Damage Control

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by mjmueller, Oct 23, 2012.

  1. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    I know there are a few key futures which makes rf2 and its future interesting to us. Besides all those features are in half way to be finished, bravo for ISI to provide them. But you should no use "incredibly" word too often until all those features have issues (sometime serious ones).
    ModManager is the reason to laugh rather than be thankful, but if you like it... It's kind of tool made by developers for developers. Not utility for enduser.

    But in previous post I meant features which was present in rf1 but are missing or f** up in rf2. In overall I can feel rf2 is not brand new, breath taking simulation, but improved rf1 with a lot of broken old features - broken due to reworking of existing code. Broken to extend that is impossible to fix them in short amount of time.
    If you consider replay system (including lack of some sounds on replays), damage system, sound engine, number of informations to display on dashboard or even predefined materials reacting on events (lights for example) - you will get what I meant.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 25, 2012
  2. Wheelzpin

    Wheelzpin Registered

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    I agree with this. I too remember the hue and cry from the community for ISI to "give us something". And they responded.

    I think ISI is doing a great job with rF2. Sure there are still a lot of half-baked features and a number of issues that have existed from the start. But overall, the sim improves with each release, which is the way it should be. I don't understand why some keep attacking them for doing exactly what they set out to do.

    I'm not saying ISI is blameless here. They have messed up this beta (alpha, gamma, whatever) process in a couple of ways.

    First, is the lack of communication. Tim does a reasonable job on the forums but it sometimes seems he's as much in the dark as we are. I think it was Tim who said they can't pull the devs off their busy schedules to give us updates but that's a crock. ISI chose to make this an open beta and with that comes the responsibility of keeping their beta group informed. If that means getting the devs into a 15 minute round table once a month so Tim (or someone) can write a couple of paragraphs about where they're at, then that's what they have to do. That doesn't mean we need a detailed schedule of their progress. But a simple statement telling us that they are trying some new things with collision models that might show up in the next release, or that they are still having trouble tracking down the cause of bug x, would go a long way to keeping the community informed, invested, and happy.

    Secondly, ISI has not yet learned the power of appeasement. I'm not talking about giving in to all the whiners and bitchers. I'm talking about the huge value of managing expectations and demonstrating progress. Maybe the black mirrors on the 60s cars or the sometimes working tire wear/temp widget are not important to the overall development of the sim, yet having a dev spend a couple of days to fix one or two of those little issues would generate bucket loads of customer loyalty. Again, by choosing to go with an open beta, they need to make these "sacrifices" to keep the beta customers and modders happy.
     
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  3. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    well said
     
  4. gpfan

    gpfan Registered

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    +1. Thats what i said before, it resumes all In one word " Communication"
     
  5. jtbo

    jtbo Registered

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    Did they make it open beta or public beta? I think it was latter, but just can't remember so well.

    What I think is that some mod groups and modders are perhaps bit of tired, they have been doing their stuff so long in rF1 and they perhaps wanted to get quick into making of stuff in rF2 as they had already finding modding to be not giving quite as much at it once gave and now as they can't still find that same modding feel they had when rF1 was new they are getting bit of tired, making rF2 process to be reason for that is of course easy, but if one really looks into modding for rF2 it is not impossible, far from that, most of the things can be already done and when certain areas are ready in rF2 one could just update those smaller parts of the mod to use full features.

    Yeah, some modders and teams will move on, some will try AC and still some will return later back to rF2, it is how it is, but when we really look about rF2 there is no such reason, imo.

    Instructions given by ISI staff were don't try to create your masterpiece yet, be prepared to make everything all over again as rF2 progresses, so certainly it should of been clear what to except.

    For example coming new damage model is something we don't know anything about and there is small chance that it changes way models are put together, where to use more polys etc. It is plainly clear that at this point making final quality model can be wasted time, so do quick ones as ISI has suggested, upgrade to full glory after rF2 goes gold, no tears.

    Maybe many are too serious, it is just a hobby :)
     
  6. Golly

    Golly Registered

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    Mostly agree with you, but alot of groups are at a level where hobby turns more into a passion for modding, and it drives you on seeing results, but to not have the tools available, creates fustration and disapointment.
     
  7. kaptainkremmen

    kaptainkremmen Registered

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    Is RFactor Pro finished? Did they not say they were concentrating on that first? Which version makes the most money. If it's the Pro version then I am fine with them finishing that first and then using that experience and revenue to finish the retail version :). or are the two versions very different.
     
  8. Nimugp

    Nimugp Registered

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    I think they are different, and also that rF Pro never really is finished..... They use that for profesional racing teams, including F1 teams, and any team always wants an edge over the competition, thus want it better, and better.

    Over the money side, ISI has said in the past (long time since I last saw it mentioned) that their biggest income isn't from the retail side (so rF1, and rF2). That very likely means that rF Pro generates more income, because I can't imagine that selling their engine is a very big income, and I can't think of other sources they might have :p
     
  9. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    That sounds reasonable, given F1s usual enormous budget.
     
  10. osella

    osella Registered

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    Very well said, thats what I think too but couldnt really put it into words.

    I also believe ISI actually works hard and theres ton of invisible work but the communication and their ability to build excitement in both players and modders is really bad.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 26, 2012
  11. jtbo

    jtbo Registered

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    They do not want leagues yet, they do not want to advertise rF2 yet, so why would they want to build excitement yet?

    rF2 is not out yet, I think some have forgotten that, it is aimed for small community to have bit wider testing group, so there people go wrong that they take rF2 as released product that can be used fully.

    You just don't put test versions to live server, so why people are attempting to use test version as robust ready to use toolset to make gorgeous mods while it was specifically told in instructions that don't try to make your masterpiece yet?

    Is it because they see how good rF2 is compared to rF1 already so they get impression rF2 being already usable?

    Meh, I can't even use dev mode at the moment, I must wait for next version or use 107 executable which might end up doing many things wrong, so I find it better wait until they fix tools, not a problem, that is why test versions are, to find out things that will go wrong.

    Of course partly reason is because from ISI they posted that they planned 6 months period of testing, which was immediately taken as promise of rF2 being released in 6 months, even those two are not the same, but human beings read things, filter what they read and think they understand, then memory does things and what one eventually thinks is totally different from what was said.

    So as of result ISI is too scared to say anything as everything is taken differently from intended. They might need a good lawyer to guide how to word every post so that nobody can get wrong impression. Would it be different if they have added "however if required testing can be longer" to their 6 months as disclaimer, should everything have disclaimers today as few seem to put effort into understanding but are just reacting based on their own imagination?

    "Warning, coffee may be hot" is something we laughed some 20 years ago, why anyone would warn on such simple thing, now everything has warning, water may be wet, sun might be bright, people really don't even attempt to understand underlying mechanics anymore, which is bit odd, why it is so?

    So, ISI could of done Atari's and just put rF2 to gold after that 6 months of testing, would that been good?

    And why not one can work in rF1 if he has started doing rF2? rF2 feels so great that rF1 seems like broken shoe?

    Don't make it too complicated, it is just a hobby. Sure if one wants to get a job from that hobby things are different, but also at that point one has to know that experimental or test versions are not ones to work with in business, rules change then, reliability and predictability becomes first and if I would be doing modding for a job, then for sure I would of not be using rF2, it is not even released yet!

    So the problem is in my opinion more in how people presumed different things than what was reality, also it does show from my opinion how those mod teams that are very serious about modding still failed to understand very basic of serious stuff and jumped into unknown testing phase product instead of proper evaluation and understanding how in serious stuff you have to put reliability over anything and now they are suffering consequences of their poor judgements.

    Surely ISI could put more disclaimers and be more cautious of what they say, of course we could still have only rF1 to play with and everyone would be happy and drooling for rF2, but they wanted to offer opportunity and some mistook that a bit.

    ISI has it's own pace and style of working, it is their product, I think they can do whatever they like however they like, if one presumes something wrongly and burns his fingers, it is more of that person's issue than ISI's.

    Should I still remind you of Atari and half baked non working games released as gold? It could be like that too.

    Many things are of course they could of done differently, but it is so easy to say afterwards, however I think they have now learned not to trust that people will read things properly and are not going to tell so much in future, also maybe they put more disclaimers for anything they say and we have lost something, however maybe less people will burn their fingers.

    Maybe they should of put text to rF2 screen that never goes away "only for testing and evaluation, do not use for live production" or something along those lines to lessen confusion. Also they could say in every post "anything presents current views and are subject to change without further notice, time frames and features mentioned may or may not apply to final product or update releases"

    However, I think they should put big logo to next update launcher, "WARNING, coffee may be hot!", anyway maybe some people also have learned something about importance of evaluation during this process and how it is often useful to be bit more cautious when making decisions based on impressions without having all the facts on table, we still don't know how rF2 will progress and how long until Gold, no, we don't KNOW, we have only some estimates which may change, so I wouldn't except nothing from rF2 until it is Gold, but appreciate everything I get from rF2 before Gold, that way I don't need to burn my fingers.
     
  12. MaXyM

    MaXyM Registered

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    So I should point to where it comes from.
    2 years ago ISI opened this forum telling us that rf2 is coming. When they didn't released rF2 on Xmas 2010 (because of 46% of probability failed) people was disappointed still asking where rF2 will be released and why it takes so long from the first announcements (about 4 years ago). In the spring 2011, as reaction on this, Tim said that we will have fun on next Xmas. For many of us it was next announcement of full product release (who knew Tim talk about some full of issues prototype, please raise your hand up). Then we realized it is not release but some "beta" with approximated expectation for release in 6 months.

    Do you really think it is not enough to get impression you are talking about?

    I think a lot of us think that next build brings significant changes making rf2 ready to be gold. We should make clear statement (rather ISI should): if ISI really want release rF2 as finished product (instead of current state) we must wait even more than year. I know Tim said 2013... but personally, I don't believe it will happen such early, taking into account speed of development and number of issues and lacks.

    I believe, to know truth (fair even if unpleasant one) would be more acceptable and make people waiting for rf2 with more patience. But it should be said by ISI to work right.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 26, 2012
  13. Knight of Redemption

    Knight of Redemption Registered

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    I would add to that this is Beta...or supposed to be. Now it seems ISI have their own definition of Beta that differs from many others understanding. I understood beta to mean all the features are in place and we are testing for bugs before final release, the usual meaning, as opposed to Alfa where most of the features are being worked on. So there is another misunderstanding. I am not saying I am right and they are wrong but it is what I thought along with others.

    Don't think anyone is saying "Go Gold now" were do people get that idea? what would be the point. Points made for lack of communication are flawed and I have said why in another thread we have all been on so no point in repeating.

    The thing is there is a forum, people will have their say like it or not. They will come from their view point, like it or not. If there was a closed forum, closed Aeta/Alpha testing no one would be saying anything about anything and maybe that may have been better, but, you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
     
  14. fobban

    fobban Registered

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    I think ISI has done a tremendous work with rFactor 2, but as most of you other guys I think they could have handled stuff a bit differently. It's always easy to look back and see how things could have been handled better. Hopefully we all learn from this.

    My ideas.

    Bug reporting
    Bug reporting should always be easy. Not so with this beta unfortunately. In the reporting process thread you're told that you might not even get a response! "ISI staff may not respond if your issue is either known about, already fixed internally, or something we have simply copied to our internal bug database. You should not always expect a response." Seriously? (Though I should add that Tim has been quite good at answering most, if not all, reports.)

    Additionally the beta tester is supposed to categorize the report. Why? Most likely ISI will make further categorization later on anyway before it ends on a developer's desk.

    A bug report should be considered a gift from the user to the developer, to make the final product (their product!) even better.

    The bug reporting process could have been handled much better if ISI had a decent issue tracker. That way similar issues could be grouped together, categorized by the developer (they are the ones who should do the categorization anyway), and you could see if it was confirmed and perhaps even "when" ISI had planned to fix it.

    Release schedule
    There's no need for a fixed release schedule, but it is a lot better to have smaller releases more often during beta. Why? It is way easier for a tester to test a few features when they are implemented, than to wait a few months and get a huge release in your knee--and if you're lucky all changes are documented in the changelog. You're guaranteed to miss something.

    User interface
    The user interface isn't exactly perfect. Why should I need to decide in the launcher if I want to play single or multiplayer? Perhaps I want to test my setup in single player before racing online? rF1 wins here.

    How do you send a garage setup? You click the voting link, the on with that nice disabled gray color. Is sending a garage setup considered voting? Just because rF1 had a really messy and user-unfriendly interface doesn't need rF2 needs one too.

    I really hope that when rF2 goes final, it doesn't feature a 7 year old interface.

    However, in the end I'm sure ISI will make this an awesome simulator. Well, actually it already is :). Also, I'm glad Tim actually is communicating with us. It could've been much worse. He also seems to be a really nice guy and I enjoy reading his posts. (Not all would post on the forum while out for groceries :).)

    Over and out.

    /fobban
     
  15. jtbo

    jtbo Registered

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    I have so many times got impression and then found out reality being something else, that I try not to get much of impression at all, I just see what happens and that has worked so much better, no longer disappointments.

    Surely they have had will to accomplish something and they have been excited and shared their hopes, but as always then something comes up and there will be delays, changes to plans etc. Problem then comes when persons looking forward to something find out how in reality it does not happen, as was hoped and planned, but that seem to be more norm than exception with anything doing with software.

    Who knows, maybe ISI figured out at some point that what they had was nice, but found out making it ready takes so long that it will be old when it would be ready, so they added up something new, which then rewrote schedules again, does happen.

    Do you know about car called Vector? It is good example of big dreams and hopes and how there were things that lead to things that caused always more and more delays, more than 10 years of delays, but car was actually surprisingly good and those few still are, stopped better than any Ferrari of it's time, highest G's of any production car at skidpad, highest top speed of any production vehicle and very reliable compared to Ferrari cars of that time, which is perhaps not too much to be said.

    That all despite all the issues and troubles. Now there was car that costs hundreds of thousands and still had those issues of delivering things on time.

    With software development I have not seen anything good coming out on schedule, ever really, there are always delays, has always been and will always be, so until rF2 is gold, I would encourage to stay in rF1 unless one likes to test and learn rF2 system beforehand, don't attempt to bring high level modding and mods into it yet as it will create frustration for certain as it is unfinished product that will change a lot.

    From my point of view it is at the end modders own fault if they get their fingers burned, one can always wait until thing is ready, if one likes to run at frontline one has to accept that there will be some issues to be dealt with also, as it has always been and always will be.

    It is not any more difficult than that, but of course this is just my view.

    Before I bought rF2 I did read around from the forum what it is all about, same thing when I wanted to have silent fans to my computer, sure there are ones that say how great fan x is but when looking some hard data from it I could see it being utterly rubbish in terms of noise, so with rF2 I knew to read and filter what I read to know what it really is about before buying and I did buy it very soon when it came available, less than a day, still I could know what it is about no matter what kind of alpha/theta/gamma/beta it would of been called.

    But some jump in with less studying and they have their own impressions based on less data, then impression is broken and crying starts, very natural.

    Certainly before jumping into rF2 big mod teams should of known by testing rF2 what it is about and waiting, evaluating, rF2 process, not trusting impression one gets but testing and seeing what it really is about, that is if ones being really serious about their stuff, you can't then make decision based on impression, but on some hard facts and never ever trust the shopkeeper, he has his own point of view and it can be very far from truth also.

    At the end, nobody didn't force to buy and move into rF2, decision was those modders alone and I fail to see how ISI would be to blame, they are the shopkeeper and shopkeeper's job is to sell their stuff, making their stuff look better than what is at next store, also they have their own impression based on what they know about their product and what we have not even seen, so one just can't go and take all that as granted, same with anything that involves buying.

    All I can say is wipe your nose, look into mirror and keep modding, if currently you can't do what you want take a brake and look into it bit later, we all know that eventually rF2 is meeting impressions that many have had, so why not to wait a bit to see if it evolves to that point? Try AC and see how it will have it's own shortcomings with modding as is true with any moddable sim.
    See first, act then, that is what I suggest.
     
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  16. peterchen

    peterchen Registered

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    Well said JTBO!

    It seems as (some) modders expected too much from the Beta.

    Do it like Tosch!!! Play around with the engine, take a look whats underhood, look what can be possible
    instead of looking only at the surface and being dissapointed because its not polished!

    Its clear that this "Beta" is difficult to handle and the only thing you can say against ISI is that they are
    trying to do something very big with to less people!
    Thats a big issue - true! But are there alternatives?

    I find it really interesting how Assetto Corsa comes to speech so often!
    It´s not available at all!!! I mean: there is no Alpha/Beta/Gamma or Demo, there are only a few
    Vid´s and teasers and a lot of speech!!!???
    How can anyone have a belief or opinion about that? especially the modders??

    To say: "oh rF2 System and graphics and Beta are bad, I´m going to AC!" Is purely BULLSHI..!!!!
    They (we) wanted the early stage and now we´ve got it!

    For all the AC-arguers: I tell you a secret: AC will have a way less advanced AI as rF2 has!
    From where I know? Read the last interviews, look at the last Vids from Gamescom:
    The AI is clearly following an AIW-route. Something that ISI replaced! Not yet perfectly
    but just one example......

    Think about it!

    P.S.: I don´t know if I´m the only one, but I´m glad that I have no worrys about graphics or either sounds....

    Cheers
    Pete
     
  17. coops

    coops Banned

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    damage control what is out there at the moment that it going to rival rf2?
    i think every1 expects to much to soon, they have run into small probs here and there that happens in life every day get over it unless your life is perfect LOL.
    as for not being able to run a league at the moment thats CRAP 26 tracks and how many diff versions of some. mayb not as many cars as you would like.
    i for 1 have lost full interest in RF1 unless i want to go drive the orsm v8 mod, as it is my favorite.

    the only thing i agree with ppl at the moment is would be nice to have some FEEDBACK on how long they think till we get GOLD. but at the same time ppl will hold that to them and we will be back here in this post again. ( AN ESTIMATE WOULD BE NICE THOU)

    EG: late 2012 early 2013 or even mid to late 2013
     
  18. 1959nikos

    1959nikos Registered

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    All and all, modders will decide for themselves what they want to do.
    All the best teams, have a better understanding what is the situation here at ISI atm and they dont expect me or anyone else to tell them what is happening.

    I for one, fully respect their decision to move (if they want) where they think is best for them (and for us, recieving their mods), but please modders, spare us from ugly situations, threatening to leave a sim if you dont agree with its workings.

    Free modding is about offering, as you modders all know and believe, so give us your best in all ways, and especially in ethics!!
     

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