Design Meeting notes (21st March 2012)

[mimaximax]

A scenario mode could be unlocked after finishing career mode. Like a bonus, a second SP mode. There even may be multiple scenario mode to unlock relatively to the amount of gold, silver, bronze medals you won. Maybe one of the scenario mode could be going through the racing career path of a famous driver.

[buzzin_nice]

whats the point of rolling roads if there is no upgrades or tuning parts? everyone will just tweak their settings to find the best outcome and then we'll all get the same results. also tuning is a big ask i can appreciate but for me it was the reason i purchased all the gran tourismo's. maybe later as dlc or add-ons as a last resort?

[Ryzza5]

Invitations to do one stint mid-race with required positional improvements sounds like an awesome idea (better than excessively long endurance races in GT5 imo). Of course, 24hr races should be possible for those who want them, but not a required SP career event.

[Darren McKenna]

Interesting read guys, I see a reference to iRacing a few times which is good IMO. One thing that I did not read about that should be addressed. In iRacing you get penalized for bad driving, as in your license takes a hit. You need to drive good to get higher licenses. I am not saying pCARS should do the same but every race game has online ram rods that wrecks a good race. If pCARS implemented some type of penalty for poor driving it would make online racing fun. This is where games like GT5 and Forza 4 fail.

[ermo]

- I support the idea of production cars with predefined kits/classes:
-- For each kit, you actually have a new car from a car definition file point of view: Bespoke engine file, bespoke sound configuration, but sharing several assets like with the Atoms (i.e. no upgrade UI or car rating).
-- For example, you could very well have several kit 'stages' of e.g. the Paruscha Crocodile:
--- Stock (some people apparently want this, and with the country road feature, it would have a certain NFS or Test Drive flair); e.g. the lightweight, driver focused Paruscha Crocodile R w/3.4L Flat-6
--- TrackDay/RoadWorthy/Stage1 (includes stickier road tires, complete stage 1 engine upgrade package, adjustable suspension, appropriate body kit/lowering) for simple hotlapping pleasure or trackday settings; e.g. the Paruscha Crocodile GT3 RS w/3.8L Flat-6
--- Cup/Race (production-based, stripped out, roll-cage, race tuned, race tyres, different model cars are adjusted to be equal within the class); e.g. Paruscha Crocodile GT2 (GT2 class), Paruscha Crocodile GT3 R (GT3 class), Paruscha Crocodile GT3 RSR Cup (single make cup)
-- It would also set the expectation that this game is about the driving and not about tinkering with upgrades per se, even if a progression from stock to a full-on race/works version of a specific car is still present.

- As part of the challenges idea, it's not hard to imagine basic AutoX courses or (optionally) Ghymkhana challenges. Depending on your (SMS) level of comfort with this, the idea of user-contributed AutoX courses and (Ghymkhana) challenges might rally (heh) the community to create and offer extra content. Sort of like taking the Source engine and offering a Garry's mod type of sandbox for people to do crazy stuff with. You could choose to offer this creative functionality as (cheap-ish) DLC, but allow all owners the ability to consume these scenarios. I bet that the larger (car culture) audience would jump on this. Whether the predefined setting is a docks style industrial area, the test track or a simple parking lot doesn't matter. This ties into the "whatever you want it to be" tag line. It also comes at no cost, licensing wise.

[Ryzza5]

Maybe just a simple Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3 upgrade set for production cars only?

If an iRacing-style license/penalty system is to be used online I hope it's optional. I'm not a bad driver but mistakes do happen occasionally, and I'd rather this be saved for the elite drivers.

[netrobot]

Do you think about dedicated server (i.e. for LAN-parties)? LANs are also good for marketing.

[Machinaea]

Dedicated servers are planned/coming soon-ish, check the multiplayer thread.

[KAMPFBIBER81]

Do you think about dedicated server (i.e. for LAN-parties)? LANs are also good for marketing.

After my experiance from my last LAN-party (Steam destroys everything... Thanks trackmania for a few hours of fun with my FPS-friends) I was thinking about some LAN-mode Demo. A demo with a few cars and tracks that can be distributed during a LAN party from a game owner to his friends that is usable for a few days (Only on LAN). Would be quite a nice feature.

[miagi]

About RallyCross
I think this is a nice outsider perspective on it.
http://youtu.be/LZGSjngXY-k?t=9m8s
http://youtu.be/UKREDwf_mNE