[OT] Anyone believe that pCars will become a real sim racing game when its released?

I have to agree, only because rF2 has raises the bar with it's tire model and real road. I have bought them all. Until more details come out of the sim side of Asseto Corsa , it and pCars are comparable in physics. I do like AC better than pCars, but always go back to rF2 for a true drive.

 

I believe in the proposition that racing cars requires special talent proportional to the race series. Lewis Hamilton would not be paid millions of euros if what he does were easy. Would you want to drive a real life 1967 spec Lotus 49 around the 1967 version of Spa at anything close to the speeds they drove in 1967? The problem for developers becomes that an accurate simulation of a Lotus 49 (or any other car) will require some talent to race in the virtual world. (I suspect that current sims are more difficult than reality in some ways and easier in others.) This talent requirement clashes with the purpose of PC and console games to sell fantasy. Papryus discovered that GPL's fantasy of crashing and burning was not what most wished to fantasize about, and its reported GPL sold poorly. Casual gamers are not willing to put the work in required to be merely mediocre.

In the real world most race in lower series than say F1 or Nascar's Sprint Cup. Lower formula are frequently designed as feeder and trainning series and tend to be easier. Again racing Skip Barbers clashes with the casual gamer's fantasy that he/she is Gilles Villeneuve hanging the back out all the way around the circuit. Never mind that in reallity there has been only one Gilles Villeneuve. If you define simcade as having relaxed physics that flatters the gamers ability then it makes sense for developers to produce simcades. The talk of multiplatform release makes me suspicious of a developers intention to not produce a simcade.

IRacing has apparently tried to avoid the simcade trap by selling its wares to race fans rather than just to gamers. With repect to ISI I'm not sure gamers are their main customers but rather licensing to other companies and so hopefully they are committed to producing a quality sim. So far I am very satisfied with my purchase of rF2.
sw

 

To paraphrase someone at ISI, "It will be an excellent crashing game"(*). Until it's released, though, I'll probably hold my reservations about its driving characteristics particularly after reading various people's subjective thoughts as the development currently stands. The shiny skins need to be toned down a little; too much reflection!

Content-wise, it's got the right things going for it. However, since there's no modding, creating content falls entirely on the studio, so they'd BETTER do a good job or it won't sell.

(*) The original quote, as I recall was in response to the question of why did we lose rF1's deformable bodies? The answer was that ISI is developing a racing game, not a crashing game. My own thoughts are that if that is true, then why bother with detachable parts? In other words, ISI seems a bit confused about this issue themselves unless the context is that deformable bodies will be a later development because they're not high priority.

 

There's a fair amount of truth in this. For instance, I've been trying to come to terms with rF2's tire model, particularly with respect to what feels like a rather sharp breakaway characteristic in the historic tires. I keep vacillating between believing the feel is excellent and that I'm overdriving too much and then I flip-flop and feel like it ought to be more recoverable than it is. Watching my own replays, I can see that the breakaway is a result of overdriving, yet I'm not finding the cues to reach the tire's limit without just blowing by it... perhaps this is where an unrealistic slip angle makes up for the missing cues?

 

I bought into pCARS last year because I wanted some DX11 eye candy to play with. My feeling now is that they've taken too long and even if the final release came out tomorrow, I have so much time and money invested in the rF1/rF2/iRacing communities that there is no need or want for another multiplayer sim.

pCARS will go into the same category as Forza 4 for me... a curiosity that I'll pick up from time to time.

What would it take to win me over?

1) A Linux server executable (that is a big deal for me, the need for a Windows OS makes hosting more expensive than it needs to be)
2) Leading edge physics and force feedback
3) All the people I race with to migrate over.

pCARS: #1 and #2 are possible if they put in the effort. I don't see #3 happening.
rFactor2: #1 is possible, #2 is almost there, #3 will happen within a year.

 

Yes.

There's a whole year to go and the progress and change is undeniable. It's hilarious seeing fanboy or deluded posts in this forum about the other available games like pCARS or Assetto Corsa (or some people in pCARS forum about rF2 or Assetto Corsa). It's amazing to see how some are extremely defensive or lack tact for assessing a game, clouding their personal feelings with what they actually believe should be "true."

 

But now you are fudging/"dumbing down"/compromising the physics in order to make up for our lack of feel.

That is not what a hardcore sim should be doing, in my opinion. It's what 2 older sims did with 1 of them not just opinion but technically proven, and judging from video comparisons and lots of peoples comments a real new sim may be doing it again.

In my opinion, what needs to happen is rather than pure physics/handling dynamics being fudged/"dumbed down"/compromised in order to make up for our EXTREME lack of feeling compared to real life, rather than that, the FFB needs to incorporate more info into it in order to make up for our lack of feeling. This way the pure physics of the vehicle dynamics stay as hardcore and industrial as possible but the FFB area of our hardware is used to give us more feelings about the car than you do from just the wheel itself in real life (in real life probably less than even 25% of feeling a car comes from the steering wheel itself).

Basically the FFB itself has to be worked on in order to make up for the lack of feel we have compared to real life, rather than the pure physics/vehicle dynamics themselves being fudged/"dumbed down"/compromised in order to compensate for our lack of feeling.

 

I agree with this completely. I think this is an area where iRacing and rF2 shine. The steering doesn't feel exactly as it would in the real car, but you are getting more information through the wheel, which makes up for the lack of feeling everywhere else.

On that note, is there anyone here who has actually tried pCARS that can give some insight into the FFB in it? For me anyway, the actual physics can be spot on or just approximately close, doesn't matter as long as the FFB feels really good. I'm really hoping that pCARS gets that part right, because everything else about it does look pretty darn amazing, especially the American stock cars (ISI should take note here )

 

1+

It's still in alpha stage and things are improving with the latest physics testing. I've been there since summer 2012 and they've done huge steps ahead. So yes, it will be a great sim, maybe not to the taste of hard hardcore simracers, who want everything ultra hard and difficult, but hey, most of the people are not ultras. I believe that having rF2, AC and pCars (i like what GSC2013 has done with rf1 engine too) will leave no wish open, but not a single one of them will be perfect. I'll be more than happy if they all achieve their goals, since it will only allow us to choose from many different titles.

Oh, and BTW, no one ever mentioned nKPro, if you're yearning for realism?

 

No no no

Why is is people think Physics could possibly change that much in any sim from what it was. ???


Has rF2 changed ? Will AC change ? Nah

 

Each sim excels in one or more areas. I think each will improve vastly from the other areas rivals excel in.

 

After reading all opinions, I think if they have at least good ffb and adjustable cockpit position on release date and the option of turn off steering wheel in cockpit view (because no one need another codemasters f1) i´ll give them a shot just for the these graphics.

 

It's not the physics that's changing, it's the new tire model being tweaked and corrected. Then the driving will be influenced by the different car parts that are also being modeled properly. Don't make the mistake of comparing one game's work based on another (talking about rF2/AC). Personally I don't currently enjoy neither rF2 nor pCARS, in fact I've uninstalled pCARS and will try again a couple of months down the line.

Right now there's plenty of testing happening and some guys with more voice are having a good say on things, there's no need for me to go and validate stuff. It also seems that the voice of reason usually overcomes mindless fanboyism/personal desires when it comes to the development, even if the reasonable stuff is in less amount. The worst thing there can be for a game are biased people "helping" develop it, especially when some people that fall under that category are beta testers. The way people are defensive with their game of choice here rivals that of Playstation vs XBox arguments.

 

2 & 3 already done. 1 WIP.

 

Thanks. Good to know. Tell them to make room for my money.

 

My honest opinion after having both rFactor and pCars. rFactor is the die hard racing simulator. pCars is more like a Gran Turismo / NFS Shift mix.

 

Currently pCARS need a lot of work from users to get the most of FFB, tweaking files, etc., and after all this work you start to have something really impressive. It's not enough user friendly to my taste, Alpha build, not at all out-of-the-box, you need to redo all the job for each build, deleting profile, graphics settings, etc. I only donwload a new build each weeks (instead of each days) due to this preparation job, give a shot of few hours, enjoy it, and get back to rF2. But it's more and more enjoyable, it come, it's wip, and the SMS team want to go as far as they can on simulator side...Hope they reach what they try to reach, everybody will win if we have another real sim to enjoy

 

FWIW I certainly believe a sim is their aim.

As I see it there are two issues.

1. Can they get their next gen tyre model to work? Not an easy task - all the current next gen tyre models - rF2, iRacing and AC have their critics and aren't quite there yet it would seem. LFSs next gen tyre model also seems to have beaten its developer.

2. The split in opinion as to whether real tyres are forgiving on the limit or unforgiving - the traditional "sims must be hard to drive" vs the alternative "sims should simulate reality and if reality is that tyres are forgiving then so be it." I'm pretty sure SMS fall into the second camp and those looking for an old-style - hard to drive "sim" will be disappointed/pleased that their preconceptions concerning pCARs have been realised.

 

Kinda like rfactor before RealFeel.

I don't understand all the dislike for pCars. Remember these are the same guys who did GTR, GTL, and GTR2. They delivered a lot with those Sims and I have hope that the same holds true with pCars. I remember when GTR2 came out people called it arcade like because the tire model was different than GTR. Try racing online with 30+ people in GTR2 for a 1 or 2 hour race pushing yourself to stay at the limit and tell me it's not a Sim. I'll reserve judgment until everything is finalized and it's released to the public. Grip does not equal arcade, just like lack of grip does not equal simulation.

 

I think you've confused the developer 'Simbin' (GTR, GTR2) with 'Slightlymad Studios' (pCARS, Need for Speed: Shift). Simbin is doing Raceroom Experience. It's not a terrible racing game (err, hotlapping game rather) but it's not up to standards of rF2 in physics or force-feedback. It's a free-to-play, casual-audience focused game, not a core sim like rF2 or iRacing, but more sim-like than a NFS or maybe GT/Forza.

Edit: I've just looked it up, and apparently there's a common denominator between the two of 'Blimey! games', who've done both under different publishers it seems. My apologies, seems you were right after all.