Marty Chinn said:
How do you engineer it around a racing game where you split tracks across discs. Structure the game so you only play certain tracks early on and then certain tracks later on? I suppose that could work but would limit variety and game flow design for each half of the game. Then there's the question of online. When you go to play online, and people want to change tracks or select a race, you wait for everyone to swap discs? Sure there are ways of doing it but the idea is to minimalize disc swapping which you don't do when you have a non linear game or have non linear ways of accessing data.
this question is obviously a trap, but here goes. if you want me to design your game for you, you can send me a check
first, take a look at Gran Turismo 2 and see how it did it. it was 2 discs.
however, as your example points out, splitting up the tracks in single player isn't such a big deal. it doesn't really limit variety or design flow, though, of the second player. you can't simply pop in one disc and instantly have access to all tracks, perhaps, but if the game has a career mode, you'll be playing that as linearly as most other game. the flow is only interrupted, at the disc change, which is the same as with RE4 GC or an RPG.
the exact answer is going to depend upon the type of a racing game (or the specific game period), but splitting up tracks or cities on multiple discs is definitely an option. you've got the option, in many games, of including online on a separate disc. you've also got the option of compressing some textures more than others on certain discs and removing some models, depending on the single player aspect, which is something that wouldn't be noticed as much in racing games as you're flying around the paths. you've got all the same tracks on both discs, but depending upon the career modes, some items may be clearer on one disc than on another. with a decent engine, it may go unrecognized to many people. in addition, if the tools and api are there, you could allow the users to stream bits of the track from other people in the race, while people are sitting in the lobbies.
there's always going to be some sacrifice no matter which way you go, but the issue is to minimize it.
the easiest way in this case is simply to prevent it through other methods such as completely dynamic lighting instead of baked in lighting, but that causes other sacrifices, obviously.
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