Written by: Che Chou
Seems like it was just yesterday that we released our first premium DLC, aka, the Hot Holidays Car Pack on Xbox LIVE. And now, as I sit here ready to hit the Xbox 360 holiday party tonight, I look back on another epic week at Turn 10 and marvel at all that’s happened in the past 5 days, both in our community and within the studio. Hopefully, most of you have already grabbed the Hot Holidays Car Pack; if you’re still on the fence about the 10 great cars in the DLC, you should check them out here, and at the very least, download the free sample 2010 Audi S4 – this way, you’ll be able to see these cars in your game when you’re on the Auction House, Storefront, and in Multiplayer.
Preliminary numbers on the car pack are also encouraging, which is always good news for the community since, better sales on DLC mean more support for future DLC. And there’s DLC support coming in spades. Jan. 12, 2010 marks the release date of our next DLC car pack. In similar fashion to what we did during the lead-up of the Hot Holidays Car Pack reveal, we’ll be showing off spy shots for the cars in the pack and letting you guys battle it out – with prizing involved, of course.
DLC is one way we support the community and extend the life of the game. We did it a few times during the life of Forza 2, but wanted to commit to it in a bigger way in Forza 3, hence our experiment to bring DLC to the game on a regular basis. One idea that came to mind while Dan Greenawalt and I were doing IGN’s Three Red Lights Podcast (yes, go listen to it!) was that maybe we should do a community voting poll for a pack of DLC cars catering to not just the Forza community, but to all car enthusiast enclaves out there. This is something I’m going to stew on over the holiday break and work with the car and design team here to see if the idea gains any traction.
2010 Nissan Skyline GTR - Hot Holidays UGC Contest Submission by: Faithfull - Post yours here!
Have you submitted your Hyundai photo mode contest entries yet? The submission window officially closes on 12/14, so if you haven’t taken pictures of your favorite Hyundai Genesis Coupe variants and put them on your Storefronts yet, make haste! I’ve also been talking to Landin about hosting an informal (i.e., not officially supported by Hyundai so no big expensive prizes) photo contest for the Genesis Coupe for all those non-North American Forza community folks who want to get involved. We’ll pick winners and gift in-game cars and credits, so at least you’ll get something for your hard work. If you’re interested (and not from North America), check this thread.
It’s also Friday, which means the ban hammer has fallen, invalidating more than 1400 credit glitchers from using our online services with their exploited profiles. If you are one of the few who has had their save game profiles invalidated, keep in mind your Gamertag is NOT banned and all the liveries, layer groups, tuning setups, photos, and replays that you downloaded from the Storefront have not been lost. All you need to do is remove your old save game and start a new profile.
Here are the exact steps:
1. Navigate to the “System Settings” menu of the Xbox 360 Dashboard.
2. Scroll down to “Memory” and select the location where you save your Forza 3 profile (Memory Unit or Hard Drive)
3. Select “Games” and scroll down to find Forza Motorsport 3.
4. Locate a file that displays your current/active Xbox LIVE Gamertag. It will say “Saved Game” below it.
5. Delete this file and re-boot Forza Motorsport 3 to start your new career.
2010 Lamborghini LP-670 - Hot Holidays UGC Contest Submission by: Pebb - Post yours here!
Please do not start new threads in the forums asking why you’ve been banned, etc. If you have a question, email forzafb@microsoft.com. We do not guarantee that we will answer over the weekend, and please consider that we have all the info of everything you’ve ever done in the game; if you want us to double-check because you’re absolutely certain that we have made a mistake, that’s fine, but just know that if we discover you used the credit glitch, your Gamertag and Xbox 360 will be banned from our servers as a result. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
With the holiday break coming up at the end of next week, I’m working with Landin and Fred on coming up with some surprise gifts for the community, as well as contests to keep you guys busy in the meantime. Speaking of which, we have another title-update going live sometime on the week of Christmas. One of the new features going in that I’m personally excited about is the new Time Trials system that will allow us to create custom hot lap challenges for everyone to tackle in the game. This will allow us to pick up our old weekly HLCs as well as other cool stuff. And speaking of HLCs, do check out our new Leaderboards section on Forzamotorsport.net. Next up, web Auction House!
Dan Greenawalt and I are flying down red carpet style to Los Angeles tomorrow to attend SpikeTV’s 2009 Video Game Awards tomorrow morning. If you haven’t voted Forza Motorsport 3 yet for Spike’s Best Xbox 360 Game and Best Driving Game yet, you know what to do. ;) Wish us luck!
Take it away, Landin!
2010 Ferrari 599XX - Hot Holidays UGC Contest Submission by: Br1zcn0 - Post yours here!
Written by: Landin Williams
We’ve got a very special Hot Holidays Car Pack UGC contest that is currently underway that you should all check out. Why you ask? Because if you’re selected a winner we’ll gift over your Hot Holidays gift car of choice! Not enough credits to purchase the Audi R15 in career? Here's your change to get your hands on one for a whooping 0 cr. Stop by our official contest thread here and submit your best UGC (images, videos and liveries) to be considered as a winner. This contest is open until Monday the 14th, so get your submissions and car request in now and you could have a fresh DLC car delivered to your message center in Forza Motorsport 3. I’ve included some of my personal favorite photomode shots from the thread in this report for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
Speaking of views, I’ve also been working towards building a consolidated place to check out the latest video creations from our community. Enter the Turn 10 Studios youtube page. If you haven’t already checked it out then you’re missing out on over 100 Forza 3 UGC videos and some really cool video clips from our first WMV video contest. If you like watching how others play Forza 3 then you need to check out our page for the definitive (yeah I did it) Forza 3 youtube experience. Seriously though our page is filled with awesome videos, so check it out. Got a UGC video of your own to share? Post it in our official youtube submission thread here and I’ll add it to our growing collection.
To get the ball rolling I’ve also decided to feature one video a week right here in the community section of our weekly review. This video will also be served up on the front page of our youtube page for all to see, a great way to showcase your skills or promote your sales! This week’s featured video goes out to the folks from Tango Tuners and EVO tuning who put together an awesome promo for their newly released rally pack. It’s awesome to see tuners joining forces to produce cars that run competitively online, so check out their video in the community section below and pick up some fresh tunes on their storefronts!
2010 Audi Sport R15 - Hot Holidays UGC Contest Submission by: DB9D9 - Post yours here!
In other news the official Turn 10/Forza 3 group on Facebook has been resurrected to give you more ways to connect with fans of the Forza franchise. Check out the official group page here and connect with other players in your area or browse the latest news. Going forward you can expect to see more action on our Facebook page, perhaps even competitions limited to those of you in our Facebook group, so sign up now and you’ll be ready when that time comes.
A few quick things before I load a bunch of sick UGC and community news on your plate. First up is our search for ideas and suggestions around organizing an official Turn 10 tuning contest. We’ve been side stepping the tuners in our community a little bit, simply because of the time required to give each tune the full shakedown it deserves. We need your help to get this off the ground, so stop by the discussion thread here and chime in with your thoughts.
Finally I want to touch on the featured time trial event’s we’ve been hosting in these reports each week. The bad news is apparently there is a bug that gives players a pretty hefty advantage in time trials, and for that reason we’re going to hold off on featuring new time trials until we get it resolved. The good news is we already have a fix that is going to be included in our next title update that Che mentions above. Once that drops we’ll pick things up right where we left off. This next title update will also give us the ability to add new time trial events that will not add to the overall roll-up. Good news for the hotlappers as we can now host weekly events without interfering with the overall time trial leaderboards. Thanks for the patience and we’ll be back with another time trial event soon. Stay tuned.
That’s it for me this week. I leave you with a collection of sick Forza 3 UGC videos and more from our flourishing community here on Forzamotorsport.net. Peace!
2010 Ferrari 458 Italia - Hot Holidays UGC Contest Submission by: WindsweptDragon - Post yours here!
This week in the Forza Motorsport 3 Community
Featured Video - Tango Tuners + EVO Tuning Rally Pack
Tuning Marketplace Shootout - Winners announced! - Want to see who took home top honors in the first Tuning Marketplace Shootout? Check the official thread here for results!
[S&R Tuning] Braille Batteries Drift Nissan 350z - Rocking a slick promo graphic to compliment a fresh drift set-up, tuning shop S+R are looking for buyers! Check out the sales thread here for their latest creation. The Braille Batteries drift tuned Nissan 350z!
2010 Nissan GTR - Hot Holidays UGC Contest Submission by: ALTAG87 - Post yours here!
Photographer Gallery Directory - Here’s a simple thread to keep track of the hundreds of photo galleries hidden deep within the pages of our forums. Filled with links to personal photo galleries this thread is a great place to find the top photographers in the community. Check out the photographer directory here and discover some awesome Forza 3 artwork!
SOR Spec Racing Series Season 2 sign-ups - Still a bunch of slots left in this GT-Spec racing series hosted by SOR. Racing starts tomorrow, so there’s still time to get in the mix. Check out the sign-up thread here and get involved.
Light My Fire Jim Morrison Livery complete - Big shout-out to IIDejangoII for this awesome design (shown above). Find out what others think and check out more images in the discussion thread here.