rec.autos.simulators

So much effort went into it, the least they could have done was
got it right.

If I were Papyrus this is what I would do to make it better.

1. Simplify it. With 101 different settings to calculate
   each frame for what? Do you think people are really
   able to tell the differences in handling for each and
   everyone. Its probably quite likely that you allow
   people to change things in setups with out it actually
   being used in your car handling algorithms anyway.

2. Make the keyboard work. Papyrus have no idea on how to
   get the car working with a keyboard, both Indycar and Nascar
   are useless with a keyboard. Not everyone uses joysticks.

3. Do something about the processor usage when in a bunch of
   traffic. On a DX266 there is a subtle annoying feeling of
   response drop when around traffic. Smooth it out.

4. Make it properly save games during a race. People sometimes
   get interrupted and have to come back to it.

5. Play it more before releasing it, also play it on lowend 486s
   cause there is still plenty of people who have them and will
   one day have pentiums.

   You have to make it run well on low end 486s if you want to
   stay in business. Look at it this way. If John Doe owns a
   486DX-33 and can play plenty of other resource hungry games
   such as DOOM, ULTIMA, TIE FIGHTER etc quite happily don't
   you think he is going to question the quality of your
   products? John might think "Papyrus have lost the plot" and
   stay well clear. He then upgrades to a Pentium and by that
   time has given Papyrus the flick.

   If John could play Nascar quite happily with a reasonable
   amount of detail (accepting less than full) he may upgrade
   to a pentium and feel very good about your product and be
   happy to consider your next product.

6. Try optimizing your algorithms instead of the microcode.
   If you think about it, play with it a bit you could come
   up with a better way that will be many more clock ticks
   quicker than some slight asm code changes.

   It looks like a lot of the relatively inefficent Indycar
   code has been reused, and now some heavier demands are placed
   on it the code is not as appropriate.

   Run the damn thing through a profiler. You have done
   this haven't you?

7. Make the work environment a more enjoyable atmosphere,
   get some more indoor plants, buy a fish tank. Play
   better music. "Have fun writing the game".  Your game
   projects tension and stress, you may think this strange
   but it is true.

8. Write a single version, forget this US and european version
   stuff, its harder to get your often required patches. Also
   I have heard the manuals are useless compared with the US
   one.

9. Don't try and make people pay for the patches by selling them
   a track upgrade. Are you in this business to make money or
   are you in this business because its what you want to do?
   Everyone appreciates that you need to make money to develop
   the next game. Simple, make your game with the emphasis on
   fun and enjoyment (naturally along with some realism) and
   people will want it. (This means sales which = $$$).

10. And one other thing, you know the wire fence tops, change a few
   every dozen or so. This will trick the mind into thinking
   you are travelling faster.

Thats about it for now. I am sure there are plenty of other things
that could be done.

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

Incidentally, not to add to your argument because I don't agree with
many of your points, but you left out what for me is a *huge* draw-
back with this game: the "Ctrl-j" feature that was present in Indycar,
allowing one to recalibrate his controller after a race had started,
is strangely absent in NASCAR.  Why would Papyrus be so foolish as to
eliminate that useful and necessary feature in this game???  Really
bizarre I think - it means that the game is simply unplayable with my
Simulation Systems ACP...  Once my ACP falls out of calibration, my
race is over.  This one problem is the downfall of NASCAR for me, and
has single-handedly kept it from passing World Circuit in my
fav. games list (Indycar is unchallenged at #1 for me! :-) ) Hello,
Papyrus, anyone home?  Snap out of it and get a patch out that
allows the "Ctrl-j" feature!!!!

-Brad Traweek

I'd say Nascar should be as complicated as it is.  Not so easy steering and
car setup options keep the game interesting.  As a comparison I still like
IndyCar Racing, although I bought it about one and half years ago.  But
I'm somewhat bored with F1GP because it's limitations.  F1/WC graphics
are good enough, but steering help reduces the effect of setup and learning
of the tracks.

The VGA version works well with DX2-66.  Sometimes the details drop
close to minimum, but on most occasions detail level is high or medium.
Anyway I was bit surprised about it's high machine requirements.  I
knew SVGA would not be acceptable on DX2 as I have tried to run FS5
and Overlord on my machine before that;-(  

Agreed.  It is quite easy to "cheat" with F1GP style saving, but if
someone likes to save games in that manner it should be allowed.

This decision is propably made by European distributor.  The ***
version of manual is quite useless.  I wonder what native french, german
and italian players think about their translated manuals...

Patches are freely available by ftp.  

Pasi.

I seriously doubt that you could fairly evaluate NASCAR Racing in just
a few hours, using only the keyboard as a controller device.  The sim
is meant to use a joystick, a wheel pedal combo is prefered.  When
"played" with a wheel/pedal combo,(or even a stick) most of the
adjustments to the car can be felt or and do affect the "response" of
the car.  A keyboard is an inelegant input device for this type of
simulation. In short, if you want to play these games for real, you
need at least a stick.  People don't drive cars with keyboards in the
real world, why play a sim with a keyboard?

As for your observations regarding the coding structure and the
algorythms, I must agree.  Papyrus rushed to get NASCAR on the shelf
for Christmas shoppers.  Just look at the frequency of the bugs, and
the number of recurring errors.   On my DX2, Indycar demands *at least*
610KB of low memory and frequently crashes under low memory conditions,
NASCAR is much the same.  A wider, longer beta program could have
helped this.  

This is a very interesting comment indeed.  Could you elaborate a
little more on which parts of the game project the stress and tension,
by offering specific examples.  I have been playing ICR for about 6 mos
and NASCAR since release.  I haven't seen the projected stress and
tension.

Papyrus is not the king of the hill of software games by any means.  In
fact, I feel they are fairly lax in tech support, in fact almost none.
A few hours playing with an improper control device is hardly a fair
assesment of this sim.

This is making it better?  If you want an arcade game, go and buy a sega and
pick up their car racing games.  I am more interested in playing a SIMULATOR.
Simulator implies that its as realistic as possible.  If that takes a wack of
CPU cycles, so be it.  I am willing to turn off some of the detail to gain
realism.

Actually a good chunk of people don't even play with joysticks; they play
with steering wheels.  You could make the same complaint about windows;  it
doesn't work well with a keyboard either.

You can smooth it out yourself by choosing lesser detail (or simplifying the
game).

I have had no such problems with the game save feature.  

IBM has this same philosophy.  Look where we are today (ie: memory
limitations) because of it!

If your saying that because something is resource hungry that its improperly
programmed, perhaps you should leave a similar point on the Microsoft
Word/Excel support board.  I believe in the case of NASCAR that the quality of
the simulation demands that a lot of resources be used to give the true feel
of driving one of these fine machines.

Your making some big assumptions here.  The two games play very differently in
my opinion.  Perhaps there is some code reuse, but thats just good software
development.  

Huh?  You lost me.

This is a distributor problem.  I agree this problem does exist though.

They have been giving out patches for free.

Interesting thought, but it contradicts your 'simplification 101' point.

+=================================================================+

| Robert Berryhill                   - Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz|
| Plano, Tx                          or was that Congress?        |
+=================================================================+

Not everyone uses joysticks.  This is true, but a vast majority do.  Next in
line are drivers  who use wheels and yokes.

I can do a lot of things in Windows without a mouse too, but it's much more
natural to use one.  Same goes for sticks and wheels.

While I admit I have no problems turning EVERYTHING on in VGA mode with my
P5-90, I still thought SVGA mode was pretty much just for show or at the very
least races with few opponents.  But playing around with the graphics settings
today, I found that I can race against all opponents, with 38 ahead, 38 behind
and 7 opponents heard inSVGA mode simply by turning off that crappy asphalt.  
I was floored when I found that out.  Now I won't go back to VGA.  But the
same experiementation will help anybody optimize their sim for their system.

As for NASCAR Racing, it will run just fine on low-end 486s, you just have to
give up a little on graphics.  And much of the graphics capability is
determined by your video card anyway.

Ralf Southard
r...@psu.edu
NASSCAR Team Baywatch/UHU
(National Association of Simulated Stock Car Auto Racing series)

However, NASCAR has no jurisdiction outside the United States to extend
its licensing, and by virtue of that Papyrus' European version could not
contain copyrighted material such as track names and descriptions, driver
names and likenesses, sponsors, etc.  Even in the good ol' USA we are
still limited in our accuracy (i.e. Leroy Brittain replaces Morgan
Shepherd, etc.).

It's not Papyrus' fault -- if someone has a bone to pick about that, talk
to NASCAR, the track owners, and whoever else and get them to extend
their licensing to Europe.
--



IWCC:   http://www.racesimcentral.net/~zyllyx/welcome.html        MM#6/JA#07/RM#1/DW#17

The track names are all there. One question tho' how does the copyright
of names stop them reprinting a good setup section? :)
Mind you I'm getting up to speed on the car altering using pcx files!
Max
p.s.
Where can I get a patch for the 94 cars for the PC version?

I do not think so...

I bought the european version, and the manual is very small, that's a point I was really angry about. If u produce such a complex simulation with about 100 possible settings (I like this, because NasCar is a simulation, not an actiongame), u can't describe everything with a dozen pages .. that's not enough !
And where are the photos of the winners, of the cars, like in the manual from Indianapolis 500 (anyone here, who remembers Indy 500 ??) ??

But in the manual the STRG-J Calibrate your Joystick - function was written down, and it works ....
SVGA runs on my 486 - unplayable slow, but on Pentium 90 it should run with evrything switched on .. in the PC Games somebody wrote, that the SVGA engine (routine, however u wonna call it) was improved this the last test .. maybe that this improved routines are included in the european version ... Does anybody knows about it ??

All together I like it more than Indycar, because this NasCars are more like real cars, where u can crash into other cars, without blowing up your tires immediately ...
I like the PaintKit .. gives u the possibility to create your own stupid stuff.
I just want to know if they bring out a track-editor  .. Yes, a stupid idea, but with my own car on my own track ....