Worried about the future of rF2

As the topic suggests...

As a long time ISI supporter and follower, i am now feeling a bit worried for the future.The number of new users coming in to rFactor2 seems to be dwindling.

Also there is a long time between the new official content. And even when there is official content released, it seems to fail to gather an interest (Civics in December) amongst the yet unitiated.

Also, the mod community seems a lot more reluctant than for rF1, with very few members adding content.This is even more worrying as it was the foundation of rF1 and a big selling point for bringing more people to the franchise (race anything you like).

ISI now also faces a stiff competition as the "sim" genre has become "hot" again with more titles in the works, that seem to gather a LOT more interest: AC, pCars etc.

The old veterans like myself are finding ourselves drawn to the likes of GSC, and newcomers are moving towards AC and probably DTM Experience.


I start this topic to see if someone shares my worries, and also to discuss if something can be done to once again bring more interest to rF2?


My personal idea is to go for Steam greenlighting (i actually REALLY like Steam as a platform), to gain exposure and also simplify the purchasing as well as updating.
Connecting it to Workshop makes modding interesting again, like what AC proposes.


I want rF2 to succeed, it is by far the most comprehensive take on simulating the actual race mechanics and based on that it should be the goto title for the serious sim-user, but right now i fear it is not.


Discussions on graphics i will however discard personally, as a) rF2 is pretty enough and b) the prettiest of settings in something like pCars is inaccesible to 95% of users.


So, what is your view of the status of the product?



Points of improvement needed going forward as identified in this thread so far:

* Better GUI (incoming)
* Steam integration and release
* Possible new distribution method that would automate updates and sync, if not steam
* New official content
* More transparent development
* Shorter build intervals
* More efficient code and optimization of codebase
* A possibility to "lock down" the core functionality, to deliver something considered stable and final
* New updater that allows automatic updating of content as well, including adding NEW
content
 
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With that in mind, why not grab those heads together and help the staff here with their jobs? Afterall its a community, everybody can step up and help out :)

And if all these sites struggle to get a normal sized grid, what is stopping them to work together and fill them up.

With the right exposure, lots of time and sheer dedication you can make everything work, even filling up empty grids.

Its a choice and our door is always open
Funny thing I talked about exactly that with a community member yesterday.
At the moment I am not sure. I can help setting up a new rF2 leauge, but at the moment I am not sure who to contact from the staff. The rF2 leaugue section got pretty lonely recently.
 
We do not lack in communities, that much is agreed on. If I was to identify the problem, I think it's that, well from my rF1 experience, that the offer for a drivers (in term of leagues) is either over-saturated or non-existent depending on your location.
This is mostly why the driver pool is so fragmented in my opinion, leading too small grids that eventualy dies out. Leading to people creating new leagues, and so on and so on...

To have more people, you need people... That's problematic...
 
Answer to the title of the thread. No.

How Rfactor2 looks or feels at the moment shouldn't really be that much of an issue. I think personally it looks pretty good with what they are working with engine wise. How it feels from my very limited time with it (friends house), not too shabby either.

Cast your minds back to the dark dark ages for the original Rfactor appearance....in hindsight the sim back then wasn't that great, but look how it developed through the years with all the clever people here within the community and elsewhere, right up to what Reiza has done with same engine.

I'm willing to bet, that within a year or less, this title will be both looking stunning and playing awesome............personally I am looking forward to it all.
 
i think simcade HELPS simracing; i dont really see how it could be otherwise. you dont start a game on the hardest difficulty & then go down the ladder.

we have no less (and possibily more than) four indie sim titles for the PC now, plus R3E & iracing, & with the exception of pcars which i cant say anything about other than graphics, those 4 are all very strong in a lot of aspects.

i think one of the 'problems' is its not just rfactor anymore. the market has grown and theres more room now. as rf1 died out, there was a vacuum & we're still waiting to see who & what its going to be filled by. but, while im brand new to simracing, i cant help but feel this must be something of a golden age. i def feel we are really spoiled for choice & surely some of that has to do with forza & gt fans looking for something more. (sadly they still literally have to really look to find it, but maybe pcars will change that)
I see sim-racing as being the pinnacle in evolution of playing racing games. Most of us start out with some arcade racers and slowly progress towards more sophisticated and realistically modeled titles. I can't imagine going backwards - that just makes no sense to me. The only thing beyond racing-sims for me would be real-life racing and I don't think I have what it takes to do that - certainly not the finances.
 
There are 2-6 people multiplayer servers, where I don't need password but I can't join any of them. I can't download the needed cars or mods in game or it just doesn't allow me to even download them.

So I can really play multiplayer only in racedepartment races. Not funny at all :unsure:
 
My issue is not with the difficulty of rf2 but with the complete lack of polish. The game feels very raw compared to most other sim racing siblings and its been in development for a long time. It still feels like its in alpha state. The development cycle is taking too long, at this rate, it can't possibly be a success.

Not having a go at you at all, would just like to know, raw and unpolished in what way? If I compare it to other racing sims I've played, it seems on par. Anything you could put your finger on?

And compared to other simulation siblings, like which ones? Assetto Corsa is one, but has been in development just as long, at least.

Also, for a product designed with an planned long lifetime, it should be in development for a long time. It will probably be in development for the next 10 years...

What I can say, is that the actual gap between builds is too big. But then again, they have other private projects to work on as well.

But I'd say I'm pretty happy with the current product as is, despite some normal game issues that you'd find in most complete games.
 
Not having a go at you at all, would just like to know, raw and unpolished in what way? If I compare it to other racing sims I've played, it seems on par. Anything you could put your finger on?

And compared to other simulation siblings, like which ones? Assetto Corsa is one, but has been in development just as long, at least.

Also, for a product designed with an planned long lifetime, it should be in development for a long time. It will probably be in development for the next 10 years...

What I can say, is that the actual gap between builds is too big. But then again, they have other private projects to work on as well.

But I'd say I'm pretty happy with the current product as is, despite some normal game issues that you'd find in most complete games.

The menu and UI is awful for starters, at least there's a minimalist mod to make the menu much bettter but its still a far cry from most other racing sims. The graphics still need a lot of work, there's many graphic anomalies and performance issues; no SLI support.

AC, R3E, GSC are all better than rf2 in this regard.
 
The menu and UI is awful for starters, at least there's a minimalist mod to make the menu much bettter but its still a far cry from most other racing sims. The graphics still need a lot of work, there's many graphic anomalies and performance issues; no SLI support.

AC, R3E, GSC are all better than rf2 in this regard.

I don't find the menu awful at all to navigate, but that's just me. Had the minimalist UI, tried it, and it was less user friendly than the default one, so I reverted after a week.

The menu's do what they're supposed to do, and I am unsure of what more one needs.
 
I don't find the menu awful at all to navigate, but that's just me. Had the minimalist UI, tried it, and it was less user friendly than the default one, so I reverted after a week.

The menu's do what they're supposed to do, and I am unsure of what more one needs.
I don't care about it a lot either. It does look dated, but I can find everything pretty easily and that is what a UI should do.

I tried R3E and the UI looks great, but it was very awful to use. Way too much submenus etc. Finding some settings was a pain and you could easily press the wrong button etc.

I think the biggest draw back is, that a lot of people have performance issues with the game itself. The graphics are a matter of taste. Maxed out it doesn't look bad, but doesn't look brilliant as well. What I realised is, that the game looks a lot worse when recording especially recording replays.
AC looks brilliant on video maybe even better than when you are driving and that is what people see before they play it.
To be fair as long as it drives good I don't care that much about graphics. I wouldn't give away 1% of the FFB or physics quality to get better graphics, but diffrent people have diffrent priorities.
 
I don't care about it a lot either. It does look dated, but I can find everything pretty easily and that is what a UI should do.

I tried R3E and the UI looks great, but it was very awful to use. Way too much submenus etc. Finding some settings was a pain and you could easily press the wrong button etc.

I think the biggest draw back is, that a lot of people have performance issues with the game itself. The graphics are a matter of taste. Maxed out it doesn't look bad, but doesn't look brilliant as well. What I realised is, that the game looks a lot worse when recording especially recording replays.
AC looks brilliant on video maybe even better than when you are driving and that is what people see before they play it.
To be fair as long as it drives good I don't care that much about graphics. I wouldn't give away 1% of the FFB or physics quality to get better graphics, but diffrent people have diffrent priorities.

The last paragraph sums up especially what I'm saying.

And I'm sure most don't even notice the ad boards or the helicopters or anything next to the track.

In fact, if you ask me anything about Spa that we raced on last week, I'd tell you that the kerbs were yellow and red, and that's all I remember regarding anything outside the track. No idea what was actually next to the track.

But hey, what do I know, I'm still happy with rFactor 1 graphics.

I agree 100% in terms of performance, though - relative to the graphics quality, anyway. FPS is not optimised at all, and loading times are excessive. But it isn't unplayable at all.
 
I don't find the menu awful at all to navigate, but that's just me. Had the minimalist UI, tried it, and it was less user friendly than the default one, so I reverted after a week.

The menu's do what they're supposed to do, and I am unsure of what more one needs.

To each their own Dewald. Like I stated above, I feel rf2 looks and feels very unpolished to me. You asked me to explain so I did. I understand its satisfactory to you, it just isn't up to my standards. I still play it but it gets far less playtime than AC, iRacing, R3E, GSC on my PC. Even Simbin's Race07 series had far cleaner menus and UI and that was based on rf1. Still doesn't change the fact that rf2 has serious performance issues and graphic anomalies that continue to be there with each new patch.
 
In recent weeks I have done 2.5 hour endurance races in RF2 at Silverstone and Le Mans.
The visual effects were quite stunning. Sunset off the carbon in my cockpit, occlusion (if that's what its called), Evening, night Man I was there total immersion.
I might be easy to please, I'm not sure? but I am loving RF2 and have not yet scratched the surface of the games existing potential with weather etc.
 
To each their own Dewald. Like I stated above, I feel rf2 looks and feels very unpolished to me. You asked me to explain so I did. I understand its satisfactory to you, it just isn't up to my standards. I still play it but it gets far less playtime than AC, iRacing, R3E, GSC on my PC. Even Simbin's Race07 series had far cleaner menus and UI and that was based on rf1. Still doesn't change the fact that rf2 has serious performance issues and graphic anomalies that continue to be there with each new patch.

Indeed Blkout.

The menus feel older than say Assetto Corsa, I agree - but newer isn't necessarily better. In fact, the menus in Assetto Corsa are very hard to navigate sometimes.

But I like both games.
 
i already said this on the rf2 forums, but from a sales perspective i dont think theres much argument the menus are awful. people try the free demo & thats their first impression - a game that looks like it was released c. 2004.

i suggested they just put the minimalist UI guy on the payroll as that one looks fine to me. can't use it unfortunately as it currently clashes with the real weather mod.

i think rf2 graphics are for the most part ok to good. of course there's a lot of subjectivity here. i even think there's a decent chance they were going for an aesthetic & got it pretty well; yes it does look a bit 'muddied' as described but to me it takes on the qualities of an oil painting, i see a lot of depth in the graphics with the HDR. the mid ohio track trashed by someone here as looking like garbage i think looks absolutely beautiful, one of the best looking tracks anywhere.

but all of thats to say, while that stuff might be subject to taste, the menus arent. they can be functional & not look hideously dated.
 

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