The NFS Community: Then and Now Part 3

Submitted by Kirk Pedersen on Tue, 2009-10-27 08:37

 

The final chapter in our three-part series about the community-based sites that help make Need for Speed a great game wraps up this morning. First, we spoke to Alexander Albert, who works with Berhard Schmidt at NFSPlanet.com.

 

How long have you been running your fansite?
I've joined the NFS-Planet team in 2004. The site itself went online in 2000. So it's five years for me participating in the NFS community now.

 

What made you want to make the effort and create your site?
There was no effort to make since the site was already fully developed (lucky me!).
I am a car addict, so NFS was pretty much the first and only choice to make, talking of video games. So contributing to a website dealing with this game just seemed logical to me.

 

What is about Need for Speed that gets you excited?
Exotic cars, beautiful landscapes, police chases and, in particular, the sensation for speed. I haven't seen any other game yet mixing these ingredients as appealingly as NFS does.

 

What was the best car ever to feature in the games?
There is no particular car for me, but I absolutely dig the exotics and prototypes of NFS 2 and the Hot Pursuit titles. If I may name a few: McLaren F1 LM, Ferrari F50, Ford GT90, Jaguar XJ220, Jaguar XJR-15, Italdesign Cala, Lamborghini Diablo 6.0 VT.

 

If you could go back any play any track in any Need for Speed which one would it be?
Côte d'Azur from Porsche Unleashed. Or any other track of that game.

 

Where would you like to see Need for Speed go in the future?
Hot Pursuit 3. Period.
 

Next, we spoke to Marcell Pirisi from Turbo Charged Maniacs, the top Need for Speed website in Hungarian.

 

How long have you been running your fansite?
Our fansite started on 14.10.2004, so it's been 5 years from now.

 

What made you want to make the effort and create your site?
Need for Speed Underground. I loved that game and wanted to find other guys who felt the same. I'd loved the NFS series a long time from then, but NFSU made me start the community site.

 

What is about Need for Speed that gets you excited?
First it was the possibility of driving the Chevy Corvette in Hot Pursuit.

 

That's a legendary car in my country and I was pleased being able to race with it. My first NFS was "Need for Speed 2 SE" by the way.

 

Today in SHIFT, I just love the physics engine and the sound of the engines.

 

What was the best car ever to feature in the games?
Is there a possible single answer? I don't think so! The best performance car was possibly the "FZR2000" in NFS2, but I have about 50 favourite cars, speaking of every release.

 

If I have to name one, then it'd be the Audi RS4, I guess.

 

If you could go back any play any track in any Need for Speed which one would it be?
Well it's not that hard: the Nordschleife in SHIFT is really amazing, I just love it. But I also love Atlantica from Hot Pursuit, and the Alps in Porsche Unleashed.

 

Where would you like to see Need for Speed go in the future?
Anything new is good for the series, and I mean anything significant, any new direction that hasn't been covered in the series.

 

Need for Speed shouldn't and doesn't need to repeat itself, because when the creators are being creative, whatever they touch turns to gold.

 

So for me, Underground 3 would work now, but only if the game wasn't a replay of the previous releases.

 

Good and new ideas have to come and Need for Speed will continue to rule racing games.

 

Marcell was kind enough to include a screenshot of his fansite, but if you can't read Hungarian, you may be a bit lost.

 

 

 

And finally, we have our good friend EA Torque, who moderates the forums here at NFS.com.

 

How long have you been running your fansite?
Well, I actually don't run the site, I enforce the policy at the site as one of it's Moderators. I've been moderating the NFS forums for about four years now. Sometimes, it gets a bit rough out there, but, there's countless awesome members there that makes their satisfaction well worth the added effort.

 

What made you want to make the effort and create your site?
Well, I didn't create my site. The wonderful folks at EA Black Box have. But, I'm sure enjoying that wonderful little online playground.

 

Anyways, I guess it's better for me to explain why I'm there, contributing what I do for the site. Basically, it's simple really. Since High Stakes, I've been poking my face instead NFS.com here and there.

 

Around the release of Most Wanted, I had popped in and posted some suggestions about this or that, and took notice of what others had been saying.

 

When the game finally launched, and I played the final game for the first times, I realized how much they actually absorbed what the community had desired for the game. This made me rather interested, realizing that we were in fact being payed attention to. So, I began posting a bit more regularly, and saw the mass flood of information that was either misleading or flat out false. So, I took it upon my self to spread the right information.

 

Once Carbon saw release day, I became increasingly evolved in the forum community, again doing my best to improve the community by sharing the what I felt was the most helpful and most reliable information relating to the game. Shortly after, Marcus (Community Manager at the time), asked me over a game on Xbox LIVE if I had a desire to take it a step farther... And the rest is history.

 

What is about Need for Speed that gets you excited?
The fun. NFS has never been one of the most realistic games on the market, but definately one of the most fun.

 

Despite not being ultra realistic, you still had to apply basic racing fundamentals like braking, driving lines, knowing when to boost, knowing how to tune (even if the system was simple) which when couple with the intense action the series has been known for as of late, makes for hours of good, clean fun. Especially in a full party online with my great friends!

 

What was the best car ever to feature in the games?
McLaren F1. Do I need to explain why? I mean, really.. it's the McLaren F1!

 

If you could go back any play any track in any Need for Speed which one would it be?
High Stakes. I've played the series since day 1, but for some reason, this one just has that special place in my heart.

 

Filled with countless features like 3d cockpits, day and night driving, weather conditions, police chases. Not to mention functional headlights, high beams, hazards, turn signals and radio.

 

This game, though dated, clearly steps up even some of todays latest driving games in terms of innovation and functionality.

 

Where would you like to see Need for Speed go in the future?
Shift 2. Straight up. The platform established for Shift is outstanding in countless ways and I'd love to see the game and it's core concept expanded to even higher levels of sheer awesomeness and pure driving excitement by adding in some things I felt were missing such as drag racing or maybe even some wicked crazy rally action!