PC1 Anyone signed up to Project CARS?

[Dazmaniac]

As the topic title says it all really.

I have (as a Team Member - £22) so get new builds every Monday.

Been browsing the forums tonight and there is a helluva lot of work going on by all the behind the scenes folks and some of the imagery they are posting on their WIP stuff is amazing.

New build on Monday is bringing a WIP kart and fictional track and the Ariel Atom too. Also have Bathurst in the works, with Gumpert Apollo Sport and Caterham Seven Extralight T500.

Some content has fictional names (until the licensing has been sorted) so we have Connecticut Hills (Watkins Glen), Bologna (Imola), Aussie Hill (Bathurst), Nuke (Ariel Atom) to name but a few.

I was a little wary about signing up initially but am so glad I did now.

;-)

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

SMS, the devs, made Shift 1 and Shitt 2. Surely you know that?

Yes, SMS made Shift 1 and 2. But those games were published by EA, who are notorious for making devs water down the games they publish. If my memory serves me right, the SMS team even said this themselves!

 

[David Ignjatovic]

David, before you talk about unfinished cars, I'd just like to remind you that the game is pre-alpha.
.

Mate, not everyone is as gullible as many games dev hope for.
The fact is, pcars is a arcade or maybe simcade game, now some might love the sound of that, however, I was under the impression that this was going to be Shift2 with the driving quirks removed, at which point, it would've been at least a decent simcade.

Based on my driving of it, all the cars are either clearly unfinished or just plain arcadey, and even the worst sim has better FFB, driving model and steering precision.

Also, as I pointed out, they could've given us 1-2 finished{or largely finished cars} and sim racers could've evaluated them, instead, they've given you scores of unfinished cars and tracks and hope they can con sim racers into believing there's hope, but it should be obvious, this IS NOT A SIM.......now, I don't care if you or other people prefer non sims, but I don't want this blatant arcade game being passed off as a sim.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

I am a junior member, would never be anything more as I dont really agree with BETA testing, they have more than enough staff to do it themselves, in comparison to ISI who really need the help!

there is a bit of a love in, but quite why is beyond me. I tried to recalibrate the wheel earlier, and got so many different settings and feelings it seemed confused as to whatw as going on!

You're dealing with a multi-platform game aimed primarily at gamepad users, otherwise the wheel aspects would shine.
Consider that PC sim exclusive Game Stock Car probably has the best default settings for G27 of any sim game, that's because it was built around wheels and sim racing principles.

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

pCARS will be multi-platform, but the idea is that they are developing it for PC first and foremost and then porting it to consoles. Why else would there be thread after thread of the devs helping people out with wheels and such? There are only a few members of the forum that I know of who drive with keyboards and/or gamepads.

It seems that you completely ignored me saying that the game is pre-alpha. That is why the whole thing is in such an unfinished state. There's at least a year of development time left on this thing.

And I'm not sure where you're getting "blatantly arcade" from. The cars, even the unfinished ones, feel exactly the same to me as their equivalents in rFactor/RACE. Unfortunately that's the problem with pre-alpha releases - it's different for everybody. I'm not drawing conclusions yet.

 

[Travis]

SMS, the devs, made Shift 1 and Shitt 2. Surely you know that?

Of course I know that, I bought the games for the Xbox and PC SMS also helped to make GTR, GTR 2 and GT Legends.

Again, what do Shift and Unleashed have to do with CARS? NFS: Shift & Unleashed were products that EA wanted from SMS.

 

[Travis]

And I'm not sure where you're getting "blatantly arcade" from. The cars, even the unfinished ones, feel exactly the same to me as their equivalents in rFactor/RACE. Unfortunately that's the problem with pre-alpha releases - it's different for everybody. I'm not drawing conclusions yet.

I'm on the verge of giving up posting about CARS here.

Ian Bell has stated on WMD forums that it's been an uphill battle trying to get some gamers & websites to understand that Shift and Unleashed as well as the upcoming Test Drive Ferrari games are products the PUBLISHER demanded. People seem to forget SMS played their part in making GTR, GTR 2 and GT Legends and that CARS is a work in progress.

Ben Collins is on board as a consultant, having driven more cars than just about any other human on the planet but his constant feedback and criticisms aren't good enough to make a proper simulation game. I guess he is getting paid to say nice things

I look forward ships in 12 months with class leading graphics and great physics and watch as the naysayers eat their words.

 

[Robin Cook]

The real question here is if you feel there are so many issues why aren't you detailing you issues to the developers and helping to make a difference.

As for wheel setups. My g25 has worked flawlessly from day one and the latest calibration/steering ratios are a big step in the right direction. It has been stated many times that other wheel makers profiles will apear later as development progresses.

Haters gonna hate. Personally I never bought into the whole harder=more realistic approach. Some games feel like driving on ice

 

[Peter]

Of course I know that, I bought the games for the Xbox and PC SMS also helped to make GTR, GTR 2 and GT Legends.

Again, what do Shift and Unleashed have to do with CARS? NFS: Shift & Unleashed were products that EA wanted from SMS.

CARS is a stripped-down Shift2 at the start and now they try to rebuild it.

 

[Travis]

Haters gonna hate. Personally I never bought into the whole harder=more realistic approach. Some games feel like driving on ice

Indeed! Harder equals real is massive misnomer in the simulation racing community and needs to die.

Reading comments by Ben Collins reinforces just how much grip race cars have and some road cars like the Gumpert have too.

 

[Robin Cook]

Ŷup. If I ran a race team and spent years and hundreds of thousands of pounds to develop the cars grip and stability I'd be pretty upset if they behaved like ice factor 2.

 

[Rob Every]

Interesting points all

For me RF2 feels far more realistic, maybe it might be totally realistic in reality, but to a player in a sim it feels easier to understand what is going on anyway.

CARS feels terrible, the FFB over kerbs and bumps is fine, could be stronger, but the actual feel of the steering in bends is totally wrong, floaty, it washes out everywhere and it almost seems like they have gone the opposite way to most sims, in that it feels so much worse when you lose grip, which in most cars in the game is pretty much a nano after turn in!

The way the game feels, is as other have said, the same as a console game. And I don't think they can engineer that out very quickly.

Example... Sitting at Silverstone yesterday, going round Luffield OK. I am turning the wheel and starting the apply the power. push the pedal a fraction, nothing, a bit more and you get a sort of jerk as the game realises you are applying power, just as if you were pressing a button on a gamepad! That would never happen in RACE, Iracing or RF. And that is after properly calibrating the controller etc. You can't be very progressive and that is an inherent part of a sim, it is the difference between a sim and a console game.

All console games are designed to be easy to play and less responsive to huge inputs to make them easier for all sorts of people to play. Anything from GT5 to Dirt2, some are better, some are worse, but once you know what you can get away with you can learn to be as quick as anyone. GT5 is maybe moving into a console game having to have a wheel setup but the rest arent anywhere close to that, Shift 2 and the otehr one are awful in a wheel, you might aswell just have a wheel that instantly turns to 90 degrees every time and a throttle/brake that is on/off for all the good it does you.

A proper sim is not like that at the higher levels, it's about setup, knowing how the physics work and finding out what each car or mod can do over other ones.

I do hope CARS finds the besy route, right noe they seem a little too keen on pretty, on not at all keen on content and what a sim actually is. If they knew, surely they would have done it already!

 

[Robin Cook]

+1 re throttle. does me head in.

Played mabe 4-5 hours of cars over 2 builds and I Deffo like the direction it's going but I'm still spending more time on Race.

Still loads of work to do removing all traces of shift from the equation. Will see what the future brings.

 

[Andy_J]

Playing cars again tonight and yes, gotta agree, it's too arcadey for me. I keep trying the new weekly builds but nothing grabs me now. I also get constant crashes using the dx11 exe after build 144. There is no way it will be as polished as Shift 1 with the overhaul mod v2. Now that is class and fixed by modders without community funding.

Infact this community funding is strange. Just what was the purpose other than to get some more money to the devs? Thery offered a free game but it was already going to be free to play anyway and now they have changed that. They change whenever they feel like or whenever the higher investors tell them to in my opinion. I'll not be upgrading to full member thats for sure. I ain't paying full whack for a game that will likely be discounted on steam with in weeks of release.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

If SMS built Shift2, why can't they remove the sway and the excess oversteer and release one slow car and one fast car that represents the type of game it'll be....cause based on b144, everything was unfinished and FFB was weak and inconsistent, so what's the point of all these cars and tracks when they could easily have released a couple of sim cars[if that's their goal].

Btw, I strongly agree with the notion that rfactor and especially iceracing are more difficult that real life, but both these games have good FFB[especially the Redbull F1 rf2] and near perfect steering wheel precision, of course, games like FVA, GSC, and GTR EVO/RACEON seem more like the real deal when it comes to degree of difficulty.

Do the people who own FVA and GSC really think that pcars is a sim, or is going to be one....?.....it seems most unlikely, especially as the vocal sim community could've easily been appeased with just one sim car to test, one is all it would've taken, but instead, they're dumping scores of cars and tracks with epic GFX and hoping that's enough, well the good news is it'll probably be enough to sell millions of copies, but I think the idea that this is a sim is absurd, and as I've said before, even the worst PC sim is better than this for FFB, physics and wheel precision.

Remember, I don't care if you like the game, I only care about it's status, and IMO, it's arcade/simcade at best.

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

cause based on b144, everything was unfinished and FFB was weak and inconsistent, so what's the point of all these cars and tracks when they could easily have released a couple of sim cars[if that's their goal].

I believe that's your answer right there in bold. Your comments are being based on a build that's no longer current. I get the impression from the build number you specify that you're a junior member, correct? Well, there's a possibility that the next build you receive in about three weeks will be much better in terms of FFB and some physics characteristics. All the positive comments have been about build 149.

Remember, I don't care if you like the game, I only care about it's status, and IMO, it's arcade/simcade at best.

I'm not concerned with whether others like it or not - what I am concerned about is that you seem to be judging this as if it's a finished game, when to be honest it's only just started development. You can't predict where this is going based on a pre-alpha build.
Talking of pre-alpha builds, I'd just like to say one last thing: Due to the very fact that it is pre-alpha, and we are still seeing how things like the FFB cope with different systems and such, no-one's experience of the game will be the same - like I said before, my experience has been very good. Your experience of pCARS might not be very positive, but that does not make your judgement of the game the definitive one.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

Your experience of pCARS might not be very positive, but that does not make your judgement of the game the definitive one.

One thing you can't overlook are the basic facts, such as it being possible and desirable to release a proper sim car so that the sim community can judge it.
Why release arcade models and expect anything positive from the sim community....it's nuts, "unless" you have no intention of making a sim.

It's not like there was a hell of a lot wrong with S2U's model other than the obvious flaws, so it shouldn't take forever and a day to finally get to sim status.....IMO, there's no delay, they're simply not going to make a sim model.

I'm also not going to constantly dl gigs and gigs worth of crap either, that's crazy....all they have to do is release ONE SINGLE SIM car, just one, but they've done no such thing, and I'd get the surprise of my life if this ending feeling somewhere near GTR evo for ex.

A underlying sim model+ driving aids suits both sim racer and casual racer, but no sim model in sight strongly suggests no sim model ever, especially as it would only take one car....one car is all that's required to judge FFB, steering precision and overall car behaviour.

EDIT....it's like Dirt3, one of the most obvious arcade driving models ever, yet they have the gall to include a pro mode of sorts.....the casual racer will think he's a real champ when he "masters" the highest difficulty, only to feel like a chump the second he tries a proper sim.

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

Yet again, you are ignoring me. That's YOUR experience. You say "arcade models" and "no sim model in sight" as if that's how everyone experiences the game. I don't have an arcade experience, and for me, pCARS already feels like GTR Evo.

It's getting kind of pointless discussing this with you if you're just going to keep on pushing your arguments without even taking mine into account.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

hilarious...

 

[David Ignjatovic]

Actually, just had another go with b144, and this is WORSE than Shift2, much worse, at least S2U had some cars that were driveable/finished, this has none, plus the wheel inputs are gross and introduce huge bodyroll and exaggerated turning.
The FFB is weak at best, disconnected during many corners and goes light at bathurst.
As I said, before, this doesn't even come close to the worst sim.

Anyone who uses a wheel and drives FVA/GSC/GTR Evo and thinks this is a sim or is on the verge of it is having a lend of us.
By all means enjoy your pretty GFX, as that's the only good thing about it.

 

[David Ignjatovic]

I People seem to forget SMS played their part in making GTR, GTR 2 and GT Legends and that CARS is a work in progress..

And sims don't sell as well as arcade racers, that's why the 2 major sims are subscription based, as they need the money to counter low sales, and it's obvious that SMS know that most people want arcade games, so pcars is just one more, not even remotely close to being a sim, as it has terrible FFB, horrible steering precision, and they've also decided to keep that annoying sway inducing mechanism when you upshift.

It's very hard to judge the driving model because there's so many other defects to focus on, including appalling downshifting, but I found it nearly impossible to crash, my lifeless brakes always seemed to pull me up in the nick of time, but try that with FVA's 458, LOL.