OXM UK preview.
-Fantastic-looking car models - Each car use up to 15,000 polygons each
Over 200 cars from 60 different manufacturers (unconfirmed yet) - BMW, Chevrolet, Dodge, Honda, Mazda, Mercedes-benz, Nissan, Porsche and Ferrari
-Rip apart and rebuild cars however you desire - means swapping suspension systems, tyres, engine parts etc.
-Also able to install entirely new engines - size restraints are a factor but if its possible in the real world the option will be there to do it in the game
-Change visual appeal of your cars - body kits, bonnet scoops, spoilers etc.
-All changes will have an impact on the car handling.
-Aesthetic add-ons - colour scheme (that you can create yourself), stickers, decals ( that you can create yourself as well)
-Car trading online (through Xbox live0 is an aspect the team is thinking of adding
-Car damage affects car handling
-The only two officially confirmed tracks anr Nurburgring and Laguna Seca
-Innovative piece of technology called Drivatar AI. This alows you to teach your computer-controlled team mates to drive like you, for example, aggressively or defensively. This means that the opponent AI is also very human in performance
Points from interview with lead programmer Garrett Young and game designer Dan Greenawalt
"The GT series paved the way for us. Without the success Polyphony has had, we would not have had the oppurtunity yo create Forza. Although we are taking the racing sim genre in a bit of a different direction"
"We will be honoured by any comparisons gamers make between Forza and GT4"
"One of the most powerful tools in Forza is our custom paint and decal editor. Players can place manufacturer decals, text or vinyl shapes anywhere on the car - online, every car should look totally unique. On top of that, we\'ve licensed real world tuner kits for real-world tuner cars"
"How can you make a simulator without damage? We approached the manufacturers early on in the product cycle with full mock-ups of our damage as well as design docs to make sure they understood how and why we were including damage"
On car selection - "We used the top 100 car lists from magazines such as EVO magazine and fan sites to come up with our top cars"
"With damage and customisable parts, our cars take several weeks to build. We\'ve invested considerably in each car in the game. Based on out production plans and vehicle specs, shooting for 200+ cars made the most sense to us"
On Live features - "The ability to win money for single-player car upgrades and customisation while online. The ability to bring cars created and customised in single-player into the online space. The ability to trade theses cars and connect up with other enthusiasts in car clubs are all interesting innovations"
On the DRIVATAR AI - "There are a lot of ways to advance in Forza. The ability to train AI Drivatars and then compete with/against them is another great example of many things there are to do in the game. Not many game companies have over 50,000 passionate employees to draw inspiration from. Even fewer have research departments spread around the world including PhD AI developers incubating great ideas such as learning AI - Microsoft does. The technology behind learning AI in games was brought to us by our Microsoft research team in Cambridge. They are not game developers, but rather technology developers that have been working on the problem of learning AI systems for many years"
credit Mike69