Le Mans Ultimate Launches First Community Survey

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Le Mans Ultimate community survey. Images: Motorsport Games
Studio 397 has launched Le Mans Ultimate's first-ever community-based development survey. But there is more in it for players than they might think.

On the 20th of August, Le Mans Ultimate will have been publically released for six months. Whilst it feels like a lifetime ago that we here at OverTake were publishing track guides and reviews, six months is not a long period for development.

Despite the lack of development time, Le Mans Ultimate has managed to create a comprehensive backing of fans as well as quality DLC releases. However, it is not without problems. Stability and DLC pricing, considering the game is still in early access, are two of the main criticisms often thrown at Le Mans Ultimate.

You can fill out the survey here. it should only take around ten minutes and it is a vital feedback tool for the developers.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1824068681397104789

What is a community survey?​

In short, this community survey offers Studio 397 and Motorsport Games an inside look into each individual who plays and enjoys their game. A very select few will rant and rave on X or Reddit about the issues in the game, but a survey such as this one, in the words of poet Ella Wheller Wilcox, gives a voice to the voiceless to some effect.

It may seem like you are just shouting from the crowd demanding change, but the beauty of a survey such as this one is that the developers can read every comment, good and bad. Motorsport Games CEO, Stephen Hood makes it clear in his statement that they want all the feedback they can get.

“The development team are keen to further understand the current playing trends, the focus list for remaining issues, as well as what people would like to see in the longer-term future. We have come a long way in six months, and we have more to achieve, but by launching this survey, we want to allow people to be heard further, and collect as much feedback as possible from our player base, those who are on the fence and those who we want to try bring into the title. Every response is important with the team fully appreciative of all views and feedback. The good, bad and ugly!” Stephen Hood, Motorsport Games CEO

What is in it for you?​

Amongst many things, the obvious answer is directed game development. With such personalised feedback on offer, the team at Studio 397 and Motorsport Games can direct content on the overall opinion of their fanbase. This may impact features and gameplay mechanics implementation order or DLC releases.

LMU 1.jpeg

Le Mans Ultimate stickered Thrustmaster Open-wheel wheel rim.

There is a lot more on offer outside of helping with the development direction. If you fill out the survey, you will be included in the game credits, and you will be automatically entered into a prize draw to win one of six 2024 DLC Season Passes worth €36.

The survey opens today (August 15, 2024) and will remain open for two weeks. The opinion caster will be closing at 15:00 UTC on Thursday 29 August.

What feedback are you planning to leave for the development team behind Le Mans Ultimate? Let us on X @OverTake_gg or down in the comments below!
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About author
Connor Minniss
Connor Minniss
Website Content Editor & Motorsport Photographer aiming to bring you the best of the best within the world of sim racing.

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Comments

ozziecoops
Survey do they ever listen implement what the user wants ? Honestly they should have their own roadmap, especially if they have been reading the feedback everywhere is that not their job Publicity Officer. A POLL would be a good idea for any sim if its on content/ dlc, as they could then see which bit of content ppl/users would support and buy to get back revenue ASAP. Has any sim asked/run a poll on the next bit of content to be added and gone with the poll ? VR should be the highest feature to be implemented as it was announced before the EA and still no VR, any word on its progress from MSG/S397 and if not why not ? Communication is key to success.
 
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ozziecoops said:
Survey do they ever listen implement what the user wants ? Honestly they should have their own roadmap, especially if they have been reading the feedback everywhere is that not their job Publicity Officer. A POLL would be a good idea for any sim if its on content/ dlc, as they could then see which bit of content ppl/users would support and buy to get back revenue ASAP. Has any sim asked/run a poll on the next bit of content to be added and gone with the poll ? VR should be the highest feature to be implemented as it was announced before the EA and still no VR, any word on its progress from MSG/S397 and if not why not ? Communication is key to success.
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There have been polls for other racing titles aswell. Kunos certainly had a poll for one of the Ferrari DLCs and it gives you a good idea where it makes sense to focus content creation and certain features that are needed. It makes no sense to develop h-pattern gearboxes if your next DLC is ALMS. If you have taken a closer look at the survey you might have also noticed that they ask questions about certain hardware specs and settings wich makes finding issues with certain combinations alot easier than wading through forum posts or discord discussions. It's actually suprising to me that developers don't run more polls/surveys because it makes collecting data alot easier and you get a very clear picture of what needs to be done. It could even just help to determine what they need to add at a bare minimum to leave Early Access.
 
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ozziecoops said:
Survey do they ever listen implement what the user wants ?
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Radar, it was the Number 1 upvoted topic on the forums. Even though rF2 never had native radar, they implemented it for LMU BECAUSE it was requested via the upvotes.
Just because a 'promised' feature hasn't made the cut yet, does not in any way indicate they are not working on such items nor does it show they are just slagging off what users(or A user) wants next.
 
S
Very happy for the survey,it a chance they give to users to give them a perspective on how many topics focus in next months.
Personally other licenses,championship as Imsa or historic moments,car and tracks are most relevant,with private servers,coop ,drivers swap,and save on single player during a race.
Don’t care about VR,it’s something I don’t really think about in every game,cause I don’t like it.
 
pz666
henkjansmits said:
They were considering European Le Mans and IMSA at least on their survey, so that would give a lot of tracks. Thats DLC I would pay for. Historical circuits and cars I would not pay for (others might though... Survey should tell).

With so few tracks any online platform will die for lack of variation so i think its a must if they want to keep "racecontrol" alive.

I agree with you on UI though its easy to use UI for historical stuff with minor modifications.
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Le Mans Ultimate without multiple versions of historic Le Mans and the cars is not "Ultimate"...

Modern stuff is over rated... And ELMS is just a lot more GT3 bollocks wasting space on my hard drive with Mugello as the only track I'd be keen for from both ELMS and ALMS I have little overall interest in both outside of a career mode...

But given how long a sportscar drivers career can be, with many drivers racing into their 50s, historic DLC is far better for an "Ultimate" Le Mans career...

I'd love the Acura and the tracks from IMSA though... Instant buy...
 
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pz666 said:
Le Mans Ultimate without multiple versions of historic Le Mans and the cars is not "Ultimate"...


I'd love the Acura and the tracks from IMSA though... Instant buy...
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With the exception of the Honda engine vs a Mechachrome engine, I wonder how different the Alpine and Acura really are? Both based upon the Oreca 07 chassis, but the Alpine is several years newer....might have enough different that the two don't share that much....I don't know.
 
Antonio Castagna
They have a whole forum and also a discord server where they listen to anyone's ideas and opinions, if you really believe that it serves any purpose, you who fill it out are kidding yourselves... They will do what they like or what they were told to do otherwise bye bye money ...
 
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pz666
davehenrie said:
With the exception of the Honda engine vs a Mechachrome engine, I wonder how different the Alpine and Acura really are? Both based upon the Oreca 07 chassis, but the Alpine is several years newer....might have enough different that the two don't share that much....I don't know.
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That's the thing about the LMDh rules... Apart from the engine and aero package (which within the ruleset is almost basically branding to make the car look different thanks to the BOP) the Alpine and Acura specifically share the exact same chassis underneath...

There's only 4 chassis manufacturers in LMDh, unlike LMH where the manufacturer of the engine makes their own bespoke chassis or hires another company to create a bespoke chassis... And much more like LMP2 and DPi before hand where 4 lesser known manufacturers are contracted by the series to make the chassis underneath the branding and engine that the Porsche's and Lamborghini's come up with...
 
deangelis7
I really don't get s397 logic... LeMans is just update of rF2... but rF2 is still unfinished, buggy semblance of a game after more than 10 years...
why don't they polish the main game rFactor2 firstly and after that make new racing simulators based on rF2 engine?
because for now they completely abandoned rF2 development and trying to do something with LeMans
 
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deangelis7 said:
I really don't get s397 logic... LeMans is just update of rF2... but rF2 is still unfinished, buggy semblance of a game after more than 10 years...
why don't they polish the main game rFactor2 firstly and after that make new racing simulators based on rF2 engine?
because for now they completely abandoned rF2 development and trying to do something with LeMans
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Because you don't earn money by polishing a ten year old racing sim except you are iRacing. How are you gonna pay those people fixing rF2?
 
Cote Dazur
tr1v1um said:
Because you don't earn money by polishing a ten year old racing sim
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It depends, if you have a solid player base happy with a polished 10 years old title, those player might be willing to spend money to purchase DLCs and that is a great source of revenue.
That is, if it is even possible to polish anything anymore.
If after all this time, their is still much to polish, it might be because it is beyond repair and might be time to move on. If LMU is what moving on looks like, I think it is looking good.
 
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Cote Dazur said:
It depends, if you have a solid player base happy with a polished 10 years old title, those player might be willing to spend money to purchase DLCs and that is a great source of revenue.
That is, if it is even possible to polish anything anymore.
If after all this time, their is still much to polish, it might be because it is beyond repair and might be time to move on. If LMU is what moving on looks like, I think it is looking good.
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Exactly, thatswhy I mentioned iRacing. And looking at AC I am sure Kunos would be able to sell a good amount of new DLCs for that sim aswell as was proven by content creators like RSS or VRC. That said, I don't consider rF2 to be beyond repair, because it's actually in pretty good shape and not any less usable than other products on the market. Sure there are things that would be nice to have and with a software with the complexity of rF2 there is allways something that could be improved. But the question is if it's really worth it. When I compare it with its prequel, I would say it's fine to move on at this point.
 
Cote Dazur
tr1v1um said:
I don't consider rF2 to be beyond repair
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Neither do I, can it be improved, yes, but that is also true for any title in existence. Still, some of the issues perceived or real, have been there for so long that they are probably part of the package.
RF2, as a package is solid, even if like AC, it would not be touched ever again by the devs, which is the best thing that ever happen to Ac, as the modding really took off on all levels, after Kunos announced they were done, who knows, what the future is bringing to RF2, if it can be considered fair game to community efforts to make it better, more complete.
Their is enough good in RF2 to be worth the efforts.
I am actually surprise that the modding community is not more active. I literally download new or improved content and features to AC every day, but for RF2, either I am not connected to the good stuff or the level of activity is very light.
 
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Pepucho Pumuqui said:
And Studio 397 know what the game needs, they shouldn't need a survey.
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Fully agree. Every sim dev knows exactly what a Le Mans dedicated title should include. Extra features should be marginal in quantity, although they may be amazing additions. VR support, offline race saves, and drvier swaps aren't extra features, they are mandatory in a modern endurance title. Online subscription is an extra feature ; not judging, if you get a virtual coach to help you improve, it would be a solid feature imo, even if I would personally probably not be interested ; if it is paying to get fast setups, which means the base setups are made to make you lose time, it would be a scam. A virtual engineer interacting with you during the race, creating your own team would be extra features.

This survey is just a smooth way to make LMU's target ok with the idea that they may not get all the mandatory features which were expected. "Hey guys it is ypur choice, we will drop the less requested features. It is all on you!"

It would have been an interesting survey before the first development step as it is done.for any project. It is a mandatory step and I assume.it has been done internally, the requirements specification (let's hope.it has been done...), but something has been badly budgetrd and here we are, asking the community to chose what will be and what will not be in the game. I am not sure it is a project management issue, it is too much, it is more probably some top manager trying to make his way between lies to the community and lies to the shareholders. How long will that story go? It will depend on the consoles releases.

I still hope to be proven wrong at the end (in 2 to 3 years at least), I would really like to enjoy a full experience of endurance championships.

EDIT : I was wrong on the survey aspect, I understood it was open only for LMU customers. It is open to anyone with a gmail account. So i edited some parts of my post.
 
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Durge Driven
All you peeps that " don't get the logic" of a better driving simulation should move along because this is what makes ISI fans imho.

No one that recommends rF2/LMU cares about decades of whining and trolling anymore then me repeating the same over and over. lol

I can see some of you in another 10 years still bitter from the taste of your sims failure to at the very least equal what ISIMotor engine started decades ago, building a better "drive" ;)

Of course it is the people have done less miles always know better ( face palm )
 
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D
S397 may not need a survey to know what is needed, but a survey allows them to understand what the most vocal users want prioritized.
As far as S397 delivering what was promised.... Promises are based on good intentions with some expectation of when the promise will be fulfilled. But the bulk of users, I'll wager, had already purchased LMU before EVER hearing about their plans for the future. Therefore Anyone who purchased LMU prior to the MSG CEO's interview early in the summer, had no expectation of added features and content. We HOPED for more, and I'm certain we'll get more at some point. The CEO gave a hopeful timeline of July for the Co-op driver swap. But I don't recall them guaranteeing a hard date certain. These kinds of topics are exactly why S397 stopped providing road maps for rF2. When users saw their pet project was not impenitent, they screamed bloody murder and a press release to inform became a riot. The next steps forward will be ready WHEN THEY ARE READY.
 
Metla
Premium
I completed the first part of the survey, nominating VR and the fact the haven't labeled it as a release version (and the main context for this is the plan to sell dlc before the main content is determined by them as market ready) as my reasons for not yet purchasing.

Digging deeper into the survey was more concerning than anything, and if that's the questions they are asking then they definitely need to pull back a few steps, back to the design stage and build their game to what would be determined a release candidate before going down this road.

They should possibly consider pulling it from sale until they sort out what they are intending to build and sell.
 
BearWalken
They definitely need more money to survive. One of the first questions was if the game was already purchased or not. I guess they will focus more on the wishes of the non-costumers to get them onboard and gain more revenue. If I'm right there is still a chance to get VR. ;)
 

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