*spin off* Developers focusing on detail vs framerate

[Nesh]

LOD in everywhere on forza4

http://makeagif.com/media/10-19-2011/vpPbaq.gif
http://makeagif.com/media/10-19-2011/wjDodT.gif

When does the LOD change in Forza4? The distance is almost identical. So it cant be that?? It changes for no apparent reason?

edit: Oh wait I just noticed one is from a normal race the other is a time attack with one car. Also the LOD of the track changes too according to the mode you are playing. The funny thing is that the car LOD is lower during the normal race with 12 opponents while the track LOD is lower during the time attack. Probably it is not necessarily a LOD difference but simply the absence of crowd during the time attack because it is not an actual race and people wouldnt go to see that anyways
Or thats just an excuse and in order to get the high car LOD in time attack they had to remove the crowd.

edit2: One thing that I d like to point is that during the cockpit view in GT5 if you use the rear camera you can see the actual back side interior. In F4 they dont show you the rear interiors. It shows you only the road from the back. Probably the interiors arent fully rendered during gameplay in F4

I suspect that the level of detail PD put in the 280 premium cars is much more extraordinary than what T10 has put in the 500 cars excluding the very few cars they added in autovista.

PD maintains extraordinary detail in premium cars even during gameplay that we dont notice and serve no real practical purpose. Note that during photomode you arent supposed to be able to take a close look at the full interiors. So having the whole interior rendered in real time is probably unnecessary and eats up performance. Despite that there is a trick you can do to get to see the interiors of the cars in photomode which reveals that there is actually crazy detail in them. Even the smallest switches and wires are rendered there and in very high detail even though there is no way you can see them during gameplay nor we were supposed to view them with the free camera roaming!

Its unbelievable how much work there is in GT5's visuals even though mostly invisible to the common eye

 

[AlNom]

Spun off because it was OT for the forum, but it can be a valid more general discussion on developer choice. Let's try not to get into a pissing match folks.

 

[AlNom]

The funny thing is that the car LOD is lower during the normal race with 12 opponents while the track LOD is lower during the time attack.

Yeah, it's interesting how they've tailored the game modes specifically, and it makes sense really. In a normal race, they're expecting up to 16 cars, so naturally the cars should take a hit to poly count. In time trial, it's 16 vs 1, so the trade off is apparent.

I suspect the environment takes a hit in time trial because they wanted to enable 4xAA, and we all know the implication to tiling there. The car is likely to fit within one of the tiles, so the geometry overhead is going to be where the environment objects overlap tiles.

Probably it is not necessarily a LOD difference but simply the absence of crowd during the time attack because it is not an actual race and people wouldnt go to see that anyways
Or thats just an excuse and in order to get the high car LOD in time attack they had to remove the crowd.

Well, it makes sense to remove the crowd for time trial, and it just happens to be a good thing to reduce geometry (instancing) load where tiling is concerned anyway.

Its unbelievable how much work there is in GT5's visuals even though mostly invisible to the common eye

Indeed, and it calls into question their priorities. The framerate should be first class citizen for racing rather than bragging rights for graphics that average joe won't care about.

 

[BoardBonobo]

Indeed, and it calls into question their priorities. The framerate should be first class citizen for racing rather than bragging rights for graphics that average joe won't care about.

I always thought that GT was always marketed as a driving simulator not a racing game. In which attention to detail and accuracy are far more important than frame rate. Not that having a good frame rate doesn't help!!

 

[AlNom]

I don't see the point in using higher polys that no one really sees if it's just a detriment to the framerate. You're not convincing me that the higher poly counts are making much difference to the simulation aspect, particularly when the damage model is not that insane. That sort of brute force or "numbers game" is just silly. How is unstable 60fps less important for gameplay simulation than playing the number-of-polys marketing that makes almost zip difference to said simulation?

If poly count mattered so much to simulation why bother using 800+ non-premium models? That would make it a shit simulator, no? Sorry, you're not convincing me that the use of high poly models that most people don't notice is any good use of resources. Give me the solid 60fps if that's what you're trying to target.

 

[Nesh]

I don't see the point in using higher polys that no one really sees if it's just a detriment to the framerate. You're not convincing me that the higher poly counts are making much difference to the simulation aspect, particularly when the damage model is not that insane. That sort of brute force or "numbers game" is just silly. How is unstable 60fps less important for gameplay simulation than playing the number-of-polys marketing that makes almost zip difference to said simulation?

If poly count mattered so much to simulation why bother using 800+ non-premium models? That would make it a shit simulator, no? Sorry, you're not convincing me that the use of high poly models that most people don't notice is any good use of resources. Give me the solid 60fps if that's what you're trying to target.

I think Kaz takes his project way too seriously and too honestly. It indeed doesnt make sense in terms of gameplay, or even in terms of visuals. Probably its more of a deontology thing than anything else. Or probably he had other plans originally about what you can see and access in the premium cars that didnt come to fruition?

 

[joker454]

I remember hearing a quote from someone on the GT5 team (don't remember who it was) where they mentioned how they don't look at the competition. I went back into the vault of video game comments and tried to find a stupider comment. "Blast Processing" came close, but ultimately not looking at your competition reigns supreme as the most imbecilic comment ever made by a game developer. The latest incarnation of driving games clearly shows that the GT5 team aren't taking the competition seriously. We know video gamers are fickle and they will drop the GT franchise just like many others before if it falls too far behind, so next gen they need to smarten up and take the competition seriously or they will be left in the dust.

 

[Pete]

I always thought that GT was always marketed as a driving simulator not a racing game. In which attention to detail and accuracy are far more important than frame rate. Not that having a good frame rate doesn't help!!

Driving simulator implies the sensation of driving. Car showcase would imply accurate switches and knobs. If you can do both, even better! Semantics aside, I prefer framerate, but it's a lot easier to sell visuals in an ad (be it a pic or a video).

That's not to say GT5 is sacrificing framerate, willy-nilly or otherwise. I think their cockpit-view shadowing (RSX-native PCF or whatever) is a good compromise. I don't notice the shadows' low-res while driving, I just appreciate that they're real-time. My focus is on the road, not the cockpit (which leads to a conversation about AF... ).

 

[-tkf-]

I remember hearing a quote from someone on the GT5 team (don't remember who it was) where they mentioned how they don't look at the competition. I went back into the vault of video game comments and tried to find a stupider comment. "Blast Processing" came close, but ultimately not looking at your competition reigns supreme as the most imbecilic comment ever made by a game developer. The latest incarnation of driving games clearly shows that the GT5 team aren't taking the competition seriously. We know video gamers are fickle and they will drop the GT franchise just like many others before if it falls too far behind, so next gen they need to smarten up and take the competition seriously or they will be left in the dust.

I am pretty sure they look at the competition, but i don´t think they just want to copy everything they see which is a big difference. And this is most likely a Japanese guy saying something in Japanese which is then translated to english, and that always go bad anyway. And where exactly do you think GT5 is falling behind? From what i have read the core elements is more than up to par as is the graphics, so it must be something special?

 

[joker454]

I am pretty sure they look at the competition, but i don´t think they just want to copy everything they see which is a big difference. And this is most likely a Japanese guy saying something in Japanese which is then translated to english, and that always go bad anyway. And where exactly do you think GT5 is falling behind? From what i have read the core elements is more than up to par as is the graphics, so it must be something special?

I'll skip any direct game complaints/comparisons as that will surely spiral this thread out of control. Instead I'd focus on other issues:

1) For the amount of time they spent on the game and what they ended up with tells me that there is something fundamentally broken in their development pipeline. Clearly other studios can delivery content faster than they can, and in the current fiercy competitive industry their slowness to market will ultimately do them in unless they sort that out post haste. There are multiple examples that can be given to this, but the obvious one is shipping a game with last gen game assets, which is the last thing any developer in their right mind would want to do. That they had to do just that for so many of the cars shows that they either grossly miscalculated how long asset creation would take, or their asset creation process is broken.

2) Forcing 1080p support handicapped the game from day one. I honestly doubt this was a developers decision, more than likely I'd say someone higher up forced 1080p as an edict that would be followed no matter what. I shudder to think how many code/art redesigns they had to go through just to get 1080p functional, which ultimately was for naught because they blurred the damn thing with qaa anyways, and the framerate for that sort of game in that resolution was not acceptable. That 1080p was forced indicates to me someone at that company has too much power in such decisions and needs to be evicted quick, because that was a mind bogglingly bad decision that in no way beneffited the game, and ultimately severely hindered it.

3) Not focussing on a pleasant user experience is bizarre to me, the ui design and general slowness of navigating in that game was terrible. That they shipped with the ui that they did and the patience required to navigate through it tells me that they were not really following where games in general were going, or their priorities are so wrong that they think people will forever tolerate terrible ui just because they are GT.


There are many other things I could list, but I figure the above three are the least inflamatory. You can clearly see there are elements of genius in the game, but something in the company is severely bottlenecking them. They need to rethink how they create games in the GT franchise, otherwise next gen they will be beat to market by other products that will gradually erode the GT franchise into obscurity. They need to realize the competition isn't standing still, and they aren't the only game in town anymore.

 

[Nesh]

I'll skip any direct game complaints/comparisons as that will surely spiral this thread out of control. Instead I'd focus on other issues:

1) For the amount of time they spent on the game and what they ended up with tells me that there is something fundamentally broken in their development pipeline. Clearly other studios can delivery content faster than they can, and in the current fiercy competitive industry their slowness to market will ultimately do them in unless they sort that out post haste. There are multiple examples that can be given to this, but the obvious one is shipping a game with last gen game assets, which is the last thing any developer in their right mind would want to do. That they had to do just that for so many of the cars shows that they either grossly miscalculated how long asset creation would take, or their asset creation process is broken.

2) Forcing 1080p support handicapped the game from day one. I honestly doubt this was a developers decision, more than likely I'd say someone higher up forced 1080p as an edict that would be followed no matter what. I shudder to think how many code/art redesigns they had to go through just to get 1080p functional, which ultimately was for naught because they blurred the damn thing with qaa anyways, and the framerate for that sort of game in that resolution was not acceptable. That 1080p was forced indicates to me someone at that company has too much power in such decisions and needs to be evicted quick, because that was a mind bogglingly bad decision that in no way beneffited the game, and ultimately severely hindered it.

3) Not focussing on a pleasant user experience is bizarre to me, the ui design and general slowness of navigating in that game was terrible. That they shipped with the ui that they did and the patience required to navigate through it tells me that they were not really following where games in general were going, or their priorities are so wrong that they think people will forever tolerate terrible ui just because they are GT.


There are many other things I could list, but I figure the above three are the least inflamatory. You can clearly see there are elements of genius in the game, but something in the company is severely bottlenecking them. They need to rethink how they create games in the GT franchise, otherwise next gen they will be beat to market by other products that will gradually erode the GT franchise into obscurity. They need to realize the competition isn't standing still, and they aren't the only game in town anymore.

1)The only real competitor they have is Forza. Each Forza had more workforce working on it than what PD had for GT5. In Forza 3 they peaked above 300 people!! And yet competition didnt manage to include some features that are in GT5, some of which were there since the PS1 and PS2 days. The consumers wanted what was in GT4 plus more. They werent left with other choice than try to include as much as possible. The omission would have backfired too. Our demands were shot over the roof for the next gen version after 4 games that were almost perfect and did so much. And I doubt it was humanly possible to update 1000 cars to premium considering that they need half a year to model each car. They had around 300 premiums? How many were needed to work simply on the modeling for those alone? edit: I d like to point that GT4 already had around 700 cars that were imported to GT5. Having only 280 fully detailed cars are a huge downgrade from that number. Also you cant blame PD for not taking competition head on. T10 isnt taking PD head on either considering the casual modes they have put in F4, the omission of rallying, weather conditions and even night time racing. They are taking their own individual route with some overlapping here and there.

2) Yes I totally agree. I am pretty sure that must have caused many headaches to PD, and its Sony's decision that might have forced 1080p for marketing purposes. Yet the visuals are still outstanding and probably second to none and put competition to shame in many areas minus the low res shadows and odd texture here and there in some tracks. Personally I take off my hat considering what they have achieved at that resolution. But it is obvious that 1080p limited PD's in what they could do and hindered performance.

3) I agree about the UI that it certainly needs some redesign.

I believe that the bottleneck was a too large scope and vision for a very small workforce.

 

[-tkf-]

I'll skip any direct game complaints/comparisons as that will surely spiral this thread out of control. Instead I'd focus on other issues:

I think you will be hard pressed to find anyone that can come with a true objective comparison on these 2 games and say A or B is better. And even then, the comparison would have to be drawn up on certain points.

1) For the amount of time they spent on the game and what they ended up with tells me that there is something fundamentally broken in their development pipeline. Clearly other studios can delivery content faster than they can, and in the current fiercy competitive industry their slowness to market will ultimately do them in unless they sort that out post haste. There are multiple examples that can be given to this, but the obvious one is shipping a game with last gen game assets, which is the last thing any developer in their right mind would want to do. That they had to do just that for so many of the cars shows that they either grossly miscalculated how long asset creation would take, or their asset creation process is broken.

2) Forcing 1080p support handicapped the game from day one. I honestly doubt this was a developers decision, more than likely I'd say someone higher up forced 1080p as an edict that would be followed no matter what. I shudder to think how many code/art redesigns they had to go through just to get 1080p functional, which ultimately was for naught because they blurred the damn thing with qaa anyways, and the framerate for that sort of game in that resolution was not acceptable. That 1080p was forced indicates to me someone at that company has too much power in such decisions and needs to be evicted quick, because that was a mind bogglingly bad decision that in no way beneffited the game, and ultimately severely hindered it.

3) Not focussing on a pleasant user experience is bizarre to me, the ui design and general slowness of navigating in that game was terrible. That they shipped with the ui that they did and the patience required to navigate through it tells me that they were not really following where games in general were going, or their priorities are so wrong that they think people will forever tolerate terrible ui just because they are GT.


There are many other things I could list, but I figure the above three are the least inflamatory. You can clearly see there are elements of genius in the game, but something in the company is severely bottlenecking them. They need to rethink how they create games in the GT franchise, otherwise next gen they will be beat to market by other products that will gradually erode the GT franchise into obscurity. They need to realize the competition isn't standing still, and they aren't the only game in town anymore.

I think Nesh summed it up pretty nicely and his points have been known pretty much since the first GT game was created. I can for the time being only comment on GT5, but racing on spa almost gives me goosebumps, the game is incredible good when it comes to driving, and as i said somewhere else, GT5 is very close to being a sandbox racing game the content is staggering and second to none,but you really have to find your own challenges. Which in my view is the biggest weakness of the game, PD could and should have included way more "side missions" into the game

The UI sucks, but with the improved Spec 2 loading times it´s "ok" now. But not truely satisfying, it should be said that they did make alot of tweaks to improve it, but they didn´t really nail it.

Imho PD needs to add very little to stay at the top, the should not and hopefully wont change the core of the game. Just give us more to do within this fantastic universe.

How much did you play it, did you get a chance to sample the improvements?

 

[joker454]

1)The only real competitor they have is Forza. Each Forza had more workforce working on it than what PD had for GT5. In Forza 3 they peaked above 300 people!! And yet competition didnt manage to include some features that are in GT5, some of which were there since the PS1 and PS2 days. The consumers wanted what was in GT4 plus more. They werent left with other choice than try to include as much as possible. The omission would have backfired too. Our demands were shot over the roof for the next gen version after 4 games that were almost perfect and did so much. And I doubt it was humanly possible to update 1000 cars to premium considering that they need half a year to model each car. They had around 300 premiums? How many were needed to work simply on the modeling for those alone? edit: I d like to point that GT4 already had around 700 cars that were imported to GT5. Having only 280 fully detailed cars are a huge downgrade from that number. Also you cant blame PD for not taking competition head on. T10 isnt taking PD head on either considering the casual modes they have put in F4, the omission of rallying, weather conditions and even night time racing. They are taking their own individual route with some overlapping here and there.

Keep in mind that the only competitor is Forza....for now. Just like iD use to be the only game in town for shooters, etc, we don't know if it will remain GT/Forza world next gen. Maybe someone else is seeing GT falling back and they will make a play as well.

The car count in GT always seemed goofy to me, does it really have 1000 cars? It sure didn't seem like it had that many unique premium cars to me, or maybe it's just bcecause I usually hated the ones it gifted me. F4 feels like it has more unique cars to me. So irregardless of the paper hype, the underdog to me was the one that actually delivered on premium cars.

GT may have stuff like Rally but to me it seemed like they were becoming a jack of all trades master of none. It didn't make sense to me to include all these components in one game if there are glaring weaknesses in them. To me they would have been better off ditching Rally mode if that meant it would have given the game decent ai, as the ai that was in GT5 at ship was terrible (haven't tried 2.0). Or their online component, online has become a must have in gaming, at least in North American anyways, and they did little to expand there. What they did have was buggy, like trading cars only to have them dissapear into the ether, and falling behind their competition whose rivals mode is one of the better advances in driving games in years. I still think their priorities are wrong. Maybe it's just my view but while the game was good, the package, to me, felt weak and oddly rushed given how many loose ends there were and how incomplete some of the parts felt. Less is more would have worked better for them, to me anyways.

Imho PD needs to add very little to stay at the top, the should not and hopefully wont change the core of the game. Just give us more to do within this fantastic universe.

It gets subjective here, but while GT5 was better than F3 and before, they've now fallen to second to me with the coming of F4. This could very well jsut be a regional thing. It's pretty obvious from reading various forums that stuff like online for example is valued very differently in different parts of the world. It's hugely important in North American where I am and hence why the 360 rules the roost here due to it's robust online. But it seems like the Japanese and Europeans don't care for online anywhere near as much as we do here, which may explain why to someone like me GT5's weak online is a big deal yet others here really don't care about that. Maybe in the end we have our regional racing games, F4 for North America and GT5 for Japan and Europe. Personally I'm hoping EA makes a serious play in the sim game next gen as the GT series for me is going in the wrong direction and I'm losing interest in it. Need For Speed Shift was ok but still lacking...hopefully they can become a more major player next gen.

How much did you play it, did you get a chance to sample the improvements?

I played it a fair amount but didn't complete it, I got to expert series on aspec, and did a little of bspec. I sold it a long time ago though so I doubt I'll be coming back to it. It's rare that I finish career modes, it's the online component of racing games that keeps me hooked. It's why I played a game like Blur for ages because it's online was so amazing, and it's what will keep me coming back to F4 even if I don't finish it's career mode.

 

[djskribbles]

No disrespect to other developers, but racing simulators aren't as easy to produce compared to a FPS. It takes a lot of experience and knowledge to nail the physics down. That's why after how many decades of consoles, there remains to be essentially only 2 titles in the genre (again on console): Forza and GT.

GT5 dropping below Forza 4 is your opinion. It will take a lot for future GT titles to be "left in the dust".
GT5 spec 2 is a very solid racing sim now, and is IMHO still better than Forza 4.
Yes GT5 was released very rough, but I think PD realize that they need to release a more polished game. They just had a lot to do with a relatively small team. GT games are actually pretty polished.

Personally, I think GT5 is for the hardcore racing sim fans while Forza has done a lot of things to please the gamer side (which is why it's reviewed so well by published gaming sites). GT5's review scores are pretty mediocre, but the game is still selling extremely well. True race sim fans know that GT5 is still one of the best racing sims out there. Flickering shadows, low quality standard cars... that shit just disappoints gamers (I mean it's disappointing, but the other stuff more than makes up for it). Give me good driving physics, a shit load of cars and a bunch of race types over that any day. For us car nuts, GT5 is heading in a very bright direction. It has already made a substantial leap over GT4 with it's improved physics, AI, race types and content which is what matters to race sim fans.

AI in GT5 spec 2 is very good. Carried over from the other discussion, real life racing isn't as exciting as it is in arcade games where you see cars driving all over the place. For the most part, it's racing in a line, slipstreaming and occasional pass attempts. Every race car driver is a professional and they know the optimal line to take. The AI in GT5 was never BAD IMO... maybe just not what you're used to.

 

[-tkf-]

Keep in mind that the only competitor is Forza....for now. Just like iD use to be the only game in town for shooters, etc, we don't know if it will remain GT/Forza world next gen. Maybe someone else is seeing GT falling back and they will make a play as well.

The car count in GT always seemed goofy to me, does it really have 1000 cars? It sure didn't seem like it had that many unique premium cars to me, or maybe it's just bcecause I usually hated the ones it gifted me. F4 feels like it has more unique cars to me. So irregardless of the paper hype, the underdog to me was the one that actually delivered on premium cars.

GT may have stuff like Rally but to me it seemed like they were becoming a jack of all trades master of none. It didn't make sense to me to include all these components in one game if there are glaring weaknesses in them. To me they would have been better off ditching Rally mode if that meant it would have given the game decent ai, as the ai that was in GT5 at ship was terrible (haven't tried 2.0). Or their online component, online has become a must have in gaming, at least in North American anyways, and they did little to expand there. What they did have was buggy, like trading cars only to have them dissapear into the ether, and falling behind their competition whose rivals mode is one of the better advances in driving games in years. I still think their priorities are wrong. Maybe it's just my view but while the game was good, the package, to me, felt weak and oddly rushed given how many loose ends there were and how incomplete some of the parts felt. Less is more would have worked better for them, to me anyways.

It gets subjective here, but while GT5 was better than F3 and before, they've now fallen to second to me with the coming of F4. This could very well jsut be a regional thing. It's pretty obvious from reading various forums that stuff like online for example is valued very differently in different parts of the world. It's hugely important in North American where I am and hence why the 360 rules the roost here due to it's robust online. But it seems like the Japanese and Europeans don't care for online anywhere near as much as we do here, which may explain why to someone like me GT5's weak online is a big deal yet others here really don't care about that. Maybe in the end we have our regional racing games, F4 for North America and GT5 for Japan and Europe. Personally I'm hoping EA makes a serious play in the sim game next gen as the GT series for me is going in the wrong direction and I'm losing interest in it. Need For Speed Shift was ok but still lacking...hopefully they can become a more major player next gen.

I played it a fair amount but didn't complete it, I got to expert series on aspec, and did a little of bspec. I sold it a long time ago though so I doubt I'll be coming back to it. It's rare that I finish career modes, it's the online component of racing games that keeps me hooked. It's why I played a game like Blur for ages because it's online was so amazing, and it's what will keep me coming back to F4 even if I don't finish it's career mode.

I doubt that someone will popup without the backing of either sony or microsoft and compete on the current level, and EA has their part covered pretty nicely. The online part of GT5 is.. lets call it bare bones when it comes to racing others. It just isn´t very well executed. It takes to much effort from the participants to actually work like it should do. Here the sandboxing mode is just hurting to much. I agree completely on that part.

The other part of the online part, the seasonal events work like a charm, there is fierce competition on the Time Mode and the Drift trial and the offline modes are pretty fun, if a tad easy for the hardcore crowd (not me then).

If online is the most important part GT5 might very well fail on that comparison. I am of course hardly subjective since i just didn´t play alot offline and part of that is the bad implementation.

I disagree on the other points, i love the extra possibilities in the game, and plenty enjoy rally and nascar and hardly touch the other part. As well as the "cars feel the same", just in the Le-Mans series there is many cars and they are not the same though one should think it. And the AI, it´s ok and better than ok with spec 2 but never was my major problem, but obviously some was.

 

[Nesh]

Keep in mind that the only competitor is Forza....for now. Just like iD use to be the only game in town for shooters, etc, we don't know if it will remain GT/Forza world next gen. Maybe someone else is seeing GT falling back and they will make a play as well.

The car count in GT always seemed goofy to me, does it really have 1000 cars? It sure didn't seem like it had that many unique premium cars to me, or maybe it's just bcecause I usually hated the ones it gifted me. F4 feels like it has more unique cars to me. So irregardless of the paper hype, the underdog to me was the one that actually delivered on premium cars.

GT may have stuff like Rally but to me it seemed like they were becoming a jack of all trades master of none. It didn't make sense to me to include all these components in one game if there are glaring weaknesses in them. To me they would have been better off ditching Rally mode if that meant it would have given the game decent ai, as the ai that was in GT5 at ship was terrible (haven't tried 2.0). Or their online component, online has become a must have in gaming, at least in North American anyways, and they did little to expand there. What they did have was buggy, like trading cars only to have them dissapear into the ether, and falling behind their competition whose rivals mode is one of the better advances in driving games in years. I still think their priorities are wrong. Maybe it's just my view but while the game was good, the package, to me, felt weak and oddly rushed given how many loose ends there were and how incomplete some of the parts felt. Less is more would have worked better for them, to me anyways.

If a new competitor will appear next gen is irrelevant to the current state of things. You talk as if it is up to GT5 if a next gen competitor will appear. As if GT5 has moved only backwards and not forwards.

GT5 has 1000 cars of which many are not unique it is true. You will get lots of versions of skylines for example. The same counts for Forza as well. Because of a higher number of cars its easier to loose count of the actual unique cars in GT5. Regardless I repeat that PD had less workforce than Forza 4 to model all those cars. T10 outsourced lots of modeling. They achieved more premiums and lacked behind in other areas.

Rally was there since GT2. It is an important racing sport. One that shows another dimension of racing, skill and physics. It puts those cars and drivers into a whole different test. I can not fathom how could anyone expect PD to completely remove rallying. As if that wouldnt have backfired. I dont know. Probably in the USA they underestimate it and it is unpopular? It is still one of the most realistic if not the most realistic rallying in consoles.

All your complaints stem from one thing. They simply didnt have the workforce, they wanted to do more and WE wanted more. If they streamlined the game to achieve perfection while omitting rallying, weather conditions, dynamic shift from night to day I assure you people would have been complaining that it didnt do anything different from previous games and on top of that it removed features and cars that were expected as standard anyways.

Even as such, even with imperfections and less workforce, competition is still behind in many areas

 

[Nesh]

Anyways I think we went completely off topic

 

[joker454]

For us car nuts, GT5 is heading in a very bright direction. It has already made a substantial leap over GT4 with it's improved physics, AI, race types and content which is what matters to race sim fans.

Ok, as far as I can tell from reading your guys posts, you guys stick with GT and are ok with:

- worse online
- worse frame rate
- ps2 cars
- worse ui
- longer load times
- questionable ai

...etc, etc, and game physics which can be argued either way (google it and you'll see just as many preferring F4's to GT5's as the other way around). That's all fine, I get that you guys are hardcore GT fans and you'll stick with it no matter what, I never intened to sway any of you. What I am suggesting is that you look outside your bubble, do you think car nuts or the gaming public at large will accept the above limitations when they don't have to? I don't think they will, and it will get worse when Forza inevitably beats GT to market on next gen and if EA enters the fray with a better NFS. Like I said other companies have lost their crown before, people don't look to Id anymore for the definitive shooter game or Square Enix for the definitive rpg, based on the track GT is going IMO they will fall the same fate if they don't change their development practices.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Ok, as far as I can tell from reading your guys posts, you guys stick with GT and are ok with:

- worse online
- worse frame rate
- ps2 cars
- worse ui
- longer load times
- questionable ai

I don't play either game so can be pretty impartial. What you've listed there as faults aren't the meat of GT5, so they can be overlooked. Does it look gorgeous, have zillions of cars, and drive fabulously? If so then it serves its market! And prior to F4 it can be said GT has had no competition in that regard. The appearance of one competitor to the realistic car-fetishists game places GT a long way from being overthrown - PES took a number of iterations to finally give up to FIFA. And GT is platform exclusive, so for Forza to overthrow it, they'd have to get all the GT car nuts buying XB's instead, which would need to get them playing Forza in the first place!

The point about PS2 cars is also misleading IMO. The game could have launched with 300 cars instead of 1000, and only had the premium cars. PD decided to give people a bonus. They knew they couldn't get all 1000 cars up to scratch, but rather than leave people wanting for their motor (which they have doe anyway, with the lack of the Top Gear Testtrack cars ), PD added the less perfect models. It's not what we'd expect of a AAA next-gen game, but it is something you could expect of car nut in offering a service to other car nuts.

I agree PD need to change their development practices, but you sound as if they've all but lost next-gen's racer market!