Sorry, but Colin McRae series has never been realistic. The closest so far has been Richard Burns Rally but even that has downsides.Quote:
Originally Posted by jonlint
Printable View
Sorry, but Colin McRae series has never been realistic. The closest so far has been Richard Burns Rally but even that has downsides.Quote:
Originally Posted by jonlint
By realistic, I mean cars that are part of the championship, proper length stages, stages that are not just loops or variants of the same piece of road like Dirt, etc. It seems the masses think Dirt and Need for Speed is their reality now!
An interview (in Spanish) by Nacho Villarin with Dani Sordo has just been published http://www.revistascratch.com/wrc/notic ... roen-16375
It provides some of Dani's thoughts on strengths & weaknesses of the i20.
I would love to hear Sordo's thoughts.
Unfortunately, I can neither speak nor read Spanish.
Would it be too much to ask for people to provide a link to a translated version of what they post, or at least summarise its contents?
You can pop the url into google translate, easy
http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... roen-16375
I agree. If you ask people who aren't fans or familiar with rallies about them, I would bet that most would say that they're about fast 4WD cars/trucks racing and drifting through dirt. I mean, look no further than the title of that game - "Dirt".Quote:
Originally Posted by jonlint
One example of this ignorance and misconception of rallies is in an argument I was having on another forum. The person I was arguing with claimed that the Ferrari 288 GTO was never built for the WRC in mind because "mid engine/RWD vs. AWD everything else would have been laughable". I countered that, besides the fact that the engine displacement to weight ratio and total number of 288 GTOs manufacture was very close to the Group B homologation requirements, the Lancia 037 already existed as a mid-engine/RWD car that took the 1983 WRC manufacturer's title and had won several rallies. The point is that this person believed that rally cars needed AWD because they raced exclusively on dirt and other loose surfaces, whereas the 037 typically won tarmac-heavy rallies because its drivers dealt with less understeer than the drivers of the mighty Quattros did, and as such didn't have to fight their cars as much.
As to your other point, I'm not sure if we can define what "proper" is anymore. The reality of rallies has changed since the 1980's, and not just because of less power compared with the peak Group B days. The Special Stage Rallies back then seemed to mimic the traditional rallies in that they were true endurance events lasting 10 or more hours over the course of 3-5 days. They also typically had over 40 special stages. By contrast, WRC rallies nowadays seem to slot in around 3-5 hours typically with maybe ~20 special stages (including those short super special stages meant to please crowds in cities), but typically over the same 3-5 days.
And though you mention "loops or variants of the same piece of road", it's actually not that much different for many rallies in the WRC. Admittedly, I'm just a novice in learning about and watching the modern WRC, but it still shocked me a bit that many of the special stages were just repeats of previous stages. During one day of competition, the organizers would typically run 4 special stages in the morning (one of them being a short super special stage)...and then run the exact same special stages in the afternoon. Those 8 stages that day would really be just 4 stages run twice in the exact same direction, not even in reverse!
It seems like what's "proper" nowadays is an emphasis on having rallies be a relatively short series of all-out sprints, whereas the 1980's WRC seemed to emphasize not just the sprints that the special stages represented, but the endurance aspect of traditional rallies as well. Whatever the reason for this change in the spirit of rallies (I suspect driver/co-driver safety by reducing fatigue plays a part here), it is what it is.
But still - Dirt doesn´t content 20 different stages no matter what on tarmac or gravel which are 350 K´s... Dirt is still a roundabout game for computer youngsters... :p
The problems with the DIRT franchise are endemic to the entire video game industry. It costs millions of dollars to develop these games, and so studios will naturally have to make millions of dollars in sales just to cover their costs and break even before they can even think about making a profit. So Codemasters were forced to go as broad in their appeal as possible so as to try and attract as many potential customers as they could. That got them the biggest budget. On the other hand, a hardcore rally simulator would be something of a niche (I'm a dedicated rally fan, but only as casual gamer, and when I do play, I prefer the likes of Assassin's Creed to racing games), which makes it harder to turn a profit, and so gets them a smaller budget. And for a studio that is as small as Codemasters, one loss-making game could kill the entire studio.
I really miss a Richard Burns update WRC 2013.... :bounce:
IMO, the only remotely feasible way for a studio to release a true WRC simulation game is piece-by-piece. In this model, a studio would sell you the base game for the price a regular game, and then sell you each rally as individual downloadable content (DLC) until you buy them all to complete a whole season. I would imagine the DLC rallies would probably be priced higher than the typical DLC add-ons to games because each of them are going to be in unique settings, and not just set in the same setting as the original game (like in the Grand Theft Auto games).
That said , there's a reason why I call this idea "remotely feasible". As Prisoner Monkeys stated, a true rally simulator game would simply be too niche for normal market to bear. Instead, I would imagine something akin to what's happening with RBR nowadays, but with a modern graphics engine. Basically, it will be up to a dedicated gaming community (mostly scattered around in Europe) to create most of the special stages for the rallies from scratch. Of course, no matter how dedicated they are, nobody will go out of their way o create a full season of full rallies for what amounts to little to no compensation.