More Opponents in GT: Possible?

[JohnBM01]

Hello, GT Planet. Hope you all are doing okay.

While playing the first Midnight Club, I had a certain idea. As I tore up the streets of New York in my Pirahna PRQ ARi car thingy. The thing I noticed as I went from one side of Manhattan Island to another was that I noticed all the AI cars I seen. As I illegally did 100 mph, I noticed if about 9 the AI cars were to challenge you to a race, some people would believe that if 10 cars racing against you is possible in MC, could it also be possible in a GT game (much less GT4)?

I look at the issue from a logical standpoint. Normally, there are a lot of issues when it comes to such a thing. Most notable is "how can we allow more competition without sacrificing frame rate or glitches in computer AI on track?" Remember one thing about Midnight Club. An actual TRACK is nonexistant in Midnight Clubs 1 and 2. The game is basically like a wide-open rally course with many trails and several unfixed goals.

But for Rockstar to come up with a game in a huge environment, they had to low-res the cars (even though it still looks stylish) and low-detail the environment. I know that GT will not convert to low-res because technology is at a time where being pushed to the limit means some of the best graphics and most incredible visuals. This comes at the expense of low frame rate. I am racing around NYC right now while thinking of my next words. Anyhow, if PD comes up with a way to allow more racers on track (given the "consequences" of doing so), would more cars be possible to put on track?

As I mentioned, the first Midnight Club (the one I have), is basically low-mid resolution, even for PS2 power. The cars don't look like anything in the Gran Turismo series. Not even GT1 has anything like in Midnight Club. To me, even if GT would come up with a way to allow more competition and make for more oppurtunities (just look at the 14-cars-to-a-track in Ridge Racer V), I think it is still possible. RRV basically has all six available cars with different paint schemes. So even if RRV had all six cars withour additional paint schemes, RRV would still be like Gran Turismo (six to a track). What do you think, now?

By the way, the most cars in a racing game with several paintschemes (besides NASCAR) is "Top Gear Rally" for the Nintendo 64. There were 20 cars to a track, but were mostly two car models and PLENTY of schemes.

 

[ALPHA]

What about Toca World Touring Cars for PS1 that had a heck of cars, it was like racing 3-D pixels.

 

[Rport03]

If PD wanted more than 6 cars on track then they would add more but since they dont, were stuck with 6 til most likely GT5...

 

[code_kev]

If they don't have spare memory to store reverse lights, I expect it would be allmost impossible to add extra cars. It might also effect the frame rate, id rather have a disgustingly smooth 60 fps then have it stalling and stuttering about for one extra car

 

[LaBounti]

The Renderware engine takes advantage of stream loading. GT3/4 does not use this techniuqe and it would not be worth cutting the car detail. GTa and Midnight Club does not load the whole track into memory and it does not keep track of non AI drivers.
Test Drive Lemans has 24 AI cars and Race driver in europe has 14 cars. But those games are farless atractive and neither has a consistant frame frate.

I bring your attention to this video to show that 6 cars is more than enough.

http://auto.joins.com/upboard/pds/pdst/m3_lancer_modena_track.mpeg

Its all a matter of game design.

 

[LoudMusic]

Yes, this discussion has been going on for a long time.

Personally, I think they could cut detail on the cars and the tracks enough to get up to 8 or 10 cars on the track. Unfortunately I don't think it will happen until there is a new console because Polyphony / Sony are using the detail of the game as a main selling point. When they don't have the detail it's "just another race game".

 

[HsV_CoUpE]

Originally posted by LoudMusic
Yes, this discussion has been going on for a long time.

Personally, I think they could cut detail on the cars and the tracks enough to get up to 8 or 10 cars on the track. Unfortunately I don't think it will happen until there is a new console because Polyphony / Sony are using the detail of the game as a main selling point. When they don't have the detail it's "just another race game".

I think even without the detail it is much more than any other racing game.

 

[code_kev]

sigh if only gt 4 was on the pc

 

[LoudMusic]

Originally posted by HsV_CoUpE
I think even without the detail it is much more than any other racing game.

Well, yes, but not to the people who aren't into racing. In order for the game to be successful it has to sell outside its nitch. It won't do this if it doesn't appeal to people who aren't car fans in some way. They accomplish this by making stunningly realistic looking cars and scenery. When you take that away you're down to just the car guys. The drifters would even migrate to something like PGR or Sega GT. It's the physical aspects of the game that draw in the crowds.

 

[wee_man]

Originally posted by LaBounti

Test Drive Lemans has 24 AI cars and Race driver in europe has 14 cars. But those games are farless atractive and neither has a consistant frame frate.

Yes, but IMO all those game are a lot more fun and exciting to play than GT3. I find myself always racing hard. And in particularly with Le Mans, once your in the lead you still have to keep your wits about you as you can find yourself veyr rapidly comming up behind lower class and slower GT cars and prototypes. Also I'd like to point out that the AI (again IMO) is a lot better as well. A couple of months ago, when me and some mates were board we decided to try and do the whole 24 hours on the Le Mans game (in real time), taking it in turns and doing shifts. When I came to do the 3rd shift and we were 7 hours into the race the second place Audi was only ten seconds behind me with anover audi and panoz battling hard about 15 seconds behind him. We gave up by the 9th hour, as by that stage we had drunk a bit and just couldn't play it anymore.
So my point is to me graphics aren't everything, and for Gran Turismo to be a real racing simulator to me, it needs to have bigger more sensible fields. TOCA race driver to me feels like the fields are to small and it has 12 cars racing at a time (even up to 14). The ultimate race game for me still is Grand Prix Legends, with fields of up to 20 cars, the old Nurburgring race track, and with the right mods, graphics as good and better than GT3, you can't bet it 👍 .

 

[Dave A]

Thats because the AI is better, not because there are more cars per race, more cars would be a plus, but it's not happening, on PS2 anyway. PD will not make GT4 worse looking than GT3 just to add a couple more cars per race, besides if they use the CPU power to add more AI the AI on the cars won't be improved and instead of lapping 5 cars every race you'll be lapping 9, they need to get the AI sorted, then start adding more cars on track.

 

[wee_man]

I know. I was just saying that for GT to me, to be the ultimate racing game, for me it would have to include more cars in a field. I mean in TOCA tourers, I ran a six car race, and that was boring as hell. Don't know why it just was.
I know GT4 won't have fields greater than 6 cars. So I presume if it ever does I'm going to have to wait for the PS3.

 

[LoudMusic]

Yeah, perhaps the next Playstation's Gran Turismo titles will only increase graphics slightly, but bump up other requests from the players (like bigger fields!).

 

[Rport03]

On the PS3 most likely GT5 will deff boost in visuals just like GT2 (PS1) to GT3 (PS2), it will hopefully keep up the car amount hopefully over 1000 by then and of course have more cars etc.. but til then im just hopeing for the best with GT4....

 

[LoudMusic]

Well, that's another thing. I'm not very concerned with the quantity of cars available to choose from, but I would definitely like more cars on the track. The cars in GT3 were enough for me, heck there are probably 50 or 60 I've never even driven. But I would very much like more cars on the track (for passing situations and such) and better AI.

The visuals are good enough. I can tell what a car is when it's nearly 200 meters ahead of me on the horizon.

 

[Dave A]

NOw, me on the other hand am the sort of person that wan't any and every car possible to get squezed onto that shiny disk.

 

[code_kev]

Gt5 will look a million times better, GT4 is not that impressive really, the system holds it back so much. I agree, look at the difference between GT1 and GT3...and ppl said GT1 was photo realistic LOL LOL photo realistic is a word used all too often

 

[LoudMusic]

I don't know that they will go for better detail in a newer Gran Turismo. I think games are starting to taper-off the physical qualities and go for a "grander scale". Look at first person shooters. Their detailing has been about the same in the past few years, but the scale of the games has gotten HUGE. Battlefield 1942 supports 64 players, all of which can be bots. The maps are gi-normous and the multituide of activities is crazy.

 

[Dave A]

I think the graphics will improve alot on PS3, PC games are looking better than 2 years ago, look at Doom 3 and Stalker ect, PC games will always have the graphical advatnage over consoles with the constant upgradability of them, I doubt that graphics will ever look real though, maybe as good as a CG movie like Shrek and so on.

 

[LoudMusic]

Final Fantasy ... oh my, the close ups on the faces were stunning.

 

[Dave A]

I have no idea if your being sarcastic or not, I've never seen it and it's been so long since the ads were showing, lol. Still either way, only time will tell.

 

[LaBounti]

Wee man this is not about which is better. It about game design.

 

[LoudMusic]

Originally posted by live4speed
I have no idea if your being sarcastic or not, I've never seen it and it's been so long since the ads were showing, lol. Still either way, only time will tell.

No, I'm being serious. The movie was absolutely beautiful. I don't know that it was necassarily "real" looking, but it was quite stunning.

 

[JohnBM01]

In a way, yes. Game design plays a great part of how consistent the AI is when racing. I go back to Midnight Club, and the AI is basiclally other drivers minding their own business around town. But if I were to race them (with good game design), the big field of opponents would be incredible. I just played Jarrett and LaBonte... no wait... "World Touring Car" (I think the title "Jarrett and LaBonte Stock Car Racing" kills the game in being an otherwise above-average racing title), and noted 12 and even 14 to a track. Now Codemasters have some magic in putting in the most tracks and the most cars to the field. They aren't graphically impressive as "Gran Turismo 3", or even "Need for Speed: Unverground." What they lack in graphic quality they make up for in capability. At times, I've even gone back to Ridge Racer V. I raced 14 to a track with usually six different car models at once. Now when it came to the most cars on track, it has to be "Top Gear Rally" from the Nintendo 64. If you don't have it, it is a very decent rally game. Now this is a unique game that's great for this topic. There are only two types of cars that race on the few tracks in the game. Including yourself, each race has 20 opponents. And when you think of a rally game, you normally think of slinging up dirt/snow, and then you normally have a huge environment to circumnavigate. I played the game before, even made up my own paintscheme for the cars I had. I think the game rarely slows down. But at the most, you're looking at a game that can do 30 FPS, and in traffic or multiple polygons, 25 FPS at the least.

You see, this is why I like talking about games that may not be racing titles at all. For example, how someone is able to go online and play up to 32 people with Quake 2? How about 16 opponents online with NASCAR Racing (or 39 maximum in single player)? Gran Turismo has the visuals and the good game design.

But as I think more about it, what about if you have a race where it is mostly two or three different cars? Like a Corvette, Mustang, Trans-Am, Viper, Camaro, and a Skyline (just to keep the Japanese car fans happy) going at it? I wonder if PD would employ a double set of racers. The count would still be 12 cars, but it will still be basically, six cars period, just two cars with different paintschemes. I seen it employed in some other games, so why not GT? Maybe in a later GT, a Honda car fan's dream can come true. Honda Civic vs. Honda Accord (newer ones) vs. Honda Prelude. It would be an 18-car field. Three models, and some clones.

I think the cloning method makes the game appear to have more cars, but the challenge will still be more cars, more different models. What do you think? Next reply, anyone?

 

[Dave A]

People keep mentioning Touring cars, and as good as Race driver and the other Toca games were, I always ended up back playing GT and Toca got covered in dust. There are reasons for that, sure it was great to race in a larger pack, but the games still lacked the quality of GT, and if GT was to sacrifice that quality for a few more cars on track I'm sure it would end up the same.

 

[BreakerOhio]

If GT would sacrafice frame rate in the 2 player battle and include AI cars, the game would definately be much more fun. Battle Gear 3 has AI in the multiplayer mode and it more exciting talking with your friend about how your going to overtake the next AI car rather than just racing each other.

They should at least have two more AI cars in the 2 player battles. I believe the reason they don't is b/c of memory, however how about loading the same cars that we load. For example, in 2 player battle, if player 1 picks a Skyline, and player 2 picks an RX7, then their oppenents would be Skylines and RX7s. I think it would be a much better multiplayer game if they did this.

 

[Caligula1]

Sega GT online will have up to 12 racers.......

Aint gonna be anywhere near as good as GT4, but at least it will keep me going online

 

[Dave A]

Originally posted by BreakerOhio
If GT would sacrafice frame rate in the 2 player battle and include AI cars, the game would definately be much more fun.

If you drop the frame rate, the handling of the cars suffers and in a game as fine tuned in that department as GT3 was it would compromise the gameplay. They could allways include an option to have AI in 2 player though, if you don't mind the frame and handling changes your ok, if you do then you just turn it off.

 

[JohnBM01]

My first impression with the GT series was that normally in racing games, I usually seen eight cars to a track traditionally. To me, I think game detail plays a huge part in how so many cars can be on track. Look back on the almost outdated Crusin' series. The game detail was pretty bland, even with the colorful Crusin' Exotica. But the Cruisin' series had about 10 cars to a track. The kings of "most cars to a track" is Sega Super GT, where there are multiple cars to a track at the expense of only four tracks.

Gran Turismo is more focused on cars than tracks. However, the selection available to a race fan is pretty even. There are many tracks with almost any car in your garage. So ANYONE can make something happen. "NASCAR Racing" (PC) once had options to draw in only a certain amount of cars. For example, if you had 39 opponents on track, you can only see 5 ahead of you and 2 behind you. And as you pace through the pack, more cars are drawn in. I once had a Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona carset for the first NASCAR Racing from 1994. The carset included mayber 6 or 8 different models racing at once. But when you wrecked someone, their paintscheme looks as your average stock car. So draw-in, no matter what anyone thinks, would be an interesting way to make the illusion of many more cars to race against, only that you see only a few.

Now, this goes back to how the CPU can keep track of multiple incidents at once. But if you think about it, this is a nice topic to explore regardless. This is testament to some of my game experience. And just because a concept is old doesn't mean it can still be good today. Just look at all the girls wearing those retro sneakers (that I thought were bowling shoes at first). Only thing is, I don't recall any classic sneakers like those back then.

 

[JohnBM01]

As an update to this topic, there was something from a magazine that read:

(interpreted)
"This little convertible is by its lonesome...but you may be racing against a dozen more."

Now, I'm not sure if this means a dozen more online (very impossible for the PS2), or more than 6 drivers. Maybe we can be looking at fields as large as TOCA Touring Car 2 or Ridge Racer V. Le Mans 24 Hours is a little too much for GT, and loading times would increase. But a thing about LM24 I haven't discussed is that having all those drivers on track, it doesn't really slow things down, so Infogrames (at the time) and Melborune House did a good job. Question is, can it be acheived for GT4? This topic has been dug from the grave for your replying pleasure.