How do You Make Celebrating Automotive History Fun and Enjoyable?

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You're either dead on or really jaded, time will tell.

Bring on the sepia tone replays.
 
Hiya! :D :O :lol:

I would like to celebrate automotive history with vidoes and reading text! :O I am pretty sure if PD did this, they might have to make this game a say...20 disc long game???? :O:O :lol: I think it would be very incredible if they included text to read about the car's history and some videos of the car being reviewed by "car reviewers" such as Top Gear! :O with over 500 cars.... wow thats alot of reading and watching! Better get out some salads and watch everything and to enjoy the past to the present of automobile history ! :O
 
I guess you can say that the more storied a car is, the more it can be of any real significance. There are several people with some of their favorite cars. You know... Mini Cooper, Fiat Panda, Nissan Skyline, Shelby Cobra, Dodge Viper, VW Beetle, McLaren F1. To me, I like to think of this from a game design perspective.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the PS2 can do only so much. To me, I think PD is trying to do as much as possible to achieve two goals to perfection: (1) put as much content as possible into GT4 so that car fans young and old can appreciate all of PD's efforts, and (2) with that "as much contenst as possible," it has to be economized so that effectiveness of data and space isn't sacrificed. Some things will get left out, but after all, you're better off with 15-20 sentences about 500+ cars than entire magazine articles and videos about all 500+ cars. Longer text and more pictures = more memory used. I would say more on this issue, but I'll save it for a future reply. So Lady McLaren, you bring a pretty big deck of cards to the table with your reply. And someone mentioned "PD couldn't care less about celebrating the automobile." Well, that would defeat the purpose of having all these vintage classics and modern classics then, right?

To me, PD has done so much to bring PS2 gamers the world of cars. Each passing GT game, the perspective has broadened in at least some form of fashion. I mean, for PD to discover the world's first car, bunch of tuners, classic race cars, open-top LMPs... you'd have to be a damned fool to neglect the historical influence of the classics and what made newer cars great cars. I think PD wants to pull this off in the best way, so why not CELEBRATE automotive history?

Give PD their dues. Now if you want to celebrate, let's go back 5 or so years to find this song to help you celebrate, HIT THE MUSIC!!!

(Playing: Daft Punk - One More Time)
 
As an update, if you haven't already, take a look at the topic in the GT4 Forums that feature the Paris pictures. Some may lose interest in GT4 with all this wait, but if you look at some of the pictures, you begin to see just how lovely these machines are. All sorts of cars seemed to be featured. I think with the little timeline GT4 provides for the cars, it would be wonderful to trace history as best as possible.

I'm still on the premise that GT4 will succeed very well with automotive history. A thing to remember is that historical vehicles don't always mean anything in the 19th and 20th Centries, it also means classic machines of late. Anyhow, the more respectable new pictures come out, the more I want GT4. Anyhow, reply on while I try to backtrack past threads. Because after all, if the game isn't out yet, it's always nice to look back and update with new info. And some discussions are still pretty valid for discussion. So, any contributions to this one?
 
To be historically accurate Porsche and Ferrari has to be included, that is Ferdinand Porsche and Enzo Ferrari have to be included. These two Gentleman shaped racing and sports cars to what they are today. Enzo started with Alfa and built a household name accross the world with the legend of Ferrari. Ferdinand started with Auto Union, Tiger Tanks, the peoples car and then the legend of Porsche.
To make celebrating motoring fun and enjoyable PD has to let us drive both brands.

Just a thought, can a brand of car be shown as video footage on a PS2 game when the game publisher does not have the license for that car? Or is the license just for the electonic image of the car created to be driven in the game?
Does that mean Porsche and Ferrari will be in GT4 but only as historical video footage?

I also want to sample the legend of Australian motor sport Jack Brabham's Repco Brahbram F1 car, the Audi Quattro rally cars that changed the face of rally racing, and the famous Australian muscle cars that in the 1970's scared the politicians so much that the car companies making them were blackmailed by the Government of the day into not making them.
 
I think we came to the conclusion if the car is privately owned then it being featured in a video, that's not a promotion, is fine, it's just like a home video of your car, you don't need a license for that.
 
I think this may have been an important point made by Uncle Harry...

You could be right with the videos of Porsche and Ferrari in GT4 being the only way of seeing them...

I wonder if the licence also differs if you can't race the cars too... i.e. Porsche and Ferrari can be in the game but only as AI cars?!

C.
 
Ferrari and Porsche are a given.
But what about Dusenberg?
Morgan?
Oldsmobile?
Volvo?
Truth is, none of those companies were big names in world competition.

This game isn't supposed to be an encyclopedia of automobile history,
more like an almanac of motorsports.
 
NFS:Porsche Unleased had an intresting way of making thier simulation mode... You would start off in the 40-50s an could only buy cars from that time and raced with other cars from that age as well. Then, when you completed enough races you could "evolve" and go to the next age of cars (60-70s-ish.). You would evolve 3 or 4 times until the final age (which would be the present).

What I'm basicly trying to say is that if PD would include a mode that would ressemble it (maybe not as big and detailed), it might make "automotive history fun and enjoyable" ;)
 
DevilGTx
But what about Dusenberg?
Morgan?
Oldsmobile?
Volvo?
Click to expand...

Morgan is in with at least 2 cars.
I suspect Volvo will be in as it's part of Ford.

Not sure about Oldsmobile...

WTF is "Dusenberg"?

C.
 
Do a web search for Dusenberg. High-tech in the 1930's.

What I mean is that those are all historically important companies, but don't really need to be represented in GT4 since they weren't deeply involved in racing.
What it really comes down to is the individual cars and which ones are significant.
 
I imagine the touted 'historical' aspect of GT4 will be heavily based in racing history.
 
Passionately, it would be better to at least mention a car company's founder, even if the founder's cars don't make it into GT4. Can you remember GT2? I think I remember seeing Ferdinand Porsche, and I've even seen Ferrari mentioned. When you go to Venturri, I think the intro said "France's answer to Ferrari." Everyone is going to have their favorites.

The primary question in mind is, "will we be able to have a combination of the owner and the cars produced under the founder's name?" In other words, will GT race fans be able to see Ferrari in the Car Dealer list, and be able to drive anything from the 250GT all the way up to the Enzo? GT DOES have Alfa Romeo, and if I'm not mistaken, someone from Ferrari went into creating Alfa Romeo. This T-33 Daytona (or whatever it's called) would look and sound very good to GT4 from Alfa Romeo. I'm pretty sure that Museum Mode and whatever else PD can provide will help us better understand HOW the cars came about instead of just knowing what they are off the bat. If I wanted to buy a new model Mini Cooper in the game, I'd at least want to know how far it came to be such a cult car. If I wanted a Civic to race a Civic cup, I'd want to know what the car really provides apart from it being a tuner favorite. If I wanted a Corvette, I want to know how this car can kick ass almost anywhere and almost anyone. Bring on all the names! Henry Ford. Steve Saleen. Enzo Ferrari. Ferdinand Porsche. Bruce McLaren. The Dodge brothers. Don't forget some racing-only makes.

We have to find out how to make celebrating automotive history fun rather than just throwing it out at us. And I agree with Eagle. We need to have Australia represented more. So how do we achieve this feat if we all worked for PD? Reply now.
 
If it's primarily racing history, I can think of a number of specific historical races that they could implement. Imagine reliving the moments of great racers through history, driving the cars they were driving against their opponents as they were tuned - particularly when they were dramatically overclassed. I wouldn't mind a whole "historical series," grabbing a series key races from eras all the way back to the early 1900's - across all types of racing. Days when Sir Stirling Moss ruled the roads, or Dusenberg was the name to beat.

While each race would offer a tiny glimpse into the world of racing at the period it is set, there might be some way to offer a continuity between races - certain drivers appear more than once, or derivative car models a few years after...that might also reduce the burden on the team in researching and receating all these settings. Particularly on the very old tracks - how appropriate is it to bring out a shiny new McLaren to some of the old hillclimbs in Asia, or tight dirt tracks in England or Germany, or old rallys across Africa? It's a limited subset of cars than you can run on those tracks.

Also, Japan has had a much shorter racing history. For a game so Japan-centric, it's a big step to go modeling a large number of old tracks and cars from across (mostly) Europe.
 
So would you consider more attention to Europe an asset to the GT series, Wyndarin?
 
wyndairn
Also, Japan has had a much shorter racing history. For a game so Japan-centric, it's a big step to go modeling a large number of old tracks and cars from across (mostly) Europe.
Click to expand...

Honda won its first ever GP in the early 1960's, Toyota had Sportscars/Can-Am racers in the late 60s' I belive Yamaha even bought a brand-new GT40 in the late 60's when they concidered sportscar racing.
 
JohnBM01
So would you consider more attention to Europe an asset to the GT series, Wyndarin?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. However, I don't think it would be the primary asset.

I think one of the best things about the GT series in my opinion is the attention that gets paid to recognizing the whole heritage of a car company, rather than simply whatever the newest hottest model is. I know it annoys the piss out of some people, but I really like that they took the time to really get the details right in every Skyline and Lancer. For those fans, GT is like a dream come true. This is pure speculation, but I would imagine that a lot of the frustration people express at "Too many damn Lancers!" isn't so much frustration at there being a lot of cars, but more that their own favorite car brand isn't getting the same treatment.

My feeling is that if they are going to do some historical races, they need to do them right. That means at least 6 historical cars for each race. For a series of 10 races, that's about 60 cars right there. Plus, if they're going to do single race cars, I'd like to see some of other cars (road version or otherwise) that those race cars are based on. Suddenly that's like 100-120 cars. Obviously some of these many already be modelled (GT40, Lancia Stratos, etc), but that's what estimates are for. We may be getting spoiled with 500+ cars in GT4, but that's still a big effort. But if they're going to bring in these cars, I'd like to see it done full on, rather than simply a few single cars here and there. People would take them to the track once, say gee, that was slow, and never go back to that section again. If they're going to make history fun, you need a little more variety.

So when it comes down to making a choice in development time - I would love to see more attention on Europe and historical vehicles. But I would want it done right, and that means a lot of time away from other aspects of the game. There's still so many aspects of Japanese car history that I think are going to get priority. Besides, for historical racing, there are other race sim options (albeit somewhat limited ones.) There aren't really many other games that are taking such an in-depth look at particular car companies, and I hope they continue that trend brand by brand until we see as many 911's and 3 Series' and we do Lancers :)
 
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