Need for Speed - my commentary for next NFS

The Future of Need For Speed
Post Reply
User avatar
shinjeon9
Ricer
Ricer
Posts: 37
Joined: 31 May 2010, 15:26
Location: Oxford
Contact:

Need for Speed - my commentary for next NFS

Post by shinjeon9 »

Hi all.
First of all i'm new guy in this forum. My localization is not in English, so sorry for my bad English. I'm has been watching this forum from the beginning I play NFSU2. (for that time, the only site that direct me to some cheats only this site...hehe)

I know the name 'Need for Speed' first time (and play racing game for the first time) from PC game I first bought in 2004 : Underground 2. At that time I have no knowledge of NFS was, also I tricked by my friend for bought Burnout 3 : Takedown he claimed as 'Underground 3'. How stupid I am. After that, I always wait for in many sites, including this site, NFSUnlimited.net, for providing me new NFS news. (real thanks for that.)

Clock keep ticking, and my knowledge about racing games has been influenced by many games. I've played many racing arcade game like Midnight Club series until deep-shiznit games like SRS. Not only that, I also play simulation games like Gran Turismo from the first until the fourth. But NFS keep me turned down. I become hardcore NFS fan. From Most Wanted, my knowledge about NFS has added more because after play Most Wanted, I played again NFS from Road and Track : The Need for Speed (the first NFS), to NFSII, NFS High Stakes, Hot Pursuit, Porsche Unleashed, and so far until this time; Shift. I concluded that NFS have three-domination era : first the exotic era (from first NFS to NFSHP2) and then tuner era (Underground series) continued to story-driven era (Most Wanted until Undercover). I don't know where to put Shift - because it is like combination from simulation (majority in exotic era) and arcade (after NFSHP2).

Many changes NFS' get. And many of that changes is not good either. The latest; Shift; at least give something good, but not too great either.

Based on that fact - I see now that NFS fan split into two section : hardcore and regular fan. The hardcore fan don't too really care what next NFS would be like (maybe), and the regular (or casual) fan want something that very different from hardcore fan wants (majority wants to back to simulation era of NFS. Or exotic era. Or era when open-world is not available). For myself, I really enjoyed that era too, that NFS still recognized as great racing game. I played again from Underground to Undercover, it's feel grittier so much. No invention or major development has been made. And fan's comment was right : EA not listening from us. What we want. Some people say that EA has really listened to us; but we don't know what we want. It is right too, sometimes.

In my way to home I get inspiration from the street and I can see clearly what NFS will like to be. I will write down here. Be patient - this note will take 5-10 minutes more to read. Once again, sorry for my English bad grammar.

:)

The next NFS should be called only by its name : Need for Speed - because we 'need the speed (by driving a car)', not just only 'driving a car'.
Total reboot will get more attention than we can imagine.

1)Interface changing. We can see that now many games integrated their HUD into the environment. See Conviction. See Split/Second. This interface must be user-friendly and dynamic (or fluidly, smoothly, whatever), from the main menu until we get race. Because I've seen many racing games; who design the interface nicely will get more little attention than some perfect racing games with bad interface. For example, Street Legal Racing Redline. This is a example of street-racing game that uniquely developed. But because its shiznit interface, people easily forget it. Shift is a good example.

2)Photo-realistic graphic will be nice addition too. Yes we know that Shift is not that realistic-but at least now the developer know what to develop, especially the next NFS will also developed by Criterion, isn't it?

3)Some addition to graphics, especially motion blur. Yes, I know that some people don't recognize this as most important feature, but I do. A game resembling what we want for fulfill our 'need for speed' should be give emotion for 'how speed feels like'. Motion blur is a nice addition-but what I meant wasn't like in Shift that the blur only come when you get collision and more speed, but when you get race. Great example is in Burnout Paradise. And the blur always not just only to blind our vision, but to visually enhance our emotion to get real vision of speed, at least. It feels like, "YEAH!!! Now we call it 'the real speed'", so the 'feel' keep come to you and supporting you to keep in the game, because your adrenaline pumped in normal way in games. And that's the core, you want your adrenaline pumped by speeding your car.

4)Life environment. Closed circuits have some supporters in the left and right, beside in the street, no one looks after you, or little/no civilian at all (but the environment is looking good like in Burnout Paradise-it is challenging, and don't bore us much). Very bad example : Undercover. We all know even Undercover is added by HDR+blablabla but the environment itself like a dead city. TOTALLY. I still get the proud at Undercover on PS2 for at least give some little addition to bright colors, and some swinging tree blew by air, give some emotion that the environment 'really life', even the city itself not too inspired much, majority taking from Most Wanted on PS2.

5)Now about the gameplay. I will explain much in here.

We all know that all fan can't be pleased by one game. Now EA developed 5 NFS, 3 of them (Shift, Nitro, World) has been shown to world, for only purpose to enjoy all side of fan. I have optional thinking : why not just blending them into one that acceptable to everyone?

No, no, not blending like in ProStreet. I tell you the details.

First of all, you get into game.
2)Get into main menu. There is some option. World Tour? Career? Some cliche' shown up, and I got bored up by these names. We want start this game. So the option to get into career is the option called 'Start'. :D
No, it's not too important.
3)Now get into the game. As usual, enter your driver name (first and last). Then second, customize your racer. This is important because many game now developed this aspect too. I also think like that; because this save file will be once during your lifetime in the game, so why we don't get fit with ourself in the game? Third, as usual, choose your car. But this time not cheap car like Golf or something like that. We are racer, not some typical racer or daily-driver-in-the-street. This is not Gran Turismo. This is why we call "Need for Speed". So the cars that would fit in will be some like BMW M3, Lancer, Challenger or something like that.

Also, regarding cars, I would recommend that cars should be part by their nationality: American, European, or Japanese (like in Undercover). Then inside all of them, again part by their manufacturer. Inside of that is car list that can be sorted alphabetically, by its horsepower, torque, or its price. Then with some cars, below of them, if they supercars, give words with red font : SUPERCARS - it will differs them from another car.

After choosing the cars, now you get real in the game. There is a big debate upon fans: open world or closed circuit. I would choose both. How? You get the open world. Get mess up with some police. Its your daily life as a street racer, starting by some time (now day and night cycle is most important part here). But in normal life, you can choose to get career in closed circuit, or you can still keep continue with your life as street racer. Also you get option to get into an airport to get into other part of world (closed circuit of exotic era: for example we flight to Hawaii to get beach closed circuit, London for urban circuit, and so on), or flying into another part of our island. Yes right, an island. For that reason of the open world, we want not only just one city. We want whole island as well. This (will) ensure much broader variation. The island itself will not plain as well, its not just containing street. But contains some aspect of mountains, beach, or so on. Java island in Indonesia is great option. Yeah, not too exotic, but road section is so many and balancing between mountaneous area, beaches, urban and rural city, is great.

As we keep aspect of the both, now car should handle realistically. We don't want to have a car that simply move on like soap. But we also don't want the car that very hard to handle (I mean behave like a tank=also mean that SUV is not coming in. SUV is not we want for speed). If some car like that, let it be. But other majority car should handle as normal. And keep addition to that, we also want the cockpit view/in-car view that all HUD in the car is fully working. Shift is great example for this. Also in this in-car view we can adjust our view inside/outside so we will nice to handle that car. Not only that, in addition, we can decorate our car functionally. For example we can put a radio as communication device. It will be nice addition. Interior modification will be also great to if the developers manipulate it nicely.

4)Now about modification. How we will modify it? Tune the engine? Swapping the engine? Ricing the supercars? (actually since I've played NFS from NFS 1, I think 'ricing supercars'-idea have to be thrown away. Because in reality, no one can actually modify the engine much further (but tuning is still possible to do, a bit little). Even after that, I hate ricers.) Because we 'need for speed', not to 'showcase our cars', idea for spinners-audios-doors have to thrown away, because ricers' era has passed.
How's the matter to modify the cars? Well, actually, I would say give some animations when you are buying parts. Just say it like in Test Drive Unlimited. It's the matter about you and your car-so little addition will be nice. For example, when you tune your car, your driver will actually going down below with his screwdriver or whatever.

Second, the aspect of the modification have to be changed totally. How's about just buying the part to enhance your car to be more faster? It will be sooooo boring, let's just say from ProStreet-Undercover era. There is an option to buy directly package to enhance your car. It's just boring. Especially with the tune-thing, only slider up and down. I think that every racer must know every aspect of their car, because racer is not only a driver. If they know every part in their car, they would know what to want buy next and optimize their cost. Exactly, more variation on tuning is big option here. I want to say that the developers should look back at NFSU2, because until this time I think the tuning and buying aspect from that game is good, but not too great.
So the addition will be:
1)Dyno. In appropriate manner like in NFSU2, you can actually see your car-engine roaring and you can see the results, and directly tune your car from option. Windtunnel from ProStreet will give some good option if the developers know what they want to do.
2)Make more variation in buying manner. If you want to buy engine (for example), give much variation on price and the part. Also adding secondhand part is great too (but in another shop, don't just combine every single part in one shop). Many shop (NFSU2) = good in specialization of shops, but not in approaching. Many tune shops now combining some aspect. For example tuning shop now selling some paint cans, too. Combination for some aspect for the shop is great. But I'm not saying single-shop-for-all is not good, if the developers can make it better from any NFS' now, it will be great.
3)Keep that 1000 layers for vinyls per car. Or even 2000 vinyls, or even unlimited.
4)Give option for 'pointer'. PC users will get the good, because if they want to rotate their car, just use their mouse to turn around. Also option for paintbrush (taking idea from Street Legal) which is, if you want to paint your car, you have two option : first like in Undercover/Shift, which is single part can directly painted, or second you can manually paint your car using paintbrush. It is not limited to only paintbrush. You can use this pointer for something else, like directing vinyls on your car.
5)Give many option to manipulate your vinyls. Also import/export your vinyls with some program from the game itself without option (but not closing chance) from third-party software, it will add some respect for the developers.
6)Give option to open your hood. Seriously, every engine is different. Without closing option to directly tune your car from the sliders-thingy, you can manually tune your car with looking inside the hood itself: the engine. For example forced injection, turbo can be reduced from 5 bar to 2 bar for example, by clicking the part. But looking into the part is just not plain seeing, when you open your hood, you can see description for parts inside the hood EASILY. Also give option to manually categorize what part you want to see. For example in the right, you have battery, radiator, and stuff. In the middle you have the engine, fuel regulator, etc. But, don't every single part shown to have option, just some parts that have priority to enhance your speed. In the middle of your tuning, you can see below of your screen the description what you're about to changing and what caused when you change your car. It's just not words, but some numbers of actual increasing/decreasing HP or so on.
7)Like I've said, don't give option to ricing supercars. [-X [-X [-X Just give paint option and tune some part option, like we seen in Test Drive Unlimited. That's great, and the limitation give some respect to the makers of supercars itself.
8)Give us new parts. Don't take parts from previous NFS, because we all have know parts from the previous NFS and it just sucks.
9)Give us option to manually customize our car body. For example, front body. Autosculpt just give us some cutting manner. Why we can't get to cutting precisely what location we want to cut. For that, we can get a plain template of front body. We don't have to directly see the car when we manually customize, so we can get 360-rotation view of that part. It's different from Autosculpt.

-Continuation from gameplay
6)Give us weather condition. Rain, snow, whatever, but in normal manner, differ from TDU2. It should realistically affect our cars. If rain can slips our tyre, then let it be.
7)Give us realistic damage on our car. (If the developer is Criterion I would not ask much for this) If the car should destroyed, then let it be. If the wind blows very hard and it contains some dust that can scratch your paint, then let it be as its condition. Then we enter repairing condition. Usually, if the damage is not too high until damaging our engine, affecting our car-performance, then it will be time to repair. But if not, the option to repair should be blocked. (AI also following this condition. It means every race you going on is contained with AI that not-fully good cars.) Also if some parts broken but some parts still good, then we have the choice to replace only some parts that broken, and more affecting our cars. If the body damaged, then give us the idea of duct tape that, once, ever, shown in ProStreet but then scrapped away. Or if it is dented, we have the choice to repair it with some tools (like vacuum-sucker), or totally change the part. The cost is different. But, still, give us the option to fully repair our cars. Just like I say, give us more option.
8)Now about the police...
The police should be totally differs from others. We are speeders. Police with standard engine will have no idea to catch us. Police knows we are racers. Then it will be the responsibility for police to catch us in aggression manner. They also will be tough to escape from them. Level design is giving much attention in here. Cooling/hiding spot is really a hiding spot when everyone and police (with their cars) can't see you. The fine is must be normal for speeders, not too high, and not too lower, but enough to punish the racer. This giving you more attention on police and your car. Let go cost to state-trade paint-objective thingy. Every action we do will be given description in the screen (all is displayed), but the objective to get some cost-to-state-objective is boring. If developers can give some innovation, it will be good.
9)Carlist...they should give more attention for more manufacturers around the world. But again, this is not Gran Turismo.

Maybe I will say this will cost much 5 years to develop...yes to NFS have to put on rest for sometime to refresh the developers' mind.

Comments are appreciated...
and I think this forum is one of the best NFS forum in the world.
The only risk is if there is no risk at all.
Post Reply

Return to “NFS 2022”