Team Sonic Racing - Upcoming Sonic Racing Game

[Jango]

7 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

I mean the alternative we're expecting is literally an All-stars racing clone without half the roster in the first place. A patent downgrade. And are we really clamoring to see all these old Sonic zones again! when we're so oversaturated with nostgia pandering in the first place?

... I know I'm not.

I would love to be a 100% wrong, but... That's sadly what's probably gonna turn out to be. But I have faith in Sumo. I also do not want a story mode just for the sake of a story mode, no one wants that.

[Your Vest Friend]

Honestly, there's a slight point to be made regarding likelihood of story. Although the Sonic Drift series lacked a plot, every console racer since Sonic R has had one (the Rivals series has such an elaborate story it contributes to the central canon even). By contrast, crossovers typically don't get one unless they specifically delve into RPG elements (Brawl's story mode, Kingdom Hearts as a thing), which a racer really isn't equipped to do. 

[GentlemanX]

I wouldn't mind some generic tournament or something one player campaign just to get some character interactions because I love those. I love the plots of the first two Riders games, but I'm not sure you could do the same thing with a kart racer. Free Riders story was terrible, but I wouldn't mind something similar with more variety and regular cutscenes; but given Forces, that sounds almost impossible.

I don't need a story mode to enjoy a kart racer though, and it's far from important to me.

[Marco9966]

If they wanna do cutscenes, it needs to be like the first Sonic Riders! (The  humor is butter than the newer games).

In full 3D!

Not the boring Free Riders cutscenes!

And if they're gonna teams, I want the full team Chaotix and the full Team Rose (including Big!),

not having half team Chaotix and team Rose by including Vector with Amy and Cream.

 

[Red Hot Jack]

I'm pretty sure there will be a story, it's one of the advantages of having only Sonic characters, they will likely be divided into teams, hopefully this doesn't exclude more diverse interactions. There will be an obligatory "Why is Sonic in a car?" joke/question.

But now I've had another thought: aside from a couple of new characters if they could get their license, a SEGA crossover roster would basically be the same soup we have had for 2 games, same characters except for a few new ones. An all-Sonic roster is something we haven't had since 2010, which I didn't play because Free Riders was an exclusive, so for me the last time was 2008, ten years ago.

[Tracker_TD]

10 minutes ago, Jack the Maniac said:

I'm pretty sure there will be a story, it's one of the advantages of having only Sonic characters, they will likely be divided into teams, hopefully this doesn't exclude more diverse interactions. There will be an obligatory "Why is Sonic in a car?" joke/question.

But now I've had another thought: aside from a couple of new characters if they could get their license, a SEGA crossover roster would basically be the same soup we have had for 2 games, same characters except for a few new ones. An all-Sonic roster is something we haven't had since 2010, which I didn't play because Free Riders was an exclusive, so for me the last time was 2008, ten years ago.

Again, there's nothing really besides budget to stop them doing a story for a SEGA crossover game. And that approach would be more unique than "Sonic and friends race again because [Eggman]. I mean I don't expect an amazing narrative from a racer anyway, but at least the crossover approach could give us some fun interactions. 

That, and I wouldn't count a Sonic only roster as an advantage when Sonic still has a main series where that's a common occurrence (Forces in particularly seemed to try and up the ante with character focus for instance) - compared to something like Skies of Arcadia, which hasn't been seen in its own series since like, 2001. Bit worse than 2008 (or rather, 2017), innit. 

[Red Hot Jack]

26 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

Again, there's nothing really besides budget to stop them doing a story for a SEGA crossover game. And that approach would be more unique than "Sonic and friends race again because [Eggman]. I mean I don't expect an amazing narrative from a racer anyway, but at least the crossover approach could give us some fun interactions. 

That, and I wouldn't count a Sonic only roster as an advantage when Sonic still has a main series where that's a common occurrence (Forces in particularly seemed to try and up the ante with character focus for instance) - compared to something like Skies of Arcadia, which hasn't been seen in its own series since like, 2001. Bit worse than 2008 (or rather, 2017), innit. 

I was the first who wanted a story in the All-Stars series, but SEGA thinks it's impossible or that it wouldn't work.

And I already said I'm not against more crossovers or more of actual games for other SEGA franchises, actually I'm in favor of them, I just want a Sonic only spin-off right now, I kinda need it. But I did say in response to the criticism and cynicism towards a Sonic only roster that another All-Stars roster would basically be the same we have had for a couple of games, because they can't exclude AiAi, Amigo, Beat, BD Joe, Ulala, NiGHTS (although they did that in the past), Ryo, Billy Hatcher, Alex Kidd, Gilius from Golden Axe, etc. plus the Sonic main cast, they take most of the roster.

Edit: fixed.

[Blacklightning]

12 minutes ago, Jack the Maniac said:

I was the first who wanted a story in the All-Stars series, but SEGA is incompetent and thinks it's impossible or that it wouldn't work.

How is that a mark of incompetence? The lack of a distinct narrative isn't necessarily a strike against a game, especially not a spinoff like this - all that really means is that their focus lies in other areas, even if it's as simple as balancing and polish. And the karting genre is notoriously difficult to balance (everyone hates Blue Shells, for example, but they've proven to be kind of a necessary evil because 1st place will generally dominate by a wide margin once people start squabbling over 2nd), so they're entirely within the right to focus on that area.

And let's be honest anyway, this is going to be a fanservice game first and foremost even if it's narrowed down to a single franchise, so I could probably count on one hand the amount of people who genuinely expect or care for an actual narrative in a game like this when there's plenty of fanwank to be had.

[Red Hot Jack]

1 minute ago, SaberX said:

I'm pretty sure it was intended. It was supposed to be a kart racing game(also knows as Mario Kart copy), so theres no need to have stories just a consistent gameplay.

Definitely, there is no need for a story but it's always good, especially a crossover one would be great, the comic did it. But I remember Steve from Sumo said they were planning a story for Transformed, he says they couldn't make it work, sadly.

[Salamander]

4 hours ago, Jack the Maniac said:

Definitely, there is no need for a story but it's always good, especially a crossover one would be great, the comic did it. But I remember Steve from Sumo said they were planning a story for Transformed, he says they couldn't make it work, sadly.

This contains the implicit reason why I would be genuinely intrigued by a story mode from this racing game: Because, by the sound of it, it would be conceived and written by Sumo, and it would be nothing short of delightful if they came up with something leagues better than the mainline games.

[Dr. Detective]

20 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

It's a spin-off Sonic racing game. Why on earth would we look at the story as a priority? 

I wouldn't... but if I were, I'd make it the wackiest, silliest, most insane story ever on purpose.

Not in a Colors way where they stand around talking either.

Like, in a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure way, where everything's just batshit. Because the idea is so silly, what else could you do?

[Iko]

How would you react if Sanic is included as a secret playale character? Considering how they are putting the meme in official media now, this isn't impossible anymore, if they want to put Sanic in an official game, they can.

Personally, as long as it's treated as a low effort addition (such as a model swap of Sonic with broken parameters, hopefully disabled online for fair play's sake), I would find it funny, but I know that many people would go crazy against it if their favorite character is not in the game but Sanic is.

[Red Hot Jack]

3 hours ago, Iko said:

How would you react if Sanic is included as a secret playale character? Considering how they are putting the meme in official media now, this isn't impossible anymore, if they want to put Sanic in an official game, they can.

Personally, as long as it's treated as a low effort addition (such as a model swap of Sonic with broken parameters, hopefully disabled online for fair play's sake), I would find it funny, but I know that many people would go crazy against it if their favorite character is not in the game but Sanic is.

I would react negatively, very negatively, I'm just not into this type of meme, I don't get the appeal. But it would be harmless if it's just a cameo sticker to decorate a vehicle.

[Marco9966]

We need fun characters interactions for this game.

It's not a serious deep lore story.

 

[Fire-N-Space]

They should let you be able to make custom stamps for your car like the way F-Zero GX did it! 

[Multikaris]

On 4/1/2018 at 10:05 PM, Iko said:

How would you react if Sanic is included as a secret playale character? Considering how they are putting the meme in official media now, this isn't impossible anymore, if they want to put Sanic in an official game, they can.

Personally, as long as it's treated as a low effort addition (such as a model swap of Sonic with broken parameters, hopefully disabled online for fair play's sake), I would find it funny, but I know that many people would go crazy against it if their favorite character is not in the game but Sanic is.

As long as we get some kinda nod to the comics, it’ll be okay with me. 

[jgcatindig]

On 4/1/2018 at 8:02 AM, GentlemanX said:

I wouldn't mind some generic tournament or something one player campaign just to get some character interactions because I love those. I love the plots of the first two Riders games, but I'm not sure you could do the same thing with a kart racer. Free Riders story was terrible, but I wouldn't mind something similar with more variety and regular cutscenes; but given Forces, that sounds almost impossible.

I don't need a story mode to enjoy a kart racer though, and it's far from important to me.

A series of Tournaments and Special Events,  akin to how Need For Speed High Stakes on PS1 did it. You could get unlockables in the Special Events. Finishing all Tournaments will be needed to access Online play. 

[DarkRula]

Restricting online play behind completion of the solo mode seems silly. Unlocking it through completing one tournament would be enough, or not locking it behind anything at all. In this day and age, locking the online portion like that just won't cut it - especially when racers have equal parts online and solo [or at least sharing between them].
Unless the solo mode was made to be the main attraction, but most players these days see the online components as the main modes even with a large solo offering.

[Red Hot Jack]

I just had a thought: the roster, if they are willing to take some liberties, has a lot of potential, they could add lots of fanservice from various games, Riders (Jet, Wave and Storm), Forces (cutsomizable Avatar and Infinite), Boom (Sticks), Adventure (Chaos, Chao and Tikal), or even Drift 2 (Classic Sonic with his red car, Nack in his Marvelous Queen), maybe R (Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll) and Mania (classic versions of the main characters plus Mighty and Ray to advertise Mania Plus, and one or some of the Hard Boiled Heavies, like Heavy King, or Heavy Gunner on the elicopter, or Heavy Rider on that motobug). If you want to be a pessimist, it's only gonna be 20 characters, the most predictable, but please let me dream, because "the possibilities are never ending."

[jgcatindig]

I'd rather the alternate versions be skins to their respective characters. Like Classic and Boom Sonic,  Classic Tails,  Knux, Amy,  Boom Tails,  Knux, Amy,  shit like that. 

On 4/4/2018 at 11:15 PM, DarkRula said:

Restricting online play behind completion of the solo mode seems silly. Unlocking it through completing one tournament would be enough, or not locking it behind anything at all. In this day and age, locking the online portion like that just won't cut it - especially when racers have equal parts online and solo [or at least sharing between them].
Unless the solo mode was made to be the main attraction, but most players these days see the online components as the main modes even with a large solo offering.

This proposal is to avoid griefers and trolls. Online games seem to be infested with assholes lately(glares at Overwatch and League). At least when you restrict Online like I said,  players stepping into it are already skilled enough to be competitive.

[Bobnik]

21 minutes ago, jgcatindig said:

This proposal is to avoid griefers and trolls. Online games seem to be infested with assholes lately(glares at Overwatch and League). At least when you restrict Online like I said,  players stepping into it are already skilled enough to be competitive.

1) Locking online play behind single player mode won't do anything to griefers or trolls.

2) Not everyone plays online games just to be competitive, there are more casual people that just want to play with other people without any sort of care.

3) The only mode that does need to have some sort of requirement is the competitive mode (if that is a thing in a game), like other online games already do. There's no reason to lock the whole online play behind it. Not only that, this proposal is destructive for those, who just want to play the game with friends online and don't have time to go through single-player.

[Blacklightning]

Quote

This proposal is to avoid griefers and trolls. Online games seem to be infested with assholes lately(glares at Overwatch and League). At least when you restrict Online like I said,  players stepping into it are already skilled enough to be competitive.

All that does is create a community that is elitist as all hell though, which is every bit as toxic as having actual griefers participate. And on that note, speaking as someone who's played games that literally have paywalls on certain types of play, IT DOES NOT EVEN FUCKING WORK. People will find ways to ruin the game for others regardless - all you're ultimately accomplishing is making the playerabase much, much smaller, which is the kind of thing that kills games that... you know, depend on having a playerbase.

[Badnik Mechanic]

9 hours ago, jgcatindig said:

This proposal is to avoid griefers and trolls. Online games seem to be infested with assholes lately(glares at Overwatch and League). At least when you restrict Online like I said,  players stepping into it are already skilled enough to be competitive.

 

On 04/04/2018 at 4:02 PM, jgcatindig said:

Finishing all Tournaments will be needed to access Online play. 

I dont care what the reasoning is. This suggestion is utterly horrendous.

You are not only denying a large group of people from playing a large part of a game, but you are deliberately splitting the community for your game and drastically cut the life of your game due to the lack of playets and for the playerbase itself, cutting of the official support for it due to a drop of uptake.

 

If you are that afraid of people being nasty online..  here is a better idea.

Have a report player system. With a simple if statement.

"IF: X number of unique player ID'S report User Player ID.

THEN: auto mute their mic per lobby for 24 hours."

That way you can have a fully automated system which deals with people abusing chat, but does not deny them access to the game, furthermore it also allows them to be un-muted manually be other players should they wish.

 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Or just don't bother with communication in general. In a team-based game like Splatoon I'm not a fan of the "try our stupid extender or get nothing" approach toward chat, but what necessitates it in a racing game where no coordination with teammates is needed? Nobody really complained about the online community in the last two Sonic racing games, I don't see any reason to fix what isn't broken.

[SKSpawn]

I haven't really looked too deeply into the rest of this thread but how many racers do you guys think we'll see in this title?

I'm guessing we'll get all the usual suspects (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, Metal Sonic, Shadow, and Rouge) but do you think we'll see Silver, Espio, Vector, and Charmy turn up as well? Or Cream (she hasn't been around for a while) and the Babylon Rogues?

Once upon a time things like this were easy to predict but it's difficult to tell with SEGA, who can never seem to make their minds up whether they want to acknowledge and include Sonic's friends or ditch them completely.

I'd like to see NiGHTS and Billy Hatcher come back as guest characters like in the Sonic Riders titles, and maybe chuck in Mighty, Ray, Nack/Fang, Bark, and Bean if possible, but do you think guys like Infinite and Chaos will show up at all?