PC3 Project CARS 3 to Change Focus?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Slightly Mad Studios Head Ian Bell recently revealed PCARS 3 is in development, and now hints have been dropped that the direction of the title might change for the next release.

The Project CARS series of games have, up until this point, been heavily focussed on a wide selection or road and race cars from a wide variety of different disciplines of motorsport - giving players the opportunity to drive such varied machines as top tier open wheel cars, to stockcar, touring cars, GTs, historic and road going performance machines.

Although the scope of the previous two versions of the game are indeed admirable, some could argue that potentially Slightly Mad Studios looked to become a jack of all trades with their game content, and as a result became the master of none.

This appears to have been noted by the decision makers back at SMS, as Ian Bell once again took to the internet to drop a few hints about the next release - suggesting that maybe Slightly Mad Studios would look to return to their roots somewhat, and produce an experience more akin to the earlier Need for Speed Shift release of 2009.

“I’ll let you know that pCARS3 will be more ‘focused’… More ‘fun’…" said Bell over on the GT Plant forums. "We went to insane lengths with variation in pCARS2 and with that comes infinite balancing issues. We’ve learned a lesson here and although we have no intention of reducing content, we know what we need to fix, where we made design decisions that were, let’s call it, ‘sub-optimal’…​

“pCARS3 will be more of a spiritual successor to Shift, but with all of the sim goodness everyone appreciates… The key focus though is on fun and not biting off more than we can properly chew and digest.”
​

Ian Bell does refer to the desire to retain the "sim goodness" of PCARS 1 & 2, however the shift (ha ha) towards an experience more closely aligned to the Need for Speed series does suggest that the new title could take itself a little less seriously than has been the case in the past, and leads one to wonder if a more arcade slant is to be applied to the title than has been the case in the past.

With PCARS 1 & 2 failing to match the quality of other sim racing titles the likes of rFactor 2, Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom and AMS, and with new games from Reiza Studios and the Early Access Assetto Corsa Competizione from Kunos in the works, a move towards a more fun and light hearted experience is probably not a bad idea for PCARS and the new title - quite how the end result will pan out remains to be seen.

One thing is for sure, however SMS pitch the new title, it will be very interesting to hear and read what is said on the build up to release of what is surely going to be another very interesting piece of software from the prolific game studio.

Check out the Project CARS 3 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for more news, discussion and features on this sequel release to the hugely popular Project CARS franchise of games.

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[apex11]

misquoted

 

[apex11]

I think thats a bit too much credit for modders.

I think you must not have AC on PC then....

Assetto Corsa PC version in 2019 with shaders light patch and content manager let alone all the mod cars is a whole different game to Assetto Corsa on consoles.......trust me..... the modders deserve ALL the credit on it being for the best out there still in 2019.....
Kunos dropped it when?

 

[mantasisg]

I think you must not have AC on PC then....

I made several mods for AC.

 

[Timmy UK]

Er...
Has Mr Bell just stated that he is releasing a new gaming machine...
‘MadBox’..
Could be one of his wind ups, or maybe not..

 

[Neils on Wheels]

I came across a stream by Jimmy the other day and people where donating him 30, 50,10,10 etc pounds, that was in 5 mins of me watching it...

What in Gods name are these people doing sat watching a person play a game for 4 hours let alone giving him money??
Its utter madness.... we may moan about games like PCars 2 but at least for £30 you get something..... £30 to watch Jimmy turn his FFB up to 100% and drive a pixelated car around a track?! Huh what?

I find myself praying for Pretend Race Cars to come back.......please Austin we need you...

Did you see the one where he broke down in tears because of all the money people were sending him?
I like Jimmy btw just the situation is pretty crazy.

 

[roadyroad]

What I like in Pcars' topic is reading the nonsense and toxic comments

Most of all, it shows how it is hard to enter the simracing market with a high self esteem community, lying, bashing... It's fun but awful.

Many simracers have been stating project cars series were.do8ng too much things and si none perfectly. The have been listened to, SMS is going to focus on simolar categories and not try to do evrything in one package. So now I read they are bad developers, dumbing down the game, the ohysics, everything, they disrespect the community, they're worse than ever! Seriously... Will this community become serious???

The simracing community asks for respect but doesn't have any respect for its own hobby, bashing, complaining, lying. It's impossible to trust us simracers. Why developers should be trusted? In this small and growing market, largely sufficient to make a living for many companies, a close relationship between companies and customers is necessary.

People have been racing gt3 cars and asking dor more during years, kunos bring them a dedicated sim, well, what a disappointment for many of us. Rfactor2 brings more gt3 but did not release everything but will deliver it soon, it's a disappointment and a cash grab.

An other example, from the past, simracers did not use weather and night & day cycle. So the latter was removed from gtr2 to race07. How scandalous!!! Simbin had removed something almost no one was using! And in 2018 the most played sim is AC, whi has just cut weather and day&night cycle, and the most criticized is pcars2, who includes these features. But now ACC is bringing back these features but... It's badly received.

Coming back to pcars, now SMS states that they will give less diverse content to be able to refine the physics, and... it's bad, it's arcade, it's outrageous, they should die all! And as they mentioned Shift, it's going to be bad because they for sure will include more incentive mechanics like in bad arcade games because bad arcade games sell 10 times more copies and have always been based on incentive mechanics.

But as forgotten by many, gtl and gtr2 had brought incentive mechanics to attract more people. They were basic but you had to unlock content. It was something new, well received but the simracers just found a simple way to get rid of this system to have a 100% unlocked sim like in their goold old sims.

Codemasters is also a good example of how the community is unfair and unreliable. No wonder they just ignore the PC elite who claims it knows everything about racing IRL but is not willing to pay for a small amount of money to get content it will use and enjoy hundreds of hours.

What I see is that not any developer should read or listen the community, and that's what some do a lot of times. They just can't trust us.
Unreliable people get unreliable products and this is what we have been getting for years, except automobilista, a good refined product, including content the community generally don't know about, and doing its own thing and saying NO to the community when needed (VR). And at the end Reiza is respected. Did it sold enough of the title? It's another thing. Getting respect and not enough money, that's good for your ego.

SMS proposes to make a sim with more homogeneity, answering to the community, and is accused of trying to grab more money by selling future dlcs ot games with more diverse content. Yes, probably, but this is what you've asked for.

We seriously as simracers need to become more mature in front of people still willing to answer our needs before they just quit the market. These companies are not solid companies, they are involved in a risky business, they need mature customers. One day or another they will just say, ok goodbye simracers, just stick with free developers who will make your products for glory (but do not expect them do listen to you, it's free, they do what they want) this is what we deserve as a whole.

Well, that was my first 2019 rant, thanks to our positive and optimistic community

 

[E304LIFE]

I came across a stream by Jimmy the other day and people where donating him 30, 50,10,10 etc pounds, that was in 5 mins of me watching it...

What in Gods name are these people doing sat watching a person play a game for 4 hours let alone giving him money??
Its utter madness.... we may moan about games like PCars 2 but at least for £30 you get something..... £30 to watch Jimmy turn his FFB up to 100% and drive a pixelated car around a track?! Huh what?

lol, what were you doing there? j/k

 

[Timmy UK]

From Twitter.
Mr Bell has stated;
‘What is the Mad Box? It's the most powerful console ever built... It's literally 'Mad'... You want 4k, you want VR at 60FPS? You want a full engine for free to develop your games on it? You have it.’
‘Full engine to develop for free...’
If that is true, that is huge...
‘VR at 60fps per eye’, stated elsewhere.
Will make some very happy..
And some very sick..

 

[Neils on Wheels]

I wouldn't call it a decline in IQ, but you're on the right track.

The reality is that there is almost no audience for hardcore simulators anymore. These games aren't "fun" in a traditional sense, everybody knows it, and people have had the better part of two decades to figure out whether they enjoy the concept of a hardcore sim or not. Spoiler alert: An overwhelming majority don't.

This doesn't mean every car game should be a clone of Need for Speed, but for devs it's going to make them prioritize game-y elements like Driver XP and Car Customization over a 12th tire model revision.

Pcars 1 sold really well as did AC.
Flight sims do well enough for there to be a healthy market for 3rd parties.
Euro Truck Simulator is huge.
Farming Simulator is somehow popular.

Sure on the grand scheme of things Simulators are playing to a niche market but i'm not sure there is evidence of 'almost no audience'. It's not always about finding the biggest audience to become a successful product. SM made the mistake of trying to appease both simcade & simulator audience. Maybe this new focus is the correct one because its suits them but to say it's because there is no sim audience would be an excuse on their part.

 

[roadyroad]

Did you see the one where he broke down in tears because of all the money people were sending him?
I like Jimmy btw just the situation is pretty crazy.

It is a general generation thing. Nowadays youngers one are more willing to pay for the live entertainment they are experiencing. They like to watch, more than doing themselves and they show gratitude to the one who does the show. It's hard to understand for some of us but why not, is paying for live entertainment less valuable than paying for recorded content? Jimmy broabdbent is talented in what he does. Streaming is the cheapest way to increase content in channels, but he is by far the most entertaining one. We should not try to compare this online live entertainment with a racing game. We don't compare the business of gaming press to the games sales.

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

If they sincerely want to offer a new product, why not offer some kind of test Drive Unlimited, this time based on a real world location?
With all the weather/licenses features, they could produce something interesting to many people, for both arcade & open-minded hardcore simracers.

I thik because of Forza horizon. With assists of it feels almost like Forza Motorsport. And as i know Turn 10 working on next FM game, with brand new physical engine.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

After a lackluster PC1 and PC2, it's probably best to shift focus if they want the simracing niche market to be interested.

Then again, who's looking forward to another "yeah but GT3 is so succesful in the world, sowe must simulate that into our game" since ACC already took that to the higher standard so rF2 already had to release their own pack of GT3's just for the sake of having a response to ACC?

Am I growing more of a conscious pragmatic approach by age or is that just being cynical?

 

[Kompressor]

Regarding FFB... There are so many disappointed people! I'm kind of disappointed too, but the second iteration of pCars made FFB really well for me. In my opinion, there could be at least second to best FFB if its quality were more stable between cars and offered at least a possibility to save an FFB strength. It feels like the devs are jumped from one extreme to another: poor FFB, but a lot of almost useless fine-tuning tweaks, and then - even no simple "save per car" option while FFB is good.

 

[Lino Carreira]

Had loads of stuff written about this, but..tbh, in the end of the day he will do whatever he wants , and whoever wants will buy it... so its probably a waste of energy .... for us may be a hobby and a passion....for developers its a business..some have passion and try to deliver..some don't and invest in PR....

 

[Magus]

Having backed PC1 & gained a small financial incentive & only logged 50 hours, I purchased PC2 and logged 185 hours. So for me there was an improvement from 1 to 2, however compared to my 1000+ hours logged in rF2 & 380 in AC, it fell short of simulation & the tire model would grate on me after prolonged play. I did enjoy the gameplay aspect (career/events) of it along with the graphics and sounds (especially in VR).

I think going down the NFS route is not a bad idea & freeing themselves from the 'simulation' label & attaching a 'fun' label will be a welcomed change instead of trying to BS users as being the most realistic racer by pay rolling a handful of professional racers.

With the recruitment of Paul Rustchynsky (originally from Evolution Studios - Motorstorm, WRC Rally, Driveclub), (then Codemasters - OnRush), I'm expecting a good game on par with Forza Horizon, even if they do not go down the open world route. I absolutely loved Driveclub on the PS4 & hope they integrate a heap of the online leader boards, events, & objectives like they did there.

 

[AccAkut]

I made several mods for AC.

and you're still having that weird opinion? You're either seriously overestimating professional devs or underestimating the modders... we're using the same tools..

 

[MarkR]

Ah 2 days into a new year yet the same mostly old negative reaction to an SMS / PCARS story. Personally I don’t see any bias in the reporting of SMS news, just the community reaction but the recent poll figures probably explain that almost inevitable reaction.

In my view PCARS2 is a good race weekend simulation game on both pc and console. SMS are still the only race game developer to deliver weather and a true day night cycle on console. Add to that working leaderboards, competitions and online multiplayer and it’s more than any ‘serious’ sim game from RacePro to AC has come even close to on console. On PC PCARS2 still has the best VR in terms of graphics and game performance.

As for making pcars3 more fun I’m all for that. F1 2018 has the best single player progression, track training mini games and car development system yet and yes it’s fun. Already ACC is better, in my view, than AC because it has official leaderboards and challenges like super pole and hot stints. Add to that the track training and driver rating and it’s way more fun, I can see my progress as well as being a sim. It’s the same with GT, those track mastery challenges are excellent.

We play or have played pretty much every recent racing game from the pure fun of Mario Kart and Wipeout through the joy of cars games like Forza Horizon to racing games like Forza 7 and on to PCARS2 and then the simulators on PC. There is certainly room for another Forza Motorsport/GT alike game that is accessible to all, has a progression based career mode/unlock system. The pcars series offers a range of cars and tracks that aren’t available anywhere else on console so they’ve got plenty going for them.

I have no issue with people and communities making valid complaints, we’ve seen the micro transactions removed from Forza 7 as a result and that game has made some huge improvements as a result. Look at the way FIFA has evolved over the years moving between play styles and eventually adding in story modes, those who want to play career can, those who want it all unlocked now have that option (I detest the FUT modemicrotransactions but it has no bearing on how I play the game so no problem) The official licences and music are an essential part of the success too. The studio that cracks a racing game with great driving feel and real soul will be the winner. It looks like Turn 10 are taking Forza in the same direction so it’ll make for 2 interesting games in the next 12-18 months.

Best of all if I want more a niche, absolute technical detailed simulator on a £2k+ PC and £2k DD wheel it’s all possible with plenty of games claiming to fill that space and many of them are more fun, imo, than getting freezing cold and wet on track at this time of year.

I think we should be celebrating the best era of racing games yet but doesn’t seem like there is much chance of that!

 

[Mircea Rad]

@AccAkut Yeah, but who created those tools? No disrespect to the modders since most of the content I enjoyed in AC is not official, but the modders need the platform to build the mods and make their work available to public. Without Kunos actually developing AC in the first place, all those mods wouldn't exist. Or do you think it's that easy to create a game from scratch and sell 800k copies? I think not.

 

[apex11]

I made several mods for AC.

Well you should very well know that AC 2019 is alive and very well thanks solely to modders especially the content manager and custom shaders light patch.....

 

[Serj]

Why?

Because they dont want to do something good. They started at Shift and this was new way. But when I see hanging mess in pCARS1 from SMS Madness engine, I want to ask the developers: guys, what are you doing all this time? Since Shift2 I saught this hanging mess in the air, and I still see it in pCARS.