Gran Turismo Sport Selected for First Ever Olympic Virtual Series

[O604]

That's only because PH does not have a PS Store. Remember this technicality incident from years ago?

Thanks. I do remember that.

The article claims it's Sony's decision based on bias. I've never seen anything to back that up. Many countries the size/economy/etc of the Philippines are included.

But it could be so many things. Like here in Canada, Quebec was excluded for some gambling issue (I think, might be wrong) which absolutely no one cared about but had to work through the bureaucracy. I believe it's settled now.

 

[Silvio]

That's only because PH does not have a PS Store. Remember this technicality incident from years ago?

I don"t know but.... for example in my location ( Croatia) We have a PS Store but we can"t be a part of Olympic series and or Star player series.

 

[05XR8]

Thank goodness one of the races are not at Dragon Trail. That'd really be a sustained kick to the gonads.

 

[GT Sport]

I still remember the mock ups suggesting a myriad of unique competitions every month alongside the FIA events. That didn't happen did it.

 

[SnakeOfBacon]

View attachment 1010960

Hohoooo, yeah, let's do 600 LAPS of Northern Isle online, said the crazy people.
edit: 536, sure that's reasonable, let's go!

 

[PJTierney]

I noticed that they did some changes to the interior of the GR Supra Racing Concept more notably the steering wheel.

On a normal GR Supra Racing Concept it has the Toyota Gazoo Racing logos on it.

View attachment 1010644

But on the Olympics themed GR Supra Concept, it doesn't have the Toyota Gazoo Racing logos.

View attachment 1010642

There are nice real tracks in the game, such as Red Bull Ring, Nürbirgring, Suzuka and Spa.. and they chose these craps for the event. And I suspect these events are sabotaged as usual, namely, players will be given tires that have no grip at all.

I suspect the track selection and the Toyota changes are largely due to it being an Olympic event, as typically there’s very little individual sponsorship at the Olympics (only competition sponsors). If the livery rules were entirely open, you’d see teams with Fanatec, Logitech etc. logos all over the car.

Likewise for tracks, circuit owners/licensors are often very particular about the sponsors that are present trackside. I imagine Red Bull Ring wouldn’t approve of a non-branded version of their circuit being used.

As much as players would live developers to do "anything", sometimes licensor requirements/requests tie them down a certain direction

 

[NAXEHT]

Does anyone here had place their times on the DS4? I've managed to get 1:58:192 on the first day so far, despite that my right thumbstick now drifts.

DS4 and 1:56.819 here. But this is a really tough and frustrating TT. 563rd as of writing so won’t bother to keep trying.

Interesting to see the insanely tight fight for the top spots though, the times are incredibly close on an almost two minute lap.

 

[tankuroded]

View attachment 1010960

I always thought these are placeholders/provisions for non-FIA events in general like the GR GT Cup.

 

[AfraidRacer]

I know a lot of you here are probably much faster than me, but here's a quick lap guide in case anyone needs it.
I managed to get a 1:57.475 with TCS 0 and BB+2.



I would also suggest watching @TRL LIGHTNING's lap, you can access his ghost from within the game and he can probably help more than I can.

 

[RACECAR]

Thanks. I do remember that.

The article claims it's Sony's decision based on bias. I've never seen anything to back that up. Many countries the size/economy/etc of the Philippines are included.

But it could be so many things. Like here in Canada, Quebec was excluded for some gambling issue (I think, might be wrong) which absolutely no one cared about but had to work through the bureaucracy. I believe it's settled now.

Whenever people from a certain region can't compete, its very likely to do with that Country/State/Region's rules or laws regarding competitions and less with this perceived "Bias" some people suggest (Which comes off as more a unfounded cynical response then a rational one). This was the issue with both Canada as well as Arizona Residents in the states (Who despite being from the US, weren't allowed to compete). Wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on with Croatia.

 

[Rouward]

Sony (and probably only Sony of all gaming platforms) still sees PH still have rampant game piracy and console modifications since the PS1-PS3 days despite it no longer exists with PS4 and now they legally purchase PS games. It's been requested for decades however it's already too late for Sony heads.

 

[Samus]

I always thought these are placeholders/provisions for non-FIA events in general like the GR GT Cup.

Yeah but where were they, other than said GR Cup? That's the only non-FIA Sport event to date, isn't it?

 

[Famine]

That's only because PH does not have a PS Store. Remember this technicality incident from years ago?

Thanks. I do remember that.

The article claims it's Sony's decision based on bias. I've never seen anything to back that up. Many countries the size/economy/etc of the Philippines are included.

Sony (and probably only Sony of all gaming platforms) still sees PH still have rampant game piracy and console modifications since the PS1-PS3 days despite it no longer exists with PS4 and now they legally purchase PS games. It's been requested for decades however it's already too late for Sony heads.

What a totally mental article. The guy isn't resident in or native to an eligible country, so couldn't ever qualify for the finals. Quite what having a PS Store for the country has to do with anything escapes me - obviously your country isn't eligible if you can't even create an account in that country - and why this is being blamed on PD even if it was a reason (which it isn't) is totally baffling.

It also destroys any concept of there being an anti-Philippines bias in line one of the article. As it notes quite clearly, the chap qualified to the GT Academy Asia Final in 2015, as did four of his countrymen. One of them won the damn thing: Jose Gerard Policarpio.


The FIA GT Online Championship is limited to the countries (and sub-national regions) it's limited to largely for reasons of competition legislation - hence the historic exclusion of Arizona and Quebec despite the USA and Canada being eligible - and ASN participation.

 

[MIE1992]

I just barely have a time that’s below two minutes, and I’m ranked 52XX, so I think that’s quite good considering that’s my ranking compared to the rest of the world, rather than my region.

 

[Rangeraus]

Never really been a time trial enthusiast, but am really enjoying this one where all the top guys leave nothing on the table.

I'm less than 0.7s down on Valerio's time but not in the top 100 so lots of work to do.

 

[AfraidRacer]

I wanted to make a video about this but I honestly can't be arsed to, so I'll share this here instead.

It's my belief that this new update actually came with 4 new tracks and 3 new cars. As has been mentioned before, the Laguna update was 2.4GB so this one being 3.3GB is pretty sus. However, we don't know what methods PD uses to compress/uncompress the data and it could very well be that they have to release a new version of a track even if they just have to change some billboards. There are four tracks in the entire Olympic series, Tokyo South, Tokyo East, Sardegna, and Dragon Trail.
@Stephan also noticed that the steering wheel on the GR Racing Concept was different, using this same logic it could be that this is in fact a brand new car using the same car model, like the Gr.1/Gr.X VGTs. The same could apply to the 86 and the Yaris too.
Also, there's probably a new Olympics intro to be used like the FIA intros, knowing PD they probably made it 4k60fps super high bitrate etc...When I upload a 4 minute video in 720p60fps it's usually 200mb or so, not surprising that 4k might take about 800mb or so of space.

Also, after reading the 'Average Joe' discussion again, I do indeed think it would be a cool idea to have tier credit rewards and open up the olympics series as a 3-round FIA championship like the GR Cup, I also don't think that anyone is entitled to special treatment for being slower than others. Speed is only related to skill, not input device or console or software. It's a level playing field.

edit-If I’ve written this much I’ll probably make a video on it lmao

 

[O604]

I thought about switching to baseball but.....

There is no age limit in the Baseball event. However, players below the legal age need permission from guardians to participate in the final event. To participate in one of the events, you need a PlayStation®4 or Nintendo Switch, own the eBASEBALL POWERFUL PRO BASEBALL 2020 game, and live in Japan, South Korea or Chinese Taipei.

Olympic Virtual Series Baseball Event - How to play (olympics.com)

 

[elston87]

It's my belief that this new update actually came with 4 new tracks and 3 new cars. As has been mentioned before, the Laguna update was 2.4GB so this one being 3.3GB is pretty sus. However, we don't know what methods PD uses to compress/uncompress the data and it could very well be that they have to release a new version of a track even if they just have to change some billboards. There are four tracks in the entire Olympic series, Tokyo South, Tokyo East, Sardegna, and Dragon Trail.

This is especially what's intriguing about this Olympics update. I'd be really disappointed if PoDi fell back to the PS3 era of inefficiency when it comes to resources...

For context, for every Reverse variant or different layout of every course in previous Gran Turismo games, especially the PS3 ones, there's a duplicate copy of the course in the game data due to engine limitations. That means you had copies of courses like Trial Mountain or Grand Valley Speedway eating up disk space, with the sole difference being directional indicators and flipped meter boards; the same applies for cases such as Suzuka Circuit and its East Course layout, where even when racing on the East Course of the layout, the entire track still exists, since it's just a one-to-one copy of Suzuka (with the sole exception of the barriers in place sealing off the rest of the course). This is because layouts have "not been implemented" in the game yet.

Gran Turismo Sport changes this by having a base folder, which contains all of the location's base data, then any other layout or variation has its own sub-folder which contains only the necessary changes to be made to the base, as layouts are now "properly implemented". Suzuka Circuit in its entirety takes up about 1.4GB, whereas the East Course now uses not even a sliver of space at just ~3MB. These are the uncompressed sizes of the files, however, as some (but not all) files are compressed in the game data. I tried to outline what I'm talking about to the best of my ability in the image below; left is GT6 and right is GT Sport (click the image for a bigger view):




This makes me wonder if PoDi just quickly put this update together by making copies of all the featured courses and applying new textures to them (also different object placements from what I've seen at the Tokyo Expressway) instead of applying just the differences as separate "layouts". If a course is about 1.5GB uncompressed, maybe 1GB compressed, and the three featured cars are about ~200MB, with the average car (that has a detailed interior view) weighing in at ~55MB, this then assumes that PoDi didn't implement the re-themed courses as "layouts" which results in a rather bulky update, but if they did, however...

💡

 

[Roweer1]

I know a lot of you here are probably much faster than me, but here's a quick lap guide in case anyone needs it.
I managed to get a 1:57.475 with TCS 0 and BB+2.



I would also suggest watching @TRL LIGHTNING's lap, you can access his ghost from within the game and he can probably help more than I can.

What am I missing?
How do you adjust BB, when it’s greyed out of Options?

 

[Famine]

What am I missing?
How do you adjust BB, when it’s greyed out of Options?

Multi Function Display.

 

[Roweer1]

Multi Function Display.

Thank You:tup:

 

[stpatty]

Just got a pop-up in game that everyone who sets a time will get 400,000 credits.

 

[AfraidRacer]

Just got a pop-up in game that everyone who sets a time will get 400,000 credits.

Awesome!

 

[05XR8]

100,000 Cr more than the RX-Vision bonus. Toyota pushing hard for sales

 

[O604]

I've spent a week in the Supra, all of my Daily Mileage. I wouldn't have guessed I'd be enjoying a time trail on Toyko Expressway, not a fan of lapping and not a fan of Tokyo Expressway. But it's been fun chasing Fraga, Hizal, Miyazono and Brooks. Even though I'm not anywhere close to them, chasing those ghosts are a treat.

A bit disappointed not to see more people on my Friends list. But like I mentioned above I wouldn't have guessed I'd be enjoying either.

The credits are a nice incentive for newer players. I also think a souvenir decal or livery for these types of Special Events would be cool. Like if the participants get the Olympic Supra livery added to their collection. And/or a special National helmet/suit livery. And/or an official Olympic decal. Little things like that would drive up the participation I think.

 

[05XR8]

 

[Shingo_civic]

The olympionic livery it's amazing

 

[Stephan]

https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/news/00_5844598.html

400K credits for those who can set a time.

 

[barak181]

If PD really wanted more people participating they shouldn't have made it a time trial format that the vast majority of players know that they have zero chance of qualifying for, then on top of that put it on a tight track that has walls right up against the tarmac and making each wall scrape invalidate the lap time.

PD, if this Olympic thing involved even one single actual race that the normal everyday player could participate in, I guarantee you the participation would have skyrocketed. But most people playing GTS don't like Time Trials all that much, let alone one that involves putting in a decent amount of time to put in a lap that doesn't involve breathing to hard on a wall as you go past it.

No player that's been playing this game longer than a few months is going to care about 400k in-game credits.

 

[WHResports]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

Gran Turismo Sport Selected for First Ever Olympic Virtual Series

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on April 22nd, 2021 in the Esports category.

Why is the Philippines not included?