Maxi_Live
04-07-2006, 00:57
Test Drive Unlimited
3-Jul-2006 We go under the hood with Eden Studios' producer Ahmed Boukhelifa!
Test Drive Unlimited as been revving our 360's engine red hot for quite some time now, with a succession of screens and movies which have slowly manoeuvred it into becoming a serious challenger to established 360 motoring merchants like PGR 3 and Forza Motorsport.
Although the game leads on 360; PC, PSP and PS2 versions are also in the works, but with a big emphasis on online gameplay and the addition of some two wheeled biking action, it's the 360 version which excites us most and we're really looking forward to September when we can take Atari's challenger for well ...erm a proper test drive.
So high time then to get some more detailed info on Eden Studios' work underneath the hood and so we sat down with producer Ahmed Boukhelifa to learn more about what inspired Test Drive Unlimited, its comprehensive approach to persistent online racing, why there's still plenty of single-player content to get your teeth into and where it sits amongst the Test Drive series' illustrious heritage.
So pedal to the metal racing fans, the lights are going out and it's time to floor it...
First of all, how did the idea for Test Drive Unlimited come about?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We have a strong history of making racing games and our team have a real passion for 'pin-up' supercars. We knew if we were going to make a racing game for the Xbox 360 and high powered PCs that it had to be something that had not been tried before. There were a lot of ideas suggested and it was the massive online content that really got everyone excited.
People have made racing games with lots of online content before, but not to the extent that we have gone to - a beautiful persistent online world where players can drive glamorous supercars anywhere, do anything, race anyone and set up clubs and challenges - this really is the ultimate racing game.
What was the inspiration behind the MMO-style gameplay? How difficult was it to pull off in a racing environment?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: The inspiration came from two sources: what Microsoft is trying to achieve with Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 and the fact that we thought a persistent online racing world would be a really cool idea!
There were a few difficulties that we had to get around - damage was an issue and in the end we decided to leave it out. We thought that it would be a major issue if you were playing online and others were driving round the island deliberately trying to smash up other cars. If you had spent lots of time earning money and upgrading your cars it would be extremely frustrating to have an idiot deliberately crash into them the moment you drove out of your garage.
On top of that we had a think about all the other aspects that we could really push in a racing game if we based it on a persistent world - estate agents to buy houses, car dealerships to visit to buy/look at cars, clothing dealerships to help customise player avatars - these are all things that haven't really been done before in a racing world.
On top of that we had the enormous challenge of modelling the entire island of Oahu from GPS info - THE ENTIRE ISLAND!!!! This is something that we hope people will appreciate as generally racing games are just circuits and it's easy to use development tricks to make everything appear in a big environment - but with TDU we can't get away with tricking the players like this - we have to draw the entire island and do so to a high quality as that is was the public expect. Now that was a challenge.
How much inspiration does Unlimited take from the original Test Drive games?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: I think one thing that the Test Drive series has always done is give players really desirable dream cars and allow them as much interaction with them as is possible, whether it be racing them really fast or lusting over them in car dealerships and playing with all the gadgets. But we've really tried very hard to take not only Test Drive to the next level, but the entire driving genre.
What's the player limit on online races?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: Players can race up to seven other people. So, it's eight player online races and you can mix and match what vehicles you race with/against, for example - just cars, just bikes, bikes and cars, just one manufacturer of cars, just one manufacturer of bikes, just beginners, just experts, everyone - whatever you want to create anywhere on the island.
From a technical perspective, how does the support of thousands of players in the online world work? For example, are there a number of 'instances' on the island that can accommodate a set amount of players?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We have a certain amount of filters in the game that ensures that people don't end up out of their depth within the first few minutes of going online. If you are a beginner the game will recognise that and make sure that you can only see others who are of a similar standard. However, if you think that you are a brilliant player you can tune the filters to see exactly what you want - Unlimited ;-)
In terms of whether they are instances or not, it's a mixture really. If you are freely driving around the island then you will see everyone that your filters allow you to see. Then if you want to race you can chose from a number of options eg flash your headlights at another opponent(s) and set up an instant challenge where you determine the race parameters; enter into an online challenge; select a challenge created by someone else; create your own challenge etc. etc.
Then, once you go into a race it becomes an instance where it's just you and the other competitors - this is to ensure that when you're racing you don't have thousands of people blocking your way or even cheating to help their friends.
What kind of philosophy have you taken for vehicle handling? Have you gone for a more arcade or simulation experience?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: It's not so realistic that it isn't fun and it's not so arcade-based that all you have to do is tap the break to slide round corners - we want people to drive the cars properly, but we also want them to have as much fun as possible, so we've found a real balance between the two that works really well. We received a huge amount of feedback from the demo that we released during E3 and we've tweaked things in accordance to what people were saying - the feedback from people who have played it since has been incredibly positive. In addition, players can tweak their own cars to suit their style which will help.
The physics in the environment also play a large part in the vehicle handling and have been simulated fairly realistically: bumps in the road will effect your handling and players will need to be aware of how the environment affects thee cars physics.
The biggest challenge was getting the bikes to handle well. It was easy to make them super realistic, but found that this wasn't fun at all! So we worked very hard at tuning them to make them 'feel' realistic, yet easy to race and control.
What kind of single-player modes does the game have? How much fun is there to be had for solo players?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: The feedback that we had from people who played the early preview code was that they were surprised by the extent of the offline content - there really is a big offline game to challenge players that will keep them satisfied. Players still get to race around Oahu and the success in the offline game will of course help them online. In fact, to fully complete the game players will need to complete all the online and offline challenges.
Everything that you can do online can be done offline, with AI replacing real players - we even did a test to see if our QA team could tell the difference and a lot of them couldn't!
In a pure racing sense, how is Test Drive Unlimited unique compared to all the other 360 racing games?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We have bikes and cars and you can race them against each other. We have open roads to race around with a huge amount of environments and types of roads to race on and through. There are a huge amount of driving aids to help players customise their vehicles to exactly what they want eg traction control, ABS etc. The engine sounds are extremely accurate even when you wind the window down whilst driving. Players can completely set up challenges to how they chose from a wide selection of parameters.
How do you plan to extend the life of Test Drive Unlimited? For example, is there any Xbox Live download content planned for the game?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: Yes. We plan to have downloadable content available for TDU. We'll have car packs, cars, and possibly challenges plus there will be unlimited amounts of player created challenges to download and compete in.
Once Unlimited's out of the way, where would you like to take the Test Drive series in the future? Is the MMO-style gameplay something you'd like to expand on?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: At this point we are fully committed to finishing the game and producing ideas for additional content. We have just begun to think about ideas for the future, but until anything is definite we can't share them - we wouldn't want anyone else stealing our ideas ;-)
3-Jul-2006 We go under the hood with Eden Studios' producer Ahmed Boukhelifa!
Test Drive Unlimited as been revving our 360's engine red hot for quite some time now, with a succession of screens and movies which have slowly manoeuvred it into becoming a serious challenger to established 360 motoring merchants like PGR 3 and Forza Motorsport.
Although the game leads on 360; PC, PSP and PS2 versions are also in the works, but with a big emphasis on online gameplay and the addition of some two wheeled biking action, it's the 360 version which excites us most and we're really looking forward to September when we can take Atari's challenger for well ...erm a proper test drive.
So high time then to get some more detailed info on Eden Studios' work underneath the hood and so we sat down with producer Ahmed Boukhelifa to learn more about what inspired Test Drive Unlimited, its comprehensive approach to persistent online racing, why there's still plenty of single-player content to get your teeth into and where it sits amongst the Test Drive series' illustrious heritage.
So pedal to the metal racing fans, the lights are going out and it's time to floor it...
First of all, how did the idea for Test Drive Unlimited come about?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We have a strong history of making racing games and our team have a real passion for 'pin-up' supercars. We knew if we were going to make a racing game for the Xbox 360 and high powered PCs that it had to be something that had not been tried before. There were a lot of ideas suggested and it was the massive online content that really got everyone excited.
People have made racing games with lots of online content before, but not to the extent that we have gone to - a beautiful persistent online world where players can drive glamorous supercars anywhere, do anything, race anyone and set up clubs and challenges - this really is the ultimate racing game.
What was the inspiration behind the MMO-style gameplay? How difficult was it to pull off in a racing environment?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: The inspiration came from two sources: what Microsoft is trying to achieve with Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 and the fact that we thought a persistent online racing world would be a really cool idea!
There were a few difficulties that we had to get around - damage was an issue and in the end we decided to leave it out. We thought that it would be a major issue if you were playing online and others were driving round the island deliberately trying to smash up other cars. If you had spent lots of time earning money and upgrading your cars it would be extremely frustrating to have an idiot deliberately crash into them the moment you drove out of your garage.
On top of that we had a think about all the other aspects that we could really push in a racing game if we based it on a persistent world - estate agents to buy houses, car dealerships to visit to buy/look at cars, clothing dealerships to help customise player avatars - these are all things that haven't really been done before in a racing world.
On top of that we had the enormous challenge of modelling the entire island of Oahu from GPS info - THE ENTIRE ISLAND!!!! This is something that we hope people will appreciate as generally racing games are just circuits and it's easy to use development tricks to make everything appear in a big environment - but with TDU we can't get away with tricking the players like this - we have to draw the entire island and do so to a high quality as that is was the public expect. Now that was a challenge.
How much inspiration does Unlimited take from the original Test Drive games?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: I think one thing that the Test Drive series has always done is give players really desirable dream cars and allow them as much interaction with them as is possible, whether it be racing them really fast or lusting over them in car dealerships and playing with all the gadgets. But we've really tried very hard to take not only Test Drive to the next level, but the entire driving genre.
What's the player limit on online races?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: Players can race up to seven other people. So, it's eight player online races and you can mix and match what vehicles you race with/against, for example - just cars, just bikes, bikes and cars, just one manufacturer of cars, just one manufacturer of bikes, just beginners, just experts, everyone - whatever you want to create anywhere on the island.
From a technical perspective, how does the support of thousands of players in the online world work? For example, are there a number of 'instances' on the island that can accommodate a set amount of players?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We have a certain amount of filters in the game that ensures that people don't end up out of their depth within the first few minutes of going online. If you are a beginner the game will recognise that and make sure that you can only see others who are of a similar standard. However, if you think that you are a brilliant player you can tune the filters to see exactly what you want - Unlimited ;-)
In terms of whether they are instances or not, it's a mixture really. If you are freely driving around the island then you will see everyone that your filters allow you to see. Then if you want to race you can chose from a number of options eg flash your headlights at another opponent(s) and set up an instant challenge where you determine the race parameters; enter into an online challenge; select a challenge created by someone else; create your own challenge etc. etc.
Then, once you go into a race it becomes an instance where it's just you and the other competitors - this is to ensure that when you're racing you don't have thousands of people blocking your way or even cheating to help their friends.
What kind of philosophy have you taken for vehicle handling? Have you gone for a more arcade or simulation experience?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: It's not so realistic that it isn't fun and it's not so arcade-based that all you have to do is tap the break to slide round corners - we want people to drive the cars properly, but we also want them to have as much fun as possible, so we've found a real balance between the two that works really well. We received a huge amount of feedback from the demo that we released during E3 and we've tweaked things in accordance to what people were saying - the feedback from people who have played it since has been incredibly positive. In addition, players can tweak their own cars to suit their style which will help.
The physics in the environment also play a large part in the vehicle handling and have been simulated fairly realistically: bumps in the road will effect your handling and players will need to be aware of how the environment affects thee cars physics.
The biggest challenge was getting the bikes to handle well. It was easy to make them super realistic, but found that this wasn't fun at all! So we worked very hard at tuning them to make them 'feel' realistic, yet easy to race and control.
What kind of single-player modes does the game have? How much fun is there to be had for solo players?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: The feedback that we had from people who played the early preview code was that they were surprised by the extent of the offline content - there really is a big offline game to challenge players that will keep them satisfied. Players still get to race around Oahu and the success in the offline game will of course help them online. In fact, to fully complete the game players will need to complete all the online and offline challenges.
Everything that you can do online can be done offline, with AI replacing real players - we even did a test to see if our QA team could tell the difference and a lot of them couldn't!
In a pure racing sense, how is Test Drive Unlimited unique compared to all the other 360 racing games?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: We have bikes and cars and you can race them against each other. We have open roads to race around with a huge amount of environments and types of roads to race on and through. There are a huge amount of driving aids to help players customise their vehicles to exactly what they want eg traction control, ABS etc. The engine sounds are extremely accurate even when you wind the window down whilst driving. Players can completely set up challenges to how they chose from a wide selection of parameters.
How do you plan to extend the life of Test Drive Unlimited? For example, is there any Xbox Live download content planned for the game?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: Yes. We plan to have downloadable content available for TDU. We'll have car packs, cars, and possibly challenges plus there will be unlimited amounts of player created challenges to download and compete in.
Once Unlimited's out of the way, where would you like to take the Test Drive series in the future? Is the MMO-style gameplay something you'd like to expand on?
Ahmed Boukhelifa: At this point we are fully committed to finishing the game and producing ideas for additional content. We have just begun to think about ideas for the future, but until anything is definite we can't share them - we wouldn't want anyone else stealing our ideas ;-)