Don't get me wrong, there's still a ton of great mods released and still being worked on for rF2, but the ISI-era lack of commercial success compared to the continued sales of AC are pretty undeniable. And yeah, initially felt it would be best to support rF1 mods directly in rF2, but that didn't happen either.
You'd have to ask yourself about the timing on PC3. I didn't know the story on that before either. PC3 ended up being more a spiritual successor to SHIFT, and that's what it probably should have been called. That wasn't the original design though. On the slinging, well, I left MSG for a reason. And it wasn't to walk to where it was worse. You'll usually always see me make sure to say that MSG is full of talented and terrific people who want to do the very best, release the best, produce the best. So is every studio in sim racing. Whether they deliver is often out of their hands, and MSG wasn't the place I wanted to be any longer. I feel like sim racing went through a period where it was about collecting mods more than racing them and yeah, that is pretty sad. Lately it's been about tearing companies down, forgetting often about the people within them, working hard. There are far worse things send to the email addresses of companies (I answered emails at iRacing when it was suing people), tweeted at them (I read tweets to MSG while working at MSG) and commented about them (I still have a screenshot from what was said about me, how I should be fired and didn't deserve happiness, from when at ISI when absolutely nothing they were upset about was my decision) than I've seen in a YouTube video. I've had images of dead bodies emailed to me over a lack of an in-game feature. That said, I made a decision with my last F1 franchise review to say not to buy it and it wasn't because it was worse than F1 22, etc, it was because of EA being EA and me being done with it. It's very rare I will do that because, I'm sure, there are terrific people at EA as well. They're not responsible for the decisions of those above them. But I still chose to highlight what I felt needed highlighting... That's all these YouTubers are doing. Sometimes they are wrong, sometimes they're not. I try to lift sim racing up, as a whole, going right back as far as it goes. Not everyone does that, not everyone can do that. Between the ages of 18-25 I was a complete a-hole compared to who I am now. I just want us to all end up in a good place, along with all our favorite sims.
Thank you Tim, for your honesty and clarity and filling in historical blanks. Love reading your stuff!
Wow, that's intense! Something like that is absolutely unacceptable. I'm beginning to understand why developers are always very reluctant. The very first problem with the internet is that you can never really interpret how something is meant, whether sarcastic, serious or just joking. But what you're describing... wow, words fail me. And to the whole community.. With my video, I just want to express that the communication from "above" is very modest. And I am far from being a YT celebrity. I have always, always tried in my videos to communicate to the community what a hell of a lot of hard work is behind modding. It's not about S397 either, their hands are tied and they've been muzzled by MSG. They are not allowed to say anything. And opinions are like axxxxholes.... everyone has one. I was just expressing my displeasure with MSG's information policy and voicing out loud some PERSONAL fears about rF2. This was the first time I went a little, yes in the more negative direction regarding rF2 with one of my videos. Simply to make my point known. And anyone who feels the same way should take note and make it clear to MSG that we definitely want to know what direction rF2 will take in the future.
It is very shocking and probably indicative of today's world. I express all my support to you as well as to all the developers who would see this message.
This is it. This is a marketplace for everyone. Even opinions are designed to create revenue. Influencers aren't working towards supporting the racing community, they're making a life from the racing community. When you sell opinions for a living, you have to carefully craft them or you risk loosing your way of life and income. And the truth is that uncertainty and hate get a lot of views and likes specially when it's directed towards the minorities which might be a threat to the majority.
You are a despondent yes-man who turns in the direction from which the wind blows strongest. Yet you don't have the courage to address me directly? And even your opinion is ultimately just an opinion. Grow a spine for once and address me personally. What you are pulling here is ridiculous.
I'll tell the truth. I replied as soon as I read the message I quoted and just later read your message. I'm not addressing you and I don't think my message applies to you since you don't consider yourself an influencer and I don't think you're making a life from your videos. I don't avoid answering personally. When I'm answering to opinions expressed by several users I prefer not to address just one of them. I have nothing against you or anyone here. I just disagree with some opinions but specially with some attitudes. My opinions are just opinions like yours. You can say they are ridiculous and I'm OK.
Thanks for taking the time to write a long reply and answer honestly. I just think that there is a point reached that people need to let rest all this MSG drama - might some of it be rightfully or not - and get on with it. I know some people expected their Indycar game at date XYZ and maybe got dissapointed but such is life. I was waiting for the Reynard 95i for years and never got it either and that's just me being silly about one single car . Might have been a great car to get some hype for rF2 when it needed it most. Same goes for the 1966 F1 cars that you mentioned. Looking back it feels like rF2 could have been GPL2.0. Atleast when I got first in touch with the sim it felt like it was perfect for these kind of cars and it's the first trailer that kind of set the tone for this. Anyway, we still have tons of options and choices, many more than anyone of us will ever be master and this needs to be embraced alot more often. And as much as we cry alot how bad ISI managed rF2, they layed the ground work for a foundation that is still relevant today and will power an upcomming title. There are exciting times ahead for sim racers.
I really hope I didn't put you off doing your thing. I just think you're wrong, but I might be. My intention isn't to put anyone off sharing their opinion - just want to be sure to say that. In a way it's refreshing to see the shock of what devs actually get sent. That stuff is why when S397 took over I told Marcel I didn't want to be the mouth of a company anymore. Being frontline can be a rough job, and not because of the VAST majority. Sometimes it can only take one person to ruin your day, week, month, year or career and make you want to leave the role. I actually feel one of the hardest frontline jobs right now is Rusty from MSG. He's the community and support guy for MSG's NASCAR franchise. Super nice guy. Imagine the heat he gets...
On reflection, I think it would be "silly" (in quotation sorry didn't find the good word in english) to leave rFactor 2 in a kind of status quo, with little or no improvements and evolutions, and little or no new content : ---> I think (or rather I hope) that the leaders of S397 realize that it would be a bad idea for them and the community to leave rFactor 2 as said earlier in this post, which means that possibly MSG's projects for rFactor 2 are not finished. This reasoning seems quite logical on paper, and is quite optimistic. But if this reasoning were valid, there would still be the question of : "how much MSG will continuously improve a simulation that is 10 years old, and for how long". Anyway, I'm crossing my fingers. Also, I note that the year 2022 having been so exceptional for rFactor 2 (really!) , that frankly the disappointment of 2023 and the prospect for the moment really uncertain is not great. It's more a matter of feeling than opinion so.
How old is iRacing? It's not about how old the software is, but rather how well maintained it has been. iRacing has fallen behind everyone in graphics but noone it's calling its demise. Age isn't a bad thing if the product is good. 10 years old and still no other sim has matched its physics. It only needs a rework of the graphics engine and it would be in better shape than any other sim, although with the latest graphics updates only a few issues remain and it looks great. These are reasons for being optimistic.
So some say we don't need a statement from S397/MSG on the future of rF2, and I disagree with that assessment and here's why. pilAUTO rightly says that we've come off a period of rapid improvement in rF2 after the MSG takeover. But we need to look at what those improvements are. In my mind, there are 4: First, was the new UI which made things much more approachable. Second, has been a renewed look at offline/AI, rather than just concentrate on online/CS. To this I'd add, the CS has not reached any of its objectives to date because it hasn't built a community of people who want to run it, its been seemingly beaten by a 3rd party offering in LFM which shouldn't happen. The good news here is that there seems to be a new CS in the offing; and to support this, taking away the HUGE constraint of having to own all content, now makes a success of this more likely. But that is all into the future, and not the recent past. Third, then, are the physics and vehicle dynamics improvements to tires, track surface temps having an effect, tender springs etc. But finally 4th, and possibly the biggest contributor, is that they've added all the content of the stuff MSG wasn't able to ship that they'd licensed on the "new" platform: BTCC, IndyCar etc. For without those, there'd have been precious little content in the last couple of years. The problem is, if a big chunk of the improvement and morale boost has come from adding the BTCC, IndyCar etc. content, and that is now probably about to be siphoned off into new standalone titles, like LeMans/WEC has, what does that leave for rF2 on the content front? GT3s that everyone else has, Formula E that doesn't move the needle, and what else? A couple of historic F1s, when AMS2 has gobs of content here (but no online capability worth the name)? Modder content??
The question is what MSG thinks useful + beneficial for them to improve and evolve rFactor 2 by adding content over at least say 2 years, and so if they will do it and to what extent. [[[rFactor 2 is really great but has a lot of things to improve, content to update and new content to get. It's not a question of keeping a hype every 3 months as far as I'm concerned, but I would have liked that in 1 or 2 years rFactor 2 become a very mature product, very "solid" and requiring only continuous improvement and new content may be less frequent. But there, although rFactor 2 is really great, I'm a big fan, the product is not mature and not a "finish product" (didn't find the good synonym sorry). Too many varied problems, lack of a lot of features, not enough update of the content especially on the physics aspect but also on the graphics and sound, etcetera.........]]]
I'm pretty sure you can say that about any of the current sims you like. As already said in this thread, it doesn't make much sense to let the end user know everything the developer is working on or planning on working on. I know I sleep just fine at night from my lack of knowledge of what's going on behind closed doors at S397 and MSG.
Besides that, It starts up and runs just fine over here. We all have our specific wishes I guess, I also vent them sometimes, with the best intentions for RF2. A statement will not change the outcome of my personal wishes for this platform. I enjoy what is available.
Probably a chicken and egg thing really. If they don't see people using first or third party content of a particular type they'll maybe be less likely to license and build more of that first party. I hate that, but it's standard "publisher fear" that every developer in every genre works under. They almost have to feel guaranteed to make money, won't take risks, and this is why you get so many similar games.
