ymenard wrote:
> > wrote
> > RedTed, first of all, Racing Legends was not started until 2002.
> > Second, it is now 2005. Just how long do you think it should take for
> > two or three guys, versus fourty or fifty, to write a simulator like
> > that?
>
>
> Look we've been through this a dozen times here on r.a.s.
>
I know. Unfortunately everyone still believes Joe-Red-Bob instead of
the back gaters from Timmy's house and the news crew that thoroughly
investigated all the facts and interviewed everyone involved. The
currently observed incapability of adults to draw links between a
children's analogical story and real events is a frightening glimpse
into the minds of more than one individual in this discussion.
Insisting the story is less of an accurate reflection of reality than
their own version might be is to put ignorance not only on one's
sleeve, but upon one's entire wardrobe. I'm not saying you have done
that, but you're smart enough to observe that others in this discussion
clearly have.
Anyone who blames Timmy instead of Tammy for the first lawn not getting
mowed is lacking intellectual resources and possesses an inadequately
developed reasoning faculty for someone of an age of eight years old,
much less an adult. I don't know any more polite way to say it.
Seriously, read that story to your kids and at the end, ask them why
the first lawn didn't get finished, and why it is probably going to
take a very long time to get the second lawn done as measured from when
the first one was started. Sadly, I would bet the kids are smarter
than the adults on this one.
Or, just cop out like someone else here did and say the story doesn't
reflect the picture as closely as your version would, which implies
either that I'm lying, stupid, misinformed and gullible, or that they
have better, more accurate sources of information than I, much less
Ashley McConnell and Gregor Veble, do. The last option is not likely.
Tony and I have been working together for a year and a half, I've
chatted daily with Chris, Gregor, and Ashley for at least that long,
and had dinner and beer with Chris and Tony. If I'm not mistaken,
Gregor attended Ashley's wedding, and Ash has spent quite a lot of time
cavorting around with Chris and Tony. If you think Chris, Tony, and
Gregor are lying to Ashley and he's too dumb to figure it out, please
say so. I must warn you though, Ash is a pretty big guy :-)
Before forming an opinion about any subject at all in our lives,
whether it's racing simulator development (which you and the
Joe-Red-Bob's of the world don't do for a living, I must point out),
politics, money, or anything else, we should all really consider the
sources of our information, don't you agree?
> Btw, look at all the old farts here in this thread. <waves> 
>
>
I agree, it is indeed fun to see some of the old faces around here
again. :-)
> There are several sims that were made with a very minimal staff, and were
> executed in a smaller time frame. LiveForSpeed, Racer, etc...
Live for Speed is being released in three parts. It isn't "finished"
by any sense of the word and won't be until S3 is released. Search RSC
back in the early days of LFS before S1 was released or even conceived
to verify their business concept, as well as how it was developed
(you'll find polls) if you suspect I'm mistaken. If you're still not
convinced, then note that S1, S2, and S3 are all about, or in S3's
case, will be, 1/3 the typical cost of a sim.
One poll they took was asking the community if they would consider
purchasing the product while it was being developed in fractions, with
equally fractional pricing along the way, to help pay for food and rent
and so on while working towards the end product, which even after at
least two years of working on that demo that popped up out of nowhere,
would still require several more years to create. I remember when this
was going on and watched eagerly what the community's reaction would
be. They overwhelmingly said yes. The LFS crew then took a typical
price and divided it by three, then intended to release it in thirds as
it was being developed. You need S1, S2, and S3 licenses to have the
full product they were planning. Had the community said no, they would
most likely have worked straight through S3 and then released it as the
full priced product it will one day be. In other words, you would not
be able to buy Live For Speed yet because they ain't done!
Bottom line: They won't be finished with the full priced, completed
product they envisioned and originally set out to make until after S3
is released. LFS is NOT finished. You aren't paying $60 for it.
You're paying 2/3 the price of the full, completed, final Live For
Speed version 1.0.
What year did they start? If I'm not mistaken, it was about two years
before RL began, wasn't it? They still aren't finished and won't be
probably for another year or two. That'll be something like a six or
seven year development cycle for their final, "full cost" product,
which can then be fairly compared with RL, which is being developed and
is to be released in one step rather than three intermittent steps. RL
is sitting at about three years development now. Right on course.
They aren't releasing RL in three one third priced stages like LFS is.
That's all. Want a demo in the mean time? Well, a demo is a product
in itself and takes considerable extra time to create. Rest assured
that LFS S3 would have been released sooner than it will be had they
not done S1 and S2 as separate steps along the way.
Will that be out before RL? That remains to be seen, but that is the
time to judge who finished their product first. And don't forget, LFS
has a two year head start. So if RL is released any earlier than two
years after LFS S3 is released, RL was finished faster!
And if one is to point at WSC as part of their development time and say
these time frames are inaccurate, read the kiddie story again. Hint:
WSC was lawn #1. And the bitch took the lawn mower ;-)
Racer: That's a tough one to guage because it isn't a finished game,
and was never intended to be. It's an ongoing hobby project that
again, started well before RL did, and it isn't finished either. So
again, this is a poor comparison. Ruud has been working on other
things that have sprung from Racer for several years now.
I'd also like to point out that Chris West and Gregor Veble had a
TREMENDOUS influence on some of these sims you're talking about, such
as Racer, Netkar, and the full-sized hobby project I had going before I
got into Virtual RC Racing. We all used to send emails back and forth
about how to model certain things, and in the "old days of RAS" we held
many of those discussions right here at r.a.s.. I think you were
around then, Francois, so probably remember. That was back when there
were 11,000 posts a month. And none of them were as rude, insulting,
or ignorant as many of the posts in this thread have been. There were
plenty of devs involved in those discussions. Ranging from Chris West
himself to Gregor, Ashley, Ruud van Gaal of Racer, Petri Blomquist (who
showed me how to calculate rigid body rotation from angular momentum
vectors properly), Dave Pollatsek (Viper Racing and possibly others),
Doug Milliken ("Race Car Vehicle Dynamics"), Matt Jessick (Championship
Burnout, IHRA Drag Racing, and a couple other titles), Stefano
(NetKar), Sebastien Tixier (the VRally and possibly some other games),
and several others that I don't remember off the top of my head.
In a sense, we all taught each other how to develop sims, and many of
us still communicate. Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent...
Any other titles to compare?
Let's take my own and Tony's:
Virtual RC Racing... How long did it take to develop? The information
is out there, so let's test your resourcefulness in this area right now
and see if you can find the correct information and pass it along to
me. This may be an eye opener for you.
NetKar: Great product. Again, NetKar started before RL did. Is it
for sale yet? I know, I know, there's a demo. Well, if somebody wants
to skip the extra time consuming step of producing a demo and instead
wants to go straight to the end product and make a demo at or after
that time instead, they are indeed speeding up their development,
aren't they? To me that doesn't seem to be a dumb move at all. The
end product will be released faster without a "half way point demo."
Period. Don't even argue with me on that one, ok? :-D
But when you
> waste your time modeling hyper-accurate version of a friggin truck loader,
> of course it will take a decade.
>
How long did it take to model the truck loader? And how much did that
slow down the development of RL?
<I am smiling BIG while awaiting this answer! :-D>
> Everybody here knew that they didn't go in the correct directions. There
> was a massive amount of stuff before you even think about doing the things
> the West Bros. did.
Can you elaborate? I'm not sure I follow you there, Francois.
Sure one of them was very good in 3d modeling and you
> know, he had nothing else to do. Well that just means they weren't
> organised correctly.
>
Let's see, you have two guys and two tasks that need to be done:
Tasks:
1. Programming
2. Art/3D modelling
Personell:
1. Programmer
2. Artist
Now, unless I'm mistaken, the organizational decision that is being
pursued is to have the programmer do the programming and the artist do
the Art/3D modelling.
That was bad organization? How would you have done it differently?
One of those two things will require more time than the other will.
That means there is some left over time for one of the people to do
other things, such as a transporter (again, how long did that take to
where we're still hearing about it a couple years later?), twenty three
tracks and probably fifteen or twenty cars for Virtual RC Racing plus
tons of other promotional stuff you'll never see, that sort of thing.
Do you or anyone else who still beleaguers the transporter issue a
couple of years after the fact do any of this work yourself? If not,
why do you believe you know more about how long the two tasks take than
the three developers in this discussion?
The fact of the matter is you have no f**king clue what you're talking
about. Get over yourself and leave them alone.
Yours truly,
Todd Wasson
http://www.VirtualRC.com
http://www.PerformanceSimulations.com