JasonM

Well my article came directly from the Renault world news feed, so I guess it's about 99.99% finalized because I doubt Renault would make that news report if they weren't perfectly certain of the fact. Else it would make them look pretty stupid.

But i'm glad to see another constructor jump into the competition, Renault was the drizzling shit in the current part of the V6 area so maybe being an actual constructor gives them the motivation to put forth an actually decent engine.

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Renault announces return to Formula 1 in 2016

December 03, 2015 | ID: 73985

• Carlos Ghosn announces his decision that Renault will return to Formula 1 with its own team for 2016 season.
• Renault, 12-time Constructors’ Champion with nearly 40 years in the sport, is an iconic brand in Formula 1 and intends to play an active role in the sport’s development.
• F1 is a technology showcase and accelerates development of Renault’s innovation and range of sports cars.

Following the September announcement of the signing of a Letter of Intent with Lotus, teams at Renault continued to evaluate the possibility of a return to Formula 1. Particular attention was paid to competing successfully with its own team in a financially sound way starting in 2016.

“Renault had two options: to come back at 100 percent or leave. After a detailed study, I have decided that Renault will be in Formula 1, starting 2016. The final details supplied by F1’s main stakeholders gave us the confidence to accept this new challenge. Our ambition is to win--even if it will take some time,” said Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO, Renault.

As a full team, Renault will take maximum benefit from its victories. The payback as an engine supplier proved to be limited. The return on the investment necessitated by the new engine regulations and the return in terms of image were low. 

Work continues on finalizing the terms of the acquisition of the Lotus F1 Team in the shortest timeframe possible. The principal contracts were signed on December 3, 2015. The Lotus F1 Team effectively stands out as the best partner. Renault and Lotus F1 have known each other for 15 years and were world champions together in 2005 and 2006.

Renault has had uninterrupted involvement in Formula 1 for almost 40 years. In 1977, it revolutionised the championship with the introduction of turbocharging, a technique that soon became the norm in the sport. Renault has since taken part in more than 600 grand prix, claiming 168 race wins, 12 Constructors’ titles and 11 Drivers’ crowns.

Renault’s decision to continue its involvement in Formula 1 is confirmation that it sees motorsport as an essential part of the brand’s identity. Formula 1 is the ultimate symbol of the passion for automobiles. Passion defines Renault as expressed by its brand signature, ‘Passion for Life’. In addition to attracting many customers, Formula 1 also fuels employee motivation. As the pinnacle of motor sport, Formula 1 demands technological and operational excellence. The championship serves as a showcase for the technological expertise that Renault dials into its products for the benefit of its customers.

Formula 1 is a means for Renault to accelerate development and remain at the forefront of the sport’s technological progress. It simultaneously allows Renault to build bridges between the advanced technologies seen in the world championship and its road cars, particularly in the fields of electric and hybrid vehicles. Consistent with its commitment to F1, Renault will develop its R.S. range by stepping up investment in order to be active on every continent and in even more segments with vehicles that meet the needs of their different markets.

Formula 1 serves to promote awareness of the Renault brand and its image in all its markets across the world. Formula 1 is one of the sports that enjoys the most media coverage worldwide thanks to a following on five continents, particularly in emerging markets. It attracts 450 million television viewers annually and its scope for growth is enormous thanks to opportunities founded on new technologies, social networks, video games, etc. that have yet to be fully exploited.

In January, we will provide more detailed information about Renault’s F1 programme ahead of the 2016 championship that begins next March.

 

It's official, Renault is returning as a constructors team.

A game I loved back in the day and that's still being patched by the community to this day... Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines

And with Paradox Interactive acquiring the rights, it might become a reality!

Hopefully the addition of Aston Martin as a title sponsor for Force India gives them the capital required to firmly be able to compete with Williams for that third team spot.. as much as I want them to truly compete, I doubt anyone can stop the capital of Mercedes/Ferrari without getting a constructor like audi behind them...

1 hour ago, Benji said:

I think some games that are open world don't need to be (Watch_Dogs immediately comes to mind), and some open world games just don't have enough content and have too much open space, but so long as quick travel exists that's a moot point for the most part (barring the shitty GTA method of taxis, just let me quick travel anywhere any time FFS). But getting lost and too much going on? Never. The first is why maps and quick travel exists, and the second is literally never ever a problem, the more content the game has the better value for my money.

I am still trying to get through that game, but the travel is just such a fucking grind that I have little patience to try and finish it... Especially when you're on a mission and you CANT auto-travel for raisin's. So you're on one end of the map and it tells you to drive to the other end, and it'll take you a good 5-10 minutes of tedious driving to get there... And the only thing you're doing is driving with minimal to no exposition to keep you interested... I commute every day, I don't want to do it in a god-damned video game...

I personally have never finished any TES game nor have I finished a (3d) fallout game... I just get overwhelmed with what to do and I end up getting stuck doing sidequest stuff, and after 30-60 minutes of that I have no interest to continue the story so I just quit the game and go play something else for the rest of the day.

I think the only open-world game (other than GTA/Just Cause) i've finished is the Witcher franchise, but that's purely because the lore and story gripped me completely... Even then finishing them took the better part of 3-6 months of on/off gameplay, especially for Witcher 3 because it's just so stacked... But like others have said, you can fast travel to almost anywhere...

I don't work well with games that just toss me into a huge (drab) world and tell me to do whatever... I know I can follow the main story, but I don't want to miss out on the sidequests... But then i'm afraid I do quests in a wrong order or stumble upon something I shouldn't have stumbled upon, and I don't want that.

Like others have said, Arkham Asylum worked extremely well with a contained open world, where you could roam a bit but the action was contained to general areas. The story kept rolling and at the same time you could play the side quests you were supposed to do at that time, so you never got a feeling you were playing out-of-order...

I feel that most games are perfectly right to take place in open worlds, but I must admit that the games i've finished the most are the ones that are reasonably linear (e.g. TellTale series) and keep you rolling on the story. Nowdays every game needs to be open world and that means developers just create a huge world for the sake of having a huge world, and adding nothing of substance that makes the world matter. I've not played F4 so I can't judge that game, but the trend is obvious.

1 minute ago, Rich said:

So tempting to delete this thread and make one of my own

So mean.

12 minutes ago, Lineker said:

I'm just going to edit the shit out of your post all year long tbh  

Reserved for 2016 race results...

1 minute ago, Lineker said:

Ooooh I hate you right now.

Well since you've ninja'd the second post, you're free to post all the results next seasons

 Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team (Mercedes)
 #44 Lewis Hamilton
 #6 Nico Rosberg

 Scuderia Ferrari (Ferrari)
 #5 Sebastian Vettel
 #7 Kimi Räikkönen
 

 Williams Martini Racing (Mercedes)
 #19 Felipe Massa
 #77 Valtteri Bottas
 

 Red Bull Racing (Renault, TAG-Heuer branded)
 #3 Daniel Ricciardo
 #26 Daniil Kvyat (Round 1-4) /  #33 Max Verstappen (Round 5-21)

 Sahara Force India F1 Team (Mercedes)
 #11 Sergio Pérez
 #27 Nico Hülkenberg
 

 Renault Sport F1 Team (Renault)
 #20 Kevin Magnussen
 #30 Jolyon Palmer
 

 Scuderia Toro Rosso (Ferrari 0594/4, 2015 spec)
 #33 Max Verstappen (Round 1-4) /  #26 Daniil Kvyat (Round 5-21)
 #55 Carlos Sainz, Jr.

 Sauber F1 Team (Ferrari)
 #9 Marcus Ericsson
 #12 Felipe Nasr
 

 McLaren Honda (Honda)
 #14 Fernando Alonso (Round 1, 3-21) /  #47 Stoffel Vandoorne (Round 2)
 #22 Jenson Button
 

 Manor Racing MRT (Mercedes)
 #88 Rio Haryanto (Round 1-12) /   #31 Esteban Ocon (Round 13-)
 #94 Pascal Wehrlein

 Haas F1 Team (Ferrari)
 #8 Romain Grosjean
 #21 Esteban Gutiérrez

CALENDAR

22th-25th February 2016
Pre-Season Testing 1 - (Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona)

1st-4th March 2016
 Pre-Season Testing 2 - (Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona)

20th March 2016
 Round 1 - Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Melbourne)

3rd April 2016
 Round 2 - Bahrain Grand Prix (Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir)

17th April 2016
 Round 3 - Chinese Grand Prix (Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai)

1st May 2016
 Round 4 - Russian Grand Prix (Sochi Autodrom, Sochi)

15th May 2016
 Round 5 - Spanish Grand Prix (Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona)

29th May 2016
 Round 6 - Monaco Grand Prix (Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo)

12th June 2016
 Round 7 - Canadian Grand Prix (Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal)

19th June 2016
 Round 8 - Grand Prix of Europe (Baku City Circuit, Baku, Azerbaijan)

3rd July 2016
 Round 9 - Austrian Grand Prix (Red Bull Ring, Spielberg)

10th July 2016
 Round 10 - British Grand Prix (Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone)

24th July 2016
 Round 11 - Hungarian Grand Prix (Hungaroring, Budapest)

31th July 2016
 Round 12 - German Grand Prix (Hockenheimring, Hockenheim)

28th August 2016
 Round 13 - Belgian Grand Prix (Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot)

4th September 2016
 Round 14 - Italian Grand Prix (Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Monza)

18th September 2016
 Round 15 - Singapore Grand Prix (Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore)

2nd October 2016
 Round 16 - Malaysian Grand Prix (Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur)

9th October 2016
 Round 17 - Japanese Grand Prix (Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka)

23rd October 2016
 Round 18 - United States Grand Prix (Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas)

30th October 2016
 Round 19 - Mexican Grand Prix (Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City)

13th November 2016
 Round 20 - Brazilian Grand Prix (Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo)

27th November 2016
 Round 21 - Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - (Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi)

General changes:

• The FIA and Formula One Management will be granted greater power to change the Sporting and Technical Regulations and to make decisions affecting the governance of the sport.

Technical Regulation changes:

• Cars were required to be designed with a separate wastegate for exhaust gases to pass through in a bid to increase the noise of the cars following criticism since the introduction of the 2014 generation of engines.
• Tyre supplier Pirelli introduced a fifth tyre compound known as "ultrasoft", with the manufacturer stating that they would only be available on street circuits.
• Pirelli changed their approach to tyre supply in 2016, bringing three dry compounds to races instead of two. The compounds are made public two weeks before each event. Pirelli assigns two "choice" compounds, and a third set (the softest available regardless of Pirelli's selection) are given to teams reaching Q3. Drivers select their remaining ten tyre sets for the event between the three compounds and must use two dry compounds during the race, provided that at least one set is from the Pirelli "choice" selection.
• The FIA has opted to increase the number of tokens available for power unit development starting in 2016. While the initial plans would have given manufacturers fifteen tokens for the season, the number was raised to thirty-two, the same number as 2014, in order to allow struggling manufacturers such as Renault and Honda to improve their development. This decision also allows further development on parts that were initially planned to be closed off, including the upper and lower crankcase, valve drive, crankshaft, air-valve system and ancillaries drive.

Sporting Regulation changes:

• Starting in 2016, the number of pre-season tests were reduced from three to two.
• The FIA formally increased the maximum events allowed in a season from 20 to 21 to accommodate the calendar's approval.
• The stewards are given greater powers in enforcing track limits, with drivers required to stay between the white lines marking the edges of the circuit, except in cases of driver error. The change was introduced after an investigation by Pirelli into Sebastian Vettel's high-speed blow-out at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix that concluded that Vettel's off-track excursions had been a significant factor in the incident.
  • The FIA is also exploring a number of solutions to discourage drivers from abusing track limits and aid in their policing, including GPS tracking, the reprofiling of kerbs, the installation of pressure-sensitive sensors and the use of high-speed cameras.
• Any driver who causes the start of the race to be aborted will be required to start the race from pit lane at the restart.
• The procedure for issuing gearbox penalties will be amended so that penalties are applied in the order that they are awarded, bringing the system in line with the wider grid penalty system.
• The Virtual Safety Car system is to be used in practice sessions as well to avoid the unnecessary use of red flags and session stoppages.
  • The drag reduction system, which is deactivated when under Virtual Safety Car periods and full-course yellow flags, is to be available as soon as a Virtual Safety Car period has ended; drivers previously had to wait two laps before the system was reactivated.
• The qualifying process was heavily revised two weeks before the season began. The three-period format first introduced in 2006 was retained, but with a progressive "knock-out" style of elimination.
  • Despite widespread criticism of the format at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, and a vote from the teams to revert to the pre-2016 format, the FIA's F1 Commission chose to maintain the system ahead of a full review later in the season.
• The stewards' powers to monitor pit-to-car communications were broadened for the 2016 season, with race control able to monitor the radio feeds for each driver in real time and consult with engineering advisors to further monitor the content in a bid to crack down on driver coaching and the use of coded messages.
• The process new drivers go through in order to qualify for a superlicence will be changed, with additional restrictions put in place as part of the wider FIA Global Pathway. The changes were introduced following controversy surrounding Max Verstappen qualifying for a superlicence at the age of 16 after a single season competing in European Formula 3.

Nico looked immaculate once more all race, and he thoroughly deserved to win this race and get that first hat-trick of his career... I sincerely hope he takes this confidence into next year, so that IF we get Mercedes dominance it's Nico that takes home a title rather than Lewis.

Also, that BBC Outro punched me right in the feels when they cut to the Jules tribute...

https://streamable.com/mvss

27 minutes ago, EddieG said:

Apparently Sainz has slipped in an interview that Toro Rosso are running Ferraris next season.

Toro Rosso-Ferrari would be amazing, those cars were pretty fast the first time around, knowing how good the chassis/aero is, it might get them a podium next year.

21 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Formula E to feature driverless car racing as a support category from 2016-2017 season

Which can either get super awesome or be a complete trainwreck...

So either way we're set with quality entertainment

2 hours ago, MDK said:

Oh, and I'd desperately like a transport tycoon reboot 

OTTD is about as good a TT game you would ever want, really.

8 minutes ago, Halloween Burger KingEllis said:

I was gonna say there was that 'spiritual successor' kickstarter for Sensible Soccer (Sociable Soccer!) but that is apparently dead already.

And speaking of crowd funding and the oft mentioned in this thread Road Rash, wasn't that meant to be a thing too?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/300380/?l=dutch

Road Redemption is the spiritual successor to Road Rash, it's not a perfect game, but it's pretty fun.

1 hour ago, TMM said:

Star Trek: Bridge Commander. That game was great, I would love to see a further development of that game, arguably it's the closest to a "true" Star Trek game there has ever been.

I loved that game, it became ridiulously hard at the end but it was the only game that really made you feel like a captain of your own starship. There really need to be more games that 'simulate' being a single starship.

Another game I want is a new 'Chrono' game, Chrono Trigger and Cross were pieces of art, yet we are still waiting for a third game in the series.

22 minutes ago, TKzo Amore said:

The latest expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic is basically Bioware just making a new KOTOR. I'd suggest checking it though, you only really have to sub once to see all of the content. You blast through Level 1-50 nowadays.

I've tried playing it multiple times, but there's too much grinding and backtracking for me to really give any two shits about playing it for the character stories.

I think if Spiderman is going to debut in CW, then he won't show up in any trailer as to make the 'shock' as big as possible. It doesn't matter if they only show a .5 second glimpse of Spidey, the fanbase will explode (in joy) and it doesn't matter what else you put in the trailers, people will only be interested in Spidey.

So leaving him in for the twist showup would make sure they can actually build the story through the trailers and not have everything be outshined by the fact the freaking Spiderman is playing in CA:CW

New NBA/NFL street please, and none of that realistic crap either. I want to be able to launch myself off the backboard, do 22 tricks and pass it along to all my teammates before shattering the rim into 5000 pieces.

New Skate too, the first two games of that franchise were awesome and I'd love to see a new version come out. I loved THPS (the older ones), but I actually loved the more down to earth style of Skate where you had to use the analog sticks to do tricks, it was extremely satisfying to be able to hit a kickflip where the board went under a guardrail and you went over (without getting caught by the guardrail and breaking your face on the concrete...)

Midnight Club 5, more in the vein of 3 rather than 4, that'd be sweet too. Always preferred MC3 over Need for Speed Underground, because you could go onto two wheels with any car like it was nothing, and the sense of speed was insane.

A new College Hoops would also be nice, if 2K could take that franchise and make it as good as their NBA titles tend to be (minus the VC bullshit and the shitty story mode), then i'd be right on that.

New Def Jam game would be nice too, and I don't mean that abomination that Icon was, gimme a new arcade brawler like Def Jam FFNY. That game has me dusting off the PS2 yearly for a playthrough. (made by Aki back then!)

New KOTOR that isn't SWTOR, that'd be sweet too... Give Obsidian the ball, no unrealistic deadlines, and you got yourself a brilliant RPG.

35 minutes ago, Chris2K said:

I'm sure Ferrari and Mercedes will be really pleased with their money when there's only 8 cars on the grid and nobody's watching or sponsoring them. The lack of forward thinking by these people just baffles me.

They're thinking about their own business, really. Right now they're the only teams shilling their B-Spec engines to other teams, and that means they control who are at the front of the grid (Ferrari and Mercedes), so financially it's good for the both of them to keep the other teams from getting cheaper engines somewhere else.

There's also the issue of 'what-if', what if that cheap customer engine can do the same job as a b-spec engine from Ferrari/Mercedes, or even better and sit between that performance area of A-Spec Rari/Merc engines and the B-Spec variants... That means teams will flock to use the alternative engine knowing they'll save a shittonne of money because they won't have to research the engine and they can fully focus on building the ultimate aero package (this is where Red Bull would thrive once more)...

Naturally for us the fan it would be awesome, cheaper engines even if they're not ultra-competitive can add a whole new flair to the championship and potentially lure in new investors and new teams that can add more cars to the grid and generally make it an even bigger spectacle than it already is.

But sadly, politics are too heavy in F1 and sadly a small group of teams can completely derail progression purely by hanging on to their current top positions, in the end they want competition but not competition that'll hurt their own gains.

Its pathetic "noise" is an actual criteria in the vetting process...

Way to go F1, you've officially become farce.

The only name on your list I have read is Deadpool, and that's a good suggestion if you want something completely different in terms of tone and style. It's completely off-beat and it's often also side-splittingly funny, that does mean that it sometimes manages to dilute storylines because it can often degenerate into slapstick, but the writers do a good job in keeping the farce low most of the times. DP is always a good suggestion if you just want something completely different than the rest.

Others that you didn't list but I can recommend from personal experience are these two...

Hawkeye Vol. 4 by Matt Fraction, it's 22 issues long and it departs from the doomsday super-villain scenarios and instead has a somwhat everyman story with the Marvel's version of the everyman, Hawkeye. He's grumpy, he adopts a dog, he argues and has fun with his partner (also named Hawkeye), and he goes up against a bunch of tracksuit wearing 'bro' saying mobsters to help ordinary people. It doesn't have worlds exploding, or people lifting cars and all that, but the writing is top class and the artwork is too. Easily one of the best comic series in the past few years. Another very nice part of this volume is that it doesn't contain any Marvel events or the like, it's completely self contained and that means you can read it from start to finish without any detours.

Invincible Iron Man (also by Fraction), 60 issues long and it's a bit older (came out between IM1 and 2, not that that matters). Personally it's the best written Tony Stark they've done, and even though some of the stories has some deus-ex machina kind of plot device that saves the day, generally it does a great job not just in writing Tony Stark, but also writing a bunch of the side-characters and bringing them to life.

Other than those suggestions I have none, I'm not super knowledged in comics as some people are, i've only truly started reading them 'semi-religiously' since ANAD started a few months ago, before that I was just on-off and trying to find things that interested me without following all the events and such.

Time to do some bets... Will the Sixers win a game before the Warriors lose one?

6 hours ago, punky said:

So I finally got Netflix am halfway through Daredevil.. and this show is fucking amazing. 

Well, it's going to get better, so hang in there, it's totally worth it slumming it through the amazing episode to get to the brilliant ones!

... Wait

I feel it's too soon to really decided who the ROTY is... Kristaps is playing better than anybody expected him to play as a 7ft3 lanky Latvian who nobody really gave credit until he started playing at a top level on a team that's a lead dildo in terms of actual team play. (Seriously, José 'leads' with 3.5 assist p/g!)

KAT though, he's putting up amazing numbers for a center, and 90% from the stripe is for me the most impressive stat, a big man that's actually able to drain Ft's will only make him more dangerous as time progresses, naturally his 16PPG, 10RPG, AND 2.4BPG are amazing.

Pure stats, it's KAT all day, but we're not even one-fifth into the season, so waiting for the half-way mark is better. Now is the time that many teams are starting to plan for the ones that are overperforming, so it's going to be interesting to see whether any of them are going to get better (or worse) in the rest of the season.

But yeah, KAT has all the makings of a generational talent in the same style of Timmy

I don't know what's in that Dallas water, but they gotta keep drinking it like champagne. Good god this team is flowing in a crazy way.

D-Will is everything we wanted him to be and nothing we feared him to be, and he's 100% from the charity stripe!
Dirk is 2nd in the league in 3pt percentage, +90% from the stripe, 53% from the field (going for that 50-40-90) and second only to Steph Curry in TS%, and 10th in offensive rating.
Zaza has gotten his 7th double-double of the season, and he's pure heart and workrate on the court. I take back every word of doubt I spoke of the guy.
Powell is a true backup bigman in a Carlisle system, gets great rebound totals and is 10+ with a high field goal %, pretty much everything you can expect from a guy like him.

And with that group of misfits and rag-tag emergency signing, the Mavericks are 3rd in the West behind only the unstoppable Warriors and the timeless Spurs.
If we reach the playoffs, Carlisle is deserving of a Coach of the Year award because it doesn't matter what kind of team Cuban signs together, he'll make it work and he'll turn it into a .500 team.

Only negatives are Wesley Matthews and Chandler Parsons clearly being rusty after their injuries, but I'm sure that once those two get going that the team will be force to be reckoned with, the chemistry is just too great to not have it turn into a 50 win season barring injury problems.
 

What makes it all better is that every (but two) ESPN pundit had pegged the Mavs to go LAST in the west, yes last behind the Lakers, Kings, and Wolves!