Forza Horizon 4: General Discussion

[Dan Hill]

A shame that seems to be the end of new conten as I was hoping we'd still get get a few cars until just before FH5 came out. Hopefully some of the cars from the leaked car lists turn up in FH5.

One thing I'm hoping for is the Aston Martin DB11 PO to be available again, as I missed out on it last time it was available and as I'm working my way through the tiers on The Eliminator, it will be the last car I need to complete my car collection for this game.

 

[BobLeFlambeur]

cries in Aston Martin Vantage V600

I guess the writing was on the wall though if not with Horizon 5’s announcement, the last few updates.

 

[Nielsen]

cries in Aston Martin Vantage V600

Indeed. FH4 was perfect for this car.

 

[drouid2]

Indeed. FH4 was perfect for this car.

yeah loved the 98 v8 vantage. also wished the vanquish came too... another great car for fh4.

 

[Kelpy D]

Okay... So, since FH4 would end up having no new cars after Update 37... let's try to reminisce the past when the devs accidentally shown unreleased content.

• The 911 Sport Classic was accidentally used as the thumbnail for the 911 Reimagined by Singer.
• The Mclaren P1 GTR was seen in an update stream
• The Volvo 1800 E and the 1995 Mustang Cobra were seen in release trailers IIRC
• The 2015 Mustang and 1991 Jeep Grand Wagoneer were seen as banners for car classes (Modern Muscle and Cult Cars)
• The 2013 Ford Focus ST was seen as a banner for a Series 7 Seasonal Championship

I honestly hope that the Chevy Cobalt SS, Ford Focus SVT, Chevrolet Corvair and the Ford Mustang SVO would come to Horizon 5 as autoshow cars.

 

[Nielsen]

What does this mean though?

Beyond the release of Forza Horizon 5, we plan to make sure Forza Horizon 4 continues to be a fun experience for everyone and will share details when we are able to.

Forza.net: The official home of Forza

Official site for Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games

forzamotorsport.net

"Share details when we are able to" kinda does suggest that FH4 isn't just going to fade away on an absolute minimum of life support. It actually does leave me with a bit of optimism that interesting series updates might return to FH4 when the initial dust has settled around the FH5 launch. I'm not expecting it much, but with that sentence it's easy to get the impression that FH4 isn't heading into the archives just yet.

 

[Populuxe]

Wasn’t the Jeep Wagoneer seen in the trailer for Fortune Island?

 

[NotThePrez]

Wasn’t the Jeep Wagoneer seen in the trailer for Fortune Island?

I dunno about the Wagoneer, but the Shelby Raptor was featured in it.

 

[Silver_Wolf]

Well just read about the future plans after Series 37.

I hope the appearance of older playlists again does indeed give us players who didn't bother with the events or in my case bought the game then did nothing with it for 12 months have a chance to acquire some of the cars that were locked to those playlists.

Actually glad they have confirmed this will be the last 'new car' added to FH4 as that means I can better 'juggle' my online games with weekly events a bit better than I have been doing of late.

Shall have to look back the game archives to see what I might want to keep an eye out for....

 

[Stang616]

I wonder if they will do the same thing with FH4 that they did with FM7 and make all the locked cars available for purchase. There are several I never bothered with getting simply because I didn't want to complete the Horizon stories related to them, or grind through the Eliminator...

 

[Outspacer]

What does this mean though?

Forza.net: The official home of Forza

Official site for Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games

forzamotorsport.net

"Share details when we are able to" kinda does suggest that FH4 isn't just going to fade away on an absolute minimum of life support. It actually does leave me with a bit of optimism that interesting series updates might return to FH4 when the initial dust has settled around the FH5 launch. I'm not expecting it much, but with that sentence it's easy to get the impression that FH4 isn't heading into the archives just yet.

Being a cynical old git, I'd say it means nothing - they'd never actually phrase it as "absolute minimum of life support" or anything similar, instead always bigging up whatever is left. Like saying the coming season repeats are like a "greatest hits" compilation.

As an ultimate owner since day one I definitely feel I got my money's worth, so not bothered much. Not sure if people who've bought in the last 6 months would feel the same, unless they got it at a good discount. Now that so much of a game's worth is based on the support it gets MS really should change their policy of keeping a game basically full price for its entire lifetime.

Still, not long 'til 5 and a whole new map

 

[Nielsen]

Being a cynical old git, I'd say it means nothing - they'd never actually phrase it as "absolute minimum of life support" or anything similar, instead always bigging up whatever is left. Like saying the coming season repeats are like a "greatest hits" compilation.

I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t think they outright said the VUHL was going to be the last new car ever. Please correct me if wrong. I only heard them say that no new cars would be added over the coming months leading up to FH5, which combined with that written phrase could suggest that more cars might be added later on. Again, I’m not expecting it, but the door seems somewhat open for whatever reason.

 

[Outspacer]

I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t think they outright said the VUHL was going to be the last new car ever. Please correct me if wrong. I only heard them say that no new cars would be added over the coming months leading up to FH5, which combined with that written phrase could suggest that more cars might be added later on. Again, I’m not expecting it, but the door seems somewhat open for whatever reason.

I can't see them adding a new car after the VUHL, ever, because I just can't think why they would once FH5 is live. Even a Christmas gift is likely to be an existing car.

More likely is some sort of update that allows FH4 to run on with minimal intervention, like making existing cars available to buy. Super 7 already automatically picks events, so that user side continues, but maybe there's a few little tweaks they could do that would allow for other things to continue in the same vein. But I think anything fresh will only come from user-generated stuff.

 

[Nielsen]

I can't see them adding a new car after the VUHL, ever, because I just can't think why they would once FH5 is live. Even a Christmas gift is likely to be an existing car.

More likely is some sort of update that allows FH4 to run on with minimal intervention, like making existing cars available to buy. Super 7 already automatically picks events, so that user side continues, but maybe there's a few little tweaks they could do that would allow for other things to continue in the same vein. But I think anything fresh will only come from user-generated stuff.

Unless PG recognizes that FH4 has a massive community worth treating independently from the soon to be FH5 community. But yes, it doesn’t seem very likely.

 

[ImaRobot]

It just seems implausible that they'd buy licenses for both games, for new cars, when they're going to want to push for people to move on to the new game. I would imagine that maybe they'll do events and things like that, but I doesn't make much sense to have additional content in the form of vehicles on a dated game that already has a new iteration.

 

[Nielsen]

It just seems implausible that they'd buy licenses for both games, for new cars, when they're going to want to push for people to move on to the new game. I would imagine that maybe they'll do events and things like that, but I doesn't make much sense to have additional content in the form of vehicles on a dated game that already has a new iteration.

I suspect they already own the licenses for many cars not in the game, but have them saved in a pool so they never run out of cars to distribute in updates. For example, the rights to include the recent Mazda Cosmo and Mazda RX-3 in FH4 were likely secured a long time ago.

 

[Outspacer]

Unless PG recognizes that FH4 has a massive community worth treating independently from the soon to be FH5 community. But yes, it doesn’t seem very likely.

🔮 And then a year or two into FH5, FH4 will be delisted regardless of how healthy the community is, and nobody new will be able to get the expansions, even though MS have to maintain the ability for existing owners to redownload them Doesn't make much sense to me, but that's how they roll.

(I mean, I want the FH2 expansions, but there is no way to get them at all only standard disc )

 

[ImaRobot]

I suspect they already own the licenses for many cars not in the game, but have them saved in a pool so they never run out of cars to distribute in updates. For example, the rights to include the recent Mazda Cosmo and Mazda RX-3 in FH4 were likely secured a long time ago.

As we can see from cars just missing from next iterations for seemingly no reason, I'm not so sure that's the case. At the very least, its a game by game basis for a certain amount of time - isn't licensing issues part of the reasons why games get delisted after so many years? If it was a "own the license, use it for all games" type of deal, we would have seen all these "missing" cars from the many iterations the game had.

 

[Outspacer]

isn't licensing issues part of the reasons why games get delisted after so many years?

Yeah, Rushy was pretty open about it, saying the standard for licensing cars was 5 years. Not sure about music. But FH3 was delisted after only 4, so, hmm 🤔

(Still, I'd be happy just to be able to get the expansion maps, without any cars).

 

[sirjim73]

Yeah, Rushy was pretty open about it, saying the standard for licensing cars was 5 years. Not sure about music. But FH3 was delisted after only 4, so, hmm 🤔

(Still, I'd be happy just to be able to get the expansion maps, without any cars).

I guess it depends when the 5 years start from. You have to assume that licences are being agreed all the time, not just on release day.

If you sign a licence in say June 2021 for a game coming out in November 2021, does the 5 years run to November 2026, or to June 2026? Honestly, I've no idea.

If its 5 years to June 2026, then the support has to finish before then, as do sales, which might explain 4 whole calendar years being the limit.

 

[Outspacer]

I guess it depends when the 5 years start from. You have to assume that licences are being agreed all the time, not just on release day.

If you sign a licence in say June 2021 for a game coming out in November 2021, does the 5 years run to November 2026, or to June 2026? Honestly, I've no idea.

If its 5 years to June 2026, then the support has to finish before then, as do sales, which might explain 4 whole calendar years being the limit.

Thinking in general legal contract terms it would start from when the game maker has some benefit from it - but whether that includes promo material before release and pre-orders, no idea. FH3 was Sept to Sept though, almost exactly 4 years to the day.

I don't think support has to finish at any point, although it almost always has by the time a driving game is 5 years old! But theoretically, a game could be delisted and still get new cars added.

Then there's Assetto Corsa, released on PC end of 2014 and still for sale - obviously different terms!

My hunch is Microsoft don't sign 5 year deals that are more suitable for one-off games since they have a large and increasing roster of cars across two series of titles, and the heft to negotiate more flexible terms. That may mean it's something like a yearly payment per title on sale that year - so although it could go on forever if enough sales are made, they can cut it off almost as soon as it isn't profitable.

 

[Kelpy D]

I wonder if they will do the same thing with FH4 that they did with FM7 and make all the locked cars available for purchase. There are several I never bothered with getting simply because I didn't want to complete the Horizon stories related to them, or grind through the Eliminator...

I think that they are making the locked cars purchasable by means of Horizon Backstage, but the question is, when H4 hits EOL, will they still continue to repeat series playlists? Or will they permanently set it back to the backup playlist that we encountered back in Update 23?

 

[Populuxe]

The game updated about two hours ago, and Super7 High Stakes is now active. I went through it without much trouble. I only had to redo one challenge. Of course all the prizes were items I already owned. No new cars I can see.

 

[Outspacer]

I think that they are making the locked cars purchasable by means of Horizon Backstage, but the question is, when H4 hits EOL, will they still continue to repeat series playlists? Or will they permanently set it back to the backup playlist that we encountered back in Update 23?

They said (in the stream) that they'd be repeating content from series 7 to 32. "Like a mix tape", whatever that means! My bet is on a straightforward repeat of the series, adding photo challenge, swapping out some prizes for backstage passes maybe.

I wonder - does that mean they've glitched 6 times and used those up already? It could be a mechanism that's been in the game since launch 🤔

At 0:36:00...

 

[Kelpy D]

They said (in the stream) that they'd be repeating content from series 7 to 32. "Like a mix tape", whatever that means! My bet is on a straightforward repeat of the series, adding photo challenge, swapping out some prizes for backstage passes maybe.

I wonder - does that mean they've glitched 6 times and used those up already? It could be a mechanism that's been in the game since launch 🤔

At 0:36:00...

I just hope that their new photo challenges would be completely original

 

[strela]

Do you guys have the same problem? If I try starting Super7 from the Pause Menu everything is fine but as soon as I try starting from the map(free roam) the game crash.

 

[Silver_Wolf]

Is there a problem with Beaches and Bentley's event race this week, I keep getting to the second race but as soon as I reach the
middle of the race the game disconnects me and I have to restart the event, happened 3 times now...

Also have to say that our voice over guy for High Stakes is REALLY more annoying than usual.

 

[DivitLad]

Been getting a lot of disconnects

 

[sesselpupser]

Is it me or are people more friendly recently? I tend to spend most of my time in the game these days getting people to race me on the motorway (I'm really going to miss my 911 GT3 PO!) but recently on two occasions while doing so, I've been invited to a head to head race that on both occasions developed into a string of races where the winner chooses a slower car or the loser chooses a faster one, racing all over the map, weirdly without a word being said. I've been playing since day one and haven't experienced that before.

Kind of like Journey, but with cars and no desert.

Also earlier an S1 Golf challenged me to a race so I got in my XJR-S GT to match their car, and out of nowhere a white 911 and a white Mercedes (can't remember which model exactly) passed me, so I caught up with them and we drove about for a while, then a Veyron wearing a police livery and a Lambo joined in too. We weren't even doing anything, just driving and taking some photos. I've had a handful of similar experiences but most of the time people don't seem very interested in casually cruising around.

 

[MOPARbarrett5]

Is it just a product of the recent server instability that I was refused 20 car mastery points? I can't tell if they were revoked from a car or if it was just a free thing to compensate for the server issues.