rF2 vs rF1 online activity

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by stonec, Aug 10, 2015.

  1. peterchen

    peterchen Registered

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    There is much truth in all this things written here and it has been discussed in all it´s glory several times here.
    - fail-decisions like don´t having good gfx from the beginning
    - online-fee-pay-method is indeed not the best idea
    - no complete series (including tracks)
    - no documentation (besides some modding papers, which are also incomplete?)
    - bad marketing (what wouldn´t had made sense anyway, because of...
    - slow speed of development
    - all in all too ambitious project with too less people
    - no "plan B" when modding doesn´t kick in
    - no ISI-server (most of the time)
    - we are now already at a point where rF2 can give a good experience "out of the box"

    That are the major problems, not?

    Crowdfounding sounds nice, but who on earth would give the money, besides you? The average pcars-gamer? Not really....
     
  2. David Wright

    David Wright Registered

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    On- line videos are a red herring. AC and pCARs had to establish a new brand so the publicity probably helped but rFactors brand was established. What evidence is there that rf1 owners have not switched to rf2 because there are not enough on-line videos?

    One problem is rf2 fans who have switched from rf1 are not the best placed to understand those who haven't. And when those who haven't try to explain, the explanations are shot down because the reasons don't fit the pre- conceived ideas.
     
  3. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    additions to that list:

    - Lack of people playing RF2 anyway due to so much choice in other Sims including rF1 from the start
    - People not willing to learn how to set up cars properly with Real Road (i.e. Hotlappers dont want to move on and yes I've heard this!)
    - Difficulty in learning cars and tracks with vastly improved tire model & physics over rF1 turns casual racers off
    - Addition to the above point, the Time it takes to learn a car, Skippy for example is not just a "jump in and drive" car
    - Choice of other games to play, people quickly forget that not all Sim Racers play solely Sim Racing games!

    Just playing Devils Advocat, as it's not always ISIs fault ;)
     
  4. B1K3R

    B1K3R Registered

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  5. Damian Baldi

    Damian Baldi Registered

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    Yes, everybody used to download and play illegal copies. I bought it, because I wanted to race online races on open servers.
     
  6. Diogo Oliveira Falcão

    Diogo Oliveira Falcão Registered

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    Well, Reiza Studios managed to achieve USD100.000. We all know that license costs a alot, so why not make a poll so people can choose the content and pay for it?
    I already paid like 200USD on RaceRoomExperience, I would be more than glad to help ISI.

    We can't count on modding, we know how complex is to create something from scratch and takes a lot of time since most modders are just a bunch of friends.
    rF2 is already the best racing plataform, in fact the only complete racing sim in my opinion. AC don't even have pit stops... lol... RaceRoom you can't choose fuel quantity... and several other missing features that we have already.

    Does anybody knows if ISI ever thought about crowdfund?
     
  7. Jamie Shorting

    Jamie Shorting Registered

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    ad hominem attacks are the norm around here. Welcome. ;)
     
  8. Jamie Shorting

    Jamie Shorting Registered

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    Crowdfund what?

    This thread is funny because I see names here saying "the game is great but nobody plays it" yet they bash the game severely outside of this forum. You want pickup races and such in rF2? Tell your online friends, real friends etc to buy the damn game and stop saying "it sucks" every chance you get. It's pretty damn simple actually.
     
  9. B1K3R

    B1K3R Registered

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    I don't have friends :D
     
  10. Domi

    Domi Registered

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    So if you tell your friends to jump out of the window, they will?
     
  11. Diogo Oliveira Falcão

    Diogo Oliveira Falcão Registered

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    I think rF2 should have more content, that's why... is the only problem we have. I really like rf2, to the point that I stopped playing iRacing, R3E, AC, GSCE.
    C'mon guys, if we want this sim to grow and improve even more, we need to help ISI with our feedback, even if it hurts the fanboys.
     
  12. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    But therein lies another problem, the already fragmented community strewn about countless other Sim titles becomes even more fragmented with even more content. You'll get more online servers with more differenmce in content and just the same numbers floating about, doesn't solve anything. If anything a Sim is better off with little content so people have something to stick at and race with and everyone has a chance of racing against each other, besides who here has the time to race 10 cars on 25 different tracks each week?..actually I do 'cos I'm unemployed (!!) but the majority don't due to time constraints, you throw more content at them won't help at all.

    And as I said earlier, cars are harder to master due to advanced tire models & physics, time is of the essence, a Sim with less content would probably have more online racers....kinda wish ISI just did the NASCAR from the start!
     
  13. hariseldon

    hariseldon Registered

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    Actually the issue of lack of participation is a lot simpler than people think in some ways. Yes we can certainly blame the infrastructure not being right, content, etc, but actually when it comes down to it the problem is exactly the same as the problems faced by some series on iRacing. Namely, if no-one's racing, no-one will race.

    An obvious example is the Corvette C6R on iRacing. It's been dying on its arse for ages, then iRacing released another GT1 car for it to race against and it suddenly had enough people racing to maintain good numbers. You have to hit critical mass. Series that don't do that struggle, and some look like they may die entirely (see the Radical - multiclass with the HPD won't save it).

    If ISI want to build numbers, then quite simply it will need to get numbers to critical mass first, after which they'll be self-maintaining. To achieve critical mass will require some hard decisions to be made, but perhaps things like fixing the UI, offering free weekends to lapsed subscribers, actually promoting the damn sim, making it possible to see the schedule of a given server in the matchmaker so you know what will happen when you join, some proper bloody filtering, etc will help. We all know leagues are where it's at but we need pick-up to work because where do you think new drivers will start learning their trade? No new drivers means no recruitment for your leagues. So league admins, bug ISI to improve things, and ISI please make the new user experience better. You've come a long way but there's still plenty more to be done.
     
  14. unknwn

    unknwn Registered

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    I think lack of marketing has a large impact on this. Some discounts would be also nice.
    I was hesitating to buy RF2 for a long time and while buying it I thought of it as the best racing physics showcase that I will drive much less than other sims (lack of content, lack of people in MP).
    Also I think lifetime license is a bit pricey so I bought license with 1year MP access and I don't think I ll be renewing it if things don't change.

    Actually buying lifetime license doesn't make sense from my perspective. I have no idea if I will have any interest in RF2 for upcoming 5 years or more. During that time politics of ISI could change (prices,discounts,steam?), maybe even a new title will emerge, not to mention competitors who seem move at faster pace.

    Why would I buy lifetime MP license if online activity is very low? I suspect others also might thought alike which puts in a closed loop situation in the end leaving with low numbers of people who have access to MP.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 11, 2015
  15. Depco

    Depco Registered

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    +1. This.
     
  16. Guimengo

    Guimengo Guest

    If the EnduRacers mod comes out and is top notch, it can give a boost to endurance races. Remember the GTP mod days? That thing ruled online for years, used NR2003 copis sold for 4-6 times the price of a new copy until it was last available, and to this day NR2003 is used for online oval/Nascar racing. Before that we had GPL which offered a complete series and tracks right away.

    rF2 doesn't have a series outside of a couple of spec cars (Indy, F-Renault being prime examples and best cars). Tracks are even more sparse. However both areas are slowly improving and we will have endurance cars and GT series available before the year's end from free modding sources, and tracks, we might get a couple more ISI-backed releases before the end of the year. Having a few more big-name tracks will certainly help and hopefully rF2 scratch-made (or AC scratch-made and rF2 ported) tracks are added this year and by very early 2016 because that will dictate the future.

    Wishmaster's post (previous page) was good. No backtracking on promises = trust. rF2 is a good platform, I agree about graphics, that can't come soon enough because not only "shiny" brings attention, there's so much optimization available from the newer Dx platform that will allow the game to run much better. 64-bit wasn't planned, wasn't talked about but became a necessity. I'd love to be surprised with news of Dx11 being supported in the near future.
     
  17. stonec

    stonec Registered

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    Yeah rF2 relies too heavily on modding community to fix the missing pieces. It worked with rF1, it hasn't with rF2. The same will happen with stock car release. Few will keep interest in driving stock cars on just two or three ovals. The idea obviously was that modded ovals would be quickly released. But this is not happening without active and big community, and active community doesn't happen with the current exposure and progress rate of rF2 + the online subscription pricing which offers nothing, so it becomes a vicious circle.

    I don't think some graphics or UI improvement will be enough to change this trend, both have been done already this year and people still say the graphics & UI are bad although they are notably better now. I think only re-building the online connecting experience entirely (lobby+rfmod+autodownload) and offering reduced pricing for renewals would perhaps be enough to get the masses moving online. If this is not done, I doubt funding will be enough to push new licensed content to rF2 for many more years.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 11, 2015
  18. simforlife2

    simforlife2 Registered

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    I think I run much more realistic alloys servers crowded all the time, train to run on a weekend is much more real to run five races in one day so I think bull**** leave the simulator because of that, what is missing is track and finish part of rainfall
     
  19. Noel Hibbard

    Noel Hibbard Registered

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    I don't know. If you read some of the rF1 league forums you see them put up poles about switching to rF2 and it gets voted down because everyone is under the impression that their systems can't handle it. For some reason though, these same people casually screw around (I say screw around because they all admit the physics suck) in pCARS and AC without a problem. I think there is too much false information going around about rF2's requirements.

    Joining a properly hosted rF2 server with 3rd party content is easier than joining an AC server with 3rd party content. I really don't think the packaging system is slowing online use anymore. By now everyone has sucked it up and spent the time to actually figure out how to use it and realizes it isn't anywhere near as hard as it's made out to be.

    League admins take a ton of time away from the family. I think some of them just stick with rF1 simply because they know it and don't have a surplus of free time to waste learning new tricks. AC and pCARS are populated mostly with younger racers unlike the fan base rFactor1/2 has. You know what they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

    rF1 also has a TON of connect. With time rF2 will have as much content. But it will take time just like rF1 did. But the pace that content is coming out seems to be improving. It would also help if places like VR actually reported on all the WIP content. Back in the RFC days it was easy to follow the progress of new content. Now the news is spread over a few forums.

    Back in the day when someone asked me about my simracing I would tell them I use a game called rFactor. I would then direct them to RFC rather than the ISI site. Mainly because the old rF1 page would turn you off instantly where as RFC sucked you in when you saw the number of cars and tracks that were available.

    It seems there isn't a single correct answer for why the participation is lower. But I really think with time it will improve.
     
  20. Noel Hibbard

    Noel Hibbard Registered

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    I know I always say that pickup racing sucks and you should just join a league but you're absolutely right. You have to start somewhere. I started off simracing off line just hotlapping. Then I started focusing on GTLRank. Then I got some of my real life racing friends into simracing with rF1 and started racing with them casually on monday nights on a private server I hosted. Then I wanted more compatittion so I started venturing off into public servers and wasn't very impressed until I stumbled on a Speedracin.com open server and did a few short races and had a blast. After that I started looking at the MM for league servers and started checking out their webpages (which isn't an easy task really) and finally found a league (SRRS) that fit my timezone. From there I was a league only racer. But in the end it was pickup racing that got me into a league. I later took over the SRRS league and we ran an open server on off nights for recruiting. We didn't pick up that many drivers that way but it was our main way of picking up drivers.


    Maybe a helpful tool for rF2 would be a better website for advertising your league. Some sort of database with times, schedules, rules, ect would help get people into organized racing. RFC used to have a database but it didn't work all that well.
     

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