iRacing's like online multiplayer system in rF2?

Thank you Mistar Offermans for this interresting link - and for your dev lecture.
Somebody should have told you that there was an annoying problem with your microphone - and solved it:)
But after your lecture I suddenly have a lot more faith in a possible future (and niche) for rF2.
A lot more! :)

I really like your closing remarks about sim racing as a special positive Esport because:
1. It mimics the real thing
2. To the contrary of other game types the skills can be used in RL
3. To the contrary of most other Esports the focus is not to kill others (at least if you are a more serious sim racer:) )
4. A possible olympic dicipline in the future because of 1-3)

And your graphical display of the future rF2 "environment" makes me to wonder if I should finally use my saved rF2 Steam code to change my simple non-Steam rF2 installation to a fullblown up to date rF2 install :)
So thank you for this insight.
 
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Marcel Offermans said:
Reading up on this, the first thing that comes to mind is to refer you to a talk I did recently at the Luminis DevCon where I gave a high-level overview of the upcoming competition support. You can jump right into that talk here:

Now I'm aware that this does not yet answer all questions you might have, but it should give you a sense of the direction we're heading in.
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I hope this competition system will work out. It could potentially be used as a platform in World Cyber Games or Intel Extreme Masters etc., On the other hand racing sims are niche in comparison to Counter Strike, Starcraft or LOL so I'm a bit skeptical.
Still I just wonder why no sim developed something similar to iRacing system yet. We know it works and people are willing to pay a lot just for the online capabilities. iRacing doesn't have other advantages(besides laser scanned tracks), like beautiful graphics and good marketing like pCars.
Not saying, visuals are not important, because there's probably a reason Assetto Corsa Competizione moved to Unreal engine, despite AC already had quite good graphics and VR performance.

But to sum up: I know in order to replicate such online system would be probably significant investment in servers, admins and most importantly developing software. But simple things like players ratings, results and various statistics and match making, are implemented in various multiplayer games, and are relatively easy to replicate.
 
Ive started change my view on wanting rf2 to copy iracings online system,I don’t think it would make enough iracers leave for rf2 because they paid so much for their rented contents.

Now I believe rf2 needs to offer something different,more tempting to make them leave or even try it out.
What that is o don’t know,but I don’t think copying iracing is the way to go
 
patchedupdemon said:
Ive started change my view on wanting rf2 to copy iracings online system,I don’t think it would make enough iracers leave for rf2 because they paid so much for their rented contents.

Now I believe rf2 needs to offer something different,more tempting to make them leave or even try it out.
What that is o don’t know,but I don’t think copying iracing is the way to go
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That's a good point and I agree that the users who already invested a lot in iRacing content won't be eager to switch. But there are new people or users that play other sims which don't have good multiplayer. If such subscription was significantly cheaper or even free, for some time to attract new users, I'm sure many people will remind themselves that rF2 exist:)
 
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patchedupdemon said:
Ive started change my view on wanting rf2 to copy iracings online system,I don’t think it would make enough iracers leave for rf2 because they paid so much for their rented contents.

Now I believe rf2 needs to offer something different,more tempting to make them leave or even try it out.
What that is o don’t know,but I don’t think copying iracing is the way to go
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Yeah good point.
People even use it as their main reason to stay as iRacing members that they have "invested" so and so much $ in the game that they "cannot afford" to leave.
But again if rF2 could offer some of the core services from iRacing and as the main bonus and difference offer rF2´s believeable tire model then my guess is that the more serious of iRacings drivers could be tempted to leave (inside a certain timespan ofcourse). :-)
And if some of the more wellknown iRacing users begin talking why they have left the service some kind of snowball effect could begin.
But again. If iRacing suddenly can create a usefull TM then any competing service will get problems.
But refering to Offermans lecture then a future rf2 has something iRacing dont have up in the sleve. :-)
 
Nielsen said:
But again if rF2 could offer some of the core services from iRacing and as the main bonus and difference offer rF2´s believeable tire model then my guess is that the more serious of iRacings drivers could be tempted to leave (inside a certain timespan ofcourse). :)
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Yeah the problem is that simracing is niche in gaming business and on top of that most users chose other games like AC or pCars. For instance there is implementation of Sim Racing System for rF2 (which is simple version of iRacing online system) , but last time I checked it was dead ( no scheduled races where as in AC is active).
So I think iRacing like system would be significant investment, but would have to be cheaper (or even free for some time) to attract enough users.
 
I havent tried this SRS system but taken from the Raceroom forum there is 2 main problems with it.
As a 3rd party program it is absolutely not PaP :D
And the programs intention to "mingle" drivers to others about the same level doesnt work if there are too few participants.

But again compared to iRacing then rF2 (and Raceroom) should ofcourse have such a system integrated - both to solve the cumbersom install problem of 3rd parties and to mandatory inspire people to race against each other.:)
 
Nielsen said:
And the programs intention to "mingle" drivers to others about the same level doesnt work if there are too few participants.
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True, I prefer to finish P10 in a race with 20 people than get split in 2 races with 10 drivers each and win. IRL they usually dont split grids if they fit in a race, they just give people different class (like Pro, Am). Keeping grids with decent sizes is always better, from my experience empty grids breeds empty grids,
 
Hey guys, I was just stumbling across this thread and I dare to just jump in :-)
You bring in so many ideas which are similar to mine and I might share some of my thoughts with you. :D

Over 2 years ago I started building an online plattform - the socalled RaceApp.eu
The purpose of it was from the beginning to take the massive burden of organisational work from league managers.
I wanted to give them a standard tool which fulfills all their needs regarding league registration and scoring topics.

As this baby grew in users I implemented some features which allowed communities to have their own separate community area where they could give permissions to co-eventmanagers and design their landing page.
I started the sim support with PCARS and extended to Raceroom, Assetto Corsa and lately to PCARS2. Unfortunately rF2 is not in the list (yet).

There are communities all over the globe which support me in bringing in new ideas, feature requests ... and bug reports aswell.
With that feedback I built features like rookie scoring, multi scoring tables within a season, scratch results, replacement drivers, dynamic VLN scoring, multiclass, performance equal classes, and much much more.

The idea behind the RaceApp was always to bring people together because the simracing scene isn't that large anyway. The newest concept we are about to test is 'RaceApp Global' where drivers from different communities worldwide come together to drive for points for their home community.

An overview showing which communities are hosting which series is currently in the planning phase. This should give new drivers an orientation where to jump in. I hope that this plattform will become a network where you can easily find a rF2 community to race with even you are homebased in a raceroom community (just an example).

Drivers from all the communities get everything on one place with an standardized easy to use web interface - just you mentioned above.

I am absolutely not bullshitting you with marketing stuff for my own app - it's just an information that there is something out there which matches many of your needs. (The app is free to use for everyone anyway) The next development steps always depend on the wishes of the users and the support of the communities. A driver ranking system and some kind of dedicated server automation is definitively on the roadmap. rF2 support has not been requested much yet, but you are invited to do so ;)
 
Even though all my time right now is in iRacing, I hope this online racing structure build for rFactor 2 is not
too far away, cos I will be there! :) (For formula races that is)
 
avenger82 said:
Yeah the problem is that simracing is niche in gaming business and on top of that most users chose other games like AC or pCars. For instance there is implementation of Sim Racing System for rF2 (which is simple version of iRacing online system) , but last time I checked it was dead ( no scheduled races where as in AC is active).
So I think iRacing like system would be significant investment, but would have to be cheaper (or even free for some time) to attract enough users.
Click to expand...

Last time I checked srs isn’t available for rf2 until something is implemted by studio 397 with dx11.
Same problem I think that is stopping track map.

But as usual I may be wrong
 
Marcel Offermans said:
Reading up on this, the first thing that comes to mind is to refer you to a talk I did recently at the Luminis DevCon where I gave a high-level overview of the upcoming competition support. You can jump right into that talk here:

Now I'm aware that this does not yet answer all questions you might have, but it should give you a sense of the direction we're heading in.
Click to expand...
While the upcoming online competition looks promising, it's quite different from iRacing's system. I wish at least SRS would be supported(there's an SRS app but for some reason no series are running).
AFAIK the competition system will be released along with new UI and graphics updates(shaders)? If that's the case then this may attract broader user base.
I think rF2 needs better marketing and media coverage (as for instance Project Cars releases) and such update could be good opportunity.
 
Marcel Offermans said:
How do you know it's quite different from iRacing's system? I think we've come up with a design that is very versatile. One design goal is definitely to also support the competition style they have. And more.
Click to expand...

I can’t wait to see what you have come up with, so glad to hear you’re not just settling for an iracing style system, gotta add that s397 flavour to it

There’s nothing wrong with the iracing pick up and play style system, that could be the bread and butter so to say, but it has to have meaning, and incentive for folks to actually participate in a series for the whole championship, not just fleet from one to the other etc, without practicing.

I hope you’re penalty systems And ratings systems will be on the harsh side too, as driving driving standards should be first and foremost so the quality of racing is, well, errr, quality.
 
Marcel Offermans said:
How do you know it's quite different from iRacing's system? I think we've come up with a design that is very versatile. One design goal is definitely to also support the competition style they have. And more.
Click to expand...
This is just what I understood from the released information, but if you say part of it will be based on similar simple principles (like Safety rating, iRating) and it should work out similarly well then I’m really looking forward to this. Despite the system looks sophisticated, offers championship like features, I was a little skeptical if it would attract enough users(to race against at different times). Since no other sim succeeded to offer similar online multiplayer experience as in iRacing then it must be not so simple. But I hope rF2 will attract simmers who like MP competition, but not necessarily paying $1000+ for content plus monthly subscription:)
 
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