Another few issues to report.

I'm not being funny on this one Tony, but if more moderators and Developers gave feedback the way to do and the way you speak to others.. It would be a better and more informed place.

I appreciate your posts.

I've never done any sort of coding before, so in that regards, I am in the dark.

I honestly don't care about how long it takes to fix things. 1 month, 6 months or 6 years.. but like I've put.. Someone like Notch and Jeb (Minecraft) keep this players up to date and in formed of each update they have planned and what they are working on.. Once it's done, they post up about it and let their community what is what and what they can and can not fix..

Notch has become a millionaire and he worked out of his apartment with a normal PC and some coding knowledge.. The main thing about him is that he was never afraid of being open and honest about things and that is when Jeb came along and took over the coding side of things.

That is why Minecraft became Game of the Year and it was still in BETA mode.. It was over 6 months away from being released and it won.. EA have tried and tried to buy Minecraft and Steam have tried for the past year to get it on their system.... but he is not a sell out and is there for one thing only.. The gamers who pay and play on their game.. That's why he has about the most loyal gamers out there.

I'm also like you.. I'm far far far from a Fan Boy.. I've been involved in PC Gaming for years and I've not come from console gaming to PC.. I've been gaming for well over 10 years and I've testing hundreds of ALPHAS and BETAS.

I've seen what games work and what games have fallen on it's backside..

This one.. Well it's one of the most frustrating i've played as it's got the ability to be one of the biggest games out there... It will never die, as the concept is really good.. but the way it is, it will never fulfill it's potential as day by day people are walking out and instead of the devs jumping on it and inform everyone that this is what they are working on.. they say nothing and make post about something else..

This leaves everyone wondering.. What are they doing?

It only seems to be the inside "click" that knows what is going on.. A "Click" community is never a good idea as it's only the ones scratching each others back who gets the say and the feedback.. (seems like that when you read, They are working on it, I know they are and I've seen them do such and such.)

You sit thinking.. Why do you know these things and 100's don't...

It would be nice to log on and have a list of things they are working on and tick them off when they are done and be honest about the things they are having issues with.

I have to agree with a lot that has been said in this thread - both the good and the bad, so would like to make a few comments

I agree with Tony about the coding - jees, it can take days to find a comma in the wrong place!!

The connection issues are not universal, so look to your own systems first before blaming the game - and  yes, I am aware that the game should run on any system regardless!

Nico does has an unfortunate bluntness about him - but if you saw some of what he has to put up with you would not be surprised.

Most of the major bugs are actually being dealt with - it's just taking longer than was originally thought.  Nobody is being ignored.  The game is so new the paint is still wet and people are expecting something of the quality of Runescape!

I  still find it incredible that a game of this quality is being produced by 2 guys working from (probably) their bedrooms.  And that they could probably throw it all up tomorrow and go work for silly money with Blizzard, Jagex, Valve or whatever.

Actually, having just typed the last sentence I have no idea what keeps them going?!

Errr someone like Notch should be the inspiration to these.. someone who has made a game for the end use, worked out of their bed room, only been 2 of them working on it and made millions by not being sell outs?

I know about a missing comma, line or something stupid to take the whole system off line, I use to run a few servers for things like Call of Duty / Battlefield.. Same thing. 1 full stop missing and it stops the server from running and then sitting for hours reading and reading to try and find a needle in a haystack.

To be fair some of the connection problems are universal. My whole league got spat out of 1D and 2D the other night with "CONNECTION PROBLEMS" and a green screen, and this was with people all over the world, so that must be the server. What was even worse is that when it happened I was on the verge of going from 5/5 to 1/5 and when I came back my tyres were well and truly gone.

2D has also been lagging a lot lately, intermittently. This is not just me. Myself and my friend in Australia complain about it at the same time quite often, in fact in the last week it has been almost every day, and I highly doubt two people in different countries can be called a coincidence when it happens at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just letting you know that the 2D lag/connection problems has popped up again in the last week, so people aren't imagining it.

I don't know how you got that - I beleive tyres should be realistic and in turn the free control players get the controls they need in order to race effectively - tyre temperature.

I admit I was putting two and two together - the OP saying that tyres ran red for a long time and that was realistic and your rant about free players demanding changes and the dev team implementing the changes - I misread this as an admission of changes to tyre life. I apologise. That said, I beleive the rest of what I said is valid.


That's good and fine and I accept it's hard - but there is a paying customer base that needs more attention. Many of us pay to play iGP Manager - not because we have to but because it's a great game. Why not task someone in the community to write the development blog? Jack/Andrew/Nico can give a bullet point list of fixes/bugs fixed that week and what they're working on and someone else can collate that in to a blog post with a revised ETA if needed. This could be every 2 weeks even. A dot point list would take 15 minutes of time from each dev and maybe an hour or two from the writer. Telling people to read the forums in unacceptable as even announcements about the game aren't in relevent places. The delay wasn't announced in announcements - it was a thread in the general discussion (iirc). We have multiple places for game news - the blogs, the announcement forum for instance - but none of them are used effectively. Why should I search through the forum when the expectation is that development and announcements should be posted in their relevent areas. What about people that don't read the forum? If the game was free and I didn't have a financial tie to it due to me investing money then this would be acceptable - free comes with a take it or leave it approach. Since I have paid money in advance to the game, I'd like to see some updates about what the game is doing and where it's heading.

I appreciate a developers time - I've worked as a sys admin supporting a bunch of custom applications for a large corporation for years now. I understand and feel the pain when a stray comma can break a function of the program. I know what goes in to developing a large scale project - I appreciate all that. I'm not looking to be seen as being unfair against the development team - I just beleive this will bring a lot to the community and should be addressed.

I'm not trying to be a bastard. This would make the game more accessible for the player base at large and there are ways around the time/effort factor for the development team. With the right process, it's really something that can be easily done, we aren't asking for unrealistic communication - just an update and release revision every 1-2 weeks.

Well said Kade :) I am a good example for this. I only look in the announcements thread for announcements. I didn't even know about the announcement in the general discussion. If I don't see a new post in the announcements thread, I don't look, and I don't expect it to be anywhere else.

+1

+1
Infact, I volunteer to do it.

A while ago we decided that we need to focus on our core systems and start to expand the development team.  This has badly affected our immediate timetable, much more than we anticipated.  It has been difficult to keep up to date on the forum, partly because (as has been noted here) most of our posts would simply have been repetitions of "Sorry about this, it is being worked on and we will have it finished soon.".

We decided recently to transition towards a less stringent update schedule. By freeing ourselves from an inflexible release schedule we can focus purely on releasing updates for the sake of improving the game rather than for meeting abstract deadlines. Under this approach we expect to be able to to create a much more solid and stable system. This then allows us to spend more time expanding the game rather than maintaining it. We will also have more time to simply talk more about what we are working on!

So we are currently adjusting our priorities to try to achieve longer term benefits and I hope you can bear with us as we go through this phase.

Please understand that this is an estimate: I would say that the update is likely to run towards the end of August.

Thanks for the reply Andrew - I still think the development blog would be a good idea.  Might be a bit messy in the first place but getting someone to write something each day from the devs 'bullet points', would probably appease a lot of gamers and stop others posting multiple threads.

So my drivers pitted on the final lap again today, and I finally figured out why - they had TOO MUCH fuel left (4L). If I had put in one less liter of fuel they likely would have gone to the end of the race.

Frustrating! But hey, I guess I can adapt... ;)

Extract from the logs:
Bruno dos Santos:


He-ping Lín:


You needed 3.6 Litres per lap. 2 laps to go with 6.6 litres... Yes, brilliant definetly a fault of the system! It's your fault, you had 0.6 litres to less!

Hey laughing-boy: according to my 2D screen I had 4L of fuel left for the last lap. Now, seeing as that is my only feedback mechanism from the game, I might be excused for thinking that that was how much fuel I actually had, dontcha think?

Oh, and hey, I actually did my fuel calculations assuming a 3.8L/lap usage for 30 laps (29 laps being the race distance), then on top of that added a liter or two to cover KERS usage. And the usage indicator in 2D never registered more than 3.6L/lap.

But hey, thanks for the douchetastic response which is perfectly reasonable given the fact that in this thread I've been such a whiner OH WAIT NO I'VE BEEN DEFENDING THE HELL OUT OF YOU AND THE DEVS LIKE A BOSS.

Jesus.

Well if you would have calculated correctly then you wouldn't have made a pit stop 2 laps before the end right?
At the end of Lap 18 pitstop, added fuel up to 39 litres which lasts for? Exactly! 10 laps. 18+10 = ? Correct 28! How many Laps had the race? Oh fuck 29! But yeah. You calculated correctly!

39 liters lasts for 10 laps? At 3.6L/lap fuel usage?

10 * 3.6 = 36
11 * 3.6 = 39.6

You had 39 L so you are 0.6L short. That's what I said before. So you had to stop in Lap 28 in order to complete the race.

OK, I see where I screwed up now. I miscalculated because I had to change my pit strategy on the fly for track conditions (wet to dry), and I added fuel based on the lap counter instead of the actual laps-to-go. D'oh.

So yes, Nico, you're right, it was my own fault. Next time, though, I'd appreciate it if you would prove me wrong without adding insult to injury - particularly since I'm paying for the privilege at the moment.

Good grief, another mud slinging match.

Nico - As a mod I would expect you to answer even the most insulting thread with only the infomation needed - stop making them personal.

Tony and everyone else - It's NICO!! - try not to read too much into the way he writes these posts.
And thank you Tony for gaining the higher moral ground by admitting your mistake - not many people have the balls to do that!

:)