Straight4 Studios And Reiza Studios Announce Strategic Partnership

PC3 is overhated

I'm quite sure if it had a different name it wouldn't receive not even a third of the hate it got

 

What I mean is Ian Bell gets most of his hate from the promises he made with games such as PC3 and not living up to those promises

 

yeah it was a conglomerate of reasons that got the game hated

it wasn't just because of the game itself

 

Everything with Ian Bell gives me a big headache.
I hope Reiza doesn't ruin its own reputation.

 

If my grandma had a penis I would call her grandpa.

 

PC3 is exactly what Ian said it'd be back then, but people often rely on hearsay and on other people's opinions and that's ofc not a good basis. I bought it and I enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect with some flaws but 'spiritual successor to NFS Shift' was an accurate description, and it was fun.

Nobody ever said it was going to be a super hardcore simulator. The underlying physics were based on Madness Engine, so 'sim' wasn't a lie. Oh, and the FFB was excellent.

These are the facts. I think many just misunderstood.

 

Not really, I remember well in PC3 marketing and in true businessman fashion, Ian kept saying the game was all the sim we wanted and all the fun, I don't remember him saying the game would be more arcade than sim. That's one of the reasons the game got such a bad rep.

I don't doubt it's a good game, might purchase it when Namco themselves remember the game exists and discounts it

The issue was that Ian kept doubling down on trying to market the game as a successor to the previous two games, when it clearly wasn't.

 

To be fair, Ian said back in 2018 that they learned from the massive undertaking that PC2 was and that PC3 would be "more a spiritual sucessor to NFS Shift":
Project CARS 3 Will Be a 'Spiritual Successor to Shift'

Then again, I cannot access his tweets earlier than August 2020, when PC3 was already released, so no idea what he may have tweeted about PC3's simulation and physics and so on during PC3's development.

Edit: Well... Ian Bell: Project Cars 3 Will be a Game Changer With a Massively Involved Career Mode, Improved Handling, Amazing Force Feedback and Upgraded Base Physics

 

Never tried it on a wheel, is it better than the odd ffb from PC2?

 

You can't blame him for advertising his game and calling his baby a game changer, can you? ^^. Was it a game changer? I don't know and I didn't really care. I've found the rest to be accurate. The FFB was pretty darn good and I think the handling was absolutely believable. There were also major shortcomings, no doubt about that, but I think overall people misrepresent the whole thing.

That's all part of a distant past that says absolutely nothing about what's on the horizon, and if Renato chooses to join forces there has to be a level of trust in their capabilities.

 

I've found the FFB to be better than in some of the well established sim racing titles, truly excellent!

 

I'll give it a try then

 

Bit wary the new GTR game will follow the typical SMS pattern; tons of pre release hype, release quickly, support it for a year (mainly bug fixing), abandon ship and announce a "new and exciting project that will revolutionize racing games"

Ian probably knows he's gained that reputation with us sim racers. His main target are typically the average punters who just want a good 'racing game'. That's where the most money can be made.

I just hope Reiza can keep its in house style, and keep on developing at their own pace and on their own project whatever the cooperation entails.

 

Actually I can. That's why so many people don't like him, because he oversells and underdelivers all the time. Had he stayed with "successor to NFS Shift" for PC3 I don't think the backlash would have been as bad as it was. Managing expectations is important to build trust in the long run.

 

It was a game changer...

It in a lot of ways that series hurt sim racing... Because of the amount of errors and falsehoods represented in those titles...

Just the bit of digging around in the physics files for pCARS 2 that I've done have completely reaffirmed my beliefs that it was absolutely terrible in the physics department... So many empty params and just blatantly incorrect settings used to just get passed the various bugs that they didn't bother fixing...

From the way they did their aero, without any decay params, to the way they made the different upgrades... So many holes in their physics theories... In a lot of cases it looks like 2 people were told to do the same job and both did it differently... Leading to extra power in engines because the same power adjustment was made 2 ways in the files...

The pCARS franchise is no better than any EA product as a result... Simulation by marketing only...

 

Interesting, but is the engine in itself is as good as they said? Also, I know you are more focused on the physics side of things but can the AI be worked with? As in can the modders work with it as they can with the physics?

I would love to be able to work with such programs but alas, my expertise on programing goes as far as basic excel spreadsheets

 

The engine itself is intriguing... I wouldn't be working on it if it wasn't... I can't fully tell how good it is until I see how the tyres are made and what params they have...

But the fact that the pCARS series was so rushed and all of these physics params have incorrect or doubled up entries makes judging the engine from the pCARS series alone impossible... That and this tyre revelation by Reiza would of held back with the pCARS developers were trying to do also... Unfortunately that series took it's toll on the Madness engine...

A lot of the translations don't cover the AI stuff, and outside of the Indycar mod I've done next to no testing focussed on how the AI behave... I can change when the AI change gears and a few other params, but a lot of it is hidden in hex coding...

 

Thanks for the reply and for the work you guys do in modding these games.
I remember that GP4 was horrible to mod, and yet there is still a modding scene for the game 21 years later. Let's hope AMS2 is the same!

 

I think as long as Reiza continue to develop AMS2 to it's full potential it has every chance to... The Gesamtstreke alone will keep people coming back for a long time to come...

 

Shall I remember that without Ian Bell there would be no AMS2 as we know it, as it is Ian Bell that allowed Reiza to license the Madness Engine? Let's suppose for a minute this did not happen. What would AMS2 run on ? The rFactor2 engine ? It's not like modern sim engines are growing on trees. IMHO, the Madness Engine was the best and only viable choice. So please let's be grateful to Ian Bell that made the AMS2 we know possible.