Is rf2 too difficult? [lack of online players / leagues struggling]

everybody cries for more people getting into rf2 and as u see them come you have to close your servers because 80% of them are a bunch of ex-driving-legends-zombies. nowadays people know everything and doesn't have to learn anything at all didn't you know that?
game reviews are the samekind there are simply no simracers reviewers for simulations. i mean simulations are a niche market everywhere because they are difficult and afford a lot of time and knowlage to be putten into. and if you are a simracers you simply wouldn't tell people to buy games instead of simulations, because u gonna try to explain to everybody how real its gonna be today and how awesome its in your opinion. thats what i usually say when people try to talk to me about games. and iam playing computer games for 25 years now on diffrent systems so i got a bit of knowlage about games over the years. and honestly games today suck so much in every aspect except for graphics to games beyond the year 2000.

and you will remember this when the marketing kicks off and the sales go up . i mean we still have to see it positive because there are still 20% of people who maybe gonna stay and put some time into this stuff and the community starts to grow. but over the years i really appreciate quality over quantity. i had more fun on servers with 6 people on the grid taking it serious than 25 starters where just 5 people finished the race.

and trying to get public servers running and watched the most time u still can get your casual racers. like someone mentioned above with iracing, its easy like oh i got 2 hours of time i can do some racing and just join a server. if you get some decent public racing going with the usual suspects dropping in for a good 20 minutes race its what people attracts too at some point. the simracers not the public crashers and u can always warn em, kick em and ban em out of YOUR place.

 

Its all relative of course but to me rf2 is too difficult to be a trainingtool for casual drivers. many of them might be going arcade because its just not fun enough soon enough.

 

I can see how the Youtube channels will be the 'next' porthole to new members but directing non sim racers who may like to give it a go surely must be done by more conventional advertising mediums, .. I have a couple of RL race drivers at work who had no idea about how good simracing is until I showed them a few youtube clips, they are now aiming at joining the clan. They have never watched a ISR episode or where even aware of it or similar genre shows .That tells me that while youtube makes for a good pamphlet the postman needs to shout out his wares first..

 

denstjiro

I think I understand your view point, casual drivers don't really need much of "a training tool"
as they are "casual" , however dosnt rf2 already try and accommodate them by offering a lot of aids?

I've never tried any of the aids (even in rf1 after 5 years+ of use ) but I'm assuming they dumb things down for people that don't really want much depth of physics etc or want to practice as much as casual experience

in any case if they are casual and they select a simulator (as appose to an arcade style title) then what should they expect?
(although surely with all or most aids on there must be appeal even for them even if they are very casual?)

any given title can't be applicable to everyone

 

I know I know. but the way our league works is that we have always actively coached new drivers, no matter how noobish or old or whatever and tried to turn them into at least consistent and safe drivers so they could have fun.
And when you open a server you have to accept a certain level of incidents, weirdness, etc. but at least some of them will stick.
But not these days. that's the difference.

Tru dat brah.
Although between you and me, it might also be the age factor. if you a gamer for so long after a while nothing excites you anymore, seen it all, done it all. and indeed, its all the same bs with better graphics.
But don't forget, we are not their audience, 15 year old's are and they don't have our history so are easily hyped.

You are right of course, with a bit of luck rf2 will survive, new blood poors in, new leagues are created, all is well.

But by then my league will be dead, and so will allot of other communities, and that's the current discussion. I don't wanna die man!

Have to say, fun with 6 people, I have to agree. and that's what our members say as well. the fun is there regardless of grid size so might as well. and we do. But its just not enough to justify a championship imo. maybe 10 drivers, possibly 7, in round6 perhaps only 4. round9 10 driversagain. that's no way to run a championship and keep people exited.
We had that in our last rf1 championships, it was just boring because nothing to fight for as everyone skipped races left and right, turning up only when they felt like, no pressure, no gains. yet admins are still required to put in a ****load of time, stewards are expected to review every race. pointless. and not to mention a good way to get rid of your admins because its pretty disheartening seeing lots of work go down the drain.

 

ISR directed me into become an Iracing member in 2011 & then as a result 6 of my friends (fellow PC sim pals who visit my house to see what's going on),
those little ads do promote curiosity & give promotional coverage

assuming ISR is as popular now as it was then I can't see that this powerful advertising medium ( as a YouTube/podcast show etc ) has changed as an influence in sim racing.

iacing now claim to have 40k (or is it now 50k) members I think it it was 35k when I joined around 3yrs ago

when rfactor 2 is ready, ISI should advertise & promote the hell out of it
though blitzing YouTube with vids ( with res & graphic details turned up )
& perhaps slots on ISR & continued Facebook posts when ever possible

 

denstjiro

your leagues ethics sound really good, but I think to early right now for your league to reap deserved rewards
(good healthy influx & regular quality attendance )

until after that time ...well see my above post

 

Well I try to view it from their perspective.
First of they did not buy an arcade game, they bought a sim. so I think not many would want to even allow themselves to go easy onnit. why by a simulator and then not simulate? we are boys after all, with ego's. even when alone in our basement.

Heck, I had a friend over a few years ago, her daughter was a bit bored and wanted to play games. she was too young for any of my violent games so I loaded up rf1 for her. I tried to be helpful and activated all kinds of aids for her so she could get used to it but she asked me right away to turn it off because it was doing stuff she didn't want to do (steering/braking, etc)
I believe she was 11 years old.
all over the place of course, I laughed in her face over her utter noobness (and then she kicked me) but it just go's to show what people in general do with aids. they think its for noobs, no1 thinks he's a noob....


I don't think aids make it that more easy though, only a bit.
But even with aids, if people join a server, they get wiped away completely in rf2. 10 second difference on a 47 second lap in Karts. so what do they do? they start to overdrive (not even realizing aids makes them slower) and making it worse.

Besides, how many people know about the F-buttons?

 

Another thing that has to happen and this can't enforced by users at present is that the tracks and mods released are their own little entities. No one takes credit for them, no one sets up their getmod URL's even if Noel Hibbard has setup a service for them to use. If that was all in place then Getmod will get them in the door and the GetMod URLs will stop them hunting all over the web for download links for these tracks. The user trying to join these servers shouldn't have to work that hard. Nor should a server admin have to sacrifice a car mod and track selection that fit well together.

What I am saying is that, there needs to be mandatory fields when compiling a mod. If you have no getmod address or don't enter an author, you can't make that mod, simple as that. At the moment we are in rF2's infancy and I can expect many confused with the system along with myself. But in order to increase other people's path into rF2, we need to take some responsibility.

I even thought I could pull apart some of those tracks to add a getmod so people wouldn't have to go hunting, but no such luck. I remember rF1 being bombarded with track after track, car after car of things converted then just let loose, no pride had in their work at all.

Over the coming weeks I will be compiling some How to's and trying to get some information to form a wiki of sorts to answer some of the main questions and queries that stop people enjoying rF2. Any help with this is appreciated.

 

I'm all for that Woodee. beam me up when ready.

 

Yes I agree Adrian but for new joiners, ie. those that are unaware of simracing altogether, a strong advertising campaign on various mediums needs to be implemented .This is the sort of advertising that's currently lacking..ISR is preaching to the converted to a degree..

 

I have participated in mini championship about 6weeks ago racing the Civic, but sadly there was a lot of lag and and we had to stop that mini championship!
Now I don't have much time to join o to make long leagues, but I would like to make some single event likely with the Civic, Clio, Megan and why not, the URD mod, but I can't find any server!
One thing that I don't like is the too many servers with password(private server) and sadly this doesn't help people to find or join league or event!

 

[MENTION=1]Tim Wheatley[/MENTION] If your looking for exposure in some more mainstream gaming press then @drewscanlon of giantbomb.com would love RF2. For the last half a year he's been getting into sim racing (iracing) and if you were to talk nerdy some of RF2 tech stuff (how rubber gets laid down from tires etc) i'm 100% they'd do something with it on their site.

 

People that are interested in a true simulation experience will find a home in a true simulation title

Those who are not will not, it's that simple ,

Advertising is important though when the time is right ( in rf2's case -at the correct stage of development )
If its done correctly it should prove fruitful

 

TeamVVV.com does weekly round ups of simracing news... rF2 is commonly mentioned.

 

There is also the thing with the UI.
As I was modding the UI my target was to make all the main menu points always available. I managed to do that.
Then once I was about to go online so I fired up the multiplayer. I was about to change the settings for the GFX then I noticed all the menu points there which I have left for the single player and all of sudden I was able to race offline also. Race was over and I was again able to switch in the UI from single player to the online server list. Something was not right tho, if I remember correctly I was only able to use the vMod for single player which I have had in the last multi player race.

However what I have noticed there is the fact that I would go way way more often online if it would be possible to switch from the single player UI immediately to the online server list. I was always just switching over there just to see if people are racing and what they are racing.

But as it is now I really do not fire up the multi player just to see what's going on and if there is probably something what I would like to join. I just do it when I know that some people are on this server at this time cuz of a league race or practice sessions.

So I am pretty sure optimizing the user interface so that we do not have actually two game modes but just one where you can switch between each other just with one menu point would increase the online traffic significantly.

 

You'll notice on their last round-up, only we provided video. Everyone else had a still image.

 

I've come in to this thread a bit late and have a lot to read. Just reading a few posts so far there is so much I'd like to quote from.
We read ISI should advertise:
PC performance needed;
To realistic;
Leagues and new drivers;

My take on it. I don't race anymore. I love to build the things you all want to use. The cars.
Ok so off that list.
ISI didn't need to advertise rF1 that much that I remember. It grew by word of mouth and people tired of console games. Leagues and friend that love racing found their way to rFactor from many other games. PC racing is in reality a small section of what we call gamers. Most like the role play, blood and guts shoot 'em ups over racing. This small group would already be well aware of rF2.

PC Performance; For me! Yes it is a issue. I have a Win7 64bit, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 16 GB Ram and a GeForce GTX Ti GPU. I can and do have 3D Max, Photoshop CS3, Paintshop Pro 6 64 bit + either iTunes or Power DVD 9 running a movie all at the same time and it doesn't miss a beat. Oh and I have Firefox internet browser open all the time as well.
rF2 makes it scream! With 7 cores it screams. I turn two off and it's more tolerable but I can't handle the noise and lower graphics for to long.

To Realistic; Well people if that's the case tho I really doubt it then you got what you asked for. We read so many post about getting it as real as a PC can make it, We want, We want!!! Well now is the time to pay the piper. Personally I don't see this as the reason for the lack of people using rF2.

Leagues and new drivers; Leagues to start with. My personally experience with a few different leagues are that the people are always fantastic. Always there for just a chat if that's what your into. The racing was always very good because we all were there for the same reason, the love of racing and not just a AI race you get/got from console games. Cause this has changed a lot now and there is a new generation of racing game out there now.

New drivers; Now this is "all" on rF2. It's find, it's great once your on track, but personally and I know off so many others, "Hate" the crap that surrounds it.

Now one area that I haven't read from any posts. Not to say it hasn't been mentioned, Just I haven't seen it.
Cars; The Choice of cars is crap. Old 60s stuff are just that, old. The racing community is small now. These things have a very much smaller group interest in them.
GT Cars are better, yes but the ones in rF2 are poor at best in graphic quality. Can't totally blame the builders, the engine has to take some responsibility for that. The HDR system can also take some blame but mostly it's real poor mapping and RTT on all the texture that can bare the most blame. Textures are rough at best. What hope dose the engine have when dealing with this.

Cars; Lack of series, Just one car at a time and not comparable in looks or performance to another is lame. Formula 3. Formula 2, Forumula BMW are fine to have one model fits all but then people are wanting real world liveries. Not the lame looking things that we are seeing on the cars.

Modding;
Ok so model cars and add them. Yes, agree. Tho it's not as easy as that now is it! We have people out there that think, And I say "think" they can produce a car from model to physics and in game on their own! Well I say your full of it! Sure you can do it all but don,t call it great or even good! Please, your just kidding yourself. It takes a team, A team that is made up of people that specialize in there area to build a great working car let alone a series.
I know people that used to do physics for rF1 that are struggling with rF2 when others are working it out but their not 3D modellers, 2D artists, Track builder! Just physics. I guess the use of the word "Just" in there is down playing the truth of what is really involve in make a PC fool you into thinking your driving a car, It's a art form in itself.

Modding still; Getting the cars into rF2 is also a bigger pain then it's ever been before. With rF2, like so many other program these days is so full of what we all know of as "Bloat Ware" All that so call stuff that's better! Better for who I ask? In rF2's case it's the dev-mod. All the Mas files needed to run in the main game is bloat ware that is maybe compressed in the packaging folder then we load all that into the game it's.
"Off Topic" Sorry.
Dev-mod "is not!" what you see when you load the same materials into the main game. All the Alpha setting, whether for reflection or transparency is screw up when all that packaging is done so it can be tested in the main game side of it. It's a crap system and is the vain of all modders that used to mod for rF1, All the SimBin titles and others. Most if not all using the ISI gmotor2 graphics engine.

To the point, rF2 is boring because it lacks good high quality content and it's to full of bloat ware that most of us hate in the normal programs we all use let alone bringing it to our sim games!

V-mod, RfMods all that other, you need to download this and that crap before you can race just confuses and frustrates the laymen to the point were they can't be bothered with it. I'm no laymen and I can be bothered with it. It's all league orientated but the leagues are the least ones that need it!

 

too many "sim racing" softwares on the market maybe and too much fragmented community , but im not sure if "much" more is better or should be many

and i think is missing some series from the 90 or 80´s, better both

 

Hmm... what about stop writing books in here and join a server?