Well, about MCO.. just a primer to get you thinking about the possibilities in MCO. You chose tires size, and type. Anywhere from street to slick 155/80/14 to 345/10/17. You not only chose the CFM of your carb, but company, model, and type. You also chose your intake manifold in same manor. Every last part in the game was a representative of an actually part, all with licenced names. Weber, hooker, holly, they where all there.
Instead of buying suspention packages you actually picked out your springs, struts, sways, and the like. And as far as the motor went... Crank, rods, pistons, cams, valve springs, heads, exhast manifold, intake, carb, and blower (am i missing anything?) where all customisable with tons of part options. You could even get groovy side pipes.
There where rare cars that where hard to find. My favorite car I ever had was a chopped Boss 429. Wich the chopped top it handled WAY better than any 69+ stang in the game and had a wheel base that kept it competing with the usually faster first gen vettes.
The one downfall of MCO... Unrealistic mods. At no fee you could put any company block into your car. It got really ugly after a while. People knew exactly what the best combos where and would make them by the dozens and drop them in the best platform for certain races. The community also wasn't extremlly inviting. We got tired of teaching people about the game eveytime we signed on. There where many other cool features that MCO had. Like paychecks. You had your level (you acquired points for winning and such and gained levels) wich determined your weekly paycheck that showed up on monday mornings. If you where in a club you could also enter club trials and any time during the week race with other people online in different clubs and your time would be added to your club's times and the 5 best times combined got huge club bonuses. MCO had lots of great features like this. I literally cried like a baby when I found out they where shutting down, all because EA thought MCO clients would pull away from "Sims Online." Ever since then I boycott the sims and only play pirated copies. If MCO had kept it up, and come out with a version 2 that was even close to GT4 physics they'd have one of the best racers out there. (in my opinion.) Now, it might sound like they where mostly muscle car based... well they where. And many people left when they started to introduce modern classics, like the supra. Too many of thier fans where rednecks that only look down to Japanese cars.
Anyways... how does any of this matter? MCO showed up what to and not to do in an online game. The physics need to be top notch (wich LFS has down I hear). You need LOTS of parts (Wich is seems LFS is neglecting even more than GT4,3,2,1). You need a very advanced teaching system (something better than I've ever seen, GT4 lisencing doesn't really come close). And a good meaningful RPG aspect (Do a-spec points REALLY mean anything in GT4. I want to spend them to get unique cars you can only get with aspec points... that would be awsome). Also a good beginner-expert parts system. Beginners should be able to just hop in and drive and be able to do well enough against exprets. Beginners don't want to have to learn all about spring oscillation in order to play the darn game. You NEED online playability. It should cost an arm and a leg. 10 bucks a month is too much for many potencial customers. Maybe an hourly limit plan each month would work better. 15 a month for max or there abouts. The game shoud incorperate offline and online play seamlessly. You need a variety of track and car types (MCO had track types down, and sucked in car variety, but it WAS iimproving fast with new cars every month it seamed. GT4 is great for courses, but honestly... more cars would be nice). If it's console either a good chat or keyboard system needs to be in place. Another neat feature to have would be real-time part installation. SRS had a feature like this that i though kicks major butt. Why should you be able to get an engine and install it all in one day. Custom motor mounts should take time for adapting unique motors into cars they didn't usually go in. A great feature (i think) would be as you gain cash and you level increases your player should become better at installing parts and be able to install things fast and better, with the use of new tools as well. For instance, starting out you should see your guy installing an engine using blocks n' bricks then later on using an engine hoist, thus reducing install times.
Wow, I just realised I've been rambling on about this a while. I just think that we have yet to see anything close the perfect racer. I hope LFS turns out good though. With the rapid increase of cpu power we'll start to see games like I describe on the horizon. We're gonna reach a platue where graphics will start to only improve by little bits and we'll start to see many advancments in physic creations in games and in 5 years games will flood the market that are more realistic than GT4 just beucase someone's done the hard work once. Making an engine with lots of built in features that work. Just like 1,000 games came out just like the origonal Doom (wolfenstein for us hardcore gamers) we'll see uber realistic games become everyday creations. Custom game modders/creators will have the power to create thier own games. And honerst, that's what it might take to get these companies to realise what we as a crowd want. It'll take like what happened to BF1942, people bought the game just to play the desert combat mod. It'll take a movement like that to get us close to that "dream racer."
Dang... I'm rambling again.. sorry... i'll stop now.
yes, flying.....and not with MSFS, i use x-plane and am a First Officer with Freeworld Airways (see my sig)....
