What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

[DivotMaker]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

I think I should've been clearer. IMO the tricky part is how much content should be in the game OOB and at what point it becomes ok for developer to charge for the DLC/content. What if a game had barely 4-6 courses OOB and you had to pay for the rest? I wouldn't be ok with it at all.

When said I didn't want to pay for additional courses, my expectation was that the game would've around 20 or so mainstream courses such as Whistling straits, Pebble Beach, St Andrews, Banff, Augusta, Banff Springs, TPC Sawgrass, La Quinta, Harbour Town etc. along with a bunch of random or made up country clubs to add more variety and for the initial part of the career mode where you start off playing on the no-name courses.

That is quite a list for an Indie developer. Expected of a behemoth like EA with so many folks and resources to throw at lists like that.

You might temper your expectations just a bit and be cautiously optimistic. Alan and the Team are NOT like EA and I think you will find they will make balanced decisions on DLC....IOW, a win, win deal...a win for users and a win for them.

[OnlookerDelay]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

What's a bit startling to me concerning the OS article is that there are so few golf games that are relevant right now. I noticed they didn't mention Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf, Winning Putt, or World Golf Tour in the article.

I can see why Perfect Golf might be off the table now, given the simulator direction in which that franchise seems to be heading. I would have loved to see where they could have gone with PG 2, using NVIDIA's Turf Effects, DirectX 12, and hi-res, 3-D mo-capped golfers. I love their camera options and the playing companion camera view when playing multiplayer, but the last-gen polygonal golfer and his lack of tight synchronization with the stick movement made me set this game aside for TGC 2, which adressed the fluidly mo-capped golfer, responsively linked swing interface deficiencies which bugged me about JNPG.

Winning Putt seems to get a lot of play internationally, but isn't popular domestically. It has great looking female avatars and that's about all I can say for it. The horizontal 3-click swing meter is from the Stone Age and doesn't do a thing for me!

World Golf Tour seems to get the nod for offering the most consistent scoring challenge, but they whole avatar pasted in a digitized screen image environment is perspective destroying to me. I think I've played maybe 9 holes all together... it just looks and feels clumsy to me.

[jbd345]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

So my question is, are these real course pga tour stops? Major courses ie us open etc. Or just random courses? That have no affiliation with the tour.

[lions67]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

I'm assuming it's a full priced $60 game and I would prefer they focus on the courses instead of player licenses. If you don't have to pay for player licenses they should be able to squeeze in more courses.

But you may be right I may have unrealistic expectations as I've mostly played the PGA tour titles (Tiger Woods and RM) and they always had the courses in there so the realistic number in case of TGC 2019 may be slightly less.

They said the game will be priced at the same point that TGC was when it was released .
So under 60

[HB_Alan]

Hi jbd, we'll have an announcement on these in the next few weeks. Nothing's been announced just yet. Cheers.

[daflyboys]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

Real courses and PGA golfers are not make or break deals for me on a golf game. I've been an avid Tiger 08 player online and off. The main aim has always been to try to make it as sim of an experience as possible. I even came up with taking away the aim arrow and for clickers, modifying the meter so there's no guide dots or lines. I even came up with a way to try to play in a 1P type mode, ironic since I generally dislike 1P views in games. My biggest wish, and maybe it's a pipe dream, is to have a game with fair play tactics. The largest problem with true swing PC players is that they can either edge or they buy a programmable mouse to straighten out their swings.... I know.... there will always be cheaters out there. So if there will be a good cross platform game, maybe game controller swingers and 3 clickers is about the only way to help level the playing field.

What about a 5 click system? 1- start swing , 2- break wrists, 3- power spot , 4- straighten wrist on downswing, 5- contact. No guide dots. No guidelines. Also, don't always foot position to "dial a distance" like in the TW games. Emulate what is done on a course. No one can run an aiming stick up to where you want to hit it to determine what you should do. Last for meter clickers, vary that speed difficulty as the ball lie worsens. Make it next to impossible for players to use clubs that aren't normally used in certain situations.

[GreenLightning]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

I'm playing The Golf Club 2 regularly in Society tournaments mostly. I play three different Societies a week, including the HB Studios official Open to All Society. The tempo dependent swing interface gives the game a bit of depth that I currently find lacking in other analog swing interfaces. TGC 2 is very shallow in the online multiplayer department, but they're taking major steps to eliminate that in their forthcoming TGC 2019 game.

I own Everybody's Golf and play it occasionally, but its non real time, 3-click swing interface doesn't engage me that much and just simply feels outdated. This game seems like a step back from Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational on the PS3, which had a real time, meterless (for the power click anyway) 3-click interface that required the player to watch the golfer's swing for gauging the power. I found it to be a lot more engaging than the throwback 3-click meter we have now. It looks pretty good though, but honestly, not as much better than the PS3 version as I'd have imagined.

I had some hope for Perfect Golf 2 at one point on PC, XBox One, and PS4. Now I'm not holding out much hope for Perfect Golf 2 on anything other than the Trackman Simulator, now that Trackman has bought Perfect Parallel, PG's developer. It *may* come about on the PC someday, but not anytime soon. I'm confident we'll never see PG 2 on the consoles though. It's a shame because I think PG 2 held more promise for realism for non-simulator use, but it's not gonna happen.

I was disappointed in the course selection. I actually found the first game they put out for the PS3 was better. The new version isn't bad but they need to get rid of the fire drill on the tee. Looks ridiculous watching characters running after the ball. After playing the TGC2 I am quite done with Hot Shots.

[ncp10]

Re: What Is the Future of Golf Games? (Roundtable)

Will TGC 3 have something akin to TW2004's mouse Tru-Swing, horizontal and/or vertical? This is my preferred swing model. Any method that does not move the ani in realtime is not for me. I love how in RM one can take the club back on the outside and then drop the club into the inside. What might be missing is a way to make that swing action shape shots more directly at least some. Near as I can tell, though I'm only using Normal difficulty still, a perfect draw comes from trying to get the diagonal swing dead perfect, which if you free-hand your swing, is pretty tricky to do so far for me. I'm not sure if ALSO adding a little bit of swinging inside to outside adds to the draw action, or hampers it, for example. I'm hoping it's a case of yes, the change in downswing path does impart more side spin up to a point after which swing error dominates the outcome.