Here's a review video of BeamNG. It's meant to be funny, so it's very harsh. Laugh about it. However, he does have a point... Why are the tire physics and steering wheels with force feedback(especially that last one) not top priority when making a driving simulator? :/ I know the engine should be stable and the devs are doing a cracking job at all that, but still... It should be higher priority than a lot of other stuff that we already have for sure :/
Interesting. He do have some valid points. Well, he said he will re-review BeamNG in 6 months. 6 months to improve the game more and more.
Yeah, he has a few points right. There are some backwards priorities and things not present that should be present. Would I say the dev team is mismanaging things? Yes. Are there quirks with the damage and especially the driving physics that are off? Yes. Thing is, is that after the praise he gave nextcargame's physics I'm dubious about the reviewer's opinion. Also you're seeing the problem with the developers not stressing the fact that the game is early access. People are reviewing an ALPHA, not even in beta, an alpha as if its a final product. If you look at the comments in this review, thats whats happening. This guy also doesn't do much reading around. Its obvious that this was actually intended to be middleware to sell to other companies and the game happened as a consequence. Getting lambasted for selling to tech savvy people... well this is aimed at tech savvy people. I think this reviewer came in looking to bash on something. Maybe he's trying to pressure it because he sees potential. The thing is, the review isn't helpful to the devs he's obviously trying to communicate with. He's crashing the moonhawk shouting "THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN!"... like, what doesn't happen? Cars don't crumple when you crash? Because I actually don't know what he's on about. Is he on about the way the bodywork doesn't ripple? Because yeah, it looks odd when the bodywork bends in a crash and remains entirely smooth. Is he on about the way that cars jiggle a little excessively? I spent the video thinking "Explain yourself you geordie twat, and shut up about the steering wheel" There are plenty of things wrong with BeamNG, sure. Just I would rather those bashing it explain what exactly was wrong rather than just screaming "NOPE" while driving into a pole.
I agree that he has valid points, and i like and value the criticism. BeamNG.drive is many things: - a physics engine - a graphics engine - a sandbox - a game - the supporting services of all of the above Depending on which angle you see the whole thing from, you'll have different kinds of criticism and different priorities set. Also depending on the angle that you look from, there will be lots of stuff that are hidden from your point of view. For example, the supporting services (forum, servers, databases, tasking systems, etc.) require a lot of work. And most of that work is not visible to people. But without the supporting services nothing else would be able to function so they have priority over all the rest of the things that follow. Concerning the graphics engine. It isn't easy to have a graphics engine that allows to roam freely around terrains. We could reduce the priority of that, and restrict player movement in a path that he has to race through. But we value freedom of movement, and for you being able to go wherever you want in this little piece of world. Also we want the whole thing to be easily mod-able. So we try very hard to not have any kinds of "pre-computation" there, or anything else that needs special care from the terrain designers. Like defining occlusion lists for different parts of the terrain, or special collision primitives and so on. We could reduce the priority of that, and have only "expert" designers with special knowledge of the internals of the graphics engine being able to design for it. Concerning the physics engine. We try to make it as generic as possible. This is why you can build airplanes and helicopters using the same aerodynamics that the cars use. This is why i researched and worked for months in the dynamic collision subsystem. So you'll be able to carry things around, or drive inside the hamster wheel or do anything that you can think of. And all of these being simulated in an as physically accurate way as possible (in a real time setting). We could reduce the priority of that, and only work on the things that a specific scenario needs (racing). We don't. Because being free to do whatever you want, to design something and have it behave in a consistent physical way, is our priority. Imagine what more you'll be able to do when we add more of the water physics simulation (buoyancy). Or mud consisted of particles. And finally the game. And this is where i agree with the guy. But i also believe that all of the above things will drive the game, and not the other way around. I also believe that whatever game we have in mind, with solid foundations, people will create their own experience out of it. Which, it is very possible might be a better experience than what we "thought" the people wanted.
You see, I completely and utterly agree with you, for sure. But then on the other end, I figure... You call your game BeamNG.Drive, but you can't truely enjoy the driving when you have cars that are near as makes no difference uncontrollable with a keyboard because the physics are well... pretty much like a real car... And then you don't put force feedback and proper wheel/controller support in the game. It's completely backwards. You have great physics all round, even with the tires being pretty silly in their design(no way around that in a physics engine like this though), but it's hard to truely enjoy any of it and nearly impossible to appeal to true sim fans, when there's no wheel support and force feedback... It's almost like making the best first person shooter with the most realistic gun physics ever built, but then only releasing it on console so people can't use the mouse to aim accurately. Or making the best computer ever built, but only adding trackball-mouse + typewriter support for the mouse and keyboard... Like I said, I completely understand where the devs are coming from.... But it still very hard even for me to recommend a game like this to anyone when it advertises itself as a driving simulator... "It's this absolutely great car driving simulation game, but it has no wheel support and dodgy tire physics"... "so it's shit, basically?" "No no no it's really good!" "riiight... I'll stick to Need for Speed" At the moment, BeamNG could be best described as a "metal physics simulator", or "car body simulator"... :/ And @ Hati: he's talking about the panels flopping like jello after the crash. I've noticed that the front of the Moonhawk doesn't deform all that well for some reason. It mostly just detaches and then flops around for a bit, rather than bend. I think to make the crashes appealing in BeamNg to all the nay-sayers who love NCG, BeamNg would first need normal maps that work on the reflections, and appear to make creases in the bodywork when you crash... But again, that's something that should be WAY after adding force feedback and proper wheel support...
I was enjoying the video until about the halfway point when he started dissing the damage physics. He may have driven all the vehicles he mentioned, but he's certainly never watched a crash test.
You are completely right . Force feedback and proper wheel/controller support are at the top of our priority list. Right below of the stabilizing and speeding up the GFX and UI subsystems. Alongside FFB and wheel support we also have a very high priority on recording and replay.
While I agree with this guy in some respects, I don't think he know that the game is made by only four people (well more than that but four main, sorry if I insulted anyone like drowsy by saying that, I know there are a lot in the behind the scenes). He also is forgetting that this is alpha, the devs are doing us a favour by letting us get it this early. If he's not happy with it, he should wait for beta or realease and then make complaints (preferably beta when things can be fixed). Just saying, he should try making a game with such immense physics as this and see how high wheel support is on his priority list.
After a slew of early access games like DayZ (or, god forbid, WarZ), the public in general is tired of getting the same excuses about legions of game breaking bugs and shortcomings being sanctionable due to a game being labeled 'early access.' It's an excuse gamers have heard and seen the less-than-satisfactory results of too many times for it to faze anyone. And for every game that actually will move onward and upward till final release, there are tens, dozens, maybe hundreds that never even make it into beta or never make it to the beta they advertised at the beginning. In a nutshell, if has been released, for free or otherwise, people will judge it as a final-release game. Because, ten to one, the early access game they're looking into at any given time is the final release. Edit: Just to clarify in advance of any fallout, I'm not claiming the reasoning BeamNG has for being incomplete is banal or superficial. I get that development is a process, not a step.
"My conclusion is, that the cars here aren't made of metal, they are made of tin" That made me giggle.
Can I give this multiple thanks? - - - Updated - - - People from YouTube [Especially Comments] Don't see the technical revolution that this is... BeamNG Drive. They don't understand that this is REAL-TIME physics They think it's like Rfactor or "inset game here" where you write a couple hundred thousand lines of code to make physics for the cars accurate by making them unrealistically-real [faked for a realistic result] and that this game has beautiful damage compared to a normal racing game with scripted, animated, pre-made damage. It's revolutionary because it's real the only good game with real suspension and real deformation all happening at the time of rendering to your screen. [ROR is a lost cause at this point as it's about as good as a game made in a couple guys basements] -Just what I've thought about this game for the last while-
Well... Real deformation yes, definitely, but Assetto Corsa and Live for Speed, possibly Rfactor(never played it!) and some other real sims have real suspension too, happening at the time of rendering. Imho LFS and Assetto Corsa are currently the best racing games ever, with BeamNG being much more fun to build cars for because... well.. we can actually *build* cars, and not just build suspension and a model. The rest of your post sounds promising, but.... I don't mean to be rude, but when I read this last part, I can't help but think "What...? why?"... I understand both recording and replay are incredibly fun, and I'd love it to see it in the game, for sure, and it might make it possible for people to make better videos which will promote BeamNG through their Youtube videos and increase sales... but... I can't help but hang my head in disbelief when the main aspect of a game called "Drive", namely the driving, is just not enjoyable or very realistic, due to no wheel support and no FFB, yet there is high priority on recording/replay... Just... Why... When a car company designs their new sportscar, they'll make sure the suspension is all designed right, the unibody is stiff enough, it drives absolutely perfectly(other than fine-tuning, allignment and all that), before it'll worry if the satalite navigation works, right? That's how backwards that sounds :/ Ok, fair enough, it's probably not the same person that is working on the ffb/wheel support and the one that's working on the replay/recording, so yeah... I guess in that case it makes sense, but even then it feels backwards though :/
Its important not to give NG the rose tinted glasses treatiment. NG is a unique physics engine capable of some really impressive things, but it has a LONG way to go. For christ sake I hope they think up an alternative way to simulate wheels in this engine for a start. There's a lot to do, NCG is running on tried and tested methods. This is new and has plenty of flaws with collision detection, friction, the way round objects like wheels require a daft amount of nodes and there's no alternative fps friendly option. We're missing things like steering wheel inputs etc. Everyone's right in this thread about what is lacking. You can't shout "revolution" just yet. Wait till the game has clout.