Purpose of the project

[thelusiv]

You should write 'free/libre' instead of open source.

While I agree that 'free/libre' is more accurate, it is an obscure phrase outside the FLOSS community. Also, it is somewhat awkward because it uses a '/' character, and it uses a non-English word that is not commonly used in English. 'open source', on the other hand, is a phrase we know is widely recognizable to people who are familiar with PC games, and it conveys the desired meaning well enough. It just doesn't specify which license, but I think it is OK to rely on the interested reader to look for that detail elsewhere. The license is visibly linked on the wiki and main site, and it explains in great detail just how Free VDrift is.

Several sentences are redundant such as "strives to take advantage of modern computer hardware" - implied by 'high quality' and people can see, from the screenshots, how demanding it is on hardware.

I'm not sure that high-quality implies taking full advantage of available hardware. I can imagine a 2D game which I would consider high-quality which doesn't rely as much on hardware.

On the topic of screenshots: the point of this statement is to stand on its own, and not rely on the reader having been exposed to screenshots (or anything else) to get the full meaning. For one thing, if you look around the web, there are lots of old screenshots copied from vdrift.net and republished by other people on their blog, or software download site, or whatever. So exposure to screenshots can be misleading and thus I think it is a good idea to be specific.

Side note on "high quality" vs. "high-quality": leaving out the hyphen, these are two separate adjectives, "high" (which could describe someone on top of a tall building), and "quality" (which could describe a product that is well-made). It is necessary to hyphenate the two words to group them into a single adjective. In this case, it should also be followed by a comma, to separate it from the next adjective following it.

You double up on 'aims to' with 'strives to'. I'd remove both since they are stating the obvious (that you are striving / aiming towards your goals).

You are right, this is redundant. The reason I see to use that kind of language, is that I am hesitant to state that VDrift "is" something which is basically a matter of opinion. Certainly whether VDrift is high-quality or not is subject to user perception. Likewise, the entire second sentence is problematic as a statement of fact - for instance, one could argue that environments are currently not incredibly immersive (no track object physics, no car interior animations). I'm not sure the best way to resolve this. We don't want to have to rewrite the purpose statement to fit the latest available features.

[thelusiv]

I think details about features ect. can stay in the wiki page http://wiki.vdrift.net/About_the_project once it has been updated, which can be liked in the purpose.

I think it is probably best not to mention specific features, I just wondered if anyone felt differently and had a good reason. I would argue that "immersive racing environments" implies things like racing against real people as opponents, which implies networked multiplayer.

I think that the purpose statement, whatever it ends up being, should go at the top of that page. It should still be followed by a description of the project in its current state, and a list of features.

[fudje]

On the topic of hyphens, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/page/p...hen/hyphen-
shows fairly clearly that that high-quality, which is an adjective + participle compound adjective, should have a hyphen

[thelusiv]

What if it was all one sentence, but formatted as a list, like this:

The goals of the VDrift project are:

• to be a high-quality, open source racing simulation featuring enjoyable and challenging gameplay;
  
• to take advantage of modern computing hardware to accurately simulate vehicle physics in rich and immersive racing environments; and
  
• to provide a platform for creative experimentation to a community of developers and artists.

While I think a paragraph form is better, and have been trying to avoid using a bulleted list, it does seem to relieve a lot of the clumsiness.

[thelusiv]

Any comments on the bulleted list format? I'm happy with it, I think it could go on the wiki About page.

[joevenzon]

*thumbs up*

[Timo 6]

Added to http://wiki.vdrift.net/About_the_project

[thelusiv]

Thanks Timo, your help with the wiki is greatly appreciated. I'll leave this thread open for a little while in case there are any other comments people have to make about it.