rec.autos.simulators

Now, I think it's time. These facts are taken for granted for this
dicussion:
1) The international racing sim community is getting bigger and bigger
all the time, and we're representing a substantial part of the market
2) Geoff Crammond is making GP3
3) GP2 was one of the all time great racing sims (at the time)
4) The end-users know what is required from a sim in order to have long
lasting fun (internet leagues -> online and offline)
5) We have not, to date, seen a racing sim that fullfills all our
requirements (like high ping values racing, some kind of verification of
submitted results (for instance how many times a game has been saved)).

Ok, all this leads to the following:
1) Geoff Crammond (and other sim developers) should listen to what we
have to say!
2) We have an obligation to try to raise our voices and formulate
certain wishes
3) If the above could be realized, we would end up with a sim that is
very nicely suited to our needs, and we could have longer lasting fun,
AND THE GAME PUBLISHER WOULD MAKE MORE MONEY. This last thing is very
important, this language is the only language understood by the game
publishers, namely money.

In every other part of our society, the end-users have more or less
great influence on the specs on a product. It's time we organize, and
try to get through to the game writers.

Now this raises several issues:
1) It's pretty sure that Geoff and other writers have limited contact
with the internet community, at least it's not known that he has contact
with us
2) We cannot contribute every one of us, we have to collect a nicely
organized set of specs that we present in a orderly fashion to the game
developers
3) Someone has to take reponsibility for the collection (there are
several candidates on this NG -> with lots of authority
4) We have to find channels to the game developers, so that we can
present our nicely organized set of specs.
5) Alternative channels to the games developers: *** magazines,
phone, snailmail etc. I don't think we can use the publisher houses,
they don't seem to have the genuine wish for a perfect product (remember
when GP2 was released, it wasn't finished!). The developer, however, has
this genuine wish for perfection.

I would very much like to hear what you think of this...

--
---Asgeir---

Any information herein must be used with utter discretion and respect

Asgeir,
I totally agree with everything you say..but -
I think Papyrus' Grand Prix Legends (July release) will be the answer to our
prayers..
To respond to your points:

1) > developers should listen to what we have to say!
- I have been monitoring various newsgroups such as this, and the forum at
the APEX GPL site at http://gpl.gamestats.com/ , and have been pleased to
see that one of the game's designers, Mike Lescault, participates in the
forum, answering questions and taking suggestions. Participants in the forum
have brought up points that they think Mike(and the other developers) should
know about (eg: someone questioned the accuracy of having six speed
gearboxes back in 1967/68. Mike checked into it, and told us that some of
the teams had them, some of them did not. Well, another participant
corrected him and told him for a fact that was incorrect. Mike wrote back to
say that although they could not correct this for the demo, the final
version will be corrected.) This is just of many points that have come up,
and that Mike has acknowledged.
- Newsgroups are an excellent medium for collecting gamer's views and ideas.
(Now how about a game being developed totally on the input of newsgroup
members?!!)

2) > The end-users know what is required from a sim in order to have long
lasting fun (internet leagues , online/offline)
- GPL will have direct support for TCP/IP and IPX protocols. Furthermore,
multiplayer mode has been designed to virtually eliminate "warping", which
is a common problem with some games out there today.

3) > .. that Geoff(Crammond) and other writers have limited contact with the
internet community, at least it's not known that he has contact with us
- See above. Mike Lescault also wrote the following, on Mon Feb 16th:
        "We read each and every suggestion that we receive, in addition to
monitoring r.a.s. and other newsgroups as well as other forums like this
one. Due to the amount of comments and suggestions we receive, we cannot
respond to each message. However, we definitely find the time to read
anything our customers take the time to write and send off to us."
- So they at least "claim" to be listening to us. I believe Mike because he
has taken the time to respond to numerous questions on the APEX forum. (But
just because they've read what we send them doesn't mean they're going to do
anything about it, does it?)

Like you said, Asgeir, the DEVELOPER has the wish for perfection, it is the
Publishing House that rushes the game out full of errors. Last year, Grand
Prix Legends was slated for a fall release (of '97), then got moved to
Christmas, then.. and now we are being told JULY. Of course, many of us
can't wait for the game to come out, but at the same time, everyone (to a
tee) has said "I would prefer to wait a couple of months to get a polished
game, than to go home today with a piece of crap." Of course, as the David
Kaemmer and Mike Lescault have both said many times, the game will never be
finished - there is always something extra that can be added, but is left
out due to time restraints.

To conclude, I think Grand Prix Legends will easily be the most realistic,
challenging, and fun simulation available. The physics model was started
from scratch, and the attention to detail that the guys at Papyrus have put
into the game is absolutely phenominal. This will be the answer to every sim
fan's dreams..

(Having said that, if you don't like classic F1, and you want to wait till
next winter, Nascar3 will use the same
physics engine and will hopefully include many of the ideas that were
suggested to Papyrus but were too late to include in GPL.) But I'm a real
RACING fan(Nascar fans take that to mean whatever you want!), and the glory
days of Formula One is where it's at come July.

Long Live Papyrus!!!

D.B.

I think that the developers might be a little over the top here. They
live and develop using a network that is fast and has no load. This is
rarely the case, networks are slow and with heavy loads. This must be
addressed in the development of new on-line games. We must be able to
play although we have pings of say 1000 ms (the game must extrapolate
where the cars should be). Real time crash control demands ping times
unknown to this time!!! I think we must accept the fact that in order to
do world wide on-line racing, we have to remove the collisions! Christer
Andersson has suggested ghost cars, I think this would still be immense
fun.

No, but still if they've read about it, and it has been described nicely
through well founded arguments, they should be pretty stubborn if they
don't include the idea in their sim... The only problem is that the
internet contains SO much noise, insane suggestions and totally inhuman
demands. This tends to *** the seriousness and well-meaning of a
NG. I think they're flooded with suggestions. What we need is a
"council" founded upon the people that genuinly want the best possible
sims. We need to do a sorting of the suggestions, this is a tremendous
task, but it would make it possible for the developer to use much less
time on the trash.

I think everybody can accept delays as long as we get informed (for
instance, the developer can say "we have compatibility problems in the
graphics departments").

And, I think one of the reasons for the delays is the fact that this
physics engine is going to be used in a whole series of sims. And
Papyrus would of course like this one to be right the first time around,
so that the model gest acclaim from the very beginning.

I totally agree, racing seems to be synonymous to GPL these days, when
racing action lacks in the real world F1 (I think I saw just one pass
for position in Melbourne)

I just sincerely hope that Papyrus gets a flying start with their next
generation of sims, so that the rest of the developers can see that
Papyrus' contact with the end-users in fact produces a very good
(sellable) product!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

--
---Asgeir---

Any information herein must be used with utter discretion and respect