Volume 73 -- Dec. 14, 2007
A Turn 10 Introduction...
By: Che Chou, Community Manager
It's festivities all around here at Turn 10 as we sit here typing up this week's Pitpass Report. Folks over in our team space are breaking out their favorite holiday games and drinking the warm stuff. Off in the distance, I can hear a motley crew belt out The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" in an epic Rock Band performance. Things aren't like this everyday, but we've got plenty of reasons to celebrate. First off, it's the holidays and we're getting ready to close up shop here at Turn 10 for a couple weeks while everyone disperses to spend time with families near and far. What this means is that we'll be laying low here on FM.net (but lurking on the forums and occasionally our blog) and the studio hibernates from Dec. 22nd to Jan. 6th.
1991 BMW Motorsport M3 E30 (and Acura RSX-S) by: Hadoq
We've also got other reasons to celebrate, thanks mostly to our wonderful community which have purchased a record number of DLC cars and packs in just the week it's been released. We're glad the work we put into downloadable content is being noticed and ultimately rewarded when you guys paint and race with these cars on Road America or Motegi. If you haven't already checked out the cool video Landin, who spent like a hundred years put together, you need to give up a minute of your time and give it a view. I think it's one of our best videos yet, with a soundtrack from 99 Men (a band led by our audio design lead Mike Caviezel) and Landin flexing his editing prowess on our new wheels of steel (an eight-core PC with more than two-terabytes of HDD space).
The video is also indicative of where we're going with videos in the near-future as we concoct new projects like official drift or race videos where you guys supply the cars, the tuning, and the designs, and other folks race or drift them competitively and we create an exciting little community video out of the proceedings. It's just something we're brainstorming, but we think it should be cool if we pull it off. We've already started doing something similar by holding a contest for one of your livery designs on a Bimmer E30 M3 to use in our upcoming Turn 10 Drift Handbook. Anyway, if you want to get involved, read on because Landin will cover that in more detail below.
2008 Audi R8 by: Elisecobrauk
I also come bearing good news for all those who may have been inadvertently hit with a "tampered profile" message when they try to enter Auction House or gifting. If you've received a tampered profile message and you know you haven't actually tampered your profile (i.e., duped cars by reloading a backed-up profile), there is a way to get you out of this jam without having to wipe your beloved save game -- here's how:
To help you with your problem, I need your Gamertag and Windows LiveID PUID. Huh? What's a PUID you say? The easiest way to find out your PUID is for you to go to this link and scroll all the way down the page. There will be a value named “Unique ID” positioned just above the Save/Cancel buttons. To log in, you needs the exact same Windows LiveID that is linked to your Gamertag. Please email me (forzafb@microsoft.com) the value named “Unique ID” positioned just above the Save/Cancel buttons on the page, and don't forget to include your Gamertag in your email. We'll try to get your account fixed as soon as we can, so please be patient. Oh, and for those of you who got the tampered message because you did in fact try to dupe cars to exploit on the Auction House, don't bother emailing us to lift your ban. All it takes is one look on the server to see that you've duped and you'll only end up making yourself look that much sillier.
2002 Honda Integra Type-R by: g3TurboD
In other news, the scoreboard filter feature on FM.net is coming along nicely. I saw a demo of it the other day and the foundation has been built. Now we've just got to hook up the rest of the plumbing. In the near-term, I'm looking at building out a way for those in our livery/painting/photo communities to submit and share their pictures, as well as a way for the community as a whole to rate/comment on these pictures. The idea is that those with the best liveries/photos will rise to the top through an automated system and populate a leaderboard that will track all of this. Yup, sounds pretty ambitious, so that's why I want you guys to give me feedback on what you'd like to see if we were to build out a photo/livery sharing and leaderboard system. Head over to this blog post and leave your ideas and comments there and let's start a dialogue.
And finally, before I peace out, I want to bring up something that's come up for some of the more hardcore scoreboard watchers and competitors in the Forza 2 community. If you take a look at this thread, you'll see that a group has begun to monitor griefing of the scoreboards by those who set Free Run lap times by having a buddy push them across the start/finish line for extra speed boosts. At Turn 10, we do consider this a form of cheating, and at the very least, poor sportsmanship and griefing -- punishable by having your scoreboard times wiped as a warning. If you continue to set griefed times to the scoreboards, we may consider banning your Gamertag from setting laptimes altogether. I know for 99% of you out there, this isn't going to an issue and shouldn't be something that you even think twice about.
With that, I will hand it over to Landin for his weekly community update. There won't be a Pitpass Report next Friday but we're going to throw up a new article to end 2007 in style. Plus, we'll be doing daily updates to the blog, so be sure to tune in. Later, sk8rs.
The Forza Motorsport 2 Community Update
By: Landin Williams, Community Moderator
What’s up folks? I welcome you all to another community update. As you can see we have been working on some very interesting projects over the past few weeks, and have lots to cover due to the lack of a Pitpass Report last Friday. I am very happy to re-iterate the good news that we have successfully tested a server side fix to the “Tampered Profile” issue that has affected many players in our community. We have been investigating this issue for quite some time and it is very exciting to see a solution appear on the horizon. Along with this advancement we have also started to gather ideas surrounding the new photomode feature that Che has already mentioned. I am very excited to see this idea implemented, and will be checking out the suggestions thread periodically, so make sure to stop by and share your thoughts.
I also wanted to quickly mention that last Friday we successfully released our first HD promotional video produced entirely in-house with the help of “The Beast”. Two versions of the video have been uploaded to our servers and are available for download by following the links posted in the side bar on the left. Go download it…right now!
1998 Porsche 911 GT1 by: sphilli22
So now that the DLC video is finished I was able to take some time this week to put the final touches on our Drifting Tutorial guide that should be released before the end of next week. In order to get some members of the community involved we have created a special livery competition where one design will be selected and featured in the article. We challenged our very active painting community to come up with a one of a kind design on the new BMW E30 M3, the car that will be used in all of the drifting tutorial videos as well as the triple screen drifting video that will accompany the written guide. We have already received many great submissions, so make sure to check out the official thread HERE if you are looking to send us a design!
2008 Audi R8 by: mnkpro
Hotlap Series Round 1: Official Results!
It is now time to conclude the first Round in the Hotlap challenge with the official results and overall point totals, but before all the results are displayed and the goodies released I wanted to take some time to talk about the series. First of all I want to send a well deserved shout out to our very dedicated team of community Moderators, who have volunteered their time to help organize the series. Without the help of these members the series would not be what it is, so thanks to ncasolo, Flying Scot AD and Hellbr1ng3r for all of the help! It is much appreciated. I also wanted to congratulate and say thank you to all of the participants who made this one of the most exciting (and popular) community events seen to date. The amount of skill and patience that is needed to compete at this level is unbelievable, so we congratulate everyone involved!
It was a great series with some very impressive racing from so many community members; however there is one racer who deserves some serious credit for achieving something that I personally didn’t think was possible. This driver was able to secure the number one spot in the Hotlap Series for all 5 weeks of competition, an astounding achievement when you consider the amount of talent that is flooding the scoreboards every week. So without further ado I would like to crown “IPR BackONE AbS” as “The Most Consistent and Ridiculously Fast Forza 2 Player in the World”. We are all jealous of your skills on Forza 2, and if you hope to receive your winnings you must first provide both Che and I with private lessons (just kidding). So without further ado here are the official results from Round 1 of the Hotlap Series!
Congratulations to all of the teams involved in the series, as well as the individuals who participated. It was great to see the level of competition rise as the weeks went on, and we are all very excited to see how things pan out in Round 2.
It’s no surprise to see the Italian Pro Racers (IPR) holding down the number one spot, when you consider the amazing performance by not only BackONE, but also IPR Ermy and IPR StevenX who were able to clinch a spot in the top 10 individual standings. Racing 2 Perfection (R2P) put down very consistent times over the 5 weeks of competition, and as a result were able to hold down the number 2 spot in the overall team standings. R2P also achieved the highest team score for a single week of competition in week 2, where they were able to secure a total of 767 team points.
Time Racing Club (TRC) was able to secure third place with some great teamwork, as a large variety of players were involved in the team’s success. Squadra Recon (SqR) came out strong in week one, but ended up with inconsistent times that held them back from reaching the top 3. Still this small team of only 7 members showed that they have the skills to take on other teams that dwarf them in size. The new kids on the block, Zero Tolerance (zT) only competed in 2 challenges yet there were still able to secure a total of 1402 points, demonstrating that they are ready to seriously compete in Round 2.
Speaking of Round 2 I wanted to quickly mention some things that we are planning for future series events. I am sure that many of you are pumped and ready to start with Round 2, however we have yet to decide on a specific date to begin our second series. I along with the community team will be taking suggestions and feedback on the forums, so if you have any suggestions make sure to post them HERE. I also want to mention that our forum moderator Ryan (ncasolo) will be in charge of the specifics for Round 2, so make sure to contact him if you have any questions! We are also working with a certain company to secure some extra prizing for future events, so stay tuned to find out more about our plans for Round 2.
2005 Ford Mustang GT by: FRT Slaphappy
So how do you collect your prizes from Round 1? It’s very simple. All we need is for the top 10 individual racers along with the leaders of the top 3 teams to send an e-mail to forzafb@microsoft.com with the subject “Hotlap Challenge: Prize Request”. Include your gamertag, team name (if applicable) and the prize that you are trying to collect. I will respond with instructions on how we will transfer the credits and the auction house purchases. I will be looking for these e-mails on Monday, so try and get them in before then to ensure that you obtain your goodies in time for the Holiday’s!
This past week we created an S Class Audi R8 Hotlap Challenge, and have already seen some amazing tuning matched with some amazing driving. We will continue to create the weekly challenges even if they are not part of a series and will still reward the top 10 drivers as well as a random selection of drivers from the top 200. Here are the top 10 drivers from this week’s challenge!
Hotlap Challenge Week 13 - Top 10
1 zT EnZo
2 NF1 I Nikrox
3 IPR StevenX
4 IPR BackONE AbS
5 IPR Ermy
6 SqR Parabolica
7 zT HyBriD
8 NF1 I runruN
9 R2P KimiMatt
10 Julio Geordio 9
Click HERE to see if you have been selected as one of the "Random 30" from Week 13. Congratulations to everyone who made it into the top 200 for this week's challenge! By now I would hope that you all know how to claim your prize, but if not simply send an e-mail to forzafb@microsoft.com and we will go from there!
For next week’s challenge we are going with one of the most requested tracks that has yet to be used for a multitude of different reasons. Since it is not part of a series we have decided to implement it this week. We challenge everyone to jump in an R4 car and tackle “The Ring” aka Nurburgring Nordschleife, a track that will test the patience as well as the concentration of all the racers involved. We are very eager to see who can set the fastest time on this monster of a track, so get out there and put down your fastest lap!
1991 BMW Motorsport M3 E30 by: Mike350h
Alright will all of that said I wanted to expose some community events that have not only received support from Turn 10, but have also received lots of participation. Once again it is impossible for me to cover the massive amounts of competitions hosted on a weekly basis, so make sure to browse the forums and find the contest that fits your style.
Community Events:
Hollywood Blockbusters Contest
Forum User “Steve Sq” has recently completed one of many livery contests found in our super active “Original Livery” forum section. Here is what he has to say about the contest. “Recently 18 of the community's top artists competed in a contest to create the best movie related liveries in the Blockbusters of Hollywood competition. Artists were invited to compete in one of three categories: movie theme, actors/actresses and animated features. Over forty community members voted on the final cars and in one category the winner was decided by a one vote margin.” To check out all of the entries make sure to check out the official thread HERE.
330 HP Bismark Championship
Forum user “Silver Fox413” has made me aware of a great event that everyone should check out. The series has already completed two seasons and participants are already looking forward to season 3. This is a championship where cars are limited to only 330HP, so if you are a clean racer looking for a group to run with, make sure to check out the series HERE.
Official Pitlane Photomode Competition
Forum User” Johnny Questtt” has been hosting a weekly photomode competition with specific categories and restrictions each week. Many of the photos taken in the competition have been used in the pitpass reports, and this week is no different! If you think you have what it takes to compete with some of the best photographers around then make sure to check out this week’s “Pitlane” competition HERE.
So before we wrap it up this week I wanted to quickly mention a few things relating to the forums and also to the Unicorn Cars. So first of all we have recently enabled the forum “Poll Creation” option that will allow registered users to create their own polls. So if you are running a competition or would like to poll the community then feel free to use this feature that is only available when creating a new thread. We will be watching for unnecessary and abusive polls, so if you do not respect the rules we will have no problems shutting this feature down. Use it wisely!
1985 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT Apex by: SD Kami Sama
Second of all I wanted to mention that we have experimented with putting up Unicorn Cars with a buyout of 1 Million Credits. These cars were normally purchased (within minutes of their creation I might add) by the lucky members who just so happened to be searching for a Unicorn car at the right time. We will continue to post random Unicorn auctions with a buyout, so make sure to check for them at different times in the day!
Alright that’s it for this week! Once again I hope that you all enjoy the weekend, and that you will all watch the Road America and December Car Pack video…at least once :)
Peace
Landin
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