Exclusive ISI/Studio 397 rFactor 2 Interview - Part 2

[Paul Jeffrey]

In part two of our exclusive ISI/Studio 397 interview we discuss the future licencing of the rF2 engine, how the studio feel the sim is perceived in sim racing, DX11 and what it will mean to players and find out more about an upcoming new rFactor film.

If you missed part one you can catch up here, otherwise read of for the conclusion of our interview...

RD: How do you feel about the general perception of rFactor 2 in the sim racing marketplace?

TW: We've gone through stages with this software where we didn't feel the software was ready to push out to software reviews and things like that. We kind of waited and once it really got to that point it seemed to co-incide with a difficult sales period and that makes you wary of spending money on marketing. I think that's also kind of connected to when people in ISI started to think of the "not rf3" coming in. The biggest failure in rF2 was probably a combination of the initial release method and either bad timing/budgets for marketing that restricted it completely. I don’t blame people for having a perception we haven’t put an awful lot of money or time into correcting.

RD: With the partnership now in place, where does that leave you with regards to licensing out the current gMotor engine to other developers, should you wish to do so?

TW: Well rFactor 2 nobody from our side wants to licence that out yet. We want to keep rFactor 2 to ourselves (meaning both ISI and Studio 397). With rf1 Gjon and ISI still own that, and that is still a powerful head-start for any company (roughly six years of development). I don't think you would have Ian Bell and Project CARS around without the rF1 engine, you wouldn't have Reiza and you wouldn't have Sector3 either. The cool thing is with each generation Sector3 and Blimey Games have gradually moved away from the rF1 engine and basically rewritten this piece of code and that so its becoming less and less the rf1 engine, in fact Project Cars was almost wholly their engine. But the thing important to remember is they got an estimated six year head start before they even got going using the rf1 engine. It’s still that viable.

If you are marketing to the crowd that wants the pretty visuals you could basically take rf1, put the work into the graphics engine and people would not recognise it. If you have enough money to develop, it's actually fairly easy to make a decent profit in a short amount of time if you focus on specific areas. That’s something we need to think more about ourselves now…

RD: In layman's terms, what are the new changes that you will see in DX11?

TW: The main thing will be increased performance as you can use a lot of the DX11 tricks and tweaks. You also have graphics cards and drivers coming out that now support DX9 less and less. It's getting to be counterproductive because the support for DX9 is actually becoming worse, so you might actually get a better graphics card and get worse framerates on drivers that barely support it. The technology is still valid, but it’s not supported as such and it's at a difficult point where this had to happen really, but it’s the right choice now to move forward.

DX11 allows a lot of the effects that people have become accustomed to in titles that they think are more pretty. There are certain limitations that I think you want to put on that when you are in the cockpit especially, but it does allow for post FX for replay modes and things like that that would of probably worked against us in DX9.

RD: So it's going to be a more visually attractive affair post upgrade do you think?

TW: Yeah, there are lots of different ways having an updated DX is going to help along with updates in other areas. If we don't keep up on the software side eventually you are going to get other titles that will come along with similar enough features that the rest of the product doesn't matter as much. Then it becomes about the visuals and it becomes about the framerate. In many ways, the update to DX11 isn't just about pushing rF2 forwards, its not allowing other people to push it back.

RD: With many leagues running rFactor 2 nowadays, does any particular league or type of racing show off the sim in a way you enjoy watching on the internet?

TW: Sadly I don't particularly get much time to watch race streams, but when I do it's really very enjoyable. Sometimes it's like watching a real race. I actually wish I could dvr them to skip the yellows like when I watch NASCAR! The main type of racing that obviously rFactor 2 is really suitable for is endurance type events, all of the features like the real road that obviously changes, the tyres and the fact the handling can change during a stint coupled with dynamic real time weather effects work perfectly in endurance racing.

I was watching a race from the Virtual Endurance Championship league last season where the first 45 minutes or so when it was raining I was literally tense watching it. Seeing these drivers having to tip toe around the racetrack and occasionally make mistakes that would put them in the pits for an astonishing amount of repair time, and it was the first 45 minutes of a 24 hour race. There is part of me that just felt horrible for these people, but then I just thought to myself that what's just happened to them could happen to everybody else, and that’s how endurance racing really is. It was just a fantastic event in what was really a simulation of real racing, I've been saying this tag line for years now that rf2 is the first racing simulation, everything before it was a physics simulation...

RD: On the topic of the Virtual Endurance Championship, you have debuted a sneak peak trailer at this years Sim Racing Expo for a new film following a team, Revolution Racing, competing in the VEC. Can you tell us a little more about this?

TW: I'll let Edmund Trevelyan-Johnson, the films director and presenter to explain that bit.

ETJ: It is basically at the core a bunch of people who live in different countries and are joined together in a sim racing team competing in an endurance championship. The first person from the team I met was Sam Macdonald and I met him on a league lobby during practice for a GT3 league. I was just looking for a teammate in this league and we got together, we won most of the races together and that was nice. This is pretty much the way I've met most people in the team. I met Miroslav Davidovic who is kind of the hub for the rest of the team. He started the team with Matej Lakota and then as more people came in there is a big forum of people who are constantly interacting with each other on a daily basis. I was interested in this idea from an artistic perspective in terms of you know these people incredibly well but the way you imagine them visually in your mind is your imagination, entirely fictional. I wanted to go and meet them all for the first time in the flesh and see what they were really like and also just the huge variety of lifestyles that they have. For example one of them is a Sargent in their countries military, one is a ski and hand gliding instructor, one is a government employee whilst being a sim racing journalist, it is really about the power of a common purpose regardless of background and desire to join together.

A big part of the film is how much we enjoy racing in rFactor2. There are no bells and whistles about it, it doesn't sort of hold your hand, there is no kind of story behind it, it's just a tool, and that's what I want. It's just the ultimate about what a person who wants to be a racing driver can do as an alternative. The film in terms of story, it follows Revolution Racing, who are a team that takes part in a league called the Virtual Endurance Championship, which is pretty much the pinnacle of virtual endurance racing across any sim title, as they prepare for the final round 24 hours of Le Mans race, a mirror of the WEC's Le Mans 24 Hour race.

I think you have, or at least definitely the way it's been in Revolution Racing, a complete feeling of equilibrium. The oldest member of the team is Matt Sentell who is almost into his 50's now and the youngest member of the team is Enzo who turned 18 last season and there is no sense of got to put these young guys in their place or anything like that, there is total sense of anyone can give anyone advice and anyone can, if it gets to it, tell anyone off for ruining a race or making a bad decision or something like that. Maybe it comes from not having the image, just having a voice. Can you necessarily tell what a persons age is or what they look like from just hearing them. That's one of the big reasons for what drove me to do the film.

TW: For me personally, I'm British, live in the USA, work from home and basically my social interaction is based over the internet most of the time. I have to say that the majority of my oldest friends have actually been people that I've raced against. Through every single point in my life, any difficulties that I've had, it's been the people that I've met through sim racing that have stuck around and are still there. There's people from school, very very few kind of friends that I've kept in contact with that I consider real friends, but the guys that I've met in sim racing, well I've got people on Facebook that I've known since 1996... it's crazy that that's how it is.

The kind of things I've been through in my life that these people have supported me through is something that I guess a lot of new sim racers probably don't know. I ran a fairly big sim racing site at one point, the Legends Central site (later Race Sim Central). There was one point in 2001 when I actually moved countries to take a new job and then the job went away. The guy was going bankrupt when he hired me. I'd spent everything getting over to this other country and I ended up being homeless living in a homeless hostel. I went to a library and posted what had happened and basically everyone that was a member of my site, and various other people that were members of other sim racing sites that heard about what happened and collected up enough to basically allow me to start saving towards getting myself out of the homeless hostel and into a rental place. There was even a guy who would call me, text me regularly to check in and see how I was doing. This guy knew me from sim racing, nothing else. His support was valuable to me, and that makes me grateful to be a part of the sim racing community and now to be working for it.

Just this total kind of giving attitude that these people had is totally amazing. When I really think back to all the people I've met in real life and online, the ones that really stick around are the ones that I've met online. It's weird but it's true!

When the film was proposed to me I didn't tell Edmund, who put this all together, I didn't tell him any of my history or why this would be an interesting story to me, but I can see in these people he met and has connected with the same thing I see in many of my sim racing friends. It struck a chord. I'm aware of the artistic side and didn't want to push him in any direction that I've experienced, I knew that he would have his own experiences which I why I didn't tell him a lot of the stuff I've just told you.

When I heard the pitch I contacted Gjon and sent over my usual kind of whiney emails about why I thought we should do it, and he said yes. Essentially I just kind of handed it over to Edmund and Gjon to debate through everything and ever since I've just sat and read the email back and forth while I wait for the film.

ETJ: You know, ISI have been supportive as you can possibly want in this kind of situation. Obviously without them it would never have been possible. Tim and Gjon have just kind of escorted me through the whole thing which has been really nice.

RD: Have you been surprised to see how much passion and emotion a game such as rf2 can inspire in such very different people from such diverse backgrounds and cultures within this film?

TW: I think it's almost the same as a kind of 9-5 job in an office. I feel like I am quoting a Ricky Gervais workplace comedy here, but the person that sits across the desk from you, you actually spend more time awake and alert talking to them than you do with your partner at home. It’s understandable that in sim racing you form a similar relationship.

RD: So when can we expect to see the film for ourselves?

ETJ: The film is most likely to be released towards the end of 2016 or Q1 2017.

We hope you have enjoyed our interview with both Tim Wheatley from ISI/Studio 397 and Edmund Trevelyn-Johnson. Big thanks to both of you for taking the time out of your schedules to sit down with us and conduct this interview.

Stay tuned to RaceDepartment for more rFactor 2 news and announcements in the coming days. In addition to the interview with Tim Wheatley, we are due to sit down with Studio 397's Marcel Offermans in the coming days to discuss his plans for the sim. Keep an eye out on the front page for more details in the next few days...

RaceDepartment have one of the most vibrant rFactor 2 communities on the internet. Head over to our sub forum to discuss all things rF2 with your fellow fans. Catch up on the latest news, browse our downloads section, or simply take part in one of our epic club and league events. The choice is yours!



Have you enjoyed our interview with Tim and Edmund? Looking forward to more details emerging about the new partnership? What excites you most about the future of rF2? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Seriously though, Vulkan is way better than DX12.

It might be way better to build a new game with Vulkan support than DX11/DX12. Converting a DX9 game though, I assume that the process is much lengthier to move to Vulkan than DX11, so they'd probably have to target Q1 2018 rather than Q1 2017. The second problem is that Vulkan doesn't seem to support GPU's older than from around 2012, so the minimum requirements of rF2 would have to be scrapped (currently rF2 can be run with a Radeon 5000 series card, whereas AMD doesn't support Vulkan pre 7000 series). From a business point of view it makes little sense to move a niche game to Vulkan in the current circumstances.

 

[Nick Hill]

I really hope that the 60s GP content is developed to completion with all the other teams, as Tim spoke about in the interview. I know he was just using it as an example, but it's something i've been on about for ages. Different cars in a field really add great depth and interest. There is a reason people still play GPL.
And they need to finish off a season's worth of tracks too, then I can start telling people over in GPL land that there is something they can finally gravitate towards. I mean they have 3 already, it is a good start, however a full season's worth is necessary as well as all the other little things that complete the experience.

None of the sims out there really focus on historical content (especially circuits) and this is where RF2 could really shine and differentiate itself from the competition. If it did one series of 60s racing with tracks to go along with it and all the little details necessary for a polished product, then it could really be something i could see people getting on board with.

Look at it this way - i knew nothing about historical racing before i played GPL, and since i played it it made me realise just how much circuits have been desecrated. It really showed me how much more enjoyable racing can be.
And there are many other people who could experience this given the chance. It just needs the commitment and enthusiasm behind it, and then people to evangelise it and get the mainstream press talking about it etc.

I mean a large part of pCars and AC's success is that they have touted themselves to the mainstream gaming media. In fact, especially pCars.
If RFactor 2 built something like this and built up enough interest in this way then they could get a lot more interest. Most people won't even know of it as it has been completely ignored by mainstream gaming media, unlike other sims.

Sorry for the long post, but I really feel there is an untapped part of our market for a polished historic sim and that with the right advertisement and support from the community and press it could do a lot better than people might dismiss it as. Of course it doesn't have the fashion of an F1 / GT3 game, but it has the soul and interesting content that those don't, and something like that would slowly spread through word of mouth.

As far as the DX vs Vulkan debate, I'm neither informed nor passionate enough about graphics to have an opinion either way, but I heartily second your comments on historical racing. I think if you take the sum total of all the little pockets of folks who are still to this day racing (both offline and online) rF1 DRM/historical F1 mods, P&G, HistorX, GPL, GTL, etc, etc, you have the makings of a significant untapped market of sim racers yearning to relieve the glory days (in terms of both cars AND tracks).

Bear with me now while I pick on GT3s for just a moment.

On a level, I understand the appeal of the GT3 class and why we get bucketloads of these cars in every damned sim. To put a point on it, I think the appeal of GT3 in the sim racing world is the same as the appeal that has made them a very popular class in real racing - (1) relatively speaking, they are very tame and easy to drive and (2) other than body style and name plate, they are all exceeding similar. This makes it an ideal class for multiplayer racing online because you know if you host an event based on the GT3 class, while maybe no one is jumping out of their seat with excitement, you're also not going to turn anyone away based upon being intimidated by the car or being afraid they haven't signed up in time to get a competitive ride.

On another level, it can get exceedingly boring for those of us who spend a lot of time offline (or even folks who race in private leagues that are more about replicating the experience of racing in a particular class of car rather than giving everyone an equal playing field). And this is why my hard drive is absolutely littered with the aforementioned historical sims/mods! I still play these and have a great time with them, but yearn for the day where a developer will bring one of these sims (at least spiritually) up to date.

At the risk of sounding snobbish, "Look, a Lotus 49! We've got historical content!" isn't enough for me (and a lot of others, I think). I want the full car set (and, at this point, it wouldn't even have to be licensed content to satisfy my tastes - just give me a generic range of world beaters, mid packs, and back markers) and a nice selection of classic tracks (the ones where the trees are way too close for comfort! )

 

[Deleted member 130869]

Another appeal of GT vs faster open-wheelers, classic or LMPs, beyond being slower and easier to drive, is that it's a diverse field of the ultimate versions of the road cars some people really like.

Most people can only aspire to own a Lamborghini or Ferrari, or they've seen a very nice BMW or have that one friend who knows someone with a fancy Mercedes. So there's that level of connection. That plus being easier to drive and not being immediately too many seconds down from others seems to be the draw.

The only time I managed to get a proper group of people interested in racing the non-traditional cars - and outside of a league of top drivers, which is now super rare to find - was the CART 98 cars, and only because of a good calendar to fit the variety of cars. Didn't have the same success with turbo or historic.

I guess I just repeated what's been said, haha. ts;wtrm (too short; want to read more). The ability to drive a championship in single player with these complicated cars is why offline game design is so important.

 

[oneWonders]

Yes but it's due to the whole atmosphere and fashion in the community (not just sim racing but real racing).

If they see F1 or GT3 or whatever on tv they will naturally gravitate to that because that is what is being pushed and advertised to them by the car manufacturers and advertising sponsors and people who run the series, as it makes them money to do this.
They simply are not aware of any other way. They are also told by the media and in society in general that OLD = BAD. This happens throughout society, as it is a cornerstone of commercialism and capitalism - companies want you to keep buying their new products after all.

Now of course, old does not by default mean better, however in this case it certainly is. The circuits have a lot more interest, flow, challenge and diversity. The nearest modern equivalent we have no is the irish road racing championship, but there are intrinsic problems with trying to make a motorcycle racing sim (i think it could be done well with the right controller and limited to counter-steering rather than hanging off (which is how they used to ride anyway)).

(Aside - And yes, the cars are, from a technical standpoint, a lot worse. That actually is a positive thing, as it makes them more interesting to drive. The more perfect / on rails / with huge amounts of downforce a car is, the more boring it is to drive. The less a driver has to deal with proper manual gearboxes, weight transfer, settling the car, slides etc, the more boring everything becomes. People obsessed with lap times and horse power are missing the point. If you took away all downforce, gave cars rock hard, skinny treaded tyres of rubbish compounds and gave them awful suspension and h-pattern gearboxes then racing would be a lot more interesting).


To solve this problem, you just need a sustained, community led advertising and evangelising effort behind a sim that chooses the focus on historical content.
In mainstream gaming and even in our genre, people will generally buy what the magazines and community rave about non stop.

It is no coincidence the pCars and AC have sold a lot better than anything else, as these two, espcially pCars, were advertised and lauded heavily in the mainstream gaming media.

If the same was done with an historical sim, where the benefits and positives were explained to the audience and they were introduced to this vastly different period of motorsport, then you would see a lot of people try it for the first time and be exposed to it.

The more gaming media pushes something, the more the general public are willing to eventually accept it and even possibly try something they otherwise would not have.

I mean, take the opposite view - if the average person sees a sim that they have never heard of and none of the big sites have raved about, they will just dismiss it as "it can't be that good, i've never heard of it".


So yes, I think there is vast potential there, as the base content of a historical sim is a lot more engaging in the long term.
What is necessary is a community / media / developer willing to to back such an idea and push it into the spotlight, praising its positives and differences so that the average person becomes aware of it and actually gives it a chance. You would get more people deciding they like it than you may realise.

 

[Will Mazeo]

"it is a cornerstone of commercialism and capitalism"
lol
it's just easier to drive a GT3 than any other fast car out there and they are also brands taht people admire, simple as that. And they'll just get even easier if they keep the focus on gentlemen drivers
We got 53 entries for our GT3 league (people that sent skins are 51!), now when we try to do a CART league, heck... even V8SC that is a fan favourite (and not so hard to drive) we get 5 people >_< it's just how people are, unfortunately

 

[oneWonders]

You may mock and yet you fail to refute anything that i said.

Most people haven't even tried historic cars / circuits and know nothing about them.

I knew nothing about them either until i played GPL for the first time. After recommendations on gpg.com, i tried the gpl2004 demo.
It was so good that i bought the game and it got me interested in the era as a whole. With a new game and exposure, others would realise the draw of it too. Of course it's not for everyone, but when the media and the community as a whole don't give it exposure then how can you expect any product to succeed. That is what is needed.

People will not try something properly or learn it enough to give it a chance unless they feel it is worthwhile. If there is not the positive press or community around something, then of course they will dismiss it as "too difficult" rather than learning the different approach to driving and the depth that it brings.

 

[David Dominguez]

You may mock and yet you fail to refute anything that i said.

Well, your whole theory consists in "it worked with me, so it should with the masses" and "if media pushes it, it will work". Truth is, what worked for you doesn't mean it will work for everybody, and media will push products that will appeal the masses. Now type "Assetto Corsa" or "Project Cars" (or Forza or GT) on Youtube and find out what kind of cars the masses use the most. Be careful, it might be disappointing

Edit: or you can find how popular the Lotus 49 is @ iRacing. And trust me, there was an insane hype campaign with that car. Even Kaemmer came out of the cave and wrote an article about the car

 

[Deleted member 130869]

GT3 wouldn't be this popular if GTP or GT1 still existed. It's the widespread availability series.

Some passive-aggressive usage of emoticons going on here. Here we go.

 

[oneWonders]

Nice straw man, i never said it will work for everybody - in fact i said the opposite.

What i did say is that if it is given enough expose and done well then it will gain new interest.
Of course not from everyone, but enough to be commercially viable.

And your points about historical content in AC, pCars and iRacing are completely and utterly missing the point.

In those games the historical content is a throwaway token gesture. Because of that, of course people are of course more dismissive of it. Without a proper series of multiple different cars and a set of historical tracks and all the period rules /. atmosphere that goes along with it, it seriously devalues the content and makes people less likely to bother with it.
Why do you think that all the people that enjoy things like this still play GPL or P&G3 or other things similar, rather than having moved over to AC or RF2? (That said RF2's 3 historic tracks are really nicely done!).

Also of course people are going to want to race content that they see in the media, on tv, everywhere they look. That is entirely my point. Historical content doesn't have the hype and exposure around it. This is exactly why it needs help from the community and media to encourage people to try it and not just "give up" because it seems too hard at first.

If someone did a historical sim it has the potential to do reasonably well, providing it gets such support.
At no point did i say it would ever be as popular as content of modern series that run and are currently on tv. In fact I said the opposite and gave reasons why it is fighting an uphill battle against that.

That doesn't mean that it can't be viable and reasonably successful.

 

[Will Mazeo]

If GTP and GT1 still existed they'd be very different now (and by that I mean in a way that they'd be popular).

 

[David Dominguez]

I simply can't understand why would anyone risk money and time in something that "IF given X,Y,Z conditions, will work" when you already know what works. Even more in a sim that was released precisely with that kind of content from day 1 and it's not like it has been super popular. But hey.

 

[Will Mazeo]

I simply can't understand why would anyone risk money and time in something that "IF given X,Y,Z conditions, will work" when you already know what works. Even more in a sim that was released precisely with that kind of content from day 1 and it's not like it has been super popular. But hey.

Agreed
Should just copy what AC is doing with content and shiny graphics (just please add options to turn off the overdone stuff) and use the fact that you have rain and night in promo videos and shots (like a night Blancpain race, it's damn beautiful) showing what your Ai can do, promote the heck out of VEC to use them as propaganda for your online environment.
Mainstream tracks and cars is what sells and bring people, and this also helps to keep the historic content rolling, you need money to finance this stuff.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

If someone did a historical sim it has the potential to do reasonably well, providing it gets such support.
At no point did i say it would ever be as popular as content of modern series that run and are currently on tv. In fact I said the opposite and gave reasons why it is fighting an uphill battle against that.

That doesn't mean that it can't be viable and reasonably successful.

One problem with historical content is that it fits badly to online competition. I don't know a single popular rF2 league that uses the historic content and, actually, I'm not aware of any historic leagues in any sim that would be popular today. Racing on some narrow 1960's Spa or Nordschleife with cars that don't have wings just doesn't lend itself well to online racing. I once raced in a league where we did a race on Spa using Howstons. The race lasted 3 laps before everyone bar one had DNF'd, and these were mostly veteran sim racers. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hotlapping these cars very much, but they have very little popularity online.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

One problem with historical content is that it fits badly to online competition. I don't know a single popular rF2 league that uses the historic content and, actually, I'm not aware of any historic leagues in any sim that would be popular today. Racing on some narrow 1960's Spa or Nordschleife with cars that don't have wings just doesn't lend itself well to online racing. I once raced in a league where we did a race on Spa using Howstons. The race lasted 3 laps before everyone bar one had DNF'd, and these were mostly veteran sim racers. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy hotlapping these cars very much, but they have very little popularity online.

I don't know what veteran simracers those must have been. Could be veteran in the sense of been around long enough, but means nothing if they have never been regular. There are always the guys who will only drive one type of GT cars and will not feel comfortable elsewhere. A proper veteran would understand to not overdrive the car unless he or she got caught off guard by an oddity or different behavior. There aren't many classic cars around that correspond to what drivers or mechanics describe in their experiences. I'm not much of a veteran because I don't drive much and if i do participate in a league, I rarely practice. But I've been on a Porsche 917 server at Spa, my second time driving the car, where only I went through Eau Rouge and through sector 1 unscathed, with a lead of 44s on the first lap. So? I had very rarely been driving but all I did was behave according to what the car was showing me. I think I was lapping in the 3:30s in the 5 laps just so you have an idea of how not that fast it was. And it's tough enough to find popular rF2 series, you want to be even more selective with that? There were a couple of series but they folded due to the game. Other series tried merging to survive. So your assertion isn't valid.

I began simracing in a league in GPL with plenty of amazing drivers, and eventually learned a lot from revisiting it. My first race with a brand new wheel and a tiny laptop sitting very far away was at the Nürburgring in a bad makeshift setup. Rarely had a chance to practice, no idea of setups, and trying to somehow makeup for lack of experience (and many other things) to keep up with guys who raced non-stop. I sucked but was hooked. Also there were numerous other competitions using the same game that fielded a lot of excellent drivers who, those still active, are usually in the higher echelon of results and leagues.

No content will work well if the people aren't interested in it. I've seen people dismiss great cars and tracks because the way they tried driving it made no sense. I wish I was joking but have seen some guys go into a completely new track and brake very late into every corner - with non-F1 or high-downforce cars - and complain the car and track were "crap." Why crap? Because he couldn't mindlessly smash the brakes 100m away from a tight corner, chuck the car into it (without even knowing track width or following corner) and blaming it on everything but himself.

Now even removing the parts of the population that make up this kind of user, you still have a few segments. You don't need a huge portion to be successful. You need "some." A well put together package advertised to that crowd will do well. GT3 is super popular these days because it's an accessible series in real life and it's just quite widespread. It's moronic to not give it coverage. It's not just a byproduct of marketing, GT3 does have its merits but it only exists due to the previous very top series getting neutered and killed off by the FIA. Since I was alive to know of those previous series, I never cared for these road cars specced for racing because they're just boring. I fit the "some" category as do many others. But we don't have a game to flock to and we must either run in specific leagues or stick to old stuff, or just hotlap on the unwelcome cars in the new games since there's never a good offline structure or more than one specific car. Even the guy who did his best to secure licenses couldn't get his boss to bother with it, instead giving us uninteresting pieced content to fit whatever ludicrous roadmap he had - if any, as it actually seemed like. 1966 isn't as interesting as 1967 but still it would be much better having 5-7 cars to choose from and drive around fitting circuits than pretty much anything we were given since 2013.


Edit: Not much of this matters anymore. This was a topic about an interview with Tim, offering the general public an insight to the change in ownership and to some of the inner workings and decisions. Maybe under new leadership we'll see a different approach and actual addition of series with cars of varying performance.

I don't think it matters if it's historic, recent or modern. An inclusive experience will attract attention. Hopefully it's not boring cars. But a change in the mindset from pieced content without fitting tracks will be so very welcome.

 

[fortyfivekev]

...GT3 does have its merits but it only exists due to the previous very top series getting neutered and killed off by the FIA. Since I was alive to know of those previous series, I never cared for these road cars specced for racing because they're just boring...

Don't worry mate, in 10 years we'll all be looking back at how great GT3 used to be and how GT4/5 sucks. GT1/2 were killed off by people building unaffordable cars not by the FIA. Ford and Ferrari are doing the same thing now to GT3. So the cycle goes on.

I bet most of the guys racing HistorX etc. are older. I am 54 and can just about remember racing in the 70's and relate to it because of that. You are never going to get younger guys to relate in the same way to those cars and tracks. It just isn't going to happen.

 

[Ghoults]

Not all historic content is 917s and lotus 49s. Just like all modern content is not f1 and lemans prototypes. I don't really see the lotus 49 or the 79 in racing being representable takes on how popular historic racing can be. Is the F1 car in racing popular for online racing? Is that representable of the interest about modern race cars?

It is more about the car itself than it is about the era. Sure for some folks anything but modern GTs or prototypes is a dead class. Just like for someone else something more mechanical is more of their thing. The gt3 just like all gt cars sit in this sweet spot. You have lots of choises in what you drive in that class. All games offer multiple cars for that class. The cars are relatively easy to drive with power figures below what the tires can handle. The cars also have lots of downforce which makes all the corners except the slow ones very easy. The cars also feel fast and look nice as well. And you can watch a race in youtube and go drive the same combo. The cars can provide good close racing and can handle impacts as well.

Compare that to something like lotus 49 and there are lots of things that car doesn't have. The car is tricky at high speeds. It doesn't stop fast, it rewards bravery and car control, it requires tons of bravery and car control. It can wheelspin at any and every speed. Not really close racing most of the time. There are no options to choose from. Just one car. Only way to individualize is to make your skin. And the cars are more fragile as well. Much easier to lose control and take damage easier as well. And it is hard to get excited about the car unless you drive it yourself. Back when gpl came out I was not interested about the car. I was gt racing fan. But once I tried the car I instantly loved it.

I'm sure if iracing added some historic touring cars from 70s, or 80s for example it would become very populated class. The cars are extremely fun to drive without being too challenging, the racing is close and the cars look amazing. Iracing could of course add gt cars or prototypes from 60s. Again, much harder to drive. It all really depends. The late model for example could do with road racing series. As far as I know it is common car run by leagues as it sits in the good spot for racing and driving.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

Much like releasing one gt3 car by itself, with only a couple of fitting tracks, releasing a single f1 car or some classic or historic car by itself will not garner anything. See how well rf2 leagues did having only the 2009 corvette.

If the scgt 67 mod was made for rf2 even with just the handful of period and not series accurate tracks, it would spur a few leagues.

 

[Art-J]

I'm also one of those, who discovered the era of historic racing thanks to GPL (and still play it, plus P&G every now and then), but even I remember that GPL was commercial failure in US and a medium success in Europe. Game developers remember it well too, so I'm afraid I don't quite buy the theory that one could make such a sim today to show all these youngsters who "don't know better" a proper alternative. Some would certainly "convert" to historics (like I did), but would there be enough of them to make the product commercially viable? It didn't happen in 1998 when brands and track licenses were dirt cheap (relatively), what are the chances of doing it in 2017 when they cost a fortune? I'd love to see it happen, of course, but....

 

[oneWonders]

GPL didn't get a lot of publicity. I hadn't even heard of it until around 2004/5
It didn't sell well partly due to difficulty, yes, but also a lot of it is due to awareness and backing. I am not saying it would have been a blockbuster but it would have been viable. If the game was hyped by the media and given a lot more awareness, it would have done far better initially. Also you have to remember what the state of the FFB steering wheel market was like at the time - it was in its infancy. The game didn't even originally have FFB support apparently, as there were few devices to support it and most people didn't have one.

Look at how many people came to GPL in later years - it was a sleeper success.
It is only in the last few years that sold out software have taken it off their label. That says something for an obscure sim from 1998. How many other games do you see from 1998 that were still being commercially sold on disc in shops for so long? And the games that you do see are huge names.
That shows that it was obviously selling for them.
GPL did well much later on in its life when word of mouth had spread about it. I have also heard that originally the default setups were very bad, making driving difficult as the cars would constantly be running on bump stops.

For a lot of the old content you don't need licences - the circuits either don't exist anymore or are public roads. Also you can simply rename content like GPL did.
And if you read the interview, Tim managed to negotiate reasonable licensing for all teams except Ferrari, who could be done fictionally anyway. A lot of old teams / managers / circuits see the value in trying to preserve the history of their sport in something like this. Licensing for cheap is not impossible and it is certainly going to be far cheaper than modern fashionable content licences anyway, so that point is moot.


Also, Will, what is the point of RFactor 2 being another sim like AC, pCars, R3E or Iracing with piecemeal content?
That is what you all seem to be clamouring for.
If they do that, I would say they will sell far less because the competition already exists.
If they try something different like creating a full series of historical content then you have something that sets you apart from the competition and gives you a reason to choose RFactor 2 even if you have those other products.

That you seem to be fighting so violently against it just gives the impression that you don't like that kind of content in the first place. Well you are already well catered for.
People that like historical content are not. That is why there are still people playing gpl, p&g 3 etc. They have no other alternative.
Where as for modern content you are competing with every sim out there, and studios that have vast fortunes to spend licencing the far more expensive fashionable content. Rfactor 2 simply can't compete as well in that area.

What I am suggesting is giving it some differentiation from competition, and a coherent, polished and interesting level of content that is not catered to elsewhere, in order to expand its audience.

 

[Deleted member 130869]

GPL was demanding of PCs at the time too. There's a recent quote from I think the guy who made the 60 FPS patch:
"Grand Prix Legends physics are updated every 1/288th of a second which is amazing considering how old the sim is, but is the reason the sim was so hard to run on PCs when it was first released.
The 60 fps patch increases the physics engine speed to 300 Hz so the physics are updated every 1/300th of a second. As we know, that creates havoc with the AI."

Oh yeah, and let's not forget the game was a rushed release too on top of very little publicity. Maybe it was the Sega Dreamcast of sims, a lot of good ideas but in a transitional period. And I do recall the 1979 mod being absolute huge for rFactor.