General discussion for the DRIVER series.
#48471
On Reflections: First interview with the Ubisoft studio's new MD

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Pauline Jacquey on how she intends to bring the UK studio into the limelight

Pauline Jacquey is a woman who likes games, loves to travel, and who once mischievously lied to an interviewer about collecting octopi. She also just happens to be the new managing director of Ubisoft Reflections, the Newcastle based development studio responsible for Driver and Just Dance, and currently working on Watch Dogs.

She spoke exclusively to GamesIndustry International about her plans for the studio, the excitement of working on a new IP for PlayStation 4, and what her time at Ubisoft has taught her about the industry.
Full article here
#48505
"I'm very interested in the evolution of the industry like free-to-play and digital and mobile" this worries me a little, hopefully reflections is not turned into a game studio that does these kinds of games, i just hope they don't stop making great driving games. We will see....
#48507
Fab2cent wrote:"I'm very interested in the evolution of the industry like free-to-play and digital and mobile" this worries me a little, hopefully reflections is not turned into a game studio that does these kinds of games, i just hope they don't stop making great driving games. We will see....
(Y)
#48508
Fab2cent wrote:"I'm very interested in the evolution of the industry like free-to-play and digital and mobile" this worries me a little, hopefully reflections is not turned into a game studio that does these kinds of games, i just hope they don't stop making great driving games. We will see....
I don't believe so, because:
We already have interesting technology that we develop for the group that's linked to what we did in the past, driving. It's really cool, I think it's in the top technology you have at Ubisoft. And we have collaboration but we are already doing our own thing, but I can't talk about it.
:) (Y)
#48640
TheEngiGuy wrote:I'm sure Watch Dogs will have great driving gameplay and physics.
I was kinda disappointed about Driver SF's physics.
Indeed.

I mean, the takedown crashes were awesome! But I felt like there was something missing.
You know those over the top Stuntman/Driv3r physics were more fitting to the hollywood car chase thing they got going on. Not to mention they were hilarious with the AI police.
#48641
Yeah, DSF is definitely more realistic in the sense that vehicles stick more to the road. But after a while it does get really easy to flip any car, I can even make a tanker flip just like that!

First I preferred the Driver 3 feeling. DPL also had this "sticked to the road" feeling, which was inferior in my opinion. But some months ago I played Driver 3, and seriously, when you take a jump your car spends so much time in the air, as if it was in slow motion. It just doesn't feel right, as if it had no weight.

But I believe that Watch Dogs will use similar physics to DSF. We know already that it will use Reflections' traffic system. But perhaps it will also use this new technique that Pauline was talking about. They might first test it in Watch Dogs and see how people react on it :)
#48644
Coyote wrote: But I believe that Watch Dogs will use similar physics to DSF. We know already that it will use Reflections' traffic system.
Reflections traffic system? You mean every car going at the same speed, ignoring the traffic lights and ignoring the player that has just crashed into them? :shock:
Well really, I hope not.

In my opinion, I enjoyed Driv3r's physics more because of the awesome crashes you get and the ability to use heavy drifts for difficult curves, and as Olanov said it had more Hollywood car-chase feeling. :specialdriver: Not to mention the traffic was more polished there.
In Driver SF the handling was really awesome, the rest is kinda more arcadey including the chases. Martin himself said "we want to make the chases as realistic as possible", and they end up making arcadey chases with police thinking they are doing demolition derby against the player and everyone using nitros and special powers.
#48645
TheEngiGuy wrote:
Coyote wrote: But I believe that Watch Dogs will use similar physics to DSF. We know already that it will use Reflections' traffic system.
Reflections traffic system? You mean every car going at the same speed, ignoring the traffic lights and ignoring the player that has just crashed into them? :shock:
Well really, I hope not.

In my opinion, I enjoyed Driv3r's physics more because of the awesome crashes you get and the ability to use heavy drifts for difficult curves, and as Olanov said it had more Hollywood car-chase feeling. :specialdriver: Not to mention the traffic was more polished there.
In Driver SF the handling was really awesome, the rest is kinda more arcadey including the chases. Martin himself said "we want to make the chases as realistic as possible", and they end up making arcadey chases with police thinking they are doing demolition derby against the player and everyone using nitros and special powers.

The DSF traffic system is much more than what we saw in DSF, in fact the game only showed a little part of it due to consoles being so limited!

I think the chases in Driver 3 are much worse than in DSF, they're only good in Nice where the cops act normally. In Miami and especially Istanbul, the cops will ram your ass with full speed, but strangely enough when you drive these cars yourself they never reach that speed. The only moment when you can reach that high speeds with the Miami cop car is in one of the first missions when you have to go to Baccus' place. In that mission the car is much quicker, but as soon as you catch up on the other cop car you have to follow, the top speed is limited again. That's just gay sorry… and it was even worse in DPL. The 78 era was alright, even if the cops acted in a similar way, but in 2006 it was pretty much impossible to do a proper chase without the cops shooting a thousand bullets in your car with their shotguns.

Another thing that I've always been missing in all Driver games except DSF is flexible routes for the cops. They're all scripted so much and always follow your exact path. Sure it's funny to make them crash into light poles, but it's just not realistic. You never get to drive side by side, and slightly crashing each other, I really love that. The only moment when this was possible was in DPL, when you were driving a truck or a lorry.
Although in DSF there's a similar issue with Corvette's crashing into your back at full speed, honestly I hate them. But you can just do a New Game+ and they will be gone.

BTW: the cars in DSF behave differently in multiplayer. If you hit them they will stop and put their hazard lights on, they also avoid you (but they do that in single player as well) and I've never seen a car ignoring traffic lights yet, they all stop when it's red…

The game was really built to be a multiplayer game. Really, I'm not sure how you can play in the story mode all the time. It's all about takedown in multiplayer, that's really what this game has always been about: car chases. And nothing's more realistic than real players driving cop cars or being a crook, so forget the AI.
#48646
Agree with Olanov and TheEngiGuy.
Coyote wrote: I've never seen a car ignoring traffic lights yet, they all stop when it's red…
I didn't notice but most people in the forums say that is always green.
I also miss the parked cars.
#48647
Lack of stopping at red rights and the other things with traffic in DSF in single player was a definite turn off for me, in multiplayer it was handled great thought.

I hope they mix it around for Watch Dogs. And we can already see they have taken already a much more realistic approach in Watch Dogs than comapred to DSF or earlier Driver games.
The cars seem to drive in various different speeds and the fact how people in sidewalks, and traffic actually react in multiple ways to the collisions tell us plenty. Can't say much about pursuits since we haven't gotten proper footage on it yet.

About chases on DSF/Driv3r, that's like a fifty-fifty for me. The rubberbanding, cheating AI seems to be in both of these games. Only in DSF after multiple squad cars have crashed out, they seem to start actually losing sight of you and will back off more easily. In Driv3r they wouldn't balance it out like that. I for one, find the fact annoying that after you've progressed in the storyline, the cops act way more aggresively resulting in them usually crashing into traffic a lot, especially since there's much more pursuing units than in earlier Driver games. I guess the AI is having hard time cordinating with all the fast action going down and streets being blocked off. I'd just prefer if there were a lot of pursuing squad cars and they would chase you like in, let's say, one of the earliest missions like the one with Ordell and that other cholo freak. Overall I find them both enjoyable thought.

I'm just glad they're taking a far more realistic approach in Watch Dogs. Traffic, ped and cop AI seems fantastic from what we've seen so far!

Edit:

About the red lights, even Martin said that for optimization, the AI won't stop at red lights anywhere else than Downtown. It's pretty much the only place you'll see them obey traffic lights. Online and in Single Player.
Last edited by Olanov on Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:28 am, edited 2 times in total.
#48648
As Coyote said the police cars path of SF is another huge improvement of the Driver series. Even the chases in Driver 1 are perfect, but then they fucked up.
In Driv3r though sometimes a cop car stays on your side
, and sometimes they try to do a PIT against you.
If it wasn't for the silly path the police cars take, Driv3r would have had perfect chases.
#48649
For the red lights: There's intersection where they actually turn red! It's not just in downtown, actually in downtown I only know of two intersections like that, one just behind the garage and the other is near the city hall.

But yes, somewhere around 80 or 85% of lights are always green. Too bad!

I definitely think that Watch Dogs will be using more resources of the whole traffic system, the PS4 is much powerful and can handle lots of stuff! That's a good thing for PC players too because it means we won't have to play games anymore that were "limited" in order to run on consoles.

I don't like the increasing "cop-difficulty" either… well, I mainly don't like the Corvette, I just want Chargers, Escalade's and especially Crown Victoria's chasing me. So I have to do new game plus and progress a bit, the Corvette's are gone then but then I have this problem that 1) you don't have as many cops chasing you and 2) they're way too easy to get rid of.
#48650
Coyote wrote:I don't like the increasing "cop-difficulty" either… well, I mainly don't like the Corvette, I just want Chargers, Escalade's and especially Crown Victoria's chasing me. So I have to do new game plus and progress a bit, the Corvette's are gone then but then I have this problem that 1) you don't have as many cops chasing you and 2) they're way too easy to get rid of.
I wonder if we could possibly control this by modifying some settings on the Mac version. Got to look into it.
#48669
Driv3r physics had more of an over the top feel to it, and i like that. It fits in to the MOVIE CAR CHASE vibe of the driver games. On the topic of the red/green light thing, i think that always green is good. Imagine your on this massive car chase and have not taken 1 hit and u come to a intersection drift around it and there are like 10 cars stopped at a light, that would be bad imo. Always green lights keep the rhythm and speed of the game goin, less traffic build up.
Crazy Copper Frenzy

https://youtu.be/xAE3QsULyB4

https://youtu.be/AxdGf3F0yIg

Driv3r "Nice Getaway"

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