Career / Story Mode in Sim Racing – For or Against?

[alice3d]

I enjoyed, a lot, Toca Race Driver 2 story mode. It gives you a boost while racing, trying to complete some objetives.
I didn't see a story mode like that since this game, and that was a long time ago...

 

[eg01st]

The Disagree-Award™ 2019 goes to eg01st, congratulations.
Sincerly, your F1 fanbois.

Thank you, I accept it with great honor!

 

[PfzFantaribo]

No. If it has a story mode, it's not a sim, it's a game. Story mode means more time and money spent to develop it, so less resources on technical side of things. And SIM should be considered a tool. Racing game however is a GAME targeted primarily for masses and entertainment, with easy controls, probably designed to be playable with console controllers and keyboard.
F1, as in screenshot, can call itself a "sim" all it wants, but input lag, handling and other issues tell otherwise.

EDIT: Before flaming me, I was referring to "story" side of things. Story is the part with characters, actors, voice acting, scripts etc.
Career is very useful for new players to gradually learn driving.

EDIT#2: Jesus, that's a lot of Disagrees from hurt F1 fanbois

I don't understand why a sim and a racing game are compulsorily two different thing.

Having a story or a simple career mode in a game does not alter the gameplay in any way. Hell, having a game with AC's gameplay and F1 2018 career won't change anything once you're behind the wheel.

A sim can consider itself as a tool, i.e. offer lots of circuits, cars and functionnalities and let the player do what he wants.
A sim can however also offer a career mode, with a story or anything related, and still be usable as above.

 

[eg01st]

devs working on career are not the same devs working on the physics/driving/tracks/cars and so on.

Yeah but money comes from the same budget.
I think people here are confusing what is considered "sim" with "racing game".

 

[eg01st]

I don't understand why a sim and a racing game are compulsorily two different thing.

Having a story or a simple career mode in a game does not alter the gameplay in any way. Hell, having a game with AC's gameplay and F1 2018 career won't change anything once you're behind the wheel.

A sim can consider itself as a tool, i.e. offer lots of circuits, cars and functionnalities and let the player do what he wants.
A sim can however also offer a career mode, with a story or anything related, and still be usable as above.

FFS question was "Do you need a story in a SIM". What is so hard to understand about that question? This whole thread has turned into a warzone of fanboys defending their opinion and getting insulted by opposite opinions.
Well, at least I got my Disagree-Award 2019 out of all this

 

[StefanoCasillo]

Yeah but money comes from the same budget.

yes but the availability and cost of a dev working on physics and one working on career are vastly different to the point of being totally irrelevant.

I think people here are confusing what is considered "sim" with "racing game".

nope.. you are the one confused as the massive amount of disagreeing you are collecting in this thread shows.
The presence of absence of a career mode says absolutely zero about the simulation depth of a title.

 

[eg01st]

yes but the availability and cost of a dev working on physics and one working on career are vastly different to the point of being totally irrelevant.



nope.. you are the one confused as the massive amount of disagreeing you are collecting in this thread shows.
The presence of absence of a career mode says absolutely zero about the simulation depth of a title.

Yeah, but the question was "Do you need it?".
Therefore, if people like those "Disagree" clickers all vote "Yes, we need Story in a sim", devs need to invest more time in developing that part. So, imagine now that you would have to find some money for hiring script writers, actors and artists for story mode in ACC. Is there money for that now?

 

[DrRob]

I do not really get the "sim vs. game" discussion to be honest. Never did.

IIRC they are all games. They are created to give you some leisure time fun. Some might use them to compete in eSports.
There are games which are more focussing on physics and stuff to be as true to a real driving experience as possible. Is that a "sim"?
If you want to truly simulate a racing situation, there would be more senses you'd need to address, which is hardly possible today.

But the recreation of a driver experience as a championship or a story-driven character development should also qualify for a simulation, right?
The question is in which direction you want to go.
If you completely leave out anything besides driving a car on tracks, this is a very simplified simulation of race car driving in my book. Be it against real persons or AI.

Why not enrich this to spice up the experience? I was never a fan of unlocking items just for the sake of it, but if you have the freedom to do (custom) championships for example, why not embrace it or just leave it aside and move on with just driving cars on tracks.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

Yeah, but the question was "Do you need it?".
Therefore, if people like those "Disagree" clickers all vote "Yes, we need Story in a sim", devs need to invest more time in developing that part. So, imagine now that you would have to find some money for hiring script writers, actors and artists for story mode in ACC. Is there money for that now?

that is a much better question, definitely a step forward from the childish game vs sim argument.

A question that every studio will answer differently based on:
- available staff
- available budget
- understanding of the target audience

 

[eg01st]

that is a much better question, definitely a step forward from the childish game vs sim argument.

A question that every studio will answer differently based on:
- available staff
- available budget
- understanding of the target audience

Now we are finally getting closer to the point that nobody seems to understand.
"Target audience".
Imagine you are racing driver who wants to learn a new track, or refresh his skills, turn on, say, AC and load the track you are preparing for. Do you really sit in your thousands of dollars rig to watch cutscenes of a story? I don;t think so, because you come here to simulate the driving on a track you are preparing for.
I hope we can keep this civilised, but do you get my point now?

 

[PfzFantaribo]

Now we are finally getting closer to the point that nobody seems to understand.
"Target audience".
Imagine you are racing driver who wants to learn a new track, or refresh his skills, turn on, say, AC and load the track you are preparing for. Do you really sit in your thousands of dollars rig to watch cutscenes of a story? I don;t think so, because you come here to simulate the driving on a track you are preparing for.
I hope we can keep this civilised, but do you get my point now?

What you don't seem to understand is that a racing game can offer both a career/story mode, and "no bs/straight to the point" simracing. Having a career/story mode does not prevent you to do a hotlap on track/car combo you want, or to join an online server or whatever.

A career mode that offers a progression from promotion, feeder series to the top, be it with a narrated story or not, does not prevent you to play hardcore simracing of you wish too. Functionalities in video games are not meant to be played by everybody.

In addition to that, don't presume nobody understood the point you wanted to make. Afterall, you first started the subject "Sim vs game" :

SIM should be considered a tool. Racing game however is a GAME targeted primarily for masses and entertainment, with easy controls, probably designed to be playable with console controllers and keyboard.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

Now we are finally getting closer to the point that nobody seems to understand.
"Target audience".
Imagine you are racing driver who wants to learn a new track, or refresh his skills, turn on, say, AC and load the track you are preparing for. Do you really sit in your thousands of dollars rig to watch cutscenes of a story? I don;t think so, because you come here to simulate the driving on a track you are preparing for.
I hope we can keep this civilised, but do you get my point now?

and how exactly having a career mode available stops you from doing that?

 

[Bryan O'Connor]

I like a career mode. Cutsecenes etc. i'm not too fussed with but racing in a championship against AI with damage and full rules etc. is and should be, in my humble opinion the bread and butter of racing games.
Yes it's fun to be part of a league and doing random online races but leagues often times take months to complete and online races can end in the first corner or by some arsehole who takes umbridge to being lapped.
You can set your race length, number and strength of opponents and race whenever you want to - no waiting in lobbies or trying to join races or having league races moved/cancelled because the World Cup is on or someones nans cat died.

Doing a full season on GTR 2 even to this day is still one of the best things you can do in a racing game - and later on the Race 07/GT-R Evo as well.
I also agree it's a crying shame RRRE got rid of the Championship experiences.

We all have our way of doing things and i persoanally would be disappointed if sims/games stopped having some form of career mode or championship mode.

 

[JJ Lehto]

Story mode, not really, no. More often than not they're just cringefests with repeating, badly (voice)acted cutscenes.

Career mode, for offline experience, for sure. Whatever racing discipline the game depicts, with it's tracks, rule sets, season progress etc. You have your team and championships to win. In online racing the leagues/series are the career.

Something I always felt was lacking for me in AC, as much as I love it. I'm not much of an online racer so for me it's always been like bunch of tracks in one hand and bunch of cars in the other and then just doing something with them. But funnily enough, I was doing some silly GT3 quick race in AC once, thinking to myself wouldn't it be great if someone made a game concentrating just on Blancpain series, with it's cars, tracks, rules and so forth. Fast forward couple of months and lo and behold, Kunos announces ACC

 

[XRRoy]

WHAT? This is not Ace Combat or anything, is it?

 

[F_B]

WHAT? This is not Ace Combat or anything, is it?

No, it's your super serious 110% lifelike simulation where having fun and laughing is strictly forbidden.

 

[eg01st]

and how exactly having a career mode available stops you from doing that?

Are you trolling mate?
You have a release coming up, go work on that instead of arguing with me

 

[XRRoy]

No, it's your super serious 110% lifelike simulation where having fun and laughing is strictly forbidden.

If you want fun & laughing go play GTA V instead, sheesh...

 

[PfzFantaribo]

Are you trolling mate?
You have a release coming up, go work on that instead of arguing with me

So instead of answering to legitimate questions, you prefer ad hominem attacks ? Are you the same guy stating earlier that : "I hope we can keep this civilised ?"

How can you say this kind of stuff, then taking the piss ? So come on, answer to this : how exactly having a career mode available stops you from doing that?

 

[davehenrie]

Yeah but money comes from the same budget.
I think people here are confusing what is considered "sim" with "racing game".

GO BACK AND NOTE WHO REPLIED TO YOUR POINT .... (sorry for the caps, wasn't shouting)