Let's make this a definitive list of what people want to see in the community patches. I will keep them all nice and tidy in one post for easy checking.
Warning: There will be no priority. People are free to rank what they like to see the most and the least added but things will be added/worked on when I have time and energy. I will generally hold no feature favourite over another unless I think it is something that is drastically needed. I'll start first with a few
Drags:
- fix the stadium/backdrop thing for mtm1 drags when loaded in mtm2
- fix the dark textures resulting of the DX9 transition
- add the drag weekends from mtm1 (as in, qualifying and knockouts)
UI:
- move towards a full hardware renderer menu + game, dropping the current menus. They look nice but they are troublesome when paired with hardware accelerators. Was a big source of the crashes for earlier versions.
- somehow add cockpits back
- fix the instant replay page
Technical
- increase limits (will detail these separately later)
General
- bring back the tournaments where a user can manually add races/drags together and score points based on final positioning. Preferably also to be able to save the tournament state so one doesn't have to do it in one go
- tinker with the AI trucks to make them more competitive
- maybe find a solution to completely change the way AI trucks are written <- this is a big task, not sure it is feasible.
- make rumbles playable offline <-- probably tied with improving AI trucks for races
Community Patch Wishlist
Re: Community Patch Wishlist
For me, my main request would be porting MTM2 to OpenGL.
Having a fully hardware rendered UI would be a great step, i like the stylized in-game dialogs but they are indeed a pain in the *beep*, they lag, they are not easy to scale or create for new resolutions and they make potential future platform ports of MTM2 harder.
Here is a list of the rest of more technical requests. I call those "Have Fila increase box count! since mark didn't gave a *beep*"
Top concern
Having a fully hardware rendered UI would be a great step, i like the stylized in-game dialogs but they are indeed a pain in the *beep*, they lag, they are not easy to scale or create for new resolutions and they make potential future platform ports of MTM2 harder.
Here is a list of the rest of more technical requests. I call those "Have Fila increase box count! since mark didn't gave a *beep*"
Top concern
- Port MTM2 to OpenGL
- increase object limit and ground box for all tracks.
- increase texture limit for all tracks.
- Add support for larger textures (keep support for 64px and 256px but 512 and 1024 would be nice)
- Support for 24bit truecolor textures, no more palettes for tracks! this should be applied retroactively and let us see objects, ground boxes, textures, trucks the way they were meant to be seen by the author.
- add support for 512x512 and 1024x1024 maps
- increase 48 moving objects limit.
- increase headlight limits.
- add support for vehicle windows (full transparent/opaque). maybe new face type in BIN format?
- increase checkpoint limit
- increase darkness intensity in terrain shadows (too soft to my liking)
- Offline rumbles (no more annoying warning).
- Add support for track type 0 tracks (Hillclimb practice)
- Display SIT track location in the new UI track selector
- increase number of available computer trucks (interestingly this is done in CPR)
- support for true double rear axle vehicles
- shock height fix for ST vehicles
- either move to a full 3D cockpit or a minimalist vectorized cockpit.
- add support for CPR maps (race track layer + increased object & terrain precision + more trucks). This one is not that important but i'm actively reverse engineering this in Jtraxx.
Re: Community Patch Wishlist
Here's my take, finally I can do this after 8 bloody years!...
Priority 1: ( I may end up doing it wrong, so bare with me).
- Reinstate Tournament mode from MTM1, especially in the sense of playing out monster truck seasons from past to present, be it PENDA, Monster Jam, or any other monster truck promotion company out there today.
- Some modified form of the Drag code to where certain race formats, like Chicago Style (O) and St Louis Style (OO) racing, and just about any other race format that exceeds the boundaries of the MTM1 Drag code are now possible.
- Introduce a Free Roam mode (equivalent to that of both 4x4 Evo, and that scrapped feature from the Metal Crush beta) where you can drive just about anywhere without having to remove computer opponents, or in the case of Army Armstrong having a go at you for missing checkpoints.
Priority 2:
- Introduce a Sprint Race format, basically, Point A to Point B racing, much like 4x4 Evo 2's Pikes Peak track, I'd love it if someone made Japanese mountain pass tracks like the ones from Initial D, and just call it (Initial D Monster Truck Stage) with Eurobeat as the soundtrack that plays in the race.
- For Drags, maybe something like an 18 truck format as opposed to the 8 truck format, with Fast Loser brackets in between. Both PENDA and Monster Jam tend to run those race formats depending on certain events.
- Load whatever stadium model as a backdrop that isn't always confined to a square boundary based on the game's requirements for a working stadium backdrop, basically stadiums ranging from circles, triangles, or whatever model that exceeds the boundary requirements for backdrops, if that's even possible to code in?
- This is in reference to the collision boxes for the AI trucks that I pointed out 8 years ago on the Drag beta patch thread, not suggesting that you should completely outright change it to where AI can hit them like the player can, as you'll essentially end breaking hundreds of tracks as a result, much like Arizona Dreaming with collision boxes used for the Spirit Gates for AI to pass through, and not yourself, but would it be possible to at least introduce some setting in Traxx to where you can change collision box types to something like (AI collide)? I only ever bring this up again, mainly because, be it drag conversions of existing tracks from two decades ago where collision boxes are used for ramps and such, but also for certain jump obstacles and cars that the ramp boxes themselves can't cover, that's practically been my main concern surrounding it all, and it would be nice for something add in so that the AI can jump over certain ramps and obstacles that exceed the limits of ramp boxes.
- Priority 3:
Highly unlikely, given that you already answered that question to LegendOfWii 8 years ago, I'm not sure what the circumstances are now? But a Freestyle mode would be cool to see, the problem is, it's not as easy with the limitations of MTM2's physics (you can't do donuts, nor backflips, or any other advanced physics modeling of that nature compared to something like Rigs Of Rods) not to mention having to adjudicate such things from points scoring ranging from certain stunts and smashing obstacles to rank up points within the time limit, there's a lot to work around when building such a mode where it's probably already stressful as it is right now. At worst, Free Roam mode is the best way around it I reckon.
- Different physics types that can be toggled on in the Garage menu for the sole purpose of Drags, Freestyle, and basically Free Roaming around a stadium or fairgrounds doing jumps and crushing cars without completely remodelling MTM2's simcade nature of physics, which is the most fun to me as opposed to hyper realism. NASCAR Racing 2003 Season has at least 4 physics types given to car mod creators for all sorts of cars to speak of, something like that would be cool for MTM2, For e.g, the bouncy type leaf sprung feeling of the 80s trucks, to the more softer landing nitrogen charged shocks of the modern monster trucks of today, with being able to flip and save, wheelie, backflip, all sorts of characteristics that MTM2's physics doesn't allow all that much right now.
There's all sorts of things that I can think of right now, but this post has already taken me a good 40 minutes of my time, and I just want to get it out of the way for now, but yeah, there you go!
Priority 1: ( I may end up doing it wrong, so bare with me).
- Reinstate Tournament mode from MTM1, especially in the sense of playing out monster truck seasons from past to present, be it PENDA, Monster Jam, or any other monster truck promotion company out there today.
- Some modified form of the Drag code to where certain race formats, like Chicago Style (O) and St Louis Style (OO) racing, and just about any other race format that exceeds the boundaries of the MTM1 Drag code are now possible.
- Introduce a Free Roam mode (equivalent to that of both 4x4 Evo, and that scrapped feature from the Metal Crush beta) where you can drive just about anywhere without having to remove computer opponents, or in the case of Army Armstrong having a go at you for missing checkpoints.
Priority 2:
- Introduce a Sprint Race format, basically, Point A to Point B racing, much like 4x4 Evo 2's Pikes Peak track, I'd love it if someone made Japanese mountain pass tracks like the ones from Initial D, and just call it (Initial D Monster Truck Stage) with Eurobeat as the soundtrack that plays in the race.
- For Drags, maybe something like an 18 truck format as opposed to the 8 truck format, with Fast Loser brackets in between. Both PENDA and Monster Jam tend to run those race formats depending on certain events.
- Load whatever stadium model as a backdrop that isn't always confined to a square boundary based on the game's requirements for a working stadium backdrop, basically stadiums ranging from circles, triangles, or whatever model that exceeds the boundary requirements for backdrops, if that's even possible to code in?
- This is in reference to the collision boxes for the AI trucks that I pointed out 8 years ago on the Drag beta patch thread, not suggesting that you should completely outright change it to where AI can hit them like the player can, as you'll essentially end breaking hundreds of tracks as a result, much like Arizona Dreaming with collision boxes used for the Spirit Gates for AI to pass through, and not yourself, but would it be possible to at least introduce some setting in Traxx to where you can change collision box types to something like (AI collide)? I only ever bring this up again, mainly because, be it drag conversions of existing tracks from two decades ago where collision boxes are used for ramps and such, but also for certain jump obstacles and cars that the ramp boxes themselves can't cover, that's practically been my main concern surrounding it all, and it would be nice for something add in so that the AI can jump over certain ramps and obstacles that exceed the limits of ramp boxes.
- Priority 3:
Highly unlikely, given that you already answered that question to LegendOfWii 8 years ago, I'm not sure what the circumstances are now? But a Freestyle mode would be cool to see, the problem is, it's not as easy with the limitations of MTM2's physics (you can't do donuts, nor backflips, or any other advanced physics modeling of that nature compared to something like Rigs Of Rods) not to mention having to adjudicate such things from points scoring ranging from certain stunts and smashing obstacles to rank up points within the time limit, there's a lot to work around when building such a mode where it's probably already stressful as it is right now. At worst, Free Roam mode is the best way around it I reckon.
- Different physics types that can be toggled on in the Garage menu for the sole purpose of Drags, Freestyle, and basically Free Roaming around a stadium or fairgrounds doing jumps and crushing cars without completely remodelling MTM2's simcade nature of physics, which is the most fun to me as opposed to hyper realism. NASCAR Racing 2003 Season has at least 4 physics types given to car mod creators for all sorts of cars to speak of, something like that would be cool for MTM2, For e.g, the bouncy type leaf sprung feeling of the 80s trucks, to the more softer landing nitrogen charged shocks of the modern monster trucks of today, with being able to flip and save, wheelie, backflip, all sorts of characteristics that MTM2's physics doesn't allow all that much right now.
There's all sorts of things that I can think of right now, but this post has already taken me a good 40 minutes of my time, and I just want to get it out of the way for now, but yeah, there you go!
Re: Community Patch Wishlist
- Ability to turn on/off 2 pixel overlap would fix a TON of tracks.
- Demystifying top crush.
- Fixing the darker textures when reversed faces share the same vertices.
- Different front and rear axles.
- Similarly, ability to place the axlebar pivot points independently front and rear.
- MTM 1 style dirt particle effects! I think these would look great at higher resolutions.