Even nog een nieuwspost over o.a patch 1.2 van iemand op RSC.
Just had a very nice chat with Ian Bell (Head of Studio, Creative Direktor Simbin) at 4 a.m CET on GTR simulation lobby. He was on working, asking about the online experience for us, how we like the game, btw. (thats what I call a workaholic
After praising Ian and the team for creating such an outstanding racing-sim, i asked him a few questions. He told me some interesting things i want to share with you:
Patch 1.2 will be out in approx 2 weeks. He said "two real approximate weeks, not two IL2-Weeks"....
I asked him about Joinlags and CTD, he said that joinlags have been completely removed by some clever coding, and not by including a generic join car either. He also said that they have eliminated the CTD’s that they know of in the new patch and with both of the above the online is the best available ‘bar none’ were his words.
The 24h-addon (Ian said something about it being around 200mb of features track and cars) will be released separately around the same time as an optional download. Day-Night change will be semi-dynamic -> Engine needs to reload some textures to make it look good. If I remember right he mentioned something about 7 new cars for the 24h-addon.
I've asked him about non-cd/non3d-dedicated-servers. They're currently working to remove the D3D-components but it may take some time. There are still some commercial things to clarify, that means the decision of the no CD ded-server release is not only in Simbins hands.
He also gave me a hint about GTR2, its scheduled for Xmas 2005 atm.
Looks like they will only use the physics of Motor 2.0 (which are the same as those in GTR, btw,lol ).
There is also another SImBin racing-game scheduled for Summer 05 in addition to them working on an all new engine for GTR2, but he couldn't tell me anything about that, it's still a little secret… He would only say that everyone who races GPL will be preordering when they see the screens, cars and features.
BTW, it looks like the XBox-Version of the GTR franchise is still in development but it will be GTR2 based and have all that content.
Simbin is also working on new modules like a new damage system and updated tyre model and new game features for future products.
Ian also underlined that a big part of the team is still working like maniacs on future addons and improvements for GTR. They've got a LOT of ideas in pipeline
And finally some really exciting news: Sales in Germany are going extremely well. They even already outnumbered some of the expectations of the worldwide-release(!!!)
And sales are still increasing rapidly as word of mouth gets to work... His words were ‘we’re outselling the bigboys’.
Now finally the guys at Simbin get what they deserve!!!
Big thx to Ian Bell for kindly answering my questions.
In case that some of the information is not 100% correct, please consider it was Sunday morning 4 am local time, and i have no chat-log (does GTR log lobby-chats somewhere?). Hope i remembered everything right
going to bed now
cheers
Buzz
De support van SimBin gaat wel vooruit, ik denk dat ze inzien dat dit wel moet wil GTR een lang leven beschoren zijn.
Join-Lags dus opgelost, de 24H add-on komt eraan en een hint naar F1-'77.