DRM Revival Interview and All Cars Tested Video

[Paul Jeffrey]

Following on from the DRM Revival 'First Drive' video, we take each and every car out for a spin and present a brief interview with the development team.

If you missed our initial First Drive of DRM Revival mod for Assetto Corsa, be sure to check out the link HERE.

Feedback from that short bit of footage suggested it would perhaps be nice to see more of the individual cars in action, so we undertook the mammouth task of taking each of the 17 cars from the upcoming mod out for a drive on the Nürburgring Grand Prix track - all 17!

The result? Over 70 minutes of track action - enjoy

As well as bringing you some video footage of the cars in action, we took the opportunity to speak with the team behind this excellent mod to get a feel for what the future looks like for DRM Revival and the DRM Modding Team. You can read the brief interview below:

DRM Modding Team Interview

RD: The DRM Revival Mod has been in the making for AC for quite some time now. I understand you have had some issues along the way that may account for the delay in release. Can you explain what the team have gone through to get to this point?

DRM: We underestimated the project, it became more and more work.

When we have converted the first cars and they were in-game, we saw that the quality no longer corresponds to our requirements.

We had to revise many cars and details, some of the 3d models we had to improve. At the beginning the constant o Corsa forced us to make corrections over and over again.

Our growing experience of the Assetto Corsa engine and the fmod constantly improved the MOD. Hardware issues, frustration and "german accurancy" often led to delays and discussion topics in the team.

Today the problems are forgotten, we are in the slipstream and turn onto the start-finish straight.

RD: On the subject of the mod, which cars are likely to appear at release date?

DRM: We decided not to use real names. There will be a total of 10 cars, plus 7 variations. They differ in the 3D model, such as rims, wings, bodywork as well as in sound and physics.

RD: Are these cars from a particular season or era, and what inspired you to create these for Assetto Corsa?

DRM: The cars drove the space of time from 1976 to 1981 in the German racing sport mastery "Deutschen Rennsport Meisterschaft", as well as in the American IMSA series.

Assetto Corsa was the only existing engine that corresponds to our expectations of the implementing of the cars.

RD: DRM is obviously close to your hearts, however how difficult have you found the quest for data from the series and how close are the cars, in your opinion, to the real series?

DRM: It was pure horror to find data from the cars. In some cases, the cars were never in identical condition from race to race, constantly in further development.

Technical suspension data are almost impossible to find, many of the information are questionable.

After 10 years of research, we have gained a great deal of knowledge about the cars. In addition we got in touch with some of the teams which drove at this time and so we were able to get important data like the aerodynamics, transmission, G-forces and much more.

How close are the cars to reality? It is difficult to answer and find a comparison. All cars in historic racing sport nowadays are no longer in the same configuration as at the 70’s, as for example the tires, the performance, the boost pressure or the willingness to go to the limit of the car.

Thus, the lap times today are difficult to compare with those of that time.

That's our problem, but I think our interpretation of the "Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft" is well implemented in our opinion.

If we take the current lap times of the cars in Laguna Seca, for example, we are in the range of +/- 1 sec, the cornering speeds are right, the braking points ok, it seems very consistent.

RD: When we last spoke you mentioned the actual delivery method of the mod was still under discussion (part free, part paid). Have you decided now how you will release the mod and when it might be available?

DRM: Oh yes, the discussion opened up our eyes. As announced then, it would be a mistake. It would just be a mess.

We will follow the way as the RSS team has done. The MOD will cost about 15 € for the 17 different cars. There will be fictitious skins with fictitious names, done.Later the community can paint the liveries with the templates.

The question when we will release?

I can’t answer, but I'm sure we will not finish it before the end of March.

RD: What sort of liveries will be available when it releases?

DRM: Paintings, logos, brands and names, everything will be fictitious. Unfortunately we have to go this way.

RD: Will each car have its own physics sets, and will you also consider releasing an BOP'd version for league racing?

DRM: Each car has its own physics. On a well chosen track, a low-powered car can beat a high-powered car. The racing duration, fuel consumption and tire wear are important factors.

No, we will not release a BOP version. We leave it to the leagues, as the choice of the right track, the race length and the possible placement weights.

RD: Can you and the team share any particular story from the creation of the mod that makes you most proud / happy / surprised during its creation?

DRM: We were surprised and a little bit proud, when we were asked by a team from the historic motorsport, what damper and suspension parameters we use in our car.

With our adjustment, the newly built car later went well on the racing track.

RD: We've already discussed the contents of the initial release, do you plan on adding more / different cars / versions over time?

DRM: Should we encounter approval from the community with the MOD, we will release two more planned vehicles.

RD: Once DRM Revival is complete and any additional updates / fixes / content have been released, what next for the team? Is that the end of the road, or can we expect more content to come in future (a different series or era perhaps?).

DRM: The modding takes such a long time, which none of us can only dabble in. I think we'll develop one or two things internally and keep on. But whether someone will see a further MOD from us, I cannot answer.

Is there not soon Assetto Corsa 2?

RD: Anything else not covered in the questions above you want to discuss?

DRM: Ask me again in April!

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Looking forward to DRM Revival? Which car do you most want to get behind the wheel of? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[SunBro]

Here's the other seven:

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

anyone else here used to collect some of these as 1:24 scale tamiya models? i must have been what, 13, 14 at the time? races were not shown on tv if i remember correctly, but i collected every single bit of news in a folder, those were the days when copy and paste was "use your scissors to cut out and glue to paste on paper". getting very sentimental here.

 

[Kenny 134]

anyone else here used to collect some of these as 1:24 scale tamiya models? i must have been what, 13, 14 at the time? races were not shown on tv if i remember correctly, but i collected every single bit of news in a folder, those were the days when copy and paste was "use your scissors to cut out and glue to paste on paper". getting very sentimental here.

Yes I had this as a tamiya radio control car when I was 12. It was a competition special which I used to race at a club. Great days.
Kenny.

 

[gecco]

ahh, nostalgia
I had this 1:10 RC one as a child back in 1991.

Still remember getting up in the middle of the night for the 1990 US Grand Prix.
My fellow countryman Berger starting his Mclaren from pole, and putting it into the wall during the race, my heart sunk. But then that glorious move from Alesi on Senna. When I saw that Tyrrell on display in our local shop, I had to have it!!
Sry for off topic

That DRM mod is fantastic, and at EUR 15,- it feels like a steal.
Is it April already?...no?, oh...and now?

 

[Marc Proudfoot]

I am so looking forward to this mod and willing to pay for it.

 

[Tomcul]

Where did the models come from originally?

 

[ChaosZeroJK]

Where did the models come from originally?

Most of them are the rF1 ones, Lancia was remade from scratch because the original one was ripped and modified from TRD3, Escort is the free mod that has been available since AC came out (although modified with permissions in some aspects?), only K3 is brand new for this mod.

Granted each car was extensively updated accordingly, the base for 7 of the 10 cars is still the rF1 one.

 

[Tomcul]

Thanks for the answer, drm were the original creator of the models though? Sorry for the questions just had someone tell me drm was not scratch made which I believe to be wrong..

 

[dmatzies]

@Tomcul: All cars are made from scratch. The 935 K1 come from cooky, the 320er, 2002er, M1, Toyota, Capri from dmatzies/NIL, the Carma and K3 from Jo, the Lancia and Escort from sovers, all member excepted cooky, from the DRM-Modding-Team.

 

[Tomcul]

Thanks guys, it always pays to be sure before refuting an argument!

 

[thepharcyde]

I am so looking forward to this mod and willing to pay for it.

Ain't you the ex OCUK boss ergo it's circa ~0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of your wealth lol

 

[Will Mazeo]

Is this mod coming to rF2? Because you know driving these cars on a wet track with proper chassis simulation would probably make all of us wet too

 

[Gevatter]

Is this mod coming to rF2? Because you know driving these cars on a wet track with proper chassis simulation would probably make all of us wet too

I'd rather drive them with some clutch/gearbox simulation

 

[AccAkut]

Is this mod coming to rF2? Because you know driving these cars on a wet track with proper chassis simulation would probably make all of us wet too

if you can provide the needed values for that that chassis simulation and wet track behaviour, feel free to contact them

 

[dmatzies]

Maybe after many years we have to refresh ......

In 2013 rF2 was bad, bad graphics, bad performance, poor modding support, a terrible game. The tire model was not suitable for modeling a simulation.
Why we should convert a MOD to rf2 when all these things were a negative aspect for us.
Do you understand our main argument?
The second argument was, we thought in Assetto Corsa our work would be protected and could not have been ripped as in the past.

Many in the community have accused us that we have not converting the DRM-Revival MOD to rf2 because we our models and sound was ripped, but that not the main reason.

5 years later we know more, a lot has happened. The arguments are not really true anymore, so that we see some of the things differently today.
In the past 5 years, we have given 3 modding teams the permission to convert the DRM-REVIVAL 2.0 / 3.0 to rf2. Have you seen any version ?????. No.
We wanted to create the base structure from a team in parallel to take over the MOD from AC to rf2 later. In our opinion a good idea, but unfortunately that did not work.

After the Assetto Corsa release, we'll think about finding a way to rf2 and converting the MOD.
Studio397 does much better today than ISI could ever have done.

I do not want to promise anything, but as I said, a lot of has changed.

Dennis

 

[Will Mazeo]

Maybe after many years we have to refresh ......

In 2013 rF2 was bad, bad graphics, bad performance, poor modding support, a terrible game. The tire model was not suitable for modeling a simulation.
Why we should convert a MOD to rf2 when all these things were a negative aspect for us.
Do you understand our main argument?
The second argument was, we thought in Assetto Corsa our work would be protected and could not have been ripped as in the past.

Many in the community have accused us that we have not converting the DRM-Revival MOD to rf2 because we our models and sound was ripped, but that not the main reason.

5 years later we know more, a lot has happened. The arguments are not really true anymore, so that we see some of the things differently today.
In the past 5 years, we have given 3 modding teams the permission to convert the DRM-REVIVAL 2.0 / 3.0 to rf2. Have you seen any version ?????. No.
We wanted to create the base structure from a team in parallel to take over the MOD from AC to rf2 later. In our opinion a good idea, but unfortunately that did not work.

After the Assetto Corsa release, we'll think about finding a way to rf2 and converting the MOD.
Studio397 does much better today than ISI could ever have done.

I do not want to promise anything, but as I said, a lot of has changed.

Dennis

Thanks for a very polite and professional answer
One thing that you can do to protect your content is to send it to S397 and ask them to encrypt it, I believe they'll use the one they have on the GT3 cars now. I saw someone requesting that in rF2 Discord a few days ago.
Hopefully it happens. Maybe try once again to check if people would convert the cars, especially due to the fact that things changed. I believe there are some guys that would do it.

 

[XRRoy]

Oh please, no more paid mods! Applying a credit card is such pain in the arse... in my town, at least. Also even if I have one, it all depends on if PayPal accepts it or not. T_T

 

[Rodger Davies]

Fortunately editing .json files, where you can set the name of the car in the launcher among other things, does not screw with compatibility online. You can do it by manually editing them or simply renaming cars in Content Manager. You can rename, rebadge, add description, anything.

Nice one! I didn't realise that - I was thinking it would be the same as GTR2 and rFactor and prevent it being used online.

Really looking forward to this mod and AC seems like the best platform possible for it. You know, unless Kunos announce AC2 next week

Jokes aside though, this seems like the most amazoam recreation of Group 5. Personally, I think Raceroom and Project Cars 2 have both really upped the Group 5 game so will be really nice to have an even more in-depth recreation that either of those to move forwards.

 

[Kenny 134]

Any news on release date yet.

 

[Paintboxer]

Looks amazing, really excited for this and you have me sold already!

I'll have my cash at the ready, hope the progress is still going on track.