Guys, what you have seen in those videos is - PRE-ALPHA. Not worth to discuss about small things and details good or bad. Its pre-alpha. Christian, that it is early access is being known since beginning of this year. They also said that the license puts them under time pressure, since the license is includingnot just this but the next season as well, so they cannto afford delays. This and the example of AC's early access, which executed a textbook example of how early access should be done, should be reaosons enough for you not to be irritated. What I would like to learn about more than anything else, is the new AI. I insist on the readied game later being used as an engine platform for a Nordschleife. In this I am absolutely unforgivable!!
I can see the problem, that official staff of R3E/S3 have. AC is a well known Sim and I think it's the second popular Race Simulation behind iRacing out there. AC have had it's problems with a dead looking graphics. S3 or Simbin is working on an UE4 port of R3E with a GT3 class to get it more popular. And now comes Kunos with ACC, an AC in UE4 with full Blancpain Series background. And it really looks very good. A Racesim with the Physics and Force Feedback of AC and a that polished graphic with weather simulation and day/night cycle is what everyone want (to sell.... S3 too!) GT3 Class is most popular class in Simracing. So it seems, that the others (Kunos) are doing some things which S3 wanted to do first. I think it's absolutely normal, that S3 staff now want to find some bugs and glitches in Kunos Material, so that it doesn't get that hyped. I mostly play Raceroom, have AC but don't play it for some reasons, but the current route of development of Raceroom paired with this videos from ACC let me totally be hyped of it. (Unfortunately for S3) Reminder: This is only my personal opinion.
Christian is a beta tester and one of the most well-known posters here, but I think he is not official studio member of S3, or is he? So his view may not be the official S3 opinion. Also, I did not take everything he said so super-serious, I think his commenting was a bit laid-back and easy-minded. I think we must not read a S3 conflict into this. Regarding ACC, it was clear, imo, that if Kunos does a new sim after AC, they would not just fire a new round, but would all they can to deliver a large-scale full-blown volley, a full broadside, and it seems that is what happens with ACC. Its the little graphical details I noticed in the videos. The vibrating of the mesh/net in the cockpit. The hand animations when pushing buttons. They said they push the physics into a new realm, and the sounds sounded drastically improved, too. And the gfx engine - who has not done so, go and watch the video on the day-night transitions. At Steam, AC is the most popular title of the serious racing simulations there are. So Kunos by all means is no lightweight in the ring. I am sure other contenders expected nothing else but a serious strike from them. So is market economy: competition. What is coming in ACC, probably cannot fully be countered by the means of Raceroom as it is now. Thats why Sector3 pushes for a new engine, so obviously they are pretty much aware. I am certain they will stay focussed on the traditional strengths of RR, and work on advancing the improvements with other aspects, like the car physics of GT3 being injected into other car classes as well. They have a different vision for the business model, obviously, and focus more on e-sports MP competitions. Whether that pays off or not in coins and numbers, only themselves do know. Me, I am not interested into that, but I am an old dog and may not be representative for their eyed key audience. What it all means: the competition goes on, ACC hands a lead, and Raceroom must find an answer. The winner is: us, in any case. Isn't choice a great thing?
Well - when you only look at @J-F Chardon post in which he commented about looking into possibilities to move the old engine to DX11, which ended in Top-News on recent Sim-Portals, claiming that Raceroom goes DX11 soon (maybe slighly exaggerated) you might see, how carefully any post especially about opinions from the Dev-Team has to be nowerdays...
But this complete silence might not be the best marketing strategy either, especially now when the competition starts to show their cards. I know RaceRoom is very popular in Germany, but you may not realize that outside your "bubble", R3E is losing popularity very quickly.
Its considered goot manners amongst rivalling studios if they do not comment on each other, and if so, only in polite words. Which means you should not read too much into anything the one studio says about another. You will only rarely see one studio criticising another studio. In the racing genre, I have never experienced it, as far as I remember. Only on a few occaisons some friendly words about somethign the other studio recently did very well. Kunos once praised the Skippies in iRacing, I think S3 once lost some friendly words about AC somewhere. Thats as far as it goes, usually. Do not forget, in the end they are economical rivals. If their customers do not buy all titles there are, they buy only some and ignore others, and that means: there are winners and there are loosers. Thats why I made it a rule for myself to only engage in debates on titles I use and bought and play myself. A question of fairness, I think. Only rarely you will see me loosing a word on rF2, or iR, for that reason. AC and RR, I buy everything they release, except maybe each and every livery in RR. And so I engage in topics dealing with both.
Complete silence isn't that good for sure... but thats something different than commenting on a product of an other studio... For sure I would like to see some more details about things happening and discussed behind the curtain and about things comming next. But for widely discussed reasons those informations are reduced until it is in a state to present it...
Right, I'm still not a Sector3 staff member, for whatever outrageous reason. So this is just my personal take on what I've seen in that vid and as I said I just expected "more". In particular i did not expect to see LOD switching and texture popping. I'm not saying it looks horrible and I'm not trying to find issues, but the fact that I do notice those minor things probably comes natural if you've been testing racing games for a couple of years. And I for one didn't know about the early access strategy, mainly cause I focus on other things and don't look for ACC news actively. So I was under the assumption that the game would have to be in a somewhat finished state, minding the release date they mentioned when they announced ACC; a couple months is nothing in game dev time. But I've no problem repeating that I wish Kunos the best of success and that I know the game ain't finished, and hence won't assume that the final product will look like what I've seen there.
I think your view is rather unsurprising given that you didnt like the first AC. Frankly, Im surprised just how much it looks like 'AC1' after the graphics engine switch. To me, this just looks like an updated AC1 engine more so than a massive change that some people were expecting. I remember some knucklehead on Race Dept. saying that from the early teaser pics, you could just tell that AC was using the same graphics engine as fortnite. That gave me a good laugh anyway For people who enjoyed AC though, I think all that people want is a small bump in graphics, more features and immersion, and a further refinement on the physics. From what has been seen so far, that is what Kunos is aiming to do. This is just playing with semantics at this point, but 'pre-alpha' definitely doesnt look like that in a development stage If they were really showing pre-alpha content, nothing would be textured, cars would have placeholder physics, buildings and all road-side assets would be missing, etc. That claim was never made though. What was said, was that S3 is investigating whether a stop-gap update to DX11 would be a possibility. It might happen, or it might not. Probably another good example of why 'announcement' type stuff isnt done so often anymore For the exact quote: "I also have an investigation going on to upgrade our current RaceRoom engine to a more recent directx version. The idea there is to check if the time and effort required are low enough to make it worthwhile; too long and you might as well wait for UE4; short enough, then it could give us a bit of fresh feel and performance to keep the engine relevant while waiting for UE4."
You maybe get me wrong there, as that was exact what I meant and I know what J-F wrote (just read my reply a few posts below his)... I read several news based on this Post on Game/Sim-Portals, in which that "investigation going on" wasn't mentioned or just a little sidenode but presenting the news that Raceroom is changing it's graphics-Engine to DX11...
Which is exactly what @m.bohlken wrote. He wrote that this claim was made up by Sim-portals, totally exaggerating J-Fs comment about the investigation of possibilities.
Night: External tracksdie cameras from 08:12 on. Full rain: External tracksdie cameras from 09:27 on. Visually, its a stunner. Some footage looks as if it were shot in real world races, in real life. Their chosen colour palette is superb, and very natural. Combining the growing amount of visual teasing with the revelations about features and details, it appears that ACC will completely leave any racing title on the market today behind. Sounds, looks, physics, a so far not fully revealed "revolution" in online MP functionality, and recently many real life race drivers gave enthusiastic feedback about the driving and handling especially in the wet - I do not see how any of the contenders there are today can compoete with this beast. Which should not be a surprise. ACC was developed since mid-2016, the established titles are many years older already. Kunos would have made somethign wrong if they would not pick up the lead. With Spa, Hungaroring, Zolder and Silverstone it includes four of my to-go-to tracks. My only regret is that there will be no Nordschleife in this title at least. It remains to be seen how their night tracks will be created regarding ambience light from buildings, pit, lamp masts and so forth. In this regard, Gran Turismo Sports did a splendid job with its Nordschleife at night.
A dead project … like I said, there is no need for another AC, PCars, rFactor, Simraceway, Automobilista, Forza Motorsport, iRacing or R3E competitor, in particular for a new sim without the laser technology, the 90s are over! The sim racing market is already overcrowded!
Well I reckon if someone picked up the BTCC, all cars/tracks/conditions one may well be tempted to get ones wallet out once more!
Yes I don't understand it. Why they dont focus together on improvements on Raceroom. It's such a good sim with already a big amount of GT3 cars and Tracks... add Day and Night cycle and rain to raceroom plus a few texture updates with a new direct X version or UR4 engine with a few VR improvements and BOOM you have the best Sim on the Planet. xD
I completely agree. If it was my company, i would spend all money and resources i had into updating R3E.