Sadly, most of us simracers only get to play the sims. Which is cool, hence the hobby. But few of us get the chance to develop the games and sims we love. Well, Tim Wheatley, an employee of ISI for over a year, was kind, and brutal, enough to give us a look at the development of a top tier simulator such as rFactor 2 from the developer’s standpoint.
On his personal blog, Tim goes over a few notes he’s picked up as a developer when it comes to the public’s sentiment toward games under development. He provides a list of things they, the developers, keep in mind while working on their games.
1. Nothing ever really goes to plan. You can sometimes keep to a rough timetable, but that’s as good as it gets.
2. If something does go perfectly to plan, be ready for it to go wrong. Be ready for that ugly bug to surface and make you look foolish on the day of your big release. If you set yourself a date, be ready to miss it, or, be ready to release a patch fixing it.
2b. Don’t roll-back on a bad release. You’ll get killed for that. For some reason people like it better when they have to use something which is broken rather than go back to an older version. They also seem to be a lot more grateful when you fix it.
3. The public doesn’t usually get to see software in the early stages, and no amount of “WIP” mentions seems to help them understand that the visuals you’re giving them don’t represent what they’ll be potentially buying. But, with that said, many of them truly appreciate the insight you gave them once they have their hands on the software.
17. It’s both a game and a sim. Developers will probably call it both, because it is both. Customers don’t usually agree.
Tim later goes on to discuss some of rFactor 2’s features, such as the drying race line in a wet race. “...I still look back at Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 3 and think about the rain effects and the drying line, thinking how massive it was, and rFactor 2 is really the first software to try to do that effectively since then…”
He also commented on how he hopes the public won’t overlook certain features of the game that the developers have put a lot of time and care into. “…I’m just fearful we’ll see one feature talked about while everything else that I think makes rF2 fantastic (as a package) won’t get a mention…”
Finally, in his article found at timwheatley.org, Tim says that ISI is finally ready to put some of the graphical effects into the development build of the software, thus allowing them to release screen shots that will more similarly depict what customers can expect from rFactor 2.
And, not to save the least information for last, Tim says he expects an initial release of rFactor 2 to happen in 2011.
To read the full article, head over to timwheatley.org
When done reading don't forget to join the discussions in our rFactor 2 forum right here at RaceDepartment.
On his personal blog, Tim goes over a few notes he’s picked up as a developer when it comes to the public’s sentiment toward games under development. He provides a list of things they, the developers, keep in mind while working on their games.
1. Nothing ever really goes to plan. You can sometimes keep to a rough timetable, but that’s as good as it gets.
2. If something does go perfectly to plan, be ready for it to go wrong. Be ready for that ugly bug to surface and make you look foolish on the day of your big release. If you set yourself a date, be ready to miss it, or, be ready to release a patch fixing it.
2b. Don’t roll-back on a bad release. You’ll get killed for that. For some reason people like it better when they have to use something which is broken rather than go back to an older version. They also seem to be a lot more grateful when you fix it.
3. The public doesn’t usually get to see software in the early stages, and no amount of “WIP” mentions seems to help them understand that the visuals you’re giving them don’t represent what they’ll be potentially buying. But, with that said, many of them truly appreciate the insight you gave them once they have their hands on the software.
17. It’s both a game and a sim. Developers will probably call it both, because it is both. Customers don’t usually agree.
Tim later goes on to discuss some of rFactor 2’s features, such as the drying race line in a wet race. “...I still look back at Geoff Crammond’s Grand Prix 3 and think about the rain effects and the drying line, thinking how massive it was, and rFactor 2 is really the first software to try to do that effectively since then…”
He also commented on how he hopes the public won’t overlook certain features of the game that the developers have put a lot of time and care into. “…I’m just fearful we’ll see one feature talked about while everything else that I think makes rF2 fantastic (as a package) won’t get a mention…”
Finally, in his article found at timwheatley.org, Tim says that ISI is finally ready to put some of the graphical effects into the development build of the software, thus allowing them to release screen shots that will more similarly depict what customers can expect from rFactor 2.
And, not to save the least information for last, Tim says he expects an initial release of rFactor 2 to happen in 2011.
To read the full article, head over to timwheatley.org
When done reading don't forget to join the discussions in our rFactor 2 forum right here at RaceDepartment.
Looking forward to it.
