So, I guess you could view me as very much new to rfactor 2. I have mostly played iracing for the past year, and love it or hate it, for the most part it works on every level. The multiplayer speaks for itself, the tracks are superb and the cars all of a similar quality. It's obviously tightly controlled and modding is not supported. So onto rfactor 2..... I bought it in the steam sale and some things hit me straight away. Firstly, the FFB, and feel of controlling the car is astonishingly good. I mean way ahead of any other sim I've played, and I have pretty much all of the current ones. But the lasting impression after playing it for a while now, is the huge incositency in quality of cars and tracks. Some of the tracks provided as base content, like the Virtua Sebring and Mid Ohio ones are of professional quality and would not be out of place in any sim. Others are quite frankly not worth the space on my HD. I assume with S397 now steering the ship, this will be altered? At the moment it just feels like an unfinished project, that could use a lot of refinement.
I would assume nothing will change in this sense. This is a moddable platform and you cannot control the quality of amateur people's content. I would suggest to remove whatever is not up to your standard. Sticking to official content (ISI, S397 and 3PA) should assure the highest quality. Other 3rd party content is not controlled by rF2 so you may find any type of quality there.
First of all, welcome, as said, everyone can publish a track or a car for RF2, this is awesome from a certain perspective, and "horrible" in other. Fortunately, the horrible part just mean that you wasted some time to download and try some content, as time goes by, old and unrefined products will be hopefully put aside and forgotten. Now, that many modders are publishing their product on the steam workshop, the rating system will help you steer away from content not up to the task. That very same characteristic of RF2 is what make casual online racing hard on this platform (a lot of content is required just to enter a server and discovere it's full of AIs, hopefully, as development is still in progress, this effect could be mitigated, but in the end, RF2 will alway suck a lot of GB's of our HD.
Indeed, it seems like a double edged sword. The top Modders must have started somewhere, and restricting people from making content would undoubtedly restrict the talent base of this side of the community. I take my hat off to anyone that is able grasp the skills needed to create the tracks and cars we all race. That said, it does create a somewhat muddled and chaotic experience at times, with a huge gap between the very best and the very worst. With iracing having cornered the online market so far, and Race rooms plans for driver license/rating and organised online league system, rfactor could find itself being left behind. This would be a crying shame, as the basics under the hood are really very very good!
Welcome! Fine that you recognise the good sides of rF2, but that is the fate/problem with modding. As already stated you have to filter the content for yourself, nothing else will help. (maybe donating the good modders could lead to more content from them. Thats all I can think of) S397 is also on the way to offer a rating- and more organised online-system. I just hope that they dont need too much time for that, so that they wont be run out and left behind by Raceroom. This is one thing that need to be implemented as soon as possible!
You soon know what and what not to download . There is plenty of acceptable stuff now and it's growing by the week
There's a lot of good modders content for rf1 that is not converted yet to rf2 due the difficult to do. With Studio397 in command this will change. You can see accessing rfactorcentral.com I think that good content will not be the problem to compete with other titles. Besides this, the new competition mechanics will focus on leagues and championships, this means that the leagues will decide which mod and track to use, doing the filter.
Virtua_LM tracks are not part of the base content, so maybe you confused modded tracks with base content tracks in your complaint. All the base content tracks (minus a couple of 3PA ones) are good IMO. The 3PA ones just need to be better separated in the upcoming new UI, problem solved.
I too have been playing IRacing for the last year. Yes, their tracks and cars seem consistent, but the quality of racing varies race to race! Also, as you bought rFactor in a steam sale, I guess it cost about the same as two iRacing tracks? Did you buy VIR on iRacing, or did you listen to the majority of forum posters who hate it? Followed the Skip Barber section, where half the drivers hate the Le Mans circuit, while the other half praise the extra layer of strategy the long straights bring? I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, just suggesting you are looking at it from the wrong angle.
Where are you getting this conclusion from? Direct conversion from rF1 to rF2 is quite straightforward. It is providing quality to it what can ve difficult. Especially properly mapping grass and road materials to take advantage of real road and grass shaders.
Marcel spoke extensively in the interview on support for the rf1 tire model. I figured this was the point that prevented the conversion of the mods.
I remember it now. I was talking more regarding to track modding since it is what I do. I understand that for track modding nothing has been stated that will be done in this way. As I said, for road and terrain it is not easy to achieve a good conversion from rF1 to rF2.
