Gran Turismo mode for GT5

[Dave A]

Gran Turismo mode for GT5, inspired by JohnBM01 and Tenacious D.


Starting off
When you start the game, you new virtual racing drivers career, you have a small property, 10,000Cr to spend and no racing license. Your options will be to go for the first license, buy a car, or check out the home area and generally what’s available on the game map.

Your home

In your home you’d have two rooms to go to, you’d have your l garage and your office. I’ll start with the office and then the garage since the office will take less time to explain. In your office you’ll be able to access your game options and settings, your load and save game data, e-mail for racing news and special offers for parts, cars, sponsorship offers perhaps as an added touch as you get better some fan mail, hell why not. Then you’d have access to the jukebox, rather than it being a separate feature on the main map, the replay theatre and the slideshow for you cars photos that you take. Also there will be all your career stats and how well you’re doing, and the diary feature etc. It will also be where you manage you racing team, but more on that later.

In the garage you’ll be able to walk around and view what cars you own, in the garage there will be a service area, and a storage room, the storage room is an idea I have for storing car parts you don’t have fitted to any cars, you can view your inventory in the room, and sell any parts you don’t want to keep. I think certain parts should be able to fit more than one car, so if for example if you buy a turbo for a VW golf, the fitting should be the same as say a SEAT Leon etc so you can then assign that part to another car it will fit, you should be able to see all the cars you own that, that part is compatible with. In the service area, this will be where your currently selected car will be, in here you can alter your settings, installed parts, run a dyno test, perhaps hop in your car to rev the engine and so on. In your first home area, your garage will be able to hold 20 cars, as you progress, you’ll be able to purchase new home areas with bigger garages.

Managing your team

So, managing your team then. I’ve had this idea where your team is more involved, you are more involved with your team. Basically, your like a player manager of a football team in GT, only you’re a racer manager of a racing team, you choose the cars, you choose the settings, you choose the events you want to race in. If you were just the teams driver you’d be told “here’ your car, that’s the event you’re racing in, we want you to do this well”. In GT that’s not how it is, nor is it how I think it should go, GT isn’t ToCA Race Driver, nor should it try to be. So, you’ll have the option of hiring new team members for the pit crew and maybe even extra drivers. You’ll start off with a fairly basically skilled team of people, you’ll have a handful of mechanics to work on your car and handle pit stops and one driver. As you build money you’ll have the option to train your pit crew in different areas, tyre changes, engine and repairs, transmission and repairs, bodywork and aerodynamics, there would be a category for all the other stuff I might have missed out but you get the idea, and then there would be driving, though this one would be limited to only to drivers.

Training a member in any area basically makes them better and faster in that area, so tyre changes, a team of people better trained at tyre changes will do faster tyre change pit stops than a team of people that aren’t trained. Alternatively to training people, you could just hire new team members, either additionally, or instead of the members you have. This would cost more, but eventually you might have two teams worth of team members, this is where the additional driver becomes interesting. Your driver is basically taking the role of B-Spec from GT4, rather than him being a faceless, nameless AI drone, you now have someone to relate him to. You can change from you driving to him driving during pit stops, or if you have two cars both eligible for the same event, you could both race as part of the same team, but remember, don’t pit at the same time. If however you have two teams worth of crew, you could occupy two pit spaces. So, B-Spec is now a bit more realistic, and bit more involved.

Buying a car and the different types of dealerships

When starting off you’ll only have 10,000Cr to spend, this won’t get you much so you’ll probably end up buying a use car. Since the next GT is rumoured to have damage and that it’s a rumour started from the big man himself (Kazunori Yamauchi) I’m including it into my idea. There will be many areas to visit on the map, dealerships from all over the world. There will be some, some new cars you will be able to afford with your measly 10k, the official dealerships will be scattered about in traditional GT fashion, but I’ thinking they should be sorted by continent again, and not country, there was just too many areas in GT4 and many only had a single dealer or two in them. Official dealers will offer new cars, factory racing cars, used cars and have an official parts shop on offer as well, though some may not have the race cars or used cars depending on the dealer in question. Additionally, you’ll have tuning companies and their offerings scattered about as well, these will have their showroom and their parts shop, they will offer parts unique to them and so the resulting changes in you cars performance and power etc will not be the same as tuning you car with parts from another tuning company or an official tuner. Then there will be generic used car dealerships scattered around, these will offer many of the cars available in the manufacturer used cars, but also used cars from the companies that don’t sell used cars in their official dealers and also a dealer specialising in used racing cars so you could buy a pre-tuned Skyline or Golf etc. Buying used cars, wherever it may be, could result in a bargain, or a con, a used car will be worn and battered and in some cases have pretty notable damage, its up to you to check the car for any potential pitfalls and problems that may arise.

Before purchasing any car, you will have the option of a test drive which will be done on a basic oval track, with an infield area and no barriers except around the outside of the oval. Also before you buy a car you will be able to have the car looked at by a professional, I think Tenacious D had a good idea with there being a quick overview service for cheap and a full in depth service for a bit more. You may get away with the quick overview for some cars, but it’d be wiser in most cases to have a full test done to the car. Note that you don’t have to have any test a tall, but by not having one you making it harder to spot a lemon.

The licenses

I don’t think there’s too much wrong with the licenses in GT as they are, just more variety and licenses done on more actual race situations. I’d like a license based on setting up your car, not a requirement to progress, but it’d be helpful for people that get lost in the car settings screens.

No pace car that forces you to slow down more than you have to because you have a better line of can brake later than the pace car etc. More variety in the tests, and more licenses to acquire overall. No prize car for getting a pass or silver, only for Gold in the licenses. Separate the road racing and the off road racing licenses, have say three or four grades for the rally events and then all the road racing licenses.

The events

This is a biggie, the events in GT4 ended up becoming tedious imo very fast. Part of the reason was that there was only one prize for each event, in GT3 I’d re-do a few events to get a different prize, in GT1 and GT2 I’d be doing the same. In GT4 you get the same car each time, sometimes in a different colour. Give us at least two possible prize cars per event, and a maximum of say four. Make the prize cars all a similar valued or type of car, so for the Super GT championship, you might win one of two Suepr GT GT500 cars or a DTM car or a GTS class race car, all are similar in performance and similar in value.

The rally events need to be more diverse, give us more events, base them on series, and so on, have an FF car rally series, have a rwd classics event and so on, not the event for this track and the event for that track. Maybe keep events based on the tracks, but add some proper events as well. Get rid of the time penalties, damage is the penalty now.

Basically give us more events, but with more than one prize per event. Maybe even for some events offer a car part that you can’t buy or something.

Also I’d like to see multi-class racing, I’d like to see a GT championship with NGT cars at the back, GT cars in the middle and LMP cars at the front, that’d be great to have.

Tuning the car

When tuning the car I want a selection of parts for each category, and I want each part to actually be different. I don’t want sports exhaust, I want the xxx exhaust or the xxy exhaust I don’t want just one stage 1 turbo choice, let me choose from a selection of real parts, or parts based on real parts but let me choose the part, not stage one this, semi-racing that. I want my fully tuned TVR to be my fully tuned TVR, not every ones fully tuned TVR. I also want to see more part types available, I’d like to see body kits (ooh bet that’s rubbed some people up the wrong way), but no, not those body kits, actual aero mods, kits that are designed to perform first and look good second rather than the other way round. This can tie in with the paint shop and the sponsor system I have in mind, so without further ado.

Sponsorhips and the paint shop

You will receive sponsor offers as you race and win, once you have a sponsor you can use that sponsor on any car your team owns, so basically, any car you own. You can apply sponsor decals in the paint shop, where you can also alter the base coat and add designs to your cars, basically, make your car look like a proper race car. You’ll be able to create custom colours or use pre-set ones and you’ll be able to import and export designs to and from your PC. Basically, your car will look how you want it to.

Buying new home areas

To keep this part simple, buying a new home area just increases number of spaces for cars in the garage, the more it increases the more the area costs. I’ve toyed with the idea of having you owning multiple homes but it could make life confusing, you could lose cars, having to jump from one home to another all the time, really this is all you need. Perhaps with an upgrade, the décor of the office could change as well, maybe even have a bigger office as well with the later upgrades.


I will update the post as and whenn I think of more ideas.

 

[Tenacious D]

You're stealing my ideas!

Actually just from the first few sentences, this looks like it's going to be a great read. John is a really inspiring guy, I have to say, and he makes a guy think a lot. If only he was on the team of either Live for Speed, Polyphony or Team 10 (Forza).

If Gran Turismo 5 has half the ideas in these threads, it's going to be one heck of a drive. But from what I recall from Kazunori's past interviews, he may be a few car lengths ahead of us.

 

[Uncle Harry]

All good stuff .
I want a save function on how I sort my garage please.

 

[JohnBM01]

Ahh... leading by inspiration. I commend you, Live4speed. You know I have a lot of respect for you (or did you?). So I'm going to talk a little GT mode.

* YOUR HOME - nice ideas. You're clean in this department.

* MANAGING YOUR TEAM - This would add a new aspect of GT games. And it's nice to see that you've decided to say that GT is not the ToCA Race Driver series, so there shouldn't be anything of hardcore team management or a half-ass storyline. ToCA Race Driver 3 seemed to be more perfect as you didn't have to worry too much about some whiny kid, a p*ssed off driver, or a manager trying to be as hot as Vicki Butler-Henderson. I can use another game as an example of upgrading peoples' skills. I remembered playing the PC game "Theme Hospital" from EA's British group, Bullfrog (still around?). This game had you hire doctors, nurses, handy men, and receptionists. You were responsible for building up your hospital with rooms ranging from a pharmacy all the way to even an Operating Theater for surgery. The key aspect here is about educating doctors. If you build a classroom to your hospital, a doctor of Consultant level will be able to teach lower-level doctors to becoming better on the job. It also mattered what kind of credentials a doctor had. That can be important if you wanted a doctor to carry out Psychiatric duties, Surgery duties, and such. And if you were going to have an Operating Theater, you need two surgeons to operate that room. The key point is that any aspect of upgrading members of your crew, you had to give them some practice. I like your idea, though I don't consider myself more of a managerial type. A more realistic aspect is if drivers simply go to other teams, leaving yours behind. Think of Dan Wheldon leaving Andretti-Green to join Ganassi.

* BUYING CARS...DEALERSHIPS - Forza had an option where you had regional selections of cars. It kind of reminds me that it would be pretty cool to start in your region. GT4 had them pretty scatterbrained in GT Mode. A world map would have to include sections. There should be three international sections which I usually designate in terms of finding cars and attending region-specific events: (1) Pan-America - North and South America including American territories and America-run areas, (2) Mediterrenean - Europe and Africa, and (3) Asia-Pacific - Asia, Australia, and Oceania. You're clean on most other things here.

* LICENSES - There is a reason why some people don't like License Tests. Many people are used to playing games that doesn't have long, drawn-out Tutorials. Some people see Tutorial Mode as a very long tutorial. Every Gran Turismo is a new experience. I always start from the beginning. Only time I didn't start from the beginning was when I did Gran Turismo 2 for the first time. I rammed into the Pace Car at times. Here's what I'd suggest- GT should probably be like Forza and have two extra ghosts on track. In Forza, one ghost was your best lap, while the other is the fastest lap of any car. The GT variant would feature the proper racing line, and the other ghost would be your best attempt. The best racing line should be a time which is exactly the gold time and not something the Demo Car smashes. The car should have a three-second lead on you. Once the countdown starts, the "instructor" car will take off and it's your job to mimic the instructor. If you want to try again, your best effort will be the second ghost, only that it will carry a blue hue or something. I've said you're clean on most things, but you're a little dirty with the "no cars for Bronze and Silver" thing. Even if you don't like the car you're given, you can be able to start the game with a car you don't have to buy. You save money for tuning it up. All-Silver gives you a little extra love, but all-gold is what many want. And here's a stat for you: in the past four GT games, I have NEVER cleared all-gold. Closest I got was the A-License class in GT3. I haevn't played it in a while, so that Seattle race with the Camaro is still a gray area for me.

* EVENTS - Some of my threads in GT5 are some of your ideas as well. "ToCA Race Driver 3" has great diversity in rally events. I'd probably cringe at RWD rally since I feel more comfortable taking a 4WD off-road. My thread on class racing is a key issue you've brought up. I think that really happens. Otherwise, we'll enjoy losing the GT All-Stars against IMSA GTP cars when we use a Panoz Esperante GT1 Race Car. Sega GT had a different idea in running a series multiple times- you may not win a new car, but just a new car to build in Carrozzeria Mode. Whether or not I like it depends. I'd like to be rewarded with a new car than a certain car part. Or let's go back to Sega GT. Win the championship, win the sponsorship of the series' sponsor. So if you win the Sony Japanese 90s Cup, win Sony sponsorship. Here's another idea- win the series of a certain sponsor, win sponsorship from that company including a tuned part using that company's parts. Win the K&N Air Filters Stars and Stripes, win a 2005 Ford Mustang modified with a K&N Air Filter and street-legal racing tires. That ONLY applies to car care and tuning firms. Clean again.

* SPONSORSHIPS AND PAINT SHOP - Many of my ideas are expressed in the last section and in my Racing Modification thread. Nice ideas and nice reinforced ideas.

* BUYING NEW HOME AREAS - Reminds me of my OLD "What if You Could Upgrade 'My Home' Thread" in GT5's forums.

This is a wonderful show by you. Good one, mate.

 

[greenlightning]

Nice Read,

I believe that the next GT game will be in many ways a new beginning for the series, certainly a new direction but yet retain the fundamentals. Having more of a career mode would certainly be welcome, not sure if it should be built in to sim mode or seperate tho.

The following is what I like about your post and some ideals based on it.
Emails could contain sales adds from new dealers, used car lots, parts shops. Maybe get news letters from above and differnt race tracks, race series etc.

"B"-spec, like the ideal to make "B"-spec more like a character. I would say have like maybe 20 + or more "B" spec fictional characters at start of game. You then can hire a B-spec driver or B-spec drivers. Each one would be somewhat differnt and require differnt contracts. Have it so you have to pay B-spec driver X ammount per race or per month etc. If you have a good team, some B-spec drivers might actually come looking to work for you, by email notification etc. If you do not keep your "B"-spec drivers happy they might actually quit your team. You can also fire your "B"-spec driver. Some "B"-spec drivers may eventually just leave the racing all together especially if they get fired. Hince the need for some fresh blood, maybe one or two new B-spec drivers per every two months or so that you could consider hiring.

Sponsers, okay we get the stickers or logo's but what else. Should they pay a certain ammount per month depending on wins, per race, or maybe just part discounts.

Gt world lay-out, I would like the option to choose at least say 1/2 dozen configurations or maybe even totally customize it.

Another random ideal, what if you could choose the year that you started your GT career. Meaning lets say default was 1980, then no cars beyond 1980 would be capable of being purchased. Then every 6 months approx maybe, you get notifications that such n such new car has just arrived in the dealership. New cars could be say 25% more expensive durring the first 8 months that you can buy them. Or maybe every 8 months they could even have like a new car show with a preview of next years models.
This would kind of require used car lots to be differnt also, only cars prior to the year you start in. Maybe every 2 to 5 years what was current models would start showing up in used car lots. This would also certainly require the race events to be set up and orgainized as well, but could be done so that they change a little each year and you would see differnt cars in races each year.

There are so many ways that they could make the next Gran Turismo in order to simply leave the rest of the games on the side of the road and on the shelf.

 

[Tenacious D]

Yeah, that was good. I stayed up WAY past my bedtime to read all these posts too, AUGH! It's a good thing today is a U.S. holiday or I'd be doomed.

I'd better reply later on today or it'll be 5am before I get to bed and I'll be demolished.

Edit: Well, that was a nice nap...

Most of this will be quibbling because you have a pretty solid post.

Homes: I would assume you mean Garages, since the purpose of these buildings is to hold a certain variety of cars, and that sounds like what you settled on. I'm thinking these would be like folders which you would name to help sort things out, like Stock FWD, Stock RWD, Sports Modified, Race Modified, Drifters or whatever. I'd also assume that there would be no limits to these so that you wouldn't have to remember which garage you had your other favorite TVR Speed12 in.

I like the parts bin. I'm sure we've all quibbled over the fact that we have three different turbos which can legally fit on more than one car, and yet if you have another of the same model, you have to buy parts for it all over again. I'm also hopeful that since Polyphony has been licensing the different manufacturers for years like Tom's, Spoon, Mugen, HKS and the like, that we can purchase parts which perform uniquely, giving us some choice on how we want to emphasize our car's performance. Good highlight.

Licenses: A license test on tuning?? Err... maybe. I'd rather it be more of a tutorial, but other games have similar elements you have to pass to progress in, so why not? I can see "Set up the Transmission to peak before the turn," "Tune your suspension so it doesn't slam during the drop," or "Tune this car to have exactly 299hp."

Cars and Dealerships: Starting with 10,000Cr is kind of a GT tradition, so why not? I would think that finding racecars and modifieds for sale would be entirely in the realm of Classifieds, Specialty shops and the Tuning Village. Maybe it's different in Europe, but such exotics don't really appear in car dealerships over here in America. It's just a quibble though.

As for the test drive area, I'd prefer that the oval have an infield track, so that you can see how well your prospective purchase takes curves and corners. I was thinking that having a neighborhood and highway would be nice, but you couldn't drive fast without some Burnout Takedown moments.

I am hopeful that the paintshop will be almost as powerful as a Photoshop Light, so you can do sophisticated things like design your own Chameleon effect paint. The PS3, like the 360, is practically a computer, so it would be nice if you could hook up a Wacom tablet for example. But if you wanted that next level, you could load a car skin into your computer and Photoshop to your heart's content.

Team Management: Good ideas here too. I'm wondering how training your crew would work out, and what sort of benefits would be had. The obvious is something like a faster pit stop. But what about other areas like car maintenance? Perhaps a better crew would have lower maintenance cost on your car, and have better durability. Or even handle better in a race... eh, maybe not. I can't think of how to train a crew other than to spend money on them.

I really like the Drivatar in Forza, and how you train him. It's incredibly powerful, and I hope that Polyphony implements something similar. Having a number of B-Spec candidates, I'd like to see their own parameters reflecting their own racing style, so that when you hire and train someone, they don't just become a clone of you, your training is tempered by his preferences.

Other stuff: I mentioned something in my thread about selling your cars, something I've been mulling over which jelled this morning. Gran Turismo traditionally has a big used "car lot," which updates as the calendar progresses with programmed lists of used cars. Since the PS3 is networkable and always online like a computer, here's an idea.

One of your Garages (folders) would be named "For Sale," and you would put cars in it that you want to get rid of, and you could link a text message to it like a Classified Ad. When other GT5 players check the used car lot or classifieds, their game would download the info from everyone's For Sale garage who was online, and among them would be your cars. Maybe you could name a price, and perhaps there could be a hidden minimum you want. A default price might be 50% of the car's actual value. Artists and tuners could create cars to sell. This would be a huge benefit to both sides, as new players could have access to quality cars, tuners, and cars with fantastic paint jobs, and car modifiers could make some money and gain notoriety. Good idea?

Anyway, that's the extent of my quibbling and input. I think you, me and JohnBM01 should be on a game design team somewhere.

 

[greenlightning]

Other stuff: I mentioned something in my thread about selling your cars, something I've been mulling over which jelled this morning. Gran Turismo traditionally has a big used "car lot," which updates as the calendar progresses with programmed lists of used cars. Since the PS3 is networkable and always online like a computer, here's an idea.

One of your Garages (folders) would be named "For Sale," and you would put cars in it that you want to get rid of, and you could link a text message to it like a Classified Ad. When other GT5 players check the used car lot or classifieds, their game would download the info from everyone's For Sale garage who was online, and among them would be your cars. Maybe you could name a price, and perhaps there could be a hidden minimum you want. A default price might be 50% of the car's actual value. Artists and tuners could create cars to sell. This would be a huge benefit to both sides, as new players could have access to quality cars, tuners, and cars with fantastic paint jobs, and car modifiers could make some money and gain notoriety. Good idea?

[/quote]

I really like this ideal. It is something that I have also had for awhile now. A world wide online used car lot. When you sale your car online it retains the car as you currently have it. Meaning all upgrades, tunning, and paint etc. I know that I would spend a lot of time just shopping for used cars from the what would be hundreds of cars. All users that are online could have folders like you describe that you could view. Maybe you could mark certain cars and compare them to what other users might have.

 

[Dave A]

Thanks for you input so far everyone and congratulations on the quality posts badge John, well deserved.

I read that idea in the other thread, very good idea imo greenlightening, would be fantastic browsing all the cars everyones built.

 

[superfast]

I love it! I agree with you on just about everything, except that I think that all bronze/silvers licenses should result in cars too (though not as fast, of course).

But wow, what ideas!!!

 

[Hun200kmh]

Great read! I don't have much time to debate right now, but here go some random thoughts:

a) Teams - I really don't like the console to run my cars, so that's not an idea that insterests me much. However, I remember to do some "team seasons" in GP1 (was it GP2?) where I alternated driving both cars of my team in every race of a season. (example: both ferraris). If I can do that in GT5, I'll probably use that feature.

b) Prize cars - One thing that i didn't like in GT4 was ending the licenses (1st thing I did, just like in GT3) with a garage full of cars. I remember to start the game deciding not to get the extra cash from a GT3 save just because I wanted a "fresh start" in GT4. So, I'm all for a difficult and "modest" career start, just like it happened to me in GT3, where I squeezed all I could from a Miata just because I didn't have the money to buy a faster/betrter car.

c) Licenses - IRL, you can't just get all the licenses you want without racing first (no one gets a F1 super-license without racing experience). This was wrong in GT3 and again in GT4. So, I think that, at the start of the career, you should only be able to get the 1st license. After that, you would have to race at least in one champioship, or a class of championships/trophies, before you could apply for the next license.

 

[Tenacious D]

I agree with Superfast. I forgot to mention that as long as the License Tests reward cars, go ahead and give out some lesser cars for Silver and Bronze level. If you don't want them, you can always sell them.

With the online capability of the PS3, it's not hard to imagine how it would be set up for networking in the Hub, such as with shared folders like the For Sale Garage. Letting people browse your garage is an interesting idea, I'd assume your stats too if you set it up for that, so you could see how your friends are progressing in Gran Turismo.

I really really REALLY want to have my Career Mode idea implemented, so that these simmie aspects aren't an issue with Gran Turismo Mode, and the game is structured in traditional GT style for freewheeling fun. But then the sim-like Season and Career Mode are there if you want to really sink your teeth into serious racing. However it comes about though, I do want that serious racing environment, as much of it as Kazunori is willing to give us. Chespace over at the Forza forums has been doing interviews with the Forza team, and they've been hinting that Forza 2 will have a single player game which will be a great surprise and a joy to play, so it won't be there just to teach you the ropes and collect cars for the online part.

Gran Turismo, it's time for you to truly shine!

 

[3spddrft]

*slams his Vault down on the desk*

There are some very good ideas in here like everyone has mentioned but I have some big problems.

In real racing, what license test allow people to win cars? Unless they were entry competitions to qualify for some sort of racing series i dion't see anyway people would receive a vehicle. Attaching actual rewards to the simple tutorial of learning to drive in GT5 seems crazy to me.

As far as the home area I can see a few bennefits of a lager "Home" that could be upgraded. As in more room for cars, more room for car parts, etc... I would also like in home for the player to be able to walk around the cars.

I just noticed this is about GT mode again. This incorporates the career mode a bit too much to me. It also forces the user down a path of being a certaint type of driver that manages team, drives, buys and sells cars, and collects cars. It seems like it is spreading the user thin and not allowing them to focus on doing what they want.

This whole concept seems to just be Career mode but with a few unrealistic parts so that it can be how we want it. This idea also supports people buying multiple TVR Speed 12s and such. Something that is outrageus and would only be available in a very NON-sim mode. Having this GT mode in Gran Turismo would continue to have the game how it is just further developed and putting a lot more work on the gamer.

 

[Tenacious D]

Your issues 3Spd are why I'd prefer that when the Gran Turismo universe expands, that it do so in different modes. If you incorporated real world aspects into traditional Gran Turismo Mode, it would be kind of strange, like you point out.

Now I do like GT Mode. It's silly and not realistic in the least, but it's fun and you get access to hundreds of awesome cars based on your level of skill, and if you're any kind of gamer, you can make a ton of money and buy about anything you can't win.

But reading JohnBM01's and live4speed's posts about Toca and GTR have me hankering for that next level, a taste of the world of real life racing. Take those stupendous cars, put it in a structure like the SCCA, LeMans and World Rally, and like some of you have said, I may never buy another racing game again. Except for Forza 2 and GT6.

Gran Turismo racing is all about freedom and picking what to do from hundreds of challenges. Real life racing is about developing a relationship with a very few cars, maybe one or two, and pitting yourself against the best there is from race to race. I think Gran Turismo is well suited to this new realm of racing.

 

[3spddrft]

Real life racing is about developing a relationship with a very few cars, maybe one or two, and pitting yourself against the best there is from race to race.

That is what I am after! A game where I have developed a car and invested time into it. I have dyno tested my mods, so they would perfectly suit my needs. I would have custom graphics just how I like them. Most importantly, the cars own trophy case of sorts. To see the history this car has in the GT world.

 

[Tenacious D]

I really should make a note of that in my own thread, that's yet another thing I've been forgetting. GT Mode is also about collecting every car in the universe, which is great and all, I'm all for that too. But Career Mode should be about mastering just a few cars that you keep forever, not being a racecar mega-collector.

 

[greenlightning]

Just a quick thought, it would be nice if normal GT sim mode had ways to encourage you more to progressivly keep the same car and tune it up with the goal of eventually making it a pro race car rather rally or road etc. Perhaps some sort of credit bonus could be established or points bonus if you use the same car but gradually enter harder and harder races. You would only get the bonus on maybe your first attempt at say race X. If you use same car and entered race X again within say 60 or 90 days the bonus would no longer be in effect.

 

[Tenacious D]

I've thought about that too. What's to keep people from going into Career Mode with the same mentality as with GT Mode? I don't think you could stop that, and I'm not sure you really should keep people from doing what they want to.

Now one thing that would help is the fact that diverting attention and money from your race car/cars would hurt your performance. Having a racing career is expensive. Buying cars is expensive. Unless you're rich, you really can't do both. Plus if you started buying race cars, or modding race cars with the intent to race them, you'd have to go through the hassle of registering and qualifying them. And I think that's the best that you could do in that regard, or just have the game refuse to qualify them.

I wouldn't want anyone to keep from jumping on something like an R33 Skyline or Viper racecar if one comes along in the game, but I would like Career Mode to have the player focused on developing one or two cars into career making weapons of victory.

Who knows. Maybe Kazunori is secretly developing a stand alone game, Gran Turismo Professional, based on this concept. But I think GT5 should be big enough to have a simulation aspect to it along with the old school Gran Turismo we all know and love. We'll see in a few months as news develops.

You know, I'm kind of raining on live4speed's parade here. Maybe I'll keep the discussion of my notions over in my own thread. I happened to think this is kind of cheezy of me.

 

[JohnBM01]

Holy crap! How did I get this "Quality Posts" badge? Thanks for the honor, Live4speed.

GT shouldn't be ToCA Race Driver. Reason why is because Gran Turismo is not a racing sim despite the fact that this is all you do most of the time. GT encompasses aspects much different from ToCA. People will normally say that ToCA is better than GT because it's about racing real race cars and not modded street cars. Same thing about GTR. I think GT tries to combine real racing as well as car collecting and such. Even though we have modded street cars, we can still make them racing champions now, can we? This is more of a matter of preference. I'm not a pure race car guy. I sometimes just want to kick back and race or drive something less powerful. I want to be able to do that but still come back to race cars whenever I please. I think a combination of street cars and race cars would be a personal better fit. I like GT's formula, and I want that formula to remain while sprucing it up. Just not to outlandish heights, though.

I guess I want to say that GT5 should remain old-school GT with a new-school twist. Kind of like taking an early 1990s hip-hop song and giving it a trance remix, only as long as people can still recognize and appreciate the initial song. I certainly agree with saving the certain arrangements. That would be a must so that we don't have to custom choose our respective views on this option. A license test on tuning probably isn't a good idea. That's a skill for you to master someplace else. Call me crazy, but what about license tests on racing discipline? For example, making clean passes, navigating through traffic, properly lapping slower cars, that sort of thing? It would be a gray area as long as we're debating on AI. Speaking of passing, here's a little story. I did the Gran Turismo All-Stars with the Nissan R92CP. And coincidentally, I was up against... another R92CP. I was going to win out of the hairpin of the Sears Point race on the wussy stock car configuration, when the dude blindsided me from behind and almost put me in the tire barrier. I was fast enough and lucky enough to still win by a hair. But as I've said, GT4's AI was a far cry from the ultra-aggressive, don't give a f:censored: ToCA Race Driver and Pro Race Driver AI.

Carry on discussion.

 

[Tenacious D]

But... I'd like that extra bit of Toca-ness in Gran Turismo 5.

Oh well, you know I'll be all over GT5 when it comes out, whatever Kazunori-sama puts into it. But I really would like to see some simminess in it, or even that Gran Turismo Pro game I'd mentioned.

Oh and congrads on the Quality badge. I click on you guys but it must take a ton of votes to get those.

 

[Force-Feedback]

I haven't been on this site for a while and with this idea from live4speed - I'M MISSING OUT!!!!

This is a brilliant idea and i hope it finds its way into the game...

 

[NismoR34Ztune]

heheh....funny how everyone talks for decades about a game that's not even been released, and where it's not even sure if they have influence on the development......it's funny....and worth it

 

[ajprice]

Would be better if they could unlock parts of the game in line with the racer's career level.

For the car mods, when you start you have a choice of sports tyres, exhaust, and sport suspension (basically the level 1 mods), as you go through to higher levels, you can unlock turbochargers, race suspension, LSD and so on.

This way it would be a lot harder to beat the system and collect money to mod a car to the full, and then being able to win a lot of races easily.

For licences, you can only be able to go for higher licences when you have won so many races or championships, with the licence level increasing as you go through the game. Again, it makes it harder to jump ahead to the harder level races at the very beginning of the game.

I haven't read through the whole thread, so apologies if I've repeated what anyone has said.

 

[Tenacious D]

Yeah, it is fun and gives us a chance to let out some creative hair and dream a bit.

John, I think that the reason that many of us want that extra bit of sim in Gran Turismo is that there's not much else out there like it. Enthusia is a brave attempt but the car behavior is just strange. No wonder it dropped off the map. You mentioned some of the issues with Toca yourself. The sims like GTR are just two classes of racing, very specific, and its Starforce copy protection might be part of the reason I've had trouble with Live For Speed. And LFS is a hobbyist build with less than 20 cars, only one of which is real, and a handful of fantasy tracks, plus you have to pay quite a bit to get that.

The only other game that I'm aware of like Gran Turismo is Forza, which is an excellent game but it has its own issues, like the idiot warbots which go after you no matter how cleanly you drive. And there are rumblings that Forza 2 may have some thrilling real life racing aspects in it like we're hankering for in live4speed's marvelous thread here, and mine.

Gran Turismo 5 has so many things going for it. The physics just on the PS2 games is excellent. The driving immersion in GT4 is excellent. The range of cars is a dream come true. The number of tracks is outstandding, including a fantastic recreation of the Nurburgring. We don't know yet what will be available on the PS3 version but it will undoubtedly leave us gasping for breath. Giving us a bit more of real racing life, or an outright career mode, wouldn't really hurt the game or its image.

Everything we're asking for in GT5 is more real life stuff, like bots that race like human opponents and car damage. Why not go all the way?