I stopped into Dan Greenawalt’s office today to ask him a question and he gave me this spent look of satisfaction and resignation, exhaling “Dude, there’s so much stuff happening right now!” It’s funny because while we work on different parts of the Forza franchise, I knew exactly what he was talking about. There are a ton of initiatives sprouting at Turn 10 – enough to keep a large studio like Turn 10 very very busy. Which is why I’ve hired the first new member of our community team to help me manage our biggest fan base yet: Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Jube! He joins us from the snowy East Coast and will work with Fred to propel the Forza community to new heights in 2010. Many of you have already seen Jube on various forums, including Forzamotorsport.net and NeoGAF, as he’s best known for his various and fantastic work on liveries in FM3. Jube is also going to really step in and take ownership of posting on our blog, forums, and even start writing some of these weekly Pitpass Reports.

Image by HLR RayRay - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

The goal here is, of course, to establish better communication with our fans and be sure that we’re able to disseminate the info we need to effectively for all Forza players. That said, as I’ve already detailed on our Twitter page (http://twitter.com/turn10studios), I’m still looking for a community manager! I’ve already gotten lots of very interesting cover letters and resumes (please email them to forzafb@microsoft.com) and I’ll start reaching out to qualified individuals soon. Qualified folks will have the following skills: PR, marketing, and gaming industry experience, fun and capable writer, passion for cars and video games (in that order). If you think you’ve got what it takes to take the Forza community and franchise to the next level (don’t all job ads have this phrase nowadays?) please send email to the above alias.

Last week my blog here came under fire from certain readers for being an “epic fail”, among other descriptions (seriously, can we ban that cliché already?) because I did not mention any updates about the FM3 patch that we’re currently working on. While I understand why some of you are anxious to hear about the patch, being a jerk about it in the comments section isn’t going to make the information any more forthcoming. The main reason why I avoided talking about the patch last week was mostly because I didn’t want to jump the gun. We’re in the middle of things and I wanted to make sure I got my facts straight before I go out there with info. I also wanted to devote an entire entry on the DICE awards because it was an important milestone for Turn 10.

Image by super snake199 - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

So what’s up with the patch? There are a list of things we’re adding and addressing in the game, but the biggest of these is Team Racing, a new mode added to multiplayer matchmaking (aka “the hoppers”). What this effectively brings to FM3 public multiplayer is the ability to have teams of cars competing in a race, allowing for new strategies – especially when you introduce multi-class cars within the same track to the equation. With this new mode comes new game types such as Cat and Mouse and tag. Other hopper changes include team balancing and the addition of AI cars to team racing. My team will also have the ability to scale the XP earned in multiplayer hopper races so that certain hoppers will get you more XP per race. The other big additions involve our drag mode: Players will now have the ability to control their revs during the 3-2-1 countdown if they use manual transmission with clutch, and other tweaks influenced by feedback from the drag racing community (you know who you are).

There are also a couple fixes going into the patch:  The 6th gear speed exploit and the transmission swap exploit – both of which allowed cheaters to go faster on leaderboards. Since we’ll be doing a partial wipe of the leaderboards after this patch is released, I’ll put this warning out now for would-be leaderboard cheaters -- use of these exploits is against the FM3 terms of use. We’ll offer amnesty to those who didn’t know better (yeah right) up to this point and used these exploits, but going forward, any use of these in FM3 will result in a permanent ban from our servers. You have been warned.

Image by Instant Foam - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

We don’t have a date on the patch yet but I’ll let you guys know as soon as T10’s taskmaster Brian Lockhart tells me. Meanwhile, you guys can look forward to the official reveal of the March DLC next week. Officially called the Jalopnik Car Pack, we will be lifting the layers on 10 mystery cars in spyshot fashion over at Jalopnik.com. Before I’m out for the weekend, I want to put this question out there to everyone in the community:  Should we raise the Storefront price cap from 50,000 credits to 100,000 credits? Let us know right here in our blog comments section or give us a shout on Twitter. For now, I’ll let Fred take over and tell you about some cool things we’re doing for VIPs this week, including gift cars, an exclusive time trial, and weekly car gift voting!

This week in the Forza Motorsport 3 Community!

It has been a busy week out here at Turn 10, between showing the new guy the ropes, getting a new set of painted cars done and putting together a few new things for all of our FM3 VIPs, we are looking forward to the weekend. If you have not noticed this week has been about the FM3 VIPs and we are continuing that love with some more things going today.

First up is the Toy Soldiers VIP car, early this week we sat down with the folks from Signal Studios and worked up a plan to do a car based on their upcoming game and a special Toy Soldiers Time Trial. What is special about this time trial? Well it is your chance to get your hands on a download code for the upcoming release of the Toy Soldiers Xbox Live Arcade game. There are ten download codes on the line for this Time Trial, while the top five drivers will receive a download code there will also be five drivers randomly selected from everyone who posts a time on the Toy Soldiers Time Trial. The only restriction to this event is that you must be a FM3 VIP in order to be able to run a time on the track.

Toy Soldier Time Trial

What: Special VIP only Time Trial

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

Where: Time Trials in Forza Motorsport 3.

Track and Car: Sedona Raceway Park Club – 2009 Ford #1 TeamVodafone FG Falcon

Special Prizing:  Top five drivers and five randomly selected participates will win a download code for the new Xbox LIVE Arcade game, Toy Soldiers.

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

We have also started the VIP Gift Car Battle, our first battle has come to completion today. The winning car, the Ferrari 330 P4, will be gifted out later today and should be arriving, if it has not already, to the garages of all VIPs by Saturday.

Image by X SEUROBERTS X - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

The doors have also opened on the FM3 Hall of Fame Galleries, the HOF is the place for the winners of our official comps to show off their work. There are currently only two galleries but you can expect more in the future as the HOF will be hosting the photographers, painters and tuners who win our competitions.

Finally, before we move into the community listings, we have some more Community Ambassadors to award.

Tchak: He has gone out of his way in creating a great site for all the racers and hot lappers to track their stats. Tchak has continued to develop and improve his Forzastats site since he first started in FM2..

DamMe: As a longtime member of the forums, you can often find DamMe in the fantasy section helping many of our new users, whether it is in answering questions or pointing someone in the right direction, DamMe is often the first person offering assistance.

We would like to thank these individuals for their support and contributions to the Forza community by offering them a gift car of their choosing.

Image by Teemu1337 - See this and more in the Community Gallery.

Week 9 Time Trial - Caddie on Sebring

What: Official Turn 10 Featured Time Trial Challenge

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

Where: Time Trials in Forza Motorsport 3.

Track and Car:  Sebring Club – 2009 Cadillac CTS-V

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

Takata Contest has ended: The Takata Time Attack 2010 Livery contest has come to a close today! Quite possibly the coolest thing that can happen to any Forza painter is having their design realized in the real world. Finalists will be chosen tonight and announced tomorrow so keep your eyes open on the boards or over at our twitter (twitter.com/turn10studios) to see what painters take one step closer to that reality.  Update* Finalists have been announced!

Lego Indiana Jones: What do you get when you combine Forza, Indiana Jones, Legos, a BMW and some creativity? Well in this case you get an Indiana Jones Lego themed M5. This group effort will definitely put a smile on your inner-child’s face. Check it out!

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

Weekly Photomode Competition: The community run “Weekly Photomode competition #1” winners have been announced! Great submissions from the community, you can view the winners here.

Drift Replica/Fantasy Paint Comp Submission: Week 11 in this popular competition kicks off today. Competition ends Wednesday, good luck!

Name A Shop Contest?: Sixx’s team is in need of a name and is offering 2.5 million credits to whoever comes up with the group’s new moniker. View the thread here.

Follow us on Twitter! If you have twitter check out us @turn10studios, it’s a great place to get daily tidbits on all things Forza. For more info click here.