1822 replies to this topic

[JCat04]

It's ok JC i never thought there were any HB forum members posting anything negative, i know it was just hearsay and the post was innocent enough.  It was only ever adx and J eric who tried to post misinformation from the start.  I initially contributed to the thread because stan solo asked me,  he knew i had shifted my focus to PG and wanted first hand info.  I like Stan he's a good guy so it was no bother.  Of course the thread got out of hand at times, but seriously, 99% of what i posted over there was firmly tongue in cheek banter and game info.  The notion that i would try to recruit GC players to defect to PG is laughable, i think MJ could confirm that i'm not on the payroll    I totally get why some people would plump for TGC as their go to golf game, i played it myself for a long time and cannot complain that i never had value for money.  When we had that ball squirt fiasco the swing got changed and became way too easy, it was never that difficult anyway but after ball squirt it was just silly.  There was never any talk about stiffening up the short game, i did ask for change many times.  Couple that with the most horrendous screen tearing i have ever experienced in my time gaming when i owned an AMD card, i could not get thru 9 holes without it corrupting,  after that i just lost all faith in the product and PG was perfect timing for me to shift.  I will no doubt cast an eye on TGC 2019 but i won't be rushing in until i'm 100% convinced it has changed for the better, TGC 2 was a complete let down for me, i wish i could say i enjoy the odd round here and there, but it just fails to meet my requirements.

 

 

DogGs, I can't fully explain why I prefer TGC 2 to JNPG, anymore than I can fully explain why I preferred JNPG over TGC 1.  We're all wired differently is the best explanation I can offer.  I know I tried to play TGC 1 last night, as an experiment with graphics settings... I was shocked at how poorly it stacked up to TGC 2... it just felt and looked "clunky", IMO.  My PC has an NVIDIA Geforce 1060 graphics card in it, and I honestly can't relate to the screen tearing you describe.  I'm not saying it's not there for AMD cards, I just don't see it nearly as severe as what you describe.

 

I have a hunch that TGC 2019 is going to be sneaky good.  I've picked up enough signals through the stress test beta and through the last couple of gameplay videos that it's got some things going on under the hood that defy quantifying or qualifying.  I'm also not gullible enough to think that everyone is going to see these things the way I do.  I am pretty confident that TGC 2019 is going to be more of a commercial success than TGC 2, and a lot of that will be attributable to finally having real time multiplayer, and match creation utilities that put everyone on the 1st tee at the same time.  Some of it will be due to the PGA TOUR license, even though they'll only be cashing in on six PGA TOUR courses, out of the gate.

 

You're a great course designer and I've seen you do outstanding work on both JNPG and TGC.  I don't know that TGC 2019 is going to offer you all the tools you crave for course design, but I hope at some point you'll be able to get your hands on the game to see how it plays, whether you're interested in designing for it or not.

[maxie]

jcat04 do you even play ? I think you are a golf club fan boy that has nothing better to do and just sometimes in your boring day drop into the forums

[JCat04]

jcat04 do you even play ? I think you are a golf club fan boy that has nothing better to do and just sometimes in your boring day drop into the forums

 

Yes, I play just about every day, but when I play I'm playing TGC 2, 90 to 95% of the time.  I check in here frequently in hopes of picking up news of PG 2.  I'll occasionally learn of a new JNPG course that I want play here, and I'll give it a go.  Apparently I fit your definition of 'golf club fan boy', so I'll just have to wear it I guess.  I enjoy playing it more than any other right now, but I also recognize it's nowhere near the potential I think it has.  IMO, if I ever was a fan boy, it was of PGA Championship Golf 2000.  I'm nowhere near that level of fandom for TGC 2.

[andrewjjones43#]

I've spent money to eat Sushi before and didn't like it either but I guess using your logic that's not a proper opinion to have.

I didn't know if I'd enjoy the courses overseas until I played them and realized how inferior they were to the great courses I was exposed to all the time for way less effort. I play Bethpage Black, Ferry Point, Pebble Beach, Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Pronghorn Nicklaus, and many other great courses every single year. They're just my preference on what golf should be. I prefer all the trouble laid out off the tee, not hidden pot bunkers you have to hope your pachinko ball doesn't roll into after rolling 75 yards due to no irrigation. Slow greens, spotty turf, lacking a great deal in elevation changes where someplace like Bethpage is DRAMATIC and it's just not my preference. I had a chance to play the old course this year for free, respectfully declined. Been there, yawned a lot, don't need to again unless I have Insomnia.

For all of you who prefer Links courses, good for you, I'm glad you found a way to enjoy the game. I suspect if you walked the 8 miles of Bethpage Black you'd have a tough time walking the Old Course again and feeling the same challenge.

[DoGgs]

It's still so hard to look beyond how bad the bunkers are in HB's latest offering, they just look like ugly scars, maybe AK can chime in here and explain why the bunkers have never been improved from the original game. 

[Mike Jones]

It's still so hard to look beyond how bad the bunkers are in HB's latest offering, they just look like ugly scars, maybe AK can chime in here and explain why the bunkers have never been improved from the original game. 

 

HB use a shader effect to fake the lip shadow from the outer bunker shape which is why you can't create a pot bunker and why you get weird looking shadows on the bunker edges. They would have to redo the entire bunker creation method to create pot bunkers which would have been a lot of work for them.

 

With PG we set out to be able to create a wide variety of realistic physical bunker lip styles with an actual mesh construction which enabled us to implement pot bunkers quite easily with just a few tweaks to the mesh code. The CourseForge layers library also can also be customised so that bunkers of almost infinite variety can be created. As bunkers are one of the most distinctive parts of a golf course we felt it was important to give them due attention.

[Buck]

I don’t know…
In that shot from DoGgs...

Something about the way the flock of people is sort of “there” and the character looks and the postures.

It sort of reminds me of the zombie people from old tiger games.
I’m also a little surprised with the skittles colors shirts all over the place.

It just doesn’t do much for me in terms of the atmosphere.

I know they are trying very hard of course. It’s just so difficult to do something like tournament atmosphere correctly and convincingly.

[Buck]

I mean - are we really sure TGC 2019 looks better/more realistic than even TW14 (beyond raw resolution/lighting which is last gen for sure in TW14).

I see in this shot they even have the rope to keep the crowd back.

 

 

Love the bunkers in this shot also!

 

[DoGgs]

Funny you say that Buck, the multi colors in the gallery struck me as a bit odd too.  If there was such a thing as the "Jamaican masters golf"  that would be the crowd  All that's missing is a John Holt number blasting out in the background.

I totally agree with you Mike, bunkers are an integral part of how a course looks and feels, its a massive plus for PG that the bunkers are so good.  I also kinda thought that improving TGC's bunker would be a big undertaking, but considering we have had two iterations of TGC since the original as opposed to less expensive DLC, they may have deemed it worth taking on, but i guess it would mean spending some of their profits.

[clubcaptain]

Spectators have never been convincing in ant golf game.

[DoGgs]

Spectators have never been convincing in ant golf game.

Take that back damn you!

[Buck]

Funny you say that Buck, the multi colors in the gallery struck me as a bit odd too.  If there was such a thing as the "Jamaican masters golf"  that would be the crowd 

 

Right?

It's like everyone just shopped at the "LaCoste Spring Colors Polo Sale" on their way to the course..

[Buck]

One other thing - I totally realize this is nitpicking and subjective...but I don't really care for that swing feedback GUI they came up with.

 

It feels somewhere between a Need For Speed Speedometer and a Space Ship/shuttle cockpit gauge to me.

 

For both that and the Loft Box, I really wish they were coming up with something that thematically ties in with the sports/golf presentation look and feel, and weren't so jarringly "technical looking interface elements"

[adx321]

Crowds are idiotic 

[mebby]

It's still so hard to look beyond how bad the bunkers are in HB's latest offering, they just look like ugly scars, maybe AK can chime in here and explain why the bunkers have never been improved from the original game. 

I do have to agree that this particular photo looks really, really bad.  I don't think it's a fair representation of what the game actually looks like but that doesn't mean that the bunker lips still aren't bad even in the best conditions.

 

JNPG will always look more realistic to me.  The variety of surfaces and the little details all work very well together - at least for the designers that know what they are doing (and that's not a criticism - even the very worst designer would make me look ridiculous).  Throw in some 3D grass and decent avatar I can't imagine TGC ever catching up in the graphics department.

[DoGgs]

No mebby that pic prob does not do it justice as a whole, when you get the lighting right it looks great, just a pity that half of the round will look like that pic and the other half will look fine.  Just looking thru my old pics from TGC and found a boston and Augusta pic that shows TGC  in a better light, i never did release my version of the course, it was quite pretty too.

[DoGgs]

And the bunkers def looked better in the original GC..

[DoGgs]

Damn i have so many pics from TGC days, I never released Augusta because when i created the course we never had access to the red pine needles, you see in the pic below just green grass under the pines and not the iconic red needles.  When the new textures came in with needles and mulch i was so disappointed in how fake they looked i never bothered to add it and release the course....

[mebby]

Yea - those last few pictures show what TGC is capable of.  But even so, JNPG can still blow it away graphically (IMHO).  Just imagine with JNPG would look like with 3D grass and a decent avatar?  Sheesh... it would be in a league of it's own.

[GoldenBear]

Since I love realism I do not want crowds of people watching in a video game.  They do not follow non pros in real life therefore to have them in a golf game is just silly nonsense.