There are other, better ways to encourage better driving with the following benefits:
Firstly, damaging a car effs you over for the rest of the race, not just the lap. This is a lasting penalty
Secondly, damage is VERY expensive; it takes a lot of processing power that I would rather use for better environments, rain, snow, livetrack, and with some still left over for better physics and AI.
Flag penalties (if they're done RIGHT) are a great alternative. Same with logical speed penalties (sand traps, better collision physics), and a million other ways.
You're playing the wrong game if this is what you're looking for. If you want ultra realistic game with proper damage, head over and play iRacing on the PC. With enough money, you can build a PC rig that would play it across 3 30" LCD monitors (7680x1600 resolution), a racing seat with motion and better steering wheel and pedal sets than anything that is compatible with any of the consoles.
Also this -> Secondly, damage is VERY expensive; it takes a lot of processing power that I would rather use for better environments, rain, snow, livetrack, and with some still left over for better physics and AI.
That is not an opinion I share. You have to draw the line somewhere. The argument that damage processing could be used for something else is not true. I'm almost willing to bet 99% that taking damage out of a game will not allow for improvement in any other area. I'm not sure where this idea of yours that damage is VERY expensive came from, but it's very unfounded. From a software design perspective, the actual damage calculation will only happen for a split second during the actual collision. The rest of the time, it doesn't happen, it's just displaying the car model with a deformation, no different than displaying the car model without. I'm pretty sure that T10 already realized during Forza 1 and just about every other developer for that matter that they can make use of all resources during a race without worrying too much about damage calculation.
The easiest proof of this is that if you have like 3 or more cars have a big crash in Forza 3 or even your own car only, you will see that the frame rate drops momentarily quite a bit, same happened in Forza 2 and Forza 1. This proves that the game is already using all the performance for the "regular" calculation because the damage calculations lags the performance momentarily, so they're not really accounting for the performance drop while you're playing the game.
The final thing I want to end my post with is my point that you have to draw a line somewhere. You say you want more realistic physics, more detailed environments. Let's say you cut damage, what are you gonna cut next? 30fps or 60fps? Want better graphics, go with 30fps. 8 cars on track, 12, 16, or 6, maybe make it just one like Gran Turismo 4 did with the Costa di Arria, or 2 with the George V Paris tracks or ANY of the rally tracks.
You have to STEP back and realize how you're changing the overall game. From the sounds of it, if it were up to people like you, we'd still be playing Gran Turismo 1 with better graphics and more tracks and "supposedly" more realistic physics. Frankly, I've never considered Gran Turismo that realistic at all. Grand Prix 2 from like 1996 is more realistic than ANY of the Gran Turismos if you ask me, probably even more than Forza. If it's realism you want, you should stick to PC games. At least on PC games, it's up to you whether you want good performance. The developer just sticks everything in there usually. Look at any of the SimBin games. You can do like 30+ cars on track, you can make draw distance to maximum possible, you could use uber-awesome steering wheel sets, and with a powerful enough PC, do it at all at insane resolutions, anti-aliasing, and 100+ fps.
Damage DOES limit the ability of game developers to introduce other features that are high quality. It's a performance thing; you couldn't simply add all those things I listed into Forza and hope it would maintain any sort of framerate. Sure, rain would probably have the lease impact (yes you have more detail for the rain, but you can get away with less draw distance and lower LOD models a lot easier), but the other things don't come for free.
You simply have to allocate the machine's power, and you WILL have to make sacrifices, and to myself as a game design student damage at the level it is now isn't nearly good enough to justify it's processing power.
Yes, it will appeal to many game players, but there are (in my view) many other better ways to improve racing, add realism, and make games more run.
I'm not trying to alienate the player, but I like to justify inclusions based on gameplay merits; consumers have shown time and time again that they're more interested in playing follow the leader than they are in enjoying some thoroughly brilliant games.
Absolutely wrong and unfounded., any game software developer will say otherwise.
If you think rain will not cause too much detriment to game framerate, you're really not thinking about it at all. Like I said above in my post, it's EASY to prove that in Forza 3 (just like F2 and F1 before it), damage does not affect the framerate if you're playing the game. If you're crashing every 2 seconds, then it might affect the game performance severely. If you are doing that, then something is wrong.
You're the kind of person that is ruining the game industry. You want more available cars and more tracks, but less game features. It's the reason why I didn't buy Modern Warfare 2. Sure they have more weapons and more maps, but it's limited to 9 versus 9 online, it doesn't have lean anymore, it doesn't have moddable servers and ability to have 3rd party maps. Those extra features are what make a game good, and I'd rather have the "brilliant" game than a rehash of the SAME game, because quite simply, that's what you're asking. Heck, forget in-car dashboards, forget 60fps, forget 8 cars on track, forget damage, forget tuning cars, let's just do all stock cars, that takes less processing power, right?
A bit of a note to get back on thread, what this game is lacking is that extra quality of polish, and I'm willing to guess it's because Microsoft wanted to push the game out before GT5 came out. It is however NOT lacking in terms of features by any means. The main complaints over at the official Forza forum (and here too!) are about things that ARE doable in patches by the developer. The core of the game is great, the racing, the tuning, the graphics, the physics, etc. What is missing is the DELIVERY of the content and a few small bugs here and there. Think about the game we GTPers played like on Friday night and Saturday night in the private room. What are we missing?
#1 - public random people allowed to join our game
SOLUTION: have option in the private lobby to allow non-friends to join game, that shouldn't be hard for T10 to do considering Forza 1 and Forza 2 did this
#2 - only 8 people in a room at a time
SOLUTION: none I can really think of without majorly rewriting the core game. This is a limitation that impacts the graphics the most probably in terms of game mechanics. This one is not patcheable by any means. It is a limitation I can live with though.
#3 - tuning cars in the online lobby
SOLUTION: patcheable, this existed in Forza 2, and the tuning cars is possible in single player, why cant it be done online
#4 - adjustable driver seat
SOLUTION: easily patcheable, already can be done by multiscreen hack
#5 - more realistic fuel consumption
SOLUTION: increase fuel consumption by some equation according to weight and horsepower, shouldn't be too hard
#6 - functional dashboards for race cars
SOLUTION: use motec display from Koeniggsegg CCGT for the race cars, tweak as necessary if needed
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