So for all of you who got free activation codes...

[scajjr2]

How are you finding the game to be? Don't be afraid to post with comments, questions, etc.

Sam

[gova]

Hi Sam,

As usual the designers have showed their skills with very well designed courses.

I have played a dozen courses and a very difficult game, but seems to be on the right track.

I probably need a few clues to play the game, as the game play is very hard to control, but slowly getting used to the game.

Problems:

Club distances? Very important, as with the whip control very difficult to know how far the ball will go.

Whip control? Very hard to control!

Green speed? Have played on soft greens yet roll like a dry green sometimes !

Graphics OK, but not as good as TW and cannot be compared to Links GBC or PGA2000

Have a good graphic card and Links is the Rolls Royces and GBC and PGA2000 a cut below and TW colourful, but cartoonish.

I appreciate the chance to test the game and play the wonderful courses designed, but honestly not sellable in its present state, when compared to the four games mentioned.

I play about 1 round per each a day for each game, so I feel qualified to give an opinion, purely from a player's point of view.

I rank the games Links 03, GBC, TW08, PGA2000 last because it is by far the worse game play and wgc 2011 a distant last with definite room for vast improvement.

The variety of courses by the fantastic designers, encourages me to contine to play and courses are still being released in all these games.

If released I would buy the game if reasonably priced, as the number of designed courses encourages you to play the game.

I may update my comments after a few more rounds and I am interested in what anyone else thinks.

Cheers
Brian

[scajjr2]

Hi Sam,

As usual the designers have showed their skills with very well designed courses.

I have played a dozen courses and a very difficult game, but seems to be on the right track.

I probably need a few clues to play the game, as the game play is very hard to control, but slowly getting used to the game.

Problems:

Club distances? Very important, as with the whip control very difficult to know how far the ball will go.

Whip control? Very hard to control!

Green speed? Have played on soft greens yet roll like a dry green sometimes !

Graphics OK, but not as good as TW and cannot be compared to Links GBC or PGA2000

Have a good graphic card and Links is the Rolls Royces and GBC and PGA2000 a cut below and TW colourful, but cartoonish.

I appreciate the chance to test the game and play the wonderful courses designed, but honestly not sellable in its present state, when compared to the four games mentioned.

I play about 1 round per each a day for each game, so I feel qualified to give an opinion, purely from a player's point of view.

I rank the games Links 03, GBC, TW08, PGA2000 last because it is by far the worse game play and wgc 2011 a distant last with definite room for vast improvement.

The variety of courses by the fantastic designers, encourages me to contine to play and courses are still being released in all these games.

If released I would buy the game if reasonably priced, as the number of designed courses encourages you to play the game.

I may update my comments after a few more rounds and I am interested in what anyone else thinks.

Cheers
Brian

Brian,

Actually the game WAS released (first as Custom Play Golf, then as World Golf Challenge). The developers are working on the new version that should be out the end of this year.

Not sure what you are referring to with "Whip control". Do you use the 3-click/swing meter method or do you use mouse swing? Mouse swing does have a little steeper learning curve and will require you to play around with your speed and sensitivity settings until you find a comfortable, repeatable motion.

Club distances depend on what surface you're hitting off. And because the designers have the option of tweaking the settings inside any given turf ( 1st cut, fringe, rough, medium rough, heavy rough, waste, sand) the only real way (just like real golf) is to play a round and hit shots from them to figure out how many more clubs to take. We have courses where you only need 1 more club, some you need 3. The same with green speeds. Some courses "normal" green speed may be closer to another's dry.
Our weekly Friday night group always play on Dry as it comes closest (we feel) to what the pros play every week.
Also for putting , chipping and flops, you have the option of right clicking on the golfer which reduces the swing to 50% (1st r-click) or 25% (2nd right click). I use 50% for putts that are more downhill as I find it gives me more control.

Graphics- yeah the golfer model isn't that great. The courses (especially the new ones) look pretty good. The trees aren't that great close up but that's a limitation of Speedtree and hopefully will be better in the next version.

Gameplay- Frankly the ball physics in this game are the best out of all the golf sims (and I've played them all over the last 20 years).

Overall WGC I think does a very good job of recreating golf. Yeah it's far from perfect and we cant wait to see the next version.

Sam

[gova]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the advice and I tried the 3 click method which I am slowly trying to master.

Certainly looking forward to its release. as addicted to golf games and now playing five rounds a day with five sims.

It was a great gesture from the owners of game to allow this full game test run.

I look forward to improvements in the game.

Cheers
Brian

[A Brandt]

This game seems like it has lots of potential. Coming from the design side of things, I'm not too concerned about gameplay other than how my course looks and plays.

First, I would like to say that after trying my hand at Links' Arnold Palmer Course Designer, WGC's learning curve is nowhere near as steep. I got pretty frustrated with APCD and I don't feel like spending a year to finish a top notch course. And people seem to think Links has the best looking courses, but from the little I've seen of this game it's right up there. I have some questions though that I hope can be answered, both with the architect and the game.

Architect:
1. Why does it always revert to fully zoomed out when I switch between layers? I hate having to zoom in on a bunker, then switch to the height layer to make elevation changes, then back to the surface layer only to be zoomed all the way out again.

2. This game has been around for some time now, there's gotta be more tutorials??

3. What does "Grasses" do in the edit menu? I've applied it a texture, but didn't see anything different. Does it only work on the main plot texture?

Game:
1. I've been using the 3-click method, but my golfer swings VERY slow and there is quite a delay with each click of the mouse and the meter stopping. Are there settings for this somewhere that I overlooked?

As far as the gameplay, that's the only question I have. I'm pretty pleased with it overall, but the golfer models aren't that great as mentioned. I don't really care though, as I'm more concerned about how the courses look

Thanks for letting me try this thing out, hopefully I can create a decent course. I'm sure I'll have more questions down the road!

[BrianZ111]

1. Yeah this is one thing that annoys me too. I think they are getting rid of the whole idea of having separate layers to do things in for the next version. Not sure if you're aware of this but one thing you can do is right click on a shape or point and select zoom to and it will automatically zoom in to that place.

2. There are a few on the utilities page of the WGC 2011 section inducing a Course Architect Manual that was written by various designers. I'm not aware of any others but if anyone knows of others let me know and I'll add them.

3. I think this is the 3D grass that is built into the game which isn't really used much by anyone because it doesn't look that great and is a major FPS hit. You may have to turn it on in you graphics options to see it. Also the preview version of the course in the designer isn't as detailed as the final published version will look so it may not even include the 3D grass. I'm not sure because I've never really used the 3D grass. There are some grass objects available for download and that is what you see on most courses, although they are a pain to plant.

I can't really help you on the 3-click, I've never used it.

[A Brandt]

Thanks Brian! Here's another question, is it just me or can you not undo smoothing or elevation changes?

[BrianZ111]

Yeah undo is a little flaky, some things it does and others it doesn't. I usually save whenever I make a change that might not be easy to revert back to.

[bryce]

I have probably played about 15-20 rounds of WGC now, so I just thought I would give my feedback to anyone interested in trying it out. First off, the graphics are top notch, and the realism of some of the courses is as good as I have seen. The ball physics are very good too. I tried my luck with both methods of WGC's version of truswing and I struggled mightily! I shot 109 in my first round With the click method I got much better results, and scored closely to what I shoot in real life.

I will have to say that if a newer version comes out for sale for a reasonable price, I'm in! The stuff these guys can do with that architect is crazy, and I would like to see more. With that being said, I am still holding PGA 2000 as my favorite and will continue using it.

[smasha]

I'm back on board.I bought this when it was released years ago.Thought I'd give it another try.
I'm using mouse swing.
If I miss the green the ball bounces and rolls very fast.
Very realistic.

I'm still hopeless though lol.