The Golf Club

[Grim.Reaper]

Seems to me there may be AI players in there, no? There are several players that always seem to be there and their name ends with the same suffix (which escapes me)...so I was wondering if these are AI players?

From the FAQ confirms no CPU/AI players.

Will there be CPU controlled players?
no, player controlled / ghost balls At the moment. we feel that these give a better feeling of the community we wanted to create. We are keeping CPU players on our radar though as it is something that is worth investigating going forward

I am OK with ghost players. Links had this, for several versions. Load up your 66, and let someone try to beat it!

Have you bought and played it yet?  Just curious what you think of it so far.  It has potential, even with ghost images.  I have no problem with ghost images as an option, especially in solo play, but it doesn't do much to foster a fun session with your friends where you want to play along and see each other's game.  Takes away from some of the excitement.

It's a new product and we don't have many golf options so I will give it time.  To be honest, multiplayer play isn't the most critical thing, I would much prefer a more robust single player option where you can play a tour against the ai like I. Tiger woods golf.

[DennisS]

Tournament play and true multi-player haven't yet been implemented.

For that matter, even PC support (mouse and keyboard) are barely functioning.

The game CAN be played with a PC, but most players agree that a controller gives the best results.

I am a little concerned with the scores I am seeing...lots of upper 50's for easy to moderately difficult courses. There does not appear to be much penalty for a mis-hit..in fact, it appears to be difficult TO have a mis-hit.

I'm not interested in shooting a 60 all day long.

On the plus side, I have been watching videos of players playing on human-generated courses. One week ago there were 200 available, today, there are well over a thousand.

I also like the fact that the player base rates these courses. Not significant when 20 players play..but some of the courses have had 2000+ plays, with a solid, representative rating.

Only a matter of time before the filter will provide you with only the highest rated courses to play...then this will be the best golf game ever, with a vast number of excellent courses to play.

One other thing that I really like is that a human can get into the editor, and adjust the parameters for a computer-generated golf course in about 20 seconds, and then have the ability to edit the course to modify it to their heart's content. Terrific concept. I used to fool around with the Jack Nicklaus course editor for the Commodore years ago....GREAT fun.

[Grim.Reaper]

Latest patch available.....


We're just about to push our latest build. Things to look out for this week are:
* Fix issue where the course creator is stuck on one hole when waypoints are placed on top of each other
* Improvements to club selection on large or shared greens
* Fix for penalty application when exceeding shot limit
* Update help menus for mouse and keyboard controls in the course creator to show buttons for each tool
* Add WASD support for tools (along with the arrows) to scale and rotate brushes and objects
* Improve logic to determine when a tee shot is desirable
* Turn off edge panning when the editor menu is active
* Tweak speed of rotation/movement of the camera in Course Creator for mouse/KB

* The user will now always appear in the Global filter of the leaderboard, regardless if they are in the top-10 or not

* Added notifications for when a friend finishes a round and favourites a course
* Improve notification display logic
* Fix bug where moving the pin to another area changes the hole that pin is associated with
* Improved full-screen handling and screen flickering in windowed mode
* Fix issues with the selection tool in the course creator not being able to find brushes/items when they're overlapped
* Fix for 50% input power limitation with low frame-rates 64 bit game version
* Moved course save data out of the registry, fixes lost progress in courses when saving
* Green Grid update. Grid colours now take into account green speeds. This helps course designers judge reasonable pin placements based on green speeds and slope. http://www.gcga.org/documents/speeds_slopes_locations.pdf It also helps players understand any given greens behaviour a bit better when playing.
* It is now possible to take a screenshot when publishing a course with only the keyboard

[JudgeDredd]

New Seasons DLC is available.

Unfortunately, I've just discovered that if you start a Season, you better be prepared to finish it - because if you want to exit, your only option is to Abandon Season.

I wanted to end the season mid flow after 2 courses and only found the Abandon Season mode so I stayed in and started playing the 3rd course (of 4 in that particular section of the season) and then thought  "No...I have to go to bed" - so had to take the Abandon Season option.

Out of curiosity I went back to the Seasons mode and sure enough I was having to start from scratch.

So beware if you elect to play a Season...you will not be able to exit until you've at least (I guess) played all of the first competition (which was for me 4 courses...1 of 9 holes and 3 of 18 I believe).

Just a heads up

[Grim.Reaper]

Looks like Golf Club 2 in the works....

http://thegolfclubgame.com/2016/06/14/golf-club-2-announcement-dev-diary/

1) Unity 5 – We've moved the game to Unity 5. This means lots of great things for all areas of the game.

2) Player Creator – We've got a huge player creator, where player features, clothing, clubs and gear will all be customizable. It's almost limitless with millions upon millions of combinations to get your avatar looking just as you want him or her to.

3) Golf Societies – We've now got golf societies, not only places where you and your friends can hang out and play against each other in tournaments but huge public clubs. (All currency referred to is GAME CURRENCY, not real money)
◾a) Societies will have club captains that will design out seasons with entry restrictions, prize money and major tournaments
◾b) Tournament and society entry can be restricted by entrance fees and handicap ratings.
◾c) Societies will have their own bank balance so they can choose their own clubhouse. The richer the clubs the grander the clubhouse. The luxury of a plush club and the status that comes with that needs to be earned to get there.
◾d) Major Tournaments – Using club size and popularity, crowds will turn up for the clubs majors. The bigger the club, the bigger the crowds. The HUD will become more TV like and the commentary will also add to the occasion.

4) Career Mode – Players will also be able to play a way more singular game against AI. Using offline societies and AI players to earn money and work your way through the challenges of increasing difficulty. All money earned here can be transferred to your online career, so it's well worth taking part.

5) You'll be able to now design courses with multi-level water, crowd placement, lots of new stuff to place as well as lots of new tools to make life easier for the designers out there.

6) Game play – This is the big one...
◾a) Swing – we're currently looking at a 3 level swing mechanic. The easy level will very much be based off of what we have now, but with tempo added and a distance reduction, Hard will be very punishing if you're in any way off centre and the tempo isn't correct, but when it's good you will get a considerably further distance. Doing this gives us the variation we want, the difficulty some want and brings in the actual point of multiple tees.
◾b) Practice Swing – You'll now be able to take practice swings.
◾c) HUD Numbering and Shot Shaper – These will be rounded giving you less ability to dial a distance while working on the shot shaper to make it much harder when trying to dial in distances.

7) Practice Range

We have a full driving range, putting green and chipping green. This is a full sandbox mode, giving you the ability to go out there and improve any part of your game.

8) Graphics
◾a) We've invested heavily in the character this time out, getting full photogrammetry scans of people and clothing to make your player look as realistic as possible.
◾b) We've also invested in a huge array of motion capture from two brand new golf pros. Well not only have a lot of great new shot animations but lots of post and pre shot stuff as well.
◾c) Full specular effects on everything on your course, this makes it look even more realistic than it did before.

9) Multiplayer
◾a) We won't be adding a traditional lobby, but we will be improving live multiplayer extensively. We'll be adding more game modes and the ability to play non friends.

[GJK]

TGC looked nice but the lack of mouse support (initially) turned me off and so I found and went with this one:


http://store.steampowered.com/app/288140/ (Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf)


It has several swing modes, including the traditional meter but also a few styles of the mouse swing (back and forth or side to side).  They apparently don't have PGA licensing for the courses but Sawgrass is in there (named as something else) and probably a couple of others that I haven't ID'd yet.

[DennisS]

TGC looked nice but the lack of mouse support (initially) turned me off and so I found and went with this one:


http://store.steampowered.com/app/288140/ (Jack Nicklaus Perfect Golf)


It has several swing modes, including the traditional meter but also a few styles of the mouse swing (back and forth or side to side).  They apparently don't have PGA licensing for the courses but Sawgrass is in there (named as something else) and probably a couple of others that I haven't ID'd yet.

I have been looking at this game for a long time. Their "Course Forge" course creator has been promised for more than a year and a half as just a few weeks away. Thoroughly discouraging...that there are many courses listed on private websites, but none of these are on what I consider a safe site. I am not about to d/l ANYTHING from a third party site.