Why even Australia?

[Emmcee]

I must say I like this game but I feel it could've been done so much better with the Australian landscape. I live literally 5 mins from surfers paradise and there is nothing recognisable land mark wise in its proper position. Even the road on the water front allows you to plough through surfers at 200+kph which in reali life is a crawl at times due to low speed limit and one lane roads. insuprised the local council here hasn't used this game as an excuse as to why car enthusiasts are consistantly harassed by law enforcement.

 

[Luminis]

The game wouldn't be quite as fun if it was enforcing a 30kph speed limit on the player, would it?

 

[Emmcee]

No but it would be more fun if they actually used the real roads and not just say it's in surfers but then totally redesign the streets to suit the game. That part massively dissapionted me, the fact that we finally have a game based in Australia and they couldn't even do it right. Still can't get over the fact it's only 11km from Byron bay to surfers and takes 5 mins to get there instead of over an hr and 100km distance. I realise they have to scale it down but the way they did it could've been done a lot better IMO.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

The game was never, ever advertised as having an accurate recreation of Surfers, much less all of Australia. Want complete accuracy? The map would've been much smaller.

Every Horizon game has re-imagined the setting it uses. The series majors on light-hearted fun and automotive escapism with a slightly more realistic physics engine than your average arcade racer. It's never really been billed as a traffic and speed limit simulator.

 

[Andrew R]

Yeah I think you're expecting way too much. I live on the Gold Coast too, I see enough similarities that it's entertaining but I never expected a scale model. The drive to Byron sucks in real life, sure would be tedious in a video game.

 

[Emmcee]

I realise that but when it comes to specific sites and landmarks like this, it should be as close as possible. I understand having an accurate map would make the game map much smaller but Iam fine with it how it is just when it comes to areas like the esplanade and cavill mall, the road and map should be bang on, same with Byron. Iam sure that could've been done better and blended into what they have now, know what I mean? I think the main focus though is to allow you to keep racing through the heart of surfers, because the one lane either way would kill the racing I suppose.

 

[mustafur]

Horizon maps are way too small and always have been.

 

[Luminis]

No but it would be more fun if they actually used the real roads

That I'll contest.

Granted, I'm not an Australian, but I'd rather they're bending reality to fit the gameplay and allow for fun races rather than go for accuracy. Taking my hometown as an example, we've got two or three roads at best that'd make for good racing. Not very compelling for a racing game.

 

[Emmcee]

That I'll contest.

Granted, I'm not an Australian, but I'd rather they're bending reality to fit the gameplay and allow for fun races rather than go for accuracy. Taking my hometown as an example, we've got two or three roads at best that'd make for good racing. Not very compelling for a racing game.

Well that's what street racing is about isn't it not? Racing on streets or similar type roads. If you want fast flowing bends do a race around spa on project cars.

 

[MeanElf]

I think a few of you here have focused upon the wrong part of the OP's comments - a traffic-flow simulator isn't what the problem is, but the lack of using real road layouts. Sure for the sake of the story the amount of pedestrians would need to change but there's nothing wrong with having at least a recognisable road layout, even scaled to suit - otherwise it might as well be set in Narnia.

 

[Imari]

I realise that but when it comes to specific sites and landmarks like this, it should be as close as possible.

Why? This isn't a super accurate simulation. The idea is to give you the most fun for your buck, not to be the real driving-for-ten-hours-in-a-straight-line-Sydney-to-Melbourne simulator.

 

[yabiggoose]

What really gives me the Brad Pitt's is that on the Great Ocean Road they show this fancy bridge. Which is NOWHERE near the GOR. As this shows.

 

[Brend]

I could be wrong, but the whole point of Horizon 3 is Australia by name but not necessarily by nature. We have all the components that make it a great place for racing and messing around without all the kinks realistic aspects would add.

Racing games for as long as I can remember have used techniques like this, Total Drivin' on PS1 supposedly had a 'Scotland' circuit. Aside from a misplaced Edinburgh Castle it was totally fictional. Not that it bothered me; I was just happy to see anything 'Scotland' in a game. Exact same with Driveclub, despite some vaguely similar roads existing, it didn't exactly represent Scotland in any way but having the locale in it's stereotypical form was appreciated.

 

[turbofozz]

Even though the map isn't 100% accurate I still think that it is a beautiful representation of our country, playground have done a great job showing how diverse Australia really is. Parts of Surfers paradise feel like surfers paradise and so do parts of Byron bay and just knowing the whole world is bashing their way around "Australia" puts a little smile on this Aussies face.

 

[UKMikey]

I think a few of you here have focused upon the wrong part of the OP's comments - a traffic-flow simulator isn't what the problem is, but the lack of using real road layouts. Sure for the sake of the story the amount of pedestrians would need to change but there's nothing wrong with having at least a recognisable road layout, even scaled to suit - otherwise it might as well be set in Narnia.

I'd be all for setting the next game in Narnia provided we can use Aslan as one of the Drivatars. The roads had better be accurate though. They could call it FH: Prince Caspian Edition.

Seriously, I don't understand as it looks like Playground didn't want to risk breaking the fun in this game for the sake of semi-accurate geography which'd be lost on the vast majority of its players. For some reason Australians seem to be more sore about the map than Coloradans and Europeans though.

http://stevivor.com/2016/09/forza-h...ection-explained-by-art-director-ben-penrose/

 

[Imari]

Seriously, I don't understand it looks like Playground didn't want to risk breaking the fun in this game for the sake of semi-accurate geography which'd be lost on the vast majority of its players.

If it was accurate it wouldn't be any fun. All the best bits of Australia are miles and miles away from each other. Usually connected by dead straight roads in the middle of nowhere.

Playground did the only sensible thing and cut out the boring bits, which left the exciting bits inaccurately close to each other.

 

[ClydeYellow]

<...>due to low speed limit

You know, the speed limit signs scattered around Surfers Paradise would be quite accurate. Problem is when you only know they're here because you're tapping them while drifting at >180kph. You could do that IRL too, I guess, if you didn't care about a) the very high probability of dying in a fiery crash and b) the inevitability of a very hefty fine / jail time (I don't know much about Australian laws on the matter, to be honest).

The map's supposed to convey the general feel of the location, not to be a topologically accurate representation. Because as beautiful as it may be, I doubt Australia has such diversity of landscapes and variety of landmarks in an area of the size of Horizon 3's world.

 

[UKMikey]

If it was accurate it wouldn't be any fun. All the best bits of Australia are miles and miles away from each other. Usually connected by dead straight roads in the middle of nowhere.

Playground did the only sensible thing and cut out the boring bits, which left the exciting bits inaccurately close to each other.

Yes. This is pretty much what the link in my post said.

 

[Emmcee]

All make some very good points, don't get me wrong, Iam having a blast with it, nice break from full on sims like AC,PC and f1 2016, I would've just "liked" it to represent the locations as accurate as possible. I was going with this frame of mind until I went past Cavill Mall and then it did it for me, felt like I was just playing a better looking "v8 Supercars 2" on ps2 doing the surfers track. But like I said, Iam enjoying the game far more to really make this point distroy the experience for me. One thing I wish was there was the ability to change exhaust tips.

 

[SPhilli911]

I felt the same way about Oahu in Test Drive Unlimited. I went to Oahu after playing the game and was sad so see inaccuracies. In fact, funny story, you cannot loop the whole island in real life, there is no road at the North-west end by the airport like there is in the game. A fact that got my brother and I lost.

I've driven enough in real life Australia to know that a lot of it is boring roads. Would be cool to see accuracy, but it just wouldn't be so fun. For example, there is no way you can get down to the beach at 12 Apostles in real life, it's all sheer cliff drops for miles, but you can fly right off the cliff in the game and crash right into the formations if you want. And I wanted to!

 

[Boffin]

I realise that but when it comes to specific sites and landmarks like this, it should be as close as possible. I understand having an accurate map would make the game map much smaller but Iam fine with it how it is just when it comes to areas like the esplanade and cavill mall, the road and map should be bang on, same with Byron. Iam sure that could've been done better and blended into what they have now, know what I mean? I think the main focus though is to allow you to keep racing through the heart of surfers, because the one lane either way would kill the racing I suppose.

Why should it be as close as possible? I'm not buying a game purely to drive down one particular street in Surfers Paradise to check if all the mailboxes line up with their real life counterparts. Keen to see how you think it could be improved?

What they have done is recreate the atmosphere of real places while constructing the actual road map and topography out of thin air, making each individual area different enough, yet accessible from all other parts of the map without a long boring drive. I live in Sydney, and while I have been to many of the 'places' on the map years and years ago, I couldn't draw the layout out on a napkin. That said, driving up the 'main road' in Horizon's 'Byron Bay' feels an awful lot like I remember, thanks to lighting, landscape and architecture. I'd say people playing in Helsinki who have never been to Australia will get enough feel for the Australian 'vibe' from the map, and I'd doubt they'd notice that its not a correct representation of the the irl locations.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I think a few of you here have focused upon the wrong part of the OP's comments - a traffic-flow simulator isn't what the problem is, but the lack of using real road layouts. Sure for the sake of the story the amount of pedestrians would need to change but there's nothing wrong with having at least a recognisable road layout, even scaled to suit - otherwise it might as well be set in Narnia.

There's also nothing wrong with the current approach. It's been this way since Horizon's inception. As others have said, it's a "Greatest Hits" approach to Australia. After driving across most of Canada for the #AcrossTheHorizon tour, I think this country would make a fantastic location for the sequel, but I fully recognize it wouldn't be very fun at a 1:1 scale.

Also, as others have said, it's not like Horizon is alone in this approach. Driveclub did the exact same thing with every one of its tracks, but — perhaps unsurprisingly — it doesn't seem to faze some people.

 

[05XR8]

Is Rio in FM6 accurate? I think particular sections of the map could be accurate. Is the actual (V8)Supercars circuit able to be recreated? If not, that's a missed opportunity.

As the OP mentioned. Not all, but some landmark streets could be recreated. They put in The Great Ocean Road and The Twelve Apostles. Is at least one simulated real world street too much for this particular game?

 

[Emmcee]

Is Rio in FM6 accurate? I think particular sections of the map could be accurate. Is the actual (V8)Supercars circuit able to be recreated? If not, that's a missed opportunity.

As the OP mentioned. Not all, but some landmark streets could be recreated. They put in The Great Ocean Road and The Twelve Apostles. Is at least one simulated real world street too much for this particular game?

That's exactly what I mean, places like the actual heart of surfers paradise, the roads there should be accurate as same as the main section and light house at Byron bay. Everything in between can be blended just exactly the same as its done now. The 12 apostles are not located between surfers and Byron, things like this I dont like
About the game but that's my opinion. Someone posted that they didn't buy this game for the "accurate" reason, but I did and after how stagnant I though horizon 2 was, I wasn't in any rush to buy 3. But the Australian theme and the fact you could drive through surfers sold me. The immediate impression I got was it would be pretty accurate I didn't think about it and go "as long as they use the name, that's fine". So Iam dissapionted because obviously I expected something different to other players, but Iam only dissapionted at this aspect, the game itself is awesome and much better than 2. But still lacks that feeling games like PC and f1 have given me so far and that's having to play them every chance I get. FH3 isn't like that for me but all in all I find it a very nice and enjoyable game indeed.

 

[ImaRobot]

Has there been a game that has accurately recreated a city, end-to-end, 100 accurate? I can't think of any off the top of my head. I would imagine that these cities would be fairly large in real life, so it would be hard to even get a city accurately made in the process.

 

[05XR8]

Has there been a game that has accurately recreated a city, end-to-end, 100 accurate? I can't think of any off the top of my head. I would imagine that these cities would be fairly large in real life, so it would be hard to even get a city accurately made in the process.

FH3 needn't be all accurate. There are two Supercars in the game. I at least, thought with Surfers Paradise in the game, there would be an accurate layout for the circuit. I don't have the game yet. Seems like it can't be recreated as an event due to its inaccuracy mentioned in the OP. THAT'S the missed opportunity for that particular area.

 

[Andrew R]

Surfers is a horrible place to drive at the best of times anyway. I think it would detract from the game having a big block of basically un- drivable, yet accurate streets.

 

[Oso Actual]

Odd conversation to have when I just jumped my Koenigsegg, rally lifted, 650 ft.....beating my old record by 75ft.

 

[MeanElf]

There's also nothing wrong with the current approach. It's been this way since Horizon's inception. As others have said, it's a "Greatest Hits" approach to Australia. After driving across most of Canada for the #AcrossTheHorizon tour, I think this country would make a fantastic location for the sequel, but I fully recognize it wouldn't be very fun at a 1:1 scale.

Also, as others have said, it's not like Horizon is alone in this approach. Driveclub did the exact same thing with every one of its tracks, but — perhaps unsurprisingly — it doesn't seem to faze some people.

Well, I wasn't thinking it should be 1:1 because very few games could generate maps that large.

I beg to differ concerning Driveclub it has at least recognisable sections for its locations (again, not to scale because no one really expects that.) Other than the Urban Scottish city, the locations and tracks were based on real location layouts, with some alteration. There have even been posts by users here taken from Google Earth for some of them.

 

[Northstar]

Has there been a game that has accurately recreated a city, end-to-end, 100 accurate?

TDU is probably the closest any game has been so far and it ruined it in my view. Driving became too much of a chore to the point where I would just fast travel everywhere as it took forever to get anywhere. Compare that to the Horizon games which feel plenty big but at most it's an 8 mile drive.

FH3 needn't be all accurate. There are two Supercars in the game. I at least, thought with Surfers Paradise in the game, there would be an accurate layout for the circuit. I don't have the game yet. Seems like it can't be recreated as an event due to its inaccuracy mentioned in the OP. THAT'S the missed opportunity for that particular area.

I'm guessing there are licensing issues there. Even though the roads are public the layout itself probably isn't.