Kickstarter

[Chevelle]

This isn't a design suggestion, but rather a way to kick even more life into the project.

Kickstarter has been picking up a lot of steam lately, because it provides a way for people with an idea to get money to give their projects the backing they need to get off the ground. I was wondering if SR3 could have it's own Kickstarter campaign - I'm sure there's plenty of people who played the first two games that would love to back SR3, besides racing game fans in general. I think it's worth looking into.

By the way, it's freaky here having to register a new account! Had my old one for aggggges.

[cdoublejj]

Well mr boss man was pretty content with eradicating all SR3 history so that why we have to re register.  as far as Kickstarter goes we have not comment atm.

[Vaelor]

Welcome back Chevelle!! Sorry about having to re-register, but "Mr. Boss Man" - that's me, these days - decided there was just far too much garbage on the old forum to warrant picking up where we left off. Sure, a few long timers have lost their postcounts - me included - but it's worth it for a rejuvenating fresh start to the project. And deleting about 100,000 old dud accounts that never contributed. =)

Glad you're back though, good to see another old time regular come back to the project to witness the new era! =)

[cdoublejj]

I could still really use it for an archive.

[Maxaxle]

I could still really use it for an archive.

Perhaps we make a link to the old forums here?...I haven't seen them myself, so someone else would have to find them.

[mr_zen256]

Hey SR3 team,

I was most likely one of those accounts that didn't contribute 

A few years back I stumbled upon this project when hunting for a Street Rod nostalgia fix and just recently remembered what you guys were doing and I wanted to see how things were progressing.

As with Chevelle, I think kickstarter would be an excellent idea to breathe some life into the project and possibly hasten development time? I do understand that most if not all of your team are working on this project as an aside to regular, full time jobs so time dedication must be limited.

Anyways, just a thought. It would be great to see a modern update to the street rod formula. I haven't seen a single game that has captured the atmosphere, feeling, mechanics (pun not intended), of the original titles.

[cruzinbill]

I agree that kickstarter would be an awesome idea. Just look what they were able to do with the game FTL.

[cdoublejj]

The problem is they are established developers who truly know what they are doing. While we have a decent understanding we lack experienced game dev management though we do have experienced management. We would definitely need some addition help planning things and finding a good labor force.

then again that's my 2 cents and I could be wrong.

[Vaelor]

The thing is, with a budget of money behind us, we could hire additional programmers. And artists. And 3D modellers. And anything else we needed. If we set a modest financial goal with a generous estimated delivery date, we could then begin to slowly assemble the team we need and get back to work.

[cdoublejj]

The only thing that would then bother me is entering unexplored territory. Doing something we haven't before with risk of something bad happening. I guess that would be natural response but, with all things more or less as you stated (in a way) you take it one step at a time. 

[Maxaxle]

My only problem is that it would be hard to play online (if multiplayer is implemented) with other people if nobody has it; would a shareware license or multiplayer-only demo be considered? Or perhaps just a beta, free-to-play-but-not-supported version, kind of like with Ace of Spades?

Also: What would the endgame look like, if all goes according to plan? What would the graphics be closest to, what would the gameplay mechanics be closest to, what would the overall size of the game world be closest to (both in disk space and ingame world area), what would the price be, etc.

[cdoublejj]

i imagine some sort of beta or beta multiplayer demo. Back in the day Starcraft had what was called a spawn copy for mulitplayer if you had friends over.

Some of that is to detailed to answer yet. Remember I'm not the mack daddy project leader but, mosto f this speculation and what i and you know about the game already. As well as time spent with project and the forums both new and old as well as my finding in much older archives from when the project was first derived.

Sr3 with be love child of Sr 1&2 (DOS and Amiga), Hot Rod: American Street Drag and Snap-On Gearhead Garage, in that order with big emphasis on Gear Head Garage since SR3 is a 3D conversion for lack of better words.

With Sr3 being a 2D game originally it's rebirth being in the GHG era and with big part of the fan base being from the rather large GHG community GHG had big roll of SR3's 3D rebirth, the way you bolt your parts on and off the car. I am not sure weather or not if it was planned or if it was even suggested to be able to side jobs like GHG for extra cash.

Original






Current Old version




HOTROD American Street Drag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rod:_American_Street_Drag

hot rod american street drag (pc game)

GHG (YT video links are Janky, I never meant to embed them.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gearhead_Garage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YoMTDzRubw
http://www.gearheadgarage.com/

Obviously game mechanics are almost self explanatory or if you have played the current old version as i call it. SR 2 in 3 with GHG and HASD (Hotrod American Street Drag) aspects.

Graphics are up in the air. I greatly hope with a solid performing game stuff like poly count would be "future proofed" a little bit or in English meaning a little more demanding but, totally kick ass and good looking.

I'm not quite sure how to describe styling but, it certifiably won't be cartoony or absurd, if anything it would be "realistic" imagine the current old version with better textures and lighting with better matched 3d modeling style and scale (size) as well as better atmosphere.





I really hope it could something like this but, with modern graphics (higher res textures, higher ploy count and better lighting) That's just me but, I'm sure others agree.

The game world size might make a little since you have just seen the 2D SR3's main menu as SR3 ever since I have been a part of was kind of like GTA 1 where there are several cities to choose from. In this case it was planned that would after beating the first city and or getting more well know/money that you could get use other garage in other cities which you owuld race in. There were 3 cities plan but, my memory fails on me on which ones, i only remember L.A. and St.Louis. I do not weather or not if could start in any city at your choice.

We hadn't yet decided to make it like SR 1 and 2 where you "auto pilot" to the racing areas or if there would be explorable maps and if so how we or where we would draw the limit/edge of the explorable parts.

Over all there were/are a lot more ideas for stuff like being able to use a phone booth to call people (actually think that was in sr2?) to having actually parts in you inventory show up on the selves in garages (aesthetics) but, I imagine that goes with out saying since SR3 is over 10 years old.

as for price I have the impression that it's agreed SR3 is it ever became a pay for title would be on the cheaper side like indie games but, i'm not sure that i would be the one to ask as I'm just kind of speculating here.


Some time I'm gonna have to get my shit together and do some real work and make some sort of "History of SR3" sometime especially being as old as it is, Including info/story from when it was first conceived. 

[Marco]

Some time I'm gonna have to get my shit together and do some real work and make some sort of "History of SR3" sometime especially being as old as it is, Including info/story from when it was first conceived.

Sounds like a very good plan.

As a side effect you might get some people's spirit back.

[Maxaxle]

Maybe you can try to drive out of town at any point, but you have to have the gas for it, and you need the right reputation/street cred. Specifically: For every race you complete, you get X amount of street cred, depending on how well you did, how fancy your driving was, etc; you can do races against the same person in the same night/week/etc, but the cred you earn suffers from diminishing returns (you get less cred every time you do it; this is to counterbalance players saying "Oh, that guy? Yeah I can totally take him on."), and the more you win against them (in a given week/month), the less likely they are to agree to a race.

In terms of the player experience:
1. You don't like the city you start in, so you try to go to another one.
EITHER:
A) There is one way out of town, but you lack the Cred to go there, so the game freezes the camera at the City Limit sign and turns you around (the camera is frozen around the City Limit sign of any given city if you try to leave town/go to a different town) until you're back inside city limits, at which point the camera goes back to normal and gives the controls back to you.
B) There are multiple ways out of town, each one is clearly marked, and trying to go to a non-street-racing city gives you a warning ("Turn back, or your street racing career is over!"); if the warning is ignored for a quarter of a mile, your Cred is gradually reduced until either you reach the one-mile-from-town mark (at which point the game ends) OR until your Cred reaches a negative value (as you start the game with 0-10 Cred on a scale of 0-1,000,000, depending on what car you pick, what paint job you pick, etc, etc), at which point you are treated to a GAME OVER screen.
2. If you have sufficient Cred to go from City A to City B, the camera freezes very close to (above/below) the City Limit sign (of City A) as you drive into the distance in the direction of City B. The game either pulls up an animated map loading screen, or does some sort of transition, after which you are treated to the camera very close to the City Limit sign of City B and the game returns to normal as you enter city limits. Whether the transition is player- or computer-controlled is an option, perhaps?
3. After "unlocking" at least three cities, you get a map of the U.S. tacked, paper-clipped, or otherwise flexibly attached to the back of your normal, in-city map. Clicking on it lets you fast-travel in exchange for whatever amount of gas would have been necessary to get there, or else you can take a bus there and have your cars transported  there (how the cars will be saved, whether they can be transported between garages without a cost, etc, etc would need to be worked out for this one).

[cdoublejj]

Back in the day I think I remember Hellmark saying something along the lines of beating the king before going on to each city and after beating them all.. well you win.

One of my own ideas: i though if the game isn't to hard it could possibly be kind of cool if after beating all 3 kings/the game it unlock multiplayer. That could also be a TERRIBLE idea.

Your street cred idea more or less already exists in the first 2 street rods if you win against them enough or have a highend enough engine they will tell you to fuck off.

If you have them tell you to fuck off all the time then it's virtual impossible to grind for more money if you are upgrading another car or blow and engine or trans or whatever reason you want/need more money.

Of course in originals it based more on your car more than "street cred" so if you buy a enw slower car they will race you again.

I think it might be easiest to just implement map and click the city but, also have a few "long roads" you can use to drive there, this could also give us the ability to implement back roads aka the country roads, ie dirt and gravel roads, whihc was among one of the first ideas suggested.

as for your ideas if you don't have enough street cred, on the developer side of things i'd pull an ass hole move and do the text bubble that you get in the originals when you to drive off with missing parts, the second you try to get to the exit "hey speedy you don't have enough cred" or "hey speedy you haven't beaten the king". Really though idk it's to early.