RF2, it's got the be easy and it's got to stay easy

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Gogs Dunlop, Jun 18, 2011.

  1. Gogs Dunlop

    Gogs Dunlop Registered

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    the single biggest issue with online racing atm imho is

    "it's not easy"

    for all PC sims, wrong track, wrong track version, car not on server, blah blah blah, there are like 100 reasons why you can't race on an online server these days.

    the sim that makes it the easiest will win ! you need 2 lobbies, a vanilla lobby and a modded lobby.

    cheers

    gogs dunlop
     
  2. MagnusD

    MagnusD Registered

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    Online racing imho is incredibly easy! Joining a race-community and to either run any of their leagues or club/pickup-races is very easy since they provide everything you need. If you talk about 'open'-servers which run 24/7 then I can admit its a bit more tricky. Although you can see what mod is used and track, its sometimes hard to find it on the net.
     
  3. Ruben Miranda

    Ruben Miranda Registered

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    Hello Gent's
    And I would add that the guys are even editing/modding the original content so that add's to the problem.
    But a sim maker Such as ISI or other for that matter can not really do anything about that.

    As Mag said
    League's or race community's is the best way to go.

    Ruben M.
     
  4. Hutch-SCO

    Hutch-SCO Registered

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    All it needs is the versions listed better in the listing.
     
  5. beatnik

    beatnik Registered

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    Another way for it to be easier to race rFactor online is for people to keep up with their favorite servers/mods. After running in a league that updated things quite frequently I grew tired of people who just sign on 5 minutes before a race and can't figure out why this won't work or that won't work. Sign-up for a newsletter or check out the forums for whatever you race. It's our job as racers to keep up with the modders, not ISI's.
     
  6. Denstjiro

    Denstjiro Registered

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    Vanilla/modded actualy sounds pretty good, even if its just an icon on the server list instead of 2 different lobby's. If rf2 could do that it would be abit less confusing.
     
  7. Nimugp

    Nimugp Registered

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    Well, maybe just put a green V if you have matching track/car, and place a red X if something doesn't match ;)
     
  8. Satangoss

    Satangoss Registered

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    Personally I quit Rfactor online due the impossibility to have the right package to casual races. That's the why I'm trying to improve offline experience, which I think is a little bit neglected.

    Ok, in leagues you'd come prepared with correct mods, tracks, updates, etc. No big drama.

    However, in contrary, to causual online racing is amost impossible to bear all data which put you on the track.
     
  9. isamu

    isamu Registered

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    Satangoss bring up a good point. I too, have not touched this game because of all the mismatches with mods. I wanted a sim that supports mods and allowed me to join casual everyday pick up races, but with rFactor, there are just WAAAY to many servers hosting different mods out there!

    ISI needs to come up with a structure that will allow the modders and online hosts to deliver their mods *right* to our PCs, install it properly and go and race ALL in one easy click! All of the call of duty games do this and it is awesome! There should be no more mismatches ever in rFactor 2. We simply enter a lobby, the game automatically downloads the mod from the server, installs it and boom....ready to race! If ISI can put something like this into the game then I will be the among the FIRST ones out there promoting rF2!
     
  10. Marek Lesniak

    Marek Lesniak Car Team Staff Member

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    Yeah, and because typical track is like 100MB and a mod is like double that... you will have to wait a bit longer before you say "...installs it and boom....ready to race!" :)

    It's very easy to modify mods and tracks so if server hoster provided some changes, that fact should be mentioned in a some sort of "info" section available to display on the lobby, so you can read about the server, what's installed on it and what's required, before you enter it.
     
  11. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    As long rf2 will be modding platform, no one can stop me to release a new track and put rf into RaceCast lobby with this track. And what do you do then? Want to download this track directly from my server? no way!

    Only option I can see is filtering servers by content installed. means you will no longer will see servers with tracks/cars which are not present in your installation. Simply.

    BTW: I really surprised that somebody may want to race but is not able to join a community.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 21, 2011
  12. Noel Hibbard

    Noel Hibbard Registered

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    There needs to be a uniform install system for mods and there needs to be a better way to check which version is installed on a server and a way to provide a download link to the mod and track if you don't have it. I try to do this in the MOTD message but you can't put much text in that message. I use URL shorteners to cram more in that message.
     
  13. Noel Hibbard

    Noel Hibbard Registered

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    Also, more people should join leagues. The world would be a better place with more league members. :)
     
  14. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Yeah, I think you can solve a lot of this just by having more info available, including links (not sure how best to implement them; not everyone can back out of full-screen apps without crashing), in the server list. Currently, as you say, there isn't much space available - and I don't know about anyone else, but if I click "Info" (or whatever it's called) the server list refreshes and I have to go and find the server again, or remember to click info first. Right now even when you find a server running a mod you have and a track you have, you can join and then find out the next track is something you don't have - which is a bit annoying. Having a list there to check beforehand, including a link to an info page, or even links to download the relevant content (set up by the server admin), would be handy.

    Having an indicator (green ticks as mentioned above) would also be good, especially if there was one for each element (mod, track(s)), using the same sort of checksum as is presumably already used to detect mismatches.

    But, at the end of the day you can't eat your cake and have it still - the price for so much customisation is some difficulty in this area. This is rFactor's weakness, but it's just a product of it's strengths. (and downloading content directly off the game server is a neat sounding solution - but I wonder how many server admins will leave it switched on, considering the possible bandwidth use)
     
  15. Denstjiro

    Denstjiro Registered

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    The ones paying for servers are likely leagues with members donating money, those servers will probably be closed to the public, so that leaves private servers and hosted games, of which neither will be able to deliver enough bandwidth.
    Leagues can and will also supply their files through their websites so there is little need to put stress on a server for them.
    Besides even a monster server will have issues uploading content to joiners as you never know how good the connections actualy is between server and a random client.

    With rf1 we allready had issues with the tempcar loading livery of a new joiner giving us lag for a brief moment and we had to change settings to stop that, i shudder by the idea of multiple people connecting whilsy downloading.
    Has auto-download ever actualy worked in any game? (appart from skins etc)
     
  16. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    Partially - yes.
    For example Arma2 is able to download mission scripts, which is very useful because it is enough to install scripts on server. but those scripts are usually about 200-500kB.
    All other data like objects, textures or sounds must be installed by player on its own.

    I referred to Arma2 because it is the same kind of product as rf; It's modding platform.
     
  17. JoshJ81

    JoshJ81 Registered

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    Bingo that sounds like a winner! And to add on to this, when you put your cursor over that server in the list, a window pops up and tells you what you are missing.
     
  18. wims

    wims Registered

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    Auto download worked great in Rainbow Six - Ravenshield. I played it online on custom maps all the time and as a user you never had to download anything. The game automatically downloaded the content from a so called redirect server; essentially a custom file server that distributed the content, the actual game dedi only handled game-related services
     
  19. isamu

    isamu Registered

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    Now see? Why cant ISI adopt that particular idea and apply it to Rf2?
     
  20. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    Because it is not suitable for simracing (?)
    Try to answer two questions:
    1. who and why should host all files downloaded online?
    2. who will wait for just downloading players? Haven't you seen 150MB tracks? or 2GB mods?

    Of course it might be optionally disabled. Then most of leagues will disable this feature. So why ISI should spend a time for this?
     

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