NFS World: All The World's A Stage: Episode 4

Submitted by Eduardo Agostini on Wed, 2010-03-31 23:29

Hello again everyone! It's been a little over a month since my last blog post and the time is really flying by fast. So fast in fact, that the only reason I'm taking some time to blog is because I'm at home sick, sitting in bed with my trusty laptop. So while I can't be at the office getting my hands dirty, I can spend some time sharing some thoughts on NFS World.   This past week has been a big push to polish and bug fix as much as possible for the next Beta release. That doesn't mean what we’re working on is what you'll see in the next closed beta. As Marc said once in one of his video blogs, the build you guys have been testing is a couple of months old and we're still getting valuable telemetry from that. When the time comes to switch to that new build, I hope you guys will appreciate the differences. It's come a long way since that build back in December. What’s most satisfying is seeing that a lot of the feedback and suggestions you guys are making are things we've either addressed already in this next build or will be addressing shortly.  In the meantime, I've enjoyed looking through the forums and reading people's thoughts on the game. It's nice to know that we're on the same wavelengths on a lot of things.   Some random answers, thoughts, and questions.   You found the Bus Depot!! Thanks for showing us how to get there. I think the engineers put up those walls so the artists couldn't go and create more bugs. Smaller world = fewer bugs to fix. All joking aside, rest assured those areas were cut off like that intentionally for the Beta.   Day/Night Cycles. I keep seeing it mentioned. I answered this once before, but I’ll answer it again. Yes, we want to do a day/night cycle. No it won't be fully implemented by launch. And to further expand on the idea, we're thinking of simulating a day cycle in a 6 hour period. So 4 virtual days in 1 real world day. This way everyone should be able to experience the cities under different conditions.
  Weather. Yes, we want to do this. No it won't be a feature we'll have for launch. We're focused on delivering critical elements to making a good gameplay experience. Once we have that in place, we can continue to paint layers of complexity to the world and add richness. Something I always wondered though...how often would you expect it to rain? Do you prefer random rain showers that come and go like it was done in Most Wanted? Or would you expect a rainy day to cover a full day cycle. In reality, sometimes it can rain for 4 days straight. Would you want that kind of weather pattern in NFS World?  Closed Beta Car Shows! I loved seeing these! Just goes to show how quickly the community can coordinate and create events without any official structure. How can we help make these even better? Obviously a photo mode would really help get some sexy shots and I'm very anxious to work on that feature in the future. In the meantime, I know for a fact we added a little keyboard shortcut to remove HUD elements and Safehouse menus so you can take clean shots in the next Beta release (NOT necessarily the next Closed Beta).   As for organizing the events, would you rather that be a spontaneous community coordinated event? Or is there some kind of structure you'd expect us to put in place? For locations, I thought it was interesting how Hickley Field and the golf course were chosen as car show locations. Lack of traffic? Big open areas? I started thinking of other potential hotspots for car shows. Thrilltown (The Camden amusement park boardwalk), Riverfront Stadium, the abandoned drive-in theater in Camden, Masterson Naval Shipyard. Hmm come to think of it all those are on the Rockport side. Any suggestions for spots in Palmont? The University area?  

Thanks to Kaizeras and co. for this awesome video that shows a massive event from the 2nd Closed Beta. I was going to post a couple of screenshots, but this shows everything from car show screenshots to organized cruises.
  Car customization. I know we've highlighted some of your work in Kirk’s posts, but I have to say some of the creations were quite impressive considering the limitations we currently have in place. As we continue to expand over time the features found in car customization, I'm sure we’re going to see some very cool rides. I thought I'd add one more image from the Beta because I thought this person did a great job! Not your typical street racing car, but definitely shows talent and skill.
 
The car itself isn't great yet, but that Mario is a job well done!  
Low Spec quality: We did some re-jigging of how we optimize textures for low end specs and what that should mean for all of you that are playing on low end is some better looking textures. And for those of you wanting more detailed graphic settings, please be patient. Just because you don't see it in the Beta, doesn't mean we won't have any once we launch.
  Overall package: I've been very happy with the consistency we've got going between our in game visuals and UI/presentation elements. Power ups, menus, barriers, and FX work is really feeling like it's part of the same package. It hasn't always been the case in previous NFS titles.   We're embracing the idea that this is a virtual online space to race and socialize in and I think you'll start to see elements of that in our presentation. It's funny reading  the different opinions when it comes to realism, arcade vs. sim, etc, but each NFS has its own identity and while we can't make everyone happy with how it looks or feels, we can commit ourselves to creating a strong identity and following through with it. NFS World has event icons floating in the world. It has huge arrows pointing you the right way, it has power ups, etc. I think we've created a language that lets all these elements work together without feeling like an afterthought. Hope you'll see what I mean when the time comes.  That's it for now. A little different than past episodes, but I hope you got something out of it. Hope to be back with some images or even videos very soon.  Take care! -Eduardo

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