Bring back (+ or - ) part of LMU improvements to rF2 (ONLY most profitable for users + MSG)

We agree that LMU is strictly a rFactor 2 software, which has been receiving changes and improvements since MSG started working on it, and that the WEC license means a number of limitations that impact the software code probably in a relatively superficial way, and obviously a very strong limitation on the content, obviously.

Good.

The situation being closely linked to the arrival of LMU, and the situation being what it is for rFactor 2 and MSG's choices (I deplore them, but that's not my subject here) :

I would have really appreciated that MSG determine among the long list of small or big changes (code), which ones it would be possible to bring back in the next 12 months to rFactor 2.

I explain :

If there are "randomly" 100 main places where the code has been changed, there are most likely "roughly" between 5 and 20 areas of code (evolutions/improvements) that are not *very difficult to bring back to rFactor 2 because the two games are indisputably on the same basis, and that some things would require a NON-excessive amount of time to bring them back to rFactor 2.

Let's not pretend that these are really different games in term of code, even if a lot of things have been done behind the scenes for LMU that are not in rFactor 2, thousands hours of coding...

Despite everything, I'd bet that almost 95% of the code is identical between the 2 simulations.

(Note that this post is written without taking into account MSG's current really difficult financial situation, I suspect that what I want here is made even more difficult now with this situation.)

 

Please note that this discussion is absolutely not intended to turn into a fight against MSG, and even less into rivalries of opinion between rFactor 2 users.

 

Given the situation that I really deplore for rFactor 2, a simulation that I have been using for about 11 years which is absolutely huge, knowing that I do not play any other video game or simulation of any nature whatsoever except with my children to be honest, I think that I will be really ready and very enthusiastic that certainly rFactor 2 is not as we already know totally put aside, but that it continues to receive a little bit of love just what it takes, developments made much easier because they have already been done on LMU, developments objectively not excessively difficult or time-consuming for MSG, but which would give a little bit of flavor to rFactor 2 and rekindle the flame a little bit in a way.

To be really honest and to talk about my personal case, I don't plan on stopping rFactor 2 at all in the next few years, but a little love for this game from the developers really a little bit just the easiest to do for them based on what they've already done on LMU, that would be really great.

This message is to clarify my first post a little bit more.

 

I wish so too. We don't know how much of transfering is possible, but at least some of it must be. We can just guess and wait. My speculation is that rF2 might be just simply on indefinite hold, maybe won't even get developed anywhere forward ever. At this point it could be just completely pushed aside as not to be a distraction of any sort. Maybe it just doesn't pay off, not selling anything. People on modded platforms likes to get stuff for free, there are entire leagues purposelly avoiding anything paid at all times. And there are notthat many people playing rF2. So probably their hopes for more profitable tomorrow is perfectly logical, focusing on new game 100%.

On the other hand there could be some passionate developer who maybe could possibly do "the easy" code transfers after main work hours. But even then, maybe it would hurt LMU somehow, and maybe rF2 is purposelly pushed aside to cool off and then just fade away slowly. Maybe they don't even want for it to start evolving.

Eitherway, I wonder how many improvements over rF2 there are in LMU. To me, there definitely aren't ones that I want the most - better transmission simulation and better modding support. Has they even done anythign with physics, for example anythign for rain ?

 

imho it would not matter if rF2 was near perfect.

 

If it were that easy, they'd do it. Heck, if it were that easy we'd all be making sims.

 

I don't agree at all with what you just said, moreover in an unargued way. M

To put it simply, if there are some things that are not excessively difficult and time-consuming that they can bring from LMU, that absolutely does not mean that they will decide to do so.

Moreover, they could even decide even if it is highly improbable and therefore not very logical to bring things back from LMU to rfactor 2 they are precisely a little complex and time-consuming because they could judge that it would considerably improve the simulation and perhaps give other financial perspectives.

Of course we don't know anything about it, but it seems highly improbable to me that there are not at least 5 or 10% of the various improvements of LMU that cannot return to rFactor 2 as I indicated, that is to say sorry to repeat it without an investment in time and excessive complexity.

Why always want to consider that on a whole range of LMU improvements, none or almost none could relatively easily (in quotes) return to rfactor 2.

As you can see, I am not talking about a majority of improvements from LMU, and only the less complex ones that are less time-consuming to implement.

There must be some things frankly right ?

I am not a developer or coder/programmer indeed, but it seems obvious to me (can be wrong so).

On the other hand, I learned about the extremely complex and difficult situation of MSG yesterday, and even if the reasoning that I have and that I maintain is correct, this explosive financial situation probably makes things impossible now.

I think that we really have to be nuanced and understand that only a small amount of improvements can be made, but I think that the mistake is to say after all since few things can be brought back from LMU to rfactor 2, we might as well do nothing.

I am more surprised than fans of this simulation since always hold this speech to be honest.

For me, the hope that rFactor 2 will resume real development as was the case before is over.

But a few little things from a simulation that is extremely close in terms of coding and base, that seems intelligent and possible to me.

 

I've done enough coding (not a lot, but enough) and read enough from current and past devs to understand that nearly everything that has been improved for LMU has moved the entire thing away from rF2. It would take nearly as much work to reintegrate it as it did to do it in the first place, and without the resource injection that was required to do it. Hence I say "If it were easy" - it's evidently not, in the context of time and money.

Anything is possible, but it's not free or easy.

rF3 would make more sense, as something built on the improvements of LMU and as a new project to bring in more money. And likely a targeted game is more attractive to investors in any case. (we love the sandbox style as rFactor users, but it's not a high reward concept, especially when licensed (expensive) content is so desired by players).

 

I prefer your last post, because it is reasoned, unlike the first one which would have gained from being so.

I understand your point of view, the question that only the developers can answer, apart from the will or the capacity to do so given the catastrophic financial circumstances, is what percentage or number of possible improvements from LMU can go back to LMU, given that we have been established that it is probably a small proportion anyway.

 

Can someone tell to someone who hasn't tried LMU, what are the improvements ? Are there many ? At least tell a few most significant ones.

 

I'd prefer that rF2 development just continued with its own improvements important to its users rather than just porting improvements which could be important to LMU and not so much to rF2. In both cases, it depends on how much money rF2 makes and their plans to make money with it. The more money it can make, the more work they can put on it. At this point everything depends on income sources and money. How many times have I said money already?

 

@mantasisg

I have not tested the features in their entirety, far from it.

But to put it simply, exactly the same physics engine with substantially similar physics (very low differences), exactly the same graphics engine with a certain number of small improvements that are not very significant but which accumulate are quite pleasant, substantially the same sound engine but unlike rFactor 2 all the content is perfectly adapted to this sound engine and if we take all the content the sound rendering of LMU is better than rFactor 2 (the difference is slightly more important in terms of sound than in terms of graphics compared to rFactor 2), a UI which we find almost exactly the same parameters as on rFactor 2 but much less well done paradoxically on LMU (more of a game aspect than simulation and not necessarily more ergonomic IMO), the cars are very detailed at the same level as the cars of the last two years of rFactor 2 perhaps slightly better, the circuits are identical in graphic quality with a slight improvement but very slight really slight (of course pleasant).

What did I see knowing that I use LMU extremely rarely because the car content especially but also the track content does not interest me at all.

- For those who like recent prototypes and recent GTs with AAA tracks that for the most part do not have (IMO) much charm and a "fairly low interest" (in quotation, to be qualified) in terms of layout/driving, it is absolutely great because it is rFactor 2 (incredibly limited in number and variety of tracks and especially cars and types/generations of car).

- For the others, no other choice but to stay on rFactor 2 if we consider that rFactor 2/LMU has by far the best physics engine, and that is your priority.

Obviously, there are undoubtedly many small various improvements but I did not pay attention to them.

If it is not expensive buy it to test.

 

I agree with your point in this post.

Regarding your repetition of money, yes you are absolutely right and it is currently at this moment T by far the most important in what will condition the future of rFactor 2 and LMU.

On the other hand, money is not alone, let me explain :

2 or 2 and a half years ago, the strategic choices that were made and which actually consisted of coming to LMU fairly quickly and investing exclusively fairly quickly in LMU are choices that could perhaps have been made differently, which would perhaps have allowed for better financial conditions.

Of course we do not know and we cannot know, but it is good to note that perhaps the strategic choices that notably brought LMU forward may have simply been bad choices for the company.

On the other hand as you know because I have already said it several times, without talking about the company but talking about the users and fans of rFactor 2 and even all the simracers, for me it is totally indisputable that these strategic choices that brought LMU forward and clearly killed rFactor 2 were bad choices.

It is a personal opinion of course.

But I agree with what you said about the fact that ideally there should be specific improvements for rFactor 2 and not specifically improvements coming from LMU.

 

All this time they just should have been tying loose ends of rF2 and polishing the rough edges, before copying it over to morph into some other title. I wonder if the big money guys in MSG was never told to do so, or they were just "chill out, I know what to do". LMU perhaps came pretty close to being a good time to make this move, although it is not nice how they dropped rF2, feels like it lacks rather little love to live on as properly developed sim, it is pretty great now. To make it more clear to me rF2 feel like this meme LOL:



@Bernat

I share my genius. I wrote this in RD already:

"So where is the actual money at ?

Implement grid girls finally. And set up their AI based fan donation support websites.

Have virtual paid tires. And penalize/monetize fixing cars damage and replacing parts. Fuel. People will love immersion. Make it all cheap enough so it would get bought a lot. Watch accidents in virtual races decrease by 95%.

Monetize extra upgrades. Graphical and physical.

Monetize cooler helmets, driver clothes, models, shoes, gloves.... A beautiful girl driver 3D model that also subtracts 30kg from total car mass - 1000creds.

Have unique virtual limited cars chassies - an actual worth having NFT.

Paid community forum posts (just free for support). 10posts = 1cred. Watch stupid poorly thought out and trolling posts going away.

Gated modding access. You want your mod to be enabled in game, so you could do work on it and have it being recognized so it actually launches - 1euro. Want your mod to go public (being accessible from multiple computers) for free - 20cred. Want to sell your mod - 50% share to game owners. Watch modding go clean. Want your mod to use real branding without licensing - sorry, no.

Paid standing out characters along your nick name.

Organize an online racing system in a clever way, where you can get creds (simulator currency). Watch people actually participate very much."

Isn't this guaranteed money maker. And the best part is that the part of money spending would be immersive haha

 

If I remember rightly from what has been mentioned on discord, while the two games share a lot of common parts and LMU is an evolution of Rf2’s physics and graphics engines, moving stuff from LMU over into rf2 isn’t as simple as it would appear.

But the improvements to LMU over rFactor 2 are great. The tyres have to properly warm up before you can push, and a recent update to them means you no longer have to creep around on the first lap at 30mph in nearly every corner to not slide off the road. Which is why I only ever drove at Le Mans for a bit simply because the tyres have blankets there. But overall, I think the cars on LMU are a lot more connected to the road than the are in rf2.

It’s more likely that LMU will evolve into an rFactor 3 than any of the stuff from LMU going into rFactor 2. But the improvements will keep coming for LMU, current MSG things notwithstanding, simply because of one thing: it’s business. And business will always trump people’s feelings.

You love rf2, you love its physics. you love the Nordschleife. That’s been made abundantly clear over the time you’ve been here, but from a business perspective, the player base of rf2 has always been low so from a business standpoint that doesn’t make sense at this current time. They need a return on the investment and LMU is more likely to provide that because it can attract a bigger player base. It’s why DCS has a smaller player base than Microsoft Flight Simulator, or Call of Duty having a bigger player base than Arma III. Hardcore simulators have typically never been as popular. LMU nicely straddles that bit of something people can pick up and play, while having enough to keep those that love a simulation happy at the same time. Something that MSFS is also capable of doing.

 

Guys, this all feels a bit awkward and it's the same trouble that we see on OT/RD. Why come people who haven't even tried the games to their very fast conclusion that LMU is just rF2? I read that alot and it's a pretty uneducated guess if you ask me. Lazza allready explained it allready and it kind of matches with what Marcel Offermanns has explained a while back - LMU and rF2 are two completely different branches of development at this point so that it wouldn't make sense at all to port changes. My perception as it stands now is similar to what Lazza said: develop LMU until it's fleshed out and use that once it's finished as a base for rF3.

And to come back to the questions of what's changed and what's new. LMU is on a very different level when it comes to sounds, overal quality of the package, physics and FFB with the most sophisticated model for Lmdh and Hypercars, visuals and art style, UI and UX, multiplayer engagement, AI and how they interact with the player, car classes sorted after qualy, proper formation laps, in and out laps, a coop mode ... there is alot more to the package that is LMU compared to rF2 and even stuff that is in both games, like the GTE cars or some of the tracks are on a different level. You simply don't get that same experience in rF2 that you get in LMU, not with the same level of polish. Now you just need to decide if your are interested in WEC or not.

Why don't you guys give it a go and make up your mind on your own? It's as cheap as it get's and there is nothing to loose besides those 35 Euro.

 

This tbh. If you think they’re exactly the same you’ve not played it at all or have only spent five minutes in the game.

 

What I understood is that there is nothing significant over rF2. But lots of small improvements and overalll better polish sums up to much better experience. Good enough. I would though expect some significant things like improved rain physics. I don't really expect anything that resembles actual real endurance nuances such as expansion of various mechanical failures simulation, because everything that big men and small children are doing these days are long lasting sprint races with most grip possible at all times. So yeah, maybe rain goes out too. LOL

Although I am not too much into modern racing. Very well simulated cars interest me anyway. I believe that LMU are running pretty well simulated cars. If I was rich I would definitely just buy up everything as a form of support lol especially if I'd get better modding support and proper clutch simulation haha and both of these things are irrelevent in LMU. Of course there is some good logic that LMU could make sense to be a segue to rF3. The only problem is that it is like lacking 100+ years of cars history. Now if LMU would suddenly start simulating historic WSC seasons, that would be much better. Anyway, I'd start believing that they could make moves towards what could theoretically be called rF3 once serious impressive improvements would be done.

I think if to believe what was said about how much different LMU is now, and that it is entirely different thing now. I can't believe that. But eitherway if it is true or false, it cements the notion that rF2 is really reall really not going to be developed further anymore.

This leaves me to one final question. If rF2 is not going to be developed further, then where was/is the message from developers ? People can't stop guessing, and nobody knows anything.

 

Manta I generaly see you as a very sensible person with enough intellect to have a reasonable discussion. What I don't get is, that you simply can't believe that LMU is differerent eventhough people tell you that it is - people who have spent enough time with both products - or that you throw around stuff like that there is nothing significant over rF2. People throw around buzzwords like significance completely ignoring the fact, that you can actually meassure significance. So now please explain to me: how are you going to meassure that significance if you haven't even played the title? LMU is pretty similar to what GTR2 was compared to rF1, in some cases a bit more extreme because people rarely had issues porting content from one to another. I am yet to see somone copy and pasting a Hypercar or Lmdh from LMU to rF2, let alone a GTE car or a single track, wich should be a five minute job according to some people. People do that for AMS2 btw and copy and paste content from PC1, 2 and 3, wich is called "modding" and yet that sim has a Steam score of over 90 % and nobody ever asks the question if it is different enough compared to the earlier SME titles. Noone with a right mind would call GTR2 just an rF1 clone and it's rightfully regarded as one of the best sim titles of all time. If you can't see that 75 % of that reservation against LMU isn't because of what the product is, but because of reservations against MSG then I don't know what else should make it more clear. People even stream it allmost every day and say: yep it's decent, has improved the last months, has a good MP system and yet there is still that little issue in the back of their head.

There are people who seriously believe that LMU would be developed better under iRacing: a company that offers the same cars and the same tracks at a lower quality for a higher price and asks on top of it for monthly fees to use that lower quality content. Noone with a healthy mind would come to such a conclusion and yet, it's not unusual to read such stuff. Now we see all those doomsday videos that we see since two years now telling everyone what everyone knows anyway pointing out that people should maybe not buy MSG games because the games are getting sucked into Bermuda triangle if MSG goes bust. When GTR2 was released, people didn't care if it did well or not or if Simbin was close to being bankrupt. People enjoyed sim racing and bought it anyway.

To sum it up: if you have the money, are into WEC and all the Hypercar stuff and a sim racing fan, then give it a shot. There is nothing more to it that that.

 

Mr. Hood said it was done. His main purpose as the new CEO was to get LMU to a point where it could be sold or get investors to invest. RF2 rip