- 26,911
- Houston, Texas, USA
- JMarine25
Been a VERY long time since I made a thread in the GT5 forum. I'm going to release two seperate discussions. This one involves a 1-year old game. You might have heard of it. It's called rFactor. This PC game goes by a certain mantra- "Customize. Control. Connect." I'm coming up on having this game for two months. Like with past threads with similar titles, I tend to study each racing game to see what it can do and what limitations there are. rFactor is no different. The demo to Gran Turismo HD has long been out. However, GT5 still remains without much in the way of new updates. So if PD were to see what rFactor was about and what they could likely learn about this game to impress fans, what would they be? What could Polyphony Digital learn from this addicting PC game?
Let me provide some background to help you.
rFactor was developed by the wonderful people of Image Space Incorporated. They were the team behind the classic PC sim- Sports Car GT back around 1998, and F1 Challenge somewhere around 2000 and 2001. This group is based in Ann Arbor, MI (yes, Michigan Wolverines' country). What rFactor was created for was to provide an all-around gaming experience that provides great racing with something very important to the PC sim community- customization. That's right. People have made all kinds of modificiations to help people enjoy this game more and to get more replay value out of this game. It has won a 90% rating from PC Gamer, a 94% rating from AutoSimSport's Gold Label Award, and also "Most Editable" by [I'm presuming] Blackhole Motorsports. Dozens of aspects could be controlled ranging from lap distance, time distance, how many cars on track, and that sort of thing. ISI is actively working on a few of their own mods and updates. Recently, the Version 1.250 patch was released to rFactor gamers. I'm not an online gamer. So all I know about the online portion is that RaceCast actively tracks results from races all over the Internet. This game was released back around January 2006. And even now in February 2007, still remains one of the most editable and most fun mod-happy games since Sports Car GT (only because I haven't played F1 Challenge).
Now what do I think PD could learn from rFactor? I'll start. Highlighted points will be in bold text. I'm going to warn you... I have a lot to talk about. So feel free to chime in with your own comments.
* The best thing I take away from rFactor is simply how much control you have over every race. You know in Enthusia when you could select different cars on the grid for Free Run races? And how you could change tracks on the fly? Well, the element of customization deeply applies. The online component for Gran Turismo 5 would GREATLY benefit when you give gamers and gaming leagues the opportunity to come up with their own races by their own rules and settings. * I think PD should definitely consider an environment model which supports realistic time cycles. What rFactor allowed you to do was to be able to make anything from a 2-lap sprint to a 24-hour race. And for those who want a 24-hour race but not enough time for one, gamers were in luck. All the rFactor gamer had to do was set the race to a timed race, set the time distance to 24 hours, and cycle through time at 60x. This allowed you to have a 24-hour race in 24 minutes. Time cycle and all. VERY convenient for those who want quick action. The customization extends to cars. The variety among different customizable car options is also key. Granted the only real car in the full rFactor lineup is the BMW Sauber F1 car, these fictional cars give a great idea as to how to turn a drab looking car into something sensational. Variety among different types of racing is also a huge plus for this game. You had almost every kind of circuit racing available to you when you unlocked rFactor completely. You could do ovals at one of three different ovals in the game. You could have some rallycross with the Lienz Rallycross event. Cars ranged from a moderate-sized hatchback to stock cars to Formula 1 cars. * It is also possible that true One-Make Series in rFactor could benefit from a championship model. This marks some concern I have. The current GT formula is that you get a car for a One-Make Race, then you sign up for a certain race event, then go race. The formula is the same for rFactor. Only that you have control over everything from AI aggression to number of cars in the championship (most have a minimum of 6 to a track) to distance and more. The race schedule doesn't change. But still, you get to control a number of different aspects you take control of. The only negative aspect is that you can't view the full season while in the game. You just have to go through each race until it's over. Or, you could try to look into the season files (I forget the extension) and look at it with NotePad. * Since damage has been rumored for GT5, customizable levels of damage would make the game more challenging for those who aren't careful. My concern about a damage model for GT5 mostly pertains to how challenging PD wants to make the game. Do they want an arcadish model in which slamming into a wall head-first only results in minimal or moderate damage, or do they want a model in which if you hit ANYTHING, the game is over? Damage levels can be customized usually based on how severe crash impact affects your car. I usually set my races at 25% damage since I'm more of an arcade person. I've been doing recent races at 50% damage. I even challenged myself to a 100% damage rate a few times. Make it customizable. And if things get too severe, let the user have the chance to simply end the race or (maybe) restart the event or skip it altogether.
That's all of most I wanted to get to. I may come in with more things in future posts. But come on in and reply away.
Let me provide some background to help you.
rFactor was developed by the wonderful people of Image Space Incorporated. They were the team behind the classic PC sim- Sports Car GT back around 1998, and F1 Challenge somewhere around 2000 and 2001. This group is based in Ann Arbor, MI (yes, Michigan Wolverines' country). What rFactor was created for was to provide an all-around gaming experience that provides great racing with something very important to the PC sim community- customization. That's right. People have made all kinds of modificiations to help people enjoy this game more and to get more replay value out of this game. It has won a 90% rating from PC Gamer, a 94% rating from AutoSimSport's Gold Label Award, and also "Most Editable" by [I'm presuming] Blackhole Motorsports. Dozens of aspects could be controlled ranging from lap distance, time distance, how many cars on track, and that sort of thing. ISI is actively working on a few of their own mods and updates. Recently, the Version 1.250 patch was released to rFactor gamers. I'm not an online gamer. So all I know about the online portion is that RaceCast actively tracks results from races all over the Internet. This game was released back around January 2006. And even now in February 2007, still remains one of the most editable and most fun mod-happy games since Sports Car GT (only because I haven't played F1 Challenge).
Now what do I think PD could learn from rFactor? I'll start. Highlighted points will be in bold text. I'm going to warn you... I have a lot to talk about. So feel free to chime in with your own comments.
* The best thing I take away from rFactor is simply how much control you have over every race. You know in Enthusia when you could select different cars on the grid for Free Run races? And how you could change tracks on the fly? Well, the element of customization deeply applies. The online component for Gran Turismo 5 would GREATLY benefit when you give gamers and gaming leagues the opportunity to come up with their own races by their own rules and settings. * I think PD should definitely consider an environment model which supports realistic time cycles. What rFactor allowed you to do was to be able to make anything from a 2-lap sprint to a 24-hour race. And for those who want a 24-hour race but not enough time for one, gamers were in luck. All the rFactor gamer had to do was set the race to a timed race, set the time distance to 24 hours, and cycle through time at 60x. This allowed you to have a 24-hour race in 24 minutes. Time cycle and all. VERY convenient for those who want quick action. The customization extends to cars. The variety among different customizable car options is also key. Granted the only real car in the full rFactor lineup is the BMW Sauber F1 car, these fictional cars give a great idea as to how to turn a drab looking car into something sensational. Variety among different types of racing is also a huge plus for this game. You had almost every kind of circuit racing available to you when you unlocked rFactor completely. You could do ovals at one of three different ovals in the game. You could have some rallycross with the Lienz Rallycross event. Cars ranged from a moderate-sized hatchback to stock cars to Formula 1 cars. * It is also possible that true One-Make Series in rFactor could benefit from a championship model. This marks some concern I have. The current GT formula is that you get a car for a One-Make Race, then you sign up for a certain race event, then go race. The formula is the same for rFactor. Only that you have control over everything from AI aggression to number of cars in the championship (most have a minimum of 6 to a track) to distance and more. The race schedule doesn't change. But still, you get to control a number of different aspects you take control of. The only negative aspect is that you can't view the full season while in the game. You just have to go through each race until it's over. Or, you could try to look into the season files (I forget the extension) and look at it with NotePad. * Since damage has been rumored for GT5, customizable levels of damage would make the game more challenging for those who aren't careful. My concern about a damage model for GT5 mostly pertains to how challenging PD wants to make the game. Do they want an arcadish model in which slamming into a wall head-first only results in minimal or moderate damage, or do they want a model in which if you hit ANYTHING, the game is over? Damage levels can be customized usually based on how severe crash impact affects your car. I usually set my races at 25% damage since I'm more of an arcade person. I've been doing recent races at 50% damage. I even challenged myself to a 100% damage rate a few times. Make it customizable. And if things get too severe, let the user have the chance to simply end the race or (maybe) restart the event or skip it altogether.
That's all of most I wanted to get to. I may come in with more things in future posts. But come on in and reply away.
