DiRT Rally Road Book – 13/05/15

[justbiglee 0]

Greetings and welcome to the second edition of the DiRT Rally Road book. In this week’s issue we’ve rounded up the very best of what you’ve been up to, Chief Games Designer Paul Coleman has an update from studio and we’ve a sneak “peak” at what’s next for DiRT Rally.

It’s been an interesting week in the DiRT Studio. Everybody is still riding high following the announcement and we’re starting to flesh out some of your ideas and feedback to see what’s possible to incorporate into the game on top of the planned new content. Plus, we’re also working on some improvements of our own.

We’ve also been watching your videos, reading your forum posts and keeping an eye on your tweets. Oh, and our swag has shown up so it might be time for a few giveaways - more on that later – but, for now, here’s Paul with an update on what we’re working on this week.

“We’ve got things feeling right as far as the Force Feedback is concerned but it has taken a complete rewrite to get us to this point. Next we are going to get it in the hands of some rally drivers to get their feedback (pardon the pun). We are also working on the in-game calibration, configuration and options screens to give you more control over how the wheel feels.

Pikes Peak is really coming together now. It’s such a different challenge tearing up the hill with no co-driver giving you instructions. You really have to learn the route and there is plenty to learn. From a simulation angle we’ve improved the way we model the Aerodynamics. The Hillclimb cars have some extreme wing setups and this extra component of the simulation has given us plenty to layer back into the rally cars you are already driving, we’ll be getting on the case with that as soon as we can.

Another key element of Pikes Peak is the change in altitude. The difference in air pressure has a huge impact on the power the engine can produce and how much downforce is created by those big wings. Power loss with altitude is something we already simulate (you may have noticed a difference in car performance between Wales and Greece) but in Pikes Peak you actually get to feel the power drop as you climb. I’ll talk a bit more about Hillclimb next week so watch this space.”

Tutorials

You know how in the past you tended to hate our ingame tutorial videos? You couldn’t skip them and they just annoyed you? Well we still like the idea of those videos but we want to do them better. We got looking around and we really like the way the guys at Frontier do it with Elite Dangerous as a series of videos hosted on their YouTube Channel and website. Then we thought: ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we asked the fans to put their ideal tutorials together?

So we’re turning to you for help! We want you to create a video teaching other players how to get the most from DiRT Rally. You can focus on whatever aspect you feel you’re an expert in - how to set up your car, how to host a League, how to understand pacenotes, how to take part in the Online Events - it really is up to you!

In return we’ll add the best tutorials to our playlist on our YouTube channel and host them in the tutorials section of our website. We’ll also have exclusive DiRT swag for those we host on the playlist. Simply tweet your tutorials over to us (@dirtgame) when you’ve put them together. If you need some logos you'll  find them here and a collection of hi-res screenshots and artwork here.

Suggestion box

Your feedback and ideas are always welcome so we’ve set up two suggestion boxes to help gather them up, one on the Codemasters Forums and another on the Steam Forums. If you’ve got an idea, we’d love to hear it. You don’t need to post in both, just use whichever forum you feel most comfortable with.

Over to you

You guys are creating some amazing stuff, and getting more creative with your leagues to videos and livestreams. Here is a list of what we think you should be checking out this week.

Instagram.com/dirtgame – For a behind the scenes look in studio, see what we’re up to, what’s on our desks and on occasion what we’re having for lunch.

The DiRT Daily League – Set up by some of the guys from r/dirtgame this league lets you relive last week’s DiRT Daily Events in league format with no restarts or retries. How consistent are you?

DiRT Rally Brought My Old Man Out of Retirement - /u/penpapershotgun hits us right in the feels with his story of how DiRT Rally got him and his dad playing games together again.

NeoGAF League – Only the brave need apply, this thing is brutal!

I’ve Been Your Community Manager, Ask Me Anything – For the last two years I’ve been teasing the game to some of our super fans and the DiRTy Gossip Thread became the home for it all. I promised those guys an opportunity to ask me anything about those little hint drops once this was all over so true to my word here it is.

There you have it, another crazy week at Codemasters. I’m going to leave you with a competition where you could win some of our DiRT swag and a copy of the game simply click here for details on how to enter.

And you should check out this particularly tidy run in the Stratos with no assists and no HUD from SgtMustang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzg9TN7POYY

[xGabe62x 5]

Good news about the FFB.  Why not start with the stuff a guy made available on the forums....  It's not bad. 

Whatever you do,  just make sure we can add surface rumble or it just feels like you're floating on ice. I like to feel the engine idling,  through the wheel.  It just needs a "volume control"  to suit people's taste and varying wheels etc. 

Good luck. 

[RodgerDavies 917]

Oooh, I wasn't excited about Pike's Peak like I was for Germany or Finland, but I'm certainly feeling something at the moment...

[MastaVonBlasta 1]

It's great to hear that the team is making progress on the FFB and wheel settings. Does Steam Early Access allow for some sort of dual game versions?

So one would still have the current, normal version of the game, but also a beta version with the revised FFB?

I'm sure there are plenty of DiRT Rally players, who would be keen to help out with feedback and judging by posts in here and on reddit many of the guys are very knowledgable on FFB from using other sim games.

[PaulBlythe 0]

Some good news in there for all areas of the game. Well done CM and thanks for all your continued hard work :smiley:

Can't wait to try out Pikes Peak ... Sebastian Loeb's WR 8m 13.878sec, will it be beaten?

[FlakHound 0]

GentleNameMVB said:

It's great to hear that the team is making progress on the FFB and wheel settings. Does Steam Early Access allow for some sort of dual game versions?

So one would still have the current, normal version of the game, but also a beta version with the revised FFB?

I'm sure there are plenty of DiRT Rally players, who would be keen to help out with feedback and judging by posts in here and on reddit many of the guys are very knowledgable on FFB from using other sim games.

It does, they did it with an Error 41 patch, you just needed a password and beta opt in.

[austinb 37]

I was dissapointed with the first road book as i was hoping to hear more about what you guys are doing and thinking, but this one was very nice to see you give some insight into whats being done and considered, thank you

[couger1981 89]

Looking forward to see what cars you have for us to use on Pike's peak :)