You make so many weak assumptions that I doubt is even worth to address them. There's one assumption though that stands out: you think rF3 wouldn't be a daunting task. For me, it would involve burning a lot of resources to start again and go back to where we are now, only 5 years or more later.
@pilAUTO Conceptually it's easy use the LMU code for rF2, tweak the DLC to work with it, simply not use some of "the more interesting changes" if that requires a lot of changes to content, tell modders how to tweak their content (a bit like they did with PBR) and in some cases say "Sorry guys, mod X just won't work anymore". Probably easier than merging the LMU fork back into rF2.
Update the rF2 engine to a new one and release it for mods, I always waited for hybrid cars and I even read that they didn't make them because they were dying, at the time of the lmp1-h, for me, just the 963 in the rf2 was enough, then I wouldn't even play Le Mans Ultimate, because it's going to be a new ACC.
It's funny to see the same argument ad nauseam. It just requires a pair of healthy eyes, ears and hands to understand that LMU isn't just rF2. That's simply ignorance. And if I could smell and taste the bacon at Sunset bend I would tell you the same. One thing that people don't understand is that rF2 biggest problem right now isn't that it's not a great product. But the experience is all over the place and it's very expensive compared to LMU that offers a very consistent experience no matter what car and track you drive. People allways wondered why AC is so popular and it's clear for me now just looking at the player numbers that this is the biggest obstacle for rF2 to gain any traction. rF2 without any DLC costs as much as LMU. The complete pack costs 200 Euro. You can get the AC Ultimate Edition for 7,50 Euro on MMOGA. What would anyone one of you think if you looked at that price? I think rF2 is now at a point, where they can start selling it as an Ultimate Edition at a similar price point like AC, wich is at 40 Euro at Steam. That way people will not get confused by the store and wierd item system and can easily get going. On top of that once the career implementation becomes a thing with Racecontrol and LMU is more stable, people can easily switch between the two platforms and use everything. As much as I love rF2 and it's still my favorite all around package, but I can't deny that it's very expensive now that LMU released at such a bargain.
These days "new" games aren't actually new in terms of the code. Just like LMU isn't a "start again" project but rather a continuation of rF2, rF3 would be as well. They could just decide that from tomorrow on every piece of code that gets added to rF2 is to become part of later released milestone "rF3" and add a couple of new features, menus and a new visual outlook to it. The bigger problem is the transfer of all the car/track licenses and technicalities around that as far as I have understood and forcing all your customers re-buy all the content again if the DLC format is used.
It may not be the same product, but it is a very limited product, and even with all the ACo championships, on tracks it will be limited, what I wanted was to drive hypercars or lmp1h on any track, that for me is much more important than a sanctioned championship game.
I think it's the right call to limit the product due to various reasons. First of all a dedicated WEC game will allways sell more copies than a jack of all trades and it makes development easier. You don't have people asking why car xyz isn't on tyremodel abc and feels totaly different or why car abc sounds crap. You can get to the core of the issue rather fast and concentrate on stuff like proper BOP, wich is still quite a challenge. What you or me want or not in the grand scheme of things is irrelevant. The company will do what makes sense for them from an economical standpoint. And the numbers speak for themself if you ask me. LMU was in the topsellers on Steam during it's release and has moved from 60 % negative to a very good 80 % review score in one week. So what would you do as a company? Concentrate on the product that propably outsold your older product within a week - this is just a guess so don't quote me - and that had five times the player count on release day and still more than twice as many one week after release? A playerbase that will be potential customers for future DLCs. Or do you want to keep them holding on for dear live trying to move an ocean with a spoon?
they have 'hinted' at some sort of historic content, but all of that really depends upon LMU succeeding. But new historic content won't happend til LMU is established, I'm guessing the same timeline as Mr Offermans. A 2024 update/dlc with the new cars & tracks(remember, there are A LOT of GT3LM cars they have to build & what? 3 new tracks?) Then we are into 2025 and another new season's DLC must be readied. Can't see any other significant branching of the core title til after that. Do we know anything yet about the possibility of any further tracks being used by WEC in 2025?
I understand this issue, but what I'm saying is that they should at least have implemented the decent hybrid for mods in rfactor 2, I bought the lmu myself, but I don't even bother playing online, I do a few laps in Le Mans offline and leave the game because even if there are several dlcs of historic cars, it will always be limited on tracks.
For my part, as I said, my decision is made and final to stay exclusively on an rFactor 2 as I have done for 10 years. I'm totally fine with that, although I'm deeply disappointed that it's extremely likely that the game (probable) won't really evolve, won't really improve, and won't really have new content. (For this, I stick to Marcel Offermans comments which are probably very close to reality even if he is not aware of everything, see his 2 post that I quoted upper). I therefore come to a question which seems entirely relevant to me, namely : Can we be sure or almost sure that in the next 10 years rfactor 2 will remain available on Steam, that almost all of the content and features will still be available, in short that we can still use it in the best conditions even if other games from the publisher have been released by then so it is LMU ? (I have no knowledge of the obligations of a publisher in this matter, excuse my ignorance). I noted in particular that the e-prix version of Monaco as well as Silverstone were canceled in the game due to licensing. I would also like to know what you think about the content of the game, in particular the Nürburgring which is by far my favorite circuit. Just knowing what you think, I suspect you don't have the exact information precisely of course, juste your opinion. Thank you.
I allways have the impression that people forget a bit what LMU is supposed to be like. It's a platform that they are building wich is very early in it's life cycle. I think once the game get's released and leaves Early Access it will feature the 2023 and 2024 season. Yes, intially it will have a bit of a lack of tracks with only 11, but it will have a huge amount of cars with very different characterstics and requirements for how they are driven. Each of the cars in the classes requires a completely different approach. ACC only had 11 tracks at the beginning. GTR2 had 15 tracks and people still enjoy it. GPL had 11 tracks and people still loved it. If the packaging is good enough people will forget about the lack of tracks as they did with ACC, GTR2 and GPL. I am also 100 % sure that ALMS and ELMS are going to be in product as the cars are allready there and it adds quite a good amount of tracks. And as the cars will also be properly BOPed and refined the framework will allready be there. We are witnessing the start of a golden age for WEC and endurance racing and if MSG and S397 get their stuff together, they will be able to use that to their advantage. Btw, didn't start this whole gmotor journey with a focused title called Sportscar GT?
ISIMotor had been up against it ever since it's confederate war, GTR2 vs rFactor. The same lines are being drawn again, rF2 vs LMU. I mean people see right they fight against their own. What they need is a large compassionate and understanding community that will support them through thick and thin no matter what.
Silverstone has been mentioned. S397 should obviously have all their previous work on that one. It must be very disappointing to spend a lot of time and effort on creating a track that only appears in one season. There is, I believe, a pit lane capacity requirement so that limits selection available.
Any track being added to LMU would almost HAVE to be laser-scanned. Silverstone never was,(to my knowledge) Even current Laser tracks like Sebring were completely redone, so having previous work on Silverstone really isn't gonna save much time or money. I did see that story about WEC wanting 40 cars and some tracks do not have that much access. (of course Daytona can't handle 60+ cars unless some gt/LMP cars share a pit box.)
What is making very difficult and expensive to improve RF2 to lets say RF2+ (yes, when you try LMU you clearly see how outdated is RF2, even bugged as it is at the moment) is the very large base of existing content, some dating from 2012, some from Isi-S397, some from modders. Most of the existing content of RF2 would stop working in RF2+, or wouldn't use the new capabilities of RF2+. Cheers.
That's nothing new in software development. From operating systems to applications, every big software project has to deal with its legacy and it's not that hard with some planning. There's two ways to deal with it: 1. throw everything into the garbage can and start again; 2. introduce new features, deprecate old ones to give time for content to catch up and later remove them. I don't know which one S397 will be going to take but it will greatly impact their future.
In the event that rfactor 2 would hardly receive any updates, would hardly evolve and would have almost no new content, although LMU does not correspond to my needs and my expectations and I think that the appearance of an rfactor 3 which would cause the loss of all licenses and would perhaps change the rFactor 2 philosophy too much, I would 1000 times prefer to know that an rfactor 3 is in preparation rather than staying with the situation where we have LMU on one side which will mature in a year or two, but a situation in which rfactor 2 will only wither away. So basically, if really rfactor 2 as I think (thinks) is going and has already been in my opinion for almost 2 years without anyone knowing it in this situation, I am ready to take very favorably the appearance of an rfactor 3. LMU has taken over the most important thing from rfactor 2, namely its driving realism and its ambition in this regard, always with beautiful graphics and beautiful sound. But it is a very specific product which can only interest a part of the enthusiasts, the prototypes, the GT, and the triple A circuits, all very little varied and in a relatively limited quantity especially for the circuits, it is fantastic for people who are fans of the WEC, for others who perhaps also love the WEC but who have a much more diversified approach to automobile passion and driving, this is not suitable at all. As I said, LMU has a magnificent base nevertheless since it is based on rfactor 2. I will start hoping for an rfactor 3, even if given the size of the tiny s397 studio, I don't see how it could make two games at the same time, that is to say LMU and rfactor 3. We can nevertheless dream !
