Indeed, but its not like they haven't had time to do a bit of work perfecting it
It's likely they have been working on it, except they just don't want to show us what they've done yet. Weather effects were in GT3 and have only just been done "properly" (ish) in GT5.
I personally don't find the offline grip in 'real' mode very real - I think those other games do it better
The gravel used to be "grabbier", and PD experimented with very slippery grass in the Time Trial Demo (I think as a way to discourage corner cutting) but these things were complained about. The grass could be "better" if traction control wasn't forced the moment you fell onto it, although it only works if all four wheels are off the road. That's what I meant by "other forced aids".
...
Do you have any links for any open class racing events? I would like to find out more about it.
You know, I expected it to be more prevalent than it is, but it seems it's restricted to some amateur level stuff nowadays. It used to be more common in the past, with top-flight drivers competing in various different formulas and classes, but obviously motor racing has moved on a lot and the stakes are far higher, meaning, I suppose, that people would be less willing to gamble on an open-class format. Just think how annoying it is in GT games where you draw that one car that is so disproportionately faster than everything else that you end up tuning to beat that car only.
You've mentioned a lot about the licence tests and experience level, and I think this is a genuine area where PD messed up. It may all be about
pacing, using "level" as an artificial barrier to get people to stick to the slower cars for longer and explore the roster - "We Love Cars", remember; if it weren't for GT, I wouldn't hold certain obscure / outwardly dull cars in such high regard. Of course, it's just an in-game representation of the car itself, but the fact that it still has character is testament enough to what PD are trying to achieve.
The fact that the licences are still in the game but actually serve no purpose is perplexing. Maybe it was intended as a different way to play, but experience / leveling is king in GT5, so it doesn't really work.
It's still the same idea, though, using some metric of "competency" and then controlling progression on that basis. It's just that it's quite a flawed system in GT5 overall.
Perhaps I was wrong about the credit cap, too. It might just be a way to make sure you keep buying cars instead of stockpiling cash. Amusingly, people took to buying tyres to avoid "wasting" money, which, of course, was probably an unintended side-effect. Nice for gifting, if that's your thing.
I'm sure I read that Kaz has never wanted to implement damage as he feels it spoils the beauty of the models. Unfortunately damage is one of the contraints of racing. It's like Ying & Yang, you can't have one without the other.
This is probably true. Kaz is a relative newcomer to the world of (professional) racing, whilst he's been a car fan most of his life. Perhaps GT will now evolve on that basis.
...
I could buy the "it's more about the cars and the driving" point, if racing events weren't the only thing you could do in the game. If you just want to drive a ferrari alone on the ring for example, you have to enter a bunch of 'races' to get the money & the level to be able to do that.
Ah, but the idea is that you
pick the car to tackle a given race to earn that money. You do it your way with the car that appeals to you. By "tuning" you immediately remove the necessity to use the "best" car and can instead adapt something to the job (except in the extremes and a few cases where choice is limited). This is obviously fundamental to racing (games) in general, but the flexibility that GT brought was unprecedented, especially with
real cars. Let's not forget that it wasn't long at all after the invention of the motorised carriage that people began racing them.
Anyway, there have been driving missions / special events and licence tests that earn you cars in GT for a while, and there's always been an arcade mode with a time-trial / free run option. Don't forget photo-mode, too. Looking at Tourist Trophy and GTPSP, you can see the sorts of experimenting with gameplay that went on. Some people hated the idea of completing challenges to earn each bike in TT, for instance.
Also the marketing on the back of the box implies it is mostly about the racing.
Yes, but the marketing for Rage (to use the same example as before) implies it is mostly about what most other id games were about, when it is really so much more than that. The marketing division are trying to sell the game to as many people as possible, and changing what "works" is risky, so they bank on their heritage. I don't fully agree with it, but there we go.
As for GT5, isn't it easier to sell a car game about racing than one about something somewhat more abstract? I mean that it's about learning about cars and what makes them remarkable, or different, or the same (car descriptions, museum, licence tests, challenges, special events) and adapting to the particular characteristics of the car, or tuning them out of it. Naturally, such a game wouldn't sell well on description alone, since most people have little concept of such things. So PD probably "had" to wrap their first GT game up as a racing game (which they'd already had success with in Motor Toon GP). This is the natural thing to do with cars anyway - it's a form of comparison, and everybody loves to compare. Of course, here the loose restrictions water the "adapt a car to suit" idea down a bit. So yeah, options.
There's also the hope that GT Academy and Kaz's own racing endeavours will continue to affect GT positively in terms of racing simulation.
However, we are still missing other features mentioned
explicitly on the box, which is a massive no-no.
Anyway I completely agree with the point about options and also I thank you for a reasoned and well thought out post which makes a refreshing change from many of the others that post in these threads
Haha, I know exactly what you mean. And likewise.
Half a decade to work on GT5, of which GT5
's (and to a lesser extent GT:HD's) development was obviously a part of, minus probably less than a year to throw together GTPSP. Except most of the employees at PD (track modelers and car modelers, for example) would have barely worked on GTPSP, if at all, because nearly all of the game was recycled content ported to the PSP.
This is meaningless anyways, because the initial comments were implying that PD somehow couldn't afford to hire more employees even though Sony gave them a wider financial berth with GT5 than they did with probably any other game they've ever funded.
I don't mean to be
that guy, but... I don't agree that GTPSP was a straight port at all. Kaz was obviously less than happy about being forced to work on it at the time and it was evidently a struggle to get everything working as it should on the hardware. Artists would have been required to modify assets to suit new optimisations, achieved by programmers, so it's a proper project still. You also forgot Tourist Trophy, which did require artists. Those bikes looked great in the "GT4 engine", and had significantly more detail than the cars in GT4, so weren't necessarily a quick job themselves.
PD is also a relatively large games developer as far as they go. Their move to Fukuoka is clearly strategic, and no doubt they will be growing as a result and taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by their new location. It takes more than money to get the right kind of talent.
I understand wanting to make the game better, but sometimes. WOW.
