Race Invitations

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnBM01
  • 21 comments
  • 806 views
JohnBM01

JohnBM01

21 years!
In Memoriam
Messages
26,911
United States
Houston, Texas, USA
Messages
JMarine25
Granted you have a car, a license, and competitive spirit, you can go to any race and try to get the gold. But in order to make it to 100%, you have to complete EVERY RACE including special invites. I learned that you had to be INVITED to Le Mans in order to race, courtesy of Speed Channel's Bob Varsha. You had to be invited in order to compete to become American Idol (congratulations to the winners of this hit American series). And in college football, you had to be some of the top schools in the nation to play in a BCS Bowl Game. Of course, I'll be watching as many bowl games as possible, from the GMAC Bowl to the Orange Bowl (or if GT4 wanted to promote GT4 in here in Houston, it would be the "Gran Turismo 4 Houston Bowl" or even the "Polyphony Digital Houston Bowl").

(clears throat) anyhow... would you like to be INVITED to some races, race series, and endurances rather than just pick a race? In some ways, race events like the races in GT2 where the cars you can race with have to be unlocked (for example, the TVR Tuscan Speed 6) are basically invites. And you can mod the car for whatever you like. But you had to race it stock first, then the racing mod to complete it.

So do you think race invitiations would work well for GT4? Do you have any suggestions for any race invitations? How do you make things interesting with invitations? Reply now.
 
John, this "Invited Race" theme is a good idea.Only do you mean in the natural flow of sim mode or online? If I'ts the latter then invitations should only be optioned to people who race fairly and sencibly.
 
P510, before my ****ing computer crashed in trying to type up stuff, I wanted to make it for Sim Mode, but online play with it should be exciting. I'm not expecting the PS2 to knock off the PCs (meaning, standard PCs and the XBOX), but PS2 game players can make excitement happen. Or maybe PD oversees your progress online and invites you to a SCEA-sponsored or sanctioned event. So for both Sim and Online.

You like? Think about it: All Mini series, Kei Challenge, Viper Festival of Speed, Type R Challenge, American Muscle Challenge, Girls' Night Out (all-female GT race), Toyota GT-One Fan Club, Suzuki Escudo Own-Fest, Impreza Cup... so many combinations, so many races, pick and choose to your liking, P510. ANYTHING can happen.
 
I think it is a interesting idea and would like to see it implemented into GT4 in some way.

I havent heard a original idea like this for quite awhile.
 
Yes perhaps if Sony's servers detect that someone is using a certain type of car alot (say a Ford GT) and winning plenty of races - they could be 'emailed' an invitation only race at a certain track against other hand-picked Ford GT fan opponents? These races could become an officially sanctioned 'Elite' league, that hundreds or thousands of online spectators flock to watch - knowing they'll be treated to quality races not just demolition derby's.
 
too bad you had to clutter up a great idea with nonsense about college bowl games ;) (and don't even get me started on how the BCS poll system and bowls in general are a complete waste of time).

Anyway, as for GT this is great not only for online (i liked Crackers expansion on this), but i like the concept for sim mode too... eg, win 10 races in a row, get invited to participate in a special series or special one off race with bigger $ and better prize cars.
 
Great idea John, I'm sure Sony/PD are going to make something like this for online mode. Didn't they say that they were going to set up tournaments and servers? Why not do this...
Putting % in Online Mode can be tricky though.. Lag problem (if there are any), cheating opponents (n00bs), etc...
 
Invites: good idea. That's much better than just having a lobby system where anyone can join your game. But it would have to be super clean and effecient. I would want to be able to be playing an offline game and have a small text show up near the edge of the screen, "You have a race invitation". Press pause and there would be an option to join the race.

Also, standing invitations sort of like a buddy list. And also, invitations for a future time / day would be good. And have the game automatically connect to the race when it's ready to start. That way you can continue doing whatever it is you're doing until everyone else is ready.
 
I think it would be neat to do. But if you have races that are unlisted and you only find out about them when you're invited, it could get frustrating to get 100%.

Also, I think invitational races should only be offered at periodic intervals. Like, every 30 game days or so, it invites you if you meet some criteria, instead of just being invited as soon as you hit that criteria. Then the race itself should happen at a certain game date in the future, so you have to plan out what other races to do.

Another idea I had about race entry stuff is that some races should have entry fees.
 
In sim mode, I'm afraid I don't really see the big difference between "invitations" and "unlocking." Call it what you will, and maybe even make the unlock criteria "good driving" or some other sort of qualitative measure...but it just ends up being a different set of goals to reach to get that next car or next track or a few percent closer to 100. Even the worst drivers would eventually figure out what it takes to jump through those hoops and do so.

As an online feature, though, I really like the idea of only selecting certain drivers with excellent online track records to compete. And they can be promoted like crazy...and hopefully drive people to actually take an interest in their online reputation.

I would also sort of like the invite system to only look at certain official races. If my friends came over and we just bumped around the track for fun (anyone who's play Cat & Mouse in PGR2 knows how fun that can be :)) I wouldn't want that to impact my "official" record.
 
How about the person hosting the race series sends out the invites to whoever he wants, as for singleplayer sim mode it would be cool if there were some special races you glot invited into like a DTM v GT500 race once you won a DTM cup and/or JGTC GT500 cup enough times you got invited to that special race or series.
 
The races in GT3 were invitation only from PD in 3 steps.
1st step. Buy the PS2.
2nd step. Buy GT3.
3rd step. Pass the license test to enter the race.

Edit: Has Sony or PD representitive ever announced that online play will support the simulation mode?
IMO online will just be a place to race an arcade style race.
 
This sort of thing has already been done in DTM/TOCA/V8 Supercar Race Driver but i think its a good idea.
 
Uncle Harry
Has Sony or PD representitive ever announced that online play will support the simulation mode?
IMO online will just be a place to race an arcade style race.
Click to expand...
KY said he want's everything in the GT Universe (the new name for the sim mode) to be online, however at E3 he did say that was a little to amitiouse, but he's aiming for it to be as close as possible.
 
Uh not necessarily, it's not completion based, more car based, but I don't think we're gonna be short on people with similar completion levels anyway.
 
Eagle, how is it a cheap way to induce a career ideal? I mean, I think it's a great idea to be invited to races. Invitations can also mean on-the-side racing. For example, look at NASCAR. When "Mr. Excitement" Jimmy Spencer p*ssies out of a road course race, he seeks road racing talent like Ron Fellows or Boris Said to race his NASCAR ride. I mean, invitations are simple. Someone notes your progress, takes a look at your talent, and if you're good, you get the better races. If not, you get the cheaper, privateer-type races. My only question about my only question is, how do you make this effective without trying to make this a rags-to-riches, storyline-based racing game? I mean, I know it's been done before, Mustang-man. So that's why I'm bringing this up for GT4. As much as we know about GT4, we often like to do one of the following, a) speculate on gameplay, b) compare other gameplay styles with Gran Turismo, c) investigate concepts from other games and apply it to an upcoming GT, and/or d) examine a game in the works and consider what else could be done to make the game in progress a standout. And since being a member of GTPlanet, I've done just that. I may have came up with some newbie responses and threads (though I was different), I think my first GT4 thread was called "For GT4, I Predict...," and I basically examined what I thought GT4 would be like. Then I came up with consideration threads, a special investigation of if PD can learn something from Codemasters, and now I'm basically coming up with as many ideas as possible. After all, GT4 can be ANYTHING, so I want to try to examine as many scenarios and situations as possible. And I hope I could be of entertainment. I enjoy being here. Great people and wonderful commentary. I think invitations can pretty much be a fun and interesting feature to add to GT4. But nevermind my views, what do YOU think?
 
As a said before PD is using the license tests to determine what races the player is ready for. If you wish John you can call it a fancy name, but it is allready there, I can not see the need to add further invitational events to the current structure of GT games.
The system works well as it is.
I suggested a career path style of game play starting with go karts a while back and was promptly told it was not going to happen.
I think maybe PD could introduce a career path game based on GT4 to further enhance sales. This mode would probably be a good option to use the invitation style racing you are suggesting.
 
even if this isn't incorporated ingame, why couldn't a bunch of GTPers create an invitational series for online?

invite only the hardcore that can be trusted to actually race and not play bumper cars and have different classes and tournaments within the invitational
 
It's called the Weekly Race Series dude, I'm sure most of the same crowd will transfer over to whatever we set up for GT4.

John, you got me wrong, I wasn't against the idea at all, I was just saying, it's a cheap way to implement a 'career' model because it makes you feel like you're realistically progressing along in a career, but it's cheap from a programming/disc space perspective - it doesn't cost a lot to add it.
 

Latest Posts

Back