looking at Le Mans Ultimate as a great chance to all a complete package for a lemans experience in (using) rFactor 2; this type of endeavours are (from my perspective) always welcome; it will push the development of the underlying engine forward. Just wishing that the game content could be backported to the core rFactor2 sim; but for licencing reasons that could be unlikely. Modders?, yes I create mods and prefer an evolving engine that in the future incorporate new features than an static one; will it break my mod?, possibly but if is a good mod I'll fix it, if not then was fun while it lasted (and yes I put tens or more of hours to making my mods)
Yeah I don't take it as toxic, it's just a product of the times. And absolutely he may believe what he's saying... I just think he's wrong. Unfortunately doom sells, and I know that one of the best ways to build a fanbase whether you are a politician or a youtuber is to tell people that everything they love is going to get ruined.
Sure everything cool und I don't want to surpress any discussion or harm anybody! I think I know what you mean: The first rule of a newspaper is, bad news sell much better than good news. Sad but true.... But I also think that he just wanted to talk about his fear, which I can understand...somehow atleast.... Many of the criticism on MSG - S397 - rF2 - LMU is ridiculous! But they aren't totally wrong. That's B.S., the community needs to get somehow a strong vioce in the public and that needs to be youtube or something like that. I think most people out there do not even know that this forum exist and big channels like Michi Hoyer(!But thanks for his work!) are "small" compared to other SimRacing channels. Even a german ACC channel gets usually 20000 views and more and that's also a "small" channel. I think one reason is that there are not a lot of video's that are "pro" rFactor2. I mean....rF2 needs no propaganda or fanboy-stuff, "just needs a flashlamp to light up the pros and cons fair". For sure rF2 got its cons and even its bugs, like every game. Besides all that negativ s***, there is a lot of cool stuff to reprot. But unlike any other game, rF2 is not able to get a honest focus. And I don't mean anyone in this forum. I mean guys who try rF2 for a few clicks on Youtube and this simply ends up in bashing. Because you can't get it after 2days of superficial gaming. The typical review the people get is something like: graphic is bad, FFB feels different in ACC... I got huges hopes back then.... Dave Cam tested rF2 and BTCC and he was surprised. He really liked it, but the might of iRacing is really big and you generate much more clicks with it and you get a full race very easy. I heard many of the rF2 LFM races are canceled, because not enough people for a race. To write finally a few lines for LMU. I think it is good idea, a derivative from rFactor2 for guys who never played it before. I see a big chance to extend our community. Also it could be a big hit on consoles, the market for Racing-Simulations is very small on consoles...maybe it will be a big financial success, which would be also good for rF2 and all of us. That could end in a cycle. A modified rF2-Engine for PS5/XBOX = Cash = rF2-Engine improvement = cash = next ported rF2-Engine for consoles = cash = rF2-Engine improvement = cash...... However you think about MSG&S397&rF2&LMU story, I think it will be a nice and calm future. And again... they will not cancel rF2. They need us and they need us happy and therefor they need the rF2-Engine and they need the rF2-Engine for derevatives for consoles. It would totally dumb to throw your biggest product into the trashcan. So calm down, think about that...how logic it would be to get rid of the rF2-Engine. To underline the whole story musically. Thank you for your time!
The 'focus' issues for rF2 have been a thing forever, yep. It's frustrating because there was a plan... Early days ISI rF2 was going to simulate a very select number of things and let the modders do anything else. I had all the 1966 F1 cars lined up, for example. I got Indy, permission for a historic Indy, and cars from 1961, 1965, 1968, 1986, 1995 lined up to go along with the Dallara IR05 that a render was released for. But I think as modders didn't come over ISI got a bit desperate, starting trying to appeal to everything a modder could want to build off. S397 took over and Marcel made the (smart) decision to switch things to a licensed content model and be very focused on GT racing (when it was just taking off as THE THING to simulate)... I don't really blame modern S397, Marcel's S397, it was under ISI that the direction was lost, IMHO. I, and everyone, definitely didn't want it to be that way.
One could imagine that in terms of improvements and developments, rFactor 2 could hopefully receive not a small part of the improvements and developments intended primarily for LMU before the LMU's release date, but a significant part intended for LMU in the coming months. The idea would be to improve rFactor 2, keep the fans happy (and the worried ones [LOL]), and at the same time that these improvements and developments on rFactor 2 serve as a kind of BETA TEST for LMU (so not only AI). That would "kill two birds with one stone". It seems very clever too me but not necessarily feasible because they lack the time (it is very likely). But this idea is rather enticing!
Do you think modern S397 is on a good way? That is also my idea. Hope everything will work fine! Just a small calculation on my spendings towards S397. I baught 36cars for round about 5€ and 11Tracks~8€ and the game itself for 20or30€. So they get ~300€ from my wallet. A coder get between 45000€ and 90000€ a year. So 24€ a hour or up 46€ a hour @12Month/ 1920h a year. So I "sponsored" 13h for coding or at worst case 6h and 30min. My intention is...that even if I baught everthing..every Car and every Track. The Game needs more people who see how great this game is. And if LMU is the reason for that... I don't care. Only the progress is important and rF2 with its little brother developed in parallel could be a solution.
You mean like going the right direction? Well it has a current Indy car, full BTCC field and is adding content that seems to sell and people seem to want. Fair enough, the content has come from MSG not making their games, but rF2 would obviously still be working on something else without that content. I'm not sure I see anything bad in that either... At least something in sim racing got the content. Enough licenses have been sat on and not built. (Sony have Pikes Peak right now, exclusive, but haven't built it for GT7, etc).
@88mphTim did S397 ever consider adding some exotic content like Gr.C , LMP1 , F1 (V8 era and onwards) , old GT1 race cars ? are there chances of getting a car out of any of the above category in near future or focus is on different stuff ?
I'd lined up licenses for GP cars from the 30s, 50s, 70s, 80s and 90s (this was announced... one of those things that was announced under ISI and never happened under ISI) and a number of other things as well. The hope was that modders would be able to quickly fill in the gaps using our cars as a base. But I think instead this happened for AC not rF2.
So you were gonna release GP cars (F1 ?) from era 30s to 90s , one or 2 for each era and make its physics and data available to modders so they could add other manufacturer from those era ?
Yup. When modders didn't really support rF2 (no blame on modders - AC just did what they were looking for at the time) and rF2 struggled for profit (content was all free back then, remember, and product sales weren't good enough) plans had to change, and eventually led to ISI dropping rF2. S397 selling licensed content allows rF2 to be profitable. That last sentence is why I don't see dropping rF2 entirely to be a thing.
I believe having license is one thing but did you had real data on these very old cars to work with , pre 80s ? i hear its hard to find data for old cars, like manufacturer give aero maps and stuff to you for gt cars
Is ISI still around? They still have a website but I read a comment somewhere on Steam that ISI is now defunct. Terance Groening works for iRacing now which is kind of crazy. To me the FF1600 in iRacing feels rF2'esque. Maybe there's a connection or it's just in my head.
They had a good run. Longer than many other studios thought of as successful. Here are some old ISI sites, if interested. https://racesimcentral.net/image-space-incorporated-2/ https://racesimcentral.net/rfactor-net-product-site/ https://racesimcentral.net/image-space-incorporated/
If the rF1, which replaced the graphics engine, sound engine, and UI with the latest technology, was sold as "rFactor2", the future that ISI envisioned might have been waiting. However, it was also completely different from the rFactor2 we know, which revolutionized the race sim industry at the same time, and it may have hit the limits of its product lifecycle much earlier. In addition, many modders used existing vehicle mods as a base, adjusting grip, aero, horsepower, etc. based on their own feel and experience, and taking the method of creating new vehicle mods. However, in rF2, it is difficult to create vehicle mods with that method, and I think that is why modders have moved to AC.
In danger of going a bit offtopic here, isn't a bit of a wierd contradiction that you work in the same company as THE guy who has been slinging sh*t at every product in this niche market before being bought by I an Bell? And I don't mean this in any offensive manner as I really respect you and your honest views, eventhough I might not allways agree with them. I know, working for a company doesn't rip you off your rights to have an opinion about something and we all need to pay our bills somehow, but it's funny how he tried to sell PCars 3 as the best thing since sliced bread while completely going nuts and basicly selling the afforementioned doom at every given opportunity, when it didn't affect is employer. The thing that I find annoying is that the sim racing community has lost touch to itself, completely ignoring why we are all here and that our passion for motor racing should drive this genre forward and not some YT celebrities. Because at the end of the day it's the silent guys at Kunos, Reiza, KW Studios/S3, S397 and all the modders who make this hobby what it is and not some guys going for clicks. This is the area where the hard work is done and then some guy who propably never wrote a line of code rips months of hard work into pieces in a five minute video. And don't get me wrong, I don't see an issue with having an opinion and presenting it on YT, but presenting every oppinion as a fact and hopping onto bandwagons. How people went completely overboard about the whole exlusive lisencing stuff, wich isn't just a MSG thing but connected to every major sim on this market is still beyond me. It went as far as some iRacing diehards making jokes about rF2 and the upcomming Le Mans game in their iRacing 24 hour stream and explaining how much better iRacing is, while they got their race ended at the exact same time in the last minutes of the race due to constant freezes and the game glitching. It's comical. If people understood that we are all in the same boat, this niche might be a better place.
