Three Weeks Until Release - What's Up With Le Mans Ultimate?

"We have reached out to Motorsport Games for more insight, but have not heard back as of yet."

Here's an exclusive photo of MSG's PR dept.

RayTruant said:

They had to change one track to the Rolex 23:58.

META

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Yes, quite a nice screw-up last Sunday. I guess Michael Masi found a job at IMSA.

DonaldRacer said:

Cant wait for release, my wallet is ready!

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Speaking of wallet, it's 3 weeks before release and there's still no price for the sim... Not a good sign.

The sound design on that 499P is incredible. And with RF2, you know the physics and FFB will top notch. Really looking forward to this now!

I will buy LMU at some point, after most of the important "after-released" patches have been released.

morsify said:

Going by what little we've seen so far, it looks very bare bones considering the closeness to release date, so I'll be surprised if it is ready in 3 weeks.
But I'm also looking forward to it, and I hope it delivers on AI team mates, driver swaps and mid race saves.

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Agree on the ai stuff. However looking forward to Le Mans 2024 and the virtual event, I rather expect they will do everything for the mp to have a working mp environment there if it all will survive until then. If LMU will face the same issues rF2 had in the last couple of years, good night. VLM could be the next important milestone (after release) for LMU to earn money and get perhaps the highest possible grade of attention.

tpfitz said:

If AMS2 increased their grid size to at least 50 - 55, I would have ZERO interest in this game.

That being said, even though I have a little interest in this game, I have ZERO faith in it at this point

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50-55 spots would be fantastic but I believe this is out of range ensuring a well and reliable performance. If the grid could be increased to 40 it would be a big achievement. I will be happy for each single additional spot therefore.

RF2 works fine with VR so how can this not include it? So confused.

I'm concerned about if it will be a cash grab and have adequate support afterwards. A good number of people have left Studio397. I thought they did a great job shoring up RF2 tbh and they are clearly a talented bunch. But I'm getting used to Reiza levels of support these days and that's become an important factor. Also, make that 13 people who won't buy it without VR. My setup just doesn't work for flatscreen.

I won't buy it.
But not because it looks like XY or because it doesn't have sweat foot registration.
I can simply only play one game at a time and I'm happy with that.
But that doesn't matter in this context.
But what matters is, where is it written that a company has to inform everyone and everything about its steps?
They neither have to communicate any pictures, videos, statements nor reveal to anyone their reasons why they do it the way they do it. What they have to do is their job so that they can feed their families. I don't know why they do that. But I'm simply not interested.
When it appears, you buy it, test it for 2 hours and return it if you don't like it. It's that simple. Whether it costs 10 euros or 60 euros is absolutely secondary.
More money is spent on a control stick with two microswitches on one axis.
It's called a sequential shifter. There's little technology in it, but there's a "very important" name on it.
And what can you do with it?
Do nothing except press two opposite buttons. Every action figure has more functions.
I have e.g. made a handbrake lever from an old IBM joystick. Then I pull it and the brake blocks. Cost 5 euros at the flea market. Simply remove the Y-axis springs so that it always falls down. Rally-wise. With a spring installed you could use it as a sequential shifter.
But it doesn't look so hip in a YT video, nobody is glued to my lips and doesn't generate any clicks.
All of these gimmicks are extremely overpriced for what they offer.
None of this is really needed for actual driving.
What I do know is the fact that in forums people immediately make comparisons with other games of the same genre. But they don't have this feature, but the lighting looks better in Game XY, because the model is missing a washer, but Game XY can do that better, etc. There are also comments like I won't buy anything from them because they have already programmed game XY badly or because some "hated" name appears.
Features are added by forum writers that they personally want, but the vehicle will definitely not feel like it does in game XY, etc. Will it support steering wheel XY, which pedals are supported, hopefully it has 5000 screen support and it blows wind in my face.
Each image is analyzed as if a forensic department wanted to solve a criminal case.
What do you actually expect from a piece of software for a few bucks?
Do you actually expect technology like in the simulators of some real racing teams? Graphics like in a Hollywood blockbuster?
That they are reinventing the wheel?
The current toy computers don't allow for this.
Since there have been “racing simulations” they have always been the same.
There is the car, there is the racetrack. There can be no innovations whatsoever.
Only the view, the game engine and the graphics got better and better.
Whether for better or for worse is secondary. They are releasing a game that has to be accessible to everyone, a game that you can play from the sofa with a game controller. Which, for various forum members, amounts to sacrilege or treason or leads to cardiac arrhythmias.
As I wrote some time ago.
I would give you the finger and never program a racing game again.
Only when you realize that you don't have much fun with Matchbox cars will you realize how much fun you had. But many people have lost the fun.
For them it has already become a fanatical religion or worldview. Or the game is used for videos and or still images.
As said above. I'm not buying it because I can only play one game at a time and be happy with it. I also own various LeMans layouts from different eras.
Leaving aside the quality. They are mods.
It doesn't matter to me whether I can compete in multiclass or against 60 opponents.
I want to have fun and distraction after work.
In the end it looks like this: when multiclasses are driven in multiplayer,
everyone drives LMDh.

Spinelli said:

RF2 works fine with VR so how can this not include it? So confused.

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And the strangest thing of all is: if you ping a dev on Discord and ask in a friendly way why VR is removed from the Steam page, they threaten to ban you without answering why it's removed from Steam.

So to me motorsportgames deserves their stock pricing going from 326,60 to 2,44 USD (-99.19%).

They don't give a **** about their customers. Companies that behave like this will never survive in the long run.

So I completely lost hope for this title.

is VR even still a thing, I thought its gone already like 3d screens did.

With the great IMSA update & Le mans track in AMS2 , i have have to think about whether I still want Le Mans Ultimate at all

finally a game worth for my simucube 2

J.J.McClure said:

I won't buy it.
But not because it looks like XY or because it doesn't have sweat foot registration.
I can simply only play one game at a time and I'm happy with that.
But that doesn't matter in this context.
But what matters is, where is it written that a company has to inform everyone and everything about its steps?
They neither have to communicate any pictures, videos, statements nor reveal to anyone their reasons why they do it the way they do it. What they have to do is their job so that they can feed their families. I don't know why they do that. But I'm simply not interested.
When it appears, you buy it, test it for 2 hours and return it if you don't like it. It's that simple. Whether it costs 10 euros or 60 euros is absolutely secondary.
More money is spent on a control stick with two microswitches on one axis.
It's called a sequential shifter. There's little technology in it, but there's a "very important" name on it.
And what can you do with it?
Do nothing except press two opposite buttons. Every action figure has more functions.
I have e.g. made a handbrake lever from an old IBM joystick. Then I pull it and the brake blocks. Cost 5 euros at the flea market. Simply remove the Y-axis springs so that it always falls down. Rally-wise. With a spring installed you could use it as a sequential shifter.
But it doesn't look so hip in a YT video, nobody is glued to my lips and doesn't generate any clicks.
All of these gimmicks are extremely overpriced for what they offer.
None of this is really needed for actual driving.
What I do know is the fact that in forums people immediately make comparisons with other games of the same genre. But they don't have this feature, but the lighting looks better in Game XY, because the model is missing a washer, but Game XY can do that better, etc. There are also comments like I won't buy anything from them because they have already programmed game XY badly or because some "hated" name appears.
Features are added by forum writers that they personally want, but the vehicle will definitely not feel like it does in game XY, etc. Will it support steering wheel XY, which pedals are supported, hopefully it has 5000 screen support and it blows wind in my face.
Each image is analyzed as if a forensic department wanted to solve a criminal case.
What do you actually expect from a piece of software for a few bucks?
Do you actually expect technology like in the simulators of some real racing teams? Graphics like in a Hollywood blockbuster?
That they are reinventing the wheel?
The current toy computers don't allow for this.
Since there have been “racing simulations” they have always been the same.
There is the car, there is the racetrack. There can be no innovations whatsoever.
Only the view, the game engine and the graphics got better and better.
Whether for better or for worse is secondary. They are releasing a game that has to be accessible to everyone, a game that you can play from the sofa with a game controller. Which, for various forum members, amounts to sacrilege or treason or leads to cardiac arrhythmias.
As I wrote some time ago.
I would give you the finger and never program a racing game again.
Only when you realize that you don't have much fun with Matchbox cars will you realize how much fun you had. But many people have lost the fun.
For them it has already become a fanatical religion or worldview. Or the game is used for videos and or still images.
As said above. I'm not buying it because I can only play one game at a time and be happy with it. I also own various LeMans layouts from different eras.
Leaving aside the quality. They are mods.
It doesn't matter to me whether I can compete in multiclass or against 60 opponents.
I want to have fun and distraction after work.
In the end it looks like this: when multiclasses are driven in multiplayer,
everyone drives LMDh.

Click to expand...

Bad night?

Spinelli said:

RF2 works fine with VR so how can this not include it? So confused.

Click to expand...

Maybe it is not tested yet properly, that would take out weeks of development time.
Those developers have probably more important things to fix right now than to work on VR (wich is about 2% of the customer base).
Or it means they have to properly model the other half of the cockpits wich we normally would never see with 2D vision.
Having VR would be a + for me, but not crucial.

At this point the bets open on the game and whether it will actually come out. It's absurd that a few days after the release, nothing more is known and VR has disappeared. Will it end up like GTR3? I think that to date the only worthy simulator that will have Le Mans cars will be Automobilitsta 2... we're waiting for February 20th but it doesn't bode well.

Spinelli said:

RF2 works fine with VR so how can this not include it? So confused.

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As I understand it they've made a fairly decent start from scratch with LMU. At least enough to give the devs a spring in their step after being relieved of the burden of tech debt within rF2.

From that I think on the positive they are less bound by past mistakes. But on the negative they will have to rebuild some things they already had. Only guessing here..

Bert Austen said:

With the great IMSA update & Le mans track in AMS2 , i have have to think about whether I still want Le Mans Ultimate at all

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LMU is still going to offer a much more complete grid for the championship it wants to simulate.

Edit: What are these haha reactions? Isn't LMU going to have the whole WEC 2023 grid? Hopefully AMS2 is also going to have more content for WEC/IMSA but it's simply not the case right now and we have no specific information what's coming up. 3 GTPs are nice, don't get me wrong, but LMP2 and more varierty in GT is missing still.

I'd be surprised if this even launches before the actual race.

Tbh, I'd rather they just push back the release date rather than rushing out a half baked goods item like most dev teams do. When they release V1.0 and it's got glitches upon glitches it really doesn't sit too well with most of the sim racing community. I will say the there is an element of the racing community who enable this behaviour so unfortunately I think we'll see more and more of that which makes me sad face when I think of it. Flesh it out, finish it, be happy with it, then release.

RichardHessels said:

Maybe it is not tested yet properly, that would take out weeks of development time.
Those developers have probably more important things to fix right now than to work on VR (wich is about 2% of the customer base).
Or it means they have to properly model the other half of the cockpits wich we normally would never see with 2D vision.
Having VR would be a + for me, but not crucial.

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Sim racing had a much larger VR user base. You're taking the steam stats, they have nothing to do with the amount of VR usage under sim racers. The latest polls show numbers between 20 and 40% for VR usage under sim racers.