Straight4 Aims for "Special" Single Player, Community Involvement

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Back in May, Straight4 Studios turned heads when they announced a cooperation with Reiza Studios for their upcoming sim with the working title GTR Revival. The team around Ian Bell of GTR and Project CARS fame now gave more insight into what is to come in their title and confirmed not only a "special" single-player experience.

Image credit: Straight4 Studios

Having gotten the core of the GTR and GTR2 team back together, Straight4's work has been steadily progressing from the info the studio has made available. The project garnered much attention specifically for its patented implementation of AI commentary and race engineers, skipping pre-recorded lines in favor of having them generated on the fly and then read aloud by AI-controlled commentators.

This AI focus might also lift the sim to a new level for single-player racers: According to the Straight4's June newsletter, Game Design Director Austin Ogonoski has created "a concept of how the sim's AI base can boost our single-player experience." This has already been implemented in a test mule, and Straight4 promises that "if you're into single-player, we have something a little special for you." More patience is needed to find out what exactly is meant by this.


More Community Involvement​

Meanwhile, Straight4 aims to increase the involvement of the community: After having relied on community feedback for content in the past, the studio now wants to know how they should handle the implementation of assists, hosting a survey on this question for sim racers to take part in.

The project will also see a program to have the community involved even more to determine the direction of the sim, much like in the Project CARS days (remember, the CARS part used to stand for "Community Assisted Racing Simulator). It featured different tiers of backing that users could buy into, granting them perks and input on development depending on what tier they chose - and a share of the first three years of sales profits the title generated. Straight4 expects to have more information on timing and builds for this program by the fall.

Your Thoughts​

Do you think the Project CARS-like approach to community involvement is a good call by Straight4? What do you think they might have up their sleeves for the single-player mode? Let us know in the comments below!
About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

Heel & Toe Gang 4 life :D

Comments

He’s clearly not a native English speaker.

Nevertheless, I’m sure his English is a darn sight better than your command of other languages.

If you’re going to criticise his opinions, fine. Don’t make this an unwelcome place for people who care about this niche hobby.
Well put. I can assume you are referring to my comment, and it was admittedly a very sh*t comment :(
 
Premium
No idea why all these companies don't just hire Race Department forum users as consultants.

Insert face palm.
Hire? as in pay? for the disparaging drivel the many of us spew... I can't see that happening!
I wouldn't mind a forum page on the Straight4 site though, but it would have to be Fanboi-less and Hater free... can't see that happening either. :whistling:
 
They didnt jump ship. They were bought out. Just like Kunos was. Just like S397 was. I am sure Reiza and Renato would love someone with a big fat check knocking on his door too.
Well, unfortunately pcars2 had been abandoned long before CM bought SMS, which explains many doubts about this project.
 
speaking of being bought out, iRacing was bought out, too, if I remember correctly. Seems like our hobby really is a niche in a niche.
 
I'm all for it as I got involved with the first pCars, invested very little and received early beta's to try and test out and once it was released as a fully working game I received loyalty payments back to me. Bring it on.
Yeah, I tripled my money from memory. Unfortunately though, this "community involvement" turned out to be a couple of people who ended up as the self appointed spokes-people and unless they agreed with you , your voice was unheard.

Of course its not easy to manage so many disparate opinions, but when it became obvious only a "select few" people from the "community" would ever decide what was important and what wasnt and no-one voted those people in as the community spokes people, I gave up bothering to comment on anything much. Just too frustrating to be completely ignored.

It was also amazing how these same self-appointed spokes people quickly turned from "Whats best for racing simulation" to "whats best for commercial investment".

Time will tell I guess. But I wasnt disappointed with the returns (not that I was in it to make money) or the early access. I got more than my moneys worth for sure.
 
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The biggest issue for every Madness Engine game released is that every single one of them was released in a very unfinished state. Hopefully since Ian has big pockets he doesn't make the same mistake AGAIN.

For a game/sim that has planned support for more than one year like AMS2 it is expected that things will improve over time and that bugs and stuff will be squashed. With Pcars 1 and 2 there were never plans to deliver additional development, it was the "Codemasters Plan" of keep cranking them out. With AMS2 the problem was you had an engine that was supposedly already developed and it has still taken them over 3 full years of "full release" to fix some very major handling characteristic issues. When reviewers pointed these characteristics out, they were labelled haters which is laughable. Go back and watch some of the reviews from 2 years ago and really listed to what some are saying. One criticism pointed out by Jimmy B for example was that the car got more turn in if you added more lock.... and low and behold nearly 3 years later (once Reiza thought they had a fix for it) Renato says this exact same thing in one of his posts. Remember when we were told the differential wasn't an issue and that we all just didn't know how to set up cars? Then after almost 2 years of complaining from leagues about the quality of online, Renato comes out and say "Hey we never said the online was going to be robust". Like dude... come on? Reiza are poorly managed and understaffed and Renato should probably hand off some of the hats he wears because that also affects the opinion of the game. I'm not saying the team is not talented, they are incredibly so.

There was supposed to be a career mode for example which there is no news of yet. I believe they will deliver it...but when?

Having said all that I think AMS2 can still find a bigger audience with the 1.5 physics and by some miracle ANY improvement to online. The content choices are imo the best in simracing and Lemans is coming. It's now in a state that it probably should have been released at 3 years ago but even now, there is a long way to go.
 
The biggest issue for every Madness Engine game released is that every single one of them was released in a very unfinished state. Hopefully since Ian has big pockets he doesn't make the same mistake AGAIN.

For a game/sim that has planned support for more than one year like AMS2 it is expected that things will improve over time and that bugs and stuff will be squashed. With Pcars 1 and 2 there were never plans to deliver additional development, it was the "Codemasters Plan" of keep cranking them out. With AMS2 the problem was you had an engine that was supposedly already developed and it has still taken them over 3 full years of "full release" to fix some very major handling characteristic issues. When reviewers pointed these characteristics out, they were labelled haters which is laughable. Go back and watch some of the reviews from 2 years ago and really listed to what some are saying. One criticism pointed out by Jimmy B for example was that the car got more turn in if you added more lock.... and low and behold nearly 3 years later (once Reiza thought they had a fix for it) Renato says this exact same thing in one of his posts. Remember when we were told the differential wasn't an issue and that we all just didn't know how to set up cars? Then after almost 2 years of complaining from leagues about the quality of online, Renato comes out and say "Hey we never said the online was going to be robust". Like dude... come on? Reiza are poorly managed and understaffed and Renato should probably hand off some of the hats he wears because that also affects the opinion of the game. I'm not saying the team is not talented, they are incredibly so.

There was supposed to be a career mode for example which there is no news of yet. I believe they will deliver it...but when?

Having said all that I think AMS2 can still find a bigger audience with the 1.5 physics and by some miracle ANY improvement to online. The content choices are imo the best in simracing and Lemans is coming. It's now in a state that it probably should have been released at 3 years ago but even now, there is a long way to go.
It's interesting how certain people play the victim role when they are not such.

It's also curious as only Madness Engine has been labeled for years by the same people as "fundamentally flawed", "simcade" and as Reiza is fixing/improving things one bit at the time proving them totally wrong, the same people who said that to dismiss the whole thing, also want to take the credit for its improvements. All by just recalling only the bits and pieces of the story that fit their narrative.

It's also interesting to note how ME gets blasted for being a WIP, while iracing (15 years old these days) is north of 7 tire models into its existence and far from decent, ACC (5 years into release) has just gone through one more iteration of deep physics revamping which changed by almost 180 degrees some of their "realism" totems (optimal pressures are just one example) their fans pushed for years as a religion and RF2 (10 years into release) just presented a new tire partner with whom they are planning to release the most "authentic and manufacturer data based" version of their tire model, leaving the users wonder what about the past 10 years during which they claimed the same thing and what about the cars in the sim which are not yet even on the most current tire model, let alone the one they are planning with Dunlop.
But, hey, Madness Engine is a mess and is fundamentally flawed and those who actually saw in it some potential (yet never said all was perfect) all along this time are the fanboys, sure. :D
 
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I've heard all this rhetoric before from Ian Bell and his marketing team :rolleyes:
NEEEXXTTTT!!
 

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