rFactor 2 Delivers a Christmas Present: The Vauxhall Astra BTCC

Peter Stokman said:

It sounds Free as they called it a Present

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RACE DEPARTMENT wrote the headline here, not S397. Go over to the official forum and find the wording of Christmas PRESENT anywhere in the blog release. Good Golly folks.
& while you are there, see the next announcement about the full field of current 2022 BTCC getting official liveries & tire BOP.

Jimlaad43 said:

Still no Honda

We're also just waiting for the Cupra too. Hopefully not too soon.

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Q1 2023 is confirmed for those, as today post says they will finish the BTCC in the Q1 pack

VirtuaIceMan said:

Will there be a BTCC complete pack at some point I wonder?

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Probably but I would not expect it anytime soon. And it will cost a kidney and a leg.

everytime a new btcc car is introduced it literally forces everyone who is racing btcc's to HAVE TO BUY it or they won't be able to join any more btcc races lol, what an absolutely dumb system rf2 has

Yep their holding guns to your heads. Go play another game end of your problem

They hired steevee to do rest of the skins ?
He deserves a payday, I brought him coffee, hope you all did.

Oh, the news, right, well only one thing to say about that lot

kart1 said:

I don't see how perpetual bashing of RD has helped or will help rf2 to progress...

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Progression comes from knowing that flaws exist and that things needs to improve.

Referring to my previous example, they've started to fix problems they themseves caused with the AI years ago and they're beginning to work on other AI related things. Maybe all that bashing made them realise it was still important to a lot of people? That's just speculation of course, but I personally think they're taking notice of public opinion.

I sure hope Steevee & Jose get compensated for the fine work they posted here. It has been great having all the cars and being able to weed out the BTCC generics.

Oh, and they are FINALLY releasing a hybrid type system for the 2022 cars. This will replace the current P2P offering.(although I don't think we will see much difference) However this indicates they are moving towards implementing further Hybrid tech in the future.

b)b said:

Probably but I would not expect it anytime soon. And it will cost a kidney and a leg.

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What is it with people and the price of rF2 DLC?
rF2 BTCC cars in standalone form are £4.34 each or $5.28 based on today's GBP to USD conversion on Google.
Starbucks Cappuccino £3.85 ( $4.68 )
Big Mac Meal deal £5.99 ( $6.88 )
RTX 3090 around £1,600.00 ( $1,945.70 )

Oh yes; almost forgot... UK electricity £0.46 per day standing charge and £0.34 per kWh.
How much power does your PC draw when you are using it?

Edit: I bought a mug holder from IKEA today to fix to my desk/rig - £10 ( $12.14 )

BTW a human kidney has a "street value" of between $2,000 and $200,000

amen dh

pitkin said:

Progression comes from knowing that flaws exist and that things needs to improve.

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Totally agree
Well I do, I always have.
I have nothing against constructive criticism.
It is all the rest I abhor so many cold black hearts.
I will wager ISI had heavily invested in gmotor2.5 ( even that was held to ridicule " it is just rfactor fixed up" ) Anyway securing future, buying a house, young family, life"
They give like 20 years to sim community (SCGT '99 ) and that is thanks they get, pitiful.

Anyway OT AI I had good races with them from start yes and bad ones but you persist you tweak and try test everything you then find good combos and bad combos.
However imho and experience even the worst AI combo can be weathered and beaten
if you can handle punishment along the way.

There you go I would wager none of these people still complaining have even tried to tweak all facets of AI otherwise it would be ..... " wow I just had a unreal race with AI "

Durge Driven said:

Constructive criticism no problems but the majority is nothing more then muck raking from people that have nothing better to do.

Without ISI you have no gmotor guru
Without gmotor guru you have no rFactor 3.
ISI will never have anything to do with sim community after the way they were treated.
Basically made them the laughing stock of sims.
Happy days.

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If the above statement is true, (I found no evidence of it, but I didn't look that hard) it's because of mistakes they made. Many modders left taking their mods to Assetto Corsa. This was due in part to the complex tire model, awkward packaging system and the fact AC was just easier to mod and had better tools. This in turn made many players turn their attention to the rival platform. RF2 eventually became less of a focus for ISI and another racing game started being worked internally. Updates to the rF2 become less and less significant and their lack of focus showed towards the end. Another project, "Rogue System" occupied the attention of one of the devs and surely slowed thing down a bit. Sadly this space sim never got finished due to unfortunate circumstances.

Ultimately, ISI just didn't have the interest to take rF2 forwards. They started on the wrong foot, right from how some of us paid extra for online lifetime access (which ultimately meant nothing) down to how modding was handled and I think they knew that.

In Tim Wheatley's own words:

" As ISI itself was looking to focus on "not rf3", the rf2 focus became less. It's one of those situations I didn't personally like being in, and over the years we’ve had intentions to add various elements to the sim, that I confirmed to the community when told to, that at a later stage found themselves taken off the table again. I kind of feel like I appeared to be seen as lying to the community about certain features I was told were going to be implemented, and basically was told later that we are not going to be adding that to rf2."

"ISI is pretty much focused on "not rf3" going forward"

"ISI was starting to get to the point where rF2 was going to get pushed down and "not rF3" was going to start coming up. Many of us within the company felt that rF2 wasn't ready to be pushed down yet. It's still got things that I consider to be incomplete. I think everybody would obviously agree with that one, and there's a lot of features that other sims have that rF2 still needed,"

"I think developers do get burned out as well. "Not rf3" is another racing title, but it's something different from rf1 and 2 enough that it's appealing for the coders to go and do that. I think there was definitely a little bit of burn on rf2. Some people disagreed on where the focus should be"

I will agree with you, we have a lot to be thankful for as far as ISI are concerned, most of the great sims we play have roots going back to their work in some way. RF2 had so much potential at the start. Had ISI continued with it with the enthusiasm they started with, I don't think we'd have needed anything else. S397, whilst certainly improving the sim, took it in a different direction from what was originally planned. Whilst I understand the need for this, it has been frustrating considering the plans for it early on.

I think you and I probably had the same excitement for rF2 when it came out. My passion is historic racing and for a while it seemed like we were getting GPL2 and GTL2. What we've actually ended up with is a GT3 sim that's not as complete as ACC, an open wheel sim that's not even as complete as AMS2 (just my opinion). The BTCC content is interesting and offers a series we've not seen for some time. These cars, along with recent improvements to the core sim are starting to make me see rF2 in a positive light again.

That said, I'll still be moaning when I think something needs improving

The title is misleading. What is RD doing with these articles?

As mentioned by others, the opel is part of bonus paid pack. Any guess for the other content?

I think it might be another track.

More BTCC coming up: https://www.studio-397.com/2022/12/announcing-the-btcc-2022-pack-and-bop/

Cheesenium said:

The title is misleading. What is RD doing with these articles?

As mentioned by others, the opel is part of bonus paid pack. Any guess for the other content?

I think it might be another track.

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The second and last piece is a car

Is any software product ever complete with every user happy?
Microsoft Word ( for Windows ) was released in 1989 and 33 years later they have produced 17 distinct versions... and probably 95% of users just use it to type letters and use 10% of the features.

<cough>992<cough>

You guys have failed to grasp the basic concept of a Christmas present.

aka2k said:

You guys have failed to grasp the basic concept of a Christmas present.

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Again, the term Christmas Present was an editorial choice by the editors HERE at RD. Has nothing to do with S397's decision to release new content during the Christmas Season, or how much the content will cost. Users WILL get some BTCC skins for free, and will see the BTCC field bop'd so that online racing is closer between fwd & rwd. Further, the BTCC tire will be upgraded, probably to give the FWD cars a better wearing tire, again to match up vs. the RWD cars.
Since only the Vauxhall & the Porsche are paid for items, (unless a Laser Track is announced) we might expect to see the cost of the Christmas Season release to be under 10 $ before the current $5.30 for each car takes affect.

Will be great to get the stuff next Wed. Looking forward especially in terms of the 992 Cup and its tire model. Guess it will be a real handful to drive.