The lid has come off. The cover is blown. Last week the first few images were released of Need for Speed's next big project, World Online.

As some of you are aware, NFS is getting ready to hit the masses in an online only extravaganza that combines the previously visited cities of Rockport and Palmont from NFS: Most Wanted and NFS: Carbon. Together, that makes for one epic playground. That being said, I know there are rumors floating around as to what this game will consist of. Browsing the forums in places like NFSUnlimited.net, NFSCars.net or even our very own needforspeed.com forums, I've seen a lot of activity over what little information has been released so far. It seems our fans would love to see even more of our classic environments, like the Carbon Canyons and Bayview from Underground 2. I've seen some great maps here on the needforspeed.com boards that show how some of our fans envision all the cities flowing together. I love to see such passion! Now I know some fans aren't happy with how the two cities are currently connected so I thought I'd give a little insight into how the environment team is pulling this all together.

Before shots are from a build in February. Still the original assets and textures from Most Wanted and Carbon. After shots demonstrate some of the visual upgrades the environment team has been working on. These screens are untouched and there are still rendering glitches and bugs to fix.

The environment team for this project consists of roughly five artists, each of whom are experienced NFSers who are passionate about what they do. We've been spending the past several months revisiting all of Rockport and Palmont and improving upon the scenery. To live up to today's PCs, we need to do quite a bit of work in order to freshen up cities from 4 or 5 years ago. In some cases, it's not just a fresh coat of paint but an entire renovation! Will it look the same as you remember it? Sometimes. Sometimes it won't. Sometimes you won't even notice the upgrades, but they're there. We're taking creative license to go back and do things differently if we see fit. All in the name of a richer, immersive experience that looks better then you can remember it.

 Massive overhaul. The old museum felt like it belonged in an N64 title.

To make a compelling online playground, we brought the two cities close together. Think of it as New York and New Jersey. I know there's been some debate about that. Some wish we had spread them out and sprinkled all the Carbon Canyon tracks in between. Truth be told, if we did that, we'd have to force the user to experience a load time at some point between the two cities. What we're trying to accomplish is to create as big of a drivable playground as possible within our current technical limitations. Look at games like World of Warcraft. Their gameplay areas are small in comparison with loads between areas. It might bother purists who don't think the cities belong so close together, but in actual fact, logic was thrown out the window a long time ago. Palmont was always designed to be on the west coast like L.A and Rockport was always designed to be in the east like New York and New England. They were never neighboring cities. Did we drop suggestions they were? Perhaps. As artists we always like to give "shout outs" to past games to tie them together. Whether it's a billboard with a city's name, or some audio clip that mentions a prime location from the past, it's our way of giving continuity (anyone ever notice how far back the Diggy's Donuts franchise goes?). However, not until World Online did we have to think of how we were going to physically tie everything together. So if you were ever wondering about some of those fake bridges and roads and where they went to, don't. It'll only drive you crazy. We don't even know where they go to...yet.

 Adding much needed energy to the amusement park in Camden!

Which leads me to one other comment I've seen a few times on the boards. Bayview. Currently, we have no plans to include Bayview in World Online. One thing we learned from Palmont, is that when the sun comes up on a city that was only seen at night, there are LOTS of things to fix. The amount of upgrading that would be required to bring Bayview up to today's standards is a daunting task. Bayview was built primarily for the PS2 while Rockport was our first, true next gen city. So porting over Bayview would consume a lot of time and prevent us from getting to exciting, new content. We have stories to tell and places to invent. As we've been layering love onto Rockport and Palmont we've been buzzing with ideas on how to add to their richness. And how to expand. That's not to say Bayview is out of the question, it's just not in the cards right now.

 The diner never looked so good!

And finally, the World Online team recently completed our first Closed Beta in Taiwan. We were all excited to see some of the reactions on what was just a slice of the game. It was great to see the community getting together and having so much fun. Here are some group photos! We're all looking forward to seeing the community evolve when the full game is released. And if anyone saw the YouTube videos, the NOS effect hasn't even been worked on yet so relax! . Just had to throw that in there.