rF2: What are you anticipating from it?

I don't. Without mods RF1 I think would have had a fraction of the sales that it did and would not have lasted nearly as long as it has. ISI built the game specifically for modding and has prohibited all games using their engine from releasing development tools so this should not come as a surprise.

How would you know ? Most of them have not written anything. Gjon has written that he is going to do what ever he wants so why should they ?

 

He doesn't need to. Developers should have the original source material so he only needs to write new export modules. This is the same reason ISI did not release an import tool for 3DSmax - original developers don't need one.

 

I haven't released my work for rF1, but I have done so for other sims, GTR2 included (recently).

I know the staggering amount of work that goes into a single car (physics wise): research, seeking feedback from people who in real life work in motorsports, designing my own tools, establishing modding strategies per project, testing, and testing and testing.

Unfortunately, a significant number of rF1 mods reflect poor judgement and work by their modders. Yes, modders helped make rF1 what it is today (that and ISI's continued support with the release of invaluable patches), but not all of them did proper homework. At the end of the day, we know who's who, who does a "staggering amount of work" and those that simply copy&paste figures from default physics files into their mods (or worse, those that shamelessly copy the work of others).

Günthar's work is very very good, indeed. As you say, not many modders (regardless of sim) are willing to go the extent he does.

Agreed, Mike.

+1, m8.

I'll add this: those that have a problem with ISI's pricing program please take a look at a notorious online sim (the "most realistic racing simulator ever created") and what it costs per month plus what each car costs plus what each track costs. Plus, without online activity the sim is no more.

Many will no doubt agree with me (specially those enjoy/demand/expect absolutely realistic physics - at least to the extent the physics engine allows anyway) when I say if necessary, I would pay QUITE A LOT for a racing simulation that offered a realistic, stable physics engine (a la isiMotor2, a la NKP), BUT given the economic winds blowing on us all I'd also say we're very fortunate ISI is not going that far.

Yes, we modders help racing sims survive, extend their life time, but dev houses owe us one thing only: that we're given the opportunity to do what we enjoy doing, which is modifying their sims. Specifically, if anything, ISI owes you and me the chance of modding to our hearts content.

And ISI seems intent on doing exactly that.

Thank God.


Cheers

 

Some reponses to this are looking more like a wishlist.. there's another thread for that.

Re: mod quality, one thing I find interesting is people who bemoan rFactor's physics having tried other games or seen some of the rF2 videos which apparently 'show' much better physics (I don't want to start a discussion on this, but I don't think watching a video is a great way to judge physics...) - and I'm not just talking about people on this forum, either - but when you ask if they ever tried the original rFactor cars they say no - they got rFactor because of this mod, or that mod, and never bothered with the default content. Presumably because it's fictional, so they can't see any point.

But, anyone who's actually spent time with the original mods, or fired up a default rFactor to show it off to a friend who's never heard of it, knows that, actually, those cars are great fun to drive. If you wanted to be cynical you could probably get away with saying 75-80% of all mods released were/are lower in quality than the originals, although a lot of them might look better.

In the end you can't help that; when anyone can make a mod you'll get good and bad, and that's fine.

Forgot a few other things I'm looking forward to in rF2:
- less buggy safety car
- weekend tyre allocation
- ability to rejoin races

 

True. Beyond me too why people can come to a conclusion about a sim based on a single mod or a group of mods. rFactor has been so much more than this or that mod, it has given people the ability to learn, seek, research and try build new cars, different cars. Yet, most modders seem quite happy with being just "skinners" - it is, in fact, all they are if their mod contains nothing but physics figures copied from default cars or from someone else's mod.

The Original Cars have something to them most mods don't: they feel right. Ok, we can look inside and find things we could have done better, but globally, the feel is correct.

Again, the most important thing (aside from the many improvements and novelties to physics) for some of us is the ability to produce new content. If we're given that, without restrictions, we're happy folks. And we'll help ISI too.

 

Anything that bumps the realism even further. Dynamic weather, the new tyre model including visible wear and flatspots, the track buildup over a race weekend, the dynamic racing line. Hopefully it will be possible to throw red flags and restart the race again without having to restart the whole session.

 

i'm anticipating a step up in the evolution of racing Sims, purely based on the Real Road technology. I'm hoping for much improved AI and visuals that make me wanna upgrade my GPU.
i'm also staring down the barrel of long nights forgetting I have work in the morning because i'm racing too much!!

 

Anything that improves league racing

 

I hope it makes easyer for me to make live broadcast from our races

 

A proper superspeedweay experience would be nice No sim offers that currently.

I was hoping iRacing will fill the gap left by NR2003. It's really good on shorter ovals, but on superspeedways it's a dissapointment. So now it's rFactor 2 that is our best hope for superspeedways.

 

I look forward to:
Updated physics
Live tracks
Hopefully custom rule sets for new rules(NASCAR as an Example)

BTW: @ K Szczech about Superspeedway Drafting.
You Should check out our new physics for 2012 beta 4 in a few weeks. We have implemented the curent NASCAR drafting into our MOD. It is kind of fun hooking up with 2 cars and draft. We have been working hard to perfect it for superspeedways.

Later guys,
Mike

 

Everything stepped up a level!

I'm probably most interested in the real-road tech; I used to drive offline a lot, and I hated the stupid (and wrong) driving lines on so many tracks.

Presumably if you drive a track and repeatedly take some weird line through some corners, eventually that line will be quicker than the correct line which hasn't ever been driven.....because of rubber, marbles, whatever? I don't know if I am assuming too much there.....but I am interested to see.

I'm interested to see if the line is 'permanent' - if you reload the track, for example - what will the line be? A default one again, or is it kinda persistent and saved? I hope it is, but I doubt it. It would be great if you could develop the AIW in such fashion too.

I always thought GP3's weather system was brilliant - driving on a drying track was brilliant - if you held the dry line you could speed along, but of course, if you went offline it was guaranteed you were fu.... err....in deep trouble.

Nobody has come close to such a system in the 10 years (!?) since then. So I anticipate rF2's implementation.

I also hope the AI is much improved. Again, GP3 seemed to create a far more atmospheric AI than anyone else has managed since - damaged cars SLOWLY recovered to the pits (unlike rF1) and they'd pass you at speed if you were dawdling or recovering yourself.....again, unlike rF1 in which AI cars will brake hard when they come upon you and sometimes really struggle to get past even if you give them 3/4 of the road to do so. I also got VERY sick and tired of being shunted from behind by the AI when going into turns. I'm sure it's a difficult balancing act to get the AI fast and ruthless but circumspect too - even humans do it with difficulty. My biggest persistent gripe with rF1 was the AI, but it must be very difficult to do - iRacing have completely abandoned it, right?

Probably my biggest complaint about all sim-racing is the low-fidelity - it's common to all sims, the nature of the beast, I suppose. Compared to reality it's very low resolution in physics and force-feedback etc. That's only to be expected, as reality operates at a resolution of....the planck constant, whatever? I'm not expecting ISI to manage it - nor anyone else - ever. lol But raising the bar, and incrementally proceeding to a finer model of reality.......I do hope so. We shall see! I can't wait!!

 

Looking forward to default ISI content, improved netcode, online system that may reduce the wreckers out there, I can take or leave mods as most mods I've tried IMHO have been poor. Work ripped from other much older sims, and I predict the same 'arms race' as rF1 to port over as many famous tracks from rF1 to rF2 just to be 'the first' and lay claim to a track. It won't matter much about being correct, bringing the tracks up to 2011 standards it will be just a race to port stuff over as quickly as possible. Rather than make rF1 I think a lot of mods have held rF1 and sim racing in general back by lowering the expectations on quality for a lot of sim racers, people seemed to just settle for a quick and dirty conversion of a track from GP4 complete with low res textures and cardboard cutout scenery. I do hope in time though the good mod teams out there will produce some quality mods and will be patient enough not to just rush something out because they have to have something out there for rF2.

 

Only one thing I'm really looking forward to:

Live track and weather!

IMO, that will make a HUGE difference to the sim racing experience and what is lacking in most.
In terms of recent real life examples, I think there is none better than the title decider for the V8 Supercar Championship in Sydney 2010:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4zCwxk7Xxw

 

Thats a awsome clip to watch, I was there and saw most of that happen.

Now thats real life racing and decissions that need to be made.

Bring on that in RF2.

p.s
When was the release date again Tim? lol

 

Mostly rally mode, but I believe it will not be done in the initial release (hopefully in update after a year or so).

Next is the tyre models and dynamic wheather.

 

If there's the same jump in quality that there was from F1C to RF1 I'll be happy. I hope that there's not the same performance drop off as there was back then though. I remember going from around 100 fps in F1C to around 30 in RF1 and night time racing was a slide show. Now RF1 is running at around 150 fps with a full grid on full detail I hope it doesn't bring me back down to 30 fps in RF2.

 

This and WSGT2.

 

1. Better AI, in RF1 i think that the AI dosn't see the human driver on track as it see's other AI cars.

2. Variable Weather and changes in track condition over time.

3. Clients to be able to download missing content(cars,skins,tracks, etc. to cache folder) directly from Host/Server when connecting to minimize mismatches.

4. The grease lighting netcode from RF1...

5. Re-connection back to race if dropped out of Server from netlag or ctd. (pit garage race start in middle of race option for Host only for drivers that started the race, or where in qualify and had too slow pitstop to the toilet or fridge... between quali -> race start)