Next Enviroment?

[Alter-Fox]

... so why not a Stadium if alot of players want it?

You're ignoring my main point and concentrating on my little side-assertions.
My main point is that you already have stadium. Why do you want another one? Why can't you be happy with the one you have? If you're not going to like Valley then don't buy it, and keep playing stadium. There are enough people like you that you will always have games to play -- that's the beauty of a huge community.

I'll make you a bet: if Valley has canyons then you have to buy it for me. If it doesn't then I have to buy it for you.

[firstdriver]

... so why not a Stadium if alot of players want it?

You're ignoring my main point and concentrating on my little side-assertions.
My main point is that you already have stadium. Why do you want another one? Why can't you be happy with the one you have? If you're not going to like Valley then don't buy it, and keep playing stadium. There are enough people like you that you will always have games to play -- that's the beauty of a huge community.

I'll make you a bet: if Valley has canyons then you have to buy it for me. If it doesn't then I have to buy it for you.

Sorry, I wouldn't pay another £20.00GBP for a single environment for myself let alone anyone else. It's too over priced on my income Valley will probably have hills which you can drive up, unlike a canyon.

I'm not ignoring your point. As I said, players get mixed up when they hear a debate on TM2 about the TM1 Stadium. Its not the actual stadium they want, its the stadium properties that I've already listed. A better variety of tracks and track surfaces. Better positioning of signage, Better car handling with a predictable outcome, air braking is a great feature that gave more control. So it's not exactly THE Stadium we're talking about.

[Alter-Fox]

Maybe I should explain better what it is about this that's pissing me off.

So you don't like Canyon, you liked the stadium car handling better. Fine. Then ask for something that isn't Canyon. Don't just assume that the stadium handling is the only way Nadeo can make it good. Keep an open mind -- heck, you may not like Canyon now, but if you keep an open mind and keep playing it that 5% of the time, you might start to like it more. Stadium had a learning curve for first time players too.

The problem here is some people are absolutely refusing to keep any pretense of an open mind. Though they may not know it, they're creating a self-fulfilling-prophecy -- unconsciously refusing to like anything that isn't Stadium.
I guarantee you that if Nadeo did what you're saying, these people will still complain that the new environment isn't enough like Stadium. And of course, if Nadeo tried to do the one thing that would appease them... then they will complain that there aren't enough differences.

With these people, there's no way for Nadeo to win. Why should they even listen, then? They'll get the same grief either way -- and they know that.

I've already said that I like the canyon handling much better than the stadium handling -- because the little bit of randomness gives me a better feeling of my speed, in fact -- and I can get a higher turn rate more easily with drifting.

And in fact, my favourite thing about Canyon was opposite in Stadium.

[Serpwidgets]

Whatever the new environment is, I hope it's set on a planet with more gravity, or allow a gravity setting for each track like the way you can now pick various times of day. It really sucks that you can't put any decent-speed turns at the top of any hill, whether you're going up it and turning, or turning just before going down. If there's any hill or slope it's pretty certain you're going to fly off it whether or not you want to.

[Alter-Fox]

Yes, I hope the Earth will get heavier in the next environment too. Track author-controllable gravity would be awesome.

I've only actually modded for one game/engine where the gravity was actually definable (Descent 3 - Fusion engine). I'm pretty sure the reason that was moddable was because the game itself takes place on several different planets. Nadeo's engine, from what I can see of its inner workings, does feel similar to the Fusion engine. So I think it's possible. I'm not sure Nadeo wants to do it (or maybe they just didn't think to do it -- I think the reason most game editors don't let you do it is it just doesn't cross the mind of the devs unless they need it for their main game).

I'm pretty sure the original Geo-mod engine (Red Faction) supported this too because of that space station mission -- but I don't think any later iterations of that engine support it. I've never modded for Red Faction though.

It likely depends on whether the gravity is hard-coded or not -- and most often it is, I think because most games take place on Earth.

So what I'm saying, in my roundabout way, is that this may not even be possible with the Mania engine -- but I hope it is. And, judging solely from my limited experience with a few game engines, it is more likely to be possible than it would be with another engine.

[Demented]

Actually most driving games have gravity set at less than half of Earths gravity because real Earth gravity is not as fun in game play. There was a racing game back in the late '80s or early '90s that let you choose in the track editor day or night, vehicle type (4x4 Truck, Race Car, Formula, Rally or Buggy) and gravity (Jupiter, Earth, Mars, Moon and Pluto). This game also let you adjust the track pieces in the editor. Each piece had like 4 or 5 construction points where you could raise or lower sections to create slopes or banks in any way you wanted them. The physics sucked but for its time it was a cool game.
If you compare Canyons to Desert (the original) this game has come a long way.

[Alter-Fox]

Nonono... I didn't mean to imply that the gravity was set to that of Earth! I'm just assuming that TM takes place on Earth (reasonable) and thus, realistically, if the gravity is higher in some environments, then the Earth is heavier in those environments. Turning Serp's statement around, so to speak.
I've noticed, actually, that there are no Southern-Hemisphere racing environments in TM. Maybe that's because the Earth no longer has a southern hemisphere in the TM-future. That might explain the gravity.

[Serpwidgets]

So what I'm saying, in my roundabout way, is that this may not even be possible with the Mania engine -- but I hope it is.

It shouldn't be that hard to implement. When reading in a track file you check to see if it's the old version, if so use the default gravity. Otherwise there would be an extra element in the array specifying which gravity setting to use.

There was a racing game back in the late '80s or early '90s that let you choose in the track editor day or night, vehicle type (4x4 Truck, Race Car, Formula, Rally or Buggy) and gravity (Jupiter, Earth, Mars, Moon and Pluto). This game also let you adjust the track pieces in the editor. Each piece had like 4 or 5 construction points where you could raise or lower sections to create slopes or banks in any way you wanted them. The physics sucked but for its time it was a cool game.
If you compare Canyons to Desert (the original) this game has come a long way.

Ya, I used to play Racing Destruction Set on my Commodore64. Electronic Arts made some awesome customizable games back then. I also had Adventure Construction Set... 25 years before questmania. And Mail Order Monsters, shootmania anyone?

Actually most driving games have gravity set at less than half of Earths gravity because real Earth gravity is not as fun in game play.

I agree that it's about making things fun. A fun gravity level depends on how the track is built. If you put in hills and slope changes appropriate to the gravity you can get as much or as little air time as you want. Some jumping is fun, but IMO it's a bit ridiculous as it is. The problem here is that there aren't slopes shallow enough to keep the car on the ground even when you want to. Zooming up and down hills at high speed is really fun sometimes, but you can't do it with the current environment, the ground just drops out from below you while you float.

[Alter-Fox]

So what I'm saying, in my roundabout way, is that this may not even be possible with the Mania engine -- but I hope it is.

It shouldn't be that hard to implement. When reading in a track file you check to see if it's the old version, if so use the default gravity. Otherwise there would be an extra element in the array specifying which gravity setting to use.

If it is already hardcoded though, it could be harder to add this. That's kind of my point. They'd need to change the gravity code that they had, before they could add that gravity element to the array in the GBX.

[Serpwidgets]

So what I'm saying, in my roundabout way, is that this may not even be possible with the Mania engine -- but I hope it is.

It shouldn't be that hard to implement. When reading in a track file you check to see if it's the old version, if so use the default gravity. Otherwise there would be an extra element in the array specifying which gravity setting to use.

If it is already hardcoded though, it could be harder to add this. That's kind of my point. They'd need to change the gravity code that they had, before they could add that gravity element to the array in the GBX.

The gravity code would consist of something like this:

Code: Select all

CarVelocityY += Grav * DeltaTime;

That's it.

Even if "Grav" is a literal numeric value in the source code, it's not that hard to make it a variable which defaults to that same value until/unless it's changed. I can't think of anything else that is subjected to physics in the game so it's not like there's anywhere else to change that same one line of code.

Then you add a couple lines of code to the map editor, for the user to select gravity.

And where the maps are saved, 1 line to write the grav value.

And where a map is loaded :
1- see if the array length is consistent with the grav value, or even check a "version number" in the file header if they already have one,
2-read in that value and set the "grav" variable to that value, else set it to (or leave it as) whatever the constant currently is for Canyon.

Any decent programmer could do that in an hour or less. Given the source code I could probably do it in an afternoon without having ever seen the source code before.