprose might eventually invest in an
upgrade, also bear in mind that we won't all have a Pentium 500Mhz in the
few next years, we should only ask for changes that actually improve the
gameplay, the performance and the realism. It goes without saying that all
real bugs should be fixed.
GAMEPLAY:
a keyboard shortcut for reloading a saved game from within a practice
session or a race should be available: this is far too time consuming right
now (ESC, end session or race, go to main menu, load game, .)
A real replay facility, like in IndyCar and Nascar Racing (including
Bird's-eye camera view)
GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
Improve the graphics engine so lower specs PC's (Pentium 120??) still have
acceptable frame rates.
Improve the clipping bugs (grass over track or buildings, other cars can be
seen through walls)
Turning wheels with Goodyear logo: or Bridgestone? Make it one vague logo
but wheels should turn!
Support for the 3D graphics cards (S3 Virge, Matrox Mystique, 3Dfx, Diamond
Edge 3D)
Stranded cars should be taken away by visible crane or tow truck
Different coloured wheels for different teams ( wheels could be included in
the car jam files)
Animated pit crew: this could be improved (also more people in the pits
than your own crew)
Engine sound from other cars, this would improve the atmosphere
(adjustable, just like in ICR2)
REALISM:
Pit stops should take longer to fix damage and serious failures (like
engine) should not be fixable
A real warm-up lap and possibility to jump the start (including real black
flag and 10 sec penalty)
Real black flag situation with 10 second stop and go in the pits.
Black flag for ignoring Yellow flag (also the computer Cars)
Combine Friday/Saturday times on pit display. Saturday's qualifying should
start with Friday's times of course!!
Engine should turn off, when car splits in two pieces:
A real pit board: you need more information than just knowing about the car
right in front or right behind you.
Wet races, weather changing from wet to dry and back during a race,
appearance of a "dry line", driving on wet sections to cool down wet tyres
etc.
During qualifying, make the "monitor" scrollable so you can see details of
all the other drivers
condition of track surface should change during race (more ***, marbles,
or gravel on track in some places)
split times and lap times should be related to overall best times, not to
personal best times.
Damage to the car should have more variation, also the graphics of a crash
pace car with rolling restart after bad crash
Possibility of flipping a car and landing upside down (resulting in
retiring and pace car)
more aggressive and defensive driving by computer cars (Artificial
Intelligence!!)
Having to heat the brakes during warm-up lap or behind safety car
when using 'Q'after a crash in qualifying, you should lose about 15 minutes
of qualifing time (walk back)
UPDATES:
If those who made the editors currently available on the web manage to
create a track editor and a personality editor, we shouldn't ask Microprose
to give us new cars , tracks and other data every year. There're already
some very good editors available on the web and some very nice carsets too
(87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96 and 97). Microprose could release a real track
editor, so we could design our own. (and download wonderful tracks from the
web)
THESE WOULD BE NICE, IF WE HAD LOTS OF CPU AND RAM POWER TO WASTE:
Tire marks from wheelspin/lockups
Brake glow seen on replays
You can see the angle of the rear wing on TV camera depending of your car
set-up
No 25 frames per second limit, for Ninja PCs.
THE BUG LIST: I didn't check these personally but if they're there, they
should be fixed of course.
black flag bug in Germany, on the third chicane u can sometimes get a black
flag for just touching the kerb.
Fix letters "KPH" changing to "MPH". When kilometres are selected, the
letters "KPH" in the***pit LCD will change to "MPH" when crossing the
start-finish line in a race (note that kilometres per hour are still
displayed, just the label is wrong)
Correct game time vs. real time (With processor occupancy below 100%, game
time runs noticeably fast - with approx. 40% occupancy (25.6fps, objects:
none), a 1:24.8 practice lap at Monza actually took 1:20.2 real time;
loading the same lap as a hotlap (objects: all, approx. 90% occupancy), it
was replayed in 1:20.9.)
Fix car changeover in "Practice any circuit" (If you have more than one
driver selected and they aren't from the same team, and then go to
unlimited practice, then crash and wait for the car to be moved away
(instead of hitting Q), the flashing changeover light comes on in the
***pit of the crashed car's team mate, even though that car is an AI car)
Fix phantom slipstreaming (This seems to a bug inherited from F1GP -
particularly at Monza, when travelling down the start-finish straight, it
is possible to pick up a tow from cars in the pit lane.)
Fix separate set-ups handling (If you select separate race and qualifying
set-ups, the drive options set-up menu race set-up is the non-championship
race qualifying set-up, and vice-versa. This makes using "Load All Tracks"
confusing, to say the least.)
Fix pit speed limiter (e.g. Monza)
Fix for bogus race results (Race results have been reported incorrectly,
with the player's finishing position wrong or duplicated. One way to
reproduce this is to hit escape after crossing the finish line, select a
hot lap to save, hit cancel, and accelerate time. Viewing the race results
shows them to be completely garbled)
Fix all the bugs in the 94 tracks, for example, Magny-Cours start/finishing
straight and Adelaide invisible pit wall
Fix problems with some of the 6x-speed CD-ROM drives
EXAMPLES OF BAD SUGGESTIONS:
I wouldn't want Geoff or anyone else have to waste his time or our CPU
power on one of these:
Injuries (in a season): including animated funerals? This would not improve
the enjoyment of the game!
Tyre temps and pressures adjustments: how many of the available options for
car set-up do you actually use? Right! There are already more than enough
of them!
Ability to turn off steering help and opposite lock with keyboard: Race
cars are driven with a steering wheel!
Support for Logitech Mouse Driver: why? Buy a wheel!
Murray Walker could be the commentary of the game: I love Murray, but I
play F1 on the Playstation once. No thanks.
Something like a windtunnel, so you can change the aerodynamics during the
season: how about racing the car?
The season 1996 or 97 drivers, teams: surf the net!!
National anthems in Midi-files: they're awful on TV, so why bring them in
the game?