Patch Notes & Survey - Q1 2012

Translated and posted in Spanish Forum.

+1 Mobile version of iGP Manager
This will give allot of people the ability to check on their cars/ strategy while working or w/e.
With this update sooner than later i think participation will increase.


+1 Visible cars & Livery system in 2D Viewer
This is extremely important to giving us a good feel for what we're doing. dots are fine but the Cars will add a little spice to the imagry IMO.
It will also draw in more people and keep some who are dissapointed with the content already.
Some people really appreciate a little extra visuals here and there which sadly the Codemasters (POS?) will have...

I'm looking forward to the beginner's guide. I'm about to enter my second season and I think I might be financially crippled :( 

Off-season training would be nice (maybe two chances to train drivers/staff during the off season) and perhaps a structured off-season period. In the lead-up to the first race once your calendar is set up. 

Regarding the argument about features for paid up members and non payers heres my 2p worth.

This is a simulation game, in the real world you have redbull at no 1 with $xx.xxxxxx amount of money and down the other end you have HRT with limited amount of $xxx.xxxxxxx.

Yet all the teams who sit on the pit wall have the same screens and information as every other team on that grid for example weather data, live timing, live information on their individual cars etc.

Yes the bigger teams have more backroom stuff going on etc But all the information a team manager is receiving is more or less exactly the same for each and every one of them.

So why shouldnt us tightwads have a little extra on our livetiming screen to help us on our way, 

this a a simulater and should be as real to the product its simulating as possible for all players. 

The advantage for paid members has been mentioned before i.e Tyre temps etc.

Ill shut up now
Daz

Me too.

I like the idea of basic controls for free viewers. I haven't played it in ages, but my last browser-based drug addiction was Hattrick. I spent years in that game, only stopped because I ran out of time. Anyway, even for the non-subscribers of Hattrick, there were still enough controls that you could usually make a successful run through the first 2-3 leagues, before the competition became so tough you simply had to go pay to keep up.

Having something like that here would be very helpful in attracting new players and getting them hooked.

no, dont let free users have controls, or limit it to certain things.

:D

Please improve training. At this moment, it's dice throwing. And I'm terrible at this. If I have fast corners 1, slow corners 20 and wet weather 1 and train speed, I always end up with slow corners +3, which of course is useless and end up with a waste training session.

Give the free users access to a few basic commands and that'll be enough for me.

The ability to call a driver into the pits, to adjust how hard they're pushing the car and the current track weather would be enough imo. It would let free users have something close to control of their drivers while still giving subscribers an edge.

I also agree with the points on improving training. Instead of a random attribute being increased by +1, why not let people choose what they want to train their driver on?

You pay X amount each time you want to train a speciifc attribute, and the amount required to pay for training increases each time you train the attribute.

I.E - Training Slow Corners from 20 to 21 would cost massively more than training Slow Corners from 1 to 2.

You can then pick 3 attributes to train per race. You could allow people to train any 3 attributes they want, or you can limit them to chosing 3 from the same groups that we have now. (Speed, mental, physical etc.) Or if you want you could train the same attribute 3 times

It will remove the "dice throwing" element from the current system that we have.

I'm not being funny, but before you work on ANY of these things.. The 1st thing you should do is to sort out the lag and the constant re-connections.....

Why bring in a ton more things when the servers can't handle what it's running at the moment !!! Just bring in more stuff to make it more laggy and then lose more players.. Not a good idea..

esp with Codemasters on the verge of bring their game out, you should be looking into something more solid...

Sorry, but thats just my 2 cents.

Thats really good news...

I HATE with a passion Codemaster and everything it stands for..

I'm not being funny but we will have FIFA v PSE going on here. 1 with all the money and 1 with the core of what the gamers would perfer to see and not what it thrown at them and not listened to..

I think the CM game will have all the sparkles you will expect but the normal gameplay will SUCK as it's them.. I would love to see you guys with their budget.. I bet you would do a billion times better job..

I really do like iGP so far and i'm looking forward to seeing what new toys you will be bringing in, but like I said before, connection is the main thing, nothing more annoying when your due to pit and then the re-connecting comes up and your fule is back to 0 and the pit signal is on green and you need to close it down fully to re-set everything...

Good work so far, though excellent job. Lets hope it keeps going the way it is and a big thank you for all you have done upto now. :)

The big problem with this one is that if free players consistently lose to paying ones, not because lack of skill, but because game rules, most of them will not pay, because they see the game as rigged.

The competition should be at equal standing between paying and non-paying players. The players with paid subscriptions should be given;

1. a better user experience

2. better decision making tools

3. better game rewards (e.g. achievements/badges/whatnot)

100% agreed..

As I still think that the payed players deserver extra content (Same with any other game type - FPS / Racing / MMO's and such) The free players should have some bits to play around with as well..

Take something like Lord of the Rings Online... It has millions of paid players and it went Free 2 Play last year.

The F2P players can only get to a certain level in the game but they can carry on earning extra things like the paid ones, but it takes more work, they have to go on quests and so on to get the same thing the paid players get, but they don't have to do half the work..

You could have a kind of log to who watches the live timings for the free to play, if they have watched 75% of them during the season, they get a season on 2d.. But as they have that, they again have to watch 75% or more to get it for the next seson and so on..

Thats just an idea, but you get the point, the more they log on and do things, (Bringing new players into the game, designing on the cars, posts on the league chat / forums, targets hit with drivers and so on,) they get things the paid players get for doing nothing....


It's just some ideas thrown out there. :)

As a free player,

i would be happy with some basic controls during a race, i like the idea of the 75% and get 2d, but i think this could work out unfair in the long run, i for one is glued to my timing screen every race, so with the 75% thing i would have 2d all the time (if i have read the post right hehe) nope some basic controls for me please - a bit more competition for you payers :-)
daz

Yeah. agree that we need more bits.

Yeah. You would still get the basic controls in the free player side, but the incentive to keep coming back and logging on watching the live races, means that you'll get a little added extra for being loyal to the game and it will keep players coming back..

In the league i'm running at the moment, we are all in a community and we all talk to each other on TeamSpeak or through the site.. The ones who have paid into it have agreed that in the 2d, it's way to much advantage.

We had 2 using the 2d, 1 through paid account (Me) and another who was using the free trial and the thing is, we was in 2 tiers, I'm in Pro and the other guy was in the rookies and BOTH 1 and 2 drivers lapped upto the 3rd place man.. In BOTH races.. Honestly...

But it's not about that for me, a game like this (With Codemasters bringing theirs out soon) needs a loyal fan base and to do that, you give back to the ones who come back day after day...

So yeah again. Free players get the basic controls in live races, but the more your here and more people you bring in and so on, the more you get back from the game. :)

I'm a new player to this and it is good fun. Very technical, reminds me of the old Grand Prix Manager games im more ways than others.

On the subject of free players having more control, I'm definietly for it because, I've had two races now and tonight I used 1 of my 3 free trials of 2D. When I did the first race, without being able to act like a manager on the pit wall, I did get bored very quickly. If it wasn't for talking to people on TeamSpeak, I would've just clicked off and gone to bed. To me, that isn't what a game should be like.

Tonight, I used the 2D and by being able to interact with my drivers, telling them to push when needed, back off when needed and to change the pit strategies once the race is running.

I think the tools in 2D should be avaliable to the free users, if not actually being able to see the dots (that'll become real looking cars) but allowing the user to actually do something. 

Once the 2D gets improved with more sparkle and stuff, the 2D will stay as a subscription only thing, but the basic strategy and driver order tools should be useable for the free to play users.