Wondered over to the Racing Legends forum (havent been there in a while) and found a very popular thread.
This info comes straight out of the thread "Racing Legends Info gleened from Goodwood Today"
"I managed to have a long chat with the West brothers today about RL and tried to get answers to the all the things people here were unsure about yesterday. I'm pretty sure its ok for me to post the answers here - they certainly didn't ask me not to.
Content
Due to licensing issues (they have no licenses at the moment) the core release is likely to be 1 car and 1 track only. The track I'm not sure of (they said that Sebring had no license costs tho) and the car would be 57 era, non-badged but very similiar to a real one.
Price
This has not been decided as it depends very much on predicted sales, which in turn depend on the response from the community. The more of us who buy into the concept the cheaper it will be. I asked that if the sales were expected to be about 5000 what would the price be, and the answer was around the £100 mark. Track and Car Add ons would perhaps be around £20 but would depend on how much the license costs were and how detailed the model was.
Beta test
They intend to charge for the right to be part of the Beta test program, but this fee would be refunded on purchase of the full product. This means that nobody will be prevented from getting hold of the Beta version. Beta testers would also be given all the information necessary to create add-ons, such as file formats, etc, so allowing work to be done on these before the main release is available.
Add on packs
Many of the functionality add-ons will be free - effectively upgrades. The tracks and and cars tho will probably cost you, depending on licensing and how much detail was included. Functionality that is not normally expected in a racing sim will probably also cost extra. The list of features in the add-ons list does not mean that there is no support for these in the core software - just that the add-on gives significantly more functionality (eg aero is modelled in the core but the add-on will give much more detail, wind tunnel, etc. I took this to mean the same sort of thing for damage.
Licensing
This is a big issue for RL. Tracks and circuits need licensing normally. Brands might well be £10000 to license but this is far from the most expensive. With only a small number of buyers the cost of licensing per owner may be much higher than for a normal game.
Machine Spec
They test on a P3 733 with V5 so a good GPL PC should be OK. As they said tho, more performance is always better.
Multi-player
This will be absolutely free. The add-on for league management is also likely to be free (I think I am right here anyway)
CDs
You will be able to buy normal CDs as well as the CD Cards - In their words, they just think they are cool
Third party add ons
They are very keen to involve the community in creating add-ons for the system, either as freebies or to be purchased. They also said that they may be prepared to effectively sell add-ons for those who create them.
When?
I didn't push this biggie. Very few products are done on time and they are not stupid, so we are not going to get an answer to this yet IMO.
Are Empire using their code?
No as it needs a floating point processor and the playstation doesn't have one apparently. Empire do retain all the rights tho and RL is all new code - They stressed this a lot.
My take on all this :
Chris and Tony have a lot riding on this project - they can't afford for it to fail. All those who write it off as 'never going to happen' are going to have to eat double portions of humble pie.
A lot of the decisions have been dictated by licensing issues - Most tracks costs a lot of money to license hence the core release not having lots of them. It also explains the add-ons as they can be released in small chunks and not require the Wests to commit to a big initial outlay with no guarantee of sales.
The cost is likely to deter those who are not sure if they need such a hardcore sim and have limited spending power.
Many of the issues that people raised yesterday are not really issues.
The one track and one car core release combined with a price tag of £100 is bound to raise eyebows. Personally I think its worth it tho assuming it lives up to its billing.
If we want this to work then we all need to get behind it 100% right now. Show them that the product has a big future, that we will buy it, and that we will help to make it grow as a community. At the same time we also need to give them constructive (operative word) critisim about the product. This will mean that in the long run the price will be lower and the product closer to what we want.
Paul"
Did i read correctly? £100 for 1 car and 1 track? :0 :0 :0
Theyve got to be having a laugh.
Whats your take on this.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2004 07:57PM by 97kirkc.