Opinions on R3E: What's yours?

[Nigel Mansell]

This is fine for ppl happy to dry-lap. RRE has improved over time - but I'm in the, "this is an outdated platform now" club. Best way to vent my frustration = stop buying DLC. When S3 care enough to drag RRE into modern times, I'll restart support. I buy the DLC, yet hardly lap with it - makes zero sense. I'm fed up of dry lapping. it's a personal thing.

We had rain in sims many years ago, then it all went tits-up IMHO. YMMV of course, that's fine. Why were Microprose ahead of their time. How long have I supported this stale engine for now, jeez. I've been doing this for a great many number of years - too long (dry-lapping) tbh. Hence the frustration. Approaching my mid 50's, I'm going to be more selective about who I give my savings to. Free to play software isn't the future. Otherwise S3 would have taken RRE to a modern place already. RRE, feels like a pay-to-improve model to me. By that I mean, RRE just releases tweaks here and there, but the fundamental tech is missing. We own this sim software, but at a UK track, we can't create a cold/overcast/low grip/wet or even damp scenario.

Fair play to Kunos for gambling, and having the passion/balls enough to deliver what some of us long for. By that I mean, driving at differing times of the day, in low grip situations. I get that we all don't see this as the "be all" of simracing. We all have opinions about SMS. At least they could be bothered to create time of day/weather, and moved the genre along. S3 is holding back the only genre I purchase games from. I'm unhappy about this lol. RRE started to feel stale, years ago. Much like how people feel that Codemasters have stunted the growth of the F1 platform, in the many years they've had the licence. Like a huge number of you, I've sunk huge amounts into regularly supporting S3. I hope one day, that a scenario arrives where I look forward to booting the platform and using the content I've purchased.

I know SimBin UK supposedly works on a modern game engine, supporting time of day/weather. Both platforms will likely share the tech. For me, it long overdue. Sorry S3, this is the only genre I enjoy. You starved your own engine of the features I've wanted most for years. It can't get any more broken than it is. You'll get nothing more now, until you care enough to update your engine tech.

 

[amsterDAN]

My opinion on Raceroom is that every second I am in a car, out on a track, I absolutely love this game. The sounds are incomparable, the force feedback while perhaps not ultra-realistic I still find to be very immersive and informative, and the AI is wonderfully raceable for a low-level jamoke like me to have a ton of fun battling against. I've truly been amazed and impressed by how good of races I've managed to get into with the AI, and that alone keeps me coming back to the game again and again. However, nearly every other moment spent in or around Raceroom I find to be pure misery. It ranges from little gripes like the nuisance of not being able to adjust any graphics settings while out on the track and only from the main menu, all the way to not being able to access my content and run a race or even some practice laps two or three times a week because of server-side issues. I have a one- and a two-year-old so my daily window for sim racing is extremely small, and it is bitterly disappointing to finally get the kiddos to bed, roll the rig out from the guest room and get Raceroom ready, only to be told it can't communicate with the server and no races can be run. Sadly, this seems to happen to me pretty routinely since I started playing the game.

I also, like many people, take enormous issue with how their store is run. It's truly a bizarre business strategy to display dollar-amount prices that are 20-30% higher than what the consumer will be paying at checkout if they choose to use VRP, without making that clear beforehand. I have to believe that hundreds if not thousands of people have looked at those artificially inflated dollar amounts, been baffled by the concept of VRP and the fact that you need to seek out a second website to buy them from, and simply moved on to another sim that could be purchased in a more straightforward manner. It sometimes feels to me like Sector3 is determined to keep this game as obscure and underappreciated as possible with the strange way their store is run; the extremely infrequent sales, the curious disconnect between their social media advertisements and any sort of tie-in store sales, the lack of any featured items or flash sales or advertisements for incoming products or any of the normal things you'd expect to encounter on a store's front page. I almost feel crazy saying this, but: I wish they would try a little harder to part me with my money! Make an effort to actually market something to me, dudes! If they did a weekly featured car/track combo with a fun write-up and a nice little discount slapped on it, I'd more than likely be buying a new car and track from them once every week. Instead, I often fill my cart with all the things I want, scoff at the preposterously large sum total when I'm done, kick myself for not just buying the premium pack to begin with, and leave having purchased nothing at all.

While I'm not quite ready to give up on Raceroom entirely just yet, all it'd really take for me to uninstall at this point would be finding another sim that consistently lets me have as much fun battling with their AI.

 

[KoenigseggRS]

R3E is a good game, for the most part. It's free, but of course everything else isn't free. The physics is good, but hitting speedbumps makes me jump?????

 

[UMC 22]

... but hitting speedbumps makes me jump?????

Define "speed bumps". Those are generally found on public roads rather than racing tracks, and you do indeed jump if you hit them fast enough...

 

[KoenigseggRS]

Define "speed bumps". Those are generally found on public roads rather than racing tracks, and you do indeed jump if you hit them fast enough...

Those bumps on the track, on those corners, i hit them it like 70.

 

[UMC 22]

Those bumps on the track, on those corners, i hit them it like 70.

Lol... then it's not surprising that they're launching your car!

 

[Boby Kim]

Since the new FFB update ( a while ago) FFB has been reduced to a flat linear feel which totally disconnects car feeling. Actualy it has become the worst race game i own.
Re installed game few days ago, raced 5 minutes and uninstalled the game...never to be installed again. What a crap

 

[UMC 22]

Since the new FFB update ( a while ago) FFB has been reduced to a flat linear feel which totally disconnects car feeling. Actualy it has become the worst race game i own.

Sounds like you've failed to find the sweet spot for your wheel. FFB feels fine to me.

 

[PiotrGT]

My opinion on Raceroom is that every second I am in a car, out on a track, I absolutely love this game. The sounds are incomparable, the force feedback while perhaps not ultra-realistic I still find to be very immersive and informative, and the AI is wonderfully raceable for a low-level jamoke like me to have a ton of fun battling against. I've truly been amazed and impressed by how good of races I've managed to get into with the AI, and that alone keeps me coming back to the game again and again. However, nearly every other moment spent in or around Raceroom I find to be pure misery. It ranges from little gripes like the nuisance of not being able to adjust any graphics settings while out on the track and only from the main menu, all the way to not being able to access my content and run a race or even some practice laps two or three times a week because of server-side issues. I have a one- and a two-year-old so my daily window for sim racing is extremely small, and it is bitterly disappointing to finally get the kiddos to bed, roll the rig out from the guest room and get Raceroom ready, only to be told it can't communicate with the server and no races can be run. Sadly, this seems to happen to me pretty routinely since I started playing the game.

I also, like many people, take enormous issue with how their store is run. It's truly a bizarre business strategy to display dollar-amount prices that are 20-30% higher than what the consumer will be paying at checkout if they choose to use VRP, without making that clear beforehand. I have to believe that hundreds if not thousands of people have looked at those artificially inflated dollar amounts, been baffled by the concept of VRP and the fact that you need to seek out a second website to buy them from, and simply moved on to another sim that could be purchased in a more straightforward manner. It sometimes feels to me like Sector3 is determined to keep this game as obscure and underappreciated as possible with the strange way their store is run; the extremely infrequent sales, the curious disconnect between their social media advertisements and any sort of tie-in store sales, the lack of any featured items or flash sales or advertisements for incoming products or any of the normal things you'd expect to encounter on a store's front page. I almost feel crazy saying this, but: I wish they would try a little harder to part me with my money! Make an effort to actually market something to me, dudes! If they did a weekly featured car/track combo with a fun write-up and a nice little discount slapped on it, I'd more than likely be buying a new car and track from them once every week. Instead, I often fill my cart with all the things I want, scoff at the preposterously large sum total when I'm done, kick myself for not just buying the premium pack to begin with, and leave having purchased nothing at all.

While I'm not quite ready to give up on Raceroom entirely just yet, all it'd really take for me to uninstall at this point would be finding another sim that consistently lets me have as much fun battling with their AI.

Yeah, there's a bit of confusion with how DLCs work. I bought a Premium Pack a while ago, and lately I've noticed that there are some new liveries, at first I was going to buy them separately but then seen that you could actually buy the entire car packs again for a small VRP cost. Sure it seemed too good to be true but I still bought it, only to find that I've wasted one time discounts on few liveries. It's just a little bit confusing at times. Still, it's an amazing sim, with amazing AI.

(BTW. Hi Dan! Internet is so small I guess, we are both on Fire Pro Wrestling Discord as well )

 

[amsterDAN]

Yeah, there's a bit of confusion with how DLCs work. I bought a Premium Pack a while ago, and lately I've noticed that there are some new liveries, at first I was going to buy them separately but then seen that you could actually buy the entire car packs again for a small VRP cost. Sure it seemed too good to be true but I still bought it, only to find that I've wasted one time discounts on few liveries. It's just a little bit confusing at times. Still, it's an amazing sim, with amazing AI.

(BTW. Hi Dan! Internet is so small I guess, we are both on Fire Pro Wrestling Discord as well )

Hey Piotr, good to see you! Fancy meeting you here! We appear to like our racing sims the same way we like our wrestling sims: obscure, expensive, and often quite confusing!

My stance on RaceRoom has definitely softened a bit since my original post in this thread. Ironically I haven't had a single server issue even once since I posted that; it looks like I really did just pick an unlucky month to start up with RaceRoom and happened upon a lot of maintenance downtime. Being able to play a game every time you want to certainly assists in the enjoyment thereof! I have few complaints anymore... except about their silly store, for which I still have a great many!

Really, I just wish I could go back in time and tell myself what I should and should not have bought on day one of owning RaceRoom, because I spent A LOT of VRP before I finally figured out that I really love the WTCR cars. I wish I'd gone directly to those first because that's all I've been driving lately, they're so fun. And in hindsight, I wish I'd spent more money on tracks and less on car classes. My introduction to RaceRoom felt pretty painful at first, but now that everything is running smoothly it has absolutely become my favorite sim.

 

[Kenny Paton]

Really, I just wish I could go back in time and tell myself what I should and should not have bought on day one of owning RaceRoom, because I spent A LOT of VRP before I finally figured out that I really love the WTCR cars. I wish I'd gone directly to those first because that's all I've been driving lately, they're so fun. And in hindsight, I wish I'd spent more money on tracks and less on car classes.

Glad you're finally getting enjoyment from R3E
Regarding your car choice did you realise you can test drive any car before you buy.
Also worth checking out our really useful guides here.

 

[Deleted member 963434]

Since the new FFB update ( a while ago) FFB has been reduced to a flat linear feel which totally disconnects car feeling. Actualy it has become the worst race game i own.
Re installed game few days ago, raced 5 minutes and uninstalled the game...never to be installed again. What a crap

strange for me it feels like most realistic ffb i hav and i hav rrre, pc2, ams2, ac and acc nad rr feels best of tem

 

[UMC 22]

strange for me it feels like most realistic ffb i hav and i hav rrre, pc2, ams2, ac and acc nad rr feels best of tem

For me it has the second best FFB. AMS 2 with a custom tweaked profile feels great. Ideal world, I'd like a hybrid between the two, as there are certain things each does better than the other.

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

Since the new FFB update ( a while ago) FFB has been reduced to a flat linear feel which totally disconnects car feeling. Actualy it has become the worst race game i own.
Re installed game few days ago, raced 5 minutes and uninstalled the game...never to be installed again. What a crap

Did you reset your controller profiles to their defaults? Ye olde FFB settings won't work anymore, but the defaults are pretty rad.

 

[PiotrGT]

My opinion on RaceRoom is very positive. I already spoke about DLC policy, which I don't like because I'm one of those guys who always want to have full game and it's a bit expensive to buy Premium Pack and keep buying additional things, but I thought I'd speak about other things because they make it worth it. This game for me is nearly perfect, the AI is very good, sounds are incredible, FFB feels really good to me on my T300RS but it's also perfectly fine on a gamepad, content wise it's also amazing. It's one of my favourite sims.

 

[UOPshadow]

Preamble: Haven't played RRE in a long time, but I am just coming back to Sim Racing. I am eager to find out how the FFB is now.

For me RRE is not the best looking, not the best sounding, has not the best FFB... well it is nowhere the best, only the AI is highly regarded by me. But it is overall the best package on the market - for me. I am racing exclusively offline and for offline players the sims are a mixed bag: AI is usually wonky and most of the tracks you download from somewhere have shitty AI lines, too. Ooof. When I played rfactor 1 I literally needed 4 days for a race, because I spent 3 days to create a perfect AI path, until I could race the AI (and even rF1 was pretty good there, if you took the time to make it right for the AI). It is such a hassle.

Introducing RRE: I have all the variety of Racing right there and if I want to play a Championship I can edit myself a custom one (hello Project Cars) and no matter what tracks I choose - I can race the AI. I don't even have to try out what level I have to put them on, because RRE has adaptive AI. Besides ACC it is still not possible with the other "next gen" racing games to get this fast 100% ready to play a whole championship as a Single Player. I mean consider this? It is 2020 and I have to put together a puzzle for a Championship. Why do these sims only simulate cars and tracks? Where is the actual Racing?

For comparison: I started with Geoff Crammond back then. We had a Championships, we had great AI, we had Rain, we had overall a fantastic Single Player experience. But unless I love to drive hotlaps all the time most of the other title don't offer me much. ACC has only GT3 and GT4, no Formula 1, I love the driving in rFactor 2, but the content is a convoluted mess where I still have to edit AI Lines, AMS 2... we'll see what they can put together. Assetto Corsa Classic has the problem that when I want to have a whole 70ies AI Field to play against, about 30 cars, most of the tracks have only 16 to 20 boxes and there is no easy way to fix this. rFactor 2 is as always a mixed bag. All these fantastic modders make certain things possible (I even contributed to the F1 1979 mod) and when it clicks it is absolutely great. Plus you have such tools like the Log Analyzer, so you can somehow play a Championship. But I always have to work for it.

Conclusion:
RRE might only second best in many categories, but as a Single Player it is top of the class. And this is the reason it gets most of my serious playtime, while I use the other "Sims" for Hotlapping or the occasional Race. RRE is more than the sum of its parts and as long as they deliver such a great service to me as an Offline Player I will bill buy content as soon as it is released. This is in fact a little love letter to RRE and a heartfelt thank you to Sector 3. I believe Single Player is the niche they have found and I am very happy about it. (I am alos happy about ACC, not happy abput the VR there and I am exited about AMS 2, but unhappy that they possibly won't support mods, so...)

 

[Deleted member 963434]

My opinion on RaceRoom is very positive. I already spoke about DLC policy, which I don't like because I'm one of those guys who always want to have full game and it's a bit expensive to buy Premium Pack and keep buying additional things, but I thought I'd speak about other things because they make it worth it. This game for me is nearly perfect, the AI is very good, sounds are incredible, FFB feels really good to me on my T300RS but it's also perfectly fine on a gamepad, content wise it's also amazing. It's one of my favourite sims.

i wish RRRE would destroy iceRacing , i mean game is free yo got only 5 cars an 5 tracks but thats enough as for free content only if there were like 5 servers full wit 30 people racing those 5 cars at 5 tracks, then yo pay for another content an there would be even more people playin cars tey like an payed for at tracks tey pay for. i mean iceRacin yo pay subscription every month yo must pay to play, if yo buy car or track yo still must pay every month an in RRRE feels realistic to me cause cars turnin, driftin etc so responsive, in iceRacin cars i dont know how to tell... just rubbish its so unrealistic is too hard... an people not only play it but pay for it thats funny. i dont get why all from iceracing not go to rrre as game is free an yo still can buy other content an i see people in rrre like take tis game serious too not like AC or pCARS2

 

[Deleted member 963434]

cause im usin R3E for some day now an i saw servers wit free content was only 3 servers an each there was like 3 people. there was server wit payed content an it was 20+ people but it was 1 server so full an i dont have content for. i wish tis game was so popular like iceRacing yo just yo got free content only couple of servers all filled wit 20+ players, and payed content even more. i waitin for 2020 dtm to come out i straigh after buying bmw m4 dtm 2020 an all tracks but i dont know if anyone would play it?
im surprised iceracing bring so many racers as tis game shh... dont want to even tell abous it.. an R3E feel so much more realistic an is free an people not play it, i dont get it.
it only lacks built-in spotter so not need to use crew chief but as i played some races i saw that few people play it take tis game serious

 

[Kurupt CDN]

i wish RRRE would destroy iceRacing , i mean game is free yo got only 5 cars an 5 tracks but thats enough as for free content only if there were like 5 servers full wit 30 people racing those 5 cars at 5 tracks, then yo pay for another content an there would be even more people playin cars tey like an payed for at tracks tey pay for. i mean iceRacin yo pay subscription every month yo must pay to play, if yo buy car or track yo still must pay every month an in RRRE feels realistic to me cause cars turnin, driftin etc so responsive, in iceRacin cars i dont know how to tell... just rubbish its so unrealistic is too hard... an people not only play it but pay for it thats funny. i dont get why all from iceracing not go to rrre as game is free an yo still can buy other content an i see people in rrre like take tis game serious too not like AC or pCARS2

Let me help you figure out why people pay to play iracing instead of RRE.

You can join iracing for as little as $10 for 3 months as a new member and get 20 cars and 20+ tracks to test and race against others for an entire season to see if you wanna continue with the service.

4 different racing disciplines
Road
Dirt Road
Oval
Dirt oval
Dynamic track, layered heating system, rubbering marbles, 24hr day to night transition, dynamic clouds that effect track temperatures, loose surface physics.
Laser scanned cars
Laser scanned tracks
Dx11
Far better optimized VR
Races every 30 mins....with far more people to race with than RRE
World wide servers
Career tracking
Season standings
Non stop esport events running for every race discipline.

I am aware RRE is slowly adding mp ranking, but imo with only a few hundred players at a time do really think it's gonna work well?

When RRE has a majority of those features added than maybe iracers will start to make the switch.

For the majority of North Americans and those with limited time to race and wanna race against humans it's the go too title due to the large community. After 4 pm here in north America the majority of other race sims player counts drop off due to the Europeans going to bed, your than forced to seek out NA leagues in your time zone...which than your forced to race at a defined time.

I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of there road content and feel there are better driving experiences in other titles but like a large portion of the iRacing community I really enjoy the oval and dirt content.


Personally I think all the racing sims are off and not realistic when it comes to the overall driving experience, but to me they are nothing more than games at this point that I use to get my racing fix.
Each having there strengths and weaknesses, but for the ones I play the most it's due to an overall package.
Mp activity
Content
AI
VR performance
Drive ability
Tech features that are simulated.

Don't get me wrong, I like RRE and I had high hopes for the title but honestly grew tired of the lack of features at launch, many of which should have been in the engine to start with and the overall slow development over 8 yrs.
1000+ hrs in-game
Sadly it just seems like they have been one step behind the competition since the start.

What I'd love to see is Sector3 break off the restraints of Raceroom AG, source a new modern engine and focus on full official series.
Ex. DTM and touring cars with all the tracks and build from there

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Laser scanned cars?

 

[Kenny Paton]

Laser scanned cars?

Maybe the next big thing