never pay $$$ before trying out a demo first!
Having said that, I am amazed at the e***ment/number of posts
generated by the announcement of RL... Especially after the failed
history (and it's a looong history!) of WSC. I'm not saying RL will
be "vaporware" (although at this time, it most certainly is), and I'm
not saying the West Brothers are cons trying to take are $$$ and run.
I sincerely believe the Wests are true race-sim enthusiasts, with
every intention of producing a ground-breaking, 1st-rate, quality
racing simulation... I just believe they are in over their heads.
In this day and age, I don't believe it's likely that a software
development team of 2 is going to be able to quickly raise capital,
design, develop, market, and sell a product that is equal or superior
to the other available race-sim products on the PC. You might argue,
"what's the rush?... They don't have to do any/all of that quickly."
But the simple truth is, yes they do. Computer technology changes so
quickly that a sim developed just a year or 2 ago often looks/feels
outdated today. We are expecting great things from RL. We expect it
to have an open architecture, state-of-the-art graphics, the most
realistic driving model, realistic FF support, the ability to run on
today's "average" sim machine while expanding with tomorrow's more
powerful systems, GPL quality multiplayer support, etc... If we
weren't expecting all that (and more) there would not be such
anticipation and e***ment for this product. And if you think The
West Brothers are capable of delivering all that... Well, let's just
say we agree to disagree. :o)
I've heard the argument that X-Plane was designed, created and
marketed by one person, so the same model can work with RL. While I
agree that the business model for X-Plane might be successful, I would
argue that the product has been far from
groundbreaking/state-of-the-art. The fact is X-Plane does one thing
quite well (allows people to design and test out various aircraft
designs easily), yet is behind the curve in other areas (graphics,
ATC, realistic panels, terrain and world environment, user interface,
etc...). If X-Plane were announced today, I don't think there would
be much of a buzz on the MS Flightsim newsgroups, because it just
isn't a ground breaking, state-of-the-art sim by today's standards.
The author of X-Plane has had to focus on specific areas at which to
be "best-in-class" because he doesn't have the resources to compete
with Microsoft in all areas. Unfortunately, this is the same problem
the West Brothers are going to face. With their limited resources (in
man hours and $$$), they will have to make sacrifices in the product.
They may concentrate on having the best open-architecture in the
race-sim market, or the best physics model, or the best eye-candy, or
the best MP support, or the best packaging or... The product will
most definitely suffer in the other areas.
I hope I'm wrong. The racing-sim community can use another quality
sim! I still play GPL to get my driving-sim fix, as I don't think
anything that has come out since does as many things well (MP, FF,
graphics, driving model, performance on mid-range PC). But I'm not
holding my breath that RL will be the sim to replace GPL. Heck, I'm
not holding my breath that RL will ever get to the beta test stage!
Again, I'm not flaming anyone... I really hope I'm wrong.
-Patrick
> Are you willing to invest money (and not a small amount of money either) to
> be a Beta Tester for Racing Legends? Vote now!
> rms