I did a search, but was unable to find any threads about helping to manage overwhelming amount of mods, information, etc. I am becoming more impressed by rFactor 2 so thank you ISI for putting in all the effort to create such an amazing product! And I know this is beta so there will be improvements, but.... I remember reading some comments about vmod issues but I'm thinking about a more comprehensive addressing of issues with navigating the complex world of rFactor. I believe there is much opportunity to serve not only hobbyists that like to tinker, explore, discover, etc. and the loyal rfactor community, but also those new to rFactor, especially those looking to advance into true sim racing and it would be great if newcomers were not turned off by the level of investment it takes to understand everything. For example (and I know some of these are being address but am just brainstorming)... - Navigating the already overwhelming number of vmods, cars & tracks. While I believe work is being done to correct the biggest gaps, such as the spinner interface, I believe the sheer volume and variety of mods and tracks that is expected can benefit from additional filtering based on, for example vehicle class, sub-class, make, drivetrain, transmission, torque, horsepower, weight, horsepower per ton, etc. etc. Same goes for tracks, such as oval, road, rally, rallycross, off road, championship, etc. etc. Also it would be great to be able to see all detailed information available for cars, tracks, vmods, championships, etc, etc., such as track map, statistics (length, turns, etc.), best rank time, etc. etc. - Navigating the enormous world of multiplayer and especially leagues. If there is something already available let me know, but for example, I would like a global view of all activities across leagues on a calendar which are during non-working hours in the Eastern time zone and includes front wheel Turing cars without auto-clutch. Does anything like this exist? If not, could ISI host a server where leagues and clubs could publish their schedules and rules? Obviously, there are benefits to having to go through the pain of finding a leagues or club b/c for example you end up with more dedicated and experienced drivers and less crashes, etc. but I believe some leagues and clubs would like the exposure.
Anyone? Perhaps I am being too picky? How 'bout I start small. Is anyone willing to share tips on how to find leagues in North American / South American time zones? Extra credit goes to those that know some that are not open wheel (although 1960s F1 is fun) and not oval. Also is ISI planning to support aggregation of league information in any way. I have friends who won't leave iRacing b/c easy to find races, but rFactor and rf2 are better I believe but hard to compete when so tedious to find action.
League exposure, i support your quest sir! But perhaps its abit more complicated then one would initialy think. A static list is not good enough imo, we've seen this on multiple websites, including rcentral and iracing and tbh, these lists become outdated very quickly with leagues gone, info still there, leagues changing stuff, old info still there. heck, i dont think our own league ever updated our league info on rcentral after we put it in initialy and we are constantly looking for new drivers. So in order to become a good tool it would have to become more flexible and complex, like the ability to select different preferences (formats,times, dates, mods,aids, etc) otherwise even an up to date list will not trigger the right exposure. league A will be on top getting the most, League O people will not even see because it takes too long to browse to it Plus it should not be occupied with dead information or deceased leagues, then the entire list will just be ignored all together. and sadly, leagues can come and go very rapidly. But if it would get created and actualy works, that would be pretty frigging sweet because its very hard these days to get what you want.
Oh and also i believe we will get better server info in the multiplayer list so leagues will hopefully be able to put in their website url so people can have a quick look, i believe someone also requested different icons for servers. like hosted, dedicated and league-icons. i think the info-box with url and other stuff to be added would be the minimum we can dema....ask from ISI For your other quests, i suspect this will get better, we are lacking loads of info like you suggested and i hope/suspect this will be added before Gold since rf1 had this allready and why leave it out now. For the navigating-rfactor-part i think allot can be easily solved by using a more intuative interface. the sliders for cars and mods are just not working at all and thank god they added the /list function now. much better. Personaly i dont care, i only race in my league and that means one mod/car per week. doesn't get more simple then that but i do agree with your points nonetheless.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback. I wonder if it is possible to have a league directory that can report league activity. I don't know how the server lists are generated when you select online from the main rFactor launcher screen, but if server activity can be tracked then the "league directory" could be filtered on degree of activity to solve the stale league problem like you mention at rfactorcentral?
well yeah, i suspose if ISI would make this feature themselfes they could use server activity from matchmaker to display it on the list. like a league listed that has an active server gets a green button, a dead server gets a red button. that could work, would give leagues some pressure to keep it 'green' as well In any other way i can think of it is depandant on leagues to update it or make sure people can see they are active. and that would not work i'm afraid. or at least not as good. might end up with a bunch of dead leagues whom are actualy still active, whom simply forgot to update or lost their account details hehe. Still, a propor and configurable info-box on the server within the multiplayer list, thats the easyest and least intrusive way. any smart webmaster would then also be sure there is a quick-info page where peeps like you can quicky check whats going on. We kind of had this with the MOTD screen in rf1 but it was/is pretty useless.
From the discussion, I can see that the best solution would be to allow the server admin to set the type of server being run. This would include public, single event, drag, league event, or what ever else is needed. Then when you are looking at servers, have the ability to filter by server type. Once you have your list, the ability to sort by name, population, up time etc would be handy. This idea obviously is only going to work 100% if the server admins remember to set the right option when they create the server
Yeah, a server is the most effective tool for any league or online community to recruit new peeps so it only makes sense to use the serverlobby as the main tool to spread the needed info around. It does make more sense to focus on the lobby indeed, add a ****load of info to it which admins/drivers can use to their benefit And tbh it would benefit all 3 parties in this, servers can attract more drivers, drivers can find more servers that suit them and ISI will see a much more fluid use of their sim.
The main problems I see with lleagues is that the natural place to put together a database of leagues is the website/forum of the game developers themselves. Problem is, everyone knows that the worst place to find out about leagues are at the website/forums of the developers themselves... Look at the rfactorcentral database its a disaster area. Leagues long since abandoned are there, the info is inaccurate and arranged alpabetically. No ones cares what the leagues are named, how about arranging by days they meet? Time zone? Mod? How about getting rid of any league not updated in 6 months? We need a smarter system and one thats accurate.
