Throwing my hat in the ring.
Do you have anybody on your staff who has over 4000 hrs in free roam specific that could provide you with important demographic information about the core of the sim (no festival playlist information) If so please read as I am a product of your work.
A word about me. When I was 12 years old, I stole $20,00 from my stepbrother. I rode my bike downtown to the Calgary Tower and up there was a drag racing arcade machine with a seat, gas pedal and clutch. It also had a Hurst shifter. I was hooked. Today I’m 61 years old, I have a hurst shifter brake, gas, clutch and handbrake, but I’ve also suffered 7 injuries to my left arm and shoulder and neck and 4 injuries to my right arm with one being fairly serious, a torn muscle in my shoulder, yet I do continue to drive hard. I have a passion and it’s all about the freedom of the open road with the wind in my hair. Yes, I have wind simulation as well. I love to drive.
Contents:
Demographic: Free roam mainly with over 4000 hrs+ Full manual, wheel, brake, gas clutch. ect…
Comments Fh4: The secret to it’s success
A:) Realistic Cars. Yes
B:) Realistic Environments. Yes
C:) Realistic Roads. Yes
Like A,B,C this is the reason it’s so successful.
Comments FH5:
A:) Realistic Cars. Yes
B:) Realistic Environments. Yes
C:) Realistic Roads: No
There is a 54.1 mile long series of roads that flow together but the rest becomes a turning grind. There are far too many turns and is horribly flat from a road dynamics perspective. Period.
Moving forward:
It would make sense to bring those things that made FH4 so successful and move those things forward into the next Forza game to make it successful. This is not an easy task and therefore it’s an elegant problem which requires an amicable solution.
I would suggest you add up the number of turns in FH4 including all dirt roads and right this number down.
I suggest the next 500+ road, 160sqkm map you create should be limited to number of turns that were calculated from FH4. In doing so you will guarantee a fast map. Mathematically certain. You’ll have to add plenty of road dynamics to slow folks down such as bumps, rollers, dips ect. Please ease up on banking makes it not so realistic. Therefore, I suggest you start with one well-staffed fully trained team of map makers do the following. Make a themed location map with a working train with level crossings and the hourly Forzathon. This team will have six months to produce a map. 3 months later you start a second well-staffed team of map makers to do the same thing. Then you will have a DLC every 3 months. WHY?..why not.
Demographic information.
It took me 1-1/2 years to learn every road off by heart in FH4 map at about 4 hours per day. To create a map every 3 months it will take years to learn all the roads especially if they are fast and flow well. I would be lost for sure.
Throwing my hat in.
That is why I suggest you rename Forza Horizon to Forza Horizon LOST because that exactly what will happen. There should not be any Festival playlist on the DLC maps. Just the mainland game map will have the festival playlist. Since the DLC maps will only contain the core/w train with an Hourly Forzathon (Copied and pasted if you will from FH4 to the letter where folks can meet up every hour with something to do) and the number of turns limited, the amount of work should be considerably less than the current scheme. Each team will have 6 months to create a map creating a healthy competition. Exploring and getting lost while enjoying the freedom of the open road, well I can’t think of a better way to make it happen.
Pet peeves:
4 chat messages down to 2. This killed communication in free roam. This was a very bad idea. I would suggest you go back to 4 as before with 2 extra on the keyboard and add the following to the list of things you can say. “Siren is ok”, “Siren is not ok”, “Race starts here’”, “Race ends hear”. The Festival sites which take a lot of work on your side and the constant music from them becomes annoying because you can’t turn off the music or turn it down, so it drives people away. An option to turn the music down and on/off is needed.
These are just my opinions and thoughts so if anybody can come up with a better idea to give us the “excitement of exploring” and “the freedom of the open road” moving forward. Let them hear it.
This concludes my comments.
PACO572