Suggestions for upcoming patches

[NeilSmith]

I'm simply loving the new changes\fixes that the 2.00 patch brought to Wipeout HD. These kind of patches shows that the developers at Studio Liverpool really care about their customers\fanbase and I applaud them for that. I've been wanting to make a little wish-list for some time now over things I want to see in the game and I know that I have gone a little over my head on some of the suggestions, but to the contraty I think some of the stuff is fully possible. I might update the list as new ideas comes, and any other input/comments would also be nice. So here goes;


Spectator Mode - Needs alot of fixing/tweaks. Ship interpolation stutters alot and does by no means show what is really going on during the race. It lacks all the details like barrel rolls, proper tilting of the ships when they turn etc.

Ship Selection in Online lobby - One of the things that bothers me the most about joining an online race is when I join a single race and as soon as the host is happy with the number of players he instantly starts the race (with 4-5 second countdown). In most cases I prefer to change ships according to track. Some tracks require a ship with good handling (Ubermall, Sebenco Climb and Chenghou Project) while others require ships with high speed (Vineta K, Anulpha Pass, Metropia, Moa Therma, Sol2). Also if the race is full with 8 players I prefer to use a ship that has more shield to keep me from being eliminated more often. So my suggestion would be to always have the start timer set to 10-15 seconds, and let players still be able to change their ship in the meanwhile.

Custom Playlists - Please add the ability to change the menu music, it gets very tiresome listening to the same song over and over again. Either add more menu music, or let us choose a playlist\song. Also having the ability to change custom playlist during an online race would be nice. At the moment I have to quit the online race and go all the way into the Options\Audio menu to be able to change my playlist. A simple "Custom Playlist" when pressing the Start-button would be very welcomed. Also, after Fury was released I miss an option to have split playlists for Fury and HD.

Scoreboard Stats - I'd really like to see some more stats about player performance on the scoreboards such as how many Perfect Laps, Eliminations, Turbo's and Barell Rolls a player pulled off during a race.

2 player split screen - Need optimization. 2 player split screen races are way too laggy, especially during eliminator races. This is the only thing that is keeping me from playing vs my buddies when they come over to my crib. I think some of the gfx can be sacrificed during 2 player split screen races so that we atleast can enjoy playing with the same smoothness as a 1 player race.
I know this probably is an issue that is hard to fix, but I hope SL considers tweaking it somehow for better fps.

Lobby Chat - This has been suggested a couple of times before but I guess as soon as Chat Room was added to PS3 people didn't need In-Game Chat any longer. Still, it definately does have some advantages; you won't have to Open your XMB, create a Chat Room, then add players to your friends list so you can invite them to join the room. Second, Lobby Chat allows you to communicate faster than having to open your XMB.

Improved Voice Chat - There is no doubt that Voice Chat is in a terrible state. The problem could solely be related to poor support from Sony's side, but I know some games have implemented their own solutions to allow Voice Chatting. Teamspeak 3 sounds like a good alternative; http://www.teamspeak.com/?page=teamspeak3sdk
I have no idea how the technical aspect of adding such a feature to a PS3 title works, and if it is even possible. But if it was, the benefits would definately be great; no more text chatting

Menu Skins - Not a biggie but adding some more skins/themes to the menu gui like Wipeout Pure had would be super sweet. The Wipeout HD Campaign Mode has skinned menus for every grid.

Ghost Replays - Having the ability to spectate ghost replays from the ghost's perspective would be simply awesome. That way people can download other players ghosts to see their tactics and racing lines.
Even better would be to have replays of online races, though this is probably something we'll never see as it must be a real pain to add such a feature

Ship Trails - Someone mentioned that some ships in the race demonstration (if you idle in the main-menu) had red trails. My initial thought would be to add more colors to the trails, maybe something that goes along with the livery skin you've choosen

Day\Night Cyclus - jasmin-jade suggested this. Every Wipeout track should have a day and night cyclus, it would be absolutely beautiful