Forza Motorsport 3

[Jayel]

You should keep NFS Shift on your radar as well - I really think it could be the turning point for the series. Not only is it being developed by GTR guys, they even brought in the guy who did physics for Richard Burns Rally. Plus it looks fantastic and meant to be played from cockpit view - which earns big thumbs up of approval in my book.

edit:

speaking of nicely rendered cockpit view...

Everything I've seen so far of Shift makes me drool. I sincerely hope they don't screw this one up.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Jayel

[Wrestlevania]

You should keep NFS Shift on your radar as well - I really think it could be the turning point for the series. Not only is it being developed by GTR guys, they even brought in the guy who did physics for Richard Burns Rally. Plus it looks fantastic and meant to be played from cockpit view - which earns big thumbs up of approval in my book.

I certainly wouldn't dismiss Shift either, but let's not fool ourselves: it's prefixed with Need For Speed purely as a marketing vehicle. It's got absolutely nothing - mercifully - to do with any of the previous games (except perhaps Porsche Unleashed, which was a superb racer).

[eclipt1c]

The problem I had with Forza 2, and that I hope they fix in 3, is that the AI can be really cheap some times. There were times when I was straight up better in every way than my opponent, power, tuning, weight, everything, and yet he would still be flatout faster and able to take corners at higher speeds. For cornering and maneuvering, whatever, it's a computer, it can probably calculate that stuff to get it exactly right. The straightaways were what killed me, there was NO reason for them to be going faster than me at all, and they were blowing me away (IGN.com).

Also, there are WAY too many damn menus in that game.

All that said, I'm still a huge fan and will undoubtedly get 3. I'm a big Burnout fan and Forza offers the perfect amount of sim racing - stopping on the threshold of immersion and tediousness.

[miffy495]

Actually, that's something I forgot that GT definitely has over Forza. Forza has a bumper cam but no cockpit view. After playing GT for a while in cockpit view, trying to go back to Forza was irritating as hell. The one thing that Forza 3 will really need to win me over will be a nicely rendered cockpit.

[Wrestlevania]

Kind of like this?

[toblix]

That's from the backseat driver mode. "Go left! Le-- no , right, RIGHT!"

[Shakesbeard]

That's from the backseat driver mode. "Go left! Le-- no , right, RIGHT!"

[Right trigger] - Kick seat

[Left trigger] - Ask if we're there yet

[Loiosh]

@jneeriem: AI Driving in GT games:

That's a problem with the GT AI. The drivers stick to a racing line like glue. You cannot knock them off course easily and they won't give any space for you like real drivers will. It's frustrating. I hear they are working on the AI concrete for GT5.

Test Drive:

Totally true. That was one of the best games to ever come out and was so much fun.

@eclipt1c: AI Cheating in Forza:

The AI actually does not cheat in Forza 2. It, in fact, responds exactly to the same physics model that you face. It most likely is out breaking you and following drafts and racing lines better.

Interesting note: In Forza they wanted to give the AI a progressive learning ability, but they discovered that not only does the AI pick up some interesting quirks, it learned to play dirty.

Taken from before the AI was detuned:http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/766/766507p1.html

"Dan Greenawalt: This is by no means normal racing game AI. Drivatar technology is a neural network learning system developed by Microsoft's advanced AI research team in Cambridge, England. Occasionally the Drivatars did things we never expected. At times it felt less like tuning game AI and more like teaching a child. Sometimes they learned good habits and sometimes they learned bad habits. We are addressing their aggression levels. However, there will always be an aspect of character to the Drivatars -- it's built into the system. Therefore, we're adding a system to better communicate Drivatar character to the player by giving them names (even including real-world race car drivers) and different driving tendencies and skill levels. We've also improved the AI's passing behavior. One of the amazing things about our Drivatar technology is that it is a learning AI system. Another notable fact is that our AI does not cheat -- it drives the same cars using same complex physics and tire simulation the player does. "

I cannot find the article where they covered the detuning the AI received. But it had to be cut down because it was making unexpected and unfun changes to the gameplay.

[Cigol]

I'd be reluctant to take anything the Forza guys say at face value.

iRacing is the child of Papyrus Design Group (a dead racing simulator company that is heavily respected in the computer world). It is one of the more accurate racing sims out there, though Forza 2, 3 and rFactor are better in pure terms of accuracy. Forza and rFactor model clutching, transmissions and weather all of which iRacing does not have at this time. The accuracy of iRacing's tire/suspension system is up in the air at the moment as they are not discussing their custom tire simulation system except to say they developed it on the own and had complete access to all racing spec tires.

Ergo my original point they all bring something different to the table. rFactor doesn't have a dynamic weather system, nor does it model rain*, have a developing level of grip on the track or anywhere near as capable an AI competitor as in GTR2. It doesn't model flat spots or tyre deformation like Live for Speed, (etc, etc), and it's notoriously bad out of the box; requiring you to search for and download various plugins and modifications to get the best out of it.

*and if memory serves, 'Geoff Crammonds Grand Prix' even went as far as to model individual pockets of built-up rain on the track (!?) Damn, where is that guy.

It's disingenuous to suggest it's better in terms of either quality or quantity. As far as the top PC sims are concerned it's a pick & mix, you have your favourites but they all offer something different... and in the case of iRacing, we are talking about a constantly evolving subscription based MMO, of which there was a major update to just a couple days ago.

Forza 2 does have surface modelling though, like the treacherous - not to mention utterly foul - tiled start-finish section of the Sebring International circuit:

Aha, yes that's a good track to demonstrate it (I'm racing that one right now in fact ) but it's the tracks you'd least expect it from that actually benefit the most. Still, good to know that Forza has something similar, and if it is as good as you say (both in terms of the surface detail and driving model) then you'll know it really does take the racing experience to another level.

But as for GT, I'd argue that without any sort of damage modelling, even with the most realistic collision physics, the worst that could happen is lost traction - which isn't really frightening and not enough deterrent to turn the game into a bumper-car racing.

Right now GT cars are tanks and if they implemented damage (superfluous damage that is) then they'd just look like crumpled broken down tanks. It's the collision physics that are important. All they need is friction from riding walls and the dynamics from hitting other vehicles or objects that results in a loss of control. They could also have abstract engine damage from high speed front-end collisions. I don't see the point in wasting time on damage modelling unless its going to have a meaningful impact on the game (handling/aero,debris etc).

[Jayel]

Right now GT cars are tanks and if they implemented damage (superfluous damage that is) then they'd just look like crumpled broken down tanks. It's the collision physics that are important. All they need is friction from riding walls and the dynamics from hitting other vehicles or objects that results in a loss of control. They could also have abstract engine damage from high speed front-end collisions. I don't see the point in wasting time on damage modelling unless its going to have a meaningful impact on the game (handling/aero,debris etc).

I think there's been a miscommunication. I meant "damage modeling" as in scientific/mathematical modeling ("damaged suspension is affecting my ability to drive!"), not geometric modeling ("my car is battered up and it looks awesome!!").

[Cigol]

Just to be clear I know what you meant. My point was damage modelling isn't that important, well not unless they do it right. I was also trying to say that they don't need damage modelling in order to make the wall riding and crashes (etc) that you and others mentioned dangerous - just the collision physics themselves. I don't know whether you've played GT of late but it almost doesn't have any physics in place for these incidents. Maybe it's because they never got around to it or its a decision they've made for reasons of playability, but the fact is you can trade blows (not just paint) and neither car will be affected. This extends to crashes with walls and so on - the impact on the cars travel is minimal at best.

So, I understood what you were saying - my argument was that it's not the damage modelling which is important but the collision physics. Of course if you have the damage modelling then you have the collision physics... but whatever, I just don't think there's any point wasting that time with such a wide variety of cars (F1 to SUV).

[Jayel]

cool. I see your point.

On a separate note, I just went to gametrailers website and saw a bunch of gameplay videos of NFS Shift that I had never seen before. The videos make the game seem no more realistic than Daytona USA - I REALLY hope they were demoing at the lowest realism setting, and the wikipedia articles claim of "more realistic than GTR2" is justified!

[MrChaz]

Forza 2 was fine with the controller, at least for me. My only gripe was with the career mode.

My only warning would be that there is a lot of grinding involved, they pretty seem to like increasing the number of laps you have to drive in the events which makes the game more and more tedious. This is made even worse when you start upgrading your cars because you can be 10 seconds a lap quicker than anyone else.

Don't get me wrong I had a great time upgrading and tuning my cars and doing the 3-5 lap races but after that it got boring really quickly.

The car modeling or whatever is amazing though, the cars feel and drive differently and even the same car behaves differently after upgrades.

I found out, for example, that I should never drive a Ferrari because I'm just too heavy on the gas and just spin them all the time.

Got to love the photo mode though:

[Loiosh]

It's about time the Forza team focused on the graphics. Say what you will about GT, it looks absolutely stunning. I'm glad to see them working on that since they have the fundamentals down for the physics systems.

[Patters]

So just a note to you guys, the demo for forza 3 is up. Also Shift is pretty good, not nearly as sim like as forza, closer to PGR 4 with a few sim features.

[Wrestlevania]

So just a note to you guys, the demo for forza 3 is up.

Oh wicked, appreciate the heads up. Will try that later, assuming it won't take hours to download on my weedy connection.

[Patters]

Oh wicked, appreciate the heads up. Will try that later, assuming it won't take hours to download on my weedy connection.

Yeah, I have been redownloading everything from my old 360, with background downloads. It is 1 gb if that helps.

[Wrestlevania]

Yeah, I have been redownloading everything from my old 360, with background downloads. It is 1 gb if that helps.

Ouch... Won't be playing that tonight then I expect.

[jneeriem]

So just a note to you guys, the demo for forza 3 is up. Also Shift is pretty good, not nearly as sim like as forza, closer to PGR 4 with a few sim features.

Holy Sh!t. Will be playing that demo later tonight.

[Patters]

It's pretty cool, the easy mode almost feels arcadey, which is a good thing. Medium is more sim like but with auto braking. Damage modelling is really cool, when I crash into opposing vehicles the damage caused looks great.

[miffy495]

Ugh. I don't have a gig of free space. Motherfucking MS with their 20GB hard drives and ridiculously expensive upgrades. I really want to try this damn thing.

[Scrobbs]

I had a brief, but intense affair with Forza 2. I got to into it, and it killed it. By to into it, I mean I gathered up all the disparate half finished works of people used to dial settings in and crafted a spreadsheet from it, to the point where you could put the car you would like to drive in it, and it would spit out optimised settings for the car. I think I nearly got the gear ratio section working as well. I realised I was having more fun programming and testing the spreadsheet than playing the game, so I gave up and took the steering wheel back to the shop (under the pretext that the downshift paddle sometimes dropped two gears without warning) and sold the game on ebay.

I learned more about cars and gears (they were pretty tough) than I did know, so that in itself is pretty awesome that a game can teach you about it, should you like to find out.

Yes. A Geek. Sorry.

As you were.

[jneeriem]

I had a brief, but intense affair with Forza 2. I got to into it, and it killed it. By to into it, I mean I gathered up all the disparate half finished works of people used to dial settings in and crafted a spreadsheet from it, to the point where you could put the car you would like to drive in it, and it would spit out optimised settings for the car. I think I nearly got the gear ratio section working as well. I realised I was having more fun programming and testing the spreadsheet than playing the game, so I gave up and took the steering wheel back to the shop (under the pretext that the downshift paddle sometimes dropped two gears without warning) and sold the game on ebay.

I learned more about cars and gears (they were pretty tough) than I did know, so that in itself is pretty awesome that a game can teach you about it, should you like to find out.

Yes. A Geek. Sorry.

As you were.

So if you still have said spreadsheet i'd love a copy. I don't play 2 anymore but am planning on getting 3 and am looking forward to (finally) a good looking racing (sim)game that lets me tweak stuff alot. So I'd take that.

As an aside, one of my favorite things to do in Gran Turismo 4 was to go through my highest performance cars in my garage and go to a track, tuning each car to the track and running it over and over to see which car, properly tuned, was really the fastest on each track. Would love to repeat this in Forza 3.

[Scrobbs]

It will need updating though, as it needed constant revision as new tuning data and maths revisions became available. Last updated 2007. Version 2c instigated RPM tables, but if I recall they're not so accurate - I gave it up before cracking them totally. It might still work pretty well, but it was no good at all for porsche's.

You have PM.

Also, you should all visit forzamotorsport.co.uk - a fan site I helped start. It's still running well, with loads of regulars who play together. It was started to get like minded people racing - who were all fair minded with no silly barging or wrecking races.

[Wrestlevania]

Some of the Gamers With Jobs members were pretty hot on this and created a private Google Spreadsheet to crunch tuning setups.

While I can't find that any more, I did a little digging and found another Forza 2 tuning Google Spreadsheet (via Ars Technica).

I also happened upon what looks like a useful tuning guide that includes some fairly comprehensive suspension setting and under-/oversteer tweaking rules.

Sounds like Scrobbs' spreadsheet is the one you want, however. Would be great to get that into Google Spreadsheets and make available to all.