Latest Roadmap Update - April 2020

It is one hell of a roadmap blog, that isn't a normal roadmap. Just as I saw it, I thought - thats over. Then reading, and reading... almost seems like it is really over right now. Then the bit for Stefano, and it almost seems like it is going to be really an announcement of rF2 development ending, or something similar, tension is high.

Then next paragraph:
"So what’s cooking at our Studio? As I mentioned, a lot of our plans have been shuffled and re-arranged. Our track team finished Portland, but it won’t be released until we’ve finished our extensive lighting pass and released a new build. In the mean time they are working on two brand new tracks, as well as a few updates to our existing ones. Our car team completed a brand new car that we currently can’t release as its release was planned to coincide with the real car, and that has been delayed. Here too we moved on to the next car, which unfortunately we can’t announce just yet, but it’s a unique opportunity for our Studio. Our developers have been testing our new overlay system, making tweaks to ensure it can be properly customized. We also fixed a few long standing issues with our package management system, which delayed the pending update of the new UI. Development on the lighting system is now in a phase where artists and developers are iterating over many of the improvements to create the proper balance for each. We are also fixing some smaller bugs and discussing physics improvements. Our esports team is already looking ahead at future seasons for our GT series, planning the next race for BMW as well as streamlining our broadcast setups."

Now thats was the roadmap there, and indeed odd one at places:

- Plans got messed up;
- Portland done - can't release;
- Two new tracks in development;
- Few updates for some existing tracks;
- New car is completed - can't release;
- New car about to be announced - can't announce;
- Some important issue is fixed that was delaying UI;
- Overlay development;
- Lighting system development;
- Fixing some small bigs;
- PHYSICS ?????
- eSports team does eSports, and broadcasting.

"The hard thing right now is to predict what will happen next. Extrapolating based on the last weeks we can only say that we probably don’t know. As a good friend said to me, we need to be prepared for pleasant surprises..."

- Can't give any dates.

So to sum up, they are working on lots of things, but they will be surprised themselves when that is going to be ready to roll out.
 
It is what it is. I’m sure S397 would love to announce imminent releases of various content and fixes just as much as we would love to hear it.

on the glass half full side clearly work is ongoing and we will see an improved and expaned rf2 at some point in time.
 
What we honestly need is the "never announced AI update".Often asked,no word about it....from S397.
Instead new cars,new tracks..but NO AI UPDATE.As we RF2 fans buy them anyway,as crazy as we are ,cause that is our stupid hope ,to keep that Sim alive.:rolleyes:
 
Reading again, Mars sounds pretty depressed I know we all coping with this strange turn of events and I hope Mars and co are all fine as well as loved ones.

But it seems depression about the sim ..

I mean sim racing has never been and never will be in a better place, with grids of real drivers competing across different sims.

Devs updating their sims across the board. Ams is updating big updates weekly yes it's in beta, but so is pretty much rf2 right now.

Its seems the studio is understaffed and have no budget.....
surprisingly with some of their partnerships.

Where rf2 should be thriving like the rest it seems to be a never ending struggle.
 
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If they would ask the community for backing this sim with money,i'm sure ,we can help out.Not knowing if the ammount of money will be enough to keep them ongoing.I would spend them 100 Euro..honestly.
But they should say something...
DC
Edit: I think,with only RF2 developing,they can't make a living,especialy at this times..
 
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lol....a depressing lol

I mean any other racing game is releasing update after update even during quarantine. What about rf2? No updates! This roadmap is extremely depressing and clearly state the mess around rf2 development, which mantasisg pretty much pictured it. To make it worse, anything done is slow.

Sure sure rf2 drives well but again that's it. At this point i clearly understand why rf2 is trying to push everything into eSports. They are doing this because it is probably the safest/shortest path to success, any other path would require so much core improvements that at their pace it would take years.

The problem is that rf2 has no clear marketing placement, it is not a even a decent multiplayer game and even less competitive game and surely is the WORST single player experience currently available. Sure sure hardcore gamers will say "bruh but rf2 is for hardcore gamers that just care about driving" but i have doubt that hardcore games numbers will keep the boat afloat. Having bad marketing placement make hard to attract the mass which means $$$.

To make it worse their official content are not high quality proof, they are a hit or a miss specially after updates that broken them. Which means that some hardcore gamers won't keep buying them blindly. I for sure quit done it until the day i see improvements in those already released (taking to you GTE cars).

I'd suggest rf2 to someone only and only if he only cares about driving feeling and doing fast lap, for anything else i would never ever suggest rf2 there are way better overall product in the market.

Unfortunately rf2 is falling into the categories of games with so much potential but that never had breakthrough evolution. The gaming market is FULL of similar cases.

As customer the only thing i can do is see what happens, surely i would not be injecting any money i would rather pay iracing subscription than feeding rf2 poor development. I can only hope that it becomes a decent single player game, very little hope, or at least a decent multiplayer game that don't force you to take part of leagues in order to have decent races.
 
Dady Cairo said:
If they would ask the community for backing this sim with money,i'm sure ,we can help out.Not knowing if the ammount of money will be enough to keep them ongoing.I would spend them 100 Euro..honestly.
But they should say something...
DC
Edit: I think,with only RF2 developing,they can't make a living,especialy at this times..
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Due to the nature of my work i would rather say that at this point it does not worth injecting money anymore. When the development is messy, for any reason, you can inject a lot of money and the result would still be unsatisfactory.

rF2 is just result of bad development on which whatever is released it is never full quality, it is always lacking and unpolished. This is not a consequence of limited budget but rather of poor development. Limited budget has a consequence on the rate of features/content being released/improved. Poor development has a consequence on quality of those features/contents/improvements and moreover evolution of the product as a whole. Of course poor development drains the budget even faster. For me it seems obvious that rf2, since ISI, suffered more from poor development rather than budget. They never had a good and solid road map with proper priorities.
 
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"Discussing physics development". ​

It is pathetic.
In 4 years, an incredible divestment in the most important area of simracing.

After almost 4 years, they do not tell us "developments are underway in this area and will gradually and soon be released", but "we are discussing it".
It's complete rubbish.

And the single player will continue to be abandoned (luckily for those who like, very soon the multiplayer experience should be much better).

I note a very big slowdown in the release of official cars, which is very annoying for me.

And always this communication which IMO is bad.

Times are tough for rF2 fans.
But Fanboys will always find excuses at S397.

Damn everything you need to develop a strategy coherent, logical and close to your users is in the WISHLIST part of the official forum (polls ...)....
Oh yes I forgot, Discord is better.
 
even the modders update their content more frequently thans s397 does :)
just look other titles; acc has 3 updates(while stefano leaves kunos), ams2 has 3 updates from the begiinng of march, that march s397 says PIR is almost done, silverstone has updated by artist and ui has done etc etc, end of april, again we hava listening sma stories; more tracks under development ( donot give a name), more cars are under development, lighting is superb (no screens ) etc etc, be specific at least, give names, show screens.
 
Yigit Yusuf Mutlu said:
even the modders update their content more frequently thans s397 does :)
just look other titles; acc has 3 updates(while stefano leaves kunos), ams2 has 3 updates from the begiinng of march, that march s397 says PIR is almost done, silverstone has updated by artist and ui has done etc etc, end of april, again we hava listening sma stories; more tracks under development ( donot give a name), more cars are under development, lighting is superb (no screens ) etc etc, be specific at least, give names, show screens.
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Now just to put some of the things that were written in some of the comments here and what is stated in the roadmap(s) into perspective: should I remind people that AMS2 was named Reiza17 for a special reason at some point? How many years late are we and it is still not released according to their schedule and a big part of their news is future content and DLCs? They are three years late and have the nerve to announce future DLC not just for the small penny and nobody seems to have an issue with it. Pathetic, isn't it? They are in early access, so little bug fixes and updates will come faster and the prospect of spending over hundred 100 into something that I don't know what it will be in the future seems equaly optimistic as investing 100 Euro into rF2.

Why is the AI in ACC still as terrible as it was in AC while we are at the topic of long standing issues with AI - that AI is not even anywhere close to having basic funtionality. And Kunos devs show a 3 hour stream of somebody being happy like a little child to finaly have fixed something that was an issue for how long, yet everybody is fine with it? I mean, it's nice that this stuff get's fixed, but people woul rip S397 appart if they showcased a 3 hour stream of Marcel to showcase how the package system was improved and even a test dev talk of minutes 20 that was published to get in touch with the community seemed too much for some people to cope with.

In the last roadmap topics people complained about basicly everything even if the roadmaps clearly stated what was being worked on and exactly showed you with screenshots what they are working on, being in the most cases just brutaly honest, so now it's short and precise and gives a nice little glimpse of what is to come in the comming months. Again not right. And that's the reason for some people to throw around with wild accusations and to think that it is over? I mean, guys get real and stop speculating on things you don't know. Might be better to take a look in the mirror and think before writing instead of calling other people fanboyzzzzzzz. There is a reason why you don't get more detailed information about future updates anymore and now you start hyperventilating. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get roadmaps at some point anymore, if the reactions are as they are - in some way completely over the top. :)
 
To be honest, it is a miracle that we have so many good racing sims for such a niche and always demanding audience. If you are a game developer, it makes almost zero sense to make a new sim these days (and even maintaining an existing one is questionable) given the enormous task and wild expectations for at best a crowd of some thousands of hyper critical people that think that they just deserve it and that sims naturally grow on trees. In some ways, it is a miracle that rF2 got where it is and that AMS2 is even being made. I like to complain like everybody else about this and this, but sometimes I appreciate the chance we have to have what we got, while we could well have nothing. And maybe some day, racing sims will be a thing of the past, too expensive to make for too few people.
 
LokiD said:
Only your perspective not ours. Get that straight for starters.
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Again, what gives you the perspective that development is over if they lisence and produce new content and state what is being worked on in the roadmaps? That's just speculation, or as you call it - just your perspective. It is a fact though - not my opinion or vision - that Reiza is three years late and advertize payed content before the sim is even released. I just judge what I have at hand and see, not what might happen. ;)

@bobbie424242 That's a big bingo!
 
I'm happy to hear we are getting three new tracks and two new cars, plus lighting improvements and more. I still remember the days under ISI where even the concept of official tracks like Nurburgring and LeMans, and licenced packs of cars, was pie in the sky.
 
hitm4k3r said:
Again, what gives you the perspective that development is over if they lisence and produce new content and state what is being worked on in the roadmaps? That's just speculation, or as you call it - just your perspective. It is a fact though - not my opinion or vision - that Reiza is three years late and advertize payed content before the sim is even released. I just judge what I have at hand and see, not what might happen. ;)

@bobbie424242 That's a big bingo!
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You cant compare reiza and s397. I think if you put a poll out on rd, who trusted which dev most
? I think we know who will win.

So dont go there eh reiza have done more than s397 has in the same amount of time..so talking about delays in a rf2 forum is pretty ridiculous.
 
Funny enough, the ones screaming the loudest that rF2 is dead, are also the ones that are the most active on the forum and for some reason stick around. rF2 has many problems. Development is slow. That's why I use it for the stuff it still shines at, and use others for pickup racing for example. Complaining every month about the road map, isn't going to change that.
 
hitm4k3r said:
Now just to put some of the things that were written in some of the comments here and what is stated in the roadmap(s) into perspective: should I remind people that AMS2 was named Reiza17 for a special reason at some point? How many years late are we and it is still not released according to their schedule and a big part of their news is future content and DLCs? They are three years late and have the nerve to announce future DLC not just for the small penny and nobody seems to have an issue with it. Pathetic, isn't it? They are in early access, so little bug fixes and updates will come faster and the prospect of spending over hundred 100 into something that I don't know what it will be in the future seems equaly optimistic as investing 100 Euro into rF2.

Why is the AI in ACC still as terrible as it was in AC while we are at the topic of long standing issues with AI - that AI is not even anywhere close to having basic funtionality. And Kunos devs show a 3 hour stream of somebody being happy like a little child to finaly have fixed something that was an issue for how long, yet everybody is fine with it? I mean, it's nice that this stuff get's fixed, but people woul rip S397 appart if they showcased a 3 hour stream of Marcel to showcase how the package system was improved and even a test dev talk of minutes 20 that was published to get in touch with the community seemed too much for some people to cope with.

In the last roadmap topics people complained about basicly everything even if the roadmaps clearly stated what was being worked on and exactly showed you with screenshots what they are working on, being in the most cases just brutaly honest, so now it's short and precise and gives a nice little glimpse of what is to come in the comming months. Again not right. And that's the reason for some people to throw around with wild accusations and to think that it is over? I mean, guys get real and stop speculating on things you don't know. Might be better to take a look in the mirror and think before writing instead of calling other people fanboyzzzzzzz. There is a reason why you don't get more detailed information about future updates anymore and now you start hyperventilating. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get roadmaps at some point anymore, if the reactions are as they are - in some way completely over the top. :)
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What?!?
While I think people here take all this stuff too seriously and expect private phone line with developers and lifetime improvements for a piece of software that costs few EUR I would never go that far and compare S397 development with others.
One of Kunos or Reiza weekly update changelogs contains probably more stuff than rf2 changelogs combined in a year.

Reiza being 3 years late with their new game? Yes but even on existing engine that is still a new game, S397 in the same period is being late 4 years with UI. Just an UI, not a game.
And regarding Kunos in the same period they released entirely new game from the scratch (which contains completely new UI ;) among other more complicated things).
They rewrote AI from scratch and if it is not good as rf2 AI is not a topic here, AI is probably hard to do right but at least they tried and changed lots of stuff.
What did S397 do in the meantime with AI development? Nothing, or almost nothing. They inherited very good AI from ISI and thats all.

I am not blaming S397, it is their product and they can do whatever they want but apart from new content releases which pace is on par with other developers for game improvements and new features they are clearly by far the slowest out of these 3 dev teams. For whatever reason that may be.
 
Filip said:
I am not blaming S397, it is their product and they can do whatever they want but apart from new content releases which pace is on par with other developers for game improvements and new features they are clearly by far the slowest out of these 3 dev teams. For whatever reason that may be.
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My guess is that working with the rF2 old codebase is much harder than other sims, and changing anything is difficult and take forever. Thus Studio 397 is somewhat super conservative in improving it (UI excepted but this took forever) or has to plan it super carefully and be certain that the benefits are worth it vs the work required and the possibility of a technical dead-end or even breaking working stuff. There is also the added complexity that rF2 is a modding platform while no other modern sim is.
 
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