Sim Discussion Monday - RaceRoom Racing Experience

[Paul Jeffrey]

Another working week on the horizon and to lighten the mood (probably), let's have ourselves a discussion about RaceRoom Racing Experience..

The sim with the silly name, RaceRoom Racing Experience has plenty of licenced racing content to offer players who can navigate their way through the occasionally confusing pricing and store structure.

If you do manage to find you way into the game itself then you are rewarded by a product that has come on leaps and bounds in recent years. With plenty of officially licenced racing series to be found (no road car nonsense here), a very robust and varied selection of greater and lesser known circuits and easily the best audio experience in the sim racing marketplace, RaceRoom and Sector3 Studios have pulled together a very compelling product for sim racers to enjoy.

With all that said, the core game experience does still lack in several fundamental areas before it can genuinely be considered a true racing simulation, to be frank that same accusation can be levelled at pretty much all the current crop of sims to varying degrees, and what it does it does very well indeed.

So in the spirit of sharing our collective experiences and knowledge can our community let us all know what we like / don't like about the sim, share any useful tips to get the most from the title, let us know what you'd like to see in the future and just generally shoot the breeze for a day or two about Sector3 Studios current racing simulation..


Mondays be like...

Image credits: M-Bimmer and TheReaper GT

 

[Case_]

I have all the content and it has cost quite a bit and that is what worries me if the game becomes un-supported or the servers are switched off all that money will be wasted I really would like it converted to stand alone before that happens.

I think you can rest easy, at least for a few years. There are definitely long term plans to keep R3E not only going, but getting better, be it the upcoming ranked multiplayer or the Porsche deal that in itself means R3E will be with us at least three more years.

 

[Andy_J]

I think you can rest easy, at least for a few years. There are definitely long term plans to keep R3E not only going, but getting better, be it the upcoming ranked multiplayer or the Porsche deal that in itself means R3E will be with us at least three more years.

Then what Martin? What happens to all the content we have purchased?

 

[Case_]

It all turns to dust eventually, just like everything else, including us.

 

[Emery]

@Emery the new Sparco wheel is the TS-XW from Thrustmaster not Logitech

Oops

 

[Andy_J]

It all turns to dust eventually, just like everything else, including us.

Well I have a nice collection of race sims that haven't turned to dust Martin. Daft answer to be honest, not that you know the answer anyway.

 

[Case_]

Sorry for being daft, then. But I honestly don't know what you want to hear. You bought the content knowing full well (or at least I hope so) it's basically an always online game and as such there's always the possibility of its servers going offline and the game becoming unsupported, taking the option to play it away from you in the future and in effect denying you the access to the content you bought. I did my best to assure you there seem to be no immediate plans of this happening any time soon, providing nothing unexpected happens (it still might, obviously). That seems to not be enough for you. I have nothing else to give you, apart from daft half-jokes.

 

[Andy_J]

@Martin Fiala Funny mood tonight Martin? I merely stated why I am concerned with this model of selling/licencing software. Good night.

 

[Deleted member 99238]

What happens to all the content we have purchased?

For Sector3 Studios, the best option would be the model chosen by Reiza Studios when all the previous content (Stock Car, Copa Petrobras de Marcas, Formula Truck) entered the new product Automobilista. That would be perfect.

 

[D.Boon]

Then what Martin? What happens to all the content we have purchased?

It'll be made standalone and hopefully the dedicated server tool will still be active, however, this is well down the line, the move to UE4 in the next year or two will bring new life to R3E, expect more than 3 years of support. As tech evolves, so will R3E as long as S3S are around and supported by Raceroom Entertainment.

 

[belevezero]

I've always liked R3E, I even think the graphics look good albeit dated. But they still lack tire pressure adjustment, and after all this time you'd think by now that R3E would have implemented it. One of the most important set up changes you can make is tire pressure, even Forza features this, and Codemasters F1, and all previous Simbin titles, so I'm perplexed my it.

 

[Case_]

@belevezero I've seen @Lars Hansen (I believe) explain it somewhere (can't remember where, might've been on S3 forums). Basically, it is because R3E originally started as a game meant to be played in the Raceroom stands at various events and as such was meant to be very much a "sit down and play" thing, requiring as little setup as possible. So quite a few things got removed from the game. But with it later becoming a regular sim PC game, it meant that some of those things people expect were not available anymore and since additional work has been done on it, there was no easy way to add them back. They intend to bring the tyre pressures back, but it simply is not as easy as it might seem, plus they have a lot of their plates and the priorities of sim community are not always the same as the priorities of Raceroom (the company), so the devs themselves can only do so much about it.

 

[Will Mazeo]

They should have restarted it from original isimotor 2.0, lots of stuff already works and good netcode.
I really dislike the amount of bad choices done by the devs, it always end up being a lot more expensive and taking a lot more time to fix

 

[Lars Hansen]

@belevezero I've seen @Lars Hansen (I believe) explain it somewhere (can't remember where, might've been on S3 forums) explain it. Basically, it is because R3E originally started as a game meant to be played in the Raceroom stands at various events and as such was meant to be very much a "sit down and play" thing, requiring as little setup as possible. So quite a few things got removed from the game. But with it later becoming a regular sim PC game, it meant that some of those things people expect were not available anymore and since additional work has been done on it, there was no easy way to add them back. They intend to bring the tyre pressures back, but it simply is not as easy as it might seem, plus they have a lot of their plates and the priorities of sim community are not always the same as the priorities of Raceroom (the company), so the devs themselves can only do so much about it.

It was on the S3 forums, but you've pretty much said it all.
Good news is that the tire-pressures have been implemented in the beta-builds, and pretty much are just waiting to be activated in the consumer-versions.
Presumably they're doing a little bug-squashing on it first.

 

[Nick Hill]

If anyone cares to hear my theory (and it really, truly is only a personal theory - I have no inside information or insights whatsoever) on R3E tire temps/pressures (or lack thereof), here goes.

I think in order to achieve the "feel" they were going after (which I personally love, by the way), Sector3 have slash and hacked so severely at the underlying gMotor tire model that the temp/pressure numbers the sim is theoretically capable of displaying for using viewing/editing are either totally meaningless/non-sensical OR highly vulnerable to setup exploits by a determined tinkerer.

I've hooked up DashMeterPro (which gives you realtime pressure readouts) and did some hot lapping with one eye on tire pressures. I personally felt something looked very fishy with the numbers. They weren't completely static, but they showed hardly any variance whether I was lapping normally, leaving the car at rest, or doing burnouts.

I used to get myself pretty wound up over the lack of temps/pressures and I think a small part of me will always be a little irked by it, but I've personally moved on (though I won't begrudge anyone who wants to continue getting wound up over it - like I said, been there myself). I've made peace with it by saying I'm more interested in getting a simulation of the experience of being a race driver, not a race engineer. Unless you are doing grassroots style racing (which hardly any of the cars in R3E remotely qualify for), most high level pro drivers are assuming their race engineer has the tire pressures set at the appropriate values for the conditions/track anyways.

In the end, for me it all comes out in the wash - I like the driving experience enough that I can live without the data.

 

[Case_]

I've hooked up DashMeterPro (which gives you realtime pressure readouts) and did some hot lapping with one eye on tire pressures. I personally felt something looked very fishy with the numbers. They weren't completely static, but they showed hardly any variance whether I was lapping normally, leaving the car at rest, or doing burnouts.

Don't know about tyre pressures, but when it comes to tyre temps, supposedly the almost steady values are because R3E is only outputting the core temperatures, not the surface temperatures, with the core temperatures obviously only changing very little.

 

[Nick Hill]

Don't know about tyre pressures, but when it comes to tyre temps, supposedly the almost steady values are because R3E is only outputting the core temperatures, not the surface temperatures, with the core temperatures obviously only changing very little.

Ok, now THAT is intriguing information! I wonder just what the Sector3 crew has cooking...

 

[protonv5]

Don't know about tyre pressures, but when it comes to tyre temps, supposedly the almost steady values are because R3E is only outputting the core temperatures, not the surface temperatures, with the core temperatures obviously only changing very little.

Personally, I think turning it into a baking simulator is the way to go. Perhaps you can have simulated scones and various other pastries. It could be a one-time purchase sort of game where no internet connection is needed. Also, no DLC. When you purchase the game, you get All the ovens, baking dishes and cooking materials needed. Nothing else to buy.

 

[Amanda]

This may sound a bit harsh, but for a huge fanboy of Race07, GTR, GTR2, and everything "old SimBin" I cannot silence myself to say what I feel should change in R3E.

I would really love being able to be a part of it's community and enjoy the many great qualities it has.

I bought all DLC for Race07 and Assetto Corsa because it was for a reasonable price (and the quality of Race07's DLC's still holds to this day, in my opinion). I can't do the same for RaceRoom even though the quality of the Sim/Cars/Tracks is superb, because for 15 BRL I can only get one car or one track, while for Assetto Corsa I can get the Dream Pack 1 for 19 BRL which includes ten cars and the Nordschleife in several layouts, all laser scanned. And the 19 BRL price is when it's not on sale, IIRC I bought it for 7 BRL when it went for 60% off a few months back.

19 BRL spent on Assetto Corsa: 10 cars and the Nordschleife in 4 layouts.
19 BRL spent on RaceRoom Racing Experience: either 1 car, or the Nurburgring.

(And that 19 BRL price is because R3E content seems to be always on sale, otherwise it would cost more. I figured they didn't sell much when e.g. the premium pack was +600 USD then they have to be always ~87% off )

See, I'm not calling R3E a complete ripoff (cough cough, I'm looking at you, the most popular simulator), but the price-to-content ratio is a huge put-off. As long as this pricing model continues, I cannot and will not buy anything from Sector3 Studios, sadly.

The second issue, which to me is by far the biggest put-off, is the fact that I must be connected to the internet to use the Sim. In 2017, I never thought I'd see another greatly restrictive DRM.
I should not be required to be connected to the internet to play offline (with BOTS) a game with content that I bought

And the last, it's not moddable.

The way I feel it, Sector3 gave me the finger in these regards, so there's nothing I can do except do the same to them, unfortunately.

 

[Case_]

(And that 19 BRL price is because R3E content seems to be always on sale, otherwise it would cost more. I figured they didn't sell much when e.g. the premium pack was +600 USD then they have to be always ~87% off )

Can you elaborate on this? I honestly don't understand what you mean by that it's always on sale, let alone what 600 USD for premium pack are you talking about.

 

[Case_]

Oh and BTW, you're also completely ignoring the price of base game for Assetto Corsa in your comparison so it's not exactly fair. You don't pay 10 euro to get the game and the Nordschleife Dream Pack, you pay 30+10 euro because without the base game, that Dream Pack is useless.

With R3E, there's no base game to pay. And for 35 euro, you can get the Pro Pack that gives you (on top of the free content) 29 cars from various classes with all liveries (which means you can enter any online race that uses these classes, unlike in Assetto Corsa where you have to own all of the cars allowed for the race to be able to enter) plus 13 tracks in all layouts, including the Nordschleife. I really don't think it's that bad of a deal.

Though there's obviously the issue of Steam games (including AC) being much cheaper for you in your region than they normally are, while R3E likely is not.