kalniel

I love this game... closest we've got on the PC to the Forza/GT style games. It's not quite as good a track racer as the sim games, but for car collection and suping up it's cool.

How about Goats in trees 2012 ;) Goats in Trees 2012 Wall Calendar *other calender providers exist

Shards are probably a group of computers. We call them farms. Production means those computers (or virtual computers etc.) related to final product stuff, as opposed to development or testing shards.

Sony have hidden away a nasty waiver in the terms and conditions of PSN: BBC News - Sony asks gamers to sign new terms or face PSN ban

Godaddy were offering to sell it.. guess they didn't mean it. edit: ah, it's a cyber squatter hoping to get some money selling it. Up for renewal next year though :p

How about just 'central'? central.net is up for grabs at the moment I think.

Impossible to say though, isn't it? Atari would get just as much flak if they kept with a (hypothetical) dev team that kept under delivering on their promises and producing games gamers didn't like, even after being given additional time. So on one hand you could see it as them being hard on developers, while on the other they could be acting to address the problems people have been complaining about. *shrugs* Redundancies are never nice, but they are entirely normal in this business especially after a major project has finished (you normally pare back to a more core team to tick over until the next big project when you begin hiring again). What appears to me to be the issue here is simply the terms of redundancy - they feel they are doing less well than redundancy agreements other people had in 2009. That may or may not be a valid point for a strike, it's certainly the typical cause for them in most countries, however I think it's quite deplorable to bring the TDU2 community into the strike, especially in a way that doesn't make the issue clear. I don't mind the effect on Atari, but it's not fair on game players, especially if they are mislead.

This. I've escalated the point higher for exactly this reason - Atari had made a turn in the right direction when they got together with Cryptic, so this doesn't seem like the way they would want to handle things. edit: UPDATE - apparently it took Atari by surprise as well. Eden seem to have made the change without the message getting through to the community people, and Atari are very apologetic for it. It was already quoted here, but worth repeating as it bears out assurances I had in private as well:

They've not lost the entries, there was a bug in the checking you're logged in bit, so you could submit entries which didn't have any way of telling who you were so you would be rather hard to give a prize to! By getting everyone to resubmit they can be doubly sure all entries can be traced back to someone.

You're asking people to break the NDA? One of the reasons for NDAs is that early glimses of a game aren't usually representative of the final game, especially in areas like handling/physics, so they would only serve to mislead.

Of course, you're a fan, like myself. But we don't really represent the masses out there that don't follow forums, but instead watch things like formula 1 on tv etc. Everything - by participating and being successful in the top motorsports you cement your seriousness as a leading sports/racing car manufacturer. If you don't, it's like saying 'we build great cars, but we dare not race them against other people incase we lose.' Not 'we', if we're lambo fans, but the wider public would almost certainly prefer Ferrari to Lamborghini, if there was a choice between the two. Ferrari have a HUGE fan base, far far larger than that for any other manufacturer. While we might prefer a game made to appeal to fewer people, it means that you have a far smaller budget to make games, and ultimately it's lack of (enough) budget that's causing these issues. Presumably the licensing situation was different back then. There's no proof of that - we've not seen the real version. Not sure on the graphics point - the environments were nice, but those blocky roads were terrible. It was also one of the buggiest car games on release.

As much as fans love Lamborghini, they don't inspire anything like the following of Ferrari. When did Lambo last race in the highest echelon of motor racing? If Eden could only afford one of Ferrari or Lambo then the decision was always going to go one way. Imagine the outcry if it didn't have Ferrari (like many games don't).

The TDU2 website and forums are down for scheduled maintenance, which was announced a few days ago. On topic, this doesn't look like a part-list, in that they've included quite a range from the entire alphabet. I can't image there are many licensing issues with lambo, given other VAG marques are in the game no problem, so it's probably a DLC option in the future. Disappointed that some of my favourite cars from TDU aren't there, but at the same time I'm sure I'll find new ones that weren't in TDU that I'll love. Especially looking forward to the: Mito Atom Ascari A10 AM one-77 Gumpert Apollo and RUFs!

Maybe I would, but I'm under NDA so can't ;)

Speaking about betas in general. Yes, massively so. Sometimes they will change the game very rapidly indeed, compiling new versions before each test, and sometimes they manage several different builds a week. Or they might already have designed several different physics models etc and they'd try out different ones during a beta to get feedback about which is best. But it depends what the company is using a beta for - I'd say focus group testing is actually better for that sort of thing, betas are better for compatibility testing, however these things aren't set in stone and different companies use them for different things.

They could do Forza physics.. but then all the compute resources would be doing that, instead of allowing such a huge free form world to ride around in, so you'd have to have fixed tracks to select from etc. Ultimately, you'd end up with another Forza type game, but if you want that, get Forza :p

Excellent post. Reminds me a lot about what Henrik Roos (SimBin CEO and Professional Racer) says - they don't set out to create a simulator in terms of the exact player input etc. but they aim to simulate the experience of racing, that is, cars respond and have the response transmitted to you in a way which makes the experience of driving the same. That could well mean that it's not actually a 100% accurate physical simulation, but it's more enjoyable and useful as a player who is emulating a race driver, rather than being unable to play the game because we've not had 10 years of motorsport experience through the different categories.

Did Shift actually fail though? There was enough interest for a sequel to be confirmed, and personally I thought it wasn't a bad effort - the cockpit view/graphics is still the best of any game out there at the moment, and while it's not exactly GTR, it's a lot better than a lot of other games that allow car upgrades on the PC. I wouldn't judge fail on just forum ranting - most of the EA forum shouting came from people who probably found even the realism that there was there too much :p Good point about splitting above, but presumably that's just a question about visibility - if HC mode was seamlessly integrated as just another driving aid option then I doubt the userbase would feel like it was split.

Spot on TimBud, the start was great (apart from for Hamilton, poor thing). Perhaps if I was an Alsono fan instead of a Button fan I'd be thinking the opposite!

Quite agree, though I am impressed by how fast Red Bull are on a track that shouldn't be suiting them at all. I don't think the flexible wing is the be all and end all, though having a stiff wing might stop Vettel from crashing into people as often.. (did you see how much it flexed when he pulled that move on Button?!)

Fair enough. I'd much rather have some real information from a developer than a PR trailer that sounds great but doesn't tell me anything useful, but that could just be me :)

Last news from Atari was only 4 days ago. Are you expecting daily updates?

Very interesting qualifying for Monza.. Button goes for bizarre large wing approach to Monza and it paid off. Hope he doesn't get mugged on the straights, but it's going to be very interesting...

Fun. Gamers have heard of it :p

Sorry, but the future of Atari was looking so uncertain I didn't want to get any hopes up. And it might have been even more damaging for the community to find out something and then hear nothing for two years - people would have really felt ignored. As it is things are a lot more certain, and they can start to involve the community with more confidence there will be a release and that they can show more stuff leading up to it. Anyway, Tenebra was there at the time and wasn't terribly happy. And you don't want an unhappy Tenebra :p