I do support app devs and addons! The problem with modding being approved by devs, wouldn't it mean that S3S would have to license that car/track to be able to accept the mod? Because if it was approved by them, it would then become "official"... I don't know but that might be a problem.
Wasn'T it said that Salzburg was done by a guy officially for S3 who before released this track as a mod for some other sim, rF I think? It then was converted to AC by somebody else with permission by the original author. Or take Zandvoort for AC. Originally, said Kunos staff, they wanted to test how the acceptance is for tracks done by somebody without laserscanning, but using some clever tricks with GPS and other creative use of data. They met with the guy who did Zandvoort all by himself back then, found his work so convincing that they licensed his track, and since then he sailed under an official Kunos flag . If this is accepted by the community - and the debate laserscan versus non-laserscan still runs hot - then this would be a cheap and easy way for AC to increase its track pool, because if they stay with laserscanning, one can assume that the rate at which they do tracks will remain to be rather limited, due to costs, and time. And after all: their tracks are done by just one simple , lonely guy. Salzburg for R3E and Zandvoort for AC are two reasons why I think it would be a clever thing for S3 to check whether they can go with this model, too: approving and officially supporting promising modders to help them bringing their work to the official quality standard of R3E. A benefit for the modder. For the customers. For Sector3. For R3E. Everybody wins. I am okay with it, too, as long as the final decision on the quality approval is Sector3's own decision exclusively. I would say it worked well to do like this for S3 regarding Salzburg, and Kunos regarding Zandvoort.
@Alex you can't speak for everyone as I certainly love modding in games, alongside developer made content. @Skybird is spot on that Salzburgring is based on a version @Alex Hummler has made before, as was the Norisring, Sachsenring and maybe a few others. Both he and @Wojtek Kedzierski are producing tracks for this game and were superb modders for other sims before doing so too; really looking forward to their latest efforts (Nurburgring and Spa respectively, I believe) and hopefully many more R3E additions from them in future. @Alex Koda who AI believe has been doing many of the skins is also a superb staple of the modding scene. There are also several examples of this in AC. I believe the Corvette C7 in rFactor2 is the same base model as the AC official version, both done by Alles of URD.
I don't mind the micro transactions at all. Mainly because I'm not into car collecting. If I was like a Forza/Gran Turismo nut I'd probably be less happy with it. I do agree the liveries are too expensive and would like to see them appear as achievements rather than having to purchase them. I also agree with most that do not want to see modding. Leave that to Assetto Corsa. I want my R3E to always be uncompromised and consistent.
@Rodger Davies I was not trying to speak for everyone, just expressing my sole point of view. The kind of modding you and @Skybird are talking regarding Salzburgring is fine with me, because from an end-users point of view (my own), in the game it will be shown as S3S content, independently of who has produced it, so I wouldn't see it as a "mod".
Yeah, modding which is quality-controlled and presented as part of the game is fine as far as I'm concerned, especially if it gives us stuff of the quality of Salzburgring etc. But it needs to be done with great care - Rfactor 2's approach is just horrible - it seems to be a free-for-all with a huge amount of stuff that's in various states of disrepair yet isn't easy to distinguish from the 'proper' content
I like the current business model. I didn't at first but it has definitely grown on me as it allows me to decide what content I choose to buy. Sim racing is a pretty cheap hobby when you compare it to many others and as long as the content is good quality and the profits help to fund further game development I'm happy to support RR.
Sorry, the speaking for everyone part was just because you said 'nobody wants' but reading back I see what you mean and that's partly my mistake, sorry. Although I'd argue that it's a willing price to pay (having content of variable quality) for the added great content. For the record, I'm actually perfectly happy with the S3 business model and way, but it does have some frustrations (I want to amend skins for similar number plates and change some AI values) and I understand why people would prefer it to be a bit more open. Salzburgring and the others @Skybird and I are referring to began life in other games before being brought over to R3E, which I think we both see as examples of the positive effect of modding. I didn't realise Zandvoort in AC was like that; who's modding base was that originally?
I think the pay model is hands down the single biggest thing holding back RaceRoom, and until something changes, I don't think RaceRoom will ever catch on or get the audience it deserves. I could write a whole paper on this topic. It's a big one and one that I think needs addressing. It is a massive headache trying to explain the system to new players. It's a problem I often face as I would love to get more people turned onto RaceRoom. However, as soon as I start talking about the pay model, all excitement is now gone because in this day and age, this is NOT how you market or sell a game. Nobody looks at a humongous list of micro-transactions and big BUY NOW stickers in a game menu and thinks "wow this is great!" Simracing as a whole is like an archaic time capsule of business practices that were going out of fashion a decade ago but that's a topic for another thread. Anyway, when I explain it I try to keep it simple, but the pay model's single greatest problem is that it's not. The advantage of this system is that you only pay for what you want, so you can keep your costs down. The disadvantage is that it creates massive content fragmentation that practically kills online play all its own. To say nothing of just how complex the system gets if you want to make your money go far. There's a lot of nuances, tricks, and gotchas to it that make it feel like you're always trying to game the system. That's not the kind of experience you want as a consumer, and not the kind most consumers are willing to put up with. It's simple on the surface (buy what you want), yes, but if you want to make your money go far, there are a lot of tricks that you need to be aware of. You need to really break down the numbers and see where all the vRP is going, and none of this is made clear. This shouldn't be so difficult. Don't just take my word for it either. It's not uncommon for a new player to be confused about the pay model and make a thread about. Here's a recent one for an example. The current model implies the game is strictly singleplayer, but yet you need to log into an online profile to play the game. Sector 3 has also been spending a lot of effort in trying to make multiplayer better overall, so maybe it's a multiplayer game too? You also have all these online profiles with stats and the Steam descriptor of "free to play" implies RaceRoom is supposed to have a strong multiplayer. Except, it doesn't, and the pay model is directly preventing it from expanding as a multiplayer game. I'm not sure what RaceRoom is supposed to be. I'm not sure S3S knows what they want the game to be. Throw the whole "Experiences" thing in there too and you've got a game that feels like an awkward mishmash of 3 different games that don't work together towards a cohesive goal. I've been thinking about the pay model a lot lately. RaceRoom is my favorite sim at the moment, and it just kills me inside knowing that the reason the game is so held back, and its online lobbies so empty, is because of the antiquated, obtuse, and opaque pay model that drives the game. It's a large part of where R3E's bad reputation comes from, and it's the root cause for why its online is so dead. You cannot have a thriving online population these days when your pay model fragments the community in such a way that you are never guaranteed that two people have the same content. The thing is, I don't have a solution. I'm not sure there is a good one. Not one that doesn't begin with, "You start by throwing away the entire current pay structure of RaceRoom and start over." The pay model is so integral to how RaceRoom operates, and so fundamentally the cause of all of its problems, that to change it would require modifying the game to the point where it might be worth just starting over with new game instead. You can't half-ass this. Perhaps it would be best to keep this hypothetical new game small and run it concurrently with R3E and sharing assets between the two. Turn R3E into a primarily singleplayer game, while this hypothetical new game is the multiplayer component. This is something I'd be interested in talking about, but would probably require a thread all its own. This isn't even a quarter of what I have to say on the topic. If my thoughts sound a little scattered it's because I'm trying to sum up an utterly massive topic. This post has already gone on long enough and that's after editing it down significantly because it was way over the line of TL;DR. Now it's just over the line.
Buy vRP here: http://www.raceroomstore.com/vrp Go to the in-game store and spend it on the stuff you like. Note the bulk discount.
Oh, right, forgot to add point number 4: 1. Buy vRP here: http://www.raceroomstore.com/vrp 2. Go to the in-game store and spend it on the stuff you like. 3. Note the bulk discount. 4. Before buying anything or when in doubt, read this FAQ.
There is certainly a lot that can be said of the pay model for R3E, and you certainly went over a lot of things, however, this point is factually false. R3E's pay model does not promote content fragmentation in MP, quite the opposite. You only need to own 1 car from a specific class to race it online against other cars from the same class. Much like how iRacing works, and quite opposite to how Assetto Corsa handles their dlc (where you must own the dlc to race on a server that has any of the dlc cars enabled). What part of that is fragmenting? There isnt any. You cannot possibly argue that this fragments the community. The amount of content there is, sure, but I dont think anyone is complaining about that. I think part of R3E's lack of massive player count has nothing to do with it's pay model, but more to do with how the game was received when it first released. The game has come a long way since then, and improved quite drastically, but many people's impressions, and many reviews from that time period have stuck. Being able to buy what you want, is quite a nice feature, and when you dont charge egregious prices like iR, and dont have a subscription fee, the pay model is fine. Sure a game like AC has all it's content included for 1 price, but I think that is an outlier in the genre since that game is quite cheaper than any other if bought on sale. Hmm, I dont know about that. I think it is quite simple... Buy what you want, when you want, and you can race whatever you buy online. Want to find out how to make your money go the furthest? Easy! Just ask and you will get plenty of recommendations on what you would like. Otherwise, buying the experiences or packs generally offers the best value since it is bulk content that is heavily discounted. Sure it can be confusing at first, and relatively complex if you want to look at it that way, but it's quite simple if you just want to buy a specific item, and get to racing with it. Cheers
I disagree completely on both accounts. People who dismiss RaceRoom because they played it a while ago give the game another chance, but see that the game is still completely run by microtransactions. There is no way to give somebody a good first impression when it comes to microtransactions, especially when your UI is completely full of BUY NOW all over the place and a server browser that does a fantastic job of informing you of all the things you cannot do until you start buying lots of individual cars and tracks. That the total cost is cheaper than iRacing, which is saying nothing considering how absurdly expensive iRacing is, helps noone. RaceRoom is very easily the second most expensive sim on the market. This is how RaceRoom is perceived. You can argue until blue in the face that technically RaceRoom doesn't require you to spend that much money, that if you play your cards right and do a lot of research on what, when, and where you buy content. However, that does not help your case in informing somebody that RaceRoom's pay model is simple, user friendly, or even benefits the consumer at all. For the record, that is what I've done. I've gotten a lot of game for $50, but I had to do a lot of research and practically game the system to do so. Can you play R3E by spending less? Sure. Are you going to miss out on a lot of content and always feel like you're being short changed, especially when you're made very aware of all the servers you can't play on? Yes, which brings me to the topic of content fragmentation. I think where this especially hurts the consumer is in track selection. It is so limiting, and so discouraging, when you see the server browser with red all over it because you don't happen to own that track. Knowing that the only solution is to crack out your wallet feels bad. It feels like you're being nickel and dimed at every corner. When you have to make choices on what tracks (and cars) you buy based on how popular they are versus how much you actually like a track, I think that's a symptom of a very serious problem. If you don't buy those tracks, you won't be able to play online because it's in a server's best interest to run tracks that people are likely to own. It creates a self-perpetuating cycle where a track gets played only because it's popular, and people keep buying it because it's popular. On the car side of things, to be fair, I don't think it's that bad. I agree that being able to race in a class by owning a single car is a big help with the situation. The track side of the problem is where it's more serious. Nobody even wants to try more esoteric tracks because it's so unlikely that anybody will own them. That's why the free weekends are so much fun. You get all sorts of car/track combinations that would never happen otherwise because it's unlikely that more than like 2 people would own them. You mention Assetto Corsa's DLC problem, and you're completely right about that and it's moronic that you cannot play with people who have the DLC. At least they have only 2 combinations to worry about. People with the DLC, and people without. In RaceRoom, you have to consider every possible combination of car class and track: 28 tracks with 17 different classes, 476 different combinations. I'm of the firm belief that RaceRoom's over-complicated pay model and content fragmentation is the root of its low player count. Can they maintain the small userbase they have? Yeah, probably. However if S3S wants RaceRoom to be anything more, if they want it to grow and become a serious contender, compete with the big names in the genre, something dramatic needs to change. With their current content, polish, in place infrastructure, and overall featureset, Sector 3 Studios is sitting on something incredible that could shake up the entire genre and set new standards. They just have to want to. I'm sorry if I sound frustrated or confrontational but this has been eating away at me for months, and it just kills me inside the unrealized potential in RaceRoom. I'm being so critical because I care. I want RaceRoom to be all it can be and Sector 3 is the only racing sim dev of the current crop that I think could pull it off.
@Why485, That is a lot of good feedback and some well laid out points. We may be in disagreement, but you certainly articulate your points pretty well. This seems like good feedback for the devs. I think one of the points to take away, is that some people arent opposed to a buy-what-you-want pay model, while others are. There is nothing wrong with that, we all have our preferences. There are plenty of games I dont play simply because I disagree with how they sell their content. However, I have no qualms with how R3E does theirs. The only issue I do have, is that sometimes portions of content seem spendy, and if you want to own all of it, you will end up spending a decent amount of money. R3E is of course, free to play, so to start out, you get a small portion of content to play around with, to entice you to buy more. This model lends itself to the devs continually producing more content for the duration of the game. You dont have to buy everything if you arent interested or cant afford it. If you have DTM 2013, unless you are a big fan, you could skip DTM 2014 if you felt it would be too similar. Other games like AC and pCARS have set amount of content for a price, and then have dlc to supplement that. Once you own a fair amount of content in R3E, the price and amount you own is pretty similar I would say. I think this is a fair point, however, you have to look at it in context. R3E has 28 tracks by my count of the store just now, with more to come... AC has 12 if I recall. Even pCARS only has ~25. R3E has a lot of tracks! As with any racing game I feel, tracks/unique locations are the most important part. You dont need to own them all. Just buy 1 experience like the DTM exp. and you will already have 9 of them. That will run you ~$10 and you will already have 3/4 the amount of tracks in AC. I think that is a pretty good value. I suppose if you think of the red lines in the server browser as content you dont own, you can think of that as a negative. But if you realize that R3E has a lot of content, and this is just content that is extra and not required to play the game, it isnt bad at all. What's wrong with more options? Would you like to see less tracks in the game so you dont see so much red? I would doubt it. I think many people agree that AC's model for dlc is probably the worst you can have in a racing game. But it's a good example to compare against. AC has ~12 tracks like I mentioned. It also has 1 dlc track (the Nords) and 1 more to come out soon (Catalunya). Currently, if you dont have the Nords, you cant race on it obviously. How is that any different than not owning a track in R3E? R3E just has so many more tracks, the likelihood of not owning one is greater than not owning the Nords in AC. And just think, once that next dlc for AC comes out, that will be 1 more track, and 10 more cars that some people wont have. Yet if a server has any of those 10 cars, or any of the first dlc's 10 cars, you cant race on a track you already own because AC doesnt allow you to. In R3E, if you own the track, you can race on it plain and simple. What is it not? You get 3 tracks and 5 cars to play with. You can do single player against the AI, or even race them online against many others in MP. All for free. That isnt too shabby Sure you sound critical, but also passionate. I want this game to succeed as much as you do, I think we just differ on our pleasure of the pay model. I too think there are some problems with it, just not fundamental issues or anything that is preventing the game from succeeding. If the game had half the amount of content it does now, people would still be complaining that they dont own it all and see those red lines in the servers. I think R3E has taken a massive step forward in the past year with Sector3. I think they are doing a lot of things right, and continually improving the sim. With the help from some real world drivers like Kelvin van der Linde, Bruno Spengler, and Daniel Juncadella, the upcoming content is really a joy. I think once people get to try that out, the MP portion will see a nice boost as the cars are quite nice to drive and rival many other sims GT3 cars in terms of enjoyment. Cheers
@Why485 @Christian Göpfert @nate Hey guys, I'm 'enjoying' your discussions and finding agreeable (and disagreeable) points in both, glad everyone is taking the time to articulately put across their views and feedback.
I do not recall and I am not even sure a name ever was mentioned. Shortly before 1.2 was released and Zandvoort along with it, a hot debate had started and grew even hotter in AC forums after release of last upgrade, due to the fact that Zandvoort (AC) is not laserscanned. Some Kunos team member then addressed the crowd and explained why they did it the way they did. I just referred to that piece of official information. Zandvoort was a testing balloon, so to speak. A very successful and promising one, I would say. Personally I like laserscanned tracks, yes, but while I see the additional detailed value in it, I do not overestimate it anymore, it is not the penultimate only criterion to decide whether a track is good or not for racers/drivers/players. That Kunos Simulazioni's head Stefano himself indicated some weeks ago that most of the additional effects from laserscanned tracks mostly are only felt and to be realised in the imagination of most players, also relatives it a bit. On the other hand, another team member, Aristotelis, lately posted an open letter in which he pointed out the fact that iR and AC were the first sims ever on the PC market allowing to simulate the hidden track details due to camber and elevation changes that before were not present in PC racing, and that now "enabled" the need to drive certain curves and turns in different lines than what apex-geometry alone would recommend. It is tricky matter sometimes, sometimes it is not - it depends in the tracks in question, I think. Some mod tracks are out there that are of incredibly high quality - without any laserscanning. So, laserscanning is nice, but only one of several variables. Its nice if it could be had within reasonable timeframe and with reasonable costs, but one should not make it the only criterion to decide on a track project. I would only exclude the Nordschleife form that. So good that R3E gets a laserscanned one, too.
Thanks for that. I agree with you about laserscanning, I think it's mainly a placebo. S3 have shown you don't need laserscanning, as have many other devs. The stages Codemasters have been doing for DiRT Rally are equally superb and based on photos and tape measurements.
I must confirm what Why485 says about the business model being the single one point standing out to be the most often made single argument made against R3E by potentiually interested people. His experience that people time and again bring it up when he recommends R3E, is exactly what I have experienced or have seen in posts in other forums, too, as I repeatedly said earlier. Reference to the not so glorious start and past R3E had years ago, and complaints about the driving not being that of AC, are the two follow-up arguments to that. But the business model usually gets mentioned most often, it seems. It does not matter whether people here, or fans of the shop as it is right now, like that or not - how other people coming into contact with R3E again or for the first time see it and perceive it: that is what decides it. And most people I was in contact to or who posted in threads on it, rejected it. Sometimes however you can applaude a happy convert : from: http://simhqmotorsports.com/forums/index.php?/topic/9881-anyone-still-play/
Ah, don'T get me wrong, laserscanning does make a difference. But maybe not so much regarding surface features and characteristics, but regarding correct camber and elevation. The tracks that can be compared because they exist in both sims, do definitely feel and drive slightly different, I drive different slightly different lines and accelerate and brake less careful in R3E, than I do on the Nürburgring or in Monza in AC. But the tracks in R3E offer more mood, atmosphere, beauty, offer more - if you want to call it liak ehtat - "game". I like that as much. But the laserscanned AC tracks indeed are more complex a challenge for the driver. Its just that the difference is not that decisive maybe and not that paramount and utmost important as some fanatical laserscan-fans want to make people believe. And AC's Stefano, as far as I understood it, relativised specifically only the small nuances on the track surface itself regarting whether or not players could indeed as a matter of fact feel and perceive them. Like you used the word, the internal AC debate on this uses the word "placebo" as well. I would use a different one: faithful belief. But it all means the same debate.