This makes me really sad...I love rF2 but haven't raced in it for ages....why? Because I don't like offline racing, cannot commit to organized leagues etc.....ideally, I open rF2, find a quick race, join and have some fun... But no, you'd never find these types of quick races anymore in rF2. On the contrary, fire up AC or RE3 and there is always a quick race to join and vent some steam for half an hour. Yes, true, most times you'll find a crasher, but that's the risk you get with these quick races. None the less, on the whole, I get the doze I need... So I wonder, why? There are many empty rF2 servers, but I'd love to see people in quick races. Is there something we can do?
Difficulties to autojoin servers with new modded content, still reputation that product is in beta, no more ISI servers hosted(?), not much information about rF2 online outside ISI sites (no reviews, no wiki, etc), random gamers prefer to use platform like Steam, UI and graphics do not attract... Some possible reasons.
Yeah, i would also suggest to Tim to start doing the ISI offic servers again If it was too costly, we dont need as many, one historic and one modern would do i guess, the GT ones if i remember were the most popular
Official servers won't do much. Pickup racing is dead, deal with it I say. Of course these paranoid people going on and on about how RAM cheats is such a huge problem in rF2 probably doesn't help any either.
+1 for the official ISI servers. But more and more leagues are making the switch to rF2. We had an 8 hour race over the weekend and 38 teams started and at the end we only had 4 DNFs and that was due to wrecks. We had 5 rejoins due to lost internet connections. We have 65 teams signed up but capped this race to 40 because our 2 hour test race with 48 teams caused the server to crash a few times. For this race we disabled all plugins and it was rock solid. So maybe we can bump up our cap some for the next race. Here is the last 30mins of the race: Maybe as more leagues make the switch to rF2 some of these drivers will trickle over into some pickup racing.
I jumped in the lobby on Saturday, first found F3 Rookies well populated, but then later in the evening saw quite a few in one server and joined (a one track one mod vMod helps a lot) as the session progressed it filled up more... I wasn't planning on a pick up race but ended up in a 45 minute race with over 20, Not a single wrecker. Most enjoyable. As for leagues, I run in a few, some are scarcely populated (I blame car,mod and server/rules settings) but one I have just joined at SRP is over subscribed and full to bursting point.
I must be honest, another thing that would help would be if I could... 1. Search through the servers and see vehicle's allowed (not some free text field) 2. Also, what stage of the weekend the race is on 3. Or even better yet, if I join a server that has a race already in progress, be able to join as a ghost (ala-MX Simulator) (invisible to those racing, but I don't have to sit and stare at my screen, or find another server)
Are the official ISI servers no longer? I'd like to see several servers like Valter's done at Nords with all ISI cars and LiveRacers. For example, one for Loch Drummond, one for Sepang North, one for Tiger Moth and one for Interlagos.
All great ideas. Number 3 is already possible by joining the server as a spectator. Click the "Network Settings" button at the bottom right and enable spectator mod and then join the server. Not all servers allow spectating though.
Can I race (drive the track, obviously not expecting to form part of the standings) as a spectator? Sorry - I never even assumed that was possible (the name spectator is somewhat misleading then ;-)
I agree with Ashes that limited functionality puts people off, we need the ability to see and search by the settings each server is using from the lobby, things such as which car is being used, track, sessions enabled and lengths, current session, ping, these are the kind of things which make the whole process easier. If ISI made online mode much more functional and nicer to use then surely people would be more inclined to use rF2 over others to race online. I reckon the problem is also to do with server settings such as mods being used and session lengths as well as high pings. It seems nobody sets up simple megane or clio servers anymore, running a small amount of tracks and 20min races. The official servers were OK and definitely increased day to day pickup racing but they were repetitive because of only using one track per week, a circulation of 3 at least would be good. Also there was a ping problem for European players, having both EU and US official servers would help.
I wish we had a way to automate the join process. We have full access to the matchmaker data in Json format. So building a 3rd party server browser is super easy. But what good is a server browser if we can't launch the game from it.
Hmmm, yeah, true...so it's a combination of little things which keep the potential drivers away...... To be honest, I can't understand why ISI doesn't implement these little improvements which will have such a great impact on people using this sim. If they dont have the time, fine, but at least make some APIs available...with so many talented people here, I'm sure they will take these APIs to the max... Blah
At least they decided to make the new scoring and rules system an API and plugin. So we should have lots of flexibility. I am confident we will see some APIs for more stuff in the future. It seems there are way more plugin devs out there for rF2 then we had in rF1. So hopefully they will motivate ISI to give us more APIs. And they already have made tons of improvements in rF2 already. For example the weather APIs, replay timecode/camera control, ect ect.
I am 100% in agreement with the above statement....and I actually like RF2. I still believe ISI has the best approach on the marketing of this sim. I am however, disappointed in many aspects which limit online racing and are not directly tied to ISI. Why are servers allowed to have mods with multiple tracks included? It's become such a PITA to attempt to join online races. I'm actually spending most of my time these days, running AC online. It's much easier to join those. In 90% of the cases when I try to join RF2 online races, I end up spending massive amounts of time trying to download some missing component. The exception being F3 Rookies and one other ISR server. When I do get the component installed, the racers have already moved on. I'm starting to believe the online racing process is just as flawed as RF1.
I really liked when ISI servers offered official content and race configurations "quick race friendly". Even if empty at least one could at least be online, in the hope that someone jump in seeing life signs on the track. Now most of the time I try to look for some server, I'm unable to understand which car and track a server is running, and most of the time there is some component missing. It would be really nice if ISI would be interested in keeping them, and then able to make servers able to switch not only between tracks, but even between cars. So that the same server could be of interest for a larger share of players during the day.
This is what I mean..it's, 6:30PM CET here and I'm ready to relax a bit online.....so... Server list looks promising....a few servers I can join... ..NOT...I try server 1....missing content!!! ..then I try server 2.....missing content!!! Most other servers are LOCKED, others OLD VERSION or with 1, 2, 3 people....... My conclusion....I'm gonna jump on AC! Sorry, no disrespect here, but something needs to be done!!!
LOL, so you're not even bothering to download the missing content?!? It's that little button that says "Get Missing Components".