i went back to fm4 a year ago. it only took a couple of months to own everything in fm5 and i have every driveing achievment. in fm5 i have everything and the credits are just piling up with nothing to spend them on. i still dont own everything in fm4. heck if fm6 is just more fm5 fm4 will probably last me until fm7. if not i think there is still stuff on fm3 ultimate i dont own yet.fm1 is still my fav fm. if i could i would probably go back to fm1. fm1 may not be as pretty but it was more fun. the only assist was the driving line and tutorials to teach you how to do the rest yoruself, and you soon discovered the line was the safest way around the track not the fastest so even that was not a real assist. and you had to figgure out how much gas, repairs, tires you wanted when you pit, if you were going to make up more time on the track then you were going to lose with a longer pit stop.
Agreed! I’d love to go on about FM1 right now, but I’d end up derailing the thread…
Anyways, if any of you guys come back to FM4 hit me up. There’s still plenty of stuff going on with what’s left of the community, and we’ll keep things going as long as the servers are online.
Wouldn’t exactly derail the thread if you are talking about everything that made it awesome. Those things were a part of building the community of Forza initially. I played FM1 a ton, but it’s been so long I can’t remember it that well. I vaguely remember a sort of car club. Tokyo circuit, Rio. Not a lot else.
I remember Pro/veteran/legend rankings online? did that start in 1 or was that introduced in 2? Best I ever got up to was Veteran and then people would try to crash you out at the start of every race, because they would move up more by beating a veteran. Legends almost never raced in public lobbies because of this. I think this might have been FM2. 10 years ago is quite a blur.
Im not saying I wanna go back and play forza 4. I wanna play forza 6 with the new graphics and not what, BUT I would like all the good content we had from forza 4. Im pretty sure that make the community in forza 6 a lot happier and the game might just have a longer live than forza 5. Im willing to bet on it. I know people have moved on with there lives but there are still some die-hards here, im one of them been playing since forza 1and I would like to continue.
don you are semi right. the numbers 9atleat the ones from a few years ago dont include any bundles or digital download but are accurate for retial sales. yes its from vg charts, but vg would take the npd data from neogaf. for retail they were pretty accurate. npd is now cracking down on leakers so i’m not sure how accurate they’ll be from now on unless vg become an npd suscriber, but then i’m afraid some form of nda would kick in. i’m gonna have to wait and see how close vg are to people who npd goes after for ip theft when they leak.
fm4 sold millions despite there being hundreds of other games to choose from, including fm3 ultimate. fm5 was a launch game with very little competition. it had the entire genre to its self. a 15% attach rate is very low for a launch day game. cod2 was a launch game for 360. it had a 90% attach rate and led to cod becoming the juggernaut it is. there were only 21 choices other than fm5. if you were buying a console and wanted a racing game forza was pretty much your only choice. (need for speed rivals had already released and flopped on the 360). so with the entire genre to its own it got 15%. out of 21 about half were already released like all the sports titles. (5). some were digital only so not an option at the store (4). nfs had already flopped. (1). 2 were workout software (2) rather than games. ac4 black flag had already sold 3.47 mill on 360. it sold another 2.07 mill on the one. cod ghosts had already sold over 9 mill on the 360, it sold over 2 mill more on the one. fighter within sold 0.14 mill, i never even seen the game other than on the software list.
fm5 should have doninated the launch. it went up against weak competition. fm5. dr3, fighter within, ryse, and xbox fitness were the only games in store you couldn’t have already owned on something else. fitness is not a game and fighter within??? so it really had ryse and dr3 as competition for exclusive games. it should have been at a 33% attach rate or 1/3 to be average. why did it fail? look at message boards from the time. granted some of it was from playstation fan boys who would have bashed he game even if it were perfect bet even here many of the forza diehard fans were disapointed. the major complaint was that the game was rushed, unfinished, that it was more of a demo than a full game. the features from fm1-4 removed like auctionhouse. it was seen as a cash grab. the lack of telemetry, the garage icon showing only in the garage mode where you already knew but not in buy mode where you really need it. an option to turn on distance markers with no distance markers. it felt like a beta, not a retail game. many of the complaints were legit complaints from forza fans not just trolls on the internet. the internet was full of “wheres the forza we all love in fm5?” to sum it up. turn ten need to put the real forza back in fm6.
don can you honestly say that fm5 is your favorite forza game? can you honestly say you weren’t dispointed with fm5? i cant. many others cant. and neogaf is full of sony fan boys. neogaf certianly cant. and the neogaf fm6 thread ian is so proud of…its not exactly flattering to fm6. if i made my buying decesion based on that thread i would dismiss any thoughts of buying fm6 right now. yet ian give that thread more legitimacy in his openion than the offical site he is manager of? that is insulting to this site and himself. he has managed this site so well a sony troll thread is more valid that the community he has build up (or torn down)? that blows my mind. it makes me wonder if he has actually read the thread he brags about. read it. its not pretty. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1058304 and in that thread forza centeral and badned are where you are told to go to keep current on the game. fm.net is basically a joke there even more than it is here. it seems negoaf is turn tens marketing plan, and when ms’s plan is a pro playstaion site…i’m not psychic and have been told i’m not even to smart…but even i can see where thats going.
There are two main aspects here:
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FM5 was bad. Features we liked were removed. Game was buggy. We’ve had a year-and-a-half to complain about it, and it is far too late for any comments about the game to have any effect on what will be released as FM6.
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The Turn 10 Community Team is out-of-touch with the forum members, and they don’t seem to care.
To me, the issues in #1 are a clear reflection of the situation in #2.
Whatever FM6 ends up being - a continuation of the bad decisions made for FM5, a return to Forza’s roots, or some combination thereof - unless Turn 10 works to get the community of FANS involved again, this place will continue to go downhill.
Talking about sales numbers and game features just waters-down the point of this thread.
- Don
Nailed It!
This is about as clear as u can get it. Point blank. Case closed. Balls in your court T10!!
I guess the question is whether or not T-10 considers these forums vital to the games well being?
I’ve been around a bit. I don’t know the answer to that question.
Done Ente’s posts here have been fantastic, and rdo3’s very detailed, but I think OldSchool nails it, here and Dragnet’s response is oh-so-pertinent.
I wonder if, like the rest of the WORLD, pretty much, forums just don’t matter any more in the grand scheme of things. However, they still represent the most hardcore fans of a given series, the fans that aren’t blinded by paint that flakes and weather effects. It’s those fans that are calling loudest for the re-insertion of the AH, proper SF etc. etc., and not, so much, the fans on FB/Twitter/Twitch and so forth. It’s the folks on those latter three examples that seem to matter the most not just to T10, but the game industry as a whole, for the same reason it matters to the car industry, or the sports media industry: people don’t have to consciously search for you in order to see/hear what you have to say. When it comes to forums like this, though, they have to actively access it. And people just don’t have that kind of patience anymore.
Which is why it behooves T10 to spend more time there (I mean, johniwanna broadcasts for three hours straight on Fridays on Twitch; does he spend three hours over the course of an entire week on the forums?) and to respond to what those people want (graphics, weather, night, pre-order bonus, special car liveries etc.), as opposed to what people here want.
I’m starting to understand that, yes, forums are losing / have lost their value.
This thread is a perfect example. With a few exceptions (yourself included) people continue to post about Game Features, when this thread is about, and we keep trying to KEEP it about, Turn 10’s involvement with the community. I’ve said over and over that regardless of how the game itself changes, IF Turn 10 CARED they could put the time and effort into keeping the community alive.
Perhaps you’re right — Twitter and Facebook are so much easier (140 character attention span), and broadcasting on Twitch doesn’t really take any preparation - just chat while playing, so why bother with a forum?
Unfortunately, it is being demonstrated here that people either don’t bother reading the thread before posting, or they read but have problems with comprehension.
Thanks, @smoothroller, for staying on-topic.
Not to bring up semantics, but the very first post does discuss game features as well as Turn 10 awareness/involvement:
I do agree that there are 2 main branches in this thread, people talking about game features and people talking about Turn 10 activity.
I think where some of us are coming from is that:
- The game features we had in the past played a major part in the development of the community, by giving people the freedom to directly interact with each other and Turn 10.
- Turn 10’s interaction (or lack thereof based on a number of posts in this thread) with the community plays a major part in encouraging people to continue playing after the “honeymoon period” of a game launch has passed.
These 2 points are interlinked yet also bring up separate conversation topics as you pointed out.
If a moderator wants to go through this thread and clean it up by splitting the conversations into 2 different threads then that’s great, but personally I see no issues with this thread discussing both game features and community interaction with Turn 10.
This^^^^
At this point Don is 100% correct about the features not coming back for Forza 6 and that we do need to try and focus on getting the community team more active around these forms but say they do come back and are fully committed and we aren’t voicing our frustrations about the features being removed, then what? Sure they would be around more to help but if we are not getting results that we want then community is just going to continue to fall.
We need them here to help us help ourselves rebuild the community and well it’s going to take the complaints and rants from the community AND the Devs to be here to listen to the complaints and give us the tools we need to rebuild.
This thread needs both side here to make any kind of headway
If nobody from Turn 10 is reading this and relaying feedback then people are just shouting in an empty room to be honest.
To give a different perspective however:
I work in community management with a different games company (unrelated to sim racing), and one of the things I do a lot of (when I have the time) is to read community forums, Reddit and Facebook groups to get a vibe for what people are saying about the game I am involved with. A lot of what is posted is simply white noise but every so often I come across a good discussion about a feature currently in the game or a suggestion for the future. Any useful comments like that do get relayed back to the team and although it is not always possible (for a whole range of reasons) to implement what the community is requesting any constructive criticism is heard, even if said community is not aware of it.
The flipside of this is that it is not always possible to comment on such discussions, partly because of Non-Disclosure Agreements and partly because there is so much discussion going on that focusing on a single thread is counter-productive. Also, just to quell a common misconception: people in Community Management don’t sit around all day reading forums and social media threads, they are often quite busy with other things as well. So in that respect I can somewhat understand how Ian and the other Turn 10 community members are feeling when they see a thread like this. (I may be way off but at least I can make an educated guess).
Regardless, the best chance of a feature being implemented is when a community gets together, provides detailed, constructive consumer insight and makes a well-written case for why feature X is essential to the enjoyment of the game they play. Some requests however, no matter how well-voiced, are simply not possible or preferred in terms of implementation. Turn 10 staff may not have the liberty to reply but at the very least you can assume that a few people are paying attention to the conversation we are having, and that is honestly the best you can hope for.
So what do we as fans of the franchise do now, going forward? We keep voicing our concerns, posting in wishlist threads and attempt to reach out to the team to let them know why such features are It needs to be a mature and civil discussion, and not simply “I want X or else I’m unhappy.” or “Turn 10 hates us to why bother”. There is no guarantee that anything will happen to the game as a direct result of our feedback, but some feedback is always better than no feedback.
Sure - of course you are correct.
IF THIS COMMUNITY has given up… IF THIS COMMUNITY truly feels that without the AH, gifting, storefronts, etc, then THERE IS NO CHANCE TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL FORUM COMMUNITY…
Then yes, there is no point in trying to get Turn 10’s involvement.
I hold a different view. Or, perhaps, I should say I held a different view. I thought that, with Turn 10’s help, we could still turn things around with FM6.
How anyone thinks this could become a lively, fun, vibrant community over the next couple years based on talking with Turn 10 about adding features in FM7 is beyond me.
.
The view you held(which I at least hope you haven’t lost) would help the community rebuild because people would know that the Devs/community team would be around to listen to them and their complaints which would keep the community alive for Forza 6 and bring them back in droves just for the sake of getting back what they want either in the next Horizon or Forza 7.
Just saying complaints and rants without them here get’s us nowhere as does them being hear without the complaints and rant that’s why we can’t just focus on one of the other and we need people on both sides to even have a chance.
It’s like having a suggestion box at work you need to higher ups to ACTUALLY make things better but they need the opinions of the workers to even know what to fix
I think this a large part of the problem. If you think the forum is only a place to list complains then it’ll only ever be business as usual.
It should be a platform for ideas, how to get the most out of the game, well worded suggestions for future titles and/or updates, a place where (imperatively) you let the developers know what you like and so on. Currently the forum sadly has become something of a one trick pony and if it’s going to regain some of its past glory there has to be a change in the way it’s used. T10 can’t make this a great forum whatever they do, a forum is only ever the sum of its members.
Honestly, if people focus more on what they have rather than what they want then some great ideas will emerge.
People are posting on the forum based on the way they feel about the game.
Sorry but ideas about what could improve the game should include features not in the game whether they be features lost or new features.
With some of the lost features I am not convinced they can’t come back in some form eg storefront.
Being able to search for multiple tunes or paints for multiple cars at the same time from the same creator like the fm4 storefronts is an example.
Feedback is best when it includes positive and negative but focus on your main areas of concern or praise. If your biggest thing is you feel something is wrong then that needs to be your focus. That is why the forum is full of constructive criticism or complaints.
I used the words complaint and rants because it’s what Don used in his comment(edit-he didn’t say rant) but if you want you can change the word complaint for suggetions for future titles and updates if you’d like.
You guys focus to much on the words being used and not the actual message I’m trying to get across because I’m saying the same things you are but if you really want to know what the problem here is well it’s this
“Honestly, if people focus more on what they have rather than what they want then some great ideas will emerge”
Why you ask well because that’s what got us to this point in the first place. They gave us Forza 5 and when people…“suggested”(some might call it complaining) features come back they were told to just…make the best of what you have(some might say stop complaining) and so they gave up or moved on and now here we are again with Forza 6.
Voices have to be herd or nothing will ever change so we need people to listen(Dev team) and people to speak up(…suggesters). I mean yes there is tons of good coming with Forza 6 from what we know but hey when the Xbox one was first being launched there was also tons of good that we could have just focused on and let me tell you I glad we didn’t
I wasn’t suggesting you don’t use a forum to complain - we all do, only that it should be used for a whole lot more. Currently this forum is pretty much complaint central and that’s one of the reasons it’s declining.
If you continue to keep mentioning features that haven’t been in a T10 title for four years then you end up stuck in an permanent loop. If these things had to go then so be it. Any amount of moaning by a very small number of people on here won’t bring them back, it’ll just stop the community on this particular forum from moving forward.