I really don't get it. It's painful.

First Shift2, now Dirt3 (neither of which I own, and not sure I ever will due to this reason).

A large percentage of sim people who buy Shift2 for GT racing likely are interested in only two things: GT3 and GT1 class. I mean, isn't that kind of self-evident? If I want to race a Renault Megane I can do that at my local track. My chances of steping inside an Aston Martin DBR9 are infinitly smaller.

So what does SMS do? They pack GT3 and GT1 at the very last part of the career.


Now Dirt3 features two official 2010 and two official 2011 WRC cars with the appropriate livery. Not a lot, but nice. It also features five-stage rallys in four different countries (not sure if there are more). And what does the dev team do? Make you suffer trough Gymkhana, Rallycross, any number of other "ideas" before you can - in the very last part of the career - get to the proper rallying.


Neither title - even after you unlock the type of car and event you actually wanted from the start on - are giving you much of a coherent championship experience.


I really don't get why these devs can't simple add an installation option "give me all".

Milestone may not be on top of their physics and GFX, but at least SBK-X and WRC-X both give you the option to run any vehicle, any class, on any track, in a single race or championhip. They both also have a rather interesting career mode that has you progressing up trough the ranks and classes into more powerful stuff. But that's optional. F1 2010 also has an awesome career mode but also a "by default unlocked everything" GP mode.

Yet Shift and Dirt can't get out of that corner? It's a crying waste of ressources.

There's your problem, right there. That's not the target demographic for modern video games.

Traditional video games tend to follow some sort of progression model. The carrot on a stick, so to speak.

It's not a real video game unless you start at the bottom with nothing and finish the game a total badass who has everything.

At one point this mainly applied to role playing games, but now it's everywhere because developers have realized that most people "enjoy" a game more (and that's up for serious debate) when they feel like they're making some sort of progress. It has a lot to do with how our minds work.

There was a great article about the the psychology of Farmville - why, in spite of the fact that there's almost no actual game there, so many people continue to play it. To put it simply:

When a reward is given at the conclusion of an action, the action has a greater chance of being repeated. This is simple human nature. When one goes to work, they get a paycheck, a reward. Thus, they will be more likely to go back to work in order to earn the reward, the paycheck. When a player in Farmville makes a tiny farm into a large plantation, there is a sense of accomplishment. The player will be able to see all the items they have purchased. They will feel that their time has not been waisted. This is a key. For someone to quit, they will need to see how much time they have lost in the real world, and to understand that the farm and all the items within are imaginary.

Game developers have come to understand this because games that use this model have driven the point home time and time again; the idea now is that if you give the players everything up front, they'll have no emotional investment in continuing to play. If you give them "rewards" by letting them unlock things over time, it gives them a reason to keep coming back. They feel like they've invested "X" amount of time in a game and man would it be a shame to waste all of that hard work by quitting now. That new weapon/car/game mode/etc is just around the corner!

It's a trend that I'm afraid you're unlikely to get rid of anytime soon, especially with "mass market" games like the Need for Speed series or anything Codemasters is bringing out.

So true. I actually, more or less, stopping playing Shift2 once I reached the highest level. That was probably because it was more game than sim, I guess.

Lugnut, full ack on your analysis of the problem.

Yet...

Why not make that install option to "unlock everything"? Or implement a cheat code ("some key combination at the main menu or such).

I'm not saying they need to stop designing titles this way because obviously they are doing it because that's where the money is. But it would cost almost nothing to add one more function to unlock the title for people who want to play "full on" - and it might actually bring in MORE players that way. The same players that right now are waiting for unlockers or savegames - a problem which is larger for Dirt since GFWL savegames are hard to swap.

Like I wrote previously, for the same reason I don't get why in Shift2 they would not implement a numerical "select grid position" value for quick races. A motivated player could then run time trial vs. the AI to get a placement and run the race from the corresponding grid position.

These are simple additions, like maybe a week of a programmer to add, and they would open these titles to a more sim orientated market without taking anything away from the console crowd.


Maybe they actually realize that if they let the player get straight to the A-Class events, there might not be enough content there to keep them interested? But at least for Shift, there is enough content, enough tracks...

I don't think I've had a game yet that did just what I want. I do like a career mode with progression, that's perfect for racing sims. However, I agree that I don't want to be stuck to just that. I like a season of Mini races to get in the groove of the game, but several more seasons of cars I don't like just sucks.

Race 07/GTR Evo is very close. All unlocked, championships, custom championships....but no career mode option. Careers are rewarding, it's simply fun. It would be nice for a game to figure out a way to get people to want to willingly choose to go through a career mode even when they have the option to run whatever/whenever they want outside of that. Hard to do, not sure of what would be a good way to have it both ways. IMO, cheat codes are ridiculous. Just give me an option on the menu instead of some weird hoop to jump through.

BTW, it's not just "games" doing it. Look at iRacing--it's nothing but career mode. Not even AI to practice or have fun with, much less test out more cars and tracks that you don't have. Then they even charge you for the cars and tracks! LOL Possibly more than any other game, I think iRacing cashes in on the addiction and perceived "prestige" of rank. It makes sense for what they want---a virtual racing career, but it's still a little "much".

Kryp, F1 2010 has a career mode that I like better than just running single race weekends or standard championships. Fun of it is driving for an underdog team, trying not to be last (whereas in a championship I'd be driving with Ferrari and trying to be first).

I've had no issues with how Dirt 2 managed things, I don't know how Dirt 3 might change them. Likewise I don't see a problem with F1's way of doing it, but it's all F1 cars just different chassis/engines.

For GTR, GTL, and GTR2, Simbin had locked cars and stuff which I hated, but it was easy to make your own "unlock" file to get rid of that. I'm glad Race just disposed of it altogether.



The Jedi Master

I think the way it's done in WRC 2010 and F1 2010 is pretty brilliant. You can run single races or championships as any of the "official" drivers, but NOT under your own name.

If you want to see your own name on the podium, it means doing the career. For me that is a nice incentive, also because the career offers additional options/choices like the pretty brilliant battle with your teammate and arch rival that you have in F1 2010.

All those titles, also SBK, basically run you trough lower tier teams and classes trying to get contracts with better teams. I find that realistic and even immersive. What I don't get is the "you have to buy your own cars" idea that is in Shift and kinda similar in Dirt.

For example in Shift2, they could have had three "classes", something just below GT3, then GT3, then GT1, with the player moving up trough the available teams.

With Shift 2 I got the mod to own all cars and tracks and get unlimited money to upgrade them.

After this I use the game a a sim - racing what I want where I want, and trying to reduce my lap times and just learn how to drive the cars.

At first I felt like I cheated a bit, but then realized that that was just conditioning from all the reward based games. I'm enjoying Shift 2 now as a sim.


I've got Dirt 3 waiting at home but haven't tried it yet. I don't want to do any gymkana stuff because it's not interesting for me at all.

I'll play along if I have to until someone makes a mod to get it all, then I'll just drive it
how I want.


Careers and rewards reduce replayability for me.

For Dirt 3, I just played a bit earlier today (about to go try some more), but my first two races were two stages of a Rally in Finland. I was in a lower end car, not WRC, but it was still a blast.

I agree though, it would be nice to have an option to use a separate profile that has access to all events/races so you can have the best of both worlds.

I will post some more thoughts later tonight if I get a chance.

Cheers!