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Said it before, will say it again. Show is the improved physics before the improved graphics. Burned twice by Shift, not getting excited about this until it drives properly.

I think EA were over them, and the took decissions on how physiscs would be, i think SMS want to do this community game, to solve this problem, to solve EAs knife. They know they can make realistic physics, but EA didn`t want that. SMS want to prove they can do again a good simulator, they have done before. Go SMS! make the best!

Holy god, what a graphic o_O

For sure EA stifled Shift 1 and 2 and diluted it to mainstream.

I`d be surprised if you will see this kind of quality of car without the same effort being put into physics, especially if SMS have no-one to answer to except a load of sim-racing investors who all want the same thing.

Its up to sim racers to invest in CARS and push it in the hardcore direction as opposed to the more profitable mainstream genre.
But then again, who says you can’t have it both ways ?   Crammond did.

If it’s not the pay to play rent a game crap, I’m in for 100 euros.

GPL2?

ian wrote they planning to make it a free game with revenue comming in through in-game advertising.

cool, any dx11 vs dx9 comparison screenshots…?

You can’t shot physics before you show the cars :)

I seem to remember the West bros posting a few amazing screen shots years ago, and one was of a lotus too, and where did that go? Lets hope this doesnt go the same way…

Once you got the correct physics in and the handling is as it should be, with the right driving aids, it will result enjoyable even by “casual gamers”. So I’m not worried about it, as I know there’s no publisher who will dumb down the game to simraces.  
 
I’m confident about the project! And these renders looks great… let’s hope the final project will reflect this quality!

Lovely, Lets hope the engine can handle it. I would be a happy boy when we finaly get a up to date looking gfx engine in a SIM.

Some people used to complain that having detail would only be possible with high end Gaming systems. I guess this wil solve the debates.  Want the looks , need the money. 
And that is fine for mr. 

Those renders look nice and all, but I want that kind of quality in-game. I don’t care… I need a new PC. At least make the visuals very scalable like rFactor and GTR2.

by the way…  I know SMS sacked an amount of people just before the release of Shift 2. 
So who is doing this project? Anyone with some inhouse info ? 

I don’t think EA said ‘Make small rear engined cars handle badly, make rear wheel drive cars not oversteer properly, make the force feedback rubbish, and make the steering laggy’ did they?

Maybe not everyone agrees with your opinion Alex,  ever think of that ?

Out F’ing Standing…you guy make all the cars for the season, and i’m sure it will be a hit.
then if the game is modable, this will even increase sales..
so far it looks like your on the right path..

Amazing =-O

Free from EA stupid execs, I’m sure you will deliver a VERY FINE product! keep Following the sim comunity ideas and you will be rewarded greatly! good comunity base, Amazing Graphic engine, experienced team and at last, “unleashed” from EA idiots… you are headed for GREATNESS! (as strong as the beauty of these shots).

BTW, to make more cash, you should licence your GRAPHIC engine to SIMBIM (they really need it!!!) ;)

They did say: “make the game primarily playable with a gamepad”.

Remarkable job!

If I remember correctly, Image Space Incorporated breaked into the scene making simulators for EA too. Then they broke away and started making sims on their own, and the company grew a little, and gained a little more reputation :P  Why can’t we expect for SMS to do the same here? :)

GO SMS!

*cough* West Racing/Racing Legends *cough* They teased us with a pretty looking Lotus too…

Here’s what Ian said on 7/6:

“The project should be opening to investors (and weekly build deliveries to them) within the next 6-8 weeks. When it actually goes public live as a product will depend on how much the investors want in there for release.

Given you can invest starting at 5 Euros or so then I suspect we’ll be getting a lot of investors from the get go enjoying playing the early builds.”

http://www.nogripracing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1409245&postcount=1088

I’m keeping my hopes up…

Not exactly correct. The game will be “free-to-play” with microtransactions for new content; i.e. new cars and tracks.

Basically, you get the base game for free and all the revenue will come from end-users purchasing new content.

This is what I love to hear. It’s a bit like Iracing only without subscription crap and to be honest I might be in for paying few euros for new tracks and cars if the game is really going to be free!

I completely forgot that the EA changed so much since the 2003 but still yes same situation and to be honest I think that C.A.R.S. might be the next rfactor/iRacing combining the best of both I hope!

As nice as the screenshots look, I can’t help but feel they’re a step in the wrong direction. I always figured what looks good in motion isn’t necessarily the same thing as what looks good in pictures. When driving the car, I’d personally prefer to have fully animated suspension, rattling body panels and exhausts, etc. Which doesn’t really show in screenshots.

Maybe this is the peak of pedantry, though… I dunno.

Couldn’t agree more Alex. Shift 2 got my money and I KNEW better. Shame on me.

I will be buying into this, it will not be a lot of money but it is worth a punt. I hope they do very well and bring us a great sim.

But how do you know those things won’t be in the game, just by looking at a render?

Racing Ledgends Called… They want their Lotus back ;)

I don’t. I’m just daydreaming. Think of it more as a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” message.

Maybe not everyone does agree with me, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t voice mine, does it?

Very two sided on this. If they build a full sim from absolute scratch with realism in mind, hats off, great!

But its soooo expensive, takes sooo much time and we’ve heard more of these ‘new and great’ sims, until they vanished….

Come on Niels, we’re hardly starting from nothing here. 

Plus, if you’re the same chap who made the handling mods for Shit you should have a better insight into the depths of the physics engine underlying the game than most. Which makes your comments all the more surprising. 

We’ll see. I’m really curious to see simulation level. Personally i prefer full sims.. :) Screens are really stunning.

Right I got the impression a lot would be scratch made engine. The project has far greater chances of succeeding when based on the Shift / ISI environment of course.

I never did any mods for Shift (not copying your typo :) ) but I’m sure a lot more realism is to be had from the correct use of the physics engine..

Basically I was just saying how great the idea is, but how it might be too hard to execute. I hope it isn’t, but I don’t see too much harshness in my first comment.. Good luck with the development!

Hi Ian (SMS), there’s certainly a big buzz around C.A.R.S. now. The screens look amazing but I think everyone’s starting to get impatient to test the first build. Perhaps a video showing car behaviour might help us endure the wait? ;)

The plan is to build the game in conjunction with the community, in exactly the same way we would internally, but completely transparently. This will give great insight to all investors as to how things normally operate during development but it might also shock some people as to how ‘bare’ and basic the early builds are. 

We have stripped everything right back and intend to rebuild it all int eh best ‘sim’ way possible. 

So to answer you, the car behaviour will be good to start but we’ll focus on making it great in cooperation with all of the investors based on their feedback. If nothing else, it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

That would be a nice way to promote good mods… A bit like the Applestore on iPhone, where modders could propose their cars and track for a very small fee, which multiplied by the numbers of simracers, would allow some modders maybe to leave their daytime jobs to concentrate on their passion… Of course, you still could publish your mod for free.
The final community sim platform would be great…

I’m ok with you buying a new PC if it allows for shorter development time and more features…
The hardware only goes forward, let’s not restrain the software too much…

Look at Doom and Quake’s John Carmack (the 3D dev uber god). Whenever the new quake came out, it was the most beautiful game ever, but you had only 30 fps on a mid to high end machine. Only that, 6 months to a year later, the average PC would run it at 100fps.

+1 !

No need to develop too many engines, with this one and rFactor 2, the community should have its hands full…

And by the time this comes out, you’ll have bought a new machine anyways ;)

SMS, this is terrific news.

Lack of transparency is the illness of society nowadays.
I am very positive about this new kind of business model, which ressembles open source in some ways, while still bringing in the necessary ressources in order to build a great software. I’m sure you’re onto something really huge. If it works, it could show the way for all kinds of collaboration based software development, and why not, even hardware or industrial production !

When I pay for something, I want my money to go to the people who deserve it, the ones who did all the work. That’s why I’ll never give a cent to companies like EA, but will gladly support your future efforts the best way I can.

The world seriously needs to change, thank you for being a pioneer !

you can call me an investor :)

Everyone wanted a GPL2 and since papyrus/iRacing ignored the request, someone had to step in. GPL is all I race anymore, regardless of the old physics and graphics. I just hope SMS doesn’t screw this up!

Thanks silly, we’re pretty excited about the prospects ourselves. The intention is that the WMD concept will be bigger than just CARS or even racing projects. We plan to bring other selected developers in with a solid track record and tech in place to fund other types of games in this way. We need to show them the methodology and how we do it first though.

Just don’t be Silly and I won’t be Slightly Mad ;)

What I like about your system, is that it gives the power back to the developpers AND the users.
The only “issue” I see is : is it possible to attract investing users without an existing code base and/or previously developped games ?
While this is not a problem for you guys, it might be for talented people that didn’t have the opportunity or time to build a name for themselves on a successful commercial project yet…

A kind of “platform” or central repository for such projects would be a nice touch, a bit like sourceforge mixed with micro investment management.

Miight be a bit early to assume this is to be a reborn GPL.

Check out on TED.com :
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html
and
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Sorry to be a bit harsh but this evening I compared nKPro Vintage with Shift 2 Shelby Dayton Coupe, same car same track (Road America). It is the day and the night. nKPro handling is so much more realistic for a rear drive car with that power, and the FFB is so much better… When you try Shift 2 after nKPro it is almost pityfull…

SMS has a long way to do to reach nKPro handling model and FFB.

Good luck SMS, I honestly hope you will do better this time with C.A.R.S.

You really have no idea do you ? *DONT_KNOW*

Indeed I really have no idea why Shift 2 car handling and FFB is not at least as good as GT Legends and GTR 2… :/

But I hope C.A.R.S. will improve in that department and not only with the graphics…

As has been said many many times before, the Shift series is an EA game, while GTR2 and GTL were Simbin’s.
EA’s only interest is profit, thus big markets, thus consoles, thus gamepad, thus crappy FFB while Simbin’s interest was simracing, thus a wheel, thus good FFB.

Please have some confidence in SMS, and actually read VirtualR ;)

Yup, considering the rumour that its going to be free to play with ingame advertising, the investors might object (loudly) to GPL reborn.

Dude, this game has nothing to do with Shift 2, which was limited by EA itself.

Ricoo, as Silly(c)One said, those games are entirely different with different target audiences and different approaches.  
Fo a start GTL and GTR2 were not programmed to be played with a gamepad or even on a console.  
Shitft 2 is a mass market cross-platform racing game.  It was designed to reach the largest possible audience from arcade racers to casual sim racers (or at least sim racers who can appreciate a game for what it is and doesn’t have that closed minded ‘hardcore or nothing’ attitude).  
 
You cannot compare Shift 2 to nkPro.  Thats just daft.  nkpro is programmed to be pure simulation.  Anyone gettin a gamepad out to play nkpro ?    Again, nkpro isn’t destined to reach large mass audiences.  
These 2 games have complete different ideals, philosophies and goals behind them.  
You seriously are wondering why Shift 2′s handling isn’t on par with nkpro ?  
Shift 2 does what it was programmed to do extremely well.  The review scores speak for themselves.  Of course you won’t get too many people around here agreeing with 9/10′s because the voices around here are all that of simmers who prefer pure sim-racing and some feel they must spit on anything that isn’t.  
Which confuses me because then why, apart from prices, would iRacing get ANY grief at alll ?  
 
SMS unleashed (not a game), are well capable of going the pure sim route.  I’m sure a lot of those guys are as passionate about sim-racing as anyone here.  Some of the core guys there WERE the ones who brought us GTL, GTR and GTR2 after doing their amazing mods for EA’s F1 games.  
 
Personally I’m still not convinced that CARS isn’t going to follow the same mass market path albeit without EA poking their noses in.  There may be a lot of ‘investors’ preferring a return on their money over having a hardcore sim and that means selling to a big audience.  
If its already determined that CARS is going to be pure sim then investors need to know that going in.    However, theres no reason why a pure sim cannot be toned down with driver aids in order to reach that larger console/gamepad playing audience but nailing something like that is going to be tricky.  
 
Now off you go and compare FlatOut to Live for Speed.  
Then try night racing, racing AI offline, having amazing gfx and sounds and having a huge selection of beautiful looking cars in nkpro.   

It’s funny how people say its only physics and handling that matter, yet, on seeing those rF2 screenshots in the other thread, people are criticising the hell out of it, some saying its not up to Shift’s standard.   Oh the irony.

I doubt EA gave SMS orders to deliver poor FFB.  
 
SMS team developped GT Legends and GTR 2, so it is strange not having the same quality of FFB in Shift 2.  
 
It is not the same thing wanting a pure hardcore sim and wanting a game with good car handling and acceptable set-ups.  
 
I won’t judge C.A.R.S. before having tested it, and I remain optimistic for it.  
 
I don’t intend being offensive, sorry if this post feels like that.

F1racer, what you’re saying about the handling and physics in Shift 2 and the reason for it, contradicts Ian Bell who purports to have been very involved in writing and developing the game.

I haven’t seen a single statement from him that suggests he doesn’t believe the way cars handle in Shift 2 is the way his team believes they handle in real life.

The only exceptions and caveats I’ve seen is that he said that they coded slightly softer sidewalls for pad users and he also cited the input lag bugs at release, and the default set ups given to the cars as being responsible for the initial feeling that cars in the game were floaty (these setups were supposedly made soft to allow the cars to use all the tracks in the game. Specifically Ebisu being the track that required this funky setup.

I think he mentioned something about not getting drivers from some FFB wheel manufacturers – and, again there was a bug in the release that meant the damper forces were missing when you started a race)

So what I get from your post is that you don’t believe Shift 2 cars handle realistically, but you’ve invented something to rationalise and explain this which you have just posted. Where is the evidence for this? Why do you think your story about consoles and mass markets contradicts what the developers have said about the handling in the game?

I think it’s important because SMS have, as far as I can tell, claimed and seem to believe their sim, their engine is the most sophisicated released. Bell is actually saying something like that, more or less, in one of the videos (the one where he’s talking about the telemetry), and that the handing is realistic and much more true to life than existing sims – precisely because the cars don’t spin at the merest glance.

Whilst I’m sure there are more caveats they might add (like the processing capabilies of a modern PC or console) I think you’re making a mistake if you believe C.A.R.S is somehow going to be hugely different in terms of physics or handling from Shift 2, or that the handling or physics is a function of the intended audience. They already have several difficult levels in Shift 2 that add the usual assists, ABS, TCS and so on, add extra grip and lower the CoG, remove tyre temps and wear. Why do you believe the elite handling, with no assists etc is something they have dumbed down?

It seems more logical given everything written and said and the evidence that if the handling is inaccurate it’s because they get it wrong for different reasons. There’s no evidence that they did it deliberately for the reasons you gave (of course, that supposes you believe the handling is wrong. I’m not sure and I think the good thing about shift 2′s handling is that you can dial in understeer, oversteer or a balanced car – something you certainly cannot do with any other racing game I’ve installed in the last few years, which includes many of these so-called ‘hardcore’ sims.

I am fairly sure though that you can’t tell whether the handling is wrong in one game by comparing it to another game)

But I think the problems with Shift 2 are threefold

Firstly, if your framerate drops, even to around 30-40fps, the simulation suffers. You need lots of oomph and really want to aim for 50-60fps or higher.

The second thing is related, once you get a car beyond a certain speed, it again turns to silly season. This is probably the hz rate of the simulation.

Thirdly, some of the tracks are good. Some of them aren’t. Not just the layout, it’s the way the car behaves on the surface.

The result is, cars of low to middling performance in shift 2, driven on the right track, if you have 50-60fps feel great to drive and behave, so far as I can tell, in a car like manner.

Go outside of that and, yeah, you can easily get an awful experience that makes you wonder what they were smoking.

I’m sure Bell has said (again on nogrip) he could, if he wanted to, make the tyres in his engine spin easily and act much closer to the way they do in GTR2 or any other so-called hardcore sim, but – and I’m paraphrasing his words, but he did add the but, that would not be realistic behaviour.

There might well be other non-simulation features in Shift 2 that are explained by the intended “mass” audience of course (except it looks there was no mass audience for shift 2 like there was for shift 1)

I just did some laps with the Mercedes AMG SLS Speed Hunter and with default set up. I must say that the handling of this car is great. If only all cars could handle that great.  
 
But it is rated too low with 1500, it crushes the competition. Quick race, Road America, 2 laps, no aids, hard AI, and I finish 16 s infront of AI. lol

I must say I don’t understand why the FFB in shift1 & 2 is reportedly is worse than GTL or GTR2 (I haven’t played shift2, but nobody I see here is arguing that it isn’t).

I mean the PS3 uses the same FFB language as the PC right? wouldn’t it be a simple “drag and drop” of code with a bit of tweaking for the new cars? Hell some of the DLC cars WERE a drag and drop from GT legends… Didn’t SMS state the shift engine is a update of previous work? If so, somebody must have messed up something somewhere along the way.

I can understand why the Xbox 360 FFB would be different and take some tuning because of the HID vs XID but beyond that I’m just not getting it. The argument seems to be: EA said dumb down or worsen PC & PS3 FFB because the people dedicated enough to own a wheel won’t care.. This doesn’t make sense.

Good points and nice argumentation, Michael. Thank you for an informative and thought out read :)

I guess then the main problem with S2U is the refusal of EA to allow SMS to develop patches and bugfixes for their product.

I’m pretty sure the situation will be much better in this project.

Great Lotus 49!