In October Studio 397 announced that the new HTML competition based UI (similiar to iRenting) was in private beta testing. Since then although I read every months update news, there is no mention of it whatsoever. It is as though it has been place on the backburner. What gives? I hope the devs can answer my query quickly. This game is still stagnant and will remain so until people are drawn to the multiplayer experience. We do not need time wasted on a new HUD while the UI is still not released. If Studio 397 puts up a poll on how important having people to play in multiplayer is, they will find it is a big selling point to most as well as to drawing in new customers. Something must also be done with AI only races (almost all of them) showing up in the server list when one has the "has players" box checked. AI are not players and I am sure I am not the only one miffed; having to download new mods, tracks and cars just to find all in the server were AI!. This particular problem needs rectifying now a.s.a.p. I know of many who have left the game out of frustration over this. Couple it with a ghost town multiplayer lobby surely equals low sales. Mark
I must admit that having complementary information on the new UI (and thus also the final HUD + the competition interface), in particular to have a small idea of the release period, would be really pleasant. And we do not ask the time, the day, the week .... just is that if all is well, we will have it in 2 months, 3 months, etc ? @Marcel Offermans Dear Marcel, yes we are impatient, but it's good because we love RF2 and your work.
I don't think we can expect ANY time frame until it's a lot closer to completion/final testing, which is fair enough. But I believe it is coming and not been put on the back burner. It's just a massive undertaking that S397 want to get right. Personally I have it on a huge pedestal hoping it will bring all my Sim racing dreams to fruition... No pressure folks
That's my "most wanted" feature, that will bring rF2 to another level, but yes, let's just be patient, i'm sure they're working on it to be the pinnacle of simracing UI
I just wanted to further add that my initial post was not meant to insult Studio 397. The steady stream of improvements to the game has been impressive and rewarding. Thank YHWH that fFactor2 exists. The competition is not competition at all. Let the kiddies enjoy their bling bling graphics and shellac shiny roads on Arcade Cars 2. The true hardcore sim racers know this is the best sim by a huge landslide over the other offerings.
I would change an entire year of updates, online subscripition for 3 months and new ui just for a single player championship mode I think when they do it you people will never see me again here (hey s397, take that as motivation)
the IA and the solo championship are for me far behind, the most important is the race system (competition) online! 1-online (the ui will be included in it i think) 2-stabilité et performance VR 3-tracks and cars series 3-polishing graph (detail) solo,IA,etc 4-polishing graph (detail, gum off trajectory, dust, smoke, debris etc. ..) but the studio 397 knows it very well, do not forget we are lucky that Marcel and other dev are also players! #big team
The actual UI is ugly, not friendly, sucks in general but it works. Championship mode...well, maybe in another thread edit: btw, is it possible that studio 397 release new UI or champioship mode for single player as DLC?
What should S397 concentrate on next? That answer will be as different as the number of drivers in the game. But it deos remind me of a conversation I was having with a friend recently. I recently picked up Fallout 4 VR (A single player RPG in VR). I have been playing quite a bit of it since. A few nights ago I got on my TS server and had a chat with my friend. He asked what I was doing and I told him "playing Fallout 4 VR". He asked what game is that. I explain that it is a post apocalyptic first person RPG. He says that he doesnt understand how people play single player games. He says that he only enjoys playing with and against other people. This conversation made me think of my feelings toward rF2. I don't understand how people can only be interested in single player (AI) races. I enjoy racing against real people. Getting a good pass against a person feels awesome, accidentally bumping a real person brings a feeling of shame and and a post race apology. Defending against a real person makes me sweat and shake. None of this happens when I race against AI. When I see YT videos of people driving against AI they almost always end up running into the rear and side of the AI racers. The drivers take advantage of the AI's predictable behavior in a way that they could not in a race against real players. (at least not without having to give an apology or get an earful after the race. I don't understand the appeal of the AI race. BUT Other drivers find the AI race to be compelling. This means that S397 need to continue to develop for the single player as much as they need to finish the New UI and Competition structure. The new UI and competition structure need more work to bring them to realization but it is not the only thing that s397 needs to work on. I understand all of this and have to continue to be patient for the anticipated and announced changes. But the anticipation is hard to handle when I want the changes ASAP. I am sure S397 are working as hard as they can on getting the changes out to us as quickly as is practical. They have alot of work ahead. The move to DX11 was a massive undertaking and is still not completed. The new HUD (Using the existing technology) is probably unnecessary given the plethora of HUDs on the workshop. Those efforts can be better used elsewhere, unless the updated HUD is building toward the New UI and competition structure in some way. Since I am not privy to S397's inner workings I cant say one way or the other if this is the case. Imagine S397 releasing a partially completed new UI and competition structure. There would be egg on their face given the amount of time and hype given to this particular project. Let them complete it before releasing it. But please S397 don't pull resources away from this project if you don't have to. This is a big deal for many of us.
It doesn't make any sense to develope and maintain two different games within one. There must be good reasons for delaying the release of the new UI. Most likely some important problems were found in the betatesting phase and are probably being addressed. However, I found it frustrating when one of the main topics that has been commented in almost every single roadmap and was supposed to be released during 2017, magically disappears from January roadmap. Maybe @Marcel Offermans or @Christopher Elliott could throw some lines about it...
A very good post that I won't go into the details of why AI vs Humans (that's for another thread) but on the Championship Mode for Offline, the way I see it - and I think S397 hinted at this - is it will be available for both Online & Offline to work seamlessly, so whilst it will benefit Leagues it can be used for AI as well.
Glad to know and if you say it, i believe it. I dont understand about technical issues for doing some like this and thats why i asked I hate humans Especially the younger ones. They are usually faster than me. Plus, since rf2 online is not the most populated sim (to be fair,except from iracing from what i´ve heard, none is) i end up choosing mods combos (car/track) i don´t like much or don´t usually pratice when using offline. And offline without a championship mode, practicing on combos i will hardly find online is kind of pointless. I tried Assetto Corsa and Automobilista. Great graphics, great performance and great ffb but I don´t know really why, i still prefer rf2. Maybe is the real road. Even i don´t have the technical capability to tell the diference
I hope it happens. Online racing in all sims (except iRacing) happens because forum admins make it happen, yet there is 0 effort from devs to make their lives easier. It sucks things need to be complicated, we need to look for plugins to do basic stuff, need to type commands while you drive, etc. Things need to change, need to be easier for other people to replace a retiring admin. I started racing online for exact points @Depco made, especially the AI being predictable, no matter how good it is when you notice a pattern you start using them without even noticing. And I always had the AI in a level hard enough for me to have to work hard to get into a top 10, was still boring. In rF2 AI case is easy: force a pass on the outside, they slow down for no reason
So the short answer to this discussion is that we are indeed still working on the new UI. Delays were caused by a few reasons. Partially tester feedback, partially things we decided to change and some reasons we won't discuss in public. The good news is that we are still working hard on completing it and we will provide a more extensive update in the upcoming roadmap. There is no cause for concern. It is not cancelled, we have not run into roadblocks, if anything our planning might have been too optimistic.