Improving NASCAR

I would like to express some opinions on NASCAR. I didn't buy it, didn't pirate it either, I played it on a friends DX266 with 8MB and after spending a few hours evaluating, there is no chance I will buy it (certainly not in the near future). 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

>I would like to express some opinions on NASCAR. I didn't buy it, >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. Wish I had any clue what you're talking about here... The game "projects tension and stress"? Mind elaborating on exactly what you mean by that? To me it's extremely relaxing to take a break from work/studies/whatever and run a few laps of NASCAR... I don't see any stress element involved at all... Well, unless I'm in 2-player combat with my brother, that is! :-) 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

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> 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.

[snip] 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.

<stuff deleted from various places> 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'm sorry.... I just have to take issue with a good chunk of these points... >I would like to express some opinions on NASCAR. I didn't buy it, >didn't pirate it either, I played it on a friends DX266 with 8MB >and after spending a few hours evaluating, there is no chance I >will buy it (certainly not in the near future). >So much effort went into it, the least they could have done was >got it right. They did!!! 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.

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>I would like to express some opinions on NASCAR. I didn't buy it, >didn't pirate it either, I played it on a friends DX266 with 8MB >and after spending a few hours evaluating, there is no chance I >will buy it (certainly not in the near future). >So much effort went into it, the least they could have done was >got it right. > [ . . . Many Negative Comments Deleted . . .]

I've got a suggestion for you, go back to playing "Crash 'N Burn" or some such nonsense on a game machine, because that is what it seems you want from your description. Leave NASCAR for those of us who *do* want a *SIMULATION* and not some arcade-style drive-and-shoot game. +=================================================================+ | Robert Berryhill - Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz| | Plano, Tx or was that Congress? | +=================================================================+

In article <[email hidden]> [email hidden] writes: >I would like to express some opinions on NASCAR. I didn't buy it, >didn't pirate it either, I played it on a friends DX266 with 8MB >and after spending a few hours evaluating, there is no chance I >will buy it (certainly not in the near future). Opinions are welcome, but often disputed. >So much effort went into it, the least they could have done was >got it right. Got "it" right? What is "it," that whole thing? Well, let's take a look see. >If I were Papyrus this is what I would do to make it better. Guess what, I already read ahead, and I am VERY glad you AREN'T Papyrus. >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. First of all, simplifying it defeats its intial goal, to simulate NASCAR racing. And yes, we really ARE able to tell differences from one setting to another. We spend a lot of time talking about the little adjustments we've made to fine-tune a car to perform properly at a particular track, in particular weather. >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. While Indianapolis 500, the Simulation was quite playable with a keyboard, and I know of at least one person who can shine through on IndyCar Racing with a keyboard, making the game easily playable with the keyboard would take away touchy realism of handling a big ass car such as those in NASCAR racing. 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. >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. Experiment with the different graphic settings: ON, OFF and AUTO. Also, cars ahead and behind, and opponents heard. They figure in. 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. >4. Make it properly save games during a race. People sometimes > get interrupted and have to come back to it. NASCAR Racing DOES allow you to save your race. It does NOT, however allow you to save more than one race at a time. You save your race, and the next time you come back to the sim, you pick up where you left off. Originally, this feature concerned me before I checked out. As a racing series director, I was not thrilled at the knowledge that a save feature was added to NASCAR. Imagine racing for a while, taking the lead, saving your race, continuing on, wrecking, leaving the race, reloading the race from where you saved it, continuing on through the wreck cleanly, and winning the race. Why bother even having a competition. But this is not the case. When you come back to the sim in championship mode, that saved race is where you're headed. >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. While low-end 486s are still considered entry-level systems, and are large in number, I think LIMITTING game play to that end would be a big mistake. Game technology would go nowhere. In a rather generalized view, most game manufacturers are using last year's technology on tomorrow machines. Siearra Online admitted this in a recent company newsletter. They broke down and purchased a Pentium earlier this year, and current optimized future games are written to just pass on a Pentium. 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.

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> 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.

You have to make it run best on a Pentium or BETTER... if you want to stay in business. You're not going to continue if you cater ONLY to dated technology. If John Doe owns a 486DX-33 and can play all those other games, then he can continue to play those games and others like it. No one is forcing him to buy NASCAR Racing. He woudl also miss out on the finer details in "Under A Killing Moon," "Magic Carpet" (great gtame by the way), "Dawn Patrol," etc. If John thinks the game developers of those titles have "lost the plot," then too bad... happy owners of those games are plentiful. > 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. He can do just that. Reread my reply to #3. >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. Now you've got me thinking you're just wasting our time with smart ass bullshit. You're not going to get a programming job with this tactic. > 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. Yes, a lot of the Indycar code was used in NASCAR Racing. Nothing wrong with that. The basic feel of IndyCar was great, and its popularity as a racing sim continues to grow. NASCAR Racing took everything learned from IndyCar and built upon it. Now if they could only go back and apply some of the new stuff to IndyCar. Wishful thinking, I know. > Run the damn thing through a profiler. You have done this haven't you? You didn't have much fun with NASCAR Racing, did 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. Just by looking or playing NASCAR Racing you can tell that the programmers were too stressed out? Is there a college course for this talent? Please tell us, that might be a terrific elective. Or is it a new major? That would be even better. Is there a financial future in doing psychological profiles based on game code? >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. Having different version for different countries is beyond the base of my gaming or programming knowledge. Perhaps someone else could enlighten us here.

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>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 = $$$).

Haven't paid for a patch yet!!! And no, I didn't pirate any patches. They are available for free. They even have an ftp site. Oh, I get it... you want them to release the add-on tracks for free. Why should they do that? I certainly wouldn't argue with that... it would be fine with me... but the EXE and track patches have always been free, either by ftp, or through a commercial online service, or the Papyrus BBS, or even via snail mail. >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. Now I KNOW you're not interested in racing... if you can actually LOOK at the fence tops, then you're driving TOO SLOW!!! >Thats about it for now. I am sure there are plenty of other things >that could be done. Are you sure you want to try this again? Ralf Southard [email hidden] NASSCAR Team Baywatch/UHU (National Association of Simulated Stock Car Auto Racing series)

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>>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. >Having different version for different countries is beyond the base of my >*** or programming knowledge. Perhaps someone else could enlighten us >here.

We have discussed this quite freely in the IWCC Mailing List. The reason behind selling and distributing a US and European version is simple -- the licensing of the track names, track descriptions, and sponsorships simply do not extend outside the United States. This problem was not so inherent in IndyCar simply because CART is an international sanctioning body and thus able to extend its licensing to Europe. 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: [link lost in import: /~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?

Hmm. somebody wrote, they should write just one version, not an american and a european one ... 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 ....