LinkFirstly, Steve, thanks for telling us your reasoning behind all your unneeded changes.
I'll add a few of my thoughts to it all too if I may. I'll just go point by point as I read it.
"[..] without waiting five minutes for an explanation [..]"
It took you far longer than 5 minutes. I know it wasn't meant literally but that's not the point. I remember reading your tweets two days ago saying you would explain everything the next day but you didn't, you let this rage grow and didn't say a single word. As you should have imagined it only made things worse. You probably think that forums are not important enough to post replies right away but I think you're wrong. True, maybe not many people post here but many definitely read, and they tweet about what they read and tell their friends who then form an opinion based on something you didn't influence.
Also, I wouldn't call it some "internet-rage" as you did. Yes, there are lots of young kids here that will write anything they have on their mind (and which you will find offensive; deal with it) but there are even more grown up people who most of the time express their concerns constructively and I think it's only fair to say that everyone's allowed to have expectations from the product you are developing as, like it or not, we do pay your salaries after all.
You quite often like to position yourself as a manager involved with the community, listening to what we want, implementing long requested features but in reality I have never seen a single post from you asking us what we actually want or think about your ideas. A question like "Guys, what would you say if we removed tire scaling?" would have been nice, don't you think? What happened instead is people received their preorders and started playing only to find out that something as important as tyre wear scaling has been removed. Surprise! To me it smells like trying to con us, kind of like "We won't tell as long as possible so that as many people as possible buy the game! What happens afterwards doesn't matter as long as we have the sales because people tend to forget things. They forgot all the issues we had with 2010 and 2011 and they will gladly forget all the current issues too". That is an attitude that I don't like. Working only to feed your Indian owners.
"Historically Ive gone out of my way to interact via my personal Twitter account and the forum simply because I think it creates a better relationship between those that make key decisions and those that buy the game."
You said it right there - you make decisions, we buy the game. Speaking about your personal twitter account - you shouldnt've have publicised it in the first place if you didn't want people to mention it. Lastly, you wouldn't have to "go out of your way" if you actually wanted to communicate with us. If I am wrong and you actually want to, then don't offend us by saying "look at what sacrifices I am making just to keep you lot happy" because that's what it sounds like.
"[..] the loss of two of the three Free Practice sessions [..]"
I see why you did it. I kind of agree and I don't at the same time but it's something I could live with. However, it is the same thing I mentioned before - you just removed it. Never said a single word to us. Three of you probably sat down and decided "Nah, public doesn't want it. Remove.". How long does it take to Alt+Tab to your browser, click on the forum bookmark and create a new topic saying "Practice 2 and 3 are gone. Deal with it"? A minute probably? Two? I think you are not THAT busy that you didn't have time to do it.
Now tyre wear scaling...
"Its been removed so that there is no true variation in pure wear rates across sessions and race distances"
No, that isn't the reason, that is the outcome. It was removed because yet again some manager decided for all of us that it wasn't needed. Again, was it so hard to ask what the community had to say about an idea like that? No, but it was for you. Surely you didn't come up with this genious plan last week, did you? You had a few months to see what people would say, but, I know, it doesn't matter what some raging kiddies on these forums got to say, 'cause they're stupid. And rude.
Last year many of you could jump into a race, become accustomed to the tyre wear and how far you could push it, then jump into a different race distance only to realise you had no idea how long you could run the tyres.
For some weird reason after 2 years of playing your games it never bothered me. I never saw a single post or tweet saying that tyre wear sucks and it should be removed. And neither have you I suspect.
One thing, which stands out for me from all this is that you are making a game for two categories of people - those that only race 100% races and those that don't care about rubbish like tyre wear or 3 practice sessions. There is no middle way for you. It's my way or highway.
You wanna know how many times I raced a full 100% race in these two years? Exactly once. Why? Because I work and I can't afford to spend two hours on one race and even if I could I wouldn't because I don't get paid £10m for that. Instead I had an option to play 3 laps, 10%, 20%, which were perfect for me. In your new "imporoved" 2012 however I don't even have this basic choice! Really? Someone again decided for me that I didn't need the choice. Fine, you know better.
"[..] throwing more and more into the pot isnt going to deliver a decent game [..]"
You removed existing features, we didn't ask you to add the scaled tyre wear or 2 more practice sessions. And we didn't ask you to add a new game mode called Grand Prix where we could create our own season either.
"[..] let me run you through a 25% race I had before writing this [..]"
What was that wall of text all about? Seriously, we didn't ask you to tell us how your race with your mates went yesterday. Your turn-by-turn explanation was longer than your main post and didn't prove or explain anything. It all just sounds like AI is instantly faster on tyres, which are fresher than yours by only a couple laps.
By the way, 17 laps is far too much for a quick race. That's half an hour of racing FYI, which is a lot for some people.
"Id argue there will be a fair bit more tyre strategy going on in this years game."
I'd argue that there won't. Just because.
"I look forward to reading your feedback once you get stuck into the full game"
Guess what! I cancelled my preorder, so no sale for me. I know you'll say I'm stupid because I jumped the gun, listened to the crying kiddies on the forum. All I can say is thank you very much but I'll keep my hard earned £40 to myself. There are better ways to spend them rather than pay for a product, which was developed with no communication with the community and that has core features blatantly removed because John Doe thought it was a good idea. Oh boy, you could learn a lot from Slighly Mad Studios and the way they develop Project Cars. You can only dream about communication like that.
Anyway, hope that's polite, fair and constructive enough for you. At least I didn't call you a c**t like someone else did.
P.S.
I love how suddenly everyone's so calm and "oh, ok, if Steve decided to remove it, then that's fine". Just goes to show that the general public don't really care about all this stuff, they just keep chewing anything that gets put into their mouths. That's why gaming companies keep making profits. People always forget the bad things. Everyone's forgotten all the raging on 2010 forums, then on 2011, now 2012. Next August everyone will be hyped up yet again just to shell out for the same recycled product as they played a year before.
Last year many of you could jump into a race, become accustomed to the tyre wear and how far you could push it, then jump into a different race distance only to realise you had no idea how long you could run the tyres.
Alright first two 100% races done in the Co-Op Championship with my mate.
Holy shit it was exhausting.
There is one thing that is really bugging me.
You get the same tyres for the whole weekend. That is just plain wrong. Nobody in real life would even drive a single lap in practice if that were the case.
No it's not.
As mentioned in that post I posted, even if they stuck with that change a little transparency goes a long way. As it is now, only mentioning it after people ask about it just reeks of shadiness. Removing a feature like scaled tyre deg is a feature worth mentioning. If you mention the YDT, you should mention the removal of FP1 and 2, as well as the ability to race a full season as your favourite driver.Tire scaling should have been an option, I really can't see why it was just flat out removed ... It was not hard to judge tyres and even 2010 tells you how long as an estimate your tyres will run for, the game even stops you trying to setup pit starts which are outright impossible like super soft for 90% then pit for hards at the end, so why is this a problem after all this time?
Terrible work from the higher ups at code masters here.
Russian version unlocked via VPN I presume ;-)To clarify, I did actually buy it anyway (though via a means that ensures CM get as little money as possible).
What you've written is a pretty strong indication that you haven't had the slightest bit of experience with the last two Formula 1 games developed by Codemasters. And the fact that you seem to think that the rant itself is written by (and by implication, anyone agreeing with it is) a "self-righteous 15-year-old" is so far out of whack, it's clear you have absolutely no idea what the target audience for this game is, let alone are qualified to comment on it.
Get yourself a clue before commenting on something you don't know anything about. Heck, you're first line even indicates as much.
Without being emotionally attached to the game or any of its features, I think this guy should get a grip on reality. Does he really expect a company to make decisions by consulting with the public first? That would just be a ridiculous waste of time and resources.
Communication and listening to feedbacks has its right place: after the product is finished and sold and not during the development cycle.
What everybody needs to understand is that we are talking about a multi-million dollar business here and not a community-developed game. There are countless factors for a game development company to consider and catering to the needs of every single self-righteous 15-year-old is not among them.
Despite what he may think, his ranting is anything but constructive.
Sorry, but I think he got a point. The response was as unconstructive as the post by the Codemasters guy was. If you're in a big software project, you simply can't put feedback at random points into your code. It requires a load of organization and delegation to be so flexible, even worse if you have a deadline that can't be extended by a few weeks just because you want to add a feature.
Problem is when you have some option which on players more demanding are used to and then you decide to take it out. I think I presume well when I say how main intention of Codemasters was to make game less complicated (because F1 as a sport is pretty damn complicated for all besides most hard-core players/followers) and more approachable to the majority of players. But than again, it is more-demanding players who are actually playing the game in post-release window (casuals move over in approx. 3 months after release for 95% of games), so it is just not nice to take the options for which you KNOW they are important to them just for the sake of commercial reasoning.
Just got my PS3 back from my nephew.. I'm downloading the demo and its taking aaaagggeeesss!!!!!!!!!!!!!
38% after almost an hour
Do you use a wheel or a controller? From what I've heard, controller users are a lot happier with the game.
Do you use a wheel or a controller? From what I've heard, controller users are a lot happier with the game.
And with reason. With a controller the handling is actually good and feels 10x better than previous games (which were impossible to play with controllers imho).
I'm home and not on some shabby phone 3g connection now but thinking more about things, removing these features, how is it actually improving sales in any way? people buy the games on what they know and the name, the fact that codemasters never said anything about removing features and some rather important race effecting conditions meant that no one knew, it's just going to hamper sales more then improve them and it's already scared me away from what might happen next year, Grid is not helping my thoughts much either.
I read that large post by the guy on the codemasters forums and the reply by a user, the entire thing could have easily been avoided with a few toggle options.
* - If anyone wants a laugh just search for YT videos of the Jenson Button Challenge. The challenge is 3 laps and for the first 2 the AI is super quick and you can't catch them but when you enter the last lap the rubberbanding kicks in and the AI stops in a train waiting for you to catch them. That's what racing against champions really is!
Did you try tweaking the settings a little? The faster the car, the more understeer you get. I'm almost used to it now after two races in.So is there a trick to fix the under steering bug they've brought in this year? This is unplayable, oh and the online is even more broken too. They've been busy this year haven't they!
..Working only to feed your Indian owners..
* - If anyone wants a laugh just search for YT videos of the Jenson Button Challenge. The challenge is 3 laps and for the first 2 the AI is super quick and you can't catch them but when you enter the last lap the rubberbanding kicks in and the AI stops in a train waiting for you to catch them. That's what racing against champions really is!
I just watched it. Hamilton has Wet tyres on, the others are on Inters. The track is getting wetter, so what tyres have an advantage? It's pretty clear which car can drive faster in increasingly worse conditions. While it may be rubberbanding, it's not completely unrealistic.
Watch how Senna (car ahead) recovers 2/3 seconds after the 1st corner and how the other cars ahead create a train despite having the same intermediate tyres. It's rubberbanding, the same way Maldonado suddenly starts catching the user controlled car as soon as he gets the lead.
I sincerely think that main point is making something optional - especially if you already have a complete groundwork for it.
They could easily include both options for wear - Realistic and Scaled - and let people decide which one they will use.
Just got my PS3 back from my nephew.. I'm downloading the demo and its taking aaaagggeeesss!!!!!!!!!!!!!
38% after almost an hour
Probably a stupid question, but how do you tell your team you want to switch to intermediates or wets when it starts raining during a race?
Press right on the d-pad and choose your the tyres you want.
Visual mods are okay, but be wary of ones that change anything else. They used to fuck up 2010 for me royally.A few PC mods already appearing on specialist racing sim forums. Quite a few on RaceDepartment with more on the way...
Higher def car liveries: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/microdownloads/31/viewcat - these change the car liveries from approx 5 MB each to around 40MB. 7 are available at the moment with more coming plus one file changes some of the advertising hoardings.
Helmets, gloves and suits: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/microdownloads/30/viewcat
Misc mods such as camera mods and change which team you start your career with: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/microdownloads/32/viewcat
I'm glad I bought F1 2012 for the PC after a few days of indecision as it's good fun.
I can not drive in the wet at all. Driving in Malaysia, starts raining so I go in for some wets. Come out and I can not get any grip, car just starts spinning, brakes locking up, so I turn up the assists, turned ABS on and traction to full. Still spinning out. :/
aah, but I'm struggling to do that. Will try again.You need to drive 2 rounds to warm up the tires.
I can not drive in the wet at all. Driving in Malaysia, starts raining so I go in for some wets. Come out and I can not get any grip, car just starts spinning, brakes locking up, so I turn up the assists, turned ABS on and traction to full. Still spinning out. :/
Well it seems the save corruption is back again. I had my Marussia team off to a fine start as well.