DChaps wrote:Interesting responses from Slightly Mad Studios Ian Bell over at
www.virtualr.net
http://www.virtualr.net/need-for-speed- ... #more-5739
I found this one particularly interesting:
Ian, Are you including Live For Speed, NetKar and iRacing when you say that shift has the most realistic handling out there? Or are you conveniently leaving those games out of your comparison?
Everyone has their own impression of what is realistic handling. It’s always been a very subjective thing. I feel we simulate the experience of being behind the wheel of a race car better than any of the competition, but this might not be what you mean by ‘realistic handling’ . We’ve built upon a realistic physics core and added more realistic modules where we thought they were needed. We worked very hard with physics, sound and graphics to ’simulate’ the experience.
Many of the team race often and feel we’ve gotten closer than anyone else. I maintain that GTR2 was too difficult. I’ve yet to have a car break away on track as suddenly as we had it in GTR2. The reality is that a road and race tuned car is fairly easy to drive to the edge and slightly beyond. They tend to scrub off speed if understeering or oversteering and with the right inputs for oversteer, are generally easily righted. We don’t have fudged ‘aids’ in pro mode. What is in the game is a direct result of what we feel are authentic physics.
We do have some input filters applied when using a pad (of course) but the underlying physics are the same.
I must admit, I'm the one who called out Ian Bell in the original thread that started the thread you linked, Don. I said he was "full of sh*t."
Link:
http://www.virtualr.net/need-for-speed- ... /#comments
Some guy was trying to tell me Shift had the most accurate tracks, to which I responded that's impossible because they're not even laser-scanned. Bell was quoted in an interview as saying SMS didn't need laser scanning because it had telemetry and other "data treasures" from which to build tracks.
I revived that "data treasures" comment, and Bell jumped in and countered that he never used that phrase. I found the interview from the NFS Web site and other sources proving it was attributed to him, and he retreated, saying the quote was fabricated by EA PR.
Gotcha, Ian.
A poster in the thread to which Don linked is making a great point. He said all of the Papyrus/iRacing titles have evolutionary physics. GPL, NASCAR Racing and iRacing all have the same "feel" to them, with some subtle differences. I couldn't agree more. You know a Papy game the minute you leave the pits. It just has that "right" feel.
The same poster pointed out that Bell now is saying Blimey's physics/tires work with GTR 2 was all wrong, yet it was considered revolutionary at the time. But RACE had a different feel from GTR 2, and Shift feels much different than both.
How can the laws of physics change so much from Blimey!/SMS title to Blimey!/SMS title, the poster asked. Their games have such an inconsistent feel from title to title, which indicates to me that their grasp of the laws of physics isn't that snug.
Either way, I respect Bell for participating in the VirtualR forums in a dignified way and for answering many questions from his most hardcore consumers.
Take care,
PK
"You know why I love boxers? I love them because they face fear. And they face it alone." - Nick Charles
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