About the way mods/tracks can be installed

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by JDilla, Feb 12, 2013.

  1. JDilla

    JDilla Registered

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    hello,

    i really like rfactor2 (big time, best sim ever) and its community, but you need to change the mod system. i know its like linux vs microsoft, but even in this beta status things round about mods are getting to complicated. if i open the multiplayer browser is see 20 different types of mods and requirements. the "get mod" button is totaly useless until you cant get ALL of the used tracks and cars within this system.

    so what i am doing right now is to write down all of the missing tracks in its exact version and download it separately. first, it is annoying and second i allready had troubles because modA required "Monza 1.012" but modB "Monza 1.02". I want to do some rounds with the corvette and what happens? I need to search and download 10 tracks, if i am lucky. As i said before i know this is one of the good things about rf2, the possibility to make wonderful mods and stuff but you need to find a way to make them accessible for the common user!! Without planing for 6h..

    "Get mod" should you GET THE MOD! :D
     
  2. JJStrack

    JJStrack Registered

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    This all is made worse by the fact, that people tend to put all available tracks into the vmods....even the crappiest tracks. so you have to find all those crappy tracks and hope someone bothered to keep a working donwload link for it.
    I had so many evenings, where i wanted to do some quick online races, but i hadn't had the mods for the crowded servers. and after 15 minutes searching on a spanish site for the mod needed, because "get mod" didn't work, i gave up and raced offline.
    We need the "All cars all tracks" functionality in online mode!
     
  3. Flaux

    Flaux Registered

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    Yeah... this community is strange... criticize ISI but on the other hand they fill servers with crappy codemaster conversion... I think it is not ISIs problem... we should start to use the proper stuff instead... or wait for it to be done...
     
  4. Cracheur

    Cracheur Registered

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    sorry but the problem is real, which you can easily see on the modest amount of online racing. for people that do not want pure league racing this must be organized differently. how about integrating a kind of torrent client in the mod manager that holds a central list of available stuff. would only cost the development of a tiny sharing software and all community would have an easy way to stay up to date. hence we could even stay with the current mod system....could be an interesting alternative considering that many people cpmplained about it. obviously this could also be used to update rf2. isi could get rid of this function elsewhere;) and honedtly, isnt it annoying searching for mods all the time?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 12, 2013
  5. Flaux

    Flaux Registered

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    Another idea...

    Afaik it is still needed to get a unique mod-id to create a mod (track, car, whatever)... ISI should monitor those mods and give the mod-id only to mod's that are from good quality and no rip-off's of other game content.

    I think many of us would love to race on a corvette server with the modern ISI tracks and some proper made and somewhat finished community tracks. I would love to join such servers... PLUS, it would make the converters and modders take more time to refine their mods.

    Sure there is a lot of manpower behind this idea which might be it's bottleneck... but on the other hand, there wouldn't be such a flood of mediocre tracks to look at if ISI would give out some proper rules to get a mod-id...

    To be honest, online racing is only half the fun when the stuff you race is made of poor quality...
     
  6. Jim Beam

    Jim Beam Registered

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    1.you dont need a modid to create a track or car component ...only a vmod

    2.maybe if your slow and have time to look at the scenery or waving bananas then you should stay on ISI tracks :D

    3.the quality of mods,tracks has nothing to do with the failed delivery system... and what your idea of what might be trash is someone elses treasure
     
  7. JJStrack

    JJStrack Registered

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    I have to agree, this problem is mainly not about the lack of quality of the content used. The same problems occur with tracks of good quality!
    There will be updates and dead servers, no matter the quality of the mod.
    So in my opinion, we should only have to have the cars and the track that are currently run on a server. I would rather get kicked off the server, when the track is changed - because i don't (want to) have that track - than have to search all kind of tracks, that i don't even want to race, to be able to race on the track i WANT to race :p
     
  8. Flaux

    Flaux Registered

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    Lol,.. yeah don't call me Einstein... haha. I just had to get rid of the idea in my head. :p


    The question is, why does ISI has to deliver something... we should organize ourself better. rf2rank is such a platform. You could have asked ISI for that and tell'em that they have to do it,... instead the community took the chance to build up a proper piece of usefull html.

    Again,...just my poor 2 cents...
     
  9. JJStrack

    JJStrack Registered

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    It would be awesome if it would be possible for the community to solve the mod-management problem. But as far as i understand it, the current system is too restricting to allow for a good solution on top of it. The current system has to be replaced with a more open system, that could be optimised by the community.
     
  10. Flaux

    Flaux Registered

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    So as it was with rf1? - I did around 5 public online races in rf1. In the past.

    Best public races I had have been in GTR2 and GSC. Because the stock content of those games was/is just brilliant. No need for mod's. *g*

    Conclusion (just from my side of view) is to have only a few but proper made mods for public racing. HOF-stuff.... Anything else could be done in non-public leagues...

    Thinking to myself it looks like I'm not the average player here so, I guess I will leave it up to you guys. :)
     
  11. Jim Beam

    Jim Beam Registered

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    yeh mate i would agree that would probably be the best way to go for public rooms...in rF1 it was pretty much that way with the public meganes always being the easiest to get into and most popular rooms ...probably have to wait a while for that to happen when eveything settles down and isnt new though
     
  12. Jeepy

    Jeepy Registered

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    I agree that this system is really annoying. It's ok for leagues, but not if you just want to have one hour fun online.
    I don't want to install all the available tracks and cars. You must at least know that they exist !
    The server should check if you have got the track and the car(s) that just runs on it.
    If you already have this track and this car(s) then you could be able to connect.
    If you don't have this particular track and/or car(s), then the server should send you just THIS track and THIS(THESE) car(s) that you can enter this session.
    My 2 cents.
     
  13. TIG_green

    TIG_green Registered

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    Maybe we should all post what tracks we have installed (some text format). Then people who do not want "grappy" tracks could play together.

    IMO, the problem is not the system, it's the players using it. How on earth isn't it enought to have some 20+ tracks to play every available mod online... when I have 15 interesting tracks to drive (and not enough time even for those) then why would I bother having all the tracks and their newest versions. Will post my tracks later on and hopefully we see some change for the better in the future.
     
  14. Cracheur

    Cracheur Registered

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    I'm sorry but I have to strongly disagree: the community will NEVER solve this! The only thing that will happen is strong fragmentation, followed by frustration of the community. League racers will stay with "their mods" on their servers.
    Why would you NOT want(or accept) a solution from ISI?
    Basically, you are suggesting to solve the problem by limiting content... strange approach for a game that is build for modders... > user genertaed content.

    Let's not forget that the BM of ISI has a little (yes very little) fee to play online.

    Secondly, I think it's not very relevant to always look back at rF1 and say: it wasn't better at the beginning, so it's ok. NO it's NOT because these problems have never been adressed properly by ISI.

    Can't we expect rF2 to deliver a better online experience?

    IMHO, the practical problem is very simple:
    you often don't have the right tracks or cars to join a server.

    Don't take it wrong but I read your proposals as follows:
    - ISI shall not solve it (even though we agree that there is a problem) but the community, ok HOW exactly? (only one person has helped so far: the guy keeping the tracks torrent up to date > he provides central point of download)

    - LIMIT content (Conclusion (just from my side of view) is to have only a few but proper made mods for public racing) HOW?

    - write tracks / cars into a post (Maybe we should all post what tracks we have installed (some text format) How shall this work ?

    - change the mod system (So in my opinion, we should only have to have the cars and the track that are currently run on a server)
    > this would certainly improve the situation BUT WILL NOT SOLVE it. > even if you have all cars, there might be issues with different versions.

    My proposal: get a little client where you find all mods. No server or bandwidth to be paid ! Just use a 10 year old proven technology... nothing more.

    There are many different practical solutions and models but ONE thing is very clear to me: the community will never get this solved! There will always be people not playing according to the rules.

    So what issues would remain if we had a kind central download client (whatever torrent, donkey,...) that shows us all mods and cars. We select, download, that's it. > The in-game "GET MOD OPTION" should simply add the missing mods, cars to the download list.

    This could also provide a solution for updating mods.
    I'm not saying that this THE solution but IMHO it would solve right away the majority of problems in getting and updating mods.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 13, 2013
  15. Jeepy

    Jeepy Registered

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    If the server would just send the missing track and cars needed for the current session only, it would be faster to download for the driver that enters the server, it would be less datas to transfer from the server (less bandwith needed) and it would be a possibility for the drivers to get new tracks and cars without having to search for a link on the web.
     
  16. TIG_green

    TIG_green Registered

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    +1
     
  17. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    I would have liked modders to formulate etiquette for track naming and other things 10 years ago.

    But it never happened, the world never stopped turning either...........

    12 months after Gold all this be water under the bridge and too far to paddle your rowboat up the creek.
     
  18. Cracheur

    Cracheur Registered

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    Do you really want to give away bandwidth of your server running a race to people wanting to download a track or mod?
    Some mods have several hundreds MB, how would a server handle a situation where 5 people connect at the same time and start downloading? Will you postpone the planned race for x hours or stop the download?
    I wouldn't like to race on such a server as hickup and bad latency are very likely to happen.

    You could even use it as a denial of service attacks... > I'll join with 5 friends a session that is IN race and start downloading...
    It will happen once and admins will: 1. PW-protect their server 2. disable download.

    Disabling download during server activity is also not an alternative... you'll have to get back several times until you have downloaded everything...

    so again, it's not that easy to solve but if ISI has the will to do it, they could get this sorted without having centrally host everything on their own...

    It would at least be nice to have the community in a row saying: ISI, what are your plans?
     
  19. Jeepy

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    I think it would not be difficult to limit the download bandwidth in multiplayer.ini that it has no impact on the games bandwidth.
    I would not allow people to join a race that has already started.
    With organised races the problem does not exist, everyone would be ready before the race.
    The problem is for people who just want to have a moment of fun at evening or after work, seeing an interesting combo in the lobby with some people around and just wanting to take part without spending 3 hours searching and downloading all the tracks and the cars that the mod requires and that you'll never drive on.
    It happened to myself many many times !
    I race very rarely online because I have no time or lust to download things that I'm not interested about.
     
  20. Diablo

    Diablo Registered

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    If you would only be required to have the currently running track (singular) and cars to join, as opposed to having all the content of the vMod that´s running, it would be somewhat of a step in the right direction. But it would only be the third best soultion, since the server admin would still have to create at least one vMod, the one that contains all cars and all tracks, and update it from time to time.
    From my point of view, the reason for the existence of this vMod concept is, that in rF1 the "All tracks and Vehicles" option caused a lot of mismatches, because instead of properly checking for matching content before joining, rF1 would happily load an arbitrary track and car, when you did not have the ones that were running on the server. Once the loading and join procedure was done, the mismatch was discovered.
    That is a design flaw that was never fixed! A fellow simracer joined our server yesterday just after hitting GET MOD, he wasn´t presented with the car selection screen, but instead the client loaded the content he had used last before that, track and car. As a consequence he was automatically booted with a mismatch message, just like old times. Now, I believe this is a bug worth reporting, no question about that, but it goes to show that the root of the problems is still there.
    I cannot for the life of me understand why it is impossible to tell the client, which track (still singular) and car selection is currently running. Just take a look into the server list, it´s right there in the circuit column. All approaches ISI have taken so far are relying on out of sync session descriptions.

    Let me try and paint a picture of how I would like a server to communicate with the clients. When a server loads the track, it has to access the corresponding files inside the rFactor 2 filesystem hierarchy, and it shouldn´t be too hard to save its unique ID or signature in memory. It can be found in <rfactor 2 root>\Installed\Locations\<circuit-name>\<version-number>\<circuit-name>.mft. In those files, there are signatures for every single layout. It´s the same for cars, so the server should take the current car filter, not the inventory of the whole (v)Mod, and save that as well in memory.
    So in short, I think it would be sufficient to save a list of signatures for the currently loaded track and the cars allowed. There is your manifest, Jeremy, and it is in sync with the actual server session! A client which wants to connect to the server will be send that list. It will then make use of its integrated mod manager and see if it can find the content corresponding to those signatures. If it finds them all, let them join and do the usual mismatch checking, maybe they lied. ;)
    But if the client fails to find some content and the server has downloadable content enabled - yes there are people considering that - it would send the list of signatures it is missing to the server. The server sends the missing components, client installs them and joins.

    Don´t tell me that it is not possible in such or a similar manner, because in the First Person Shooter genre that is commonplace, see a server in the list, download the map if you don´t have it, join.

    Yours repetitively,
    Marcus
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 13, 2013

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