There has been several long threads discussing how DLC will be the death of online racing due to some people having certain cars while others do not. I contend there is another large reason I, and possibly many others do not race much online. I can not tell you how many times I have tried to join a server that is using cars I have and a track I have, but then I have to download a new version of the track that for some reason a league needed to change something. Repeatedly I've run out of time waiting for the download to finish or just plain walked away. Why do so many servers need so many versions of the same gosh-darn track?
This is possibly why, if its as good as its being made out to be with the new physics etc, that Pcars 2 might be why many people will leave RF 2 behind. The track and vehicle content in Pcars 2 means that everyone will have the same cars and tracks and wont get the hassles you speak of. Don"t get me wrong, I have been an Rfactor 1/2 aficionado since the multiplayer tests of RF1 where released years ago, but If Pcars 2 allows me to jump in any server running the class of car that I want to use, then why wouldn't I. RF 2 is absolutely exceptional, but the main problem is the lack of availability of genuine ISI/S397 content and everyone having to rely on modded content that is continually being updated. Its a shame really but the fact is RF 2 is continually playing catch up now, I cant say for certain if Pcars 2 will be the be all and end all of racing sims but if it lives up to its expectations offline and on then it looks like RF 2 will lose out.
Join a league in your region, https://www.facebook.com/groups/rfactor2leaguecentral/ And download the league content by the league site or steam workshop, don't use automatic download on server entrance. Normally the leagues change the tracks and cars putting own sponsors / skins. You have to understand that today it's how rfactor2 online gameplay works, it's all around the leagues, different of iRacing model. Probably this will change after the implementation of the new competition mode, seems that we will have something similar with the iRacing style of online gameplay, in paralel keeping the leagues active too. About pcars 2, you have to consider another things too, is their netcode good enough? They will have any anti-cheat solution? they will have official events, or all the organization will be under the responsibility of the leagues? The online mode will have continuous improvement or next year they will sell us a pcars 3?
Because some tracks don't have enough garage spots and pit stalls. Leagues just adjusting them to make possible racing when it's well over 20 drivers join the race.
For casual racers this is a death knell. rF2 does not cater to the casual racer though... so sales will continue to suck so long as custom content is necessary to get. Steam workshop has helped to be sure, but more needs to be done to standardize content into an easy to understand, easy to get package.
It is usually slow because of the server upload speed tho. The system had a good intention to solve a problem, but they ignored the fact that not every server has a super mega internet connection that will host the session fine while people download something. S397 need to have more licensed tracks and invest heavily on the 3PA project to cover the ones they won't license so many versions of a track becomes less of a issue. And with that make a system that can edit parts of a track (like pit stalls) without people needing to download the whole thing again. The freedom of rF2 is that we can have any track in the world, if I want to do an Australian GT or Super GT league in this game I can, in Project Cars 2 I cant (heck they licensed PWC but you cant make a PWC league either). They really need explore and market this. They should do same thing for cars. Bring closer to them groups like Apex, URD, help them making cars that wont be licensed and allow to sell in the store if possible. Etc.
The track/cars shouldn't be on the same server as the race. Only the little-itty-bitty vmod is supposed to be on the server and it points to where GetMod can find the content files, on a server with a decent backbone connection. If that's original content, then likely it is on Steam and not a problem. If it's modded by a league, then they should know where a good host is for their target audience. I absolutely agree that us folks with data caps and limited download speeds are going to have a problem. We're not the majority, however, so it's kind of up to us how to plan ahead better. And, finally, a reminder that using the rF2 in-game browser to join servers is slower than using the Steam browser when a content download is needed because the in-game browser inexplicably throttles the connection speed. This dates back to the time that Steam was implemented in rF2 whereas pre-Steam the in-game browser did not throttle the connection speed.
I agree tracks/cars shouldn't be downloaded from the server, only the vmod, but the alternative way of creating GetMod links for an rfcmp package is hardly ever mentioned by S397 anywhere, and it's also something you cannot do if you don't have deep knowledge of rF2 (for example the link field in rfcmp can only be up to 64 characters long, if it's 65, the game won't read the link correctly). It seems as if the new default has become to download the packages directly from the race server, which causes the problems with slow downloads.
I disagree. Where would they download from, according to you? IMO having the possibility of using this feature is very good. However, it has not been fully functional failing to work at several cases when we have used it. Furthermore it is not prepared for using updated content (which is by the way the official way to go for skinning DLC content) that requires two components. The only restriction I would impose is that it wouldn't be available while in qualify/race session. Having the server losing bandwidth at those cases is not good. It is clear that rF2 doesn't like cars entering game. This has been provoking freeze issues for years. I understand that when requests are sent to the server it is affecting to the main task the server does which is to host the race.
From Dropbox, NAS, google drive, Sky drive, Mega etc. Noel Hibbart has made fantastic tool to all of us which makes downloading components much faster and you can use many download link locations with Noel`s GetMod service. rFactor 2 has also this option but repackage every content takes lot of knowledge and time.
How can this help causal racing? In our league we post the links to the content just in case direct download from the server fails. I don't understand why do you need external software to run rF2. I still disagree. I have used sim sync in the past and I prefer actual system by far.
Ok, i see your point... definitely the actual model of rf2 don't work for casual gameplay, like someone already said before.
Noel Hibbard made a external tool which requires registering stuff. I don't buy it. I used it in the past (no without problems) and didn't like it. I don't understand why you don't like server which has content installed not being the source of the download to be used. It is the most logic approach and the easiest to setup IMO. If it worked robustedly we would drop to upload things to mega for external download in case problems occur with autiomatic downloads. Besides, Noel is not maintaining his tools since a while ago.
It's not that I don't like it, it's because it more often than not takes forever to download big files like a 500 MB track from race server due to inbuilt QoS mechanism or whatever it is. I know that even downloading of small rfmods had QoS enabled in order to not cause massive lags on the race server while things are downloading. Depending on how aggressive this QoS is, it can restrict the download severely.
Noels tool works fine today but ofcourse in game option would be the best option where you can just drop the link. Unfortunately we don`t have system like that and the problem with auto download is error messages like "Package not available" etc.which makes online racing expensively public racing unpopular.
Yes casual racing and RF2 mix today like water and oil. At the beginning of RF2 era, when I was up for some casual driving, I could go online, few server, few people, but there was a little selection of content to run, so, it was quite easy to find populated servers. As you teach me, increasing the number of tracks, increasing the number of cars, increasing the number of server, increasing the various version of the same content, and you dilute the chance of stumbling in a human being online very much. Now in all honesty I don't even check if there is online activity, where the activity is, there is for sure at least a track and a car to download. And If I want to devote 30 minutes to have fun driving, I can't spent 15 minutes downloading, installing troubleshooting things, to enter a server and find IA inside...........
