I agree fix the game or get developers from turismo
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Hereâs what I figure happened; and keep in mind this is solely what Iâm assuming based on what Iâve seen.
I figure they started development of this title shortly after FM7âs launch but decided to scrap the project shortly after it began development. After a half decade of not making a game someone at T10 went âHey, remember when we made money by releasing games? We should do that again.â To which someone else replied âWell, we have that project we started up 5 years ago but itâs barely even in alpha.â âGreat, weâll release that even if itâs not ready, theyâll give us their money either way.â
Iâm assuming theyâll continue to support this game until the end of the car pass as they legally have to adhere to the promised content mentioned in the pass and then axe the project immediately thereafter. And if youâre thinking âA triple-A title wouldnât do that.â Just remember that EA axed the development team for NFS Heat only 8 months after release which meant that the game stopped being supported just 8 months after launch.
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I think you are close. Did you hear that the game engine built for Forza will be used in another game called Fable? Here is what I think happened based on public knowledge and some tips from someone who has contacts in the team.
Shortly after FM7 is released, T10 started a process to rebuild the game engine âFrom the ground up.â I know from experience in the industry that it is VERY challenging work. Senior leadership buys in and gives the entire development group start work.
About two years ago, after four years of development, there were hints they were getting ready to release and start talking about the fantastic rendering engine and how the grass and sky would look. They share some videos and images. Others and I react, âWe donât care about the rendering of the sky and grass! Finish the game. Fix the physics, fix multiplayer!â
I think they spent the first four years mostly focused on the new rendering engine and the graphics so it could be used for other games. They were NOT focused as much on the next game, which was a working prototype. This would have been a senior leadership choice.
A month or two later, I received an invitation for a survey about the gameâs next version. Iâm a long-term player of the game and have done surveys before for them, so Iâm sure a LOT of players were invited to give feedback.
I answered the survey questions, which asked about issues with the game. I kept answering when I could, âI donât care if the graphics are any better than FM7. Fix AI. Fix physics. Fix multiplayer. Fix the matchmaking.â
Shortly after, T10 went silent. I heard rumours of some turmoil in the leadership. We wait and we wait. Eventually, you know what we got.
So I think the primary focus in the first 4 years was building a new game engine that they would demonstrate its capability in FM8, thinking they could then polish the game and release it quickly using the new engine.
So two years ago, they realized the fans of FM cared more about the gameplay, and they underestimated the amount of time required to fix the issues the players truly cared about.
Meanwhile, the Fable team and others were pressuring them to finish the new game engine for use in other titles.
So the last two years were spent using duct tape and twist ties to slap together FM8 and keep working on the new game engine, which itself seems to have problems! There is a YouTube video about how the FPS rate isnât improving with changes in GPU and that it might be relying too heavily on the CPU, which indicates a design flaw in the engine.
Effectively, the entire leadership group and senior technical engineers took a HUGE chance doing a ground-up rewrite of the game engine and didnât focus on FM8 as a quality world-class product. So without enough time, quality suffered, and they eventually got pressure to release what they had no matter what.
Work on the game engine will continue; I seriously wonder if T10 might be forced by Microsoft to drop the FM game, though. Time will tell
That makes a lot of sense. The entire first forza game only took 4 years (and had more content). So 6 years to make a game theyve made 7 times already seems ridiculous⌠Unless much of that time was spent designing an engine⌠An engine that is optimized for an openworld rpg and not a racing game.
This would explain what they put so much emphasis on things like sky, and foliage. Things tht become a lot more apparent as youâre walking through an environment at 4km/h and not blasting through it at 400km/h. And most things in an rpg are relatively low mass. So you dont have to worry about them clipping through your surfaces.
As an example, If you put something thats 2 tonnes onto a plain with physics designed for things that are only a quarter of a tonne at most it would explain why cars would occasionally clip through the plain under high downward g forces.
So it is a rebirth. A new game that may as well be called âfable racingâ since it was optimized for fable before it was âoptimizedâ as a racer.
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So, basically, they pulled a Halo Infinite on us. We all saw how well things went with developing the Slipspace engine.
How To Never Be Trusted With Anything More Important Than A Coffee Run Ever Again:
- Do this.
The moment Turn 10 concedes to such a demand, they will never be anything bigger than a support studio for Microsoftâs other ventures for at least the rest of the generation, and possibly permanently. Even I would hope that someone over there is in a high-enough position of power to flatly refuse such a call should it be made.
Have you written a single comment on this forum that isnât abrasive or obnoxious?
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Whenever a new console generation is released, thatâs when the most changes in a long-running franchise occur due to the new hardware.
Itâs why annual series like FIFA, Madden, F1, etc. donât change that much unless thereâs a new PS, or Xbox coming out. Itâs not that the devs are âlazyâ in the traditional sense. Itâs because, as stated, upper management gets the green light to actually try something new from a graphical presentation, UI and possibly new game play features This falls right in line with FM7 being the last FM, for Xbox One/X, and then the Series X/S launching.
The suits always prioritize shiny new graphical features e.g. Ray Tracing, because thatâs what the marketing department can use to sell the new consoles to the masses. Game play is always second depending on the type of game e.g. RTS or Turn Based games are going to focus on the actual game play versus a racing game, or FPS.
Asobo (MS Flight Simulator) also works on and with the Forza Engine. Yep, the very same engine powering Forza Motorsport also powers FS, as well as the upcoming Fable, reboot. So, itâs a multipurpose engine meant to get the most out of Xbox Studios investment.
Iâm sure itâs already been mentioned, but Covid, probably didnât help matters, either? All the relocation and reallocation of resources and personnel. I wouldnât wish that on any company, but it was something that had to happen for development (across the industry) to continue until things became safe, again.
So, while all of this is speculation mixed with real world experience and inside knowledge of how the video game development works⌠There is a very good chance it may have been all of these factors combined why FM turned out the way it did?
The real question is where does T10 and Xbox, go from here?
We keep speculating it can go one of two ways:
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T10 can continue to remain silent, keep their heads down and continue to crank out updates that fix the game while also adding content, hopefully. Will it be enough to bring players back?
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The alternative is FM is too far gone to save. So, Xbox will stop supporting FM after fulfilling the legal obligations for the car pass.
The first one is the more optimistic one, and the one that would benefit consumes the most. But realistically, I have a feeling itâs going to be a little bit of both because Xbox just canât âendâ Forza Motorsport. Yes, they can literally end the Motorsport franchise, but I doubt they want it to go out this way?
Even if it seems like the general public isnât the wiser with the âSports/Racing GOTYâ title⌠Xbox and T10 know, internally, how bad FM did. They know the overall negative reception, and the bad stain it leaves on Xbox, and even Game Pass as a brand if they just end up letting FM, die.
This is what makes me think theyâre in a holding pattern and likely evaluating numerous options while T10 continues to issue patches and updates to fulfill the car pass.
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Honestly? Iâll bet theyâre quite conflicted on what to do. Overall, the company wants to make money and thatâs going to be job number 1; thereâs a tonne of overhead there so they canât just take liberties like an indie studio can.
So while I donât think FM will die on the vine once the CP obligations are filled, I believe it will wither and what weâre going to see is a chicken-or-egg situation with MS using the time theyâve bought to gauge how much interest remains in FM, and whether or not itâs worth injecting more capital there.
And I really REALLY donât like the âengine was developed for Fable, and FM was tacked onâ narrative. That cannot be good for FM.
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Iâve personally written a lot of negative posts on here about the state of game and lack of communication.
One counterpoint- did some GT racing yesterday with a g920 wheel - after spending about 4 hours tuning the FFB Iâve got to say itâs really good fun. They absolutely nailed the sensation of downforce and grip through corners on cars with wings.
Definitely made me smile - canât say the same for everything else theyâve sold us but the actual driving is at times perfection.
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To be clear, the engine was developed for multiple titles. FM wasnât âtacked onâ itâs more like it was the secondary focus. Thatâs a different perspective. I doubt it was done maliciously, it just happened organically.
I know from my former coworkers at EA that COVID didnât affect them other than some productivity loss from people being sick. EA had remote/hybrid work for people all over the world long before COVID. While I was there I had two people that reported to me that worked by themselves at home. One in Ontario, one in England. My manager in 2009 had a home office in Minnesota. He managed more than 100 employees.
Because EA had staff in China, they knew about how bad COVID would be and were preparing for remote work in December 2019 before the general public knew it. Iâm sure Microsoft would have done the same.
I was with Amazon at that time, and we, too, knew it would be bad and were preparing for remote work two months before it became official that we had to work at home.
Yes COVID had an impact, however, Iâll bet it was minimal.
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I would just like to point out that gollum, a game that is pretty well universally considered one of the worst games produced since the turn of the millenium, has better reviews than motorsport⌠It was so bad the developer doesnt even exist any more
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A couple of game âjournalismâ sites picked up on the Steam reviews and reported that itâs being âreview bombedâ.
Nope. Itâs not review bombing those are just the real reviews - if anything the only âreview bombingâ going on is the fake positive reviews posted on metacritic.
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âReViEw BoMbEd??â 
On both Steam & Xbox?? 
One glance at its poor functional quality, at its lackluster gameplay, at its community barely crawling on life support, at its almost non-existent audience for content creators, & at its rapidly dwindling player population tells the story quite clearly⌠itâs a dud.
âGaMiNg JoUrNaLiStSâ blatanly exposed their bias when they all immediately slathered it with high review scores and helped it win âRaCiNg GaMe Of ThE yEaRâ despite it being such a big step backwards.
Maybe theyâre trying to save face and help keep the sham going by doubling-down.
Maybe thatâs also why the gameâs creators wonât acknowledge how bad it is - because that would risk further damaging the credibility of the âGaMiNg JoUrNaLiStSâ who inexcusably scored it so highly.
Apparently, customers donât decide whatâs good - only sellers & âJoUrNaLiStSâ do.
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I think when they said âbuilt from the ground upâ they meant they were grinding something up while they developed this game. Obviously im talking about nutmeg and this post doesnt need to be flagged
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Ouch
Laser scanned tracks they say.
Trackside signs have the same spelling mistakes from Forza 7.
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The bulk of the programming wasnât hurt, but the pandemic did hurt other areas, as it became much more difficult to travel around, with stricter policies when it came to social distancing and mask use. When playing AC Valhalla, released in 2020, Iâve noticed inconsistent quality in voice recordings, with some of them sounding as if recorded remotely.
Nevertheless, I think thereâll be a transition to remote work despite resistance from more traditional fields. Even when it comes to traditionally human-supervised activities like production of goods, there are already developments leading to remote control of industrial plants. When the only reason to RTO becomes to âget noticed by your bossâ, you know itâs an outdated model.
Gaming is largely dependent on coding, so I fully expect gaming studios to become even more global in the future, which will push competition for these jobs.