Yoshida (Sony Japan) - "It’s going to take a few years for PD next Project"

[Endless-Wilso]

all the maintenance going down soon suports the fact there really working on the game i mean its ALOT of down time scheduled.

 

[DLR]

GT5 is meant to be a SIMULATOR not a fun arcade game. "OH I don't like the Career mode, they need more events, I hate the standard cars, blah blah blah".

You buy GT5 to come as close to reality as possible without stepping in a cockpit of a real car. If you buy it just to have fun, then you made the wrong choice. Forza is a more "fun" game where it is more appealing to the average gamer than to the hardcore racing simulator. It is also cheaper than iRacing with almost identical results.

 

[Spagetti69]

GT5 is meant to be a SIMULATOR not a fun arcade game. "OH I don't like the Career mode, they need more events, I hate the standard cars, blah blah blah".

You buy GT5 to come as close to reality as possible without stepping in a cockpit of a real car. If you buy it just to have fun, then you made the wrong choice. Forza is a more "fun" game where it is more appealing to the average gamer than to the hardcore racing simulator. It is also cheaper than iRacing with almost identical results.

Are you saying Forza or GT is close to iracing.

I don't agree with if you bought the game for fun you made the wrong choice.

Why is GT not fun. That's purely subjective to the individual.

 

[jjaisli]

It is also cheaper than iRacing with almost identical results.

We have a different definition of almost identical. See my sig.

 

[Tenacious D]

But some developers DO communicate with fans through an open and OFFICAL porthole. And the communities are better for it. Because you can point to others who don't, does that make it better? No, Tenacious, it makes it WORSE! I'm always amazed how GT fans can defend the indefensible.

I'm going to open up a big can of "disagree" here, but I'm going to go through the trouble of explaining why.

I was involved in the gameplay development of a mod for the popular WW II game Battlefield 1942, called Desert Combat. It was being done by a very talented team of coders, modelers and texture artists, and improved over a number of updates to a very comprehensive game.

However...

The fan community was exploding due to the popularity of the mod, and naturally, most of the group were teens and below, most who had no clue of what warfare or realistic weapon systems were like. They complained about EVERYTHING. The firearms were too deadly. Grenades were too powerful. Missiles and tank shells shouldn't be able to be used against soldiers, just vehicles. The splash damage from A-10 rounds was way too high, or the A-10 was too deadly against tanks (DUH!). Anti-aircraft artillery shouldn't be able to shoot along the ground and kill soldiers. I shot down a helicopter with a tank round, and that day the victim got on and flamed the team for letting this possibility happen. The kids rioted, those of us with actual military experience or at least common sense tried to prevail, but the team weren't doing this for money after all, so they caved to the mobs.

The result was a game which was still fun but terribly nerfed. Western firearms were way too weak, the A-10 pretty much had to be right on target to kill a tank, and was pretty worthless against anything but vehicles, grenades would only kill you within a 10' radius, the super-accurate headshot players pretty much reduced you to standing targets... yadda yadda. Every other combat game almost made it seem like Lazer Tag.

As I recall, Supercar Challenge was a major disappointment to many of the FC fans, in spite of a pretty solid user community tended to by a few in the dev team. How did all that community involvement work out?

How about Forza, a game which is muscle car, supercar and race car heavy? And that's too easy to drift in? How about the reaction to Forza 2, when the team gushed about promised features that were quietly stripped away, one by one? Or Forza 3, with the same 8 car races off- as well as online, as well as an online system that's weaker than its predecessor? Will Forza 4 be more realistic? Will it have a GT-like improvement in a wider range of sports cars? All the online features asked for for six years? Maybe, but who knows?

And as for this:

If he didn't, we wouldn't get any information at all.

So what?

Let me play out a scenario for you.

1. Kaz tweets everything they're doing. Not all of it sits well with the fans. They riot.

2. Kaz tweets bits and hints. Not all of it sits well with the fans. They riot.

So what's the difference here? I'll tell you in one that the kids with no patience - apparently a big number of posters around here - will wage war to have their way if they know what is and isn't coming. When they don't know what's coming, some of them just post wishes or just race while they wait for news. Kind of like most of us do.

Let me tell you something else. Sometimes developments have to be kept secret because of game changing developments. I learned back in 2006 on the Playstation boards that SONY Japan killed an SCEA development for the online network. It had support for game servers, trophies, VOIP and a number of other features roughly like XBox Live. When I learned of this, I posted a pretty heated rant about it, saying that SCEJ was way too parochial, and treated the rest of the world like barbarians that were only good for spending money on their products.

Much later, I learned about a few key developments like Home and other features of the PSN which may have not worked well with the system SCEA had made.

I know we're all disappointed over a lot of the things wrong with GT5. But do you honestly think that if we could know about all of this ahead of time that we could tell Kaz, "Heck NO," and get him to change his mind? I can tell you right now that you're dreaming if you think so. And that I'd be fighting like mad for those Standard Cars to be included that so many of you puke at.

And I could go on with a few other tangents, but this is enough for me to disagree with you open society folk. Even with GT5 being the weird game it is, I'd MUCH rather have it than a game designed by a committee of a million kids. You can play Forza for that.

Are you saying Forza or GT is close to iracing.

I'm going to say that GT5 is, in the physics. I'm much more satisfied with a few niggling handling differences which are so minor people still debate them, while not spending as much as $200 a year to rent. But hey, if you disagree and like blowing money like that, it's a free planet.

 

[shurnster]

@Tenacious D

Well said 👍

 

[trk29]

Gran Turismo is mosly a single-player experience.

This used to be the case but now with online and A-spec lacking (except the seasonals) GT5 is pretty much a online game now.

 

[jjaisli]

I'm going to open up a big can of "disagree" here, but I'm going to go through the trouble of explaining why.

I appreciate that.

The result was a game which was still fun but terribly nerfed. Western firearms were way too weak, the A-10 pretty much had to be right on target to kill a tank, and was pretty worthless against anything but vehicles, grenades would only kill you within a 10' radius, the super-accurate headshot players pretty much reduced you to standing targets... yadda yadda. Every other combat game almost made it seem like Lazer Tag.

I don't play FPS games so I will only comment as follows. One could argue, in the scenario you described, that the 'community' got exactly what it wanted. Perhaps it's not what you wanted but the developer listened to what some of the more vocal members were clamoring for. For better or worse. But I'm not saying that PD, or any developer has to take EVERY suggestion the community makes and implement it. Some of the ideas may be counter to goals they're trying to achieve. But if PD would, for example, actively scan the Feedback section on GTP and give priority to the top 10 or 15 items on the list, I'm guessing it would make a lot more people in the community happier than they were with new helmets or nomex suits.

The relationship between the publisher, the developer and the community is sometimes a bit obscure and complex. They all have different goals and ideas. But in the end, the publisher isn't out there to make a game. They're there for the same reason any (for profit) company exists. To make money. And Sony knows in order for GT as a series to survive and earn a profit, it has to be all things to all people. It can't just appeal to hard core fans. It has to appeal to casual gamers, car enthusiasts, anybody who even remotely likes cars. So between Sony and PD, they have certain criteria, certain guidelines that they're going to follow, regardless of what a few vocal community members want. But it's about choices. About options. About improving things without it affecting others, who don't necessarily care about those features, in a negative way.

As I recall, Supercar Challenge was a major disappointment to many of the FC fans, in spite of a pretty solid user community tended to by a few in the dev team. How did all that community involvement work out?

Supercar Challenge WAS a disappointment to many FC fans but not for a lack of trying or community interaction on the part of Eutechnyx. I don't want to go into too many details, but let's just say, the scope of what System 3 wanted for SCC (or to put it blatantly, what S3 were willing or able to pay) changed drastically during the development phase. As a result, the project was scaled back considerably. But I can tell you this. I was heavily involved in the Beta development for SCC and Eutechnyx DID really listen. They took a lot of ideas from people and put them in the game--everything from the feel of the FFB to the way certain messages appear at certain times. Lot's of little things that made the game better. As beta testers, we didn't just look for bugs. We came up with suggestions to make the game better and SCC was a better game for our efforts. And that process continued for several patches after the game was released. Changes to the car setups, changes to the prediction code, changes to the livery editor, were all made and implemented from suggestions made by the community. Unfortunately, that kind of community interaction still can't overcome missing development money and many large scale, under the skin features which were initially envisioned for SCC never made it.

Let me play out a scenario for you.

1. Kaz tweets everything they're doing. Not all of it sits well with the fans. They riot.

2. Kaz tweets bits and hints. Not all of it sits well with the fans. They riot.

So what's the difference here?

The difference is, sending out tweets is not the way Sony or PD should be reaching out to fans. Or at least let's say, not the ONLY way. They should have a community section and forum on their website with a feedback section and a few community managers to monitor, respond and interact with the community. I'm not saying they have to publish a road map to GT6. Obviously. But one thing is very clear, a lot of fans on this site were very disappointed with GT5. For a variety of reasons. And PD need to start listening and figuring out why. For the record, I wasn't. I think GT5 is a pretty decent game for my needs and with the right group of people, all aids off, it makes for a fairly decent simulator, with just a few unfortunate inconsistencies and glitches that could be improved.

I know we're all disappointed over a lot of the things wrong with GT5. But do you honestly think that if we could know about all of this ahead of time that we could tell Kaz, "Heck NO," and get him to change his mind? I can tell you right now that you're dreaming if you think so. And that I'd be fighting like mad for those Standard Cars to be included that so many of you puke at.

Fighting FOR standard cars? Well, that's just because you're loony. Can I tell you what I'd lobby for if I had a more direct gateway to PD? Sure I'd like more premium cars and more tracks like everybody else in the world. I'm sure PD knows that. But I'd ask for an additional tick box in on-line lobbies to turn off ABS. I'd ask for another tick box to tone the slip stream down to realistic levels instead of the wormhole vacuum it currently is. I'd ask for (and this might be a big one) to adjust tire wear and make it more realistic. That Racing Softs shouldn't last as long as Racing Hard, and Sports Softs shouldn't wear out after 5~6 Laps of La Sarthe when real life LMP cars are doing triple stints. These are small things, minor things, that the 'average' GT player probably doesn't even think about. But to me, and the people I play with, they make a huge difference. At least two of them probably wouldn't take a heck of a lot of work to fix. But to the more hard-core sim racing crowd, they're game breakers. But PD probably doesn't even know somebody like me wants these kind of options. And because I don't speak Japanese and can't tweet him, he'll never know it. I'm sure there are countless other tweaks that would make a big difference to many people out there and would go a long way to making this game better. How how increasing the text characters in describing on-line lobbies, in order to give them more realistic descriptions? How about being able to see what aids are or aren't allowed in lobbies before joining? How about PD just giving us a general update on what they're planning to do with active leaderboards? I'm sure many people would like to know. And small things like these would go a long way in bringing PD closer to it's community.

And I could go on with a few other tangents, but this is enough for me to disagree with you open society folk. Even with GT5 being the weird game it is, I'd MUCH rather have it than a game designed by a committee of a million kids.

It's not about designing the game by committee. That's an extreme example. It's about giving the community what they want. I could care less about in-game saves. And I won't bother with endurance races until GT features half way decent AI, and strict PP rules, neither of which is unlikely to happen. But obviously the GTP community wants this feature as it's no 1 on the Feedback list. It's something like that should have been a priority for PD. We know they're working on it. Or at least Kaz claims they are through tweets. But wouldn't it be better if this was on PD's official site as a sticky?
Features we're working on for the next or future patch:
1 XXX
2 XXX
3 XXX
It's not a lot to ask for. Tenacious, as a business owner, I can tell you from first hand experience, if you don't listen to your customers, you might as well close your doors. Sometimes customers have unrealistic or unreasonable requests. But you have to listen to them, even if it's not always possible to give them what they want. And some of the things we do, some of the promotions we run, I think are absolutely ridiculous. But if it's what people want, and ultimately, as a business, we survive by servicing our customers, that's what we do.

PD and Sony don't, because quite frankly, they're stuck in the past.

 

[Tenacious D]

jjaisli, I'm not sure what exactly you're trying to say. But if you're saying that PD doesn't take ANY ideas from the world at large, you're just ignoring a bunch of details. And the history of GT5 anticipation here on the boards. And from way back in 2005! We asked for - AND got:

• Damage - a source of considerable delay.
• A thousand cars - and one brave soul predicted this very thing.
• The most detailed and prettiest cars in VG racing - okay, Premiums, but I couldn't care less about the harfing over the Standards. Most of my cars by far are Standards.
• Most of the classic tracks from the Gran Turismo stable. Yes, we wanted all of them, but oh well.
• Improved online, and still being developed.
• Weather.
• Time of day changes.
• 3D - well... okay, mostly that was a SONY insistence, but so what.
• Look at the patch lists and Online Seasonals: numerous requests made by fans.

And clearly, further updates are coming. Why, because PD changed their minds that the game was complete?

I know it's kind of an urban myth that people in Polyphony don't even look at these boards. But it has been mentioned by one or two mods/admins that they do indeed monitor what the community is yacking about. Why do you think that Kazunori-sensei went from "GT5 will be a complete game and won't need DLC" to "DLC will be coming"?

I often feel like I'm in an alternate universe from some of you, but which allows communication between dimensions.

Fighting FOR standard cars? Well, that's just because you're loony.

Says the guy who's happy over a game with only 15 Ferraris or so.

 

[Spagetti69]

I often feel like I'm in an alternate universe from some of you, but which allows communication between dimensions.

Agreed.