It’s still a game … the biggest Problem will be if you have too many options which most of the people don’t understand .
I would prefer all that too b, but if you want to have success with a game you should make it as easy too play and understand as possible.
Cheers
Chaso[/quote]
Don’t assume others don’t know what you don’t know. Of the five friends I know who have pre ordered this game, all but one of them know the information Leafy is talking about. In fact, I think calling this a game, or dumbing it down will only do it a disservice and only hurt sales. I think this is beyond a game, it’s certainly approaching simulator levels. The crowd buying this “game” wants accuracy, options, and realism. This isn’t a Need For Speed game geared toward 13 year olds and I hope you or anyone else is not thinking that this game will magically sell millions of copies. It won’t, although I hope the team makes a fortune off it. This is a great game, on a great course, but it’s clearly geared towards a more hardcore group of enthusiasts. Dumbing it down will only turn those enthusiasts off just like assuming that all of us are ignorant and don’t know the difference between cross plane and dual plane engines. The level of enthusiast this “game” seems to be attracting is pretty high.
The situation is of course even more difficult that that. It’s not only about dumbing down but also about time, especially for a 4-person team with 1 (!) artist.
Our goal is to make a complex game that is easy to use and remains accessible. If we can build in features that will add value to the game (such as different planes in V-configurations) then we definitely will, if time permits us to.
Say: Daffy finds/knows a way to convert the plane and angle of a V configuration within a day with all art and stuff; of course we’d put it in as having that option would add game value.
We will dumb down things only in one unique case: it not being fun even to a car nut.
Cheers!
Killrob, that is perfectly acceptable of course. I think everyone understands that you have limited resources and not everything can be done. I was just trying to make the point that dumbing it down for the sake of people who don’t know the difference is not acceptable. Especially when you guys are going through such effort to make this not only a great game/sim but to also educate in the process with the tutorials and in game info boxes.
The case for dumbing the game down? That would be selling the game to people not already on these forums.
Ever try the airline sim games with horrible interfaces, intense repetition (of course the head of an airline individually sets every ticket price for every flight daily) and no actual game play underlying the sim engine? I’ve also gone to their forums and watched them bemoan not selling more than a couple hundred copies when inferior simulations like Civilization and SimCity sell millions. At the same time they decry any suggestion of ‘dumbing down’, when what they need to do is simply create scenarios and goals for added gameplay, a clean interface and a way around the tedium of a thousand mouse clicks to do the job of ten that passes for actually playing the game.
You seem to actually have gameplay and having scenarios even in the engine designer demo is an excellent idea. The interface is ok if a bit old school. What you don’t have is a way for the novice to easily create an engine. For now this is fine, but when you put the game out the door and bill yourself as a modern version of Detroit or a functional version of that mess Car Tycoon, it will matter.
Fortunately it is easily solvable by allowing someone who doesn’t want to deal with building an engine from scratch to ask the pleasant AI engine creator type person who works for the head of the car company (aka the player) to create a new motor using 1978 tech for the new sports car I have planned. He can present the player with the motor while noting that it can be tweeked to make it better. Then the player is rewarded for working on the engine by having some extra RPM or a longer engine life or whatever, while the player who says great I’ve got my engine and moves on isn’t rewarded, but doesn’t know or doesn’t care that it could have been a bit better. Best of all, the player who wants to do it all doesn’t even hire this AI chap and never even misses him.
Dumbing down is Civ 5 where the gameplay is inferior for everyone, adding options to suit playing styles while still retaining the complexities for those who desire them is smart business.
Very good post, bigcat1969. Everything you say does make perfect sense and would be a good approach
to not dumb stuff down while making it more accessible. On the other hand you cannot forget that
working out, implementing, and balancing such a feature would probably take us months to accomplish.
Till now we have not had many complaints about stuff being too complex, I guess that is due to our
audience being wildly different compared to “normal” computer games. Heck, people even cry out for
it not being complex enough.
Thanks for your polite response. I was worried that I had been a bit strong with my opinions.
I’m not sure how you intend to implement AI rival companies, but assuming they will be similar to the player’s company and their products will be viewable, wouldn’t you have to have AI managers that create engines for their cars and for that matter create entire cars? This AI could just be available to the player. This would be somewhat like the mayors of cities in the last few versions of Civ that could be told to focus on certain areas like population growth or manufacturing using the same AI that non player cities use.
I really think you have a wonderful idea with this game and based on the execution of the engine demo good programmer(s) and a solid artist. I love car tycoon games even playing to this day Detroit and Motorcity/Oldtimer in Dosbox, so my hopes for this game might be unrealistically high. I’m just a bit worried that it might be closer to a much better version of Gearhead Garage than a dream version of Detroit with a great car builder as a wonderful bonus.
Edit for Plan B. Use your great and knowledgeable fan base to create several good but not great motors for each decade say one sports car motor, one truck motor and one family sedan type motor and include them with the engine creator when it ships so someone unsophisticated in the ways of motors (me) could use them as a baseline. This would what 25 motors and I’m sure folks here would be thrilled to do it for you for a mention in the credits.
[quote=“bigcat1969”]
Edit for Plan B. Use your great and knowledgeable fan base to create several good but not great motors for each decade say one sports car motor, one truck motor and one family sedan type motor and include them with the engine creator when it ships so someone unsophisticated in the ways of motors (me) could use them as a baseline. This would what 25 motors and I’m sure folks here would be thrilled to do it for you for a mention in the credits.[/quote]
This is an outstanding idea that solves a difficult problem with a community-driven solution. It could be a competition.
These are two good ways to implement it - I like both ways, the engine AI solution and the prebuilt engines.
When the time has come to implement it we would of course prefer using an AI, while plan B is exactly what
you propose: it will be easy to have prebuilt engines to choose from. That would make balancing a bit easier
too I guess.
Making it a competition would be a really bad idea though: that would probably mean the winning engine is
so good that building your own engines is a waste of time, as many never would build an engine that good.
As regards the ‘hopeful’ future driving content. Wouldn’t be far easier to acquire a driving physics engine from a software studio? Maybe there is a low level studio out there that won’t charge much for a decent driving engine?
Hum, I wonder if a good but not great engine competition would be possible? The Mediocre Engines of Legend Contest! How would you judge the best of mediocrity?
I really should read more threads before I ask this as it has probably been addressed… What is the AI going to be like?
It would be nice if it was basically the computer doing what the player is doing and trying to beat him at it, but that can be tough to design and program. On a small scale and as a college student long ago, I messed with AI and it will warp your mind as you try to build it. However, this way you could build in difficulty levels by having competing car companies start with more or less resources and start earlier or later than the player. Imagine trying to break into America in years past while competing with the Big Three. It is more dynamic and more fulfilling for the player.
I could see it being a sort of high level quasi AI that is just sort of there to keep the player interested and automatically comes out with prebuilt platforms every decades and prebuilt cars every few years. While not dynamic, it would be fairly quick and easy and that might be important as the project runs farther into 2015.
At the risk of feature creep, what about economic cycles, fuel worries, government and environmentalists? The auto biz is interesting because it has more variables than most other industries. It is very sensitive to the economy both to car prices as buying power fluctuates and and to the price of gas. It is a high profile polluter, so sees pressure to ‘clean up’ as we are witnessing now with the push to hybrids that no one but Democratic politicians seem to want. There can also be political pressure to assemble cars in the country you are selling them so they are ‘Made in (Home Country)’. Countries also have street legal definitions.
Again feature creep alert. What about ‘events’? It could be fun to have earthquakes shake up your factories, one of your researchers make a great discovery that allows for more power per liter but produces more heat, a nightwatchman sneak a smoke in the fuel mixture lab, a deranged message board user who suggests crazy ideas on your website or PETA protesters showing up outside your office because your luxury car uses lambskin upholstery.
OK off to suggest ways to make games that actually function without patches on the EA boards. They will love me!
Alright, you made your car company… would you be able to make it as a company that’s all performance car driven like say… Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lotus or even something like Shelby or Saleen even and be a contracted party for another industry? I know I read that you would like to have a motorsports/racing option. Perhaps build a car company off of strictly racing renown… Maybe I’m asking to much, I’d rather it just be done tomorrow and you guys just do add-on content for sale later
[quote=“Killrob”]
Making it a competition would be a really bad idea though: that would probably mean the winning engine is
so good that building your own engines is a waste of time, as many never would build an engine that good.
Cheers!
/Killrob[/quote]
To be fair, a contest wouldn’t necessarily have to lead to this result. That only happens if the selection criteria becomes picking the most technically excellent engines submitted, which you correctly point out as counter-productive. The selection criteria can be anything you want them to be, they can even be secret or non-existent, no rigid goals to meet just pick engines that you like and think would add something to the game.
Actually, the biggest problem I see with a contest, is the actual effort put into it. Namely manhours on the part of the devs, which already seem to be at a premium.
No it isn’t; it’s two eight-cylinder VR-type engines used in a V-opposition. Said Audi V8-engines are not of the same kind.
On a more on-topic note: Will there be the possibility to build flat-twelve engines? or exceedingly small multi-cylinder engines (eg. BRM 1.5-liter V16) ?
Or, seeing as the game includes technology years/eras, rotary valve heads instead of camshaft-operated valve systems, for the later years?
EDIT: Oh, It slipped my mind to say how I’m impressed with the demo so far. Sure, there’s not much variety yet but that’s what it’s a demonstration for. I spent hours on it already, tinkering with it all and made a whole series of engines, from big low-revving thumpers to a small 1.3L lean-burn high-compression engine with quite low emissions and high volumetric efficiency that still costs relatively little to produce (from 2010 onwards of course).
what about different cam drive systems? IE: chain, belt or gear driven. I know cosworth had some of their engines gear driven which while more expensive seems to be the most reliable. Chain driven cams are also better than belt ones. if your belt fails your valves go crunch. I could never understand why that is even used.
Belt drives are quieter, dont require an extra oiling system for the chain, and are cheaper to replace. And on something like a miata with a non interference engine, if the timing belt goes on the highway you’re out 12 bucks and in 2 hours you’ve fixed it on the side of the highway.
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