Grand Valley Returns to Gran Turismo 7

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The circuit is okay, but there is no point in using the Grand Valley name unless it is just a modern iteration of the original circuit. It just alienates some of the OG fans with no benefit of using the name. Another nonsensical strategic decision from PD. It would have made far more sense to just create an entirely new circuit.

I also think California is an overrated setting, there's many places in Europe with much better views and driving roads.
 
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Julius Tuscan
The circuit is okay, but there is no point in using the Grand Valley name unless it is just a modern iteration of the original circuit. It just alienates some of the OG fans with no benefit of using the name. Another nonsensical strategic decision from PD. It would have made far more sense to just create an entirely new circuit.

I also think California is an overrated setting, there's many places in Europe with much better views and driving roads.
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The name comes from the real world location.

Big Sur Valley & California Highway 1 becomes Grand Valley Highway 1
 
Julius Tuscan
I also think California is an overrated setting, there's many places in Europe with much better views and driving roads.
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Well, there are PD fictional tracks located in Europe. Alsace, St. Croix, Sardegna, Dragon Trail, Lago Maggiore and the new version of Deep Forest, just to name a few. California isn't by any means the only place PD took as inspiration to create GT tracks. Places in Croatia, France and Italy also inspired PD.
 
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tre
Do a Google search on Big Sur Valley and see what you get...
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Why? I don’t use google - but my search engine of choice gives me links to visitor attractions in the area?

1133237C-7748-4B67-A944-C9FCB9DE049A.jpeg
 
jonoholland29
Why?
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jonoholland29
The name comes from the real world location.
Big Sur Valley & California Highway 1 becomes Grand Valley Highway 1
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Is Big Sur Valley a real world location? Because it is pretty hard to get any meaningful hits in the search engines. Anyone local that knows?
Even California Highway 1 isn't actually named that as its real name is California State Route 1. SR1 for short, maybe PD should have called this track SSR1.
 
This is the Big Sur Valley with the Big Sur River at its centre

IMG_0056.jpg

Only Kaz himself can confirm that this is the inspiration for the name - maybe he just thought of the Grand Canyon and that Americans like to put Grand in front of it. Maybe he's using grand in the English/French sense of grandeur 🤷‍♂️
 
jonoholland29
This is the Big Sur Valley with the Big Sur River at its centre

View attachment 1235892
Only Kaz himself can confirm that this is the inspiration for the name - maybe he just thought of the Grand Canyon and that Americans like to put Grand in front of it. Maybe he's using grand in the English/French sense of grandeur 🤷‍♂️
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In reality, I think what happened was that Kaz was in the area for Pebble Beach one time, noted that the Bixby bridge was very very cool and wanted to make a track out of it. Then he or somebody at PD noted some similarity to how the bridge at Grand Valley Circuit spans over the opening to a large body of water and then decided that the new route should be Grand Valley re-imagined. Having driven through the actual Big Sur Valley, I don't honestly remember it - you are too distracted by the bigger vistas, so I think it's unlikely to have been named after that very small and insignificant portion of the region, which doesn't seem to even exist in PD's recreation anyways.

Also I dare anyone to visit Big Sur and then describe it as overrated. :lol: It's just as breathtaking as the Amalfi Coast and almost untouched.
 
I just love the fact that if you stand next to a wind flag, you actually hear it. PD are artists through and through. The track is great. Enjoy!
 
Eunos_Cosmo
In reality, I think what happened was that Kaz was in the area for Pebble Beach one time, noted that the Bixby bridge was very very cool and wanted to make a track out of it. Then he or somebody at PD noted some similarity to how the bridge at Grand Valley Circuit spans over the opening to a large body of water and then decided that the new route should be Grand Valley re-imagined. Having driven through the actual Big Sur Valley, I don't honestly remember it - you are too distracted by the bigger vistas, so I think it's unlikely to have been named after that very small and insignificant portion of the region, which doesn't seem to even exist in PD's recreation anyways.

Also I dare anyone to visit Big Sur and then describe it as overrated. :lol: It's just as breathtaking as the Amalfi Coast and almost untouched.
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I mean yes, but it's compressed into a very small area. Some of the features (Coronado Bridge) from real life are near the border of Mexico!
 
jonoholland29
I mean yes, but it's compressed into a very small area. Some of the features (Coronado Bridge) from real life are near the border of Mexico!
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The Coronado Bridge is an odd one...considering how far away it is and how dramatically different it's setting is. I think it was added to have a long bridge and sort-of fit the theme.
 
I believe that the first four permanent circuits of the Gran Turismo franchise (Trial Mountain, Deep Forest, Grand Valley and Autumn Ring) were idealized without any reference to reality. Racetracks were created according to the PS1 hardware limitation, according to the aesthetic sense of the PD designer and the trends of racing games at the time, such as Daytona USA and its tunnel scenarios, huge rocks, constant elevation change etc.

But, from the beginning, I believe that the famous SSR 5 and 11 were inspired by Tokyo Expressway, considering the side walls that look like hollow brick bathroom wall.

So, as technology advanced, Kaz and the PD guys effectively got into the habit of creating circuits with some reference to reality. They started doing this with city circuits (Tokyo, Amalfi Coast, Paris, London etc.) and some in the mountains like Grindewald, El Capitan, Eiger Nordwand etc.

The era of GT7 arrived with the requirement to nail the circuits somewhere on the world map and its panoramic views of the race waiting screens.. I think Kaz and team felt impelled by tradition to remake the original four permanent circuits and locate them in some region of the real world. So they researched and researched, and, good or bad, came to these current conclusions. I believe the same will happen with Apricot Hill and Mid-field Raceway.
 
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BrunusCL82
I believe that the first four permanent circuits of the Gran Turismo franchise (Trial Mountain, Deep Forest, Grand Valley and Autumn Ring) were idealized without any reference to reality. Racetracks were created according to the PS1 hardware limitation, according to the aesthetic sense of the PD designer and the trends of racing games at the time, such as Daytona USA and its tunnel scenarios, huge rocks, constant elevation change etc.

But, from the beginning, I believe that the infamous SSR 5 and 11 were inspired by Tokyo Expressway, considering the side walls that look like hollow brick bathroom wall.

So, as technology advanced, Kaz and the PD guys effectively got into the habit of creating circuits with some reference to reality. They started doing this with city circuits (Tokyo, Amalfi Coast, Paris, London etc.) and some in the mountains like Grindewald, El Capitan, Eiger Nordwand etc.

The era of GT7 arrived with the requirement to nail the circuits somewhere on the world map and its panoramic views of the race waiting screens.. I think Kaz and team felt impelled by tradition to remake the original four permanent circuits and locate them in some region of the real world. So they researched and researched, and, good or bad, came to these current conclusions. I believe the same will happen with Apricot Hill and Mid-field Raceway.
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Not that I have anything beyond a hunch, but I think the original circuits were also designed to somewhat evoke certain real world circuits or locations (all in Japan), keeping in mind the broad non-game influences at the time, namely best motoring and initial D which, in my opinion, heavily influenced GT1. (I honestly think you could call GT1 "Best Motoring Video Game" based on how similar they are, even down to the music, event names, tuning naming schemes, etc.)

Grand Valley has a similar geographic setting, course characteristics, and "prestige" as Suzuka
High speed ring has the simplistic and fast corners of (old) Fuji combined with the banking & enclosed feeling of Motegi (ring)
Autumn Ring Mini has a similar cadence and "beginner" feel as Tsukuba
Trial Mountain & Deep Forest both blend together elements of Mt. Akina, Ebisu, the BMI touge course, Maze Circuit, and others
SSR5 is obviously inspired by Japanese city freeways and Wangan Midnight
Test Track - I'm not sure where it is, but I know there is a near-identical elongated oval somewhere in Japan, famous from the BMI episode of the Mclaren F1 roasting the Vielside Supra in the 1000M drag race.

I don't think of any of the courses in the original game as being outside of Japan, much like almost all of the car selection. I'm not sure anyone expected the game to be such a massive international success, but it's clear they understood it by how dramatically different GT2 was in terms of incorporating a much more broad/international assortment of course locations and cars.

Probably what made GT1 such a hit was that it actually didn't come out of nowhere, it was built entirely on top of 80s and early 90s car-themed Japanese Manga and Television.
 
BrunusCL82
I believe that the first four permanent circuits of the Gran Turismo franchise (Trial Mountain, Deep Forest, Grand Valley and Autumn Ring) were idealized without any reference to reality. Racetracks were created according to the PS1 hardware limitation, according to the aesthetic sense of the PD designer and the trends of racing games at the time, such as Daytona USA and its tunnel scenarios, huge rocks, constant elevation change etc.

But, from the beginning, I believe that the infamous SSR 5 and 11 were inspired by Tokyo Expressway, considering the side walls that look like hollow brick bathroom wall.

So, as technology advanced, Kaz and the PD guys effectively got into the habit of creating circuits with some reference to reality. They started doing this with city circuits (Tokyo, Amalfi Coast, Paris, London etc.) and some in the mountains like Grindewald, El Capitan, Eiger Nordwand etc.

The era of GT7 arrived with the requirement to nail the circuits somewhere on the world map and its panoramic views of the race waiting screens.. I think Kaz and team felt impelled by tradition to remake the original four permanent circuits and locate them in some region of the real world. So they researched and researched, and, good or bad, came to these current conclusions. I believe the same will happen with Apricot Hill and Mid-field Raceway.
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My only wish is that they stuck to their original guns with Trial Mountain and stuck it in the Scottish Highlands somewhere, it'd be awesome racing through the Scottish countryside with the lochs on the horizon - Nessie has to be there for a reason, right?
 
Today I turned on the PS3 due to the new update 4.90, and of course I did a test drive at Grand Valley Speedway, which in fact is a little different from Grand Valley Highway 1, from the panoramic view, the length of the track, the number of curves and inclination. So this is what we have, and it will be a matter of habit as it was with the previous one. The ease way which PDi changes a track is because it has the original track creator, which we all wanted too, and there was no more talk of new tracks.
 
Moving away from GT Sport, this game was sold on nostalgia, Trial Mountain was the first trailer shown, it was easily recognizable. Moving too far away from the original tracks characteristics, environments, road type disenfranchises a lot of fans who purchased this game for that reason. One would have thought that they would have set some guardrails in place to have to maintain that same feel that Trial Mountain did in the trailer. The same thing happens with movie remakes, that try to over revamp the characters & story lines, but end up making movie flops.
 
Nebuc72
My only wish is that they stuck to their original guns with Trial Mountain and stuck it in the Scottish Highlands somewhere, it'd be awesome racing through the Scottish countryside with the lochs on the horizon - Nessie has to be there for a reason, right?
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I don't think the original Trial Mountain looks anything like the Scottish Highland. The environment is completely covered in trees...which is a fair bit different than what you expect to see in the highlands. That circuit looks far more like inland mountains of Japan than anywhere in the UK.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
I don't think the original Trial Mountain looks anything like the Scottish Highland. The environment is completely covered in trees...which is a fair bit different than what you expect to see in the highlands. That circuit looks far more like inland mountains of Japan than anywhere in the UK.
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It didn't, but Grand Valley didn't look much like California either. I'm mostly just saying that with Nessie being there (and I believe Trial Mountain was the UK cup track in early GTs) it would've been nice for them to lean into that and actually set it there now.
I'm happy with what they did with it regardless.
 
Nebuc72
It didn't, but Grand Valley didn't look much like California either. I'm mostly just saying that with Nessie being there (and I believe Trial Mountain was the UK cup track in early GTs) it would've been nice for them to lean into that and actually set it there now.
I'm happy with what they did with it regardless.
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Wasn't there also a Monkey there?

See my previous post about GV
 
AlexWilmot
I want Queen to resurrect Freddy Mercury so I can listen to the original sound when they play live again, they should always be able to come back to the original band
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Interesting analogy but anyway.
 
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Hey all long time lurker probs second ever post on here 👋

Yes Grand Valley isn't the OG from previous games, but I honestly love this track & layout.

I'm currently working on a custom 80s/90s Supercar race feat Diablo GTs, 964 911s, Testarossas, C4 Vettes & more.

With the amazing location & nostalgia of the grid, it definitely hits the right feels especially in VR. Sunset sinking in as I cruise by the ocean & work my way through the bends & hairpins.

I'm honestly happy PD went with a real world location that isn't another generic racetrack.

Now all I need is some touge tracks from Japan!
 
tre
Instead of shoehorning GVS into the location around Bixby bridge they should instead have made the "Bixby road course" based on the existing roads in the area.

View attachment 1236069
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Yeah but it’s more than that. There’s a thread on the real life locations that are included which would make the track bigger than the Nurburgring, even if you don’t include the one south of LA. It’s a fantasy so they’ve taken the best hits of the coastal road and shoe horned it into the fictional place

Edit: this thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/grand-valley-highway-1-vs-real-life-more-added-pg-2.416882/
 
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jonoholland29
Yeah but it’s more than that. There’s a thread on the real life locations that are included which would make the track bigger than the Nurburgring, even if you don’t include the one south of LA. It’s a fantasy so they’ve taken the best hits of the coastal road and shoe horned it into the fictional place

Edit: this thread https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/grand-valley-highway-1-vs-real-life-more-added-pg-2.416882/
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I'm fully aware of all of that. But since it's just fantasy, if they absolutly needed to incorporate all of that, couldn't they just as easily have incorporated it into a more real setting?

The GT-series just seems to get more and more distant from the real world and becoming more and more fiction. Is that the direction the playerbase really wants?
 
Nebuc72
It didn't, but Grand Valley didn't look much like California either. I'm mostly just saying that with Nessie being there (and I believe Trial Mountain was the UK cup track in early GTs) it would've been nice for them to lean into that and actually set it there now.
I'm happy with what they did with it regardless.
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Why didn't Grand Valley look like California ?

California is huge an you can find pretty much every kind of landscape and vegetation there other than a tropical rain forest...

Pretty much every landscape you find in Europe you will also find somewhere in California(ok, something similiar the Scottish Highlands maybe not...)
 

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