Good day, With this article I would like to point out the unused possibility of being able to make Raceroom more popular. After about 240 hours of play I could see a loophole that Sector3 should definitely take advantage of. When a player begins to be interested in simulated racing, the first and last thing to do is to learn. First a suitable car is selected, due to the Free2Play factor there are not many options to choose from and that is also beneficial. Mostly the silhouette and hillclimb icons are chosen. Then the multiplayer lobby is opened and a race is selected. The degree of difficulty, whether the consumption of fuel and tires, is left out. Because most of them want to race together on the track. Driving together is a lot of fun. Then the ambition is forgotten for the time being. Now we come to the real main point. The free2play tracks. With currently four tracks, not much is possible and limits the learning curve many times over. This should definitely be adjusted. Sector3 should either double the number of free tracks or make all tracks freely available. This would give the new player the opportunity to improve without being able to pay. The more you learn to stretch, the more motivation you get to want to set the best times in other vehicle classes. First, Raceroom would become more popular among beginners and, in the long term, more vehicles would also be bought. After trying a few self-created dedicated servers, I noticed the popularity of hillclimb icons, probably because of the speed and the feeling of being able to drive a really powerful car. The learning curve is also interesting for this vehicle class. A dedicated server that is set up for hillclimb icons and a maximum of 5 minutes of racing time is populated with up to 10-20 players at any time. If a beginner has made it, for example mastering the green hell, then this is only just the beginning of his motivation and his racing career. Thanks for listening sincerely Zackmhack
Personally, I don't agree. The free content is enough to get an idea how RaceRoom works and and whether you like it.
You can try out new tracks for free in the weekly competitions. It´s hot lapping but in the end you can see if you like it before paying. An evolution of your suggestion could be to have a weekly unranked server on permanent rotation wth 1 free and one paid but unlocke track and car per week. That would give people a taster of some of the content that never appears on the regular ranked servers and is somewhat forgotten about.
I don't think more free tracks and cars would make any significant difference. Full content was alreadyu unlocked for everyone in the past a couple of times as an encourage to try Raceroom, but how this affected the numbers in the long term? Hardly, I believe. What makes me think Raceroom should be more and more advertised as a proper racing simulator is the fact, that often when it comes to naming a few sims in some portals/youtube videos etc, there's no RaceRoom at all! I don't know if the reason is the author of such post/video not knowing about Raceroom or he is skipping it on purpose. But among other sims out there Raceroom shines in so much aspects that I don't really understand not mentioning it in media. This has to change!
I think it's rather because it's by a long shot the most recognised brand in free cars. Others are either fictional, or less known (Saleen, Aquila), or aren't desirable (Lada). This BMW is the closest one to what most regular people would want to try and drive.
Racerooms "problem" is it just hasn't hit the number of users required to make organised multiplayer viable 24/7 (yet) My personal opinion is it's only an increase in the depth of the ranked system to include championships or something other than just one off races that will attract more serious players. It's nothing to do with cost of content or iracing simply wouldn't exist. My feeling is that player numbers would have to double to get the the critical point where it becomes self sustaining. The other issue is there are only a certain number of sim racers, and while that number is steadily growing the reality is that to gain users we have to actually move them from other platforms. That's a job for the RR/sector3 marketing department I suppose.
I don't think it's only the marketing, though. I watched Ermin Hamidovic's video on AMS2 lately and for me, what he said sounds very fitting to Raceroom too: "In 2021 if you wanted niche Brazilian racing content on a well rounded and tested sim, you'd pick AMS1. If you wanted to drive strictly GT cars, you'd be doing it in ACC. If you wanted to drive multi-class endurance races on meticulously scanned tracks, you'd be doing it in rF2. If you wanted to drive road cars, go drifting, race open-wheelers or just about anything else you could think of, you'd be doing it in AC. If you wanted a strictly curated online racing environment with clear-cut progression and regular scheduled races, you'd be doing it in iRacing... Ultimately, for just about any racing you could think of, there's another sim you'd reach for before AMS2." (And yes, he didn't even mention Raceroom.) How would you describe R3E in this format: "If you wanted X, you'd be doing it in R3E"? I feel like most people who prefer Raceroom do it for some personal reasons, subtle differences that aren't all that important for simracers in general and aren't enough to create a solid place for Raceroom among other racing sims and make it more "visible".
Well no one is doing touring cars anywhere near as good as Raceroom, so there's that. And there's no messing around with modded content, been there, done that, most of it is terrible. Pros: Wide range of cars, all official, modern and historic. Wide range of tracks. Decent AI so single player is actually an option. Great sounds. Runs well on midrange PCs. Physics is up there with the best. FFB is decent Cons: Graphics engine is dated. Playerbase makes it hard to get good multiplayer all the time. Weird pricing model makes it seem more expensive than it needs to be. There's probably more than above but those things spring to mind. The reason I started with RR and still use it most despite having all the other Sims (including paying for iR) is it does most of the things I want in one sim. I just can't be bothered switching Sims for different content even if other Sims are better in some regards. Raceroom is perhaps a jack of all trades, master of none, which is why it gets overlooked. Most people who give it a go seem to be pleasantly surprised.
If you want WTCR or DTM fire up Raceroom. I would love to say something like: "If you want to drive historic racing series on historic tracks, go to raceroom." But that's just a dream.
No surprise there considering he is an RF2 fanboy and is obviously being paid to plug certain brands much like a lot of other influencers. That is perhaps one area RRE needs to work on more, getting the game backed by people who can muster an audience. I bought AMS2 today, funnily enough and while his points are valid, it has a lot going for it too. Reasonable loading times, super simple to create multiplayer rooms with no need for a dedi or much faff (problem is abysmal player count), runs smooothly with good FPS and no crashes, simple UI and a wide range of cars and tracks. I think it is way better value than RF2 and the physics are entertaining if not super realistic. The worst I can find to criticise is the rotten chase cam view and general FOV from the Madness engine. RRE is much better in that regard and I still prefer it overall.
What would be nice is if we can test drive the tracks. Say, Blister Berg, for example. Give us one of the free cars, say the Canhard R52, for example, fixed setup, and we can hotlap essentially. Basically what we have in terms of test drive but vice versa.
The best point on Raceroom for me: those are cars AND Liveries driven in the original races. DTM is a must and only in Raceroom. GT Masters Fans could drive their cars, too. This is, where I come to Raceroom for about six years ago. I think, Raceroom should do more advertising to fans of those series.
The possibility to play for free and drive any car before buying seem to be undersold as the main USP of the game. The other stuff is all very subective but once a person likes the features of one game they usually focus on that one. Live streaming Esports and ranked races on as many platforms as possible with giveaways to keep people watching and link ups with prominent influencers are probably the best ways of getting new players into the game. On the other hand, the recent step of discriminating against existing customers by stopping them from using the content they legitimately paid for on the ranked servers and leaderboards just because it is no longer in the store isn´t great PR.
Being a fanboy of whatever didn't stop him from naming strong sides of all the other sims, though. I find it hard to believe he was being paid specifically to keep silent about R3E, I think it was a legitimate case of not giving a damn. What do you mean? I can use my RUF in the current GT3 competition at Most. Some people used the old Porsche there too.
What do you mean? I can use my RUF in the current GT3 competition at Most. Some people used the old Porsche there too.[/QUOTE] Maybe that competition started before the purge or someone forgot to kick them out. If you look at the non competition leaderboards, the Citroen WTCC, RUFGT3 and 911GT3 2017 have been filtered out. I understand that one day the game will finish and we will lose all our content or that individual contacts expire but that´s no reason to penalise those who supported the game earlier than 2021. The message it gives is you have to keep buying new model year cars to have all the features. If it is not an innocent mistake then it has been done rather sneakily with no official announcement. Not so profi.
It's only a display issue and it only affects the drop-down list of cars. 1) If you have any of these cars and you log in, you see them in the list and you can drive them. 2) Even if you don't login or don't have the cars, you still see the lap times set in them.
Jeez, Raceroom is the only sim that gives you the opportunity to test drive before you buy, give it a break. Get on all the other sims home pages and request similar and see how far you get. I personally feel the free to play moniker has tarnished the sim from the start, add to that DX9 and people don't even bother as it appears as old news, it is from the same era as AMS1, AC and rF1 and apart from AC being propped up by its community, they're dead in the water. Make RR DX12 and drop the free to play part and it stands a chance. The DX9 argument for it being kind to older hardware just doesn't hold up anymore, in fact DX12 would only aid its optimisation. Still prefer RR to all other sims and I can't even use it due to the ongoing fps issues I suffer.
Making content free will not help. But there are things that can be done. Simracing is/was a niche where the focus was on the simulation quality, not the gamepley. If you want to run a single player championship you need to build it yourself, if you want to play multi season career you need to track in in a excel sheet. Games that are successful in terms of sales provide some sort of career progression / unlocking features / getting badges. Most people need to win something. Ranked multi is a step in a good direction and I hope it will be developed more with licences etc. What else could be done is to build an economy around VRP. Servers could be rented with VRP. VRP could be transferable between accounts. That would make the possibility for the leagues to collect VRP for server upkeep and hand out VRP prizes. Possibility to set an entry fee / reward on a server. Livery Market where people create and sell liveries. If well balanced it may give additional income to RRE and some new features to players.
Livery market wont work , all liveries have to be given approuvel from teams and manufacturers... Andi
Nice ideas but I wouldn´t want more barriers to entry for hosting multiplayer. Ideally you should be able to create your own room with no need for a dedi server - as with many other games. Don´t like a multiclass server with 3hours of practice for a 1 lap race on Norschleife and a manual cool down lap? No problem, make your own room and invite your friends.