Establishing Community in GT5

[JohnBM01]

GTPlanet, I am usually the one who says "we need to have a sense of community" when it comes to being car fans as well as fans of the Gran Turismo series. Question is, how can we establish this in GT5? I consider myself a people person. I love being around people, I love talking with people, I love bonding with people. I am a people person. But what if I'm in my home turning on my PlayStation 3 (when I get one, of course) and want to play GT5 (when I get it, of course) and feel like I'm part of some community.

If I am offline, I'd like to think I'm part of a world of talent. I'm not necessarily talking about having licensed drivers or something in the game. But I am talking about putting myself among people worst than me and even better than me. I can think of a non-racing game, "Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution." When you put your character against some other character, you'll see a profile for that specific competitor. It includes the player's win/loss record, amount of experience, and even the person's rank (for example, 1st Kyu, 10th Dan, Guardian, Hero, Champion, etc.)). You seem to feel like for each arcade you go to, you're faced with a certain level of talent at your level. Like in "VF4: Evolution," when you step up to a different arcade, you face tougher and more fierce competiion. You had that feeling in which regardless of favorite characters, you played against unique competitors whether they are above or below your skill level. If I do Gran Turismo 5, I'd like to believe that I am part of a community of racers better and worse than me. VF4: Evolution had about 500 different AI models based on actual players' playing styles. As far as GT5 would go, considering all the different driving styles, 500 doesn't seem like enough for 20 cars on track with several different race types and cars. The best number would likely be somewhere around 1,500 or 2,500 different driving styles and personalities. Maybe even 3,000. If they pull something like this off, I'd want to feel like I'm racing against legends and true professionals. I don't want care much for licensed racers, but I'd like to imagine doing the GT World Championship and racing against Derek Bell, Toranosuke Takagi, Christijian Albers, Bernd Schneider, Steve Soper, and the like.

I'm not really an online guy. If I was online, I don't need AI racers because there's always something like a very good GT gamer from a certain part of the world. Something I always believe in is that when you say you're the best at something, that's good. But to be great, you need to prove yourself against a world of talent. Look at people with the caliber and will to win as you do. If you can outshine the world, you are great. Establishing a commuity online means that there has to be a way for you to look into clubs and communities where you can have a certain car or region to be a part of. Here are examples of generic clubs and such: GT5 New England Ford Mustang Club, Southern California Chevy Club, Hamptonshire Lotus Elise Club, Manchester-London TVR AutoSport, Eastern Australia Holden Club, Tokyo-Yokohama Toyota Club.

GTPlanet, the main focus is about how can we possibly establish a sense of community with GT5, be it online, offline, or both? Please share your ideas now.

 

[Tenacious D]

Very good post.

I'd like to think that when Sony gets its online community established, there will be some sort of infrastructure set up to allow people to establish localized communities, clubs, clans or whatever they'd like to be called, along with the overall GT universe like we have here.

In the game Battlefield 2, the server you play on can collect your playing statistics which feeds your overall accomplishments to a master database managed by EA. Something like that might be cool for GT5, so the stats of the racing ninjas can be displayed that us weekend warriors can aspire to. Along with that, chat boards for the community, auctions and trades, custom paint shops for the artists among us, all kinds of things.

I also posted here and there the desire to have individual racing AI modelled after real world racing stars. Particularly, I'd like to see the entire racing world modelled in my Career Mode concept, in which there are racing teams with racers coded with individual tactics and traits, like patience, risk taking and endurance. And have this established for all the classes of racing, from World Rally through Touring Car to Formula 1 and CART if they can get the license.

With the power and capacity of the PS3 available, something like that should set the benchmark once again for racing games of all stripes.

 

[Slurm]

I think the sense of community can add alot to a game's aura too.
A few ideas:

Having your name and flag printed automatically on your car just like a real racing driver. I think this would be great for giving you and your car a little bit of tanglible identity in real-time.

I think there should be a practice mode split into online and offline mode. The online mode should then be split into:
1) Free-practice, where you can choose from random servers on whatever track you choose.
2) Driving Clubs: From here you can browse or search clubs based on whatever criteria (geographical, car/manufacturer/class allowed, number of members, club name...)
People should be able to create driving clubs and set entry rules/criteria or only accept members after approval and then remove/ban people with the backing votes of 5 other members. Anyone should be able to see a few stats on any club like the date it was established, number of members etc... and with membership, you should be able to see scheduled meets, a member list, members' join dates, lap records etc...
Oh and when practicing, everything like settings, times, club info should all be accessed from the pits to keep the pitlane alive and avoid seeing cars randomly dissapearing all the time whilst driving, which wouldn't do much for the realism.

Having some kind of ranking or stats for each driver would be nice too, so you know who you're racing against. Intentional ramming and other troll-like antics should earn drivers points that go on some kind of warning level and only dissapear with time. Too many of these should result in losing your license. God knows how they'd impliment this fairly. Imagine doing an online race and someone ramming off the track and quitting straight away cos you're winning.

Buddy List

Regional/national/international Championships with unique prize-cars! No idea how these could be organised. Races each day at a certain time daily or weekly I guess.

Auctions/Classifieds.

 

[ED209]

I have previously suggested that you look at the Ariel atom, however after seeing that you know about Steve Soper, which I am impressed that any one knows about about him outside the UK, I now see my ignorance to your knowledge!

I like your idea I hope that I interperted it correctly, about having AI with certain well known drivers styles, I myself adore the btcc supertouring days, so would love to see how much I would get spanked by John Cleland,it would also be good if you could vary their skill level, but keep their driving style, to see from how good they are, to how much lower you are!

 

[JohnBM01]

The premise behind this idea is to actually feel like you're part of some community. For example, I'm a Texas guy right? Southeast Texas guy. The southeast Texas set isn't represented too well with a certain race track. I would like to feel like I'm racing against people of different levels across Texas, maybe even the American southwest, and maybe even America itself. In addition to that, I'd like to feel like there are other racers with different talents. Don't have to be professional drivers, but sort of on my level or not. It would give you a chance to know who can race around a track and who cannot. Newer racers tend to be more cautious and don't have the proper racing disciplines to win races. This also entails more frequent crashes and errors on the driver's part. More experienced racers are smarter on the race track and are able to take chances and make bold passing moves. In addition, it almost seems as if you can pinpoint (and I'm talking about classic race car drivers past and present) that certain racer for a specific style of driving that everyone will have to appreciate on any race day.

I think you might like this idea as well... I would like to extend the community aspect to endurance racing and rally. You can tag along with someone in your area who is certified in a certain area, or maybe look for some talent to tag along with from around the world. I don't know if we'll see something like actual drivers (for example, rally co-drivers) with you in the car with pace notes, but it would be quite interesting for offline play. I just think that this could be a way to milk actual drivers in a GT game. On top of that, you're able to take a look at different racers to perhaps bring or invite to Family Cup races so you can make some money and have fun with other drivers. It would also be interesting if you could have a one-on-one race against a driver so you can match yourself up against someone at your level, below your level, or above your level. This would bring on the possibilities of Match Racing. A funny idea is to let the duel opponent pick his/her car and mod it to fit the level your car and talents are. So if you had a 325hp MKIV Toyota Supra and wanted to face a driver below your level, that person may bring his/her best car. If you agree to the car he/she selects, then some modifications will be made to ensure it will be a close race or an interesting one. The AI racer may match your Supra with a highly-tuned Nissan 240SX. The challenge can be a traditional one or two lap race, a timed race, a time attack, or anything like that. If you beat him/her, that person may give you something like extra money, a certain modification, or maybe some advice. if you lose to him/her, that person may give you advice to use in future races. To be realistic, if you drive really bad and force that person out of the race, he/she may be very angry at you and give you a Bruce Lee kick to the groin.

I think AI-type racers with unique driving characteristics should really be generated for each class in addition. For beginner stages, you're facing mostly newcoming racers and veterans not in their prime. Professional Stages should include more of professional talent and smarter racers. Extreme would have to include really professional racers from charsimatic pro racers to Hall of Fame-type racers. GT is more about cars, but let's at least change up the racer aspect and come off with more opponents with character... without forgetting that sense of community. 👍 Carry on the discussion.

 

[Tenacious D]

ED209: after thinking about it, I think you have it exactly right.

In GT3 and 4, the difficulty of each race is determined by how little or much horsepower you decide to have with each car, as well as quality of tires. This may be the first Gran Turismo which will have a Level of Difficulty!

I expect that Racing Performance Limits will return in GT5. In real life racing, rules are strictly enforced, so there probably won't be any slapping on a higher performance turbo for another 300 horsepower to get through a tough race.

I do like the community idea, with the cliques and clubs, and hope that Sony gives us that capacity in their online services.

Oh, and as for the racing badges for your car. I really like that idea, though I'm not sure how Polyphony would equip the game to do that. Give us a racing mod paint job that applies to online races only? Allow us to trick up our race modded cars anyway we please, as far as paint jobs, decals of mod kits and car numbers we choose ourselves? I'm hoping that the options we have are as unlimited as our imaginations. One can dream.

 

[JohnBM01]

I'm not an American car fanatic, but one of the most popular racing games which emphasized a sense of community was the ill-fated "Motor City Online." This was a game in which you race in nothing but classic American muscle. American muscle from the past and nothing else (imagine how many American fans want to have more of this in GT games). The community was so bold that it was basically an MMORG (my own terms: Massively-Multiplayer Online Racing Game). You could race, cruise around town, and all that. And since it's all online, you don't have to think you're restrained to just yourself. In fact, you had community in the sense that you're not a loner in a completely open world.

My only tweaks would be that there'd be a community that you'll be a part of. I don't like the free-roaming idea, so let's toss that out the window. What would be interesting is to have some sort of "Life" feature in which you can check out people from different cities and communities with different interests. So if you like racing Hondas around the track, you can find a Honda lover in GT5 (online or offline) and tag along with him/her. It would also be interesting if you became part of a club in GT5, because there would be the idea of getting Event Invites to certain races with certain types of cars. To me, I don't think they should be required to acheive 100% completion. This is all an idea so that you can have some fun outside of regular Gran Turismo sanctioning.

I think there can be a great number of clubs and certain races to become part of. These can all be based on nationality of cars, specific cars in lineups, specific genre of cars, levels of experience, and that sort of thing. I think it all begins with an enhanced profile. In GT4, you had to give yourself a name and everything. Imagine putting in your first name, middle name/middle initial, last name, nickname (optional), and all that. Then think about seeing your name in the Starting Grid. I don't care for licensed racers, so generated names would be a better thing to look into. As part of a group, you tend to share advice and stuff among your peers with my idea. I'm going to take a page out of PGR3 and allow you to take a look at others' cars. You can't go too far because all you care about is the cars and the racing. I think that if functional garages aren't a good idea, then the next best thing would be to simply pick a driver from a list to view the person's car. The way it would be set up is that you'll have a GT4-style menu when you go to buy a car, only instead of buying cars, you are viewing more information about the car and the driver. Viewing the driver gives you the person's name, experience level, gender, championships won, age*, nationality*, hometown*, and that sort of thing (asterisks include optional or debatable items). Viewing the car information gives you info on horsepower, torque, drivetrain, aspiration, length x width X height, modifications, races and championships won with the car by the driver, mileage, nationality, and that sort of thing.

This idea basically is about making the competition more interesting, so that you feel like you actually can bond with drivers. One last note, you can denote cars as favorites. Imagine noting certain drivers as friends. That friend could join you for endurance competition or rally co-driving duties. Let's keep the discussion moving...