Seeking a replacement for Motor City Online
Set your Wayback machine to the early 2000s, and you'll find me in hog heaven, building and racing old muscle cars from a catalogue of real world parts that interacted as they would in real life. EA released this game as a racing MMO, but I spent most of my time treating it as a single player game, building my hot rods and racing against the computer.
In 2003, they pulled the plug. Since then, nothing has come close. There are mechanic simulators, but you don't get to drive the cars when you finish them. Then there are the racing games, but none of those have the.level of detail in the build and tuning portion that MCO did. In MCO, you needed to actually build your engine in a way that the parts would work well with each other in order to get the best performance. It wasn't simply an upgrade chain, as you could easily spend ten grand on parts and come out with a 200hp brick.
Most recently, my search has led me to a.game called Revhead from Australia. It scratches a LOT of the itch, but it's still missing a lot of the stuff I miss from MCO. You can build cars with parts and race.them, but the build still feels like a more money=more power equation instead of an exercise in research and testing to figure out the perfect recipe for my particular driving style.
Am I chasing a pipe dream in the hopes that there is a.modern equivalent for that old gem?
Have you checked out the offline instructions on PC gaming wiki for MCO? I can't tell if you can customize cars with it or just race against AI with a preset selection though. I found some references to a fan made launcher MCO re-fired, but didn't find any downloads and the site is dead.
I did! And it turns out that in order for those programs to work, one needs a purpose built Windows XP machine. A 32 bit one. Now, that said, I have found an old PC I hope to use to see if I can get the old game itself working again, but I am also interested to see if something with more modern graphics and physics, as well as a more modern part and car library exists. For anyone else out there that is looking, and has an old XP machine, the files you need (if you still have the original game disc) are available on the Internet archive, and they do work.
Have you tried emulating it? Like setting up a Virtual Machine with the exact needed hardware and installing the software that way? If possible, it should be easier than building a dedicated machine.
I have, but I haven't been able to get past the 32 bit limitation. Apparently (not an electrical engineering PhD...) the game calls for instructions that are no longer available, even through emulation on newer machines. I've tried a couple of different emulators but gave up after a few days of smacking my head against the monitor.
Again, I'm pretty confident I'll be able to run the original on the new XP box I'm building, but a modern interpretation is what I'm really after. Something that might promise updates, dlc, editors and so on 😁
You might be able to get the different architecture with QEMU or an older build of Virtualbox that still supports 32bit, but if you want to make this a hardware project, I'm not going to stop you.
I'll have a look at QEMU... The name doesn't ring a bell for me so maybe I missed it. Thanks!
Dang, sorry to hear that. I assumed I was suggesting something a bit too obvious, but figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
I’m not an expert on virtualization, so I won’t be able to help you any further. The only other thing I could suggest is finding retro software forums that focus on preserving working software and see if they (with their more specialized experience) might be able to help.
While I dont have any concrete answers for your issue, I do have a recommendation.
Angethegreat is doing some really cool things with simulating engine physics realistically in real time.
There might be some kind of demo of what he's working on, but not a full fledged game yet.
However, it may be worth following what he's doing in case he or anyone else uses it to build out a realistic simulation game
At the very least, you might find it interesting!
youtube.com/@angethegreat/videos
https://store.steampowered.com/app/293760/Automation__The_Car_Company_Tycoon_Game/ and https://store.steampowered.com/app/284160/BeamNGdrive/ might be the closest you're gonna find
I have looked at that game in depth, and the build tools it offers far eclipse what MCO had, so that's awesome, but the only place I could drive what I built is in beam... So I'm still left wanting a bit. Good suggestion though, it's deep as hell.
I never played MCO, so don't really know exactly what it was like, but the Forza games (E.g. the most recent Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsport) have a shit ton of customization options, and it's not just a standard upgrade tree either. You can't put any engine in any car, but you can most definitely end up with a total shit box if you tune everything incorrectly, or have the wrong parts on the vehicle for the wrong type of race. Horizon is also open world (assuming MCO was?), and has events ranging from serious races to absurd challenges. So @Grimmcartel may also want to try those out.
And for something far far sillier, My Summer Car or The Long Drive, while not racing games, might still be up their alley too.
My summer car was fun, but Revhead beats it as far as closeness to MCO. As for Forza, I haven't gotten into 5, so I can't comment on it in particular, but what I've seen from most of the AAA games is a definite scale from crap components to best components as you progress through the game via unlocks etc.
MCO benefited from the inclusion of a program used by mechanics called Dyno 2000, which was an engine blueprinting app. It used a database of a few thousand known parts and allowed you to build and test any combination virtually before going out and spending money. EA just ported it into the game as is, so you got real world numbers on everything, and if you put the wrong camshaft in with a carb that couldn't keep up, the game reflected it.
If you're telling me that Forza gets that deep into engine builds, sprung vs unsprung weight, shock travel, spring tension, bla bla bla, then I might have to give it a look...
Yeah, lots of the customization options in Forza Horizon 5 and Forza Motorsports are basically just straight upgrades, but not all are. Many are cosmetic, or objectively worse but fun to apply (like lift kits, massive spoilers, etc), or sidegrades, or only useful for specific race types. But since you compete against cars in similar performance classes, having all the "best" parts actually isn't always a good idea anyways. You're often better staying in a particular class and just maximizing your vehicle's performance within that class range, rather than upgrading every single part and jumping to the bottom end of the next class up, where you will likely be competing against cars better suited to that class. So it's a bit of a balancing act in that way.
As I said before, unfortunately Forza is not that granular when it comes to part selection. You can't just put any engine in any car, or any camshaft, carburetor, etc. You can still put together some sleepers by upgrading the absolute shit out of certain older cars though, but even the most beefed up and finely tuned S1 class VW Beetle you can put together is not going to beat a stock Koenigsegg Agera in an S1 class street race. ;)
And, while I'm not really a car mechanics guy so this is well outside my wheelhouse, and I can't vouch for how comprehensive or accurate to real life it is, you can fine tune the suspension in all sorts of ways, as well as many other things about the cars, in both games. See:
https://forzatune.com/guide/the-fully-updated-forza-tuning-guide/
https://forzatune.com/guide/introduction-to-gear-tuning-in-forza/
https://forzatune.com/guide/forza-tuning-checklist/
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ForzaOpenTunes/
https://www.optn.club/
I've tried customizing parts and tuning everything myself but it's actually really complicated, and often ends in total disaster for me, with a damn near undrivable, horrible handling, severely over/understeering, poorly gear-ratiod car as a result... Which can be fun for just driving around the map casually in Horizon, or competing in silly multiplayer challenges, but isn't so great in competitive races. ;)
So when I actually care about winning, I tend to just find other people's more optimized parts lists and tuning specs for certain cars, car classes, and race types, use those instead, and then just tweak a few things in them to suit my personal preferences and driving style. You sound knowledgeable enough to probably be able to customize and fine tune each car to your exact preferences by yourself though, which is why I thought the Forza games might be something you would enjoy.
p.s. If you want to give the latest Forza games a try but don't want to buy them, since they are pretty damn expensive, they're actually both included with GamePass for PC, which you can get for $1 for the first 14 days with a new signup, and $12/mo thereafter. And I also regularly resubscribe for a month or two whenever there is a good deal on, play a bunch of Forza and various other games, and cancel immediately afterwards. I don't think I have paid full price for a month of GamePass yet. :P
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Motorsport
First, I want to thank you for an incredibly informative and well thought out reply. You've given me more than enough info on how the game actually works to be able to make an informed decision, which is far more than I was able to glean from the official site. I think I'll probably give it a shot now just to see what's up with the suspension tuning options,even though I've always been more of an engine guy.
On the example of the Koenigsegg vs the beetle... I'm reminded of a couple of episodes of Top Gear that sort of pointed out the real world differences in this kind of David vs Goliath race. In one, Hammond was soundly beaten while driving a supercar by an Isuzu Trooper, and the three hosts were beaten every time they tried against home built (and state sponsored sometimes) hot rods at the Last Vegas drag strip in their Viper, Aston and LFA.
That's the dragon I'm chasing if I'm honest. In MCO, it was a regular thing to see someone join up and grind time trials until they could afford the most expensive combo in the game (a 1010 HP Corvette with a blown Hemi and four drag slicks for stupid levels of traction). Beating those guys in the 69 Roadrunner I built with balanced torque and hp curves and proper gear ratios for the power and the track was magical lol.
NP. :)
p.s. Don't get me wrong, you can still do sleepers in Forza, which is why I mentioned it. You should still be able to beat far more expensive, higher end, stock B-A class cars in a fully upgraded, well tuned classic car that started out in D or C class. My point was more that once you get into S1/S2 supercar territory, no amount of tuning that 69 Roadrunner will allow you to compete with the supercars in most serious racing events, except perhaps on a long straightaway track (like your top gear examples), or rally environments. The supercars, even stock, just have too many inherent advantages which are especially important in track and street races with lots of sharp turning, and short straightaways.
Anyways, if you do give Forza a try, let me know what you think of it. It sounds like Horizon 5 is probably more what you're looking for though, BTW. Motorsport is all about serious track/circuit racing, so has less environmental and event variety, and less vehicles in it too, so there is less room for fun sleeper shenanigans, which is what it sounds like you're looking for. :)