DiRTy Gossip about DIRT Rally Games

[Ruben Correa Alves 28]

There will be more cars on track for sure I think. Xbox 360 had 512 MB of main ram memory, Xbox One has 8 GB so that should help. :smile: 

[hola 1]

What matters the most is the actual number of tracks available; that they last longer than in those 3 lackluster and totally casualized pile of horsecrap franchise entries called called Dirt2, 3 and crapdown; and that they're just as narrow as actual rally stages; not the number of cars available....

Problem is the same one since dirt2-3 and crapdown. CM focus only on the cancerous casual audience, so chances remain very low so that we get enjoy some proper CM rally game once again.

One of the game producers kindly answered me on this concern, little before this new forum went live, and prompted me to have some faith (having faith after Dirt2,3 and CrDo = lol), as he told me "Things were gonna change this time". "I'll believe when I see" I told him, as I hope he understands after what we were given  under the Dirt licence on last gen.

[ilchiodi 2]

instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

http://instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

[doyley101 0]

pupazzo said:

instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

http://instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

I can't see it :/

[ilchiodi 2]

doyley101 said:

pupazzo said:

instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

http://instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

I can't see it :/

Open this: instagram.com/p/vlgq-snFzN/

[renejr902 0]

i just read VGX will happen at 5 december. Could Codemasters announce the Dirt 4 game at this moment ?

[Ginginho 0]

dirt3joe said:

Inviting small numbers of dedicated rally fans to your base to get feedback is good and they might have good ideas that will appeal to the broader user base. But your sales don't come from dedicated rally fans, they come from the million or so odd guys and girls who merely like rally, and the racing genre enough to purchase the game. Most of them will never make it here. How do you reach out to those people ?

A bit belated but I stop by to catch up only intermittently; I am probably the one of the least hardcore members here - a fan of the D2/D3 titles rather than the sport itself necessarily. I got to visit Codies and see what they have to show focus testers a few months back and I did my best to represent what the million or so guy and gals who aren't hardcore rally gamers might enjoy. Who knows who Codies listen to as every single person will have slightly different preferences, one thing for sure is that they face an nigh-on impossible task of satisfying everybody but I cannot wait to see the end product :)

[MastaVonBlasta 2]

It's pretty quiet over here so I thought I'd post some of @justbiglee 's tweets to:
a) get people thinking whether it means anything
b) document all teasing/cruel hinting/intentional misleading done by the infamous one

January 28th release date for next game?

https://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/537162966127632384
https://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/537163177646391296

https://twitter.com/justbiglee/status/537232383221989377

https://twitter.com/jamielowesdev/status/537297087453724672

[Ruben Correa Alves 28]

January 28th is my birthday so that sounds just right to me. :smiley: 

[RallyDriven 398]

The 128 followed by a 'wrong button tweet' is incredibly suspicious. I didn't think anything of it at first, but I'd like to hope that date will be significant...

[Rallycameraman 241]

This was unexpected

https://twitter.com/jontucker1/status/538332660087926786

[gfRally 449]

oh wow!  

Something is seriously going down at Codies

https://twitter.com/T4RG4/status/536502273531478016

There was this a few months back:

https://twitter.com/MrHarveyParker/status/509039164135067650

[Ruben Correa Alves 28]

And paul moving desks...

[MastaVonBlasta 2]

:(  

What may be happening over at Codies? 

@JonTucker‌ moving away before the game is released is sad news for me :( From what I can guess he may have had a two-fold role in the next game project: one is to project manage it and the other is the physics tester/test driver/designer? The Dynamic Duo of Jon and @KickUp probably know what they want to achieve with the new game and I wish we'll get to sample what that was in not to distant future...

I guess the options are:
1) The game will be released in January so actually Jon would have contributed all the way to release
2) An offer came up, which he couldn't decline
3) The game did not receive a green light for a release in quite near future, which frustrated Jon and made him look elsewhere...

Steve Hood's departure/change of role is also interesting. Maybe Codies management wanted to have someone else take the F1 franchise into next-gen era. 

Who knows what's up at Codies? :)

[VirtuaIceMan 92]

Or, hopefully not, 4. Codemasters results not as good as expected, so they're thinning the numbers... but that's odd to do before April when the financial year comes around.

[Rallycameraman 241]

VirtuaIceMan said:

Or, hopefully not, 4. Codemasters results not as good as expected, so they're thinning the numbers... but that's odd to do before April when the financial year comes around.

But the DiRT team doesn't really have anything to do with the other CM games. 

[Evilsmurf 90]

5. Starting out on their own?

[MastaVonBlasta 2]

Another option is, and I really hope this is not the case, is that the higher management wants the DiRT team to significantly change direction, and Jon does not want to make a 'different' game...
Based on the hints, what was said and some other reasons I'd rather wait longer than have the team change the approach/goal of the next game.

I hope that Jon simply can't talk about it, not that my suspicion is true...

https://twitter.com/MastaVonBlasta/status/538385526760689666
https://twitter.com/jontucker1/status/538402970510327808

[Rallycameraman 241]

GentleNameMVB said:

Another option is, and I really hope this is not the case, is that the higher management wants the DiRT team to significantly change direction, and Jon does not want to make a 'different' game...
Based on the hints, what was said and some other reasons I'd rather wait longer than have the team change the approach/goal of the next game.

I hope that Jon simply can't talk about it, not that my suspicion is true...

I hope it's not the case too. I'll be gutted if it is. 

[couger1981 89]

GentleNameMVB said:

Another option is, and I really hope this is not the case, is that the higher management wants the DiRT team to significantly change direction, and Jon does not want to make a 'different' game...
Based on the hints, what was said and some other reasons I'd rather wait longer than have the team change the approach/goal of the next game.

I hope that Jon simply can't talk about it, not that my suspicion is true...

https://twitter.com/MastaVonBlasta/status/538385526760689666
https://twitter.com/jontucker1/status/538402970510327808

If he is saying that he can't read between the lines then i guess he didn't see it coming.

[gfRally 449]

couger1981 said:

If he is saying that he can't read between the lines then i guess he didn't see it coming.

Not sure I understand, you think something has been playing out for a while?  How did you come to this conclusion?  (I am only curious, not asking in sarcasm) 

@justbiglee‌ I am really torn using Codies forums to talk about Codies employees.

[couger1981 89]

gfRally said:

couger1981 said:

If he is saying that he can't read between the lines then i guess he didn't see it coming.

Not sure I understand, you think something has been playing out for a while?  How did you come to this conclusion?  (I am only curious, not asking in sarcasm) 

@justbiglee‌ I am really torn using Codies forums to talk about Codies employees.

Just by him saying "I can't read between the lines" normally suggests he doesn't know what happened and its come as a bit of a surprise?

[MastaVonBlasta 2]

couger1981 said:

gfRally said:

couger1981 said:

If he is saying that he can't read between the lines then i guess he didn't see it coming.

Not sure I understand, you think something has been playing out for a while?  How did you come to this conclusion?  (I am only curious, not asking in sarcasm) 

@justbiglee‌ I am really torn using Codies forums to talk about Codies employees.

Just by him saying "I can't read between the lines" normally suggests he doesn't know what happened and its come as a bit of a surprise?

Jon never wrote that, it was my question to him on Twitter. Maybe we should drop this subject. 

Maybe one day we'll learn the reasons. From our perspective (fans of the game) it looks as if devs are leaving the DiRT team and they're not saying 'offer I couldn't refuse' or 'I've done my bit'. It also seems like devs who are leaving 'can't talk about it', Perhaps game sales have not been as strong as Codemasters wanted and they need to re-structure.
I also don't like talking about rather delicate topics on this forum so I'm dropping it. Not so long ago it seemed that the game was signed off, devs were praising how special it is, THAT car, community visits. Has something changed? :(

[dirt3joe 0]

GentleNameMVB said:

couger1981 said:

gfRally said:

couger1981 said:

If he is saying that he can't read between the lines then i guess he didn't see it coming.

Not sure I understand, you think something has been playing out for a while?  How did you come to this conclusion?  (I am only curious, not asking in sarcasm) 

@justbiglee‌ I am really torn using Codies forums to talk about Codies employees.

Just by him saying "I can't read between the lines" normally suggests he doesn't know what happened and its come as a bit of a surprise?

Jon never wrote that, it was my question to him on Twitter. Maybe we should drop this subject. 

Maybe one day we'll learn the reasons. From our perspective (fans of the game) it looks as if devs are leaving the DiRT team and they're not saying 'offer I couldn't refuse' or 'I've done my bit'. It also seems like devs who are leaving 'can't talk about it', Perhaps game sales have not been as strong as Codemasters wanted and they need to re-structure.
I also don't like talking about rather delicate topics on this forum so I'm dropping it. Not so long ago it seemed that the game was signed off, devs were praising how special it is, THAT car, community visits. Has something changed? :(

People leave businesses for all sorts of reasons. One guy I know left a business recently because he wanted to be closer to an ailing family member. There are many other reasons people leave. Sometimes its because they want extra responsibility and there are no openings available. So just because people decide to leave doesn't mean there is something negative happening re Dirt.

That said, people rarely leave businesses because everything is going great. I think the transition from last gen to this gen for CM must be pretty traumatic. For a start CM had many years of dev effort invested in the old gen engines, and lets face it these engines were great. Take Grid Autosport for example, still graphically amazing even on the last gen consoles. To reproduce that on this gen must be hard work and very stressful, especially against a backdrop of declining sales ( or at least as indicated on the charts websites). That stress is almost certainly going to result in some people changing around.

I think it makes business sense for CM to concentrate on F1 for next gen, because that license as far as I can tell is a sunk cost.  But Dirt is a massive brand for CM. If you look at the sales figures Dirt, Dirt2 and Dirt3 have been enormously successful, probably as much as f12011, f12012 and f12013, and probably with a significantly reduced licensing cost. Plus they have greater flexibility in release timing, and control over creating an entertainment experience in Dirt. Someone high up there would have to be mad to throw all that created value away. I am confident we will see more dirt, sooner or later !

Anyway, re Dirt, I don't know if Jon was involved in Dirt2, Dirt3, GA or the other games but if he was thanks for the games, they were great - I loved them - you should be very proud of your achievements. And good luck in your new position !

[gfRally 449]

GentleNameMVB said:

couger1981 said:

gfRally said:

couger1981 said:

If he is saying that he can't read between the lines then i guess he didn't see it coming.

Not sure I understand, you think something has been playing out for a while?  How did you come to this conclusion?  (I am only curious, not asking in sarcasm) 

@justbiglee‌ I am really torn using Codies forums to talk about Codies employees.

Just by him saying "I can't read between the lines" normally suggests he doesn't know what happened and its come as a bit of a surprise?

Jon never wrote that, it was my question to him on Twitter. Maybe we should drop this subject. 

Maybe one day we'll learn the reasons. From our perspective (fans of the game) it looks as if devs are leaving the DiRT team and they're not saying 'offer I couldn't refuse' or 'I've done my bit'. It also seems like devs who are leaving 'can't talk about it', Perhaps game sales have not been as strong as Codemasters wanted and they need to re-structure.
I also don't like talking about rather delicate topics on this forum so I'm dropping it. Not so long ago it seemed that the game was signed off, devs were praising how special it is, THAT car, community visits. Has something changed? :(

Yeah, This is going beyond me predicting a release date based on Lee posting 4 with a clue in a pic, this is someone's job.  For us its a game and fun figuring out dates here, but it's the devs way of making a living.  Only a few games do the teams, engage a community, joke around and have fun with the fans.  I think it has brought all of us close enough to these guys that many would think about sharing a beer with and talking about stuff beyond gaming, especially our passion for rally.

When stuff like this happens we feel a loss in the community.

So we raise our mugs to you Jon  and the others that have worked to bring this game to life!