10tacle announced SimBins GT Legends

[malcom]

Hi,

I just read about the announcement of the next SimBin project and thought it might be worth posting about it here.

The first article (http://www.4players.de/4players.php/dispbericht/PC-CDROM/Vorschau/7017/3586/0/GT_Legends.html) is in german, but a quick web search pointed me here (http://www.bhmotorsports.com/gtl). The later also has some screenshots.

This is looking very promising again.

Ciao Olaf

[Remko]

http://www.bhmotorsports.com/sims/GTL/screenshots/6.jpg

http://www.bhmotorsports.com/sims/GTL/screenshots/10.jpg

http://static.4players.de/premium/Screenshots/a0/c2/119381-medium.jpg

I really wanted to be the first to post this. =(( Waah.
I was here all evening, then got distracted again, curse my short attention span. :wall:

Seriously, this looks like a really great game, I am very seduced by the classic iron they will offer to drive.
There are some more lovely screenshots at that 4players.de (http://www.4players.de/4players.php/screenshot_list/PC-CDROM/7017/Screenshots/0/0/GT_Legends.html) webpage, that are not on BHMotorsports... click one thumbnail, then click on the [Vollbild] button directly underneath it to see a larger 1024 x 597 version. :love:
Clearly the graphic engine's gotten an update too. :)

Official GTLegends site (http://www.gt-legends.com/) is still in 'coming soon' phase.

edit: post spiced up with some images

[Wazza]

OOoo, that Porsche is very sexy that close.

Looks good anyway. :)

[Cheyenne]

OMG, I want to drive a Ford (Lotus) Cortina! That one Screenshot makes me want to get this sim :love: ... hopefully it doesn't use "starforce" &( .

[FIATLOVE]

Mmmmmmmmmmm the ultimate racing sim, oooyeaaa. :love:

I better find out more about starforce to ensure that my next pc also will handle it :D

Spirit of 1976 demo http://www.racesims.de/newsite/downloads.html
(mod for F1 99-02C) will give you a little taste of 5 cars in GT Legends :)


Ohh, I had a Ford Cortina 1600 GT 1968 as my second car with Lotus-engine, was a really great funny fast car.

Mads

[Frank N. O.]

OMG, I want to drive a Ford (Lotus) Cortina! That one Screenshot makes me want to get this sim :love: ... hopefully it doesn't use "starforce" &( .Hear Hear! The Mustang fastback, 911 Carrera RS and 914 looks interesting too.

Frank

[FeZ]

This game I want, that 908 (or is it a 906) looks fabulous.

In aller Kürze ist GT Legends wie GTR , nur besser – und mit älteren Fahrzeugen!

Translation: In short GT Legends is like GTR, just better - and with older cars

I like that statement alot :cool:

[chris]

Very nice and I love the concept of this game, but if it has the same copy protection measures as GTR, I will not purchase it.

[FeZ]

what kind of copy protection is that starforce ?

How does it work, or why will it not work on certain hardware ?

I think I go and ask google :D

[Nappe1]

Star Force 3 is most powerful copy protection up to date. It allows crypting from one to all files in CD / DVD with CD-Key based algorithm. decrypting is done with low level drivers accessing CD Drive directly.

Star Force 3 is a reason why there isn't crack / NO CD for Race Driver 2. Simply because cracking it would mean de-crypting all files in dvd by hand. (no, it's not impossible, but it is not also worth of the amount of work.)

older Star Force 3 drivers had problems with USB devices, but right now I am playing Track Mania Sunrise Demo which has SF3 protection drivers included and I am not having any problems. Another problem with SF3 is that it does not ask from user a permission for installing the drivers and drivers won't be automatically uninstalled when you uninstall the game.

Still, Most of the buzz around SF3 and it being Trojan (just because game installers won't warn you.) is a bit overstatement and I think some of the ppl being outraged because of it are just pist off the fact that there's no way able to copy game having properly made SF3 protection. Also, there's whole bunch of SF3 games that have been cracked, just because the protection has been made too easy. (just one or few files crypted in cd.) But if you install another game or game demo which has SF3, the cracked games that had SF3 usually stop working as well.

Funniest thing is, that most SF3 "activists" (usually 70% of most active "SF3 is Evil!" -guys have not even had any games that have SF3.) say that it will cause less games being sold, while Statictics show clearly that SF3 protected games like TRD2 sell a lot better than games that have same or better quality but easily hackable protection. TRD1 sold really weakly here in finland, but TRD2, while being pretty much same as first one, was in best selling list several months a row. I also came a cross quite few ppl that admitted that they bought it because there's no warez version available.

FeZ: so, I'd say, don't be worried about it. There's slight chance that you might have something that does not like SF3, but with versions available now, I'd say it's more bad luck than chance. (besides, we are talking about PC, so nothing new here. ;) ) Still, if you have problems with it, contact the publisher's support and inform them about problem. (instead of what many guys do: raging in the other forums how bad SF3 is and how they won't ever again buy anything from same publisher. I just don't understand what they are going to achieve with that...)


It's just another copy protection. (though a rather efficient one. And I think if PC want's stay a viable gaming platform, it definately needs a one.)

[Frank N. O.]

Nappe, you make good points but if I was one of the compainers you meant then I don't have energy or hope of help for GTR since my computer is assembled piece by piece and have so many thousands of files from games, demos, programs, XP upgrade etc. that it's impossible to fix so it would be a waste of energy. However I was also disappointed by the game itself and GT-cars are not my favourite so when I got confirmed that GTR would not be very modable, and then that rFactor was comming along with a newer engine and full support then I haven't touched GTR since I bought it and as said after I got SF removed using their tool I finally got my extra CD-ROM drive back in the system-list.

Lastly, I have so big real-life problems now that game-problems is a waste of energy.

Frank

[chris]

Developers should instead focus on developing less trouble free software to start with, so we don't have to inform them of problems which prevent users of being able to use the programs they have spent their hard earned money on.

That's the whole reason they have beta testing teams isn't it? To catch the errors and bugs before the finished thing gets out to the world.

Starforce's documented troubles by so many people are warning enough.

[FeZ]

Thanks for the info Nappe -^

Really seems like a powerful system, and it may not be as annoying as the online steam activation that came with HL2.

I personally have no problems with copy protection systems as long as the game is worth it.

I am not using any Virtual CDrom software which seems to be the main trouble. If RD2 uses starforce then it runs on my system as RD2 did not give me any troubles

[Nappe1]

Developers should instead focus on developing less trouble free software to start with, so we don't have to inform them of problems which prevent users of being able to use the programs they have spent their hard earned money on.

That's the whole reason they have beta testing teams isn't it? To catch the errors and bugs before the finished thing gets out to the world.

Starforce's documented troubles by so many people are warning enough.

Star Force 3 is developed by Russian company. Soooo basically they now doing just what you are asking for: They license secure copy protection technology from outside so that they have more time for main project. This actually have great impact on support as well, because now all copy protection related problems can be directed to company who did the copy protection.

Also, in many cases, the copy protection is selected by publisher. Not the dev house. This is also the reason, why all the problems with game should be directed towards the guys who sold it for you. It's their job again find who is rensponsible for the problem.

If you just start another flaming thread in one of the millions forums in the net, you most likely won't get any help, nor the problem won'tbe fixed in updates because some probblem you aren't aware, is hard to fix.

[Nappe1]

Thanks for the info Nappe -^

Really seems like a powerful system, and it may not be as annoying as the online steam activation that came with HL2.

I personally have no problems with copy protection systems as long as the game is worth it.

I am not using any Virtual CDrom software which seems to be the main trouble. If RD2 uses starforce then it runs on my system as RD2 did not give me any troubles

well, I haven't got any troubles using Daemon Tools with SF3. (I do have all virtual drives in the last letters, so that all physical drives comes first.) Also cd-tools like Nero 5.5 and Alcohol works fine, as long as neither one has virtual cd-drive support enabled. (I never had any use for nero or Alcohol virtual drives... that's why I disabled them right away.)

and as said, we are dealing with PCs here, so dealing with compability problems isn't anything new. :)

[Nappe1]

That's the whole reason they have beta testing teams isn't it? To catch the errors and bugs before the finished thing gets out to the world.


...and what comes to PC betatesting, it's a like having bad nightmare in hell. It is no wonder PC isn't getting all the games anymore if you think about amount of hardware and software combinations of systems can have.

Just at start, think about graphics cards sold during last 12 months: both big players (ATI and nVidia) have had more than 20 chips in stores and think about how many cards it makes when you consider amount of different clock settings, different memory configurations on board, different monitor outputs, vendor specific parts like GPU Bios versions...

Now you feel dizzy already? :D well, then take those 6-12 driver releases that has seen a release during the last year again in both camps (I'd say that we are now talking about combinations between 100 to 200...) and multiply that with all possible operating systems that user might be running.

so, this was just a graphics part of the game and we reached something like 400 to 1000 different combinations of systems to test.

No wonder dev houses love consoles: just one machine and 2 tv-standards to test. Plus, while in PC, 9 warez versions are used per one sold game, in consoles 1 or 2 warez versions are used per 9 sold games. (you don't need to be a guru to see why consoles are way much profittable right now.)


and sorry being so rough in all these posts... But generally we PC players keep ourselves above console players, like we would be something special that game dev houses love. Fact is that we are special, but we aren't really loved anymore. more and more we are just "bonus" that might give easily a bit more money, if port from console is made later on. The real money in many cases are made already in console world. :'(

[Nappe1]

Nappe, you make good points but if I was one of the compainers you meant

no :) I haven't seen any real complainers in this forum. Chris is only one who is protesting, but even he does it in nice, quiet way. (not trying to make all the other hate SF3 and leaves to everyone their own decision about what they think about it.) And sure, everyone has a right to protest if they decide to do so.

why don't you give a try and send an email to GTR support about describing vanishing CD-burner? :) you don't have much to lose there in any case. It might not help you immediately, but it might give some valuable information to StarForce devs while they continue developing the versions. And if it does not take anywhere, you have at least tried. (and at least in my case, it gives you nice happy feeling when you know that you have at least tried to help. ;) )

[WCOutlaw]

Holy smokes!

Man that looks good... I'd love to have a bash at that Lotus Cortina as well, not to mention that beautiful looking 914 :O

I might be tempted to buy my first PC game in a couple of years for this one!

Keep the news coming, guys and gals.

[Frank N. O.]

Well the thing is that I also had some varying behaviour from the CD-check at each game-start, although I seem to remember the game starting without it a few times but it was a long time ago and I could have easily mistaken it. I do remember it taking forever to get it checked with the screen frozen like the computer was crashed and as said I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought and since it's locked for mods then it holds little interest to me sadly, especially now were my car-enthusiasm is at an all time low with the problems with the traffic here and the Peugeot I'm driving as well as lack of fun for me to create. Thanks for the help though, I do appreciate it :)

Hi Phil :wave: Greetings

Frank

[Remko]

:read: Found another article here, only in German, though: http://gameswelt.de/artikel/index.php?id=630

[FIATLOVE]

Thank's Nappe, that's what I though ;)

Frank maty, if you won't use GTR anymore, I can buy it from you.
It's too dumb if you shall waste the money you spent if you won't use it anyway, I know guys who will use it (as long you haven't used the online register code yet, uhh sorry, I mean the FIA driving licence register code). ^_^

I can use both Alchohol 110% and Deamon tools virtual disks, still GTR works, and the virtual disks too :) ( huh, what wrong did I do???) 8)~



:wave:

[VQ]

N one noticed the old Galaxies or Falcons! Damn, the mustangs look atad inaccurate for my liking, but if we cna port these cars to other games, woo-hoo!

[Vince Klortho]

The are more cars than what are shown right there. The ones that interest me the most are the Ford GTs, Vettes, Cobras, Panteras. All among my favorites. There are also Porsche RSRs, Ford Capris, Mercedes 300SLs, and BMW 320is (I think). It looks very good to me !

Regarding GTR - it's not really that closed down. I have about 300 cars and 75 tracks right now where as the game came with 56 cars and 10 tracks I think. I also have 5 new car models with their own physics. Admittedly, 3 of those models are not released but the point is that people have been adding a lot to the game. I helped a guy release an add-on pack of cars from the 2003 ALMS just yesterday. ;)

[Vince Klortho]

A curious piece of trivia about the Ford GT : they did not officially call it the GT-40. It acquired that nickname because it's roof was 40 inches tall.

Also - another company now has the term GT-40 trademarked. When Ford began design of the new version of the GT they offered the owner of the trademark three cars, worth around $150K each, and he turned them down. I'm not sure I would have. :)

[Remko]

just pointing out that http://www.gt-legends.com is now live.
Not much news yet, some nice hi-res versions of released screenshots though. :)

[Nappe1]

:love: there's Mini in it. :love:

Gosh, it looks like I am forced to buy wheel and pedals when this one comes out. ^_^

[VQ]

Awsome, I hope one of the 10 tracks is Bathurst, that would just be awsome.