Volume 89 -- Apr. 25, 2008

A Turn 10 Introduction...

By: Che Chou, Community Manager

Hey there, thanks for dropping by Forzamotorsport.net for our Weekly Pitpass Report each Friday. It's been an electrifying few days here at Turn 10 as we, and the rest of the gaming world apparently, look forward to the release of Grand Theft Auto IV next Tuesday. More than a handful of us here have already done the preordering thang and I know at least a couple Forza devs who will stand dutifully in line for their taste of what looks like the sickest game ever made, in every sense of the word. If you haven't already seen some of the homemade videos that have been circulating the web this week... well, why bother I guess. You know what to expect, and I suppose the whole experience will hold much greater surprise if you stay away from what Landin has coined the "feeding frenzy" in this office, aka our insatiable hunger for live video feeds of folks playing GTA4 early and doing wacky things in real-time.

This shot by m00se79 takes the cover this week!  - VW and Audi Club

Anyway, what's this got to do with Forza? Well, nothing except that it's something a large chunk of the studio body here at Turn 10 are looking forward to, and the fact that both Forza 2 and GTA4 feature a whole bunch of cars. So in celebration of GTA4's release on the Xbox 360 (with all of your friends on Live and exclusive DLC coming this fall, why would you want the other version?) we're declaring next week to be Play GTA4 with Turn 10 Developers week. Every day next week, from 5:00pm to 7:30pm (or thereabouts if no pressing work issues come up), come find us on Xbox Live and we'll rock Liberty City together.

We can work this a couple ways. If you send Landin (BLKJ Blasto) or my Gamertag (Che Team Forza) a friend request on Live by next Tuesday, we'll add you to our list and when the time comes, it's as easy as sending you guys an invite into our room(s). With 16 players per game, we think we can accomodate anyone who wants in on the fun. The friends list acceptances will be first-come-first-serve, since space is limited. If our friends list is full, simply send us a message over Xbox Live and we can invite you manually. We're not sure what sorts of madness will ensue online, but Landin and I are already thinking up all the possible ways to create new gametypes. There's team drifting through the streets of Liberty City with the added twist of shooting each other's tires out. Or minivan demolition derbies. Or good ol' drag races with muscle cars... gah, the possibilties are limitless. At any rate, look us up and we'll play. As for which Turn 10 devs will show up in our online lobbies, well, we'll see...

Audi RS4 vs.BMW M3 by: aLeS RS - Racing Photo Gallery

Next week also marks the return of Turn 10's game director Dan Greenawalt from his one-month paternity leave. To be honest, Dan's been really good about stepping away from the office for the majority of his break. Personally, I only saw him answer a few emails and appear at the office just once and it wasn't for very long. We mentioned a few weeks ago that all of Dan's free time has given him the car modding itch again; sure enough, he sent in a picture (below) this week that hints at the kind of transformation his 2000 Imola Yellow Audi S4 will be going through in the coming weeks. Of course, he's already agreed to detail the continuing adventures of the Initials S4 in a series of articles on FM.net so look out for those soon.

Dan Greenawalt's Audi S4 getting an entirely new interior and seats. The joke around here is that car thieves stole his car and stripped it. Not funny, I know.

Other stuff on the horizon and in the near future: The newest member of Turn 10's community team, Fred Howell (aka Redesign) will be starting the week after next. Now when I ask Landin to fetch my tall soy latte with extra foam, he can pass the message right on to Fred. No, but seriously, we look forward to his arrival. His first job might be to paint a car featuring Shammi's (our livery editor developer) newborn daughter's face. You think I'm kidding -- Shammi would disagree. Then approximately a month from now, we'll be celebrating the one-year anniversary of the release of Forza Motorsport 2. We're currently planning some cool stuff for the community with special events, contests, and competitions all-week long. More info on that as we solidify details.

EVO Vs. STI...a classic battle by: smooth criminal - FC Photomode Comp.

Before I bounce out for the weekend, I just want to give props to the Redline Tuning crew for their incredibly-tuned Evo VIII MR time attack monster. Landin took one out on Tsukuba this afternoon and playing the game again -- after a grueling week of GT5: Prologue grinding rails and exploiting AI cars to unlock S Class but still somehow being dead broke -- was such a sweet homecoming of driving pleasure. Seriously, the Redline Evo is an excellent car folks, and if you can, I urge you to try and get your hands on some of these specialty tuning shops from our Tuning Marketplace forums. Forza 2 has total fahrvegnugen or something. And as always, we've got the Turn 10 Car of the Week blog going on in that other part of the website. J. Mason's back behind the wheel this week with words of love and devotion for the legendary Toyota Celica GT-Four ST185. Anybody's who's played the classic Sega Rally in arcades or on the Saturn would have been introduced to this car back in 1995. In any case, see y'all next week in Liberty City, 'cause it's game over, yeaaaaahh!!!

J.Mason spreads his love of the a rally classic: the Toyota Celica GT-Four in this edition of the Turn 10 Car of the Week blog.

I've Got the Need... The Need to Feed!

By: Landin Williams, Community Moderator

It’s a beautiful day here in Seattle Washington as Che and I type up this week’s edition of the Community Update. The sun is shining through a clear sky with no signs of precipitation, and it seems summer is on the horizon. Of course after last weekend’s nonsensical weather I am very skeptical about what the future has in store, as Che and I faced what seemed to be a hail storm on our way home last Friday. What’s even more bizarre is that earlier in the day it was actually quite nice, so my skepticism is merited believe it or not. In any event let’s hope for a warm and sunny weekend for all to enjoy!

With the excitement of another weekend to work on my car, I took a stroll past the car research team and couldn’t stop myself from engaging in the automotive riff raff. First I had a short chat with Adam about his Friday afternoon trip to the Mission Raceway in Vancouver, Canada. He’s heading up to the drag strip where his friend’s brother is trying out his newly swapped H22 Integra. He will report back with any and all coolness, so you might see a blog sometime next week with pictures from the event.

Check this clean M3 on Suzuka by: ConnorHGT3 - BMW M3 Lovers

While talking with Adam I also overheard details about some of the team’s plans for the weekend; apparently, with the LMS race at Monza and the F1 in Spain, it seems like most of Turn 10's auto research team's time has already been accounted for. Throw in the Indy Car series at Kansas Speedway, and you have yourself a weekend full of racing action. Personally I am interested to see how Danica Patrick performs after winning last weekend’s race on the Twin Ring Motegi Oval, making her the first ever female driver to win an Indy Car race. Overall it is a great weekend to be a motorsports fan, so make sure to tune in to one of the races mentioned above for all your racing needs.

For me, this weekend will once again be dedicated to Project GT-S and my do-it-yourself upgrading mentality, so catching a glimpse of these races will be difficult, if not impossible. I’ve quickly realized that once you start modifying, upgrading, and tinkering…you can’t stop. This is especially true when you have a huge shopping list of upgrades that can be done cheaply and easily (with the right tools of course). Personally I enjoy building things myself, and having a work in-progress is really dangerous as there is always some little thing that could be improved. For example I would love to completely re-do the interior of my AE86, as the current color scheme just doesn’t do it for me.

Twin Vettes and a Sunset by: BULLETSnZOMBIES - Generations Comp.

I would also like to re-paint the car with the exact same colors, just to give it that fresh from the factory look. Now these are all cosmetic upgrades, and of course the engine, drivetrain and suspension will need some upgrades as well. As you can see things stack up quickly and there is no stopping the force once you feel the need. It’s almost like the constant live feeding that has been occurring here at Turn 10. It seems every time I walk down the hall, someone is watching a live feed of GTA4, and I can’t help myself…I must feed. As a gamer I have been into the GTA series since the game was played with a top down view, and I have to say I am just as excited as all of you must be to get my hands on the game next week!

I was also equally excited to get my hands on this Monster Evo from Redline Tuning, and luckily when I booted up Forza 2 this morning I had a nice gift waiting in my inbox. Now first I need to mention that AG Tuning also has a 52 second Evo 8, driven by R2P JED, and currently Redline and AG hold the exact same best time of Tsukuba, as mentioned last week. I haven’t had a chance to get a copy of the Evo from AG, but judging by the quality of the Redline version I am super excited to compare the two. I sat down to run a few laps with the Redline Evo, and honestly I don’t think I have driven a car that has felt this well-tuned and balanced in a long time (if ever).

Photo by: Kami Iki - Car by: AG Tuning - Bushido Philosophy

The first thing I noticed was the extreme amount of grip available to the driver when exiting the multiple hairpins on Tsukuba.  I was surprised to find out that I could power through 80% of the final sweeper without feeling any understeer or oversteer. The car is completely balanced. The braking distance is equally amazing, and I have no doubts in my mind that this car can handle the late braking techniques required to pull off a clean pass on Tsukuba. After only 10 laps I was sitting on a best lap of 54.327, with plenty of room for improvement. All in all this car is a masterpiece, and I just had to congratulate the folks over at Redline one more time after I had a chance to run some laps. Next week I will set aside some time to test out the Evo from AG, and make sure to include a breakdown of its abilities!

After driving this car today I started thinking about the tuning marketplace and how it has grown at a tremendous rate since its creation a few months ago. I also realized that having specific cars tuned for specific tracks is a must if you hope to be competitive, and the tuning marketplace makes it really easy to find high quality tunes with great liveries for reasonable prices. 

So with that said I encourage everyone to head on over and check out some of the incredible cars floating around the marketplace. If you are like me, and don’t have the patience the fine-tune cars to perfection, then this is the place for you. Additionally I am throwing out a call for any tuners willing to send some cars our way for the next Game with Dev event that is just around the corner. We might need some help in order to back up all that trash talking we do on the Xbox LIVE marketplace :)

On another related note, I have recently established a Race Settings Database in the Racing Techniques section, to house any of your personal settings that you want to share with the community. The thread is organized by the make, model and class of your car, so it is easy to find a tune for a specific class. The more activity we get in this thread the bigger it will grow, and eventually we will have a huge database filled with set-ups for new users looking to jump in and run some races!

A pair of AWD monsters by: Lethal Industry - FC Photomode Comp.

Hotlap Challenge Season 3: Standings after Week 1

Individual Top 10

Team Top 10

Another great photo taken by Hadoq - Subaru Photoshoot

Speaking of races, we have now completed week 2 in our Hotlap Challenge and the point’s race is already heating up. With only 3 week’s left in Season 3 every point matters, and teams are fighting for every last tenth. The points have been tallied from week 1, and as you can see above, V12 has already taken a commanding lead. Here is Ryan (aka Hellbringer) with a breakdown of what went down in week 2.

“Week 2 in our hotlap series featured RWD R4 class cars around Silverstone International. First step this week was to choose a car, as the leaderboard for this class and track combination is completely dominated by the AWD Audi's. This interesting combo meant drivers had to do some preliminary car testing. The majority went with either #82 Porsche 911 or the pair of Dodge Viper's.

“V12 looked very promising again this week as they continued to set the par for the week. BackONE and Fullspe3D even managed to squeeze out a 1.15.xxx this week as 7 members of V12 checked in a top10 time. Their party was split up by another familiar face, R2P Deano claiming 5th this week; however it wasn’t enough to disrupt the dominating performance from V12.”

Fishing for Koenigsegg by: hira - Photoshop Comp.

Hotlap Challenge Week 31 (Season Week 2) Top 10
1 V12 BackONE AbS
2 V12 Fullspe3D
3 V12 seba grisea
4 V12 Nikrox
5 R2P Deano
6 V12 Kronoturbo
7 V12 Trasgu
8 V12 gilba 22
9 R2P ChemicaL
10 SqR Parabolica

Click here to see if you have been selected as one of the “Random 30” from week 31! This week we put together another Mixed PI Challenge on Maple Valley reverse, featuring front wheel drive cars from North America. The challenge is already up and running, so grab yourself a tune from the marketplace and run some laps!

Check out this submission to the Scenery Livery Contest - Artist Unkown

If racing is not your thing and you want to take in some sights, then you should definitely check out the scenery livery contest, happening in the Original Liveries section. Forum user’s asrttyoxo and I Ride a Burton are hosting a very unique livery contest based around scenery, and as you can see from the submission above, the results are amazing. Here is what asrttyoxo had to say about this contest. “Are you an artist?  Are you sick of painting people or race replicas or maybe just want to dabble in something new? What about painting some scenery? Take your backgrounds and make them foregrounds for a change.” They have already collected a huge amount of quality art for prizing, as well as credits and gift cars for the winners, so check out the contest thread here for all the details!

And finally before I head home for the weekend I wanted to point out a cool video posted in our automotive discussion section. Forum user’s ninja DORI and dr sideways recently set up a real life drifting event in New Zealand, to test out the capabilities of a few AE86’s. The event was hosted at a track called Slipway, and a video has been posted here showing off the drifting technique of Andy Riley (aka dr sideways). The video is really cool, and it just goes to show you that power is not always necessary to learn the basics of drifting!

Check out this wheelie car by: erics00ls - Porsche-philes Only

With that said it’s time to take off for a weekend full of GTA4 anticipation! I hope you all enjoyed the article and we will catch you again next Friday. Enjoy the weekend and thanks for reading!

Peace

Landin