u/box-fort2

I'm almost halfway through the Freeburn Challenges and it's getting to the point joining other people's lobbies is a waste of time. I'll spend 30 mins doing challenges I've already completed before they happen to select one I haven't done by chance.

Not to mention I've fully completed all the 2 and 3 player challenge sets, and about half of the 4 player challenges.

I guess I don't need host for 5-8 player lobbies as I've barely done majority of them but getting more than 4 player lobbies is super tough even on the weekends.

What times are the servers most active? I have ended up in 8 player lobbies but it's super infrequent and everyone's always leaving and stuff.

I'm pretty broke so I don't want to be selling for crazy cheap but I would love to negotiate a price for these cars:

695 Biposto

2000 Roadster

296 GTB

Roma

MC12

Huayra R

8 Gordini

962CR

MR2 SC

With his rich parents, Ronnie probably had one of the best lawyers this side of Rockport vouching for him. Not to mention since he's a recent college graduate they could do the classic "he has a future ahead of him" defense and frame his street racing career as an isolated phase where he went down a dark path.

Given he also attended racing school, they probably would argue it was a well intentioned hobby that got out of hand. After all it was street racing, it's not like he was setting out to hurt people. Crime of recklessness and all that.

Dude definitely lost his license for a long time and got yelled at by his folks, but he was probably kept out of prison. Can't say that for the other 14 members. Especially Razor.

While other racing game series like NFS and especially Gran Turismo have refreshed their car list years ago, Forza is still infamously chugging along using car models from the original 2005 Motorsport game.

If Forza were to ever actually give a complete from-scratch reset for the series, what choices and design ethos would you hope they follow? Here's mine:

Around 200-250 cars at launch.

Emphasis on the icons and modern lineups. Niche stuff can come later.

More realistic performance upgrades. No drivetrain swaps, engine swaps are reasonable.

Customization on every car you'd expect. Only a tiny amount should have zero visual parts.

Simpler customization with larger quantity of parts. Bodykits come as a set, no bumper mixing.

Rarity color tied to production numbers, EG: 10k = common, 5k = rare, 1k= epic, 100 = legendary

Make it so you can't just queue into Horizon Play at any time. You MUST enter a car meet and then queue for whatever event type from there. You could even invite other randoms to convoy in events with you or something.

A lot of people have done this and I think their ideas are mediocre and generic. Or they outright suck.

So I'm not sharing a specific game. No dumb protagonist and motivations, no shitty Japan map, I'm sharing a developer cycle. If EA put me in charge of the franchise this is what I'd do:

Get two developers. We're pulling a Forza where two devs make two different subseries.

Dev 1 is going to make Black Box style games. Not like the flop that was 2015 with empty platitudes and aesthetics. No, they're going to understand what made those games fun to play: great handling, focused map design, fun cheesy stories, and solid progression.

Dynamic cop chases. My Cars. Challenge Series. Speed and Pursuit Breakers. "Street crews" story. All adapted for modern gaming hardware and improvements. The Black Box format in 2026.

Dev 2 is the "classic" developer. The games are clearly based on the Hot Pursuit style titles that ape the original NFS identity. Little to no story, high performance focus, and an emphasis on flashy movie-style police chase spectacle.

I'm not as invested in that side of the series as much, but it has a big fanbase and as the original form of the series must not be forgotten. It deserves to be expanded upon. New Hot Pursuit. A Rivals sequel. There's potential.

And finally, I'd actually start pumping real money into the NFS brand. It's not just some grandfathered franchise that gets axed the second Battlefield needs a tiny bit more help. I'd put actual money into advertising and showing off the series to the public. When a game is announced, everyone would know about it. TV commercials, billboards, etc. Treat it like the AAA racing franchise it was in 2005.

These devs would be on a 2-3 year cycle and alternate between releases. As for "lore" these would be separate universes like what CoD did for Modern Warfare and Black Ops. Two different visions for the franchise, under the same name: Need For Speed.

I know they've been here since Horizon 4, but they've become so copy-paste (like everything else tbf) and it's kind of disappointing. I wish cars really did have unique curated upgrade perks beyond "this car drives on the road, so it gets a renewable road racing xp bonus"

Especially the names too, like so many funny references could be made specific to each car. Imagine a wreckage bonus perk named "Brotha can't drive" for the Ferrari Enzo or something. Would be so funny.

I get the game has like 550+ cars and it's such a minor detail it'd just be a massive waste of time but hey, another perk of resetting the car list if they ever were to do that (they wouldn't)

Holy shit, this band is just dripping with Most Wanted energy. They sound like a perfect modern day equivalent to the nu metal heard in the original Most Wanted.

Pretty much every track they've put out gets my heart rate up and gets me craving to bust through some police roadblocks

Their track "Long Haul" is just actual perfection. Even if it doesn't exist, that's Most Wanted 2's theme song as far as i'm concerned.

I was a pretty firm "middle of the pack" finisher in PVP racing. I'd typically be fifth to third place in most of my solid races. But with spec racing, I am consistently getting first place and if not that second. Even my worst races still has me on the podium.

It really cemented the whole "it's the car not the driver" mantra I hear. I wasn't a bad driver, I just cannot tune for the life of me. I'm pretty sure this problem is compounded by me refusing to run Forza Aero as well as wacky setups like engine/drivetrain swaps. So not only was I capping myself with keeping my car "realistically" upgraded, I couldn't even really figure how to dial in tuning sliders.