Wednesday 21st September 2011

Forza 4: Ask The Developer

PH gives you the chance to question Forza 'Head Honcho' Dan Greenawalt. You set the questions and he'll give the answers

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The launch of Forza 4 is almost upon us and PistonHeads will be able to bring you all the latest developments as we have linked with the Forza team. This means we'll be keeping you updated regularly as we build up to the launch.

We'll also be publicising a rather splendid competition. More on this in a few weeks time, but for now we can assure you that it offers a prize you'll really want to win.

Today we offer you the chance to ask questions to 'Turn 10' Game Director (what a great title) Dan Greenawalt. Dan is the man who heads up the development team at Turn 10, the guys behind the fantastic Forza series. It's Dan's job to ensure they deliver the most compelling, engaging and realistic car game possible, no mean feat in this day and age; Outrun it is not.

Some say the PH team have a good job, but Dan might just pip us. He started out playing Street Fighter in tournaments over in Seattle-area arcades, before getting a job as a tester at Microsoft, quickly becoming Lead Tester and then the Lead Game Designer for Forza. Not bad, eh?

But how do they make the game feel so real? Dan says the pivotal point was when Popular Science ran a feature in April 2005 called 'Virtual vs. Reality, Can You Tell the Difference – at 150 mph?' Dan was able to play the role of crew chief with professional race car driver Gunnar Jeannette by tuning virtual versions of his real-world race cars and he claims it was this experience that proved instrumental in defining Forza Motorsport’s life-like physics system. And who are we to argue with that? Especially as it seems to work so well.

What does he drive himelf? Surely he has the very latest supercar, or a glamorous historic? Well no, Dan pops to the office in a highly modified MY 2000 Audi S4 - we weren't expecting that!

Anyway, as we await the launch of Forza 4, we invite your questions to Dan. You can ask what you like (but he probably won't give you his job) by posting them in the thread that follows this article. At 17.00 on Friday 23rd September we will collate the most interesting questions to e-mail to Dan and he will answer them over the next week or two.

The full questions and answers will be published in an article that will follow on PH in a few weeks time.

So let's see your questions: don't be shy, we want to know how this game works, so be as techincal in your questioning as you like...

[ILoveLamp]

Pics of the S4 please

Forza related: FM3 was pretty epic. Have T10 made advances in the sounds (engine/exhaust), as I feel this is the only area which could be criticised.

Edited by ILoveLamp on Wednesday 21st September 11:50

[sinbaddio]

Wow - is that pic of the Lambo et al a real screen shot? That's incredible if it is, could be time for me to trade up from my Playstation 1.....

[molineux1980]

The Lambo pic is from Forza 3.....

[MitchF1GTR]

Will the 1995/96 McLaren F1 GTR be in it?
Any chance of including Powerbuilt Raceway?

[drewcole81]

Dan: Why couldn't you have got a job with Sony so I could have played this on my PS3 rather than downgrading myself with having to borrow a Xbox to play your wonderful game!






Well someone had to say it....!!

Edited by drewcole81 on Wednesday 21st September 11:57

[jfk01]

I'd love more of the UK tracks available ..
Ie.snetterton...oulton ...anglesea etc ..
Can it be done ?
Or made available for F3

[thewheelman]

Yes, i have a question. When i boil an egg for 3 minutes, sometimes the egg white is still horrible & gooey. How long do you boil your eggs for?

[IanO]

Could Forza work in a more open world environment like Test Drive Unlimited?

[drewcole81]

thewheelman said:

Yes, i have a question. When i boil an egg for 3 minutes, sometimes the egg white is still horrible & gooey. How long do you boil your eggs for?

How big are your eggs?

[Stew2000]

Why not PC?
Sales would beat any NFS game.

[Police State]

Why have they not developed a version for the PC?

[aizvara]

Police State said:

Why have they not developed a version for the PC?

Turn 10 is a division of Microsoft Game Studios. MS seem to want people to buy into their Xbox environment for gaming, so they keep certain games platform specific. This one is likely kept Xbox-only so as to compete with the GT series.

Stew2000 said:

Why not PC?
Sales would beat any NFS game.

Sales might beat those, but Shift 2 (once an NFS game) is actually pretty good from a realism point of view.

[Chibbs]

ILoveLamp said:

Forza related: FM3 was pretty epic. Have T10 made advances in the sounds (engine/exhaust), as I feel this is the only area which could be criticised.

Edited by ILoveLamp on Wednesday 21st September 11:50

also, smoke effects. (tyres/engine)

[J4CKO]

How do you manage to get a game out on time ? unlike other franchises without compromising the quality, as to me its obvious with Forza that no corners are cut.

Also, would love to see some more mundane, older cars as I love the customisation aspect of Forza, the engine and drivetrain swaps, the paint side of things but need more "blank Canvasses", things like MK1 Escorts, Capris etc. I personally get a bit bored of supercars and love it when the odd esoteric, non iconic car pops up, like the Volvo 240 in Gran Turismo, sure there were similar cars in Forza but cant remember. Always thought that there should be a way of fans generating vehicle models (to the standards set by yourselves) and then adopted into the game, kind of get the fans to do most of the work, not sure how and if it could/would work but would love to see it.

[anonymous-user]

jfk01 said:

I'd love more of the UK tracks available ..
Ie.snetterton...oulton ...anglesea etc ..
Can it be done ?
Or made available for F3

Brands Hatch! (and Bedford if poss)

edited to add: will there be any Alpinas in Forza 4??

[Original Poster]

The drifting community has grown and grown in the Forza series, how is it being improved further in Forza 4?

[SevenR]

My question would be this.
The main part of new gaming and especially racing games is the online experience. My feeling about Forza 3 is that there are too many ways in which gamers can still cheat by cutting corners and having monster unrealistic tunes etc. This detracts from the overall experience greatly for me. What steps, if any, have been taken to eradicate this factor in the online game?

Still playing the game every week online 3 years on. Can't wait for the 4th to come out.

[Turbo Harry]

Bit left field but how far are we from a time when we can run a few laps of a circuit with an HD camera running and then be able to feed the movie files into a system and 'play' the track in game?

[Stew2000]

aizvara said:

Sales might beat those, but Shift 2 (once an NFS game) is actually pretty good from a realism point of view.

Once you get it setup properly it's realistic. But there's no excuse for not having over 200 cars in a PC game.

[aizvara]

Stew2000 said:

Once you get it setup properly it's realistic. But there's no excuse for not having over 200 cars in a PC game.

Indeed; I'd love something more like Forza on the PC, if only as I could then use my steering wheel with it (not properly compatible with the xbox annoyingly).