askia47
SaintKamus..would you consider yourself a hardcore gamer? Nice essay there though. However, remember the GT series has to appeal to Casual Gamers too, and photo mode could shed some new light on the series a new perspective in a way.
well, i don't know if i would fit the "hardcore" tag. but i can't say i don't play games a lot.
but latley i haven't been playing racing games seriously (got addicted to warcraft 3 and then war3 TFT wich i played for a long time... just quit like 2 months ago, and i don't even know if i'll comeback to it, played war2 and SC/BW for YEARS i'd say pretty hardcore.)
i used to like arcade games over sims as a kid (sims weren't good enough then, and well, i was a kid.. didn't know how to drive)
but that was a LONG time ago, i perfectly understand that the GT series has to appeal to casual gamers, but it shouln't be at the cost of the simulation's barebones.
here's how i think sims should handle arcade mode (oddly enough, i think first person shooters should be the same).
i think that _BEFORE_ making the game they have to get the physics right, as much as they can, and THEN they can start dumbing it down for casual gamers adding aids, but NOT the other way around (making an arcady game, then trying to somehow turn it into a sim).
get your physics right, then add the fantasy element, heck, if they do that even the arcade mode would be more fun than an arcade from the ground up.
if the game is developed from the ground up with accurate physics they have a sim right from the start and then all they have to do is how to keep the drivers from screwing up so much for the arcade mode.
i think that that's the main reason why the GT series haven't been real enough, GT1 was developed with a control pad in mind, no wheel at all, and well, a VERY underpowered system, GT2 was redone, but again, for an underpowered system, no wheel. GT3 had lots of it's predecesors technology so PD wouln't have to develop a brand new engine from the start, but they made significant improvements, GT4P was about the same, significant improvements over GT3 here and there, but still felt a lot like a previous GT game.
so *if* the new engine is all people who have played it say it is, we just might have a winner, even if it doesn't surpass other sims in all areas, just because of the wide selection of vehicles and tracks, and just as important to me as those features is:
online play, i really don't care much about photo mode if they don't get online play right, there are a few ways they can do it, hopefully some of my suggestions have allready made it to the game:
- an option for true head to head racing, available for those with pings below 50 MS, anything more would probably be chaos (well, they could have this mode available for people with lag, but with a huge warning about how it would affect the game) the warning and all those things would be so it wouln't ruin the "GT experience" wich GT's director voiced so many concerns about (you know, he said he wouln't even add online if it didn't played like he wanted, because it would ruin the experience.
- then there's the option that would allow for 100% lag free races, the "ghost" race, F355 challenge for the DC had it and it was a blast, but PD can take it one step fruther, instead of just running by yourself like in F355 challenge and then wait for the replay with all players in them, they could add a "live ghost" feature so that when you're racing you can see the players at the same time (just not be able to crash with them at all) and not just in the replay, to keep the "ghost" kind of up do date regardless of ping they could add various checkpoints around the track, and at each check point the ghost gets updated so the ghost doesn't suffer that bad from lag and y ou can watch a consistent race, and then when the replay comes all the race data gets uploaded from each player to each player's PS2 and voila, you have a completley lag free race in the replay.
while this option isn't as good as the first, it's the more realistic one on the real world because of latency issues, and if they add the "realtime ghosts".
just so there isn't any confusion about what the "various checkpoints" around the track are for, they would be to keep the "stream" of the race up do date (yes, it would be a stream instead of sending info back and forth for each car) so you have a stream of about 20 seconds at each checkpoint, the end result would probably look pretty good.
with that last mode YM's concerns about affecting the "GT feel" of the game would be put to rest. and the first mode (full blown racing mode) would probably only be played by people around the same area with very little latency (anywhere from 10 to 50 MS).
now, at first it may not seem that the second mode is much fun (for one thing you wouln't have to worry about hitting your oponent if you don't slam the brakes in time) but it actually WOULD be fun because the sight of someone overtaking you would make you want to push the car harder, and even make you do a mistake while you're at it.
sadly, very little is known about GT4 online mode, and that has me concerned, (specially after viewing a YM (am i getting YM right? whats his name again?) interview where he said online racing wasn't really the focus of GT4, but more like "online chatting" (!!). )
you'd think that at this point they would've announced how GT4 online will be like.
lets hope it's not one of the weak areas of the game.
I think the simracers mean SUPER hardcore carhandling too. 
