GRAN TURISMO 6 : Enigma in Motion.

[Arp 273]

I like the diversity that GT has to offer (collecting, driving - physics and FFB, raceing, career, tuning, modifying, photographing, VGTs, GT Academy, analysis - data logger and Motec). Problem is that all these areas are in need of improvement. Some more than others.

PD could do so much more with the current content and/or give us some way of doing this ourselves. More options.. (settings for career AI strenght and grip reduction).

Some physics bugs (eg ride height, camber, top speeds) need to be fixed.

Missing content (course creator) needs to be delivered or at least adressed in the blog. If not possible for GT6, fine, just say so, give me a discount on GT7 and move on.

If they did all this I would actually pay for new real car DLC..

 

[photonrider]

The huge problem that the Gran Turismo series has now is with the schizophrenia. It doesn't know what it is. It doesn't realise what it has become. It doesn't know what to be. Wish lists run rampant.
But it's not wishlists that are the focus here. It's the muddled marketing psychology behind the game.

The player-base diminishes daily.
All we'll have left is a bunch of TTs, a bunch of Time Trialers, and some online lobbies full of bashing.
The game is more than this. The game was a jewel in the crown when it came to automotive-based games.
It was filled with Easter eggs, surprises of one sort or another, quirks that were particular to Gran Turismo, vehicles that no other game dared to have, a developing AI, graphics that were being improved, handling that was evolving, and so on and so on.

Now it's just a data base of lap-times that PD is using for one reason or another, reasons that don't seem to do with player 'enjoyment' but rather with recruitment or boosting self-esteem via Leaderboards. For chips.
If not for series like the WRS and other leagues tenaciously held on to by core players there wouldn't be any proper online racing at all.
If not for sites like GTPlanet bringing players together to discuss stuff other than GT Academy, wishful dreams, and Leaderboards - we would never discuss the AI, or Easter eggs, or iconic cars. Or just other crazy stuff that was purely 'Gran Turismo' and no other automotive-based game.

They have strayed so far from the original premise of the game . . that sales-figures are showing it now.
Meanwhile they try to bolster that income another way.
Providing Time Trials via DLC doesn't cost them too much. They are just dry bones thrown at a very small community.
Disguising them as 'overtake' events doesn't pull the wool over our eyes, either.
Crikey - barely golding and I'm in the top 50,000. Is there only that many players left the world over?? That should be just Japan!
Realistically I should just make it into the top 500,000.

One has to only throw GT3 or GT4 in the old PS2 and have a bit of a fling at those games to realise how much of the 'fun' game-play has been taken out and replaced with endless TTs - in the name of 'fastest drivers in the world.'

In fact, if one 'plays the game now' that's taken to be too 'babyish'. One must be at the top of the Leaderboads to be permitted to play the game. To voice any opinion. To be worthy of the game. Bah!

Yet strangely enough if one were to examine the player stats of most of the top names in the leader boards there is a bit of a surprise. Very few have Platinum.

 

[cjr3559]

I love cars. I'm a car guy. And with 1200 cars to choose from for all these Time Trials and Seasonal Races (online and off), I don't think I could ever get tired of this game.

Until the day comes that I've driven every last car from the Fiat 500 to the Red Bull on every last track in every last track condition (where applicable), I'll never be bored. The sheer number of car/track combinations is virtually infinite.

 

[photonrider]

Where are we now? How has this enigmatic game eviolved?

When I began this discussion the game was nothing but TT's and a huge focus on GTAcademy. There were no A-Spec races given to us as Seasonals. We endured many months of this lack. Those of us focused on the A-Spec aspect of the game were left high and dry for quite awhile.
And then suddenly along came the A-Spec races we were looking for. Though there was no let-up in the stream of Drift and Time Trials, we still had 3 races every fortnight to try out - and these were fairly good races races - at the Nurb as well as the 24M of Daytona for instance.
But this quickly turned into a situation where the races offered were stale - in fact many merely recycled off the A-Spec events in-game; we may as well just go in and play them in there.

Admittedly races on new tracks (placed in the game later) were appreciated, Mid-field, Spa, etc, and we looked forward to these events, unavailable in-game; which is really the marrow in the bones that PD throws us. Running 3 laps at Rome in Italian cars? I can do that in-game. I don't need to wait 4 weeks to do that.

And yes - that brings us to the 4-week gap in Seasonal A-Spec downloads, and, from the comments around the Forum, a sore point with the players who love A-Spec. We want more.
But it is at this point that I have to remind myself that PD has no obligation to do this. The only spur they would have to kick them into serving us free dishes is competition from the competition.
And there is a whole lot of competition out there.

Which was PD's fault in the first place.

Why do I say this?

Let me clarify how this enigma of a game is now eating itself, Jabba the Hutt gone wild.

There were many 'car-racing'-type games before Gran Turismo. But none captured the imagination and enthusiasm of both video-gamers and the actual racing/driving fraternity like Gran Turismo. It addressed the issue of racing/driving video-gaming in an adult manner even going so far as to call itself a driving simulator - which, I'm going to admit was apt at the time considering the poor competition it had in this genre.
It captured mainstream video-gamers - usually a teen or young adult population, as well as more young adults who were not predominantly video-gamers and much older adults too - even those going well into their seventies and eighties.

This was a huge market.
PD wasn't selling just a video-game, it was the beginning of a whole new genre, and a whole new market to be explored. This led to a sudden start up of a plethora of racing/driving games from other developers eager to join this money-train, and that has burgeoned into dozens of Series - leaving those of us absolutely bedazzled, confused, and distraught as to what to 'play'.

The inroads PC games made into this genre are phenomenal, and PC racing games (putting actual game-play aside) are in a class of their own when it comes to maximising the technology that gives us the 'real' experience.
Obviously Gran Turismo on PC would be mind-boggling, but the very competition it spurred has now ground it into the dust, and left it writhing in all directions.

It asks itself: Am I a video-game? A driving simulator? A recruiting-tool for Nissan? A market-awareness billboard for automakers? A race-track populariser? An app for online-racing?
There are so many sectors in the 'game' now that running it on a console is akin to baking a cake on a candle.
Basically Gran Turismo not only gave birth and encouraged the spread of this huge array of apps in the same genre, it stayed in the crib after teaching everyone to run.

And now, Kaz is here, Kaz is there, Kaz is all over the actual racing world, and the game he created has multiple personality disorder.

What this means is that I have to work hard to find ways to enjoy the game - if there is still an actual game in this video-game.
That should not be the case - especially for those of us who have lived, breathed and eaten the Series since its inception.

Over to you, Yamauchi-san.

 

[another_jakhole]

I was hoping GT6 would fix the career mode but clearly it didn't. I'm not ok with that, even though I know how to play on my own terms. I don't care for GT's career, but neither do I care for Driveclub's when I thought Evolution put more "effort" into it. Actually, I think GT's career is more sensible and not just a cluster of events thrown together.

 

[photonrider]

GT has not so much a career as a 'pick-and-chose' what to race after the levels are unlocked. This is great - flexibility is always welcome - but there is no real story-line anymore.
As well, Gran Turismo lost one of the key components that was characteristic of the series: collecting cars.
We don't do that anymore.
Which is why one of the best features of GT6 - the hunt for rare cars, and therefore the great option of trading, gifting, and sharing was thrown out the window.

The hype about Course Maker disguised that loss.

I remember when Ridox would send me over one of his tuned cars in GT5 and I would try it out amazed at the differences in my lap times; I don't have that pleasure anymore.
And rare cars? Who cares about rare cars anymore? Who remembers the joy of discovering the stealths in GT4 and working hard to acquire them? Who remembers saving for a 2J or a Bentley speed 8 and having it pop-up when the money is in the bank?

Maybe that was the 'childish' part of the game, and so was dropped. In today's driving/racing game market cars are a dime-a-dozen, DLC's free and/or paid galore, games-makers vying with each other to give the gamers fresh new cars every month.
So Car Collection?
Out the window. One less gene - now missing in Gran Turismo's DNA.

But with that also trading, sharing, and gifting - social networking parts of the game that were vital in mutating the game into further online mode. No one complained. Not many anyway.

Finally, Course maker is here. Filling in some of that gap - obviously further activity online as players show off their course-making skills, and get together to share their creativity and enjoyment.

The game keeps growing. And as always, surprisingly. The enigma it truly is now.

 

[photonrider]

Finally . . . we are at the end of this evolution. GT6 became GTSport.

Or did it really?

I'm seeing genetic drift. I'm seeing polymorphism, and speciation and the Founder Effect. I'm seeing a whole new mutation, a sub-strain that is a branch-off from the original mission of the game.
What would one call the 'original mission of the game'? Quite simply - a racing career that involved earning money to buy cars, collect them, tune them, race them, earn more money, buy more cars, tune them, paint them, race them . . . and on and on and on.
With all sorts of missions built-in around that premise.
It was the online factor that brought in DNA that turned the game into a new species.
But online brought us new (and welcome) wrinkles. We could trade cars, share cars, interact as players (without doing so via a Forum as we did with 1 - 4) . . . so many positive possibilities . . . that were, however, all put aside in this new direction of 'finding real-world race-drivers' - as we have discussed for many pages in this thread.
And, as many have stated, not all of us have the sort of lives (or maybe we have better) that want us to leave everything we have and go traipsing off around the world racing real cars, or chasing after a life of being a racing car driver, or any sort of racing career at all.
Maybe all we want to do after a hectic day at work is sit down with a glass of single malt and fiddle around with a Stratos before we race it online with a bunch of friends, and maybe trade a car or two, or some other paraphenelia connected with the game. A bit of networking and sociability and competition that a racing/driving 'car and collectible car-stuff' game would give us - with online being a positive allele and not a destructive one.

At this point in time I see the enigma exposed. I see the split in the species. And I see, through the blinders of my positivism, hope for a game called GT7 - a game that would have almost all the great features that have kept hard-core Gran Turismites locked into playing the numbered series game . . . after game . . . after game. I can't see PoDi throwing away everything from B-Spec to trading cars.

This enigma is still in motion.

 

[photonrider]

Section 3 Simulation Mode of the GT3 A-Spec Driver's Manual begins with:

"Simulation Mode is the essence of Gran Turismo."

And then it goes on to introduce the player to My Home; Car Dealerships; License Center; Go Race; Tune Up; Machine Test; GT Auto; and a whole slew of pre- and post-race menu selections relating to data analysis, records, visuals, ghosts, replays - and most of all - almost the most important thing of all - cars, cars, and more cars . . . a driver's dream Simulator.
Getting the cars was also part of the game.
And the game made us better and better at driving, because to win some of those cars we had to get better and better. We had to behave like real drivers out there in the real world, fighting tooth and nail to win those races - hook or by crook. We needed the credits, we needed to unlock treasures, we had to get to the top of this private little racing world.
This was Simulation Mode from one of the best driving simulators of the time giving us the illusion we were struggling drivers trying to claw our way up the International driving scene. Cue all the frantic driving and gapped-out slobbering over cars.

In the same GT3 Manual, Skip Barber says : "Piloting a car is like running on a treadmill with your heart rate at 150 beats per minute while you're threading a needle and solving a complex math problem at the same time."

In the end, it's mostly about the car and us.
The other racers around you are white noise, part of the scenery, debris on the track that one must avoid as one would avoid asteroids at hyper speed through Space. Car and Driver become One, human and machine melding to perform as one movement, every motion symbiotic, geared to fulfil one purpose - get from A to B first.

Gran Turismo, however, always drew us in more than as just race car drivers. It took us around the world, gave us a feast of machines, a stable of robot drivers to pit ourselves against; a robot driver of our own to command; a vast bunch of tools relating to cars - from collecting and customizing to even trading and sharing. Plus photo and movie options relating to cars galore; data analysis tools; special racing events relating to iconic cars or racing personalities; licence tests; product information - it steeped us in racing and general automotive culture.

It even gave us the option of racing against other humans in real-time - live - but that is an unreliable option, dependant on humans as a product. And, in any case, that was only a small part of the pie - an academy for the dedicated, willing to claw their way up in the real world beginning with crossing that bridge between the virtual and the real.

When it comes to just sheer playing around with cars, Gran Turismo 6 stand out on its own now, as the other GTs have stood on their own - GT3. GT4, GT5 . . .

Alright, let me say it: I don't consider GTS the next evolution, the 'sequel' to GT6.
I see it as clever enhancement of GT Academy, an exploitive branch off into eSports, and in that sense I don't see GTS as really competition to GT6 (apart obviously from the sheer technological advances that make the game prettier, faster, etc.)
In terms of intent, content, and continuous focused playing of a video game, as is, GT6 for me is still at the pinnacle - even played as a strictly offline game - of a driving game for stay-at-home petrol heads.

My opinion, however, is only based on experience of GT6 (and the other numbered siblings that preceded it.) I might be misinformed or (more likely) quite uninformed about it.
I have had no interest in GTS right now in the same way I would not be interested in GT Academy - even if they threw some offline content onto that disk, gave me 500 more cars and 100 tracks - the essence of simulation would be missing. It would have to depend on humans to give me that thrill of getting from A - B at the speed of a photon.
All I know about GTS is what I read in here. Now here's a question to you players who have played GTS and GT6 (or even better, all or most of the numbered siblings) : Where does GTS fit in this family?

Would you agree with me that GTS only has partial DNA of the original Gran Turismo, the one in which simulation is not just of essence but is the essence of the whole game, and has always been since its inception and still firmly is, as GT6?
And which is why, because GTS is no real competition, but actually complements it, GT6 will continue to exist as a stand-alone and very popular driving simulation?
One that has more continuous and focused automotive-related experiences for a single player than only enhanced online competitive activity dependent on other players?

What I'm saying here is that GTS is a step-child - albeit one that has brought fresh and interesting blood into the family - but GT6 will evolve eventually, or mutate, or just simply improve using technology not only for prettiness and speed, but volume of accessible content via a suitably capable platform and will be the legitimate next numbered step - GT7 - in the series.

Now I've stuck myself out on a limb and only time will tell how strong it is.