Volume 1 — May 19, 2006

By: Che Chou

From the Editor's Desk

Welcome to the first Turn 10 Pitpass Report! Every Friday, I go down the list of things the Forza Motorsport 2 development team is working on to give you a quick update on how the game is coming along. What? Who am I to be of such authority to sit here and rattle over my keyboard these very words about Turn 10 of which you are reading? I'm Che Chou, community manager for Turn 10, and master of the forums. My job here is to make sure that the team can focus on making a great game without neglecting their very important community members. Of course, there are things that I can't talk about (or else Peter Moore's secret ninjas will come and take me away in my sleep), but I will always try to be as candid as possible in these Turn 10 Weekly Pitpass Reports. So, enough with the introductions. Let's get into it...

When E3 Aftermath Soapboxes Attack

What a fantastic E3 2006, eh? Talk about a deluge of announcements, new hardware, new games, returning booth babes, and the realization that any doubts as to whether the Xbox 360 ushered in a "next generation" of gaming have completely disappeared. Whether you're a Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo fan, one thing is certain -- next generation is here and it's exciting now because now is when the future is still so uncertain.

Who knows about all the mysterious potential of the Nintendo Wii? I mean, will the mainstream really jump on the waggle-wand wagon? If so, it could mean incredible shifts in how games are played and perceived. And then there's Sony and their insane $600 price point and semi-arrogance when it comes to towing the corporate Blu-Ray line. The backlash has been fierce and I'm really curious to see if they'll actually cave into the firestorm and reduce their price before the PS3 launches in November. They did cave to all the bitching about the boomerang controller afterall...

Forza Motorsport 2 and Xbox 360 as a whole did pretty well. Press reaction (at least the folks we talked to) was positive, although many wondered why we didn't have a game to show at E3. I answer that question and many others right here in this mini-faq. But what was actually kind of shocking was the fact that Gran Turismo on PS3 wasn't as far along as I would have thought, considering that Polyphony Digital has had at least a solid year since E3 2005 to churn out their next generation vision. What I played on the show floor felt like GT4 ported to a high-end PC -- same tire physics, no collision, no damage, no evolution. Of course, you'd be a  fool to doubt Polyphony's track record and obsession with quality; GT5 (or whatever it'll be called) will be an incredible game -- I just don't like what I'm seeing from GT HD, which, if I'm hearing correctly, will the first GT game on PS3.

Overall, mission accomplished at E3. We announced Forza Motorsport 2 in grand style, drove around town in a couple Lambo Gallardo's and a F360 Modena, met with editors and drank on the company dime. Yay.

ForzaMotorsport.net and You

In the meantime, our website is slowly starting to gather momentum. There hasn't been as many daily updates as I'd like this week due to technical issues totally out of my control, but I'm hoping those get resolved fairly soon as it's becoming a major bottleneck for me in fulfilling the editorial vision I have for ForzaMotorsport.net. And does it make sense what I'm trying to accomplish here on the front page? I mean seriously, let me know if it's just way too wacky and you need me to slow down and explain. But basically, I try and "blog" about stuff within the gaming/automotive stratosphere that interests me and the Turn 10 team at large. I'm hoping to establish a community here that isn't just cuckoo for games but actually cuckoo for life -- a cool, car-filled life that's filled with interesting stuff alll the time. And you can help me make this site more interesting by sending me links to cool stories out there. Heck, if you wanna write up a paragraph or two on what makes this link or news item or video so cool, I'd even post it on the front page of the site and credit you. Anyway, food for thought.

Get to the Good Stuff Already

And so we shall. You're all here because you want to know what's up with Forza Motorsport 2. The game, in its current form, is completely playable. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the latest build is indeed running at a solid 60 fps sans the HUD. Meanwhile, each day, folks from all over the team chip away at their little segment of the game, be it audio, art, dev, networking, or design.

It seems most of the questions we get from fans out there pertain to how Forza 2 will handle multiplayer from a design standpoint. So naturally, it made sense to go straight to the source and get the game's angry man designer Dan Greenawalt to sound-off on lots of multiplayer questions you guys have posted so far.

On schedules and game design: "As someone who’s worked in games for almost a decade, it’s always amazing to me that gamers and press think that six months out is too early for suggestions – its usually too late at that point.  We’ll be releasing this game to Xbox Certification in roughly four months.  The last three months of any title is best use to stabilize, optimize, tune and bugfix…  not to add or rework features.  You have to have your design baked in at least a year before release especially if the change involves extra content."

On free run and the Honda CRX problem: "For the most part, we’re going to try to funnel more people to the Time Trials.  Time Trials is an area that doesn’t get written to from other modes (thus no drafting).  We’re changing the design of time trials as well. This should be the one-stop-shopping area for scoreboard hounds that want to prove their worth.  Free Run will still be there to provide context, but it should not be your primary place for hotlap competition – there are simply too many boards. we are working to the CRX problem in a more realistic way.  Fix the car classification formula to make it more accurate.  We’re also adding more car classes.  That way, almost all cars upgraded to be at the top of class “A”, should stand a fighting chance against each other.  We’re using a completely new system to do this classification."

On drafting and the scoreboards issue:  "The drafting and scoreboards issue is a great debate, even in the Turn 10 Studio.  Like any good debate, both sides have good points.  Most people just see their opinion as truth… and that’s that.  Designer’s can’t afford to see the world that way, or they risk closing the door on innovation.  When you have a game as popular as Forza Motorsport, you have a very diverse set of players to look out for.  We will do what we believe is right for the game and the community ecosystem.  We’ve looked at several options for solving the drafting behavior issue. Here are some things we're considering, but have not made a decision on:

• Add penalty time for every second in the draft.  Accrue that penalty faster the more your coefficient of friction is being reduced.
• Do not write to the Hot Lap boards from Multiplayer, only from Single Player Modes.
• Add more information to the scoreboards so other players can at least tell what mode the thing was set in and what assists are on.
• Do not write any hotlap that included drafting.
• Do nothing because drafting is part of simulation and hotlaps in the real world can also be set under race conditions. 

Again, these are just possible solutions that have come up through our many brainstorm sessions. You might feel that we have to do one of the above, but it is not that simple. You'll know more when we know more."

And with that, ladies and gents, we wrap our first Turn 10 Weekly Pitpass Report. Tell a friend, and see you all next Friday!

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