If anyone is so worried about the number of users online... How much time do you spend in online servers? Do you hang out by yourself waiting for people to come in? Are you polite and helpful to those who do? answering questions and such? Have you built a league and bought a server? Do you have a teamspeak? Ventrilo? Website? Do you have a series that you run and a schedule? Have you built anything for the community? You can buy ads all day long and you can review anything you want, but if you want to help, if you want people to be online in the MP arena... You'll have to spend time in the servers so that when people come in for the first time they have someone around. and then you'll have to offer them a community to hang out in. Until you do that? You're not helping. A few guys in my league, quite a few, act like there is something wrong with rF2... It doesn't have this car or that, it's too this or that... But in reality, a lot of them can't run it on their old PC's. They can run rF1... NR2003 and iRacing2003. And they do. They won't upgrade until there is reason for them to and that reason will be when they feel it offers more than what they have now in way of nightly races. Hundreds of people still run NR2003... Hundreds... More people are running it than are on iRacing. So, if you want to help... Instead of telling ISI to advertise, why don't you do one of the things listed, share the system on your channels, and stop racing old stuff... Because you're just enabling those old timers to stick with their old games.
For what I know, I-Racing on line racing is professionally managed (people who manage it are paid for that task). Client/server applications require a perfect control of what you do both at the server end, as at the client end. In RF2 the client end is open, and everyone may have a different PC and RF2 configuration. It requires an awful lot of knowledge and time to run a successful league, some RF2 leagues are run very efficiently by amateurs (even if having high IT skills, they are not paid to do so), some are run not so efficiently by people who cannot devote more time than they actually do. RF2 is the most advanced sim on the market, and so requires more skills and time to be proficient than simpler sims, reducing the number of potential racers. As usual, I may be wrong. Cheers.
I don't disagree with any of that lgel. I was thinking more of the game experience in ir, it is nothing but a pimple on RF2's buggy arse, in regards to the physics and general game experience. Yet that's the sim all aliens take seriously, its all about the competition.
All this is ubsurd... some of us do all the above and then some more. Hardtohandle does too. People in my league are not complaining about rf2, they are complaining about less and less people on line. I wonder if you are from another planet really. When rf2 started there were probably ten times more random players around, you could easily see this when you entered an empty room and did some laps there would be guys coming in and join. Funny thing was that we were complaining then, we thought that there should be more people around with all these servers. Nowdays you can stay in that empty room for ages and nobody joins. Only place I can find people is inside our own server where we come to find eachother but always in sinle digit numbers, if we are more than five we feel like having a party. Ok, maybe ISI doesnt need advertising, maybe wait till the skies rain people.
I tried going to the ISI servers but the build was old the first time, then it was updated but the content wasn't. Really wanted to lap those DW12s at Indy RC.
When RF2 started PCars, R3E & AC were yet to be be born, I remember discussions when they came out about "fragmenting the community" and it's happened to some degree. Unfortunately the downside to having a great choice of games is the fact that players will be spread around even more, then factor (again pun intended!) in the variety of Mods/Tracks and that fractures it once more as people see the Matchmaker list and think "What I want to race isn't on there". Maybe there simply isn't enough Sim/Game Racers out there to be spread around all these games, anyone thought of that? It sure is a niche market from the start and a fraction of what the First Person Shooter market is like, maybe its time to realise (all of us) that this is the way it is and no amount of online reviews will have that much of an effect. It's got nothing to do with version numbers, as has been said RF2 came out of Beta in 2013 (massive uproar IIRC!) and has been and will always be an ever evolving product with no definite "Gold" or "V1" status to be set. When ISI decide it's time to pull the plug and move on then that will be the day that RF2 will (unlikely) receive any more updates, so if you want to call that moment "V1" even though it may well be Build999 or Build2034 then go ahead, but in reality it's just a number.
Thats one way of seeing this, it maybe is right, maybe not. The other way is that when rf2 came out, people explained the lack of online players with the fact that rf1 leagues were fully running with success and there was reluctance of people changing an already succesfull platform. Next it was the excuse that modders didnt produce enough mods to satisfy the needs of people. Well, after 3 years I personally dont mind racing the same jewels, Eve F1 and Lola T280, cars that were undreamed of at rf1. Maybe not enough people to go around but more and better advertisement wouldnt hurt anyone. As for me, I bought RF2 when I saw these videos of Eve going round Spa, after I read all previews/reviews that were out by then.
v1.255 is technically speaking way past v1.0. rF1 was updated as recently as few months ago, Steam release added extended controller support, lower FOV values etc... many fixes, so I don't know what you mean by 1.0. Before that it was updated last year with Windows 8 support. That google link provides no proper reviews, just the same ones I've mentioned. Two text reviews written for beta version in 2012/2013, lackluster ISR video review in 2014.
You don't know what I mean? You don't remember what you just wrote? So you're too young to remember when rFactor passed 1.0 huh? You don't remember 1.0.4.0 or 1.0.5.0? or 1.2.5.0? And you've already read all 900,000 of those pages huh? Either you're a speed reader or Methinks you just like to whine. You said they never went to 1.0 in rF1... And I said they did. That's what version numbers are for... They don't just put them there for looks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#/media/File:VersionNumbers.svg It's talking about beta... this is beta. this is not final... did you see the release version? People rushed into rF2 and didn't realize it was "Beta" so they left. It's not done yet... I started building a stock car mod before one could be done, but I was more testing the modding. I realized it was as far as I could go after I made my tires and so I waited. And it's still not ready... SO I wait. (and email Tim and beg) But I don't whine... and tell them they need to advertise so I'll have someone to play with. Go recruit if you want to play with someone. Star Citizen has raised 90 million dollars and it's been 3 years... they've released jack... things take time and ISI is much smaller than it used to be. Ok...
Thats what I'm talking about, now we can change the thread title to Kristoff's Rant. Problems with rF2 or not, the biggest problem is the lack of users, and you can throw it at ISI or merely to the community who finds the learning curve too steep (technically too gradual considering how the learning curve works in practise), point being, it's a discussion about the fact, not about who has the right to say that outloud. Personally, rF2 has become the go to AI racing game, with awesome features like the safety car, rain, out standing physics and AI, the whole package just screams immersion and most realistic racing experience that can be had in a sim. Content and feature finalization is what I would like to see the most from ISI/modders.
You really need to understand the term "constantly evolving product", but believe as you wish as it obviously affects you so much Another good point, no more are racing sims simply "pick up and drive" when you have the in depth tire model mixed with Read Road mixed with higher quality physics of the cars. It takes a lot to learn and tame some of them, Skippy for example...a bitch at the start and takes time and maybe that's another thing that puts people off, well tough for all I care if they haven't got the time to learn then this clearly isn't the game for them, simple really!
Rfactor2 's main issue with smaller numbers online, is not review related...although that would not hurt. I believe it's partially due to the difficulty in identifying usable public servers...coupled with the difficulty in knowing what content is needed beforehand to join them. I love what ISI is doing with the sim in terms of development, but that issue is my number one gripe. It is primarily for that reason I have not renewed the online subscription. I got to use online racing, very little in the past year. The lack of use meant I was not getting value for that particular portion. I never seemed to have the needed content for most servers....which usually comprised of multiple cars and tracks...none of which were being used for the session. My slow download speed meant that by the time I got what was required, the racing was over. Pretty sure others are experiencing the same. I actually noted once. I'd selected fifteen servers....(no exaggeration) before I found one I could actually join.
You are right about the general numbering principle, but I don't think those numbers meant anything for rF1 (ISI could confirm). 1.040 most likely simply means build 1040, etc, same naming principle as in rF2. Besides 1.255 was the one that went on DVD and not 1.0 something, at 1.000 stage rF1 was not even close to ready. Soon we will have build 1000 in rF2, you might as well consider that 1.0, but it means nothing in ISI world other than build number.
Way too many servers have password, you can't run and have fun with some league folks. The place I joined has open servers that are only passworded before league events take place so people can join and see if they like the car and track combo, and maybe join the league. And we have the stupid naming, the first dozen or two dozens servers have that sh*tty naming system which I instantly dismiss.
Every company puts their own little twist on version numbers, but it's pretty standard operating procedure in the business. View attachment 17468
But they have no need to know what content is needed. they just get it when they hit join... It names the track, the vehicle, the name of the server and then it downloads everything for you...
What you described only happens IF the server is set up properly to do the downloading. I cannot tell you how many servers I've tried to access in the past year, where one or two components downloaded fine.... and then the 'failed to download all components' message popped up for the remainder. I finally gave up trying to join online sessions and tried racing off-line. Great as the AI is, that was not satisfying for me (I like racing human opponents). I've temporarily suspended RF2, It's not even installed at this point...but I remain optimistic this issue will work itself out.
Was suppose to be about the rFactor2's lack of exposure in the gaming media, what might that mean for an average user and rF2 community as a whole... and of course how the measurements of various quantities are relative to the velocities of observers.
