Written by: Che Chou 

As we ushered in December this week, our blog and forums were ablaze with speculation (and later confirmation) about the cars in our upcoming Hot Holidays Car Pack. I’ve handed off teasing with the DLC spy shots to Landin, whom I must say has done an admirable job of stirring the hornet’s nest with his trivia and unicorn gifting. As you’ll see below, we’re showing spy shots for our final two cars this evening (keep those guesses coming!) and will have the answer for you on Monday when we lift the curtain on Landin’s latest video featuring all the Hot Holiday cars in action. As usual, it’s a lovely video that speaks to the core of the car junkie; we’ve just sent off final revisions to both Xbox LIVE (Forza 3 spotlight on the dashboard next week, woot!) and to our PR folks so hopefully we’ll see it everywhere.

Some of you may care that we’re also working hard on our next title update. There isn’t a set date for its release yet but December is a pretty short month and we’re hoping to get everything wrapped up and out the door before everyone takes off for vacation – which means you’ll likely see it sometime before Christmas (week of 12/21). I’ll have a more definitive list of what’s getting fixed once I have confirmation from our producers, but I’ve heard some stuff in the hallways, including fixes to Time Trials and scoreboards, as well as the ability for my team to create custom Time Trials for our weekly HLCs. Other stuff overheard include little things like improving shadows on AI cars, fixing manual with clutch physics in replays (currently it looks like the player is glitching when it’s just incorrect replay physics), and the ability for all DLC car packs to automatically gift the player 150,000 credits so you can actually buy a starter car in the DLC you just purchased on Marketplace. Anyway, more details and confirmations as I have them.

Image by Perfect Forza - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

We also have good news and bad news. I’ll cover the happy stuff first: Overall, the Forza 3 ecosystem is alive and well! Looking over some server numbers the last few days tells us that we’ve had over 64 million races from players connected to LIVE since the game’s release. So it’s only fitting to add another (long overdue) feature to Forzamotorsport.net: web leaderboards. We’re planning to release these next Tuesday, barring any more unforeseen consequences. Then after that we have the Forza 3 Auction House web feature going live hopefully before the end of the year. Having seen the new web Auction House in action, I can say it’s quite a bit better than what we had in the past (tiny little car thumbnails no more!).

And now the bad news. I’ve been working with Fred on cracking down on those who have abused the credit glitch that was recently fixed with our last title update. As of today, we have isolated a group of about 1700 players who show up as having cheated. While it does seem overly harsh to ban users for taking advantage of a loophole that we inadvertently created, glitching and cheating does violate Xbox LIVE Terms of Use: “In using the Service, you may not exploit a bug, or make an unauthorized modification, to any software or data to gain unfair advantage in a game, contest, or promotion.” Moreover, it bums me out because glitching millions/billions of credits does a disservice to our online economy – drives up inflation, makes unicorn cars next to impossible for the average gamer to bid on, and so on and so forth.

Image by RZR Import - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

Which is why we’re cracking down on credit glitchers and we’re cracking down hard. Starting this evening and all through the weekend, we will be putting up Ford Focus RS for 10s and 100s of millions of credits as an amnesty program for glitchers. If you have gotten credits by cheating, we know all about it and have all the numbers. If you don’t want to get banned next week, I encourage you to go and get rid of your credits by purchasing one of these Ford Focus RS put up in the Auction House by Gamertag “TurnTenStudios”. Do not accept imitations or buy a Focus RS for millions of credits from any Gamertag other than “TurnTenStudios”. Purchase the Focus RS that is appropriate to the amount of credits you glitched and your name will be taken off the list for banning next week – but be sure to stay honest because we’re actually running another scan on Monday to see the outcome. Either way, it’s a chance for folks to come clean and start over.

Now onto our final couple of spy shots leading up to the reveal next week. By the way, I really like these two cars. I think they’re my favorite from the pack next week. Have fun!
 

Community Update

Written by: Landin Williams 

Missed out on all the Hot Holidays DLC Spy Shot hoopla? Wait! Don’t scroll another inch!! Visit the spy shot recap thread here to have a go at guessing the cars of our next DLC pack available Tuesday December 8th for 400 Microsoft points. Hopefully you haven’t already seen the full list of revealed cars and can still get a kick out of guessing from the spy shots. Want to see the cars included without the guessing game? Visit the official Hot Holidays DLC article here for a complete breakdown of the cars revealed so far.

I know I was having loads of fun trying to keep the detectives at bay while posting these mysterious shots. We had a group of community members watching the Spy Shot discussion thread like hawks, waiting to get the drop on the latest spy shots. It was great fun reading the speculation and finally giving myself up with hard evidence backing up your suspicions. But it’s not over!

Included in this report are two mysterious spy shots of the two cars we have yet to reveal. Have a look at the images and post your guess as a comment to this blog. Make sure to include the mystery car number with your guess so we know what car you’re talking about. To be clear the two mystery shots in this blog are from two different cars, not the same car. Have a look and post your guesses. Winners will be determined early next week once the official Hot Holidays DLC video reveals the full car list! The first 10 people to post a comment with the make and model of either of the mystery cars will win a free Unicorn car courtesy of Turn 10. Have fun.

Featured Time Trial Racing Event

What: Official Turn 10 Time Trial Challenge

When: Now until Friday December 11th at 12:00PM PST

Where: Time Trials in Forza Motorsport 3.

Track and Car: Le Mans Circuit – Audi R8 5.2

How: Navigate to the “Leaderboards” menu and scroll down to “Time Trial”. Scroll down to “Le Mans Circuit” and select “Press A to Start Race” at the top of the leaderboard. Set your best possible lap time!

Find out what prizes are up for grabs in the official contest thread here.

Image by ID Lizard - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

This week in the Forza Motorsport 3 Community

Official Hyundai Foto Throwdown Showcase Gallery: Got a slick Hyundai shot stashed away to enter in the Hyundai Foto Throwdown? Check here for a showcase gallery of all the submissions folks have been making. To be clear this isn’t the official submission thread! Just a place to show off your work. For full contest rules click here.

Official Turn 10 WMV Clip Contest Winners Announced!: Congratulations going out to everyone who was selected as a winner of our first WMV video clip contest. We looked for the most impressive and funny video clips (30 seconds max) from all the submissions and have uploaded our favorites to the official Turn 10 Youtube page. Check out the all-new playlist showcasing the best videos here! Good stuff everyone!

Image by FranticMunky - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

FM CHALLENGE - R Class Racing - Every Saturday: Racers are always looking for some healthy competition. This group hosts R class racing every Saturday. Visit their official thread here and get in the mix!

Tango Tuners 'C' Race Package: Racing in our C Class hoppers? Need a speedy whip? Our tango friends have you covered. Check out their collection of C class cars here.

Launsport Impreza Photo Comp: Here’s another straight up photomode comp featuring the enthusiast friendly Subaru Impreza. Community voting has already started to determine the winners to have a look and cast your vote here.

Image by Swiitchbladee - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

The Artistic Photo Thread: Art as discovered in Forza Motorsport 3. Have a look at some artistic shots or post your own for others to see here.

Mr. Monopoly livery is complete: A classic livery for a classic board game. Everyone loves Monopoly right?! Check out this awesome livery creation here, painted by FirstHotLap. Good stuff!  

Image by ABGRAPHICS - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

Have a good weekend folks! I'm out.

Peace

Landin