Progress report by Ian Bell

[VELOCIPEDE]

I see no reason why they can't have their chosen series.

On the voting, I'm hoping that it will be a measure of last resort and the investors will also take advice from us as we've been there and done it so to speak. I think only after this if we still have a disagreement we should go to a vote.

We were also thinking of scanning real faces also for the AI driver if the investor prefers.

We have other plans along these lines but I don't want to steal our own thunder.

As soon as we're looking at our very best and using everything DX11 has to offer we'd start he marketing in earnest. Unfortunately that normally means late in the dev cycle but commonly at least 6 months before ship.

Our current feelings for C.A.R.S. is to have our 'as we would like it' full sim mode and use the softer tyred Shift 2 like handling along with input filters for those with a pad or keyboard. We'll set it up as a different mode though.

Best of both worlds as I see it.

[Guest Uff]

Piccola news da Griff.

I am busy coding! DX11 engine is coming along nicely

[VELOCIPEDE]

Don't underestimate the difficulty in creating a great GUI chaps. There are a thousand TCR hoops per 1st party to jump through and creating a different GUI for PC is not cost effective, as shown by the numerous sub-optimal ports. I think this might be one area we have a lot of fun; creating a GUI in association with the investors....

[VELOCIPEDE]

Given the interest we have from traditional publishers based on the 8 or so million sales we've had for the Shift franchise thus far I would say that we're not disappointed with it. It was an exercise in taking a simulation style racing game to the masses and in that we succeeded, in a very difficult marketplace.

I've spoken of our single default setup per car limitation on other occasions so won't reiterate here suffice to say with less cars, with less (almost infinite) upgrade variations we could nail an excellent set of setups and fully intend to do so with C.A.R.S.

We're hoping to attract investors from all walks of life and tastes for the WMD project as a whole. We think that in the current climate the potential upside is unrivalled, to take a purely investment perspective.

[VELOCIPEDE]

We also plan to port to current generation consoles with the aim of being the best looking, best handling etc etc.

Microsoft have a Ferrari exclusive, EA a Porsche one. I imagine that the cost involved in sublicensing the Ferrari license from Microsoft imposed on EA has seen then return the favour. Can't say I blame them.

For us it will be a case of going with begging cup in hand and probably avoiding them if the costs are prohibitive.

[VELOCIPEDE]

It hasn't and it can't be as that's down to the investors. What we are doing is providing a base car from each of the main types (single seater, endurance, historic etc) so the investors can feedback on input, handling FFB etc. The legal work was for the WMD system itself that's completely unique so required a lot of work.

[Guest Uff]

L'ultimo post è riferito a chi diceva che i contenuti presenti in CARS sono già decisi e quindi non ci sarà spazio di scelta per la comunità.

Meglio specificare, altrimenti questi interventi sono poco chiari.

[Guest Uff]

C.A.R.S. is being developed in association with the investors. It might be an 18 month development cycle. We'll be including everything we can from what the investors request but it won't start shipping to investors with more than a core base which we use to build upon together.

The intention is to nail that core base in terms of the basics like handling, input, FFB etc before adding frills.

PS, we aren't underestimating the frills if my last post read a little that way. We're letting The Griff loose on this and nothing but, ably aided and abetted by three other render coders with an average of 16 man years render coding each.

We fully aim to be unbeatable come ship date (release) and it will be a great journey to create this together.

[Guest Uff]

Da Griff.

Just to add to what Ian said about DX11 - I've probably been a little quiet here over the last few months while I focused on coding the DX11 renderer - all of our DX9 feature set is running on DX11, and that was not a small job, requiring few distractions - FXAA, depth of field, screen space ambient occlusion, motion-blur and shadows will be improved in DX11 initially, then additional features will be community driven. As well as progress updates here you can also follow me on Twitter (@Griff_) for my hourly/daily ups and downs in life and development

[VELOCIPEDE]

Other question: is it only online game or is there a offline mode with IA?

Offline and AI yes. For the online, the intention is to strip it back to the core and build it up in conjunction with the investors, the aim being to make it the best network solution ever. That will mean no functional online in the early days but if you want to be the best...