Screw it, let’s give it a try at least. Maybe it won’t be a total disaster. 
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Wow… Spoiler Alert
You’re going to have a rough go at life kid, if all it takes to ruin a whole franchise is some Hot Wheels.
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Also a lot of Forza players are the age when were tablets and moble devices were not advanced enough to play on as a kid. For people like me this is a trip down a looping, banking, jumping memory lane, in all honesty this is less for the 5 year olds and more for people 14 and up
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honestly did u forget the 2010 zonda r.and give the HW Extension a chance.
The hilux alone is worth the expansion price.
Yep. That and the Bone Shaker.
What’s with your sig, btw? Trying to figure it out.
I dare to points drift in an AWD for leaderboards and that alone puts me at odds with 99% of the kiddies in the drift lounge, so the sig is there to annoy the door sniffers.
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Pretty sure it’s a jab at all the people that don’t know anything about drifting
to everyone hating this, GO PLAY MOTORSPORT seriously this is the one time the coders at PG/T10 get to go crazy and shove physics down the drain, Honestly they could totally make a spinoff title after this
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Oh man could you imagine Forza HotWheels game, I would love it.
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While I don’t agree with your Forza Motorsports comment as I love both games, but I like something more grounded in my Forza games, I would have less problems with it if they would have made it a spinoff game instead of an expansion for FH3. I also don’t really understand why they didn’t do that as they did this before with The Fast and Furious game.
That said, I am more OK with it then I was in the beginning as it seems to be a different map (although I still think those orange tracks shouldn’t exist in a FH game imo, the cars are fine although I don’t like them). I also still don’t think the “normal” cars should be able to drive on those HotWheels tracks.
I can imagine it doing very well, so from a business standpoint this is a wonderful move. It’s just not my taste, but that’s ok.
I am one probably one of the only people who would rather have a Porsche expansion (I loved those, but I do like Porsche a lot (although not enough to buy the ripoff car pack), so I guess I am biassed).
Also, I have checked out those pictures posted above from the “real life” HotWheels cars and those are of the ugliest cars I have ever seen before in my life.
Btw, that’s just my opinion, I understand tastes are different for everybody and I understand that a lot of people are very nostalgic about HotWheels. Nothing wrong with that.
I had (realistic looking) Matchbox and Majorette cars instead when I grew up instead of HotWheels (they weren’t that popular here in Europe either back then, nowadays they seem to be), so I don’t have that nostalgia.
Too each his own, I am not judging if you like that look. It’s probably also because I am not from the US and I generally am not the biggest muscle car fan either (although I do like some of them).
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Have to say I’m on the fence with this one and its not because I hate Hot Wheels, especially since I have 2/3000 of them (ok, other brands too) and collecting them has been a welcome distraction to dealing with chronic health issues.
I think one reason why lots of people are disappointed is that we would have like a new area with interesting driving roads, like the ones we haven’t seen since the original Horizon. FH3 seems to want to cater to different areas of the car world but actually delivers very little for those of us who want to cruise and or race along country/mountain/canyon roads. There are just too many long fast roads with a slight kink in one direction or another and I really do think people were hoping for some interesting roads.
I just don’t know how this will keep my attention, it looks as if it will be more of the same as the original map just with loops, in that its probably going to be full throttle all the time and feel like a slightly more complex version of Daytona. Also how will it be in the lower class cars, will they be fun on this map and will the high speed handling been enjoyable, those who’ve don’t the goliath in a high grip car will know of the weird 150pmh cornering physics.
It will probably be alright and I’m probably always going to be slightly disappointed until I get a game with the a TDU 2/ The Crew map with a Forza/Gran Turismo car list and Forza Motorsport physics
Also people need to take a hard long look at their attitudes, not just the people who think T10 have committed some human rights atrocity when they shouldn’t have took the risk on buying something unknown, but also the people who seem to lump everyone who doesn’t care for the DLC in the same basket.
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Yes please this would be amazing, Except to have the map like The Crew a lot more detailed with the actual full city, I lived near Dallas and I lived in Amarillo, Texas and they are close but not big enough lol. Amarillo is a lot bigger than what they put in that game.
This topic has brought me out of lurking mode, as I have some thoughts to share…
Since Forza’s inception, Turn 10 (and more recently Playground) have done nothing but develop and improve the franchise. To the folks who are so passionately against this latest expansion I ask: how can we have so little faith in the developers? Let’s not forget that it’s incredibly difficult to create a single game so good as to make so many of us into such a rabidly passionate fanbase in the first place. And yet, they have done it time and again. The racing genre has always been my favorite, and I’ve been around long enough to remember when games could only display black and white blocks. The Forza franchise was the first to implement so many of the ideas and improvements I always wished for in racing games. Realistic, yet fun physics. The ability to paint cars. An online marketplace. Credits that mean something. Bodykits. Endless customization. Decent and unpredictable if not perfect AI drivers. Not making me race Honda Fits if I don’t want to, and many others. I’m just as picky as any of you, but I marvel at how much is just right about Forza. Over the course of what, ten games now, they’ve had some missteps, sure - but by and large they’ve been phenomenal developers. How many franchises can we name where a spinoff has been as good or better as the original? They have earned more of my gaming dollars than any other franchise ever since for those and many other reasons. To them I say thank you for being so consistently fantastic.
That said - as fanboy as I might sound right now - even I don’t buy expansions (or anything else for that matter) sight unseen - from any developer. Having played games so long has taught me to be a jaded soul when it comes to forking over cash for games. I operate on the “six month plan” to keep costs of this pastime down. Unless it’s an absolute “gotta have it today” game for me, I wait until the first price drop about six months after release before buying most games. I didn’t pre-order FH3, but I did buy the Ultimate version (through Prime for the 20% discount) just after release. I also bought Blizzard Mountain once I knew what it was going to be. When the discounted Expansion Pass came to my attention, I didn’t bite - specifically because they weren’t saying what it was going to contain beyond it being two expansion packs. The difference being: I trust the developers to make a great racing game - so much so that I’m willing to buy an “Ultimate” version of it - but they also told me beforehand what would be in that ultimate version. There was no such description in the Expansion packs, so I didn’t buy them until more info was available. I respectfully suggest you take the same approach in the future if you are among those who feel burned this time around. As of May I will have bought both DLCs for full price, but that was worth it to me since I was able to examine what I’ll be getting. Actually, I saved $20 by buying FH3 from Amazon Prime in the first place, so it’s a wash. They got one, I got one.
I do wish that they would announce what would be in those expansions before the option to buy them becomes available, but I doubt that will come to pass.
Still, I can see where some who have already devoted the cash to Hot Wheels could be upset because they would rather have a new series of lifelike roads set somewhat firmly on the ground within a New Zealand theme or something similar. However, nowhere did Microsoft say what the new content would be prior to it being ready, and this thread is a perfect example of why. It’s not because they are some evil corporation trying desperately to bilk you out of another sawbuck - there was no bait and switch here - it’s because they can’t afford to early announce anything lest they be held to a rabid fanbase’s ever increasingly impossible to hit standards. Who would want to read 19 pages of hate and vitriol after working on something so time and labor intensive for months? I know that we become very emotionally invested in our games sometimes, but it bears mentioning that none of us actually own Forza, we simply purchase a license to use what is provided. Please also consider that it isn’t Turn 10 nor Playground games that determines scheduling, pricing, breakdown of DLC, or anything else but the development of the pure content of each game and DLC, and even that is subject to approval by the parent company who foots the bill for all this development. For all we know, Playground was told to develop a Hot Wheels expansion, it might not have been their idea at all. They may have even fought against it, who knows? Then again, it might have been a nice change of pace to do something different with the assets they’ve developed over the course of three games.
Microsoft positions Forza as a flagship franchise of the XBox One console, and is also positioning itself to do so with the next shiny new box they want us all to buy. There’s a lot riding on all this. It’s actually amazing that the powers that be have been allowing the developers as much creative freedom as they have thus far. It’s a business designed to get us to trade cash for fun, and they are very good at it. Furthermore, if they are to try something new, shouldn’t it be in a final DLC expansion update where we can ignore it if we choose?
So now we get Hot Wheels, a very tried and true, well known, and well loved franchise. It’s not the weirdest pairing of two franchises I’ve ever seen. They both celebrate cars and car culture, and it makes good sense to join the two as it benefits both in terms of brand awareness. It has been implied in this thread that Playground is just trying to appeal to the masses, the mainstream. Well, why shouldn’t they? That’s where the big money is, folks.
The majority of posters here are the hardcore, the rabid fanbase that likely come up with the bulk of the feedback developers use to make the games better. We come here, discuss the games endlessly and tell them what’s good and what’s not. We do provide a service to them in this regard. It’s why they host and maintain this forum. However, we represent a very small fraction of the sales of the franchise overall. If we were the only fools buying these games, I guarantee you that Microsoft would cut the funding swiftly and there would be no more Forza. Sales from hardcore Forza fans likely don’t cover the cost of keeping the building open and staffed for a day or two. Think of how many members post here on a regular basis, then include those who also post in other Forza and sim racing forums across the net. It’s a significant number of fans - until you compare it to the estimated sales totals for FM3 worldwide. That number is somewhere north of 2.5 million units. It’s simply not in the franchise’s best interests to court our every suggestion as though it is written in liquid gold. I’d say they do a great job of keeping us satisfied, but they need to generate profits in order to keep the franchise going, too.
It’s as simple as this: they keep us happy, we help spread the gospel of Forza across the net. This reaches the mainstream via Youtube, etc. The masses like what they see, and throw their collectively enormous weight (a.k.a. money) behind it. The game is genuinely fun, so the masses support the game by buying the DLC they like, and nothing more. We faithful get FH3 and Blizzard Mountain, both of which sold well (plus, they practically let us dictate what comes in car packs, so long as they can score the licensing for our requests). Now, when most of the world has gotten a bit tired of FM3 (something they can keep an eye on via metrics on XBL), we get an expansion aimed squarely at the mainstream players. Is it any wonder that the expansion is branded with a well known entity, outrageous in nature, and vibrantly colored? Is it a surprise that they would pattern it after the success of another popular effort from an extremely profitable franchise (GTAV)?
And to those who said they flat out lifted an idea that has already been done… Yes they did!
Here’s why: I don’t let my kids play Grand Theft Auto V - certainly not online - so this is a godsend for them. I’m also interested in playing in a similar sandbox within the Forza physics. GTA driving mechanics are fitting for GTA, but silly anywhere else. My kids are 9 and 11, and you should’ve seen their faces light up when I showed them the Hot Wheels trailer. This was the exact effect that Microsoft was going for, and it looks like they’re gonna nail it. I know we don’t often see too far outside of our video game bubble, but there are a lot of people out there who haven’t played GTA (or can’t, due to sensible parenting) and haven’t yet been introduced to large, ridiculous stunt tracks in the sky.
Maybe it’s time to consider that this expansion isn’t for the hardcore. Or, you could have some faith in the developers to make this into something that will be fun. They’ve been doing a pretty good job of that so far, haven’t they?
I hope the Hot Wheels expansion sells like hotcakes. The more sales they see, the more they will fund and support Forza Horizon 4: Japan (or London, or Madrid, or Canada, or… whatever).
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Dude. Did you really expect someone to read this entire diatribe? Edit.
Like I tell my engineers; if you want your email read, keep it simple.
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I read the whole thing, and you should, too. Lots of good points made, and overall incredibly well written. As someone who writes for a living, I was very impressed.
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I read the whole thing as well. Regardless of how you may feel about this expansion, rrobb has written a well thought out post with many excellent points!
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Seeing as how it was posted to an internet forum - in particular: one based on a videogame - no, I didn’t expect it to be read fully except by a few. I’m okay with that. No offense, but if you had read it you’d have known that it wasn’t a diatribe. You might agree with a point or two.
Thank you, I’ve been kicking the writing idea around a bit. A blog, perhaps. I’ll take that as a vote of confidence.
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I hope it fails miserably. Because if it is successful then they will dumb down the main game further still.
And then when most of the game’s original fans have been alienated, they will finally understand that they’ve killed the golden goose.
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I think that’s kinda like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, don’t you?
It was said earlier that sales numbers of the previous Hot Wheels DLC probably contributed to the decision to make this expansion mostly orange, and I agree - that’s likely true. I’m sure the huge toy track idea was floated about around the same time the ink was drying on the contract. I’ll bet it sounded like a lot of fun to the coders who’ve been cranking out pretty similar stuff for awhile now. A change of pace does a creative person some good. It’s likely that the new tracks gave the team the opportunity to try some things within the physics model they’ve wondered about for awhile now as well. Why not let them play around with it? Does this expansion change the game itself fundamentally? Yeah, within the expansion it does.
However, the folks at Turn 10, Playground Games, and Microsoft are pretty smart. I don’t think they’ll stray very far at all from the good thing(s) they’ve got going now.
But let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right: The Hot Wheels expansion sells so many units that the situation can’t be ignored. Do you think they’d change FH4 so drastically as to turn the main game into a giant Hot Wheels set? That would be a completely different game! I agree that plan would alienate their established fanbase, but why would they change a successful franchise so drastically? It’s not a very smart move to kill one fanbase to court another (although developers keep trying this strategy for some strange reason, never to good results). It seems to me that the best thing to do would be to cater to all styles of play, making three concurrent Forza franchises. FM7 would do its’ straight sim thing, FH4 would continue on in the way we would all expect in a new part of the world, and then they introduce another spinoff - a third Forza franchise dedicated to insane stunt tracks with Forza based physics models. Three games (and their subsequent DLCs) would have a better chance at financial success than FM7 and a weird, drastically altered version of Horizon (they’d call it “Forza: Twisted Horizon”). I’d be interested in all three, and that would mean I’d never get around to finally finishing the stack of games I initially put on hold for FM6.
It’s uncomfortable when things change - so you get some people panicking, but they haven’t tried the new DLC yet. Wait, chill out, give it a spin. Ya never know…
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