Is the isiMotor really what makes it's children titles not popular?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Amanda Santini, Sep 9, 2018.

  1. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    I don’t know how anyone could stand by a comment like the “isi powered titles are all flops”

    If it wasn’t for those early titles mentioned in the op, would sim racing even exist today, or should I say, would it have come this far.

    you could say isi have played a pivotal role in this genre, and those games were certainly not flops, maybe you could push for a case of them being flops, if you take an ignorant and biased view towards the outcome you want push.

    isi Powered titles are what made this genre imho
     
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  2. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    Every area in a sim matters, focusing on only one is always bad.
    The most realistic physic ever will sell nothing if run on command lines and 8 bit graphics.
     
  3. burgesjl

    burgesjl Registered

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    It's going to be difficult to not make this into a wall of text as a reply, but here goes...

    Firstly, we need to accept that the primary we experience driving a virtual car is with the visuals. We've got a limited amount of feedback from an FFB steering wheel, and some from the audio cues of screeching tires and engine revs, but we get our immersion from the graphics. (For the lucky few, they may have a motion rig but even that is a poor substitute for the actual g-force effects of a high performance racing car). Therefore, this is going to be the focus of any developments. On the one hand this is ensuring as many polygons as possible are displayed, therefore, maximum fidelity - the whole concept of LODs is not to improve the display, but to overcome limitations in hardware. Much effort has been spent on getting that up, stopping pop-in etc. The next phase is with shadows and reflections, which are still 'close approximations' until we get real ray-tracing. People experience the graphical world differently and in my case, I try to do everything possible to maximize the shadow fidelity because that gives me the best immersion. I'd love to try VR to get an even better sense of 'where you are in 3D space', and todays PCs and HMDs are still not really at the level we can all imagine it could be.

    Secondly, we also need to acknowledge the different audiences that are being targeted. We rF2 players are all-PC. We get the advantages of all the better peripherals - FFB wheels, DD wheels, specialized pedals etc, - due to the customization PCs allow. But there are vastly more people who play driving games and racing games on console than play PC games of that genre. What do they get out of it? The physics of games like GT or Forza are at best 'close approximations' to real world, and in many cases are patently not. And that seems to bother the players not one iota. I'd be fairly certain you could write a Forza-like game using the gMotor physics engine. So those games also include an 'ownership' part of having hundreds of 3D models of real cars for collection, or even fantasy cars that don't exist. They focus on graphics because that's what sells those games (as opposed to consoles like the Wii, which had different ways to interact for players that don't apply for simracers). Complaining about AC and PC1 for having shiny graphics, its a nonsense because those titles need to compete on consoles and are built to attract less-demanding users with what they want to get out of a driving/racing game. Same is true for the Codemasters F1 titles - not many people really want to drive a true F1 car, they've gone for the biggest audience possible who like to watch/stream it on TV for the 'lifestyle' elements.

    I remember having raced IndyCar Racing I and II for a long time, as 2D/3D blocky graphics. I found it amazing I could 'race' on close facsimiles of real-world tracks in real time. But I ran to the store to buy a 3dfx card when I could afford it, so I could experience better 3D graphics closer to real life. It was an exhilarating experience. Getting my first FFB wheel was also a revelation. But there's precious little new hardware devices being made and there's no chance of my getting a motion rig. We've got tracks laser-scanned accuracy today, amazing 3D model fidelity, real-time lighting etc. but in reality the driving experience hasn't much changed in 10+ years, since ISI did gMotor and iRacing released their sim. Improved tire models are at the edge of the experience and no-one with a controller is going to experience much of that.

    There's nothing about gMotor 1 or 2 that determined the success of failure of particular games based on them. I happen to think going with modding for all content was a massive mistake by ISI. The better and more successful games have fully licensed, high quality content. They've then added gaming modes (career, championship) to build a fantasy world around yourself. And finally we have online competition against real humans, which to date, has only been successfully done by iRacing (even GT and Forza haven't cracked that yet). ISI, SMS, Sector3, S397, Reiza and all the others have failed to develop that latter component and create proper esport racing. You only have to look at the success of games like PUBG and Fortnite to realize, graphics is only part of what can make a successful game; community and human interaction for those have trumped the graphics. At least with gMotor, we've got a decent physics base to start from. SMS and Kunos are catching up to it. But it isn't going to be the determinator of success.
     
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  4. Bozak

    Bozak Registered

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  5. Amanda Santini

    Amanda Santini Registered

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    On a website I don't own and that there are no ads? :p
    No, I made this so we (the community) could discuss this.
     
  6. Amanda Santini

    Amanda Santini Registered

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    Exactly my thoughts.
     
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  7. Nielsen

    Nielsen Registered

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    After some readup I must admit that I probably:) have relied too much on the relation between the numbers in rF1/gMotor1 and rF2/gMotor2 and thereby confused racing games using gMotor1/2.
    Like wikipedia does mention gMotor2 is allready introduced in rF1(and the derivatives: pCars1, Reiza/AMS, Raceroom and rFactor Pro).

    Sorry about the confusion :)
     
  8. JuanitoRPM

    JuanitoRPM Registered

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    The problem is that to make a mod you need to be a guru of physics and 3d. If you make a wyiswig editor the modder community will multiply by a thousand.
     

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