Hi all, I want to update you guys on the next huge update that will be dropping pretty soon. I'm excited for this, but before we get to the good stuff, there are some important things I need to get across so we don't have any misunderstandings in the future.


Jidousha Shakai will no longer support older systems of varying architecture. It is too much work to try and support older hardware that only accounts for less than 1% of JS players, so in a difficult decision, I am no longer supporting the following..

• DirectX 9 support is being removed.
  
• 32 bit machines will no longer be supported. (64-bit only from now on)
  
• OpenGL 2 support is being removed.

If you use an older 64-bit machine, you will still be able to play JS with OpenGL ES. However, please do note that all advancements and optimizations will be the most beneficial on DX10, DX11, DX12, and in the future Vulkan, and Metal (OSX).


Mod Support Tools - Addons
Some of you have had access to the mod tools for a couple of months and have provided me with some great data and features to add to them. Once these tools become public they will be part of the main game for all owners to use. In addition, to regular car, map, and part mods, there will also be mod tool addons. These addons will be downloadable assets/packs of objects, scripts, and materials to use within JS. These packs can be made by anyone and can range from starter packs to simple helper packs to get people started in the editor. The mod tools give you access to most objects that JS uses, but in addition you get access to even more objects with this addon packs. I will be providing a couple starter packs of objects, sounds, and materials that are not part of JS in order to keep the main size of JS at a minimum.

Verified Mod Program
The verified mod program is still in alpha but will be introduced a little bit after mod tools are introduced. The basics of this program will be having the highest quality mods represented in their own category on the mod browser. Once a mod has been on the workshop for 1 month it will be eligible for the verified mod program. From the mod tools menu, you can view all of your mods and submit a mod to the verified mod program completely within game. These mods will be manually reviewed for quality and content via a small list of guidelines. We will also check for script errors and incomplete or broken assets in addition to a PBR Quality Check.

Now that we've got that out of the way, we get to talk about the fun stuff!




I know a lot of you don't like the way JS looks currently, like an old PS2 game. While I personally feel a game shouldn't be judged by it's graphical fidelity, it does make the game nice to look at. So I've learned and took a dive into the grapical side of the engine and I'd say the results are pretty good for someone who barely know's how to atlas a texture. With that said, graphical capability doesn't come without it's downsides, and that is performance impact. While I've done as much optimizing as I could, some things just aren't practical for all hardware and many people realize this already. The graphics menu has been revamped to allow greater control over JS and it's graphical features. You have access to turning off bloom, motion blur, more control over the resolution scale, 3 types of Anti-Aliasing, and more.

Of course, you can turn all of this stuff down if you only care about performance, but for those cool screenshot's you definitely have the option to make it pretty. This isn't the ending graphical look of JS as I will no doubt find new techniques for things and better ways to optimize stuff, this is how it will be for now.




I've been putting a lot of work into the multiplayer side of JS because of the fact it makes more sense right now. Multiplayer is fun and it costs less for me to make compared to a rich single player experience. My goals for single player are to have a complete story in a lively Japanese city, complete with voice actors and professional animation. This of course will take a while and since multiplayer is the most requested thing aside from car requests, it will no doubt be the more focused component for now.

Enough about why single player has been taking a backseat. Single player returns nonetheless in mostly the same way it was before, except it will be dubbed "Sandbox." The reasoning behind this is that the full Career won't be here for a while and I'd still like to have people be able to play without being online in a server, so this Sandbox mode will fill the void for single player. In this mode you will be able to buy and upgrade your cars however you please as there will be no money restrictions just like before. For the meantime I will try and put some cool activities around the map for singleplayer Sandbox mode, but in the meantime you'll mostly just be modifying cars and taking it around the city in exploration and what not. The cars made in sandbox mode will be available directly in all multiplayer lobbies, fully customized, available for everyone else to see. When mod tools are released, you'll also be able to use them in Sandbox mode. (Similar to BeamNG)




Optimizations
Multiplayer has received a bunch of fixes and changes. A lot of you who have been testing it on the beta branch have given me some really good feedback while testing it. I've completely optimized the net code for a smoother experiencing. Getting in a car is smoother and there is more tips in-game when you need help such as wondering why you can't exit a car or get out of one. (In general, car's must be off and the handbrake must be engaged to exit a car)

Passenger Seats
A car will now have the number of seats it came with instead of just a driver and passenger. Yes, this means you can go drifting with your sedan fully packed if that's what you like! I've been wanting to have this for a while and it's finally done, so I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. In addition, being a passenger, you also have more camera angles available now. Interior view has received a considerable amount of updates also.


Offroading coming to JS! :O

There are more things to do in singleplayer and multiplayer now. Such as visiting buildings, sitting down at various chairs and benches, listening to music via a boombox (if online this music is synced across the network), watching TV in the apartment/house testing area, and more.

JS is first and foremost a game about cars, but in addition to the open world aspect of the game, I want there to be more than that. This means having a bunch of interactive things to do around town that doesn't just have to do with cars. This is the first step of this and there is certainly more to come.

JS will have apartments, houses, garages, and other buildings that you can purchase with money earned from in-game. These will kind of work like GTA's houses except the house you own in single-player will also be in multiplayer. In order to keep things fair, all houses that are purchasable will be shared. This means separate houses that don't have multiple dwelling units in them won't be purchasable. You will only be able to purchase apartments, condo's, or multi-dwelling units that allow for multiple people to be occupying them in a server. In the future this might change so I can allow for purchasing of separate non-shared houses, but for now this is how it has to be for the most compatibility.

With that said, there is an apartment/testing area in the current map that is for you to test out various things before they are put into game. You can find this area by opening your pause menu, going to your map, and setting the destination to the clearly marked area called "Apartment/House Testing Area". Upon setting a destination, an arrow will popup guiding you to the destination. (This is not GPS, just a simple guide arrow)

Within this area you can go into various apartments/houses and "visit" them. This "visiting" is unrestricted for testing purposes, but in the future you will only be able to visit apartments/houses that belong to you or belong to people that have the appropriate permissions setup for guest access.

When visiting you will be able to explore the unit and do various activities mentioned above, like sitting, playing music, watching TV, turning lights on and off, etc.

JS now features character customization! This feature isn't so much requested because most people just care about driving in a driving game, but nonetheless it adds extra personalization to the game. I will probably be rocking the racing suit anyways, but wouldn't it be cool to be have a character you can customize just like the Sims? That is now JS. The system is still in early alpha and has some bugs but it works for the most part and I'd like to get people testing it in the meantime. For now there are only basic items like shirts, pants, hats, glasses, and some various colors to these items.

Last but not least, the car list. The car list has been rather small for most of the lifetime in JS. That's only because I've been focusing on developing the actual game first, then adding cars. I've become pretty satisfied with the physics and think it's time to start adding to the car list. The newest beta branch already includes some cool cars that were added, but I've added even more cars to the list. Some don't have customization as I don't have that much time to spend on parts, but they will slowly be added over time as I focus on each car.

Hello all! I hope you guys are enjoying the latest update of JS that is available on the nightly_public branch. If you are unaware of the branch or how to get to it you can goto this page, How To Opt Into A Beta to find out how to play the newest update.


I'd like to address that there was a nasty bug that didn't come up in testing that was found out yesterday. To keep things short, this caused the "Waiting For Host" window to appear and you be unable to spawn. This was fixed in a series of 3 patch updates today that also fixed other various things like camera angles, car spawning, and car sounds. You guys testing and playing the beta branch are very helpful in helping fix bugs as they are reported. There are some in there I would've never thought of. So I ask, please continue to play and find/report bugs to me so I may fix them as soon as possible.


It has come up that many of you would like more options as far as two-wheeled vehicles. Yes, I mean motorcycles and what not. I've taken this into consideration because I'd also like to provide even more options like Go Karts and what not. However, which gets added first will be up to you guys via a poll. Please head over to our official website, Jidousha Shakai and vote on the poll titled "Other Vehicles Poll" so you can vote on which group of vehicles will be added first. This group of vehicles will be added in between or after the majority of the main car list ( which you can see here ) is added to the Sandbox mode.

Join Our Discord so you can directly message me for quick support or if you'd like to more formally contact someone you help you, then you may do that through our website also.

Hello all. I just streamed a small video of the Valentine's Day update! This mainly consisted of some small multiplayer gameplay driving around the map and finding some funny bugs I didn't know about. This update is scheduled for tomorrow and will include Sandbox Single Player and Sandbox Multiplayer modes. If you'd like a peek at what is coming then you can head over to my YouTube channel or Twitch channel to watch the full 40-minute video.

YouTube Link

TwitchLink

PS: Yes, I know the tree shaders are glitched out in the video. Thanks! :)

If you'd like first information on the rebirth of Jidousha Shakai and to participate in developer hosted multiplayer games for testing purposes and what not, please make sure you join our Discord. Immediate support and developer communication is also offered to anyone that needs it. (I cannot guarantee I will respond for casual talk not related to the game itself)



https://discord.gg/PKPZ2kC

If you are only interested in participating in the multiplayer beta then you can go directly to the bottom of this post.



Jidosuha Shakai now includes the ability to apply materials to all body parts of your car separately in addition to the full paint control you already have. You can think of it as simply dropping a pattern onto a body part except this body part is completely PBR (lighting) affected and not just a texture. These materials lay on top of paint however decals can be put over materials.



I thought it would be a cool idea to have seasonal/holiday/special variants of these materials that are only given for a limited time.In order to further test this, these X-mas themed materials will only be available till new year! More information on how to get these for your account will be posted when I have more information on it.







As I mentioned, since I don't have a great gift to give for the holidays I decided to open up the multiplayer branch for people to try out. It includes full multiplayer, server, lobby, and chat support that is mainly strictly for stress testing, general testing, and proof of concept. Anyone will be able to try this branch out if they own the game by following this guide and selecting nightly_public from the beta menu.

If you are testing the multiplayer branch you need to delete some files because the beta branch has a completely different save architecture. This is of course a downside to testing a private version of the game that was never meant to be public.

C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\CloudWeight\Jidousha Shakai (delete everything in there)

Documents/CloudWeight/Jidousha Shakai (delete settings.ini and graphics.ini)

Have fun and make sure to post back your results! Please note (there is no options menu, just game-play, please be aware of this when testing the multiplayer branch)

This announcement will be summed up in 5 main sections.

• What Happened to Jidousha Shakai.
  
• The Current State of Jidousha Shakai.
  
• The Price Change.
  
• Updated Release Schedule and Early Access Schedule.
  
• How I am Planning to Win Back Your Trust.

Facebook Page
Facebook Group
Discord
YouTube
Official Website

I DO NOT AFFILIATE WITH ANY VK SITES, NONE OF THEM ARE OFFICIAL.



So lets get right in to it.


It is no secret that Jidousha Shakai has not been receiving updates since the last big update. As my previous post stated, I personally was not in the right state of mind physically or mentally. Combine that with being scammed and having to handle unnecessary court cases for digital content and losing out on a ton of profit due to these circumstances has dented the reputation of CloudWeight Studios and Jidousha Shakai. Not only am I talking business wise, but personal wise.

I created Jidousha Shakai because I wanted to create a game that had everything everyone wanted in it. We all know the big publishers and developers turn a blind eye to their community these days when they request stuff and I was fed up with this. I said I would create my own game and had no plans to sell it as I wanted everyone to enjoy it for free. Fast forward a couple years and I realized releasing a game of this scope free would not be a smart idea financially. At the 3rd year of development I had spent almost $5000 USD on making a game that no one knew about.

I always thought making a game would be cheap if I made everything myself but I have learned that no matter how much you do yourself, you cannot make a game in a timely manner without having at least $10,000 saved up and ready to handle licensing, graphics work, content creation, servers, and other costs. I don't know about you guys, but I didn't have that kind of money saved up. At my job I spent 50% of my paycheck to continue developing JS and it just wasn't working out like I wanted to. Taking this whole thing on just isn't a smart move.. and although I'd like to say "I made Jidousha Shakai all by myself! Every inch!" that would take years on years from NOW to do something like that.. and I don't have years.

After careful thought I decided to re-write Jidousha Shakai. This means completely tearing down all the current systems and rebuilding them based on the feedback I got from you guys, best practices, and making them user friendly and focused on playability and performance. The last thing I want to do is admit all the half-ass code I've written for Jidousha Shakai previously just so I could meet deadlines for release and updates.. but it's only the right thing to do.

Owning up to bad code is how a programmer gets better, and once you realize this you can move on to improving your code and making it better. All of the physics code is clean and multi-threaded and I'm proud of this, but why would I intentionally write bad code for Jidousha Shakai? Pressure. This is the simplest answer I can give. I have never got into the game business before this. I've never ran my own LLC or managed my own copyrighted content. Everything was happening so fast for me and I've kind of just rolled with it and I felt this was a big part of me slowly losing my mind when it came to Jidousha Shakai.

Before I put Jidousha Shakai on Steam Greenlight, Valve had announced they were going to close Greenlight and roll out Steam Direct. The potential price points they spoke about scared me to my core. How was I supposed to afford $1000 or even $5000? I could barely afford my car payment. So I made a choice that I would work 5 times as hard and put Jidousha Shakai on Steam Greenlight so that I can get my game out there and also get some extra money for the costs of Jidousha Shakai. I was happy to get green-lit and my dream was finally coming true, but the reality is I was playing catch up for months and months. My game needed to be 3 months ahead of it's schedule and I was 5 months behind. Update after update rolled out and the game was getting worse and even I could see it at the time.

People were playing my game and having fun and that made me happy and want to continue on. However, many people were also mad with me about the last update. Never in my entire experience of coding has one of my own applications performed poorly. With technology now'a'days it's very hard to get something to run badly unless you are doing no optimization work at all and yet here I was with a program that had a problem. This problem didn't happen on my computer so I was oblivious to it during development but being a programmer is so much more than "it works for me." I've realized this through my time developing applications but it's really sat in my heart after working on Jidousha Shakai and making it into what it is.

Nevertheless, most of you already know how my life has been treating me.. but I won't bring that into this because this is business.. right? Nobody cares about that stuff when it's business. As far as I know, everyone see's me as a machine and nothing else, so I have to live up to this because it's what I chose. I chose to get into the business so I have to kill my emotions to bring a good product, and I realize this now.




I know some of you are wondering, what is the "Rebirth" for? This is to signify the rebirth of the project that is Jidousha Shakai. It is completely new and I want to make this a point.

As I mentioned above, Jidousha Shakai is being completely rewritten from inside and out. I want to completely get rid of the risks of performance problems and make everything as it should be. But this takes time.. and you must understand that this time is crucial so I do not get back to rushing things. I do apologize for leading you on with false words or unmet release dates, so I am looking to change this. Many of you know I am not into providing release dates because if I happen to not meet it then I have to rush myself and then the product is flawed. No more will this be the case, and a side effect of this is not providing release dates anymore until I am absolutely certain. That's just the way it has to be.



Now that we are past all the negative, we can get onto the positive! Most of the rewrite of Jidousha Shakai is done. Everything is performing better than ever and I finally feel like I've made something I can truly be proud of. Jidousha Shakai will be a game everyone can truly enjoy and this is my intention. Garage and customization are completely changed and faster to customize than ever. A smoother and polished experience is provided while allowing for many more customization options that aren't in the current update like dual spoilers, individual light customization, exhaust rotation, gear tuning, boost tuning, a decal system, neons, and enough LED addons to make your car light up like a Christmas tree.



The map is now a truly open world map also. Complete with windy roads in the mountains and not the dull, flat roads of the previous updates. As graphics are updated constantly so are the hardware requirements because this is what happens when you dive into the visual fidelity side of gaming. Many people told me they don't like the look of JS currently so I need to make it better. A lot better. I need to be on par with other racing games in order to compete and this is my goal. All of this is with performance in mind of course as I wouldn't want to leave out the lower hardware guys. However the trade offs are important here because lower hardware obviously won't be getting better graphics, but I won't be leaving you guys out of the game. Jidousha Shakai now takes advantage of advanced rendering methods and so the minimum Shader Model will be 4.0 for Jidousha Shakai's "Next Gen" release. A lower Shader Model 3.0 version will be available for lower hardware computers, however it won't look as pretty... but at least you'll still be able to play!




After hard thought I decided to make Jidousha Shakai the price of $20 USD (varied by country.) I feel this price is fair for the current amount of content in Jidousha Shakai and also the new amount of content Jidousha Shakai is getting before the update is released. If you have already purchased Jidousha Shakai for a lower price then you are in luck as the game is now worth more. If you haven't purchased Jidousha Shakai yet then you'll be purchasing at it's full current price. The price is planned to go up again in the future once we get back on schedule and continue releasing content.

The future isn't decided about how DLC will be implemented or even be present in Jidousha Shakai, but rest assured I do not plan to put out 50 DLC's that are $30 USD. Jidousha Shakai is about pushing the limits within the niche market that is racing games and all I would be doing is setting it back.

Some people may have a problem with the price point as it currently stands because there is no update yet, however I plan to make it clear on the store page and in the announcements that Jidousha Shakai is going under a rewrite and the current price (if paid) is fully to support the current version of Jidousha Shakai and the upcoming version of Jidousha Shakai.


There is not much to say here except that the schedule for how long Jidousha Shakai will be in Early Access will be increased if necessary. The new update is planned to put JS back on track so I will keep you guys updated if this ever happens.


Simply I am going to do what I always have and put my mind to creating a great game. I do not want you guys to think there is a gimmick or some secret plan to screw you over, because there isn't. In order to fully get engaged with the community again I am empowering some people to be moderators in the forums so we can have staff watching after the community and also answering any questions you might have when I am not available.

If you are interested in being on the moderator team to help out the community of Jidousha Shakai then you may message me and will evaluate you as a moderator team is necessary since I am increasingly unavailable these days.


If you have any questions please feel free to post them in the forum or add me personally to private message me.

Thanks to everyone that read all of this and those who have stuck by me regardless of what has happened in my life, it means a lot to me and you guys are what keep me going. ♥

Youtube
https://youtu.be/uRuYCQl4wBo

Steam Forum Discussion
http://steamcommunity.com/app/611800/discussions/0/2579854400755839909/

Most notable changes

• New sound system is not included because the FMOD license is still not activated.
  
  
• Turbo lag problems fixed for all turbo's
  
• Stock turbos do not have flutter anymore (as factory intended)
  
• Removed auto-center steering modes
  
• Added progressive steering for controller and wheel setups
  
• Enabled console by default, deprecated -console launch tag.
  
• Changed camera positions, added near and far follow cameras as well as hood camera. Removed special cameras from rotation and added them to input control list so they can be toggled instead (F1, F2, F3, F4, ETC)
  
• When leaving photo mode you are reverted to your previously selected camera
  
• Added intercooler upgrades
  
• New differential type (Torque-Bias)
  
• Added multiple settings to the tuning menu. (Steering, Braking, Handling, Differential, Anti-Roll Bars, Launch Control/2-Step)
  
• Added engine specs menu, small bug where it occassionally calculates negative power curves.
  
• Added ability to preview upgrades that have sounds
  
• Adjusted the volume of the buy/sell sound
  
• Fixed temporary sounds not adjusting to their temporary volume.
  
• Added metallic paint control, added fresnel paint control (two-tone) with influence
  
• Added car selection screen in garage with car preview
  
• Adjusted all engines to better reflect their realistic torque and horsepower characteristics at certain RPM's
  
• Added EJ25, DT76, I4T2 engine swap
  
• Added anti-roll bars
  
• Added a more realistic car start/ignition sequence (No more having to hold down your key even though the engine is spinning)
  
• Carbon fiber material improved
  
• Added more roof spoiler options
  
• Fixed bug where angry eyes wouldn't be shown
  
• Fixed a bug where multiple exhaust tips would be shown
  
• Fixed memory leak regarding to car paint/rim paint
  
• Changed tire friction curves to provide less kick/centering force
  
• Added more force feedback settings
  
• Fixed wheel radius not updating when copying
  
• Fixed suspension slider making the car go crazy when applying values very fast
  
• Radiator fans and turbo fans now react to their operation levels (spins based on engine speed, current boost)
  
• Lighting overhaul
  
• Skybox and reflection overhaul
  
• Added legacy lighting for less capable computers
  
• Wheel blur optimizations and memory leak fixes
  
• About 300+ other various small fixes behind the scenes related to physics and simulation in general.
  
  
  Hotfix changes
• Fixed photo mode not exiting correctly
  
• Fixed input manager not showing up
  
• Fixed MK5 lights not workig
  
• Changed grip on dirt roads
  
• Fixed lighting not changing on custom maps
  
• Fixed graphic options not showing up on custom maps
  
  
  I'm positive there is way more than I'm missing, you will be able to find it yourself upon playing. (I sometimes forget to add things to this list when developing, I'm only human)
  
  Known Issues
  -Car pictures will sometimes include other cars in the background
  -Legacy lighting will not disable some scripts from the new lighting system, should not impact performance
  -Garage scroller will scroll all the way back to the first upgrade regardless of where you left off
  -Graphical settings do not apply in Garage
  -Underperforming on the main map (immediate fix will be administered and is being worked on)
  -Tire model has been changed and is unfinished so some things may be weird due to the more complex curve
  -Camera shutter doesn't work (The way unity handled camera blur/aperture has been changed and so a complete rewrite of the camera shutter code will neeed to be done)
  -The bus stalls too easy or doesn't drive properly (The drivetrain intertia is very high and the engine might be UNDERPERFORMING for the amount of weight it must handle, I'm investigating further into this)
  -The Supra rear bumper upgrades are missing (Yes, they are)
  -Force Feedback doesn't turn on automatically or at all sometimes (The way Native Input reads and interprets the FFB code is flawed, so I must go in and modify the base code provided)
  A workaround is to manually force it on through the console by typing forceFFB on
  
  

As we get closer to the release of the big update, more and more features and and requests that you guys made have been added! This new update brings many bug/glitch fixes, a new map, wide bodykits, interior customization, and much more!

Hello everyone, thank you for your continued feeback! It has really helped shape the game. I'd like to let you all know the next update will be a big content update and will take a little longer than the basic updates that are usually happening, I will still be releasing some bug fix updates and some smaller content patch updates, but the main work will be on the big content update in which I'm sure many of you will love!

Some of the things that will be included are

• Widebody kits
  
• Completely new map
  
• Interior customization
  
• Sound engine overhall
  
• More unlocked cars
  
• Special new features (hint hint)
  
  ...and more! So I'd like to ask you to please be patient as this big update is put together and as always I will try and do my best to respond to any questions or problems you are having and depoy a fix as soon as possible. Keep having fun and continue to leave your thoughts :)