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coosmasters at 1.45

Rehashing old ideas and talking up previously implemented but little known features just like every other annual release game. Codemasters really take a lot of their customers and fans for dummies.

Maybe it’s just me, but they look like POWs giving an interview – no smiles and sweating bullets. Guess they’ve done the rounds a couple of times before.

What happened with CM, they are making games for kids now? Still the same every year, no manual pits, automatic everything etc …

Boring from year to year, BUT I like F1 !!!

You know what ? This auto-pitting thing…. CM said the FIA (or FOM) didnt want manual pitting because they weren’t comfortable with users knocking people over in the pitlane. This is a complete nonsense to me.

Crammond solved all of this a decade ago. GTR2 also.
Look at how GP4 does it. You guide the car in yourself but once you come up to your pitstop the game guides you in to your box. You still have to manually hit your brakes but if you carry on fwd, the front jack man cannot be collided with so your car goes straight through him. Then you can either back-up to begin the pit stop or carry on and miss it but have to come in next lap.
The way GP4 handles it should easily satisfy any silly P.C. concerns of FOM and the end user would be happy.
I mean it’s not as if CM would have made an animation of a guy or crew getting mowed down by an F1 car, jeez.

CM could have argued this point with the FOM but it seems it’s as if Crammond and GTR2 never existed as a reference point.

Well obviously that’s because they are gunpoint with the gunman just off camera, being forced to say nice things about the game. :)

(For the sake of the P.C. sensitive among us, the gun is a loaded water pistol)

Yeah but they’d have to be wouldn’t they ?

Actually, I`ll give them this. It does LOOK good. There were a couple of scenes in that vid where for the first .5s I thought it might have been real footage. (Shoulda gone to Specsavers?).
He hinted in the video that the cars have been made easier to drive at higher speeds. In other words dumbed down more for the noobs on the gamepads.

I wish I had some faith left in them to produce a game that doesn’t necessarily have pure sim physics but at least something that is enjoyable, feels decent and a little bit of a challenge with all driver assists off. And by a challenge I dont mean a car whose rear end flips around if a feather lands on the throttle.

Just make the pit crew a non collision object….problem solved, just excuses after excuses for lack of proper development.

Driver: San Fransiso also got around this problem easily by making people jump out of the way on the last moment. Alternatively you could make colliding with the crew the same as with a wall, ie make them invincible. There’s a whole lot of options to make it happen, just not a lot of will apparently.

Every year they wheel out the same BS. Its “improved”, better controls, its more a simulation now etc. Its all a load of pigswill. Nothing changes.

Indeed, thats another cool alternative. But then you`d have to force the limiter on when entering the pitlane cos theres no way you can argue that people managed to jump out of the way of an F1 car coming in at racing speed.
Again, GP4 does this by forcing the rev limiter on as you enter pit road. Im telling you, Crammond had all the answers back then. Its all there to be looked at and learned from.

Now… if Rockstar were making an F1 game they would be jumping out of the way AND getting ran over – mind you, the grid girls would all be hookers :)

Even midtown madness had this a million years ago. Fia are just not that educated when it comes to software…

How much did they pay Sam Bird to say such loads of crap? Or did they cut his comment to size to make it look like a compliment? I bet he was talking about just the looks.

No but they should rely on the game developer to feed back to them and tell them they can solve in in a certain way. After seeing GP4/GTR2 I refuse to believe that auto-pitting was the only solution CM had on the table. GP4′s you could call semi-auto.

Heh.. Theres a nice slogan in that slip of the tongue…

“Cose-masters… cose you thought it would be a proper sim”

Oh I am feeling cheeky today. (Cheeky likes it).

I watched the video and i was like hmm
But they had to add “FEEL IT” at the end! LOL!
Oh boy these people >.>

Was thinking the same thing, and the codemasters guy (cant remember his name) nodding along like he is some investigative journalist in no way involved with the production of the game. The thing that strikes me on here is when the first game came out it was maybe 50/50 sceptisism/optimism, now 2 games later nobody is fooled anymore :)

Well, it really is a case of deja vu isn’t it! As has already been said, you really could interchange this development diary series with the other two series that we’ve digested, gone out and bought the game, and wondered why. In the end, we’re just going to have to accept that, as sim racers, we are not the target market. Codemasters want maximum sales and an easily accessible game. The features we want to see won’t add anything significant to their sales, hence we get ignored each year and it will, unquestionably, be another year of disappointment.

On a certain “fun” level, the two previous games have had their merits, but it’s the overall package that underwhelms.

That said, it’s still better than Sony having the F1 franchise for years and doing zip with it.

Definitely going to sit on the fence this year, at least until the user reviews start hitting the forums.

In decades of following motor racing, I’ve learned never to trust a word of praise uttered by a driver hungry for a sponsor. They’ll say anything.

To their credit, Codemasters’ F1 games DO give the best feel that you are actually a racing driver, the atmosphere, the life, etc. That’s all great but the physics and FFB just aren’t even close. So I think Sam Bird respects what the guys have done but he wasn’t about to say “Oh yeah, this is just as realistic as our team’s sim back home”.

Should maybe have been “FEEL IT………or not”

They are lazy, no cockpit in GRID, no pit etc. Like players are 3 years old kids, who can’t hit limiter.

It’ll sell well on consoles as always.
Most people here will buy it regardless and we’ll repeat the outrage with F1 2013.

At best, they’ll just stop making the PC versions and cut their costs if we dont buy it.

And since they extended their ownership of the F1 game license for many years to come, this is as good as it gets. (officially anyway)

This game looks more and more like FIFA…couple of new features, 1 new name…and presto, brand new game for people to buy! …. BTW, in my opinion F1 2010 with RDDev Truelights Weather DX 11 mod looked better than 2011 and 2012 as far as i can see, but, this is just me!

And yes, with the auto pit, I mean, one of the most important aspect of F1 is on auto…..LAME

Some rewards for leveling up would be nice too, like reach level 20, you get the chance of driving, let’s say, the 1981 Ferrari 126CK (would be nice) but again, FOM or codemasters being lazy, don’t include it in the game.

F1 2012 will have brake bias…yeey… ( F1 career challenge 99-02 and if I’m not mistaking, gp4 had it along time ago, 10 years to be exact)

To end it, i hope there won’t be as many bugs as in the previous vers. of the game!

Cheers!

“Its the thinking mans racing game” That was a genuine, legitimate LOL moment. These guys sure do know how to talk the talk year after year after year don’t they. Every year its the same, its a push to see how far they can distance themselves from the sim community who they know are steaming at what Codies are doing with the F1 license. Maybe one day they will realise that they should perhaps have paid a little more respect to the people that look for a driving experience in a driving game. I guess the only requirement these guys have for calling their games successful is simply a financial target. The sad thing is I know in September I will probably end up getting this game and then spending the final part of the year yelling at my screen again at all the frustrating bugs and idiotic decisions that made it into the title.

You know, imagine this game but with proper PC Supported steering wheel and pedals, a physics model which was even semi sim (or even just a vague similarity to F1), a bug list which was reduced to nothing more than annoyances rather than game crippling game breakers and I think we could mainly agree it would likely be an insta purchase for most.

This series has so much potential, the feature list of things I love about F1 2011 is much longer than the list I hate, and same will go with 2012 I am sure, but sadly the cons strongly outweigh the pro’s and they have made it very clear they have no intent to rectify or move towards fixing some of those con’s, and for that reason, i’m out.

The last game I bought and had genuinely a hell of time playing from codemasters was Dirt 2 (Dirt 3 was fun but felt like a patch up of 2 tbh), proof you don’t have to have a full blown sim to have fun, something that the team on F1 series is clearly missing the point on I think ???

Well said and I fully agree. At its core and when it was working I must admit I enjoyed the actual driving experience of F1 2011. I know it wasn’t accurate etc etc but I have never driven an F1 car so I will never claim to have any genuine knowledge of these things outside of what the TV shows me. BUT…it was the incredibly stupid problems and frustrating bugs that ruined the overall experience. Things such as fuel mapping with no actual gauge that showed the fuel remaining, a race engineer that said I could easily catch and pass Alonso because he was the next car in front despite him just exiting the pits and me driving on canvas, suggestions to copy my teammates setup with no actual option to do exactly that etc etc etc.

As you say, the key ingredients are there but because they constantly dismiss the sim community they will never realise the games true potential. With the simple inclusion of simulation mode that would be for the truly skilled racers they would bring back a very large chunk of its audience. After all, Codemasters have always said time and again that they understand just how knowledgeable and passionate F1 fans are and yet these are exactly the people they are dismissing.

A little more attention to detail and refinement of what actually matters in a racing game and codemasters could go a long way to cementing themselves as the premiere racing title developer rather than the greedy little console fanboys they are rapidly mutating into. Please Codies, just look at GP4 and figure out the reasons we all still talk about that game so fondly so many years later.

Oh come on, with such thing as “flashbacks” you know it’s finally a real simulator!

TBH I found the previous games to be fun for a short while as I knew they were never going to roll out sim physics, but eventually the bugs became too apparent, they showed a complete lack of effort put into the game (didn’t even hire guys to do 2011 physics) and after driving the cars for long enough they became frustrating to drive and literally unbelievable (in a bad way) through the fast corners.

Also the games have NO re-play ability, the career mode has no depth or atmostphere and online is trash with either guys who are ridiculously fast, guys who troll and crash you and then to top it off if you have any slight internet problems in a decently populated lobby there’s MASSIVE lag.

Codies, like a lot of the “big” game companies lately, seem to completely ignore what their fans are crying out for (and quite often what their games need) to improve their games for eg. dedicated servers for PC (an essential for online gaming on ANY platform.) and they then add pointless/stupid features or game modes (champions mode or whatever it’s called.)

While I agree with many of your points there you may have fallen into the trap that many of us do. In that assuming that the game should be written for the sim-racers.

See, when you say ‘what their fans are crying out for’, who are you referring to ? I don’t think CM has that many sim-racer fans where the F1 series is concerned. And I dont see too many casual gamers crying out for a dedicated server option. They might actually prefer those other game modes instead.

I think from CM’s point of view, they make this game to appeal to the masses, they do their best to achieve that with a balance of dumbed down playability and pretty graphics and put it out there (like they did with F1-2010). Then they see how it sells and for sure the console sales will blow away, by a large margin, any amount of PC sales. Then for the next title they make whatever improvements they see fit and maybe scrounge an idea or two from the fans on the forums if they have the time and ability to fit it in.
I’m not sure how much attention CM give to what their fans want but even if they did, the chance that they would make it into a pure sim is negligable. With the F1 licence and sales of the title being the priority, the same will always be sold to the largest market of which we as sim racers do not belong to.

Sure some of us can tolerate a non pure sim if the car handling provides at least something of a challenge when all driver assists are off, but I’m not sure they have people in their dept that can program the physics to that level.

For me, I`ve always believed Crammond did it right by making the cars handle well and be convincing with all driver aids off and then depending on your skill level you enabled whatever driver aids you wanted up to the point where if you had them all on, the car almost drove itself.
I can only guess that they don’t spend time doing complex hardcore physics because they would spend more time and resources to please such a minority crowd and they don’t deem it to be worth that effort.
I think that is counter-intuitive because then, as a casual racer, you don’t have a title where you can learn to race and improve your skills by removing driver assists bit by bit until you become able to handle the car like a seasoned sim-racer. Dunno if that methodology would translate to consoles though because there won’t be many with a decent steering wheel and pedals to take advantage of that.

So we face it. The mass market are the consoles and the vast majority of console players use gamepads and the racing games are coded with that in mind. So sim racers with quality wheels and pedals don’t get to experience challenging physics in such titles.

pCARS may be an exception to this rule as SMS could likely tweak the PC version to make the physics better for the sim racer than it would be on consoles.

All just my opinion of course.

Sorry, didn’t expect to make such a long post but things pop into my head as I’m writing….. oooh food……

When did Codies said they will be making a sim? That’s right, never.

They are lazy? You know right that it would take them more work to take out an cockpit than to leave it in. On the other hand, yes it is made for 3 year olds, and it is also made for 20 year olds who dont know a damn thing about f1 but watch every race.

Every year, the same blablabla. I got F1 2010, and I felt stupid about myself 15 minutes after installed F1 2011. Over with codemasters. They never do what they promise.

I’m not expecting a Sim, Just an arcade game with predictable controls would be nice, no delay on input, no deadzones, just easy to control with fidelity! it seems beyond them, Mind you Dirt 3 was great, I really did enjoy that game!

Yes it’s more work, but nowadays mobile racing games has cockpit and CM is big company, not some small dev team.

So, because I play this game, I apparently don’t know anything about F1?

Exactly.
Flashbacks are optional anyway.

It may not be a full fledged simulation racer, but it Simulates the whole F1 experience better than any “Sim” that i’ve raced in.

Totally restricted by FIA/FOM

There was a pretty big step up in the quality of the handling from 2010 to 2011. It still wasn’t where it should be, without even expecting a proper simulation, but it was closer. If they can get the handling to be consistent and responsive (and for the love of god, lose the weird slippy-clutch gear changes), I think it will be worth buying. Maybe not right away at full price, but when it drops a bit.

It’s funny that the game supposedly no one cares about is the game everyone talks about………………=P

Well, then you should have enjoyed F1 2011 because it did provide this… at least mine was setup this way using Logitech profiler. Heck even my xbox version was good using my Fanatec wheel! Not a Full Sim, but its was good for one season in career mode. Re-playability was not there though!

Yep, its what we do! However, if / when a developer (i.e SMS) tries to work with us we bash them too; many without even trying it becasue they know car physics by watching youtube their so good!
Because as Sim Racers we love to Bitch and Whine rather than support those that deserve it! We crack me up…LOL!

The problem with all these ideas is that they are restricted by the restrictions put up by the FOM. If they say that there should be absolutely no way any nonsense can happen in pitlane under any circumstance, then thats what CM have to follow.

That being said, i really hated the way CM dumbed down the 2010 pit system with the 100% auto 2011 pit system. IMO the 2010 pit system was the best CM could do under FOM restriction

Indeed. The non-pure sims always get the most comments. More people prefer to rant than not. :)

yes I know that, but even saying that I dont think the FOM understand how software can be written in a game to get around their restrictions and still give the player some kind of control. As I said before, GP4 handles pit stops perfectly and as far as I can see, stays within the FOM mandate.
Its up to CM to feedback to FOM and explain these things and not just take the shortcut out.

Erm…yeah I think I mentioned that already.
…ahh yes, first line of my post.

FOM should liase better with the software devs and realise that there is more than one way to keep everyone happy.

Wait where did I said that? I said the game has to apply to a large market, and that includes ’20 year olds who dont know a damn thing about f1 but watch every race’. I think that was pretty clear in my post, so either you have a problem with your agression or you belong to the group.

It gives you the idea you are a driver in the F1 team, it does not simulate it, because then 95% of the gamers would fail the game by too harsh language.

You can’t be serious -.-’