Released New Release Candidate Update - Client 7969457

Discussion in 'News & Notifications' started by Paul Jeffrey, Dec 15, 2021.

  1. jers

    jers Registered

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2015
    Messages:
    23
    Likes Received:
    4
    I really Like this idea. I like the upgrade to labels and having track position would be what I would pick. Thanks for listening.
     
  2. juanchioooo

    juanchioooo Registered

    Joined:
    May 16, 2016
    Messages:
    2,242
    Likes Received:
    1,649
    Dear friend, I am a mediocre pilot, half-row back, so I really like to see the onboard of the best pilots to try to progress, get a better level, but always in virtual reality, since the monitor died for me ... obviously I say I want to progress, because even if I can't be a better driver than I currently am, I must try, I don't give up, and I will keep trying, even though I'm a very bad driver, but with that at least I enjoy the driving of others while helping my driving progress, a greeting;)
     
    memoNo1 likes this.
  3. juanchioooo

    juanchioooo Registered

    Joined:
    May 16, 2016
    Messages:
    2,242
    Likes Received:
    1,649
    put in that already, that it can be made bigger or smaller according to the user wants
     
  4. Schumi

    Schumi Registered

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2012
    Messages:
    343
    Likes Received:
    889
    In recent months, my long-term patience, like many others, has begun to run out. But... I liked the new driver labels. Now they do not look superfluous in the frame.
     
  5. burgesjl

    burgesjl Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 2, 2013
    Messages:
    344
    Likes Received:
    540
    When I think back to what were the development directions when S397 took over rF2, it seemed to be the following:

    Improve the graphics via DX11 and enabling VR (DONE)
    Add fully licensed, well crafted and popular content (DONE for cars, only limited for tracks)
    Competition System for organized online racing (very definitely NOT DONE)

    As I read this, I see a lack of development of VR - both performance wise, and things like the driver labels improvements not being available plus other bugs. We know S397 lost some developers... but they've kept going with additional graphics developments with lighting, shaders etc. but still don't seem to have delivered the improved shadows. This has created problems on the content front, with having to update for PBR and such, not all content is of a similar level and especially for modders, this just hasn't happened at all. Furthermore, there's been almost no developments in the core driving aspects of the sim, except for some pure electric cars; no hybrids, no improvements to physics mechanical systems etc.

    The biggest issue I see however is that lack of development in multiplayer, online. There seem to be lingering bugs in the server components, its still horrible/impossibly difficult for most people to run their own servers etc. The Competition System feels completely stillborn - stuck at a barely functioning technical level, and not being expanded to be more of a system casual racers can use on a daily basis. If they say they don't want to create iRacing again, they have NOT told us what they want it to be. If its just for the 300 or so people who want to do the GT/Formula Challenge, or the 300 people who take part in the formal esports series (that probably doesn't use any part of the CS anyway), then its not what anyone else wants and isn't going to grow the userbase. Add to this a lack of fully licensed content - especially tracks - to use in the CS, it renders it unused. Which means the other use cases - single player, offline - hasn't seen any improvements either, because the CS was supposed to be the focus.

    The main concern, is that I just don't see any movement in getting the CS and all supporting subsystems and content etc. into a usable condition, with growing participation. I see the hands of Motorsport Games potentially in this: there's been a lack of on-going development in the CS, because they don't see a need for it. We urgently need to see the interview with Stephen Hood, supposedly done 3+ months ago, updated for current strategy, in order to figure out if it's worth sticking with rF2 for future development, or if it's just tapped out and S397 have taken it all as far as they can. I see no compelling future content (big resource investment in more tracks, mainly, but no new other content means the revenue stream is disappearing) nor do I see a commitment to make the CS anything that is worthwhile. MSGS want to create "better than simcade" multiplatform (console) accessible games, which rF2 is not. They also don't seem to want to invest $ into licensing content, which they also have to license for their other upcoming games, for a system that isn't the future.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2021
  6. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    12,345
    Likes Received:
    6,572
    It's not far off being that, the main issues currently are servers sometimes becoming unresponsive for whatever reason (then only ever giving 'too late' messages) and needing to be reset/restarted - generally by Jimmi - which they obviously haven't yet sorted out; and the UI itself becoming unresponsive, I don't know if that's something to do with connection or the CS side, but when it happens it can lead to a delay of anything from 30 secs to infinity. (when it's 'just' super slow you can eventually exit to the main menu and go back in and it's fine - which to me says it's probably a UI issue, but who knows...)

    Both those are pretty disconcerting, but when they aren't happening it's very possible to jump in and join the next race. I've only tried maybe 4 times recently myself and had 1 failure, a couple of races with a couple of people, and a solo session because no one else was there. If the reliability is fixed I could easily see fairly common races with 10+ people, and from there it can only grow. (people quite reasonably aren't too keen to bother when there are issues, and when you're potentially driving by yourself - though for me that's just more much-needed practice, and if I had time to drive anyway I might as well use it)

    None of that is to say this has gone smoothly or will be done by xmas - judging by things so far I wouldn't put any money on it running well until at least mid next year, more likely next xmas, and I wouldn't put much money on that either...

    If I were a more frequent player I'd probably be spending the majority of my time elsewhere at the moment, and it would be healthy to do so. As it is, for me personally, I have enough to do in rF2 to keep me busy in the time I do have, I don't feel like I could get invested in another game properly (again, time), and I'll just keep waiting to see what happens. rF2 really isn't in a different position to where it was in 2014 (though it now looks more modern, for what that's worth) so I don't think there's any reason for doomsday talk. They've also said they're busy with stuff, so unless we're accusing them of outright lying we really just have to wait.

    But to anyone coming here to bemoan the progress and talking of rF2 dying - I hear you, but you don't need to be all-in and then run out of patience and go away forever. If you want to race and rF2 isn't giving you what you want, go play something else! Seriously! You can come back later when things change! (sure, let's throw an 'if' in there as well - no problem)
     
    green serpent and TJones like this.
  7. williang83

    williang83 Registered

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2012
    Messages:
    287
    Likes Received:
    153
    That's where the problem lies. If someone keep aside any fanboism and worshiping, in other words any romanticism and simply be pragmatic and ask himself "without considering DLC, what in hell i can do today in rF2 that i could not 4 or more years ago?", the list will shrink to almost none when considering gameplay. So he/she could have said just what you said, move on and come back later. So you are suggesting for this person to push forward for more what 1-2-3-4-5 years? Because anything related to rF2 takes abnormal times just to be released in an unfinished status. This is not normal and at some point it MUST become unacceptable.

    I always said that gaming development is the worst sector ever because of the customer base. You can easily find the two extreme, people that pretends beyond the limits and bash a game for stupid stuff. The other side are those fanboys that keep defending and throwing money to obvious bad development and company leadership. The later are definitely the worst since they keep feeding bad practices that in any other sector would be punished, thus forcing the devs to be even a little bit more pragmatic and practical.

    I remember when i bought rF2 as soon as it was available. At first an extreme disappointment since it was more like a reskin of rF1 (same limitations and UI) with some new improvements and adaptation to an already old graphic engine for that period of time. I would not dare to say that from that day nothing has changed, of course there has been new things, some even "cool".......but ....... for something that has been released in 2013, which in reality is roughly 12+ years in development, platform wise is very very behind what it should have accomplished in that HUGE amount of time. Yet people here simple ignore that, some even dare to say that it is understandable from a development point of view due to spaghetti code......... it is not!!!!!

    For last but not least, supposing that the spaghetti code is beyond devs skills (spaghetti code are one of the things that separate great developers from normal one...been there done that), than pragmatism should have kicked in and lead them to think about porting just their physics engine to a mature game engine (eg. UE4). Definitely a way more trivial task.
     
    DaREALMastaD likes this.
  8. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    12,345
    Likes Received:
    6,572
    I had some good racing since 2012, and I'm still enjoying some good racing despite all the things rF2 still doesn't do well. Driving a car around a track doesn't change a heck of a lot - if it felt good 4 years ago, it still feels good now. Do I stop because it's the same? Why?

    As for pushing forward, well if you don't like what it does, just don't use it. If it never becomes what you want, you never play it again and go play other games (sims, whatever) and worry about what they don't do yet. If rF2 does actually get to become something you want, then great - come back and play it.

    I don't get the ultimatum stuff. Just find whatever is out there right now that best does what you want, switch between games if you need various things from each of them, and do something with your time. What's to be gained by demanding more progress here? Will it help speed progress? It hasn't in the last 7 years...
     
    Art_Pereira and Bernat like this.
  9. pilAUTO

    pilAUTO Registered

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2020
    Messages:
    665
    Likes Received:
    593
    I think you are aiming right by saying that.

    The fanboys, defending rF2 and the studio endlessly for 5 years even when there are real malfunctions (and there are a lot of them), contribute at their level to rF2 taking the wrong direction (indirectly of course).
     
  10. pilAUTO

    pilAUTO Registered

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2020
    Messages:
    665
    Likes Received:
    593
    @Lazza

    The field of simracing is a field where it is normal to have very high expectations in certain fields, the field of "realism / simulate" in particular.

    The specificity of this major and essential domain in simracing is that it is ........ 10000000000% legitimate to expect from a simulation and an studio that it improves with the time, and in 5 years, the improvement must be really strong.

    It is legitimate to expect this from rF2 and S397.

    And this is not the case : the evolutions of the physics engine are, in 5 years, minimal. It’s sad, frankly.

    But I agree that if a sim looks better to us than rF2, nothing forces us to stay.

    I am both very dissatisfied.... But the other sims do not suit me for other reasons. I have my ass between two chairs!

    Strongly a very strong improvement in rF2 + best priority choices of S397, or strongly AC2.
     
    PatientRF2fan and Lazza like this.
  11. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 2, 2016
    Messages:
    704
    Likes Received:
    713
    In regards to the rain on the windshield, this is obviously just an animation right? Why not actually make the water be effected by the physics, such as long streaks forming on the side windows as you gain speed, water drops moving side to side when cornering? I really just want things simulated like how they work in real life... it may be a high bar and not possible/practical, but anything less is just a massive immersion breaker for me.
     
  12. hitm4k3r

    hitm4k3r Registered

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2016
    Messages:
    1,320
    Likes Received:
    3,121
    You make some great points and I allways put great value on your argumentation. I too have had some decent races in the CS. That said, there is no meta game and no real experience while using the system due to different reasons (no ranking e. g.) that makes you stick with it. As allready pointed out, it also needs something like a chat function that is allways visible, so that the community can "hang around" and feel at home in the system and exchange ideas, information and setups faster - just make the whole experience more community like and not anonymous. This is a very basic thing to expect from a CS, yet S397 fails with such basics. And this applies for more important areas of the software.

    The reason why some people are a bit more critical at this point is that they bought some content that they would like to put at good use, maybe recommend it to their friends and like minded people to have some fun together. At this point I wouldn't recommend rF2 to anyone eventhough it's still my favorite racing sim. Maybe I was a bit too naive expecting more - clearly my fault - when I bought the content, but other developers show that you can fix bugs and take care of community requests in a timely fashion. The bugs in the rules system and AI logic are a prime example for this. You can't drag gamebreaking issues over half a decade and expect people to stick with you. That's never gonna work. And in this respect, the idea of an ultimatum is not taken from nowhere. I guess S397's interest is to sell content and the game to pay their employers. If you don't sell stuff, get bad reviews for your product then this will lead to a downwards spiral.

    I am really carefully optimistic that they can change this in the upcomming year, but I like to be surprised.
     
    Schumi, Lazza and Nieubermesch like this.
  13. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 5, 2010
    Messages:
    12,345
    Likes Received:
    6,572
    @hitm4k3r in regards to a single point you made, I don't recommend rF2 either. When the base game was massively on sale recently I let someone know, and still had a "but..." disclaimer on it.

    I guess in terms of development, if there was the expected development from 2012 to about 2014 (to be honest, we probably expected most stuff basically in there by mid to late 2012... hahahhahha) and nothing had changed since, there'd rightly be many complaints about graphics but the driving would be great (albeit league-based, and some public servers). The graphics upgrade and CS would be icing on the top rather than a (modern day) core feature further delaying physics and gameplay upgrades.

    One thing I can say with confidence - if the devs don't know what people want by now, there really is no hope. Time will tell whether it happens.
     
  14. McFlex

    McFlex Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2012
    Messages:
    1,031
    Likes Received:
    317
    Dude you are demanding a feature (except drops moving when conering) which already is in the game. Can't be that massive immersion breaker when you aren't even noticing it being already present o_O:rolleyes:
     
  15. Comante

    Comante Registered

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2013
    Messages:
    1,694
    Likes Received:
    1,218
    RF2 userbase is a category on his own, and should be a case study... no, not from software developers, but from psychologists.
    :confused:
     
    williang83, memoNo1 and pkelly like this.
  16. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 2, 2016
    Messages:
    704
    Likes Received:
    713
    Firstly, I wasn't demanding anything. Second, I was asking whether the water is physically modelled (i.e it reacts to real time physics), or if it's just an animation. So I'm quite sure what I'm 'demanding' isn't already present in the game. Excuse me for wanting things to abide by the laws of physics in a simulator.
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2021
  17. PatientRF2fan

    PatientRF2fan Registered

    Joined:
    Aug 30, 2020
    Messages:
    297
    Likes Received:
    513
    I am on the physics "wish list" side for sure!

    I am so used to placing more value on the physics over the graphics and it is probably an age thing.
    The tweaks I used to do to get GPL and Nascar4 running smooth has conditioned me this way.
    I know that I ultimately end up turning off many of the new fancy additions anyway.

    I appreciate the dynamic weather needs for the endurance fans.
    From what I understand the wet road physics is off anyway and that must be frustrating for them.

    I am sure there are others that share a similar sim racing history and hope that some of the physics potential gets met.

    It is not my system either. I actually have a very fast system that is optimized just for the rig.
    Looks fantastic in the replays etc but much prefer the suspension moving with precision on the road.

    It is still a great simulation....
     
    green serpent likes this.
  18. McFlex

    McFlex Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2012
    Messages:
    1,031
    Likes Received:
    317
    The drops on the windows are already affected by physics. When you are standing still they flow down the windscreen and when you are driving they flow from buttom to top on the frontwindow depending ob the speed you drive. Same for the side- and rearwindows.
     
  19. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

    Joined:
    Feb 2, 2016
    Messages:
    704
    Likes Received:
    713
    I was probably a bit harsh in my criticism - it is not a "massive" immersion breaker. I just felt that while driving the water didn't move with the physics in real time - it seemed more like a scripted animation to me. More than happy to be proven wrong - it doesn't really matter anyway I guess it was more of a wish/question (albeit probably wildly unreasonable and nit-picky one), or I'm just plain wrong which isn't the first time.
     
    Elcid43 likes this.
  20. Comante

    Comante Registered

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2013
    Messages:
    1,694
    Likes Received:
    1,218
    The water drops shader is not a water simulation, is just a graphical effect that take into account some parameters to change his behaviour, those parameters are for example speed, water amount, surface inclination in relation to speed and gravity and other stuff like that.
    The purpose of this effect is to give the player a bit more realism, it is not intended to be a realtime particle simulation, that would be the proper way to simulate rain, but would kill performances and would still act strangely is some circumstances.
     

Share This Page