Need for Speed Community Podcast #9

[Bojan]

A new episode is out, a rather long one at 28min and an exclusive interview with World Online producer John Doyle. Subscribe to it on iTunes or listen to it right here on NFSUnlimited.net.

To quote the official site:

This week's podcast is a "Must-listen" to anyone who wants to know more about Need for Speed World Online as sitting in the hot-seat is World Online's Senior Producer John Doyle who talks in detail about the next big game from Black Box. It's the first time John's been in the podcast so we had a lot of questions to ask from Skype, NeedforSpeed.com and various other forums.

[GT3x24x7]

Sheesh, quite a long one this week. Salient points from the podcast:

World Online

- Looking to go beta in North America and Europe by March.
- Game conceived four years ago, prior to Carbon. Work has continued since then.
- Full blown development has been occuring for about 12 months.
- Game designed to run smoothly on budget hardware (Netbook spec) as well as to 'dazzle' on high-end machines.
- Looking for community feedback to shape future featues.
- Customisation similar to and based on Carbon/Most Wanted. Reworked to work smoothly online.
- Will be the most extensive customisation system ever shipped.
- Payment model is not yet decided. Community feedback will determine this.
- Closed beta in Taiwan on early build - all about making sure the system works.
- Team/co-op modes planned.
- Full game launch sometime in Summer/Fall.
- Car models so far are from Carbon, MW, UC and PS. Remodeled for modern PCs.
- New cars will be added according to community feedback.
- Full launch car list not yet decided. List of about 250 being considered.
- Beta to be announced after Christmas. Signups about 3-4 weeks before beta.
- No cockpit view at launch.
- Features to be added over time.
- Visual damage only (a la Carbon).
- Would like to encourage user-created content (eg vinyls, kits, full cars). Want to know what kind of tools people would need for that.

Patch and DLC Release

- Likely to have problems installing patch/DLC if any hacks (nocd, physics etc) are installed.
- DLC cars to feature heavily in the next few NFS compeitions.
- PS3 DLC delayed in North America until Nov 10 due to Thanskgiving.

Nitro

- Facebook game officially launched.

Community

- Coke Zero Viper stock to be replenished.
- Redeem the Viper code in the game: Options > Redeem Codes.

[Racemaniac]

250 cars sounds like all the cars in Carbon, MW, UC and PS all in one!
Still, it would be nice to have some variety.

[YaelDjiel]

- New cars will be added according to community feedback.

2nd generation CRX pl0x !!!!

anyway, sounds not bad so far.. as long as its better than that drift city MMO thing... :/
would be nice if its F2P also