Forza 4 Community and Multiplayer Q&A

Our most recent look at Forza Motorsport 4 was focused on some of the biggest changes made to the game's career mode. But as anyone who has spent time with the franchise knows, multiplayer is one of the biggest draws the series has to offer. So we recently talked with content director John Wendl to get a sense of some of the big changes happening on the social side of Forza.

GameSpot: What's the process Turn 10 uses when coming up with new community and social features? Is there more fan influence with these elements of the game than with the more single-player-oriented features?

John Wendl: We're lucky to have a large community of Forza Motorsport fans who are deeply invested in every aspect of our game. Beyond its sheer size and enthusiasm, our community is characterized by a tremendous amount of diversity. That diversity is both fueled by and reflected in the many ways players can experience Forza. Some players enjoy Forza for its simulation aspects; they turn off all the assists and spend their evenings enjoying the wheel-to-wheel racing online against some of the best racers in the world. For others, Forza is a chance to express themselves creatively, through tools like our livery editor or via photography and video creation.

Because of the variety of experiences in Forza, we hear feedback and ideas from the community regarding nearly every aspect of our game. As you might guess, our community and social features hold a special place in the hearts of our most hardcore Forza fans. Innovative features like the storefront were a big hit in Forza 3, so for this game, we knew we would need to step back and really think about which features would best serve our fans.

Of the many community features we've added to Forza 4, two specific examples come to mind, both designed to give our fans innovative and compelling gameplay experiences. The first is Rivals mode. In this mode, players challenge one another in a variety of automotive events, including drifting, hot lapping, autocross, and more. In Rivals mode events, you are automatically assigned a rival whose time you are challenged to beat in that race. Once the event begins, you'll be racing against your rival's ghost. If you beat your rival's time, you'll move above him or her on the leaderboard, earn a bounty of credits, and then be automatically assigned a new rival. If your rival happens to be someone on your Xbox Live friends list, that person will receive a message in the Forza 4 message center, challenging them to take down your time in the event.

The natural back and forth in Rivals mode is the kind of fuel that we think really stokes the competitive fires in a healthy community, and I can't wait to see the feature let loose among the Forza fan base. We'll have a number of preset Rivals mode challenges when the game ships, as well as a "Community Monthly" channel featuring custom-made Rivals mode events that will switch out on a regular basis to give community members fresh challenges to compete in.

A feature in Forza 4 that can be directly attributed to fan feedback is the return of user-hosted public lobbies. They weren't part of our last game, and while general feedback on the online hopper system in Forza 3 was very positive, we knew that for Forza 4, flexibility and choice was the key. As in the rest of Forza 4, we want people to experience cars they want in the ways they want--and that axiom certainly applies for online play. With the return of public lobbies, players can hop in their own lobby and design exactly the kind of race they want across a huge number of criteria: including number of opponents, type of cars and restrictions, track and ribbon, and much more.

GS: Let's talk about car clubs. What's the difference between this feature and, say, a group of Forza fans getting together on a forum and creating their own impromptu club?

JW: Forza fans getting together on forums and creating their impromptu clubs was actually a catalyst for the development of this feature in Forza Motorsport 4. We saw this kind of behavior happening on our forums and elsewhere--people going to the trouble of organizing themselves along very specific interests (for example, by manufacturer or by activity type), even going so far as to pay real money to change their Xbox Live gamertags so they could rep their clubs in Forza and around Xbox Live.

So we looked at this unprompted behavior and said, "How can we make this easier and more fun for our fans?" The result was the car clubs feature in Forza 4. In addition to allowing you to create a tag that will identify your club in the Forza universe, there is a leadership structure in car clubs which allows club leaders to control their club's roster, either by inviting new players or booting out unruly members.

Beyond the essential architecture of a car club (which can have up to 100 members), we wanted to give players a tangible incentive for being part of a thriving club. We do that in a couple of ways. First, we allow any player to share any car in his or her garage with the rest of the car club. This allows those with a huge collection of cars to "share the wealth" with the rest of his club members, while letting those who don't have a lot of time to play (or a lot of credits on hand) to try out some of the most elite cars in the game.

Secondly, with the introduction of club leaderboards, we let club members see where their club ranks against other car clubs in the Forza universe and work together to move their club up the rankings.

For example, consider the McLaren MP4-12C. It's already one of the hottest cars in Forza 4, but club members can work together to make it even better. Your club's best tuner can share a custom setup, while your club's resident livery tool expert can create a one-of-a-kind design. Apply the setup and paint job and then share that McLaren with everyone in your club. Perhaps your club's finest photographer will take an incredible photo of this masterpiece for use in a recruiting post on the Forza forums. Or your club's resident videographer may choose to feature it in a stunning highlight reel bound for glory on YouTube. Finally, you can put the car in the hands of your club's fastest racer and watch him set a lap record that moves your club up the leaderboard.

However you like to play Forza, and whatever your skillset, you'll be able to contribute to the success of your car club.

GS: Are there any restrictions or balancing efforts done to the act of sharing cars between club members? Something to preserve the competitive element of online races?

JW: Any car club member can share any car in his or her garage at any time. Conversely, he or she can choose to "un-share" any car in his garage for whatever reason they like. Regarding balance, every car in the game is available to race online (provided it meets the criteria of the room you are racing in). However, if you want to race an upgraded, tuned, or otherwise customized version of a car online, it needs to be part of your garage.

We have included a robust collection of available rules and restrictions in our multiplayer lobbies, specifically designed to allow players to balance races as they see fit. For example, players can choose to restrict players to specific cars or allow them to bring any car from their garage to the track. As with so many other features in Forza 4, it's all based on how players want to play the game.

GS: Is Rivals mode geared toward a different Forza player than online races? It seems like this sort of asynchronous online play is something that would appeal to older gamers who don't have as much time to spend in online races.

JW: For me, Rivals succeeds on a number of different levels. First, as you mention, it's a chance for players to find a competitive online race with someone close to their skill level on a schedule that works for them. You don't need to worry about organizing a time for multiple people to be online in a certain lobby at a certain time--you simply log in, find an event you like (or Rivals challenge you want to beat), and get to racing.

Beyond that, I actually think that Rivals mode has the potential to be something of a teaching tool for those who want to improve their driving skills in Forza. In Forza 3, you could download and race against ghosts, but not everyone shared their ghost information on the leaderboards. In Rivals mode, you can challenge the top players in the world in any available event, download their Rivals lap, and do your best to try and pick up on the nuances and techniques they used to set that quick time. While you might not be beating the fastest times in the world right away (or ever, for that matter), there's something to be said for continuously challenging people who are slightly better than you--you're bound to improve if you're paying attention.

Finally, I think the social aspect of Rivals mode can't be overlooked. There's just something about the mode that really kicks up the competitive fires in people. I've seen it happen among the development team here in the studio, and I can't wait to see how the rest of the world takes to it.

GS: How much has Rivals mode changed during the development process compared to the original idea you guys set out with?

JW: For the longest time we referred to the mode as "asynchronous online racing," which, aside from being a mouthful, doesn't really convey the fun challenge of the mode. Once we hit on the "Rivals mode" name--and committed to making this mode a chance for friends and strangers alike to compete and really invest themselves--the mode came to life.

Another great idea we hit upon early was in making Rivals mode a perfectly acceptable path for progression in the game. When you turn laps in Rivals mode, you're constantly earning credits just like you would in World Tour mode. In addition, you're earning profile experience points and manufacturer affinity points that will unlock new cars for your garage, give you discounts on upgrades, and offer substantial credit bonuses as well. Essentially, if you want to spend all your time in Rivals mode, you won't feel like you're missing out on any of the rewards that Forza 4 will offer.

Finally, the variety of Rivals mode event types grew organically the more we iterated on the design. Early on we knew you'd be able to do straight hot-lapping events in Rivals mode, but why not add drifting challenges, and autocross, and a channel full of events inspired by TopGear? Some of my favorite Rivals mode events are the "Track Days," where it's you against an essentially infinite amount of slower cars. Driving laps on Fujimi Kaido or the Nurburgring Nordschleife, all the while dipping and diving in between slower traffic, is an exhilarating challenge, and just another example of the kind of diversity we wanted to be integrated throughout the game.

GS: What has been the biggest challenge in making the move up to 16-player online races?

JW: Frame rate is always one of the most consistent challenges when creating a game, and even more so in a game like Forza Motorsport 4. We committed to 60 frames per second in the Forza Motorsport series early on, and we've stubbornly stuck by that number because we believe it's the best way to experience the high-intensity speeds and split-second action that make the racing genre so fun.

We spent a long time optimizing our systems, including our server infrastructure and network code, to make sure 16-player races would run as smoothly as possible online, without sacrificing the performance that our fans have come to expect from us. The fact that our game looks as good as it does and still runs at the rock-solid frame rate that our fans expect is a testament to the talent and hard work our team put into the game.

GS: Can you describe how much the online experience changes when you're in a full 16-player race? And what would you say to the fan who's worried that eight players was really the sweet spot all along?

JW: From a performance standpoint, the online experience in Forza 4 should feel much like previous entries of the Forza series, thanks to the work we've done to make sure our game can handle 16-player racing. That said, there's no doubt that doubling the amount of cars on-track from Forza 3 is bound to make traditional online races more eventful.

To me, the real promise of 16-player online racing is in the nontraditional gaming experiences we offer in Forza 4. Modes like Tag (virus), Cat & Mouse, and the brand-new Car Soccer mode become more immersive and take on a whole new level of fun when you add more players to the mix. Car Soccer is a particularly good example: the more players you have in a match, the crazier the action seems to become. Players can really start thinking about the cars they choose--do you want a quick, nimble car to score goals, a big Range Rover-type monster to play defense, or something in between? With 16 players competing on our automotive "pitch," once the match begins, it's pure madness from start to finish.

GS: Finally, let's talk about the storefront. What did this feature teach you about Forza fans with the last game? And what sorts of changes should we expect to see in Forza 4?

JW: We always knew our community was full of incredible creative talent, but the storefront in Forza Motorsport 3 really drove that home for us. I'm still blown away by the photographs that people upload and the intricate and beautiful liveries our community of artists create on a regular basis. The storefront allowed us to truly showcase the breadth and depth of creative talent in the Forza universe. More so, the storefront showed us that Forza fans take their creations seriously and love to be rewarded and recognized.

In Forza Motorsport 4, you'll be able to import all of your created layer groups from Forza 3 so all of your hard work will still be available for you. Incidentally, this includes all of the layer groups and decals you purchased in Forza 3--though if they were locked in Forza 3, they'll still be locked in Forza 4. This feature will let you get a head start in painting your personal collection of cars. It will also allow you to quickly set up shop online with your Forza 4 storefront.

Finally, browsing content in the storefront is easier than ever before. For example, we've added a quick-buy option in the World Tour career car menus. With one click you can search for tuning setups and design liveries for the current car you are driving, then easily buy the items that matter most to you so you can quickly jump to the next race in your single-player career.

GS: Thanks for your time.