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  • Subject: Forgeworld Racetrack Testers Wanted!
Subject: Forgeworld Racetrack Testers Wanted!

Hello everyone!

I'm looking to get feedback on my first ever Forge creation; the Legacy racetrack.

I need volunteers for a group playtesting session. The track is setup for a max of 8 vehicles, and I'd love to get a full game of players crashing around it at the same time to see if anything breakes.

Aside from a group testing session, I would love and appreciate any feedback on the track design. If anyone could spare the time to download the track and drive around it a few times, I'd love to hear your impressions. Just start up a custom game, set the game type to "Race", and take it for a spin!

A few key points of interest:

1) My goal was to create a track that takes advantage of Forge World's natural terrain as much as possible. Because I wanted a track that would accomidate a full pack of 8 cars, I've left some parts of the course fairly wide open. The most extreme example of this is the portion of the track that crosses blood gultch.... i've left it completely open. At first I was worried about leaving the gultch open like this, but the more I tested it the more I found it gives the driver an oportunity to experiment with different routes across the terrain, which makes it an interesting part of the track. It is also early enough in the lap cycle that the drivers should still be very close together, which should create some interesting passing oportunities. At any rate, this is one section of the track I would particularly like to hear impressions about.

2) There are several sections of the track that offer slightly branching paths. These paths are never seperate for more than a couple seconds, as they usually just split the road around a large bolder, or something like that. I've spent a lot of time trying to make these splits obvious enough that the driver won't feel the need to stop and figure out which way the track goes, but I need outside opinions on this. My hope is that players will see and recognize the splits in the road with plenty of time to react, or at the very least they will find one of the paths obvious enough that they continue through the split without even noticing the second path. What I don't want if for the player to need to stop in order to figure out which way to go. Feedback on this would be great.

3) At the end of the blood gultch portion of the track, there is an upward ramp that leads into a grav lift to take the player to the upper portion of the track. After a great deal of fine tuning, I've gotten the lift working with what appears to be 100% consistency (meaning I land on the upper platform every time, instead of missing the track and falling into the ocean). I have not been able to test this lift with multiple cars crashing through it at the same time. I don't mind if cars occasionally bounce off each other in mid air (I'm kind of hoping this will happen once in a while for some laughs), but I do also want it to work reliably enough that the driver will land where they are supposed to unless they hit another car in the air.

4) Near the end of the lap is a massive sky-bridge that takes the driver from the upper crest back down to the island where the race started. This skybridge is fairly narrow, but offers a great spot to build up some really good speed. It is also fairly narrow, which I feel acts as a good counter-balance to the wide open areas earlier in the lap. There are a couple minor jumps that create a slight risk of falling off the bridge... these are intentional. What I don't want are any unseen bumps or seams between forge pieces that bounce the mongoose off the road. It seems to be a smooth ride, but the more players I get testing it the better.

5) The final thing I would like input on is the respawning. I've been very careful about making it difficult to fall off the track and die... because of this, I'm having a hard time testing all my kill zones and respawns. If anyone does fall off the track and die, I would love to know if the respawn placement worked ok or not.

If anyone does find a problem or issue with the track, I would greatly appreciate a theatre clip showing the problem. Don't worry about rendering it... I have plenty of render minutes.

Any help I can get is greatly appreciated. For those that do respond with comments or critiques, credit will be given where it is due.

Thanks!

CruelLEGACEY

  • 11.10.2010 2:57 PM PDT