The GT5 expectation thread (including preview titles)*

[Arwin]

The point about "locking" your head position is valid. It'd be too rigid to play.

However, I think Polyphony may be able to adjust the "free play zone" such that head tracking doesn't kick in until you turn your head sufficiently. The other way is to trigger a button to enable head tracking.

PD would have wasted their backseat modeling work if we cannot turn and look behind in premium cars.

There is a button for looking back on the controller, so it's not needed for that - I would probably throw up my dinner if they implemented it that way. Looking back is d-pad down on the controller or typically one of the R buttons. Almost everything in this game for any type of supported controller is configurable though, so I'm sure we'll get plenty of options to choose whatever we prefer.

 

[catisfit]

Sounds kinda broken to me. If it were me, I'd recreate user habits, which means most importantly tracking up/down displacement so players can peer over hills. To add left/right peering would need a bit of AI to determine where the player is going to be looking, and rotate the camera a smidge around that point. This head-based control is an artifical control mechnaism that somewhat defeats the point of a natural interface.

I don't think I follow. It tracks the rotation of your head, not the position (i.e. adjusts the orientation of the camera not the position). Just as a racing driver strapped in a seat can't extend his neck inspector-gadget style to get a better view over a crest, neither does head tracking. Left to right is by far the most valuable option, to see apexes and cars around you. Up/down I can only think would be used to see your tacho but that information is already on the HUD regardless of view vector.

I don't know what you mean about AI to determine where the player is looking either? The player determines this by the angle of their head. For example a ten degree turn of the head may cause a 45 degree movement of the camera, with a configurable rate and deadzone. Going into a corner you can look towards the apex, or judge the locations of nearby cars relative to your own (best case is entering a corner with a car outside of you, i.e. outbraking on the inside, you can tilt your head left and right to see where the apex is and where the car outside of you is, whereas a normal game camera peers steadfastly straight on, at neither).

I'm surprised at the discussion this is causing - TrackIR is an old and much-used technology, if anything it's surprising it has taken this long to move to consoles. There are years' worth of reviews/opinions/YouTube videos demonstrating that the concept works, well enough that they were charging $200+ for the latest TrackIR system!

 

[patsu]

There is a button for looking back on the controller, so it's not needed for that - I would probably throw up my dinner if they implemented it that way. Looking back is d-pad down on the controller or typically one of the R buttons. Almost everything in this game for any type of supported controller is configurable though, so I'm sure we'll get plenty of options to choose whatever we prefer.

Ah ! I forgot about the rear view button. In that case, I don't really care whether they do head tracking or leaning. There is not much room to maneuver in a cockpit anyway.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I don't think I follow.

You're thinking in terms of a driver; I'm thinking in terms of a gamer. People playing first-person games act as if the TV is a window into a world, and move to change their vantage point. Looking upwards often involves tilting the head upwards, even though the eyes stay looking at the same point on the screeen. When there's a hill, gamers will often crane their neck upwards to peer over it, and when there's a corner they'll lean a bit the opposite way to get a better viewing angle. IMO motion interfaces should map to the user's actions, instead of requiring them to learn new behaviours and exercise self-control to not act instinctively.

 

[tha_con]

Sounds kinda broken to me. If it were me, I'd recreate user habits, which means most importantly tracking up/down displacement so players can peer over hills. To add left/right peering would need a bit of AI to determine where the player is going to be looking, and rotate the camera a smidge around that point. This head-based control is an artifical control mechnaism that somewhat defeats the point of a natural interface.

I hardly think the technology is broken. I think the implementation is possibly in need of tuning, but not broken. If you haven't tried it, I'd hold off on saying it's broken. It clearly "works" as advertised, the question is how effective and / or useful it will be. I'd prefer a smaller degree of rotation (both on the players part and on screen) as I don't need to look that far. I'd really just like the ability to look into the apex of a turn and see what traffic looks like coming out, rather than waiting until i get there for the big surprise, lol.

 

[catisfit]

You're thinking in terms of a driver; I'm thinking in terms of a gamer. People playing first-person games act as if the TV is a window into a world, and move to change their vantage point. Looking upwards often involves tilting the head upwards, even though the eyes stay looking at the same point on the screeen. When there's a hill, gamers will often crane their neck upwards to peer over it, and when there's a corner they'll lean a bit the opposite way to get a better viewing angle. IMO motion interfaces should map to the user's actions, instead of requiring them to learn new behaviours and exercise self-control to not act instinctively.

Okay, I understand. But what you describe is not what TrackIR or GT5 is trying to provide. GT5 thinks of you in terms of a driver, rather than a "gamer". In real life racing (which I sadly get very little opportunity to do nowadays) I don't ever recall leaning out in a corner to get a better view around it, as you place your body in a poor position to deal with the lateral g forces, and your arms in a poor position to feel the front end grip and react to car movement. Similarly approaching a crest I tend to settle in the seat (and hold my breath) to best absorb the impact on landing. Of course g-forces and impacts won't be modelled in GT5 but that's just what drivers do.

It's not something you have to learn. If you approach a corner you naturally tend to turn your head towards it (not lean, unless you're a kid). Your eyes naturally track items of interest, you don't have to "learn" to look back at the screen. In exactly the same way that your eyes track a football on screen as it a) moves around the extents of the screen, and b) the cameraman shifts the camera around trying to keep up with it. If you plotted the position of the ball on the screen you'd see it appears all over the place, but your eyes follow it naturally without you having to think about it or even notice them doing it.

I had very similar reservations about TrackIR before I tried it. I think perhaps it's one of those things that sounds like it has a lot of drawbacks which simply disappear when you actually experience it.

 

[patsu]

http://systemlink.gamersguidetolife.com/2010/07/gran-turismo-5-online-multiplayer.html

GT5 online lounge details in Official Playstation Magazine:

"My Lounge is GT5's hub from which you'll access all of GT5's new online features. Hit the Community tab and you'll pull up a bulletin board filled with your latest stats and your recent mail from friends and other players.

You can browse through your friends' bulletin boards and check their progress on and offline, and send out mail and challenges. My Lounge supports voice chat for up to 32 players and lets you host 16-player online races or spectate on races in progress, as well as watch the GT-TV VOD service and race replays."

 

[wco81]

http://systemlink.gamersguidetolife.com/2010/07/gran-turismo-5-online-multiplayer.html

GT5 online lounge details in Official Playstation Magazine:

So they're not using Home to launch multiplayer games?

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

 

[patsu]

I think you misunderstand Home launching.

All the games that support PS Home game launching also have their own online lobbies.

Home game launching does not replace game lobbies. It defines a standard XML interface/protocol so that another application (like Playstation Home) can automate the party setup and schedule a game. After the session ends, the users are returned to the application.


The PS Home team organizes weekly game parties to promote participating games. Probably a good time for Home people to show off their costumes.

Don't know if GT5 will support PS Home launching. I reckon Kazunori Yamaguchi would spend all his resources on the game itself. GT5 may not need additional after-sale community support to drum up online play.

EDIT: Some of the games also award you with Home items (similar to trophies, but usually wearable). It's one more way to advertise the game and build loyalty.

 

[wco81]

The point is, that interface isn't being widely used, not even by a high-profile 1st-party/2nd-party game like GT.

What does that tell you about Sony's approach to Home?

 

[patsu]

The point is, that interface isn't being widely used, not even by a high-profile 1st-party/2nd-party game like GT.

What does that tell you about Sony's approach to Home?

Make no mistake. Home is profitable. If it's the Sony we know, they will take it in the direction that makes even more money.

According to interviews, they want to develop Home into a gaming platform so that Sony can sell more virtual items and Home games to the consumers.

Game launching seems to be on the backburner now -- unless there is some way to monetize it. The game developers will decide if they want their games to connect to the Home userbase for marketing purposes. The Home SDK is available to them.

I don't know what the final picture is, but this is where they are at.

 

[DJ12]

Home has a couple of million active users last I heard, why would you want to force people that have used it and decided it's not for them to use it on one of your biggest hitters?

At best these people just wouldn't go on line at worst they wouldn't buy it.

 

[Arwin]

The point is, that interface isn't being widely used, not even by a high-profile 1st-party/2nd-party game like GT.

What does that tell you about Sony's approach to Home?

We don't really know if it won't be used. However, I fully agree that other titles should at least have supported Home the way Resistance does for instance, allowing you to launch a group of people from Home straight into a Resistance party. With Home's current setup, that kind of support should have been in there day and date for a game's release, and not months after. It really shouldn't be rocket science to implement that.

Gran Turismo though has had a Home logo in some of its screenshots from a very early day on, so there's a chance that we'll see something in Home day one from them at least, though I'm not counting on anything.

 

[tha_con]

The point is, that interface isn't being widely used, not even by a high-profile 1st-party/2nd-party game like GT.

What does that tell you about Sony's approach to Home?

It tells me that Sony wants to use Home as a social platform for people to meet each other outside of videogames, where they can also launch and play videogames from.

You know, like the internet.

Crazy, I know.

 

[xatnys]

Not really too crazy on how the head tracking appears to perform. I much agree with Shifty's proposed alternative, since it would make sense given that a TV physically provides only one view - adjusting just that plane of view would make for a very awesome effect. If you couple this with simulated rocking in the cockpit of a car, done properly I think it could make for a very genuine experience.

As it is now, it looks rather counter-intuitive. When I physically look in a certain direction, I expect to not have to rely on my peripheral vision to view the direction I had intended to see in the first place.

 

[catisfit]

As it is now, it looks rather counter-intuitive. When I physically look in a certain direction, I expect to not have to rely on my peripheral vision to view the direction I had intended to see in the first place.

Look at this text. Now turn your head from side to side as you read. Notice how you can still read it fine? That's because your eyes automatically account for head movement to keep the desired focal point in sharp focus. That's how headtracking works. There's no "peripheral vision" or "learning to look back at the screen" it's all an automatic reflex of the human visual system.

 

[patsu]

GamesRadar GT5 Preview:
http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/gran-...a-20100728114643309041/g-20070711154452396099

* Doesn't like 3D effect because the game looks darker and seems to be running @ 30fps (To be confirmed by Sony). Likes head tracking.
* Plays like GT4. The improvements/leap is not as massive as the author expected. Room for improvement in the physics department. Improved AI. Lamented that the game doesn't learn from other racers.
* Impressive day-night transition
* Likes the demo enough to want to play more. Look forward to the final game.


Mercury News Preview:
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/20...-the-best-game-ive-played-with-3d-glasses-on/

* Believes GT5 "is best game I’ve ever played with 3D glasses on. ... I actually felt I was driving the Tuscan dirt roads at dusk.". Better 3D effect than KZ3 and Crysis 2.
* Laments about investment in 3D gaming.

 

[nightshade]

GamesRadar GT5 Preview:
http://www.gamesradar.com/ps3/gran-...a-20100728114643309041/g-20070711154452396099

* Doesn't like 3D effect because the game looks darker and seems to be running @ 30fps (To be confirmed by Sony). Likes head tracking.
* Plays like GT4. The improvements/leap is not as massive as the author expected. Room for improvement in the physics department. Improved AI. Lamented that the game doesn't learn from other racers.
* Impressive day-night transition
* Likes the demo enough to want to play more. Look forward to the final game.

* Thinks GT should follow Grid & Dirt 2

 

[Arwin]

Comments on physics by sites like these can be fairly meaningless, when you know that there are various settings like professional vs standard driving model and so on, and the site doesn't mention which they tried. It generally means they haven't a clue. At best, you could derive from it that on the standard driving physics aetting GT doesn't fake realism as well as Forza, which may be true - Forza 3 does a pretty good job of that.

 

[Rotmm]

Comments on physics by sites like these can be fairly meaningless, when you know that there are various settings like professional vs standard driving model and so on, and the site doesn't mention which they tried. It generally means they haven't a clue.

Of course, in the actual article he's not talking about the driving model at all when commenting on the physics, but rather the GT Pinball that's played when you hit a barrier or another car and the fact that it seems to be in place in GT5 as in previous iterations.

Oh, and (from page 1 of the linked article):

The first is that the simulation of driving is as excellent as ever under normal conditions. Cars have a tangible level of grip, which is different for all the cars I tried. Just as with its PSP Gran Turismo iteration, the Ferrari Enzo in GT5 is extremely powerful, which translates to plenty of powersliding and oversteer if you’re not conservative with the throttle.

There are assists, of course, the list of which appeared to be identical to the PSP game. The traction control is set at 5/10 by default, which offers a good compromise between controllability and fun. I was playing on professional, of course, but even I considered ramping it up a bit when things got too hairy.

Hope this helps.