Progressive Racing Online - Introduction to makegamesSA.com and progress catchup
First and foremost hello to all of you - hope you enjoy the lengthy read!
This project is being written and built from the ground up by a very small team - namely me. Lots of outsourcing going on when it comes to artwork!
Progressive Racing Online, also known as PR-O, has one simple goal in mind. It has to be the ultimate sandbox racing game that can be played online with friends who share the same amount of passion for the automotive performance industry.
A sandbox game as defined by Techopedia.com is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish. A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game.
What I'm striving for is a title that does not limit the player creativity and that will offer an environment in which to build unique performance vehicles with various parts and run them against their friends online. Unique is a strong word but the extensive time I've spent on allowing customizations should translate in two vehicle not being exactly the same in any given race.
There are so many different angles to this title but let’s see how we can lay them out.
- There is a huge emphasis on upgrade parts realism in the sense of correct performance gain simulation
- Parts don’t always work together optimally and often not at all because people don’t pay attention to what they actually need
- The player isn’t limited to a career or set races – I’d really like for you to enjoy this game anyway you choose to
- I’d like to promote player interactivity on a massive scale – this title will be online only
As you can see above, this isn’t the classic select a vehicle, max it out and race sort of game / sim. Instead the vision is to build a playground for like minded automotive enthusiasts with a social twist.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the physics of the vehicles not only in the sense of how they handle but simulating the parts of motor vehicles and the dynamics of each working together. When you add that little bit of extra boost and don’t have the parts to match that you can expect to experience some issues :-)
As most of you already know, you can’t just put a major name brand in a game or simulator without written permission, legal drafting of agreements and then handing over a ton of cash. I’m not super rich – this not attainable or realistic.
Instead Progressive Racing Online will feature vehicles of similar shape to those that you are already familiar with and parts following a similar idea (I know a bit of a let down but his is the reality). Parts might be name branded here and there depending on the deals that can be made in terms of advertising with various companies – so all will not be lost to the corporate red tape. Of course if there are any legal experts here who can shed further light on this please do!
Same can be said that if you’re in the auto industry and can connect me with the right guys to get manufacturer brands in here and there by all means contact the project now here
I’ve set a personal goal to get one discipline completed end to end properly. There is no use focusing on all of them and delivering the same that the rest of industry already offer. It is my firm belief to do things correctly in measurable steps. The first milestone will be to deliver an alpha demo for the drag racing discipline complete with all the major rulesets available and one or two cars. The great thing is that most of the underlying foundation is required for what seems even a simple delivery and will facilitate easier upgrading and new disciplines / vehicles / parts and concepts to be added in the years to come.
Milestone one countdown:
46 Days 08 Hours 48 Minutes 36 Seconds
Thank you for taking the time to look up this project and ask that you show your support by visiting often and contact me often for updates if you don’t see them quick enough here. This is a major project and need all the support I can get to spur me on to finish something great!
In the meantime here's some artz and video links:
1.92a footage release
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=297
Camera code gets some dynamics
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=300
Tire dynamics and other cool things
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=303
Symmetrical AWD implemented
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=308
New video show casing working suspension
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=317
Progress and feature update on networking
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=323
When the todo's dont fit on an A4 page anymore!
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=334
This project is being written and built from the ground up by a very small team - namely me. Lots of outsourcing going on when it comes to artwork!
Progressive Racing Online, also known as PR-O, has one simple goal in mind. It has to be the ultimate sandbox racing game that can be played online with friends who share the same amount of passion for the automotive performance industry.
A sandbox game as defined by Techopedia.com is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish. A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game.
What I'm striving for is a title that does not limit the player creativity and that will offer an environment in which to build unique performance vehicles with various parts and run them against their friends online. Unique is a strong word but the extensive time I've spent on allowing customizations should translate in two vehicle not being exactly the same in any given race.
There are so many different angles to this title but let’s see how we can lay them out.
- There is a huge emphasis on upgrade parts realism in the sense of correct performance gain simulation
- Parts don’t always work together optimally and often not at all because people don’t pay attention to what they actually need
- The player isn’t limited to a career or set races – I’d really like for you to enjoy this game anyway you choose to
- I’d like to promote player interactivity on a massive scale – this title will be online only
As you can see above, this isn’t the classic select a vehicle, max it out and race sort of game / sim. Instead the vision is to build a playground for like minded automotive enthusiasts with a social twist.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the physics of the vehicles not only in the sense of how they handle but simulating the parts of motor vehicles and the dynamics of each working together. When you add that little bit of extra boost and don’t have the parts to match that you can expect to experience some issues :-)
As most of you already know, you can’t just put a major name brand in a game or simulator without written permission, legal drafting of agreements and then handing over a ton of cash. I’m not super rich – this not attainable or realistic.
Instead Progressive Racing Online will feature vehicles of similar shape to those that you are already familiar with and parts following a similar idea (I know a bit of a let down but his is the reality). Parts might be name branded here and there depending on the deals that can be made in terms of advertising with various companies – so all will not be lost to the corporate red tape. Of course if there are any legal experts here who can shed further light on this please do!
Same can be said that if you’re in the auto industry and can connect me with the right guys to get manufacturer brands in here and there by all means contact the project now here
I’ve set a personal goal to get one discipline completed end to end properly. There is no use focusing on all of them and delivering the same that the rest of industry already offer. It is my firm belief to do things correctly in measurable steps. The first milestone will be to deliver an alpha demo for the drag racing discipline complete with all the major rulesets available and one or two cars. The great thing is that most of the underlying foundation is required for what seems even a simple delivery and will facilitate easier upgrading and new disciplines / vehicles / parts and concepts to be added in the years to come.
Milestone one countdown:
46 Days 08 Hours 48 Minutes 36 Seconds
Thank you for taking the time to look up this project and ask that you show your support by visiting often and contact me often for updates if you don’t see them quick enough here. This is a major project and need all the support I can get to spur me on to finish something great!
In the meantime here's some artz and video links:
1.92a footage release
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=297
Camera code gets some dynamics
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=300
Tire dynamics and other cool things
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=303
Symmetrical AWD implemented
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=308
New video show casing working suspension
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=317
Progress and feature update on networking
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=323
When the todo's dont fit on an A4 page anymore!
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=334
Thanked by 1Bensonance
Comments
You've been working on this for years, right? Weren't you going to release a drag-racing version at some point as a test? You said online and detailed car physics in the same game... Have you figured out how to do that yet? While I don't think you quite needed to define the concept of a sandbox game, I think you might need to elaborate on what that means in terms of player activity: Is it like Burnout Paradise or Test Drive 3 in terms of having a huge area to drive around in with popup events? Or is it more about players building their own tracks/roads to do things with? How do players progress in this sandbox, you've mentioned parts, how do they get them?
Can you simulate the gameplay experience without the physics part - so no driving at all, just metagame? There's really no other way to know that it'll be fun.
Felt it pertinent to explain what a sandbox game was for new aspiring game developers signing up here.
There are no events in this game (pre-scripted). Rather there are a multitude of tracks are available from the get go along with a few vehicles of varying expense.
The player ultimately focuses more on building his or her vehicle and then either randomly or by direct challenge racing an opponent online to climb the ladder which is specific to the discipline they are most interested in.
The player could also choose not to race at all. Instead teaming up with his or her friends at a track day where there is no more point than testing your creation and seeing how it ranks against others.
The metagame as you put it I guess could be in the following modes of play which I feel could attract a few more players to the game:
A player could elect to not race at all but instead focus on collecting vehicles instead. To do this they would need revenue. They achieve this by playing the market, which is live. The game world takes care of itself pretty much and capitalists could benefit from market swings. Allowing sales of pre-purchased vehicles at high rates than would otherwise be normal.
The other aspect of play may come in the form of virtual tuners. The game doesn't feature pre-scripted parts per se. Instead I've modeled the internal combustion engine. This means introduction of parts is dynamic on my part and also means that part A may or not work with part B - and who would have known? Unless you knew what you were doing. This is where these virtual tuners could generate revenue to pursue a new car they want to collect. They would tune the part they own and resell it in the classifieds section / used part market.
These are some of the aspects and most of it already there. Feel free to ask more questions. I will try and answer what I can. I want to peak interest but not give everything away before release either ;-)
I have a personal concern about the vehicles. With licensing being a problem - it's going to be probable that cars resemble something we've all seen but don't formally announce that they are a specific model from whichever brand.
The concern is players hate this. Well in my experience they do. When you mix sim and fake in the same sentence people can't look past the eye candy - well mostly.
What are your thoughts?
Plus you seem to be talking about extensive economic systems with no indicator of how players actually earn money while playing. If earning happens by winning races, but races aren't a defined event in the game (it really doesn't matter how they're triggered), then how does that work? I dunno, it sounds like you're just layering features on top of features on top of systems for the sake of having them. How many more years do you have to work on this? Hasn't Project Cars already eaten your lunch? Hang on. You want to release an online only, multiplayer game with a built-in economy and you're holding stuff back to not spoil it? Surely you should be testing the crap out of everything instead...
The public alpha model works really, really well.
Yeah Project Cars is pretty darn awesome and it's true they're out there already. They also a team from hell and I'm just one guy. Amazing that I could do even a 1/10 eh?
First public alpha is in 46 days. If you're not a car nut, don't bother trying it - you're most likely going to hate it.
PS: If you sense some abrasion it's the sand you threw in the air the minute I posted a little about what I am busy with. I didn't come here for any other reason than to share a bit of progress with a local community. We've got a long way to go!
I'm curious how you're going to handle it. Will you use an automatic supply-demand based sort of model? With things like that, you have to be extremely careful. If you make it just a teeny bit too easy to get cash, you will get runaway inflation that will never stabilise, and if it's a little too hard to make cash, no one buys and the economy crashes. You don't want to have to constantly manage pricing, so it's absolutely vital that you get the pricing model exactly right.
I hope you get the market into the alpha build very early, because it can take months of testing with a decent player base to get the balancing of the economy right.
I thought Project Cars was looking a community thing, maybe I read their blurbs wrong. Thought maybe you could be working with them instead of having to worry about competing with something that heavy hitting. Or, if you are going to be competing, really establishing your own unique reason for people to play your game. I guess that's why I was asking about game systems outside of the driving physics, because that's what will make you stand out. Okay, cool, you are doing the alpha approach. It just seemed way too tall an order to balance a game like this without one. Also, do you have any enthusiast communities to aim at if people have to be car nuts to enjoy it? Apologies. What response\interaction were you expecting? "Throwing sand in the air" is pretty much the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve.
Ah, economy systems! One of the most fascinating aspects of what I've had the pleasure playing with on this title. As you said above, hyperinflation is a concern if you haven't taken precautions against it.
There's a lot to this but in a nut shell yes the basic system is based upon a combination of market cap and the buys / sales occurring on a daily basis. This gives you a clear indication of a bearish or bullish market in game - now - that's what you point out, one could get into a situation of hyperinflation making it near impossible for new players to catch up to established ones. I've resolved this a few ways but in the basic sense:
- The "federal reserve" algorithm steps in when people start playing the market to their advantage, it does this by limiting inflation rates both hyper and below standard, what this does is stabilise costs in game to a point and buffers the potential loss to new players. In essence making thing cost a bit more than normal but still attainable by the lower class of the game economy.
- Supply limitation systems are in place when the market runs away with compounded sales. What this means is someone bulling the market, with constant buys ready ready to dump stock at a later date, can only buy a finite quantity. What this means again is, that parts - although no pre-scripted, are injected into the game at times suitable to the market. Their quantities are known and so is the very finite market capital achievable.
- Manual intervention. There is a global override, should an algorithm fail. I personally can step in and regulate the economy through a sequence of events.
There is more to all of this, much more. I think this puts it into perspective just how much time has been spent on the various aspects of the sim / game / whatever you'd like to call it.
I'm excited to introduce the alpha. There is a bit to go still between then and now but we're never really ready to showcase our work are we?
Cheers
Apology accepted. I really feel this thread will help a lot of people achieving this sort of thing in future, the what not to do's!
You strike a very valid point with regards to taking the game and angling it completely left field. Does anyone remember that slipstream 3000 game (was it even called that?!). In the end I wouldn't be doing this unless I really wanted it for myself too. I couldn't possibly write for something I did not have a vested interest in and something I've always wanted was a playground where I could take a vehicle, modify it with true to life type parts and then attempt to drive it.
Project Cars - totally a community effort - however, I did not even know about this until about 6 months ago. Would it have changed my mind? Not exactly. I've always wanted to write my own physics code for motor vehicles and so much of the time was also spent learning. The next aspect is - although Project Cars has a name that sounds like you can customise just about everything. The fact is - you can't. It's also not a tycoon type game (mini game we've been discussing with the world economy system).
Rightfully so, this title would need to be left field in it's own way to make a success of it. I feel I have but I also feel I need to do more so as this thread unfolds everyone is free to add their nice to haves / good ideas. This I hope comes out in alpha too!
Yes, I've got a number of vehicle related forums interested in the project, just need to get the alpha out to a controlled group before trying something bigger.
Thanks to all who are reading. I will do my best to post more, I am part worried other project steal these good ideas but in the end without sharing them, I wont know if they're bad avenues either!
The economic simulation parts sound very interesting in theory, but I can't really comment on it until I can see how it is implemented (because it probably won't play out like I'm imagining it). (So again, I'm looking forward to playing with that)
This is maybe a dumb question, but is part of the emphasis of the game about the joy of crashing? It seems to me the most logical use for realistic physics. Though I'm a bit afraid that any remotely realistic economic simulation would severely disincentive damaging your vehicle.
(Again, without playing something this is pure conjecture)
I am involved in performance mods for cars. Would be interesting to hear what you've got planned and what brands you've got on-board.
@BlackShipsFilltheSky A long standing problem with online racing games has always been that one guy who who feels he cannot compete on the same level and begins bashing people for position. I have as yet not worked out all the kinks in the damage system (physical damage as seen in one of the above shots) in terms of in game cost. There are a few logicistical reason for this, one of them being data transfer. IE: every damage part of a mesh * every players vehicle * every player. I think there's going to be an issue there. I'll have a proper answer when I've had a look at this specifically as one of the goals after initial alpha.
@RickyGC great to hear you're into cars too, esp. the performance side. To date I have not approached any formal companies. I'd really like a later alpha with a bit more polish before doing that.
Once again, thank you all for interest and happy to answer more questions, listen to advice and consider ideas you wish were available in a title like this.
Welcome to the forums :)
While I'm not much of a racing sim fan (I far prefer casual racers, and sim-level customization goes way over my head) I look forward to checking out the economy side of your project!
I'm curious about your physics, you say you're rolling your own, right? And from what look like standard-skin OnGUI controls I'm guessing you're implementing in Unity. When we worked on racer, we found the available vehicle physics plugins were pretty dismal (including Unity's own vehicle physics from their car sample), are you by any chance writing your physics in a way that would make them easily reusable in other projects? That might make for a great asset store plugin :)
The disadvantage of that is that the more observant players may notice that the same dents appear in different collisions. One way to overcome this is to have the client put a small purely aesthetic random variation in the deformation. To make sure every client sees exactly the same damage on a car (if you really think that's important), then you can also send a few bytes along with the damage mode to indicate the random seed.
I had a feeling the economy side would generate interest - I am excited myself to see what happens when I release it into the wild.
Another idea is to require damage fixes before the next race (outside). If a vehicle isn't repaired - it cannot be used. This way - the collision data never needs to be sent back to server for storage.
Little side note, the damage system - dynamic - syncs beautifully (Well it was the last time I tested). What I'm saying is, the dent you make on your vehicle is visible by all online parties within the current game. Looks pretty awesome and not sure if another title actually does this yet?
- I hope to run a view video segments showcasing customisation of a part and the outcome (learn by example)
- There are going to be a number of guides available for those who would like to learn what all the settings mean (from a mechanical point of view, some re-enforcement learning)
- Although not near complete, I had begun work on some advisory code. What this does is instruct the player on potential problems / combinations / requirements that need consideration to make certain part combinations work. This sounds easy. It's not.
I like where this thread is heading. These ideas and work behind them haven't really seen the light of day because it's hard to talk about them without context.
Also, once your public beta is out, you'll get a clearer idea of who your players actually are. Rather use that information to fine tune them than guess ahead of time and do unnecessary work.
I'm wanting to recruit the services of an artist for some GUI work but I'm not sure what to ask for :-)
But like any art form, it has many flavors (or personal styles). So maybe give examples of what you want?
See how the parts are near true to life yet have that simulated feel. I guess Digital Illustrations is correct then. I'm looking for this sort of art for the modifications available in game. Basically the digital representation of the sample image I provide.
Illustrations
3D
Where did you dig the bottom on up from? would like to find out if the original artist is up for some contract work.
Well that's me for the night / morning - time to get shut eye.
For now i'd suggest use place holders up and until you have most done and nead to start iron out the visuals
Also try and make use of some local talent. We have some amaze balls 3D modelers here in SA (example: @Elyaradine, @8bitZoe, @Custard, @filiporekhov,@luke (just a few of the many on this site alone))
Also i think it should be clarified, the time it takes to make an Illustration and 3D product of same quality will br about the same amount of time
http://www.progressiveracingonline.com/?p=340
Let me get back to it, cheers!