Ok, first just to say I do think Drive is amazing. I mean seriously, this is some properly high level work the guys at BeamNG have produced so suggesting stuff does seem a little churlish when the Alpha has already given me hours of entertainment. So the suggestions I make are made out of love and a desire to see the Alpha grow until Drive becomes the best and most profitable product it can be. I'm also aware that you guys have a number of additions planned so I might be covering things you've already discussed for future work, in which case apologies. So then, my general suggestions: 1) Know your audience Lets be honest, what brings the majority of people here and buying the Alpha? Its the crashing, the soft body physics, the deformation. These are the videos that are all over Youtube, this is the vibe I get from most people in the 'first impressions' thread. Everyone is raving about how much fun the actual driving physics and the crashing is. From that stems the enjoyment of driving the maps and marvelling at the consequences when you miss a corner and pile into a bridge pier. What I'm saying is, don't let Drive go too far down the hardcore simulation route. We all enjoy different games for different reasons and of course there will be an element of the userbase for Drive that want to be able to drive a bus accurately and carefully but be wary of turning the game into an impenetrable driving simulator requiring clutches, gear changes, air brakes, stalling etc until that becomes the overarching focus of the software - to me too much focus here would represent myriad potential barriers to stop those of us who just want the fun of driving the vehicles and I think those people are in the majority. Much as in RoR, it stopped being fun to actually drive some vehicles as you needed a manual to even get the thing started and one small bump tore out the driveshaft and you had to start again. Theres a place for this level of simulation of course, but perhaps a 2 tiered approach would be good where the more casual user can switch off some levels of simulation and just get to the 'good stuff'. 2) Improve the UI Its currently ok, a lot better than RoR, but still somewhat impenetrable in places. Appreciate this is the Alpha and likely to change, but again - this was one of the biggest barriers in RoR to the more casual user. Actually working out how to get the game going and just get driving having to sort through too many menus and maps and oddly named vehicles with too much poorly presented information. The menus in Drive are a million times better already, but stuff that should be simple such as spawning new vehicles to crash into - this is stuff that should be easily and obviously accessible. People shouldn't have to ask on forums or look at a Wiki to get to do the stuff that they see in the Youtube videos. Currently I have to hit Alt+Enter to get into window mode, F11 to get to the editor then muck about in the menu trees just to drop a vehicle in. Repeat for more vehicles. Thats far too many steps to go through for what should be a main feature. I'd suggest a simple flyout menu, like you have for choosing a new vehicle when you hit Ctrl+E, which simply lets you pick the vehicle you want to spawn and drop it in. 3) Clarity of content Partially related to the UI stuff, but make it clear what people are selecting. For example when selecting a new vehicle, can we get a simple image next to the name to show you the vehicle you're choosing? The vehicle names are obviously made up so as users we have no frame of reference for what they might actually be - Gavril D series, could be anything. It becomes trial and error for the newer user (or those of us with terrible memories) to pick a vehicle they want to drive, when an image would resolve this in a stroke. Obviously as content increases, so this issue will grow for new users. As I say though, I do think Drive is a fantastic product already. Cheers
1. I know that stalling and some other features have been brought up, and after a quick search (not by any means thorough), we might see some more realistic things happen with the drivetrain. There was no word (that I saw) on stalling, but I did find this: The audience isn't clear about things that they all want, though. Some users are requesting features that other users find pointless. I agree with you; I would like to see the game have great accessibility with a quick spin-up time, with those immersive details not too far away. We'll see. Right now we can flip between manual and auto transmissions (Q), and I would expect features like that to be the same as the versions progress. 2. I would think that a polished product would include an easy-to-use UI. But, as you said, it's still alpha. If you have to work a little harder to get to X functionality, then so be it. I'm sure this will be improved. It's likely prioritized lower than ironing out the game mechanics. Without it's fantastic soft body physics, what would be the point for a good UI? 3. Right now there are just a handful of vehicles, and it doesn't take long to learn what each one does. Granted, a trial and error mentality does not make up for content being clear, but I would expect that eventually you will be able to choose a car in a similar way that you choose your terrain: handy thumbnails and a short description. This falls into the UI polish category.
