Inside BugBear's studio in Finland - New Ridge Racer Unbounded action

[Purple44]

Heddly that was the wrong ustream link, turns out this is the right one:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/namco-bandai-games1


I waited an hour at the Bugbear link and nothing happen and was asking at Bugbear facebook if I was right about the time. No answer. Then went and took a nap.

Came back and still no reply at Bugbear facebook about my posts. So I went to ridge racer facebook page and found the right ustream link.



Here link to saved video. Can get some history on the making of the game and why the drifting was done the way it was done in RRU. Also sound like there will be no wheel support added to RRU according to Joonas.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/21588311

Wish I could see the text from the chat in the save video.

[Purple44]

Here link to a review video of Ridge Racer Unbounded:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-hd-ridge-racer/728818

[Purple44]

Here an update from Fred on some RRU issues:

As already told in this thread, we are working on multiplayer fixes.

There are a couple of issues, that are causing most of the problems, so when those are fixed, it should be much more stable. And you will also most likely see games with more people in, as people are not thrown out all the time.

We are also looking at other crashes and graphics glitches.

Due to the easter, the patch won't be out until mid, to late next week though.   

For the controller issues, we will first concentrate on making it work properly with multiple controllers connected, so that is working ingame, and don't crash. When this is in, external tools for remapping controls(like x360ce) should work properly on all configurations.

I can't tell if custom control mapping will be done or not. If you ask me, then yes, but I'm not the one deciding. This is actually not as simple as it might seem to be. First of all we need to support both XInput and DirectInput side by side, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectInput , which probably means, rewriting of the whole input system, a legacy code system dating 10 years back. Then there needs to be UI support.

Proper steering wheel support is more uncertain, while the remapping probably will make steering wheels "work", the game handling is not really made for steering wheels, so it might even be impossible to make it work properly. This is also why some people say that x360ce intruduces lag, it doesn't actually do that, but games with arcade steering have a lot of helpers, that only works properly with gamepads, so it might feel that the steering wheel is very slow and not working properly. Force feedback is another thing, that would need to be added.

Fred from Bugbear

*********************************************************

If you want wheel support for RRU, odds are it probably won't happen with this RRU ( maybe RRU 2 )or maybe will get patch in a few months down the road.

I was so looking forward to using the advance track editor to make some tracks, but without wheel support.............

I do have a DFGT wheel, that has the PS3 buttons build into it, so maybe Bubear get the remapping buttons fix, I will try and find out if the DFGT wheel works OK then. If it does, then maybe I can buy RRU, if my pre-order never ships form game.co.uk.

[GulBroz]

As already told in this thread, we are working on multiplayer fixes.
First of all we need to support both XInput and DirectInput side by side, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectInput , which probably means, rewriting of the whole input system, a legacy code system dating 10 years back.

That sounds just like BS to me; if they have legacy code, that's for supporting anything else than XBox-controller/XInput...
XInput was INTRODUCED in december 2002... FO released in 2004/2005, FO2 in 2007 and FO:UC in 2008 on PC. AFAIR, only FO:UC was Xbox-controller oriented (so, using XInput), and FO & FO2 could properly managed other controllers/wheels, so they have the code...

For me the problem is RRU (and FO:UC) are console ports, so they developed for XBox360, then pass the code to some tool that generates PC (and maybe PS3) binaries, and they have little (not to say 'no') way to tweak or change anything, and they're stuck with poor controller support except for XBox controller, nearly no way to change graphic settings, and there's not a lot they can do despite what Fred says/wants...

I'm not saying here it's bad console port (FO:UC was far worse), but I think they cannot do much more than what the tools they used offers...

That's a total different story for CodeMaster and their ego engine (the one used in Dirt & GRiD): they have a specific engine version for each platform, and I'm sure they compile the code with specific optimizations for each platform (so, the main part is common to all, but each platform has its specifics)...

So, I'm sorry to say that Purple, but there's little chance to have wheel support (and anything else than XBox controller as long as they do console port the way they did the last 2 titles they released; I have to use X360ce to be able to use my gamepad in RRU (I did not used the wheel so far, but maybe I'll give it a try this week-end)

... and for the editor, basic mode is easy to deal with, but advanced mode is really a hell: everything is controlled with controller/gamepad (and keyboard for us lucky PC users), you cannot have top view, you cannot "drop" block onto the ground (instead you need to control their position on z axis), so I found it impossible to properly align ramp blocks (I wanted to try to re-created SpeedBowl track, but gave up). Not speaking of the "save" feature - I  really hope this is a bug, otherwise forget about editing anything: you can save (I found the files on my hard disk, no problem), but YOU CANNOT RELOAD A TRACK you previously saved and continue working on it...

[Purple44]

... and for the editor, basic mode is easy to deal with, but advanced mode is really a hell: everything is controlled with controller/gamepad (and keyboard for us lucky PC users), you cannot have top view, you cannot "drop" block onto the ground (instead you need to control their position on z axis), so I found it impossible to properly align ramp blocks (I wanted to try to re-created SpeedBowl track, but gave up). Not speaking of the "save" feature - I  really hope this is a bug, otherwise forget about editing anything: you can save (I found the files on my hard disk, no problem), but YOU CANNOT RELOAD A TRACK you previously saved and continue working on it...

There been some patching of the track editor, can you reopen a custom track now to work on it more? Might have start a new track to test this.


Also Flatout 2 was release in 2006, right?

[GulBroz]

Yep, the editor was fixed, you can now reload previously saved tracks, but using it is still a hard time (although I noticed you can rotate view with mouse)...

something I forgot to mention is that you can only edit one object at a time; if you start to adjust blocks, and find out later that you don't have enough space and must move all what you've done... then you need to move each object one by one, and redo all the adjustement... needless to say that's a huge drawback.

As for FO2 release date, maybe it's 2006; I got it from Wikipedia, so...

[Purple44]

My install disks for Flatout 2 have 2006 date and the oldest threads for Flatout 2 have Nov, 2006 dates.

Good to here they fix some bugs with the track editor. Now Bugbear got to fix the bugs for online racing. I'm reading there problems on the consoles and PC version of RRU.

[Purple44]

These guys over here have had some success at unpacking the RRU files:

Ridge Racer Unbounded Compressed files.

I was thinking we sould open up a RRU forum and download section, but with RRU being a console port and online having major issues, it looking like RRU may end up with a short life like Blur.

[Purple44]

online racing unbalance?  http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2643512


This does not sound good for fair races online.

[kkfivvsi9]