Unfortunately with an open platform like rF2 where the content isn't just limited to what comes in the box, you will be forced to download stuff. There is nothing ISI can do about this without a magic wand. But yeah, the time it takes to re-acquire all the content is time consuming. But rF1 had this same problem and it's online usage is higher than rF2. So clearly people aren't too bothered about downloading stuff. At least most good servers have GetMod setup so you aren't forced to hunt stuff down with Google. Then again rF1 is basically dead as far as new content is concerned. So by now all the content worth having is already on everyone's hard drives. The problem with rF1 is that a lot of the content is becoming hard to find. Lots of dead links. So if you had a disk crash you would be in for even more work in rF1 than in rF2.
I wouldn't say it's difficult, at least to drive and enjoy it (apart from low speeds on green track). I find driving at limit easier in rF2 (with well done cars) than many other sims. But yes, there are more variables, driving is more dynamic, learning curve is very steep if you want to be fast. For newcomers servers with fixed setups, TC and ABS allowed and rubbered tracks would be a very nice place to jump in and just race, without spending huge time on testing/adjusting setups and being frustrated by "green" track.
@Elbo What about other sims ? can you install only the mod you want, or do you have to download everything ?
"Good servers"............lol You not forced to hunt for anything join my room, I use ISI. There is nothing others can do about it ? Well they could spend more time in open rooms running ISI content I remember Noel joining ISI server with BT20/Monza and My F3 room as soon as a rookie hit you .....gave up like you was too good for it. I done 1000s of laps getting smashed by rookies, I paid my dues. All the apps and tools you make and all the GET MODS in the world won't fill rooms. It is People do that. Leagues are too tied up in their own little worlds. Ther don't care what happens with open room racing thats why they put no time into it. They have everything they need. Go back to your League stop worrying about open rooms you have no real concern for. lol
In iRacing you have to download all the content that is used in a session even the cars you aren't actually driving. pCARS is closed so all the content is included in the original install even if you never plan to drive them. With AC you have to manually install 3rd party content if a server is hosting with 3rd party content. So basically all sims force the user to download stuff. At least ISI provided a system to make this fully automated. I wish there was an extra column in the MM that indicated whether all the content on the server is GetMod enabled. I think admins would finally be motivated to take the extra few minutes to setup download links so they can get this special batch in the MM.
So you can add your server to the list of "good servers" because yours is using all GetMod enabled content. No clue what you are talking about with regards to me joining an ISI server and then quitting because someone ran into me. I can only even recall joining an ISI server to actually run some laps one time and I can't recall joining your server ever. I very literally don't do public racing anymore. Not because I'm too good for it but because I just don't have that much time these days and what little time I do have I would spend on the league server. If I joined and then left I can assure you it wasn't because I thought I was too good for the people on that server though. I used to run SRRS and spent many many hours on our open server trying to help people out and spent a lot of time recruiting and trying to assure newer drivers that they would be welcomed by everyone in our league and that we would all be helpful with setup work and all that. Those days of tons of free time are over for me. I have 4 kids and a wife now. You very clearly know nothing about me. I would rather you not make assumptions about me. I do have concern for open rooms. If I didn't I wouldn't be as active with trying to write tools to make hosting proper servers so easy or engaging in brainstorming threads like these trying to find an answer.
It's not that simple, I wish it was. The number of random public racers reflect the active online community playing rF2, and when that gets smaller, leagues have less drivers to pick from + the quality of drivers get worse. It's very concerning that people still bother to do pick-up racing with rF1 but not with rF2. No amount of piracy or outdated hardware can explain to me why 10 years old product is more popular. Just as people didn't upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8, people aren't upgrading from rF to rF2, to draw an analogue, which means something has gone wrong. MS said those people would eventually upgrade and get familiar with W8, but they never did, so they had to change their entire strategy with W10. Something similar I feel is needed with rF2. I run a league and I'm concerned we won't stay with rF2 for many more years. Concerned because rF2 has the best physics and some other brilliant features, otherwise we would have moved on to other sim already.
Well in Rfactor1 if I saw a server running champcar at Vancouver, that was all I needed, the champcar mod and the Vancouver track (mismatches aside ofcourse) My point was really to the person coming in new to rfactor2, getting online is rendered a little more complicated and frustrating by the vmod, that is the simple essence of what I was trying to say.
I really don't see how the vmod is confusing from the users perspective. Maybe for the admin because he needs to actually create the vmod. But the user simply joins the server and the vmod downloads without any user interaction. The only time I could see a vmod confusing the end user is when an admin always uses the same vmod name and version number. The end user would then need to know to uninstall the old version of the mod (even though the actual version number is the same) and then join again. I kind of feel like he vmod should be completely disposable. You join and it downloads and installs just for the one session. It wouldn't work offline but maybe let the user manually download and install the mod if they want to use it offline. This would prevent people from having to delete old mods every so often. In rF1 you need the mod and track to join a server. In rF2 you don't need to have anything at all installed to join. It all happens automatically. This is why I really don't see how this is the reason why rF1 would be more popular.
I dont see any issues with how vmod works either. I think rf2 just needs a few good serieses that are not very hard to drive and servers setup to rotate the sessions. People will then find it easy to race and then they might move to more hardcore cars etc. I'll gladly support and pay for such mods like I do with other games. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Some time ago, there was a server with F1 1992 all time with tracks rotating, and you could find the server full of drivers all saturday.
Nice random attack Durge, well done. What did Noel do this time? did he disagree? tsk Noel. tsk I say!
You get very tiring and annoying sometimes DD. You post as if you were the savior of rF2 or at leat a suoerior human being. What has been your contribution to rF2? Your unreadable posts for most users? Noel has done a terrific work for rF2. Like him I don't have time for open rooms and I don't give a sh__ for them. I prefer running in a league where I race every two weeks and avoid being wrecked by someone who won't care if he ruins my race. For that I can play offline. In my case you can confidently say that I don't care for open rooms. And by the way, saying that people is the problem of not having populated open rooms is ridiculous. If other sims have full rooms, are they being sustained by aliens? Come on, clean your glasses and take a more general view of the problem!! Enviado desde mi GT-I9505 mediante Tapatalk
Could this ongoing issue maybe have something to do with it? http://isiforums.net/f/showthread.p...ed-out-in-multiplayer-server-selection-screen Heres my honest experience as a casual simmer: Personally I have given up RF2 MP for now because of very bad experiences with it. Greyed out Race Button and having to download for several minutes even though I have the car and track is very frustrating. I did give it another go recently and bought 1 year of online subscription when I saw in the forums that they apparently had solved the thing with having to download everything just to get in to have a quick race. But it still works that way and I havent even bothered to open MP for months now even though I have the subscription. I know I know - its the server owners fault and not ISI's but I really dont care about that - I dont have the patience to accept such a system no matter who is at fault. I guess RF2 MP is just designed for the few hardcore simmers as of now - and if thats how its meant to be, then luckily there are good alternatives for pickup racing. I would come back trying and trying if there were no alternatives but there are. So now I just race RF2 AI which is luckily VERY GOOD
Thats one of the reasons I have created the auto mod download scheduler so you start it whenever u want with some filtering if you want and then you find all the downloads ready. Though it has issues if admins dont add the proper download links and also it won't install the mod if it finds version mismatch but its a start... Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
if you talking about this http://rfactor.net/rf2mm.php it hasn't worked for me for ages. That's why then I created this http://servers.proracing.club
Awesome, excellent work! Now if it was possible to launch the sim from it, and there was some way to get the times the races and Q sessions are due to start and perhaps put that into some kind of calendar/schedule you'd have something even more useful. Not sure how feasible that is but it'd be a nice step. Really nice work though, especially the detail popup showing location and layout (is it possible to get the car too?). I reckon that needs more publicity or ISI need to borrow it from you
Are you referring to servers that host multiple tracks? If so, yeah I agree. This needs to be fixed. There was an attempt made to bandaid this problem by making a tool that would create multiple vmods, one for each track and then the server rotates through the individual vmods. So when you join you are only required to download the current track. When the session changes and a new track is used it would force you to download the next vmod and download the new track if needed. But this project has been on hold for a very long time now. Personally they should allow multiple tracks in one vmod but modify the prejoin process to only require the currently running track.
