Pre-Purchase Questions

[GranPree]

OK, so im new :) and more importantly enjoying the demo....

However, there are some questions id like to find out about before I commit to a purchase:

1 - How long will game support continue before it is dropped in favor of a new release? I see the game is upto 1.04, will more enhancements and fixes come in this version or will alot of things be delayed for a 2nd version?

2 - Online - what are the chances of having upto a full grid full of humans in an online race?

3 - I see that the game is potentially moddable? Does that include tracks? And if so, would people be able to create say a Le Mans? Or a BTCC mod?

Theres loads id like to suggest about the game, but im enjoying it - id love the damage to be a bit stricter....tyres/pits to be more random.

Cheers,

[AfterDeath]

I can't give an official response, but I can tell you what's likely:

1. You should have no concerns here. I can't promise Si won't release a second version, but I'd be very surprised if he did, seeing as he worked for so long on the current version. Si does release a lot of patches in comparison to any other game developer, but that's the great thing about NSG, as most developers would let bugs live for a few months and then deal with it. So yeah, don't let it deter you.

2. Online modes have been tried before with Sensational Soccer... I don't know about this one, I'm sure it'll happen in a future NSG title one day, but unless Si's got a sustainable model already planned for it, the cost of a server and other factors will probably stop it from happening for NSGP.

3. There's a track editor already in there. :)

Welcome to the forum. :)

[Shepherd]

2 - Online - what are the chances of having upto a full grid full of humans in an online race?

Be so good to have ability to go online for the game :P Prove who is actually the best ;)

[siread]

There'll be some more updates with extra features over the next few weeks. Even when I'm happy with it I'll continue to support it if anything crops up.

I'm gonna look into online racing but it won't happen any time soon i'm afraid.

Simple mods (different teams/drivers/liveries) are already possible but the game is based on the current F1 structure of 10 teams, 2 drivers each, 17 tracks. I'd have to alter some things to make it fully modable but I'm happy to look into it.

[statto]

Something which would be interesting to "mod" would be to have future seasons play out in a different order, for example Korea starts the 2010 season...maybe you already have this =)

[Sida79]

Heh, online would be great... there are, however, somewhat similar titles that fulfill this purpose.

Not that it is a reasonable suggestion (or suggestion at all) but I'd very much enjoy an online game with a full season grid (actual cars). Players could be assigned different cars after the first race based on the car performance/achieved final position ratio... :)

[Alex Reeves]

Mentioned this in another forum, but I think a better online model would be virtual online racing, with ghost lap/ghost race competitions. Much, much easier to code and establish, and eliminates lag, latency, organisational and timezone issues and the cost and bandwidth of a dedicated server. It would be a simple extension of the existing leaderboard code, and races and championships could be built pretty easily. Lots of racing games already have things like this (ranging from Trackmania to Mario Kart Wii!) and it's a fun feature that adds longevity after the single-player game has been won.

[Cookie Monster]

Okay, my English has been clearly going downhill lately so I barely understood that post... the only thing I think I understood was that you asked for a system where people can race, 'upload' their race, wait for somebody else to race against said race and then compare the results?

[Alex Reeves]

Apologies Pea, basically that's correct. So it's like the online leaderboard, but with a competition and structure to compare the times against. For a theoretical championship, you would set a standard set of racing and car conditions, and every driver would have a set period of time (a week, for example) to upload the best race and time for that track. Rankings and points are maintained on a server, and some places even have divisions with promotion/relegation etc. If the upload facility can upload and download the entire lap or race, then cheating can be avoided because everyone can view the replays.

The beauty of this is that it doesn't matter what timezone or location you're in, everyone can play at a roughly even level. Real-time races are a LOT harder to code, because the Internet, latency and just co-ordinating everyone is hard.

[Sida79]

There was a good point made back about how fiddling with setup would take time and would reward better 'mechanics' instead of drivers, which sounds more fun an occupation you must admit :) Well the "everyone would have e.g. one week..." approach suffers the same limitation. It would just be: who has more free time to practice?

e.g. in trackmania when I visit a server I like and see some of the same faces I get completely beaten into ground, but, if a new track appears all of a sudden I become VERY competitive :)

[Cookie Monster]

Apologies Pea, basically that's correct. So it's like the online leaderboard, but with a competition and structure to compare the times against. For a theoretical championship, you would set a standard set of racing and car conditions, and every driver would have a set period of time (a week, for example) to upload the best race and time for that track. Rankings and points are maintained on a server, and some places even have divisions with promotion/relegation etc. If the upload facility can upload and download the entire lap or race, then cheating can be avoided because everyone can view the replays.

The beauty of this is that it doesn't matter what timezone or location you're in, everyone can play at a roughly even level. Real-time races are a LOT harder to code, because the Internet, latency and just co-ordinating everyone is hard.

Ahh, kinda like the challenge system in New Star Trials. Thanks for clearing that for me Alex.

[Alex Reeves]

There was a good point made back about how fiddling with setup would take time and would reward better 'mechanics' instead of drivers, which sounds more fun an occupation you must admit :) Well the "everyone would have e.g. one week..." approach suffers the same limitation. It would just be: who has more free time to practice?

e.g. in trackmania when I visit a server I like and see some of the same faces I get completely beaten into ground, but, if a new track appears all of a sudden I become VERY competitive :)

I agree, and I've seen the same thing in Trackmania (love that game, btw!). The easiest way to get around this is to only allow a driver to submit once in "official" mode, but the online championship has to manage that. Something like logging in in "official" mode and then having to deal with people who quit half-way on a bad run etc... No matter how you cut it, you're going to have this issue, because some people have more time to put into gaming than others. Gradings and/or divisions can help a little with this, but ultimately it comes down to how well built into the community the system is. TM suffers from this at the elite level, but I still have a lot of fun with it in exactly the same way.

Already the NSGP best-lap leaderboards are going this way anyway. Some of the top times there are crazy....

[Sida79]

Of course, there is no complete way around this, but if someone would still go through the effort of actually having to organize some things to an extent some things would certainly help, like, the next track being randomly chosen, in some cases also limiting the submitting window etc, depending on the situation and the possibilities. At this point in time I'd say there are still things in the single player game that need to be polished more than there is a need for any online gaming.

[Alex Reeves]

In the short term, agreed. But if the game is to have any longevity, I think an online competition model is going to become necessary. Ideally, the game itself should build the online comps, which is why getting the suggestion out here makes sense now. At the moment, there's no capacity for this anyway because the laps and races can't be submitted online. Once we have that, we can look at the structural issues.