F1 2012 F1 2012 Community Interview: Steve Hood

[Tom]

Together with CodeMasters we've been working hard over the past few months in order to set up an interview by the community and for the community. Now, how does this work?

Everyone (limitations as outlined below apply) can post questions and the most popular ones will be sent to CodeMasters on August 20th. Deadline for posting your quetions will be August 20th, 6pm GMT / 7pm UK time / 8pm CET.

Limitations:
- Registered prior to August 6th.
- Maximum of 3 questions per user, please be reasonable.
- Question must contain no insults etc.
- Question must not be about modding (this is a limitation CM has set).
- There's a limitation on how much questions we can ask, so not every popular question might make it.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to message me.

 

[Fleming Rondorf]

1 - Will this be another arcade-racing game ( like the previous two ) ?
2 - Will the cars still be almost indestructable "Tanks" ?
3 - Will online racing be fixed ( worked fine with 2010, but NOT with 2011 ) ?

 

[Calum McLure]

1.Will the race engineer provide more information so that you can be more aware of what is happening around you to allow players to play without the HUD?

2.Will there be an option to save replays offline and online?

3.Has there been any changes made to the pit-stop system so that the driver may have more of an influence?

 

[Zoltan Hadadi]

Really good idea from RD!

As a serious online racer I'll have my questions focused on the online part of the game.
1. Will the cars be equal online on "equal" settings? In F1 2011 they aren't which is one of the biggest problem of the leagues.
2. Did you managed to do something with the lagg issues? I know that since we play online from different locations we have different latency but how F1 2011 handled this wasn't good.
3. What's the advantages of Steam over GFWL?

 

[Marcus Lindblom]

1.How has the tires been tweaked so that they react more to driving style in terms of tire wear?
2.Will the times in the wet be more realistic this year?
3. Has the pit-stop times been shortened this year, because last year they were almost no pit-stops under 4 seconds and now in the real world we see pit-stop times under 3 second and almost no stops over 4 seconds?

 

[Chicane500]

Nice to see this happening

First question is about F1 2012: (I have yet to make a choice between these 2 Q's, I find the other 2 more interesting)
1. In online play, will spun car again change to ghosts temporary? (I understand that it was almost necessairy to do that in F1 2011 because the yellow flags were pretty late.)
1b. Is the gap in laptime between dry and wet laps increased drastically? And wet more difficult? (in F1 2011 the gap between dry and full wet was about 7 seconds)

Then two questions for beyond F1 2012:
2. Steve explained that for short-term, they won't go for dedicated servers, but use some sort of P2P. My Question is: Are dedicated servers somewhere in their longterm road map, now they have a longterm deal?
3. Moreless related with second question: How far are full race replays away in their roadmap. For our community it would be great if replays were possible so we can create things like this with their game:

 

[TheHemps]

It is very important for me to know if any bugs or glitches will be fixed. If new bugs arrive with the patches, as have done the last two years, will they also be fixed? For example, the tyre bug after 2nd patch in F1 2011 we were simply told, sorry we broke your game, but tough.
So, in short, will we be getting a complete working game on release? If not, will it be a complete working game by the second patch, or at any point?
A very disappointing question to have to ask

 

[Stewart Bridge]

I think my most burning question is what ratio (if different from 2011) arcade to sim have they gone for this time, is it more arcade, more sim or about the same?

My second question is, please can they tell us more about what they've changed/fixed for 2012 in terms of yellow flags, corner cutting etc, tyre wear.

lastly, have they added more support for wheels for us PC gamers? i'm thinking along the lines of forcefeedback, extra buttons like for the fanatec clubsport wheels (i realise they've done this for Thrustmaster, but was that exclusive?), and mixing and matching hardware, like using the Clubsport pedals with a G27 wheel for example.

 

[a4papier]

In F1 2011 the safety car was new but I had it on an average of 1 time each season. Is in F1 2012 the safety car more in the game?

 

[Gavin Hendley]

Is the new SC rule in? ie are lapped cars allowed to unlap themselves.

Are AI faster online?

Have they fixed unexpected disconnects online?

Does f1 2012 favour high down force like 2011?

What modes will the game consist off?

Will the engineer be more informative?

Will f1 2012 have better FFB?

 

[Scott Tanner]

• Will there be an option to carry on our 2011 career save rather than start all over as a rookie?

• Will you be including better in race scenario radio updates via the engineer?

• Will the game offer out the gate cheat detection so that on line isn't hampered with modified file users or game trainers/hacks?

 

[Kyle Jefferies]

in F1 2011 it seemed, although you have expressed otherwise, tyre wear was around about the same for everyone. No matter of the driving style, setup, fuel, tyres seemed to wear at the same rate and generally everyone pitted around the same lap with the exception of those who dared the dramatic oversteer and lack of grip.

we already know about some cars, like in real life, being less stressful on tyre wear such as the Lotus and Sauber but my question is.. will (online) drivers be rewarded for looking after the tyres and be able to make tyres last longer than those driving more aggressively burning up tyres?

 

[Dmitry Zaharov]

Are you planning to make laptimes more realistic. On some tracks difference between F1 2011 game laptimes and real life is huge. Notably, in Singapore it is more than 10 seconds.

 

[David O'Reilly]

Q1) Physics and car handling. 2011 clearly took a big step forward from 2010. What will the changes to driver experience be of no assiats car handling compared to 2011. More challenging/realistic (authentic) or less? Q1b) Force Feedback. Will any physics improvements allow better FFB implementation.​

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Q2) Viewpoint. Cockpit view in 2011 is near perfect whereas 2010 was comparatively very obscured. Will the lovely 2011 cockpit view be retained?​

Q3) There was talk of a progessive weight penalty (based on XP rank) for assisted drivers in multiplayer in the 2011 game to even out the mixed assists racing. Was it actually implemented? Will it feature in 2012.​

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Q3b) Setup parameters did not seem to influence tyre wear in a logical way in 2011. EG Max Camber and Hard springs didnt increase tyre wear. Will setups have a more logical influence in 2012.​

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Thanks far great game experience in F1 2011.​

 

[Frobs]

1. Will there be more difference beween the handling caractaristics of the cars?
2. What are the main graphical differences with 2011?
3. What are the recommended system requirements?

 

[SKIZZY]

1. In 2011, if you lost a piece of your front wing it didnt effect so much, in real life you have to pit as fast as possible or you'll loose too much time, will this be improved?

2. Will it be easier to get a puncture if someone drives into you or from debris on the track.

3. How will the setup system work? Have you made it easier for people who dont really understand it so they can get a good setup aswell? Since having a good setup is crucial.

 

[Matthew Booth]

I only have 1 question

What's the release date seen 4 different sites ranging from the 14th-28th sept

 

[luigi83]

1) If the game needs patches will they create to correct bugs or update data (for example tyre compound for the last races);
2) Mirrors in helmet cam will be useful this year to allow the player to don't use lookback button? - Pit boards from pit wall or at least a comparison Hud with info at the end of lap (same as fastest lap in F1 2011)? - AI will be stronger, competitive and not cheating with driving aids?;
3) Better damage system with fragile cars and physic model? Are they upgraded?

Thanks.

 

[Anuraj Tapidas]

1) Will there be a demo?
2) Are you going to allow users to adjust cameras from with the game?
3) Will the cars be as fragile as they are in real life and if so will it affect the cars handling as it should do?
Thanks

 

[Kristian Nenov]

As far as I see all questions here have been asked before and most of them have clear answers.. So I'm trying to think of something that they haven't said.

1) Will part-tire temperature be included? For example with too much negative camber, the inside of the tire overheating and the outside is too cold and such stuff?

2) I see that the speed feeling in the car has been added. You have to turn the wheel less when you're driving fast. Have you fixed the - more turning the wheel = more turning power? Or this will just allow us to make a Melbourne lap for 50 seconds?

3) In F1 2011, when set to 2011 performance cars, they didn't perform like in real life. Actually the only difference between the Red Bull and the McLaren was the chassis. Is this going to be improve and will the cars be as fast as in real life depending on the track. For example Ferrari wasn't very good at Melbourne, but now they're a top car. Will we see this, or it's gonna have the same performance through the whole season like in 2010/2011?


EDIT: oh I just saw that it's till 6th august.. =/