Free Content, Future Development and Stefano Casillo Interview (Part 2)

[Paul Jeffrey]

We spoke at length with Stefano Casillo of Kunos Simulazioni about Assetto Corsa, some new free content incoming and all things racing...

The Sim Racing Expo was a wonderful opportunity for sim racers, developers, hardware manufacturers and the media to get together to celebrate the wonderful hobby we call sim racing. Thanks to the great access and atmosphere of the event we had the opportunity to chat with one of the key figures behind Assetto Corsa, Stefano Casillo, and he was more than happy to give us an insight into the behind the scenes workings at Kunos, plus revealing some exciting new free content coming to Assetto Corsa in the near future.

You can check out the interview below:

Originally planned as part of a standard paid DLC, Kunos scheduled the highly anticipated laser scanned version of Laguna Seca to release alongside a pack of new performance road cars for the simulation. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances the launch of Laguna hit one or two delays against the original schedule, slipping to much further in the calendar year that was the intention when the announcement was first hinted at several months ago.

In something of a generous gesture from Kunos, the popular Italian developers have decided to release both circuit and accompanying cars to the base game for free, bringing with it a very popular drivers circuit and six new cars to the title.

The confirmed free bonus pack DLC will contain:

• Laguna Seca Circuit
• Alfa Rome Giulia QV
• Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
• Lamborghini Sesto Elemento
• Lamborghini Huracan Performante
• Maserati Quattroporte
• Pagani Huayra BC

No exact release date has been confirmed by Kunos, however it is expected that players will be in receipt of the new content before the end of 2017.

If you missed it earlier, don't forget to check out our previous interview with Stefano where we talk about the new update and Ferrari Celebration DLC.

Assetto Corsa is available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC now.

Assetto Corsa and online racing = Love! Check out our brilliant Assetto Corsa League and Club racing forum for great racing events suitable for all skills and experiences. We host regular events using popular content and guarantee a great time for all. Additionally we have a very active sub forum for the game where players can catch up on the latest news and engage with fellow community members here at RD. You can download mods from our modding archive, discuss W.I.P projects in our Modding Discussion Forum and try out a selection of car setups for a wide range of vehicles. Come on, get yourself involved in the action today!

Happy to see more free content coming to Assetto Corsa? Which car most grabs your attention from the list above? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Nestoche]

Hi Bram,

Thanks for the comments and offer, much appreciated ..I might give it a try...Just need to get my confidence up a little more and I will see how I feel.

Thanks again!

It really hurts reading that. Anno 2017 you don't need to hold back anymore on online racing mate. If you are an old school single player you are more skilled than you give yourself credits for and nobody is expects a 100% incident free online race.

Give it a try as you are really missing out on multiplayer racing with this and other racing games.

 

[elloLeo Kinnunen]

But does anyone here want a better career mode similar or better then what Codie's F1 2017 has for Assetto Corsa?

Have you tried some of these? http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/categories/ac-career.60/

 

[AnGeL LuiS R]

I hope this message is read by Stefano and the Kunos team.

.... Sorry for my English...

I'm a big fan of AC. I've more than 1.000 hours driving in the simulator. I don't like now RBR, rFactor 1/2, iRacing, Project CARS, Gran Turismo saga and Forza Motorsport saga. I've played all that games and I only like Assetto Corsa.

The key is not the content. Always the people is talking about the content. Also, the people is always talking about the result of the last match. But really people cares about the last match? Or actually people worry about their day to day? Let's look further!

I work for one of the best companies of my country. If we want to sell, we need to apply the basics. There is a lot of basics in a cars game, but we can't see many of them in Assetto Corsa. Sometimes the simplest things are omitted.

A lot of people that never have bought a wheel, they are buying hardware like Logitech G29 for enjoy the Assetto Corsa experience. The game is attracting casual gamers. That's great. They are opening their minds apart from Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport or Need for Speed.

Youtube it's a great tool of marketing. The Assetto Corsa players records their race with a external program, and then they upload the content to Youtube. "Ey dude what game is that? Cool drifting I want to play it". An in-game tool for record and upload the replay to Youtube would imply massify the AC content into Youtube. More new content = more new interested players. The big videogames companies are betting on it.

The online it's the favourite game mode, and likely the core of Assetto Corsa. I prefer afford a server like Rackservice, but many other people would prefer make their own server (because it's free). An in-game host button with options will encourage to many people to make the online mode more diverse.

But if we don't talk about modding, we aren't talking about Assetto Corsa. Give a person a brush, and that person will create an artwork. Give a modder a modding tool, and that modder will create... an artwork. And be sure that people loves plays that artworks. There are third-party tools that sometimes are expensive and useless. Giving a quality modding tool, and not only an export tools, it's synonymous of open the heaven of the modding. For example, I use mods 80% of the play time.

I won't talk about modding in consoles, I suppose that is impossible, but I will talk about cross platform online. All my casuals friends plays AC in PS4. If I could beat up them from my PC, I would hook them more to the game. But I can't. Actually, it's join people with other people. But at this moment it's like my console friends have a different game than my PC friends and me.

One of the biggest troubles that all of us we have with the online, is when a server have mods, sometimes it's like a Rubik's cube. "Oh men, I can't wait to enter, what f**** mods I need??!". The proper way to avoid this, it's uploading the mods to the server, and then when a client wants to enter, the server offers to download the previous uploaded mods (if you haven't got it already).

In the case of DLC cars that you don't have, offer the possibility of enter to the server like other games. You can't select the cars that you don't have, but you can enter and fill the room. And yes, there are a lot of empty* rooms in the game. For me, empty rooms are servers with less than 5 players.

There are some offline modes that are really cool, like drifting mode which measures the drift combo that you perform. Why not combine that offline modes with online? More online modes, more fun!

I can't wait to see tracks like Akina Downhill or C1 Highway at night like Initial D and Wangan Midnight. Epic! But please, let modders make light elements like lampposts or illuminated signs.

I love take my car with rain because I can drift easily and I don't waste my tires. I hope have that feeling of drifting on dry (with a underpowered car) it's like be a noob; drifting on wet it's like be a D1 drifter. No words for that feeling.

I wish you the best in the new project. Please, don't focus on useless things only because some people talks about it. Assetto Corsa can be the best simulator of the history. Me and a lot of people would give anything to work on the project. So Kunos team, please don't waste this great opportunity to make history.

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

...

 

[Terra21]

Well for me AC has far exceeded my expectations By a country mile. For a title that kunos planned on having just a few cars and tracks for buyers to enjoy..they definitely succeeded

Hopefully stefano and crew build on what they have accomplished and choose to take the obvious path.. Start on AC2.. since the foundation is now there. New/improved engine is all that's needed as the physics is sublime

@kunos Now don't go making a weather simulator instead

 

[Nestoche]

Hi Terra21,

No, I haven't but will check them out!...Thanks for the link and suggestion...Much appreciate it!

Have you tried some of these? http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/categories/ac-career.60/

 

[Patrik Marek]

I would certainly love to have proper career mode/ SP experience in every title, but it's not focus for the more serious simulations, since I suppose most of their people are after MP

F1 2017 has to be certainly one of the best games as far as career mode/ SP experience goes, and I would love to see that , but it adds lot of costs, that not every developer wants to spend money on, since in their minds it not good enough for the revenue out of it

so yeah, I would definitely not expect anything close to what F1 has, in AC2

projectCARS2 has decent depth of the SP experience, but still not as deep as F1 for sure

 

[Patrik Marek]

...

too bad I can't read it, I'm sure it would enlighten my day

 

[RasmusP]

Hi Bram,

Thanks for the comments and offer, much appreciated ..I might give it a try...Just need to get my confidence up a little more and I will see how I feel.

Thanks again!

Absolutely agree with Bram!
You sir need to sign up for a social event as soon as you can!
If you need help setting anything up just give me a shout! And if you want to practice some overtaking etc against a real person: give me a shout!
Pm me, add me on steam, post here, I don't care. The fact that you write what you wrote shows that you should be a nice addition to our racing clubs!

 

[StefanoCasillo]

Has it?

I am sure he means netKar PRO

One thing for sure.. my interviews are not as idiot proof as they should be, this thread clearly shows it, I really need to work on that.

 

[Patrik Marek]

I am sure he means netKar PRO

One thing for sure.. my interviews are not as idiot proof as they should be, this thread clearly shows it, I really need to work on that.

NetKar had rain, that's true! but it was far from visually amazing

 

[CC]

pCARS1, pCARS2, and new rain in RF2 WIP looks pretty awesome if you ask me

even games like F1 series, Dirt Rallye or WRC7 has decent rain/night

Looks awesome if you ask me also , obviously WIP as it demonstrates , some more spray and effects and some rain on the camera look insane

 

[CC]

NetKar had rain, that's true! but it was far from visually amazing

Thats not true man NKpro looked awesome in the rain specially with the technology at the time

 

[manu68]

I agree on one thing.

It would be great to be able to join a server without owning all the DLC.
I don't know how it is possible , and of course if it is financially something that Kunos would like to implement.

 

[CC]

I agree on one thing.

It would be great to be able to join a server without owning all the DLC.
I don't know how it is possible , and of course if it is financially something that Kunos would like to implement.

Not really something to do with Kunos , its been an issue ingames for well over a decade all games are the same , I used to play all the shift games on xbox and sms would add the DLC into the achievements ,
so soon as you finish the game you have 100,s more achievement points to unlock before the game is classed as finished so would buy the DLC just to unlock this crap , same on all games .

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

NetKar had rain, that's true! but it was far from visually amazing

How crazy of a concept that simulation fans care more about physics than visuals. I guess that's hard to understand for a guy that makes fake cars for simcade games.

 

[StefanoCasillo]

How crazy of a concept that simulation fans care more about physics than visuals. I guess that's hard to understand for a guy that makes fake cars for simcade games.

and always ends up criticizing games that don't use his stuff.

I wonder how well it would be received if KS staff went around other game's forums pointing out their flaws ( I could write books about it).. but seems that people working (or "investing") for a "certain" company all have a really hard time understanding professionalism, such an appalling lack of shame.

 

[Patrik Marek]

Not really something to do with Kunos , its been an issue ingames for well over a decade all games are the same , I used to play all the shift games on xbox and sms would add the DLC into the achievements ,
so soon as you finish the game you have 100,s more achievement points to unlock before the game is classed as finished so would buy the DLC just to unlock this crap , same on all games .

not really true, if the game is written in that way that everyone has the car model downloaded, and buyign DLC only unlocks it, then it is absolutely possible to race against cars you don't own in MP, even Gran Turismo have done that on PS3

 

[Patrik Marek]

and always ends up criticizing games that don't use his stuff.

I wonder how well it would be received if KS staff went around other game's forums pointing out their flaws ( I could write books about it).. but seems that people working (or "investing") for a "certain" company all have a really hard time understanding professionalism, such an appalling lack of shame.

haha, you talk about profesionalism,
you mean like that time you talked to the sim enthusiast and real life racer, with tons of experience, who was trying to help you improve your sim, "respect and friendly" yeah those are really the words I would use

and AC does use my stuff, in case you haven't notices Primera BTCC is amongs many considered to be one of the best cars in AC, and that includes cars by kunos

 

[Patrik Marek]

How crazy of a concept that simulation fans care more about physics than visuals. I guess that's hard to understand for a guy that makes fake cars for simcade games.

if you could do more then just talking, they would use your stuff as well