Volume 66 -- Oct. 12, 2007

A Turn 10 Introduction...

By: Che Chou, Community Manager

Ah, Fridays. How we love you so. Welcome to the Turn 10 Weekly Pitpass Report -- aka the Forza Motorsport 2 Community Update -- which we post every Friday. Each week, we round up the best bits of the Forza community in one handy write-up, as well as give our fans a heads-up on any recent studio developments. There are a few things to discuss this week so I'll dive right into it.

We submitted our latest auto-update patch to Xbox 360 certification yesterday and have our fingers crossed that nothing gets bounced out of the pipeline for a fix. This latest patch enables several hooks in Forza 2 in preparation to receive our upcoming DLC track, the location of which we've yet to reveal. The forthcoming auto-update also fixes a number of issues, including reactivating the ability for players to once again gift cars with locked liveries. We've also fixed a lot of the losing-cars-in-the-auction-house symptoms that was happening due to the way the game was communicating with the auction house servers.

More importantly, the patch will disable the ability for cheaters to hack profiles, while giving us a way to ban cheaters permanently from the game (so aside from just auction house and gifting banning, which we're currently dishing out, they can kiss tournaments, multiplayer, and posting on scoreboards goodbye). Let's just say there's a lot going on underneath the hood with this patch and you don't want to be caught hacking. We'll be "watching" you.

The DLC track itself looks like it'll be in the hands of cert for all of next week. In the meantime, we should be making an announcement on DLC track details very soon. Some of you have made some pretty good guesses about real world tracks with 4 ribbon configurations out there. I'll keep you guessing for a little while longer (but not much longer now!). If the stars align, everything looks primed to go the week of 10/22.

1970 and 2006 Challengers by: Littleblueneon

The Bungie Separation: What It Means For Turn 10

I'm not sure how (or even if) the Bungie news from last week really had that much of an impact on the Forza community, but here at Turn 10, emotions were mixed and heads were spinning. The announcement certainly caught all of us here by surprise and naturally the team had plenty of questions about what this sort of precedence from Bungie would mean for another internal studio like Turn 10. Well, to set the record straight on this matter, I had a brief chat this afternoon with Alan "Big Boss" Hartman, studio manager of Turn 10 and fellow Audi enthusiast.

Q: Since this is your Turn 10 public interview debut, can you first introduce yourself so our community gets a quick snapshot of who you are and where you've been?

Alan Hartman: I’m not the most public guy.  Some of our community that has been watching closely might know me by the tag you bestowed on me shortly after arriving at Turn 10 -– Big Boss, or know me as the RS4 guy. I have not been leading Turn 10 from the beginning but showed up to help finish Forza 1. Before that I had worked at game studios both inside and outside of MGS. I oversaw the first installment of Age of Empires as well as Motocross Madness from the publishing side and have been involved in a long list of games since then. If there is a little known fact around the halls of Turn 10 it is that I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Design –- back in those days you had to be able to program code to make art on a computer.

Q: Ah, the good ol' days. Definitely an interesting recent couple of weeks in the gaming biz.

AH: Yep, a bunch of big changes going on in the industry right now.  Bungie going independent, Bizarre being acquired, Elevation Partners (Bioware) being acquired.  Budgets are huge, teams are huge, risks are huge – these factors among others drive the change.  If I look back to when I joined the games industry in the early nineties the teams were much smaller as well as the budgets.  Wing Commander III was famous at the time for having an insane 6 or 7 million dollar budget, that isn’t even a big marketing campaign these days.  But there is a cycle to this as well – I was the guy sent out to this independent studio in Chicago called Bungie to do an evaluation of the developer and the four projects they were working on (turned out to be one of the more important trips I ever made).  Four projects and yet a small fraction of the staff Bungie and MGS used to ship Halo 3.  People move around, the marketplace changes, the economics change.  Companies are forming, dissolving, being acquired and then reforming every year – that has been the case as long as I have been in the industry.  The only thing that has really been consistent in the games business is the change. 

2007 Seat Leon Cupra by:TheNorthFace

Q: So, speaking as the studio manager of Turn 10, what do you think of the Bungie separation? Were you surprised? Do you foresee Turn 10 going the same "independent" route?

AH: I was as surprised as everyone else, well maybe not quite as surprised as I knew about it, but it left me scratching my head as well.  Different studios have differnt cultures and individual needs, this is really important in that it means we see different games birthed out of these unique cultures.  It is a win-win situation as far as I can tell, but not one I'm very interested in.

Q: Are you not interested or is it just very daunting and challenging to break away from a publishing giant?

AH: I have trouble imagining where in the industry we could have built a studio like Turn 10 that could be completely focused on the single objective of delivering the state of the art racing simulator.  The 100+ man years of art production, the massive investment in developing the accurate car physics, the dedicaction of the top AI researchers from MS Research, the deep pockets to spend the time to getting the balance right.  A central technology group that enabled photomode in PGR, auction house in Forza 2. 

Q: But then Turn 10 has to ultimately answer to an authority higher than yourself…

AH: Yea, I guess there are different ways of looking at management overhead in any company.  I like not having to worry about balancing the books, generating the new hire candidates, making sure payroll goes out, keeping the infrastructure up.  That allows Turn 10 to be a small dedicated group of people that are passionate about cars and racing; engineers, artists, designers, testers and producers.  The only one in the studio that really has to worry about the business of running the studio is me, that is freedom. 

Q: So you are happy with where Turn 10 is right now, no changes planned?

AH: The bottom line for me is that MGS has launched some huge franchises and has managed to do this with published titles from both brand new studios and established studios. For Forza and Forza 2 MGS has been a great incubation chamber.  It just works. I live within walking distance of Bungie, and the Turn 10 Leads team and I just went and met Rare and Lionhead in the UK, in two weeks we will be visiting Ensemble in Dallas, I hope to get us all out to Epic shortly - this is a very elite crowd we get to hang with. No changes needed.

2006 Dodge Challenger Concept by: Revolt015

The Forza Motorsport 2 Community Update

By: Landin Williams, Community Moderator

Well another week has passed here at Turn 10 and alongside my other duties I have taken some time to begin working on our newest community project that is now known as the “Forza Motorsport 2 Handook Series”. We introduced this idea last week and have since worked towards outlining a comprehensive set of guides that will cover every aspect of the game while exposing its full potential to the many causal gamers found within our community. The first article that we are planning to roll out within the next few weeks is the “Basic Racing Techniques” guide, which will cover what you need to know if you are looking to shave precious seconds off your lap times. 

Along with the main written component we are also looking at different ways to incorporate video features that will demonstrate the techniques being covered in the guide. Full lap videos along with demonstrations of racing techniques and corner by corner track descriptions are all things you can expect to see throughout the progress of the series (along with the occasional drift just to spice things up). These videos will be available for download directly on the website and will be released alongside the written guides. We also want to include a variation of “demo cars” that will be used to demonstrate how a cars behavior can be drastically changed through tuning. These “demo car” set-ups will be posted on the website for users to view and re-create in game. We are hoping that by including all of these features, the casual gamer will have all the information necessary to experience Forza Motorsport 2 in a whole new way!

Customized 2006 Pontiac Solstice by:Ssikpiyelnats

Speaking of the casual gamer, I wanted to quickly mention a section of our forums that has recently seen an increase in traffic and user activity. Our “Tournaments” section has been the home to a large number of user created tournaments and racing series. These events are owned and operated by members of our very active community, and I encourage everyone to check them out if you are looking for some fun competitive racing. With such a large variety of restrictions and series races, there is bound to be an event that fits your style of racing.

We are also looking at selecting community based events to benefit from a custom in-game tournament bracket (meaning your event will show up in game in the tournaments section!) . This will give both the tournament organizers and Turn 10 alot of options when it comes to promoting and showing off some of the best tournament racing available. Additionally we will now be able to broadcast an event over Forza TV (finally!) and have players from around the world tune in to watch these spotlight events. This sort of coverage will be dedicated to very well organized and executed tournaments, so if you have a serious event let me know at forzafb@microsoft.com. I for one am extremely excited to move forward with this new form of community involvement, and will make sure to cover these events as we move closer to launching our first tournament of this kind. Stay Tuned!

Spec Forza Season 7 - Starts on October 25th!

Since we are on the tournament thread I figured now would be a great time to introduce the Spec Forza Racing Series; a community based racing event that offers up real cash prizes to real fast drivers. With 6 completed tournament seasons under its belt (yeah it’s been around for a while), the Spec Forza series has developed into one of the most popular racing events in the Forza community. Showing no signs of slowing down this series is set to launch a brand new season on the 25th of October that will feature stock car racing on a range of different tracks. While speaking with the tournaments coordinator “Chaos”, I discovered that the reason they run stock cars is to alleviate any advantages gained by upgrading and tuning. This allows for a racing series that is very dependent on the skill of the driver as opposed to the quality of the tune. With a new race combination every week (the season is 6 weeks long) and 32 qualifiers each week, the series is bound to attract many of the top drivers in the Forza community. In order to participate you are required to submit an entry fee of 25 bucks for your shot at a piece of the estimated $1,500 pie. Make sure to head on over to their official forums here, and sign up to take part in the competition!

2007 Seat Leon Cupra by: Inuae

Viewers Choice Poll…we have a winner!

This week saw a few changes to the format of our weekly Photo Mode competition, as we have decided to establish a user based voting system to determine the winners each week. Well the polls are now closed and we have ourselves a winner! We would like to congratulate “Littleblueneon” for receiving the most votes in our first ever Viewers Choice Poll. 13.3 Percent of the 200 plus voters selected “Littleblueneon’s” depiction of an old classic vs. a new concept, as two generations of Challenger’s fight for the lead on the front straight at Road Atlanta. Great Work! We would also like to congratulate “TheNorthFace” and “Inuae” for placing in second and third place respectively. With so many great images we want to continue to reward the top 10, so here is a breakdown of this week’s winners!

Week 19 Viewers Choice Top 10
1-Littleblueneon
2-TheNorthFace
3-Inuae
4-revolt015
5-Dewstain
6-Zeke
7-cjd82187
8-PyroDonkey
9-still missingpieces
10-maranello729

All of the submissions can be viewed by checking the viewer’s choice thread here. The top 10 are rewarded with one gift car of choice as always, so send in your requests to forzafb@microsoft.com including your gamertag, username and your car of choice!  We will be running another poll starting on Wednesday the 17th, so make sure to check back on the forums to place your vote!

Customized 2005 Aston Martin DB9 Coupe by: Jamesways

Hotlap Challenge Week 5 – R3 Autumn Challenge

The results from the week number 5 are in and let me tell you it was another exciting finish to this week’s challenge. As you all know last week we crowned TRC Smokinu as "The Fastest Forza 2 Player in the World", after he was able to take the number 1 spot from the previously undefeated Kjmj Raikkonen. With all of the fastest FM2 racers competing in our Hotlap challenges there were plenty of other racers capable of defeating the champ. As mentioned last week PoTzyPLOP was on the verge of taking the top spot until a last minute surge from Smokinu, and this week proves to be quite similar.

Personally I am very interested and involved with the competition that has surrounded the Hotlap Challenge, and as a result was constantly checking the leaderboards to see how the contest was progressing. When leaving on Thursday afternoon I was quite surprised to see that Raikkonen was nowhere to be found on the leaderboards and pleasantly suprised to see my top draft pick (PoTzy) holding it down at number 1. After checking the forums and reading up on the comments it seemed like PoTzy had set a time that would secure his first ever Hotlap victory; that is until Mr Raikkonen rolled up the the starting line.

At around 11:00AM PT the top 10 had been shifted down a spot, as Raikkonen performed a Smokinu style sneak attack to snag the top spot and claim (or reclaim) the title of "The Fastest Forza 2 Player in the World". With this incredible display of ability Raikkonen was able to plop PoTzy down to the number 2 spot, a position he has now held for four out of the five weeks of competition. This rivalry between undoubtebly two of the fastest forza racers in the world will only get better in the weeks to come (and when we implement a points system).

2006 Civic Si Coupe by: Dewstain

Last week's champ, TRC Smokinu, didn't stray too far from the throne, as he finishes in 10th position in this weeks challenge. Barring any gamertag changes, we have a bunch of new faces in the top 10 this week. "NF1 I Total" came out of nowhere to secure the number 4 spot with an incredible time that gives him his first top 10 victory. SPDN Phantom (Speed Phantom in discuise?), LightningMcKyle, SpacemanisPLOP and blademeisterTRC also make their first appearences in the top 10 this week. Congratulations to everyone who participated, and without further ado here are the top 10 racers.

Hotlap Week 5 – R3 Autumn Challenge Top 10
1   Kjmj Raikkonen
2   PoTzyPLOP
3   D2C Walahoshie
4   NF1 I Total
5   SPDN Phantom
6   LightningMcKyle
7   SpacemanisPLOP
8   blademeisterTRC
9   TDR Flex
10 TRC Smokinu

Also in order to cut back on the size of these reports I will be posting the weekly "random 30" winners in the tournament section on our forums. Please visit the following thread to see if you have been selected for a free gift car of choice!

Click Here for the Week 5 Random 30!

Congratulations to the Top 10 and everyone who was able to make the top 200! Please e-mail your gift car request to forzafb@microsoft.com and include your gamertag and car of choice!

2007 Civic SI Coupe by: Zeke

Custom Tournament Series Returns!

With the huge success of the Hotlap series, we have decided to expand the challenge to incorporate an actual tournament as well. This two part challenge allows those who have spent time hotlapping a chance to run in a tournament with the same settings.  Here is how it’s going to work. Each week after the Hotlap challenge winners have been announced a new tournament will be created. This tournament will have the exact same settings as the Hotlap challenge, and will be set to qualify on the same track. The tournament qualifications will run from Friday to Sunday and the top players from each region will move on to the first round. Rounds 1 through 5 will run from Sunday to Monday, with one race happening each day at 7:00PM PT and 8:00PM GMT for the European players.

This system allows players the chance to race head-to-head after spending time fine-tuning and running Hotlaps. For the players that simply want to run Hotlaps there will be a challenge posted alongside the tournament so there is no need to worry! In the future we might decide to break up the flow of these challenges so that you aren’t using the same car for two weeks in a row, however for now we are going to kick it off with this format.

We will be rewarding the top 3 drivers from all 6 divisions (3 in North America and 3 in Europe) with a free gift car of choice, so if you did not get selected in the Random 30 you still have another shot at getting a Unicorn! If you have any questions or comments regarding this Tournament visit the official thread here.

2007 Porsche 911 GT3 RS by: CJD82187

Hotlap Challenge Week 6: Nissan R390 Stock Showdown

For this week we have decided to run another stock Hotlap challenge (and subsequent tournament) in order to change up the pace of the competition. This week’s challenge is being held on Road Atlanta as players attempt to set the fastest time in the world with the sleek Nissan R390. This S class stock car showdown should provide some very interesting results so get out there and put down your best time!

Original Livery Winners of The Week
Hall of Fame Thread
gumball3ooo
Legend X
CTpenok
Corster
Tstdrvultdchamp
delbrownio1
mattystang
MiMic
Ssikpiyelnats
Fruitster
Panbot3000
panamagoo
Mike Patton CH

Race/Replica Livery Winners of The Week
Hall of Fame Thread
sprinter7804
mattman1992
Darkpagey
Jamesways
Hellbr1ng3r
FEAR 208
Kartman_013
ProMoe
Dewstain
Duff Man D
spacenugget
musclecarsforever

Congratulations to all the winners of the livery competitions this week! We are starting to see a lot of the same names being selected as winners, and as a result might begin capping the number of times you can win consecutively. For all the winners this week make sure to send your requests to forzafb@microsoft.com and include the following: your gamertag, forum username, the contest you have won, and your car request. Remember the only cars not available are the cars from the "September Car Pack" as well as the Peugeot 908.

2007 Honda Civic Type-R by: PyroDonkey

Wow what a long article this week! Have a good weekend and make sure to participate in one of our many weekly competitions. We will continue to expand and refine these competitions in the weeks to come, so check back next week for more updates!

Peace,

Landin Williams

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