I understand your frustration eLhabib.

After playing this new update for a few hours, and then leaving it and mentally comparing it with the Wipeout series, something has been eating away at me, a feeling that things aren't how they should be, a basic 'Failure to communicate' to my racer within.

At first I couldn't work out what the problem was with FF as it is ATM, and where it plans to be...... what is the underlying difference between FF and Wipeout, why aren't we feeling any love for this game yet, surely we should be by now?

Forget craft handling, that can be fixed, and is supposedly going to be user adjustable anyway, as craft upgrades are unlocked [well I certainly hope that's still the case, if not we might be in trouble] .... but I still have Colin Berry's description on the Wipeout design process for track / craft still fresh in my mind, so I'm not really that worried about it.

The track designs themselves, well yes, a bit of a disappointment, when you consider that these are ex SL people, and you would have thought that if they were thinking about starting R8 ages ago, before they took the financial plunge they would of had better track designs already planned .... maybe they do, we just haven't seen them yet...... but in saying that, they are betting 'All in', so you would think they would want to play their strongest hand first up....... Only two tracks so far are at the point of 'No changes' as far as I see it, Manna Hatta and Niagara.

No, there is another basic difference between what R8 are doing, and what SL did.

Psygnosis and SL understood, that what made a successful racing game was to have a clear clean track with as few impediments to the racer as possible, other than the A.I during races.
This clear clean basic track design made Wipeout highly replayable in SL & TT, you just wanted to keep getting better and faster, every PB had to be beaten, there has to be a faster line.
Every track through the whole series where they deviated from that formula, was generally less liked, and they knew that, so historically, they didn't go for trick visual effects, that would of changed things detrimentally.

Now read the basic track breakdown in R8's own words in the TPP
http://formulafusion.co.uk/index.php...a-tpp-testing/

I'll copy and paste selected portions from that, what I think the problem is.
The track has a real ‘Blade Runner’ feel with all the accompanying grime and sewer fog you would expect. The track has a real under-the-blanket feel as a layer of thick cloud chokes the skyscrapers above.
Visually, as you descend behind the wall of water you start to pick up spray on your screen; there are also sections of the track that have surface water which also generate spray. This can be used as a distraction mechanic for craft immediately behind.
Dust clouds, surface dust, 360o tunnels, jumps, dual carriage way.
The track itself has sections that are missing (this creates bottlenecks) and glass see-through sections. The outside bends on either side behave like quarter pipe sections in a skate park. The overall feeling should be that of severe vertigo.
Features:Vertigo inducing transparent track textures, track holes, vertical sections, layered cloud/fogging. Quarter pipes.

All those portions I copied and pasted break away from what made Wipeout a success in one major area, they are all punitive to the racer visually, or so disorientating that they hardly make you want to do lap after lap of them, trying to bet a PB.

No replay value = No fun, No Fun = why bother, enough people think Why Bother = Bye Bye FF and R8.