Future of the Current Tracks (with Poll)

  • Thread starter bman1984
  • 145 comments
  • 8,122 views

Is it time to do away with the last generation tracks?

  • Yes: Like the cars, last generation tracks have to go. My eyes won’t be able to handle those tracks.

    Votes: 66 21.2%

  • No: Like the cars, last generation tracks should return.

    Votes: 208 66.9%

  • I can’t choose one way or another without being called a hypocrite.

    Votes: 37 11.9%
  • Total voters
    311
Johnnypenso
"Monthly DLC? I didnt say DLC, I said updates silly fans":lol:.
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When will we stop pointing this out? I don't understand why some of you guys consider a DLC only content downloaded from a store that don't come as free? It's funny how on every GTA5 sites(forums) everybody claim the "High life" and "I'm not a Hipster" are DLCs even if they came via patch 1.13 and 1.14. It's anothe tipe of game that makes a difference or are they all mistaken? In my eyes we are getting DLCs every month and the fact that I have 17G on my game data prove that. Regard the "monthly track DLC" I'm still confused at the moment. Maybe the translator-san did a terible mistake. "There will be tracks aded via monthly DLC" and "there will be tracks aded via DLC every month" are very similar sentence but the difference is huge.
 
I want all of the tracks currently featured in GT6 to stay for future games (as well as for a few forgotten ones to come back). That said, some things definitely need an update:
- Any track without a day/night cycle, (London, Madrid, Cape Ring etc etc etc) really should have a day/night cycle.
- Cote d'Azur needs love, I have a feeling the FIA partnership will eventually lead to a major update of the track under its official name of Circuit de Monaco
- I love Trial Mountain but please, some parts are overdue for remodelling/retexturing
- Polyphony Digital's Foliage Artist has their work cut out for them (Great job at Bathurst though 👍)
 
Personally, I think the current selection of tracks should stay. Simply because PD can and should (with effort) upgrade all the tracks to a suitable standard for PS4. That should also include bringing in weather and time options for each and every track. I've always wondered what Trial Mountain circuit would be like to drive on at night.... :rolleyes: If they can do that, then I can't see why they wouldn't bring back the old school GT tracks (like Grand Canyon, Seattle etc) and give them the PS4 makeover too. 👍
 
Samus
I see you're stilling hanging onto your idea that it's big bad Sony stopping PD from expanding, even though Kaz himself has said it's his choice, not to mention the evidence of other first party studios with lesser sales and smaller budgets having more store.
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Japanese don't air laundry of their employers, for one thing. For another, every article I've ever read states that Gran Turismo games make huge profits for SONY, not Polyphony. Thirdly, yes, the size of PD is in the hands of Kaz, but the source of his budget seems to be SONY.

However, they have grown over the years. Back in GT4 days, I think the company size was roughly 110 employees, and at the end of GT5's development, Kaz mentioned 130 in an interview, and people have found Polyphony employment ads here and there, so current employee size isn't known. Lastly, you'll have to point out a number of low budget developers struggling with poor sales having more people, because I'm just not aware of many.
 
Samus
I see you're stilling hanging onto your idea that it's big bad Sony stopping PD from expanding, even though Kaz himself has said it's his choice, not to mention the evidence of other first party studios with lesser sales and smaller budgets having more store.
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Samus you really have to be the most miserable person I've ever encountered on any forum, I've never come across someone so negative about everything before. How do you even get up in the morning? :P
 
Tenacious D
Japanese don't air laundry of their employers, for one thing. For another, every article I've ever read states that Gran Turismo games make huge profits for SONY, not Polyphony. Thirdly, yes, the size of PD is in the hands of Kaz, but the source of his budget seems to be SONY.

However, they have grown over the years. Back in GT4 days, I think the company size was roughly 110 employees, and at the end of GT5's development, Kaz mentioned 130 in an interview, and people have found Polyphony employment ads here and there, so current employee size isn't known. Lastly, you'll have to point out a number of low budget developers struggling with poor sales having more people, because I'm just not aware of many.
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You don't half like making things up out of what was said. I didn't say anything about "struggling with poor sales", I referred to the other first part Sony developers that make games with lower budgets than PD and sell less games but have more staff. Less, as in 4 million is less than 10 million. Not "struggling with low budget".

Naughty Dog - ~250
SCE Santa Monica Studio - 220+
Guerrilla Games - 270+

None of those developers have sold games in excess of 10 million each. So again, please tell me how it's Sony restricting staffing at PD? Are you going to suggest they're unique in being restricted by Sony whilst they allow their other studios to grow?


sepulturite81
Samus you really have to be the most miserable person I've ever encountered on any forum, I've never come across someone so negative about everything before. How do you even get up in the morning? :P
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What was negative about that? I merely challenged his theory that Sony were holding PD back from expanding.

Thanks for the concern though.
 
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What PD needs to do is piece by piece upgrade tracks to full quality rather than scrap them or model them from scratch again.
First up, Cote D'Azur. Most of the buildings are well modelled and only need the textures updated (Windows especially), otherwise they can stay. The track itself could do with being remodeled (e.g putting the crash barriers in front if the curbs, not on top of them, which I think is why the track seems too wide), and the new buildings either side of the tunnel need to be modeled. FIA partnership could help with this one.

Most of the original tracks could be improved by simply adding HD grass, tarmac and trees. Trial Mountain needs a new monkey as well! (Perhaps he could actually move about. :lol: )

Like the standards, most tracks are salvageable with a little work, but unlike most standard cars, PD can actually utilise textures and objects designed for other circuits.
 
JTB10000
I wonder what the process would be for adding weather and time change to a track.
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A fair bit of guessing here, don't take my word as gospel
Weather - stormy skyboxes are made, wet road textures applied, racing line and depression determines wettest parts of track and downward ray casts are used to determine which parts of track will stay dry (those that are under tunnels etc) Also keep in mind that extra RAM may have to be set aside for the wet surface simulation and rain spray.
Time - lots of fiddling with lighting and skyboxes (in order to make sure track brightness is correct (lol, Willow Springs), for parts of the sky to turn orange at sunrise/sunset and various other things. The sun's path is calculated so that shadows may be drawn accurately, light sources for night racing are added as well and then some Polyphony wizards implement a rotating starmap.
This process probably takes a while, but nowhere near as long as modelling a track or car.
 
Samus
You don't half like making things up out of what was said. I didn't say anything about "struggling with poor sales", I referred to the other first part Sony developers that make games with lower budgets than PD and sell less games but have more staff. Less, as in 4 million is less than 10 million. Not "struggling with low budget".

Naughty Dog - ~250
SCE Santa Monica Studio - 220+
Guerrilla Games - 270+

None of those developers have sold games in excess of 10 million each. So again, please tell me how it's Sony restricting staffing at PD? Are you going to suggest they're unique in being restricted by Sony whilst they allow their other studios to grow?




What was negative about that? I merely challenged his theory that Sony were holding PD back from expanding.

Thanks for the concern though.
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I meant in general, not that post in particular. It's just constant negativity with you on here, it's relentless.
 
I would be fine with less cars (if they ditched the standard cars, I don't care either way) but I would NOT be fine with less tracks. With any racing game I am way more concerned with the track count than the number of cars. Having a lot of cars is cool but if the track selection stinks or if there are only a few tracks then the game becomes a bit boring for me. To be honest I never really thought PD's courses were all that great looking. Some look good here and there but for the most part they're just passable in my eyes so I really don't notice the lesser quality tracks. And really, as much as I love the new Mt. Panorama track it kills my eyes to race there. I don't know if it's the flickering shadows or what but it just doesn't look all that great to me. To me, I can look at standard cars and then look at the premium models and the difference is just night and day, it's no contest. But I just don't see enough difference between the tracks to get too concerned over the lower quality ones.

The only track I thought was really nice was the 24hr Nurburgring track. It actually seemed alive with the smoke from BBQs and people along the sides. I wish all of the tracks had that feeling. Mostly they're all empty and 'static'.

Heck I'd be super happy with the old Seattle track with the long gone Kingdome still intact! :lol: Def keep all of the tracks and add in the old ones even if they're just up-res'd versions!
 
skyhighguy86
too be honest I'm not looking in the bushes while racing and those that are should really be looking at the road

more tracks not less
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Same here, can't say that I have ever noticed which tracks have high detailed trees and which do not, all focus is on the road ahead.

I don't even care if they have time change and weather, these are cool features to have as an option but I would much rather race on a nice clear day than at night in a monsoon.
 
I would want the original tracks carried over simply because of the memories I have associated with them. Some of the original tracks from the earlier GT's are my favorite tracks to race on. I guess the tracks could be re textured to have a more HD look going forward onto the PS4, but I honestly don't even notice when I'm driving. I would be perfectly fine with the original tracks carried over as they are currently.

As a side note, I don't really agree with the choices given in the poll. I chose not to vote. I don't want the standard cars to be carried over at all to the GT7. They give the impression that pieces of the game are stuck a few generations behind.
 
Not that I'm particularly against it, but I don't understand the fascination with day/night cycles. It makes sense if you're doing proper endurance races, but other than that, a bit of a gimmick IMHO - especially with a "Lap 1 = Day, Lap 2 = Night" settings. Plus it wouldn't be realistic for all venues (such as Brands Hatch).

On the topic at hand, some tracks do look a bit rubbish, but actually, it's the layout of some of them that bugs me more. I'd rather they were all given a feasibility check as well as just making "premium". The likes of Deep Forest and Trial mountain are circuit racing venues, but only have terrible spectating, and lots of racing next to jaggedy rocks.. they just don't look like real venues at all IMO.. something like Trial Mountain could almost be made as a track using public roads, with a pit complex facility etc as part of it (a bit like Le Mans), but then they need to make the rest of it feel like public roads, not a closed off highly dangerous circuit that chose to spend millions on making a tunnel for no real reason.... maybe I'm taking it too seriously, but I find these things more jarring than some of the PS2 style textures and low poly curbs (that just look like glass when the light catches them).
 
I would expect all tracks to be remade for PS4. I'm sure we'll lose some of the old ones, and new ones will replace them.

We never had PS2 tracks for GT5 or GT6.
 
Wide smooth Monaco has to go, that track is from the PS2 & is very inaccurate. Now that Turn 10 has upped their game by laser scanning the entire Nordschleife, are PD really going to put Standard tracks in the game? How old & tired they would look by comparison if they did that! Wait a minute...they're already doing something far worse with Standard cars.


:P
 
Personally, I'd like to see all the tracks included in GT6 make the transition to GT7. I'd rather have quantity over quality in a racing game. Even though I don't have an X-Box 1, I saw that Forza launched with like 14 tracks; which while they may be of the highest quality they would quickly become boring. Lets not get rid of what we have, and slowly improve the older tracks while introducing new ones.
 
cmbeal317
Personally, I'd like to see all the tracks included in GT6 make the transition to GT7. I'd rather have quantity over quality in a racing game. Even though I don't have an X-Box 1, I saw that Forza launched with like 14 tracks; which while they may be of the highest quality they would quickly become boring. Lets not get rid of what we have, and slowly improve the older tracks while introducing new ones.
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I did not bother with the XBox 1 and Forza 5 but I do have a 360 with Forza 2,3 and 4 and while the graphics are good that is not something that jumps out at me as being better than GT. The online play, leaderboards and sounds do stand out.
 
One idea is this... couldn't standard cars be made available in "Arcade Mode" for those who want to race/photo them and have the "GT Mode" use premiums exclusively. Would that satisfy both camps? Online could be adjusted for rooms to allow for standards or not.

For me, it's not black or white. I'd love everything to be premium but also think that older assets, if refreshed would be good enough for me. Also, not everyone plays on current gen TVs so the level of graphic greatness is of less importance. I'd take gameplay over graphics all the time - GT included - even if a simplified list of standards remain.

I remember playing GT3 and thinking of the cars... I know they'll get better but they really don't have to. At that point they were good enough to immerse me that a Corvette looked like a Corvette and I could tell the difference visually between various Skylines. Obviously GT6 models look far better than GT3 as do the tracks although some could use a refresh or seem somewhat plain.

I also see others point and agree that its "unprecedented" that assets being are used two consoles removed from their creation and think it's a weird decision to continue it.

I don't know how many people are signed in to GTPlanet but it must be a very small % of worldwide GT players. Most of whom just play it as a game. I think the fact is that the majority of players feel like I do in that the graphics are good enough.
 
The tracks aren't as bad as the cars. But the only track that needs a makeover is Laguna Seca and Cote D'azur.
 
Yeah. PD will need to redo EVERYTHING for GT7, meaning anything that is standard and PS3 quality will need to be scraped for PS4. Forza and other games did it, so PD should do the same as well.

Yes I'm being serious. No one needs to reply to this post btw.
 
I don't get the question here. Do the OP mean having the tracks with last gen assets included for the PS4, or the old tracks are updated to current gen standards on the PS4?
 

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