It’s the start of a new tradition! A Pitpass Report first thing in the morning (instead of the last thing before we scurry out for the weekend). And if you’ve been on the world wide webz this week, you may have noticed the “Forzalopnik” extravaganza that’s been happening over at one of our favorite car blogs, Jalopnik. It seems like a long time ago now, but it all started with an idea from Dan Greenawalt and his design team. The situation was this:  Now that Forza 3 had already shipped out the door, and we’ve got a pretty extensive list of 2009 and 2010 models sitting in our production pipeline, what are the pre-Y2K cars we should be adding to the Forza Motorsport franchise? Well, we could have just kept it to an internal vote, of course, but why not open it up to the world? The Internet is full of real-world car enthusiasts (and freaks, snobs, elitists, etc.) – wouldn’t it be fun to give them our list of cars and let them decide? And so the idea gathered momentum over the holiday break when I pitched the concept to Ray Wert, head Jalopnik over there, and he absolutely dug it. While I went on vacation in Tokyo, Scott Catlin, our Car Czar here at Turn 10 worked closely with the editors at Jalopnik to work out details such as cars, poll structure, and other logistics for what would become one of the most heated car debates between fans we’ve ever seen. We started with 120 aspiring cars, each with their own story and enclave of enthusiasts. Over the course of 4 crazy days, we slowly whittled it down to the final 35 cars you (hopefully) voted on yesterday.

Image by JediWise70 - See this image and more in the Community Gallery

This morning, the results are in and you can see for yourself at Jalopnik. So what this final list represents is basically the people’s choice, and an indicator to Turn 10 of the cars folks out there would like to see most in Forza Motorsport. Which means starting sometime soon, we mobilize our car production team to begin the hunt for the world’s greatest vintage jalops out there so we can re-create its greatness on the Xbox 360. Keep in mind, some of these cars are pretty damn rare, and finding one in decent shape and in stock condition might very well be impossible. That said, we’re going to try our best (but obviously no guarantees) and I have every intention of keeping both the Forza community as well as Jalopnik’s readers in the loop on the behind-the-scenes making of this community choice car pack (which we have not yet named). Much props to the guys over at Jalopnik for hosting the best DLC party we’ve ever had.

The other announcement we made this week concerned our March DLC, which we also partnered up with Jalopnik.com’s editors for their insight on which of the hottest 2009/2010 models we should be shipping on LIVE Marketplace. We’ll have more info on this car pack with an official spyshot reveal with Jalopnik at a later date. In the meantime, we’ve been getting this question over and over again: What’s up with February’s DLC?! It’s coming folks! That’s what’s up with it. Although I can’t tell you what’s in the DLC, I can say it’ll follow our regular cadence of DLC releases that we’ve had since December. Those of you astute enough can probably figure out its release date from that clue. I’ve also seen the latest video that Landin’s created for this DLC and it’s sweet. We’ll throw it online sometime next week if all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed.

Now let’s talk about a new multiplayer game type we released in matchmaking “hoppers” last week. It’s called Last Car Standing and it requires the player to drive rather offensively to win. We’ve gotten quite a few questions from the community about how exactly this game is scored and what the conditions are to win. To give you the definitive breakdown on Last Car Standing is Turn 10’s game designer Chris Vanover:

Last Man Standing is a variation on the “Keep It Clean” game type, except that the goal is to inflict the most damage on your opponents.  When any two cars collide, both cars score points for the collision, but a bonus is given to the car that “caused” it – for example, if Car A were to t-bone Car B, Car A would get a greater score, but in a head-on collision, the points would be more equal.

Additionally, any time you hit another car, you’ll also get collision points for anything else that happens to your target for 2 seconds.  In the t-bone example above, if Car B then lost control and hit a wall (or even another car) within 2 seconds, Car A would score points for that secondary collision.  Keep in mind though that Car B can also score points if something happens to Car A during that same period of time.

Finally, the force of any collision determines its possible score.  High speed equals high score, but also makes you a potential juicy target since someone just has to clip you into hitting something else to earn that high score off of you.  It may sound confusing at first, but ultimately, the greatest possible scores will come from causing chain-reaction collisions at high speed.

Pretty simple, right? Hope to see more of you guys out there in this mode. We’re also working on releasing some new game types for both Circuit and Playground. Stay tuned for details and release dates.

Before I hand things over to my man Fred for the community update, I want to mention again that Turn 10 (i.e., yours truly) is very active on our Twitter account. Given the nature of Twitter, and the almost-real-time lapse of updates and events, it’s becoming really the easiest tool to reach the biggest number of Forza players the fastest. Of course, not everything goes through Twitter, but it’s a very useful tool, for instance, to update you guys on Forza 3 server status if something were to go awry. Twitter is also a good place to ask questions or give comments. I can’t guarantee I’ll personally respond to each and every one, but I try and at least you know it’s being looked at. Just keep in mind that, like everything else where someone real is on the other end, being an inconsiderate jerk probably won’t elicit a response. But otherwise, give it a try. Download Tweetdeck if you don’t already use it. It’s free, works on just about any OS, and is your ticket to Turn 10 insider info. Otherwise, check our Twitter page at: http://twitter.com/turn10studios/

See y’all in the comments section!

This week in the Forza Motorsport 3 Community!

The first sets of winners for the Official FM3 Tuning competition were announced on Wednesday. Congratulations go out to The PLOP Shop, GWS SK15kev and Villy PLOP for their wins in the comp. The top two tunes will be featured as a Turn 10 pick, so you have a chance to check out both of them and judge for yourself.

This week also marked the first Layer Group competition in Forza history. This new competition is just for those of you who are great at making single images or just don’t have the time to do a full livery.  If you would like to see your layer groups as a Turn 10 feature check out the rules of the Layer Group comp before submitting your design.

Featured Video: Forza Motorsport 3 Exhilaration

Week 5- Amalfi Time Attack

What: Official Turn 10 Featured Time Trial Challenge

When: Now until Friday February 5th at 12:00PM PST

Where: Time Trials in Forza Motorsport 3.

Track and Car: Amalfi Coast Full Circuit - 2008 Alfa Romeo MiTo

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

EVO vs STI Showdown: One of the epic tuner battles is the subject of a new photo mode contest by sh0rtkid. There will be two sets of voting in this comp one to judge the best shot of each car then those two photos will meet in a final showdown. Check out all the details on this competition here.

Race Picture Photo Comp: Nothing makes a photo come alive more than capturing the action on the track. FatalP3rfection has issued a challenge for Forza Photographers, to take the best action shot you can within the game. There are some other rules you need to know before you enter so make sure you check out the submission rules here.

[SW2] Evil Bunny: The second SW2 tune by VW 12V Golf has been released. The Rabbitlogo livery for this car was provided by VDubman74. You can find more details on the car here or check out the car in the game by visiting the SW2 Storefront.

Next Tuners Shootout: Since a lot of attention has been given to the AWD and RWD drive cars, dougyt40 thought he would show some love to the FWD cars in FM3 with the latest edition of the Tuners Shootout. This should be a tough one for dougyt40 to judge with over 52 entries. You can follow all the action in the Tuners Shootout here.

FMDL 2010 Season 1: The rules and battle schedule has been announced for FMDL 2010 Season. Video highlights may be available once the battles have been completed. You can check out the official thread for all the details on the rules.

IFCA JGTC Series 9: The IFCA JGTC has come back for 2010 with official sponsorship from Turn 10. The series begins on February 14th; find out more about this series here.

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