Hey all,
After a complete season where I tested almost everything it's time for me to give my feedbacks in the way of a presentation and a review about the future of igp. Keep in mind open beta is currently in a "work in progress" state and is more a new game rather than an updated version of the current one. I'll try to stay objective, so that means I'll put forward positive and negative points by avoiding as much as possible to compare the beta to the current igp. There will be 3 parts : The first is for the browser interface, then the 2d viewer itself and the last one for miscellaneous stuff such as cars behavior and my opinion about the future economical system of igp.
Let's start with the browser interface : Visually it is quite good, colors, icons and pictures are well suited together and the window is clear and comprehensive but the navigation is difficult and for example this is not possible to open multiple tabs to compare drivers, races or results. Furthermore, for a management game the simplicity is too much existing and we lack about what we like in this type of game : data about everything to manage pre race and post race. As a consequence the gaming experience is limited and do not offer what we are expecting, however work is doing in that way and features are being added :
- post race data
- pre race push level
- more variety in setups
- driver standings
- and more ..
The first tab is our "Home", here we have access to basic stuff such as mail, the ability to spectate races or to invite friends (facebook/email) for the most important features. There is also a beta changelog informing us about new features or bug corrected.
Then is the "Next Race" tab, one of the page where we're going to spend most of our time preparing races. Here we can see information about the track and a brief weather forecast, we can also test our car to find the optimal setup and the key part to prepare the race strategy. The circuit presentation is simple but good enough, maybe we lack informations such as lap records or pit duration. Weather forecast is unsufficient, we only have access to a single forecast for each of the next 4 days with high and low temperatures and that's all. There is even less information for the current day and no individual forecast (day/night) neither information about the chance of rain.
On first sight practice seems interesting to test and compare setups or tyres but sadly lap times can work in strange ways and the ideal setup is too easy to find. A few more options would be interesting with some minor adjustments as well : "Acceleration" is not used even at Monaco or Singapore. The ability to complete runs of multiple laps instead of single laps would be interesting too, for example to test 6 laps on SS then 9 laps on Softs with driver feedbacks helping us to determine the strategy and tyres to be used during the race, after all isn't it the main goal of practices ?
The strategy tab is pretty simple : We choose our tyres, the fuel for each stint and we have a quick panel for advanced options (rain and push level), but it lacks about other options and drivers stops immediatly when it's raining rather than waiting 1 or 2 laps. Then, the fuel prediction is totally wrong and is leading new players or the ones not attending to really overfuel or underfuel stints by a few laps rather than 1 or 2 liters. A correlation between practices and fuel prediction would be interesting and would make sense to find a more accurate consumption.
Next to it is the "Cars" tab where we can manage our design and repair our cars. The approach is interesting and let us build our car the way we like by spending design points where we want (downforce, braking, fuel economy, etc ..). As for suppliers, their main goal is to give a +1 bonus in one stat and thanks to that we can choose it for our likes rather than for what it gives. Sadly those stats aren't equal and some of them are not really interesting to invest in, for example the reliability is underused as compared to the other stats, same goes for the whole car condition as compared to the engine.
Third tab at the left is about employees : There is not much to say except that driver attributes were simplified to the max and the role of the staff is not really specified. In addition to its level each member of the staff has a rating out of 5 stars to compare it to other staff and is linked to our manager level. The bad point here is about contract renewal, after 20 races I was close to get caught and a good amount of players were caught because there is no notification to inform us about the soon expiration of a contract, however I'm sure that will be corrected shortly.
The "Training" tab is where we can train as much drivers as we want and independently of the number of races we run per week. The automatic health regeneration allows us to start a race at 100% even with a newly acquired driver, sadly the training efficiency is too much linked to the age of a driver rather than to his level or to his talent.
"Headquarters" is our research center where we can build and research all kind of stuff from manufacturing to the youth academy. The first 4 options give +1 point per level or +5% for training efficiency, as for the research and youth academy I haven't develop them enough so I cannot comment. Additionally this tab is maybe the place to add more buildings or research options in the future.
Then is the auction house here called "transfers". This is without any doubt the place I dislike the more and this is our only way to acquire employees. The concept is simple but it really lacks about everything : the list is limited and we have to wait up to 3 hours or to be back in time to buy the driver/staff we want or someone can "steal it", moreover the second tab is mixed with CD, TD and DR (doctors) in only one page making the list 3 times smaller and more difficult to find a good employee. The other bad point is about bids : if we lose an auction tokens are not refunded and the "buy now" option is rather expensive (9 tokens), it would make more sense to fix it at 5 tokens to make it attainable and to refund tokens spent if we lose an auction, personally I've never seen an auction where the buyer has not seen his money refunded/not debited if he lost it.
The "League" tab gives us a schedule and an overview of what's happening in the league. We have access to a chat, to rankings of each tier and to detailed results about finished races but not regarding older seasons or other tiers. It is also not possible to check the characteristics of a future race and the calendar doesn't consist of current races but of the F1 2009 calendar and when 17 races seems to be the perfect amount, it would be interesting to race on new circuits or even historical ones. This is also the place to join or create a league and then to manage it with a good amount of options (race duration, promotion, race speed and more)
The "Standings" tab is the following and gives access to the drivers ranking of our league, there is not much to say about it. Then are the "Team" and "Manager" tabs where we can see an overview of our account, stats about races and achievements. I don't have a bad view but I find the last tab not really clear and icons for succeeded and non-completed achievements are too close and can be difficult to distinguish especially as I know there is a good amount of colorblind people playing the current igp.
The last tabs are the following :
- Finances
- Hall of Fame
- Shop
The first one serves the goal to check our finances and to contact sponsors to gain money when a race is finished and/or an objective is completed, this is also a good place to earn tokens.
The "HOF" consists of multiple rankings from the number of wins/poles to the number of retirements/fastest laps. The main ranking is about reputation and is a living ranking where you can check which managers are succeeding in the game. For now, don't mind about those rankings as multiple races are run in certain leagues to test and correct bugs, this is rather a good point for the future game.
Finally, the shop is dedicated to a virtual currency : tokens. This is where you can exchange them for money, parts, engines and buy them (disabled during beta).
-----
Phew ! That was quite long and I suggest you to make a break and to read the second part later. Don't forget to give all of your tokens to Joey, he will greatly appreciate it :P
-----
Let's move to the second part : The 2D viewer itself ! I know a lot of you waited for it and most of us were disappointed but there are not only bad points.
First of all, it is written in a totally different language which doesn't require dependencies such as Java. That means you won't have to install any kind of plugins or to face security warnings or issues, another good point is it is planned to work on all kind of devices (computer, tablet, smartphone).
The interface is nice looking, the circuit map is in high definition and we have access to a lot of informations, however the whole takes too much space and is divided into tabs not viewable at the same time but let's take a look :
- Leaderboard
- Sectors
- Tyres
As you can see there are 3 tabs, I won't detail them because it's best to discover by yourself however here is what I think and let's start with a little trick : We can click on the captions (orange arrow) to show different informations. The "Tyres > History" is one of the best features allowing us to check the tyre history and age of all drivers, giving us an idea of the strategy used and when to stay behind or to overtake an opponent. Sadly there is a little bug, laps are incremented each time a driver cross the line and not when he stops in pits often making a 1 lap difference shown in the tab. The bad point here is all that stuff requires 3 tabs and navigation between them is not easy making it difficult to check what's happening on the track at the same time, it would be interesting to add shortcuts for an easier navigation (ex : "+" & "-" or "PgUp" & "PgDn" keys).
The remaining of the interface mainly regards drivers and track informations and this is where I'm a little disappointed. Driver and tyre health are now represented by circles, some of us like numbers, others like new graphics and personally I'm more divided as I like the old numbers but after a complete season I'm used to the new system and I don't find the need to exactly know if my tyres are at 25% or 23%, tyre temperature is much more important but sadly now consists of a gauge and make it difficult to find where is the ideal temperature as compared to the old version and experienced managers know how much it is important even for a single color shade. I know that was needed because some of us are colourblind but I think both indicators can coexist in this way :
Another bad point is the total lack of speed and gearbox indicators, this is not really useful for management but this is really nice to see them in the screen, this is also a simulation after all !
Regarding the track and to finish with indicators : KERS/DRS icons look too "arcade" for me as well as the very big dots representing our cars, all of that is reinforced by the general look of the interface and the simplicity and/or lack of some features. Finish and DRS lines are also missing and even if car liveries are good looking it would be nice to have the choice between them and (smaller) dots in the settings.
Last point to cover is the tabs at the top left of the screen :
- view (F1)
- chat (F2)
- strategy (F3)
- settings (F4)
The chat tab has really disappointed me and a lot of players for all of those reasons : First of all it is not good looking and it takes a lot of place, then we cannot move it and place it where we want in the screen, finally this is not possible to check who is still in chat (especially after a lot of talks) and it really slows the game.
The strategy tab pops at the middle of the screen and makes it impossible to follow what's happening on the track, furthermore it is not possible to adjust all stints but only the next one, this is pretty bad when we cannot stay for various reasons and that can lead to mistakes in tyres/fuel if we forget to change the last stint after changes in our strategy.
Last tab is about settings and is really poor in options (sound and scroll) and are annoying to set each time we play or after a crash, however I heard it will be possible to save those options in the future. The good point is about shorcuts which I advise you to read, some of them are really interesting especially the K and S keys to activate KERS or "Enter" to easily talk in chat.
As a consequence the beta viewer is heavy and is not working well on all browsers/computers, however a lot of work is doing in that way and I hope it is going in the right direction because live experience is the identity of igp and one of the key feature and currently I'm not taking as much fun as I take with the current version.
-----
Phew ! Want to make another break ? No ! It's forbidden ! You have to read it all now !!! I'm joking, take a break and maybe see you later for the last part ;)
-----
Behind the scene some interesting changes were made, the first is about tyres and fuel : They now last longer and fuel per lap was lowered making Meds & Hards usable when they were so limited in the old version. Other good point is about the pits : It is no longer possible to stop both drivers at the same time or at least the cars won't stack and the second driver will wait his turn, that means it is best to stop your other driver 1 lap before or after the other and that also means 2 times less drivers are suceptible to stop at the same time opening the way to see less blocks or "prapes" as well as more different strategies used.
The behavior of cars under the rain has also changed : when it's raining cars are finally slower ! Other point some of you expected regards the DRS, it is now disabled in that situation but listen what I still have to say : You all remember weather was going for the "I want to be 100% wet" race when it was raining but this is no longer the case and wetness seem to tend to a more or less higher cap depending on the temperature and weather (rain or heavy rain). Finally and I'm not totally sure but it seems tyre range of efficiency and time differences were a little altered, all of that is opening to new strategies. Only bad point is about the weather indicator : I talked with Jack and I agree with the fact the new indicator makes things less predictable but I still think going from 0-100 range to 0-5 range is too much and a little more accuracy (maybe 0-10) wouldn't be bad.
Finally let's talk about the future economical system and you're maybe not interested but this is from it that the future of igp is linked. There will be only a single version of the 2d viewer, so "sub" (subscription) won't be required to access 2d races or to build 2d liveries, but wait ! What ? I'm sure you're wondering about what sub will be useful for ? And the answer is mainly to get tokens and even if I was afraid of a pay to win system, I have the experience of other games to compare to the beta and I want to tell you this is not a pay to win.
However I am still worried about the future of igp : Free 2d viewer & 2d liveries mean players won't sub for this goal, only tokens are remaining to bring money and keep igp alive, so there is 3 options : The best is the "middle point" where tokens are useful enough to purchase and avoiding the 2 "void areas" and this is the most difficult to achieve. The first "void area" is when a game is a pay to win and where currencies are required in order to play correctly and this is often leading to a dissatisfaction of players and the most of them are on leave. The other "void area" is when currencies are existing but not required and rarely purchased because that makes nearly no difference at all.
This is maybe too early to have an idea but I have the feeling that even in the best situation (middle point), tokens won't be enough on the long term to keep igp alive. This is due to the fact levels take more and more exp to level up and I think tokens will mainly be used at low to middle levels to quickly develop facitilies when it is fast to level up but then will drop in use as the levelling will be slower and because of the level cap. For me the current sub was perfect and was more a comfort and fun service rather than a real advantage as compared to other players and I was really happy to sub and take fun during live races so personally I'll keep my sub active for a few months at least waiting to see if the new igp brings me as much fun as the current does.
-----
Thanks for reading ! Feel free to write your own feedbacks/suggestions, Jack and the team will appreciate it and this is one of the things they're looking for during this beta test so don't miss your chance to help them to improve the game.
Join the beta here :
http://beta.igpmanager.com/
Link to the beta forum :
http://beta.igpmanager.com/forum-index
Don't forget to read "The new iGP Manager and subscriptions" :
http://igpmanager.com/news-article/113/the-new-igp-manager-and-subscriptions
CEO & CTO