FORZA NATION - Digital All Stars

DevlinGFS
A QUICK HISTORY LESSON
SEPTEMBER 2012 FORZA NATION 5
A MESSAGE FROM THE
EDITOR
Forza 4 arrived to a slew of critical acclaim,
brining with it a whole host of new features.
Autovista, Rivals mode and of course the
triumphant return of Car Clubs to name just
a few. Forza 4 was more of what we loved with
some added shine and more meat on the
bone. For the Forza Faithful, Forza Motorsports
is the first and last word in automotive racing &
car culture. Being totally honest here though, I
haven’t put as much time thus far into Forza 4.
Maybe 200 hours or so, but with Forza 3 I had
probably clocked up twice as many miles at
this stage in the game. I love Forza, don’t get
me wrong, but I think it’s a simple case of life
getting in the way. Which, incidentally leads
me on to my next point... Forza Nation. Just as
we had started to gain a great following and
shortly after issue 2, we had tons of content
and issue 3 almost wrapped up. We even had
a Forzatography special issue almost finished
up and ready to go. It looked as though thing’s
were really starting to motor (pun intended)
along nicely, but sadly this was not the case.
To anyone unfamiliar with Forza Nation we
released two issues a couple of months apart
and had tons of new things planned. We had
a race series set up and running, lots of great
ideas floating around and some amazing input
from the Forza community.
So where did it all go wrong? Well as I stated
earlier mainly life. Forza Nation was such a
time intensive project it started impacting
on my gaming, work and home life. I did
pretty much the whole design of the mag,
pictures and lots of the articles. We had lot’s of
contributors that did so on a casual basis and
this obviously led to sometimes having blanks
in the publication. Blanks I’d have to fill quickly
myself, leading to some sloppy articles with
mistakes. It’s so frustrating when you know you
can do something well, and you want so much
to achieve what you set out to accomplish. I
took a year or so out, moved house 2 times and
now have a different job. A lot has happened
in the past year or so, some good; some bad.
As my time in Forza 4 has declined I do feel
Forza Nation is the reason. When working on
an issue, I tinker with set ups, cars, tracks, photo
mode and anything else I can think of to
come up with articles and create the content.
It enhances my enjoyment of the game
immensely. It’s not just about playing the game,
which of course I love, but also I get something
tangible in the real world (as real as online /
digital can be anyway) to show for it. So now I
feel is the time to once again suit up, climb in
and fire up the engine of Forza Nation. This time
I’m asking for help and bringing some friends
along for the ride.