Donington Park Coming to rFactor 2


One of the UK's best loved racing circuits, Donington Park, is coming to rFactor 2 as part of the Q2 2022 content update.

Studio 397 has shared that Donington Park is coming to rFactor 2 as DLC as part of their quarterly content release for Q2 of this year. A video shared by the team shows a beautifully detailed version of the circuit and highlights its winding and hilly layout.

Donington Park has a long history in the world of racing and has been host to some unforgettable moments, including arguably the greatest racing lap ever. In 1993 Senna weaved his way from 5th position to 1st on the opening lap of the European Grand Prix in his McLaren-Ford MP4/8.

More recently, Donington has been a site for racing across a variety of series, including BTCC, Formula 4, Porsche Carrera Cup, British GT and Ferrari Challenge.

The track will be available as DLC at the end of Q2, as Studio 397 has enacted a plan of quarterly content releases rather than on an ad hoc basis. Be sure to check back with RaceDepartment often, as this is likely one of many new content releases to be announced in the coming weeks.

Are you a fan of Donington Park? Will you buy this DLC? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

R.Man
NONE has rF2 ffb and physics....if I have to play with one version/game said:
Physic may be yes FOR THE MOMENT but FFB no, even AC can have similar FFB if you know ho to set it up.
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Durge Driven
Be like rats off a sinking ship when AC 2 comes along :x3:

If AC is your go to sim, numbers drop off became less popular would it matter to you ?
So why do you think rF2 users are any different ?

People like you that go on 10 years after keep up this lie for newcomers in forums that rF2 is no good / slash not worth buying

Who do you think you are to tell others what is right or good
You are preaching
 
D
R.Man said:
100% agree. May be this is why AC is still the most popular/used sim. It's not the best in term of physic but it has almost cars and tracks for many real life series. You can simulate a full 2022 BTCC season with all the tracks and some of the cars via mods. Another examples are F1,Indycar,WTCR,GT2,etc. Sim devs should aknowledge that the pleasure of testing a race week end on a sim before watching it on TV is priceless. And despite what people think AC modded content are poor content, they are improving every year. No studio can compete against a community of modders that improve specific tracks or cars with dedication day after day. And with the technology evolutions, soon most of modded local track will be photogrammetry or laserscanned.
Click to expand...
I collected some cars & tracks in AC that were not available for rF2, tried to race them offline and a car beached at the same corner everytime. Another track had no cameras...(had to download those)
Another track, another car beached, everytime. I did like the variety, but never got one race completed. Haven't booted it up in probably a year.
 
S
MJQT said:
But it seems rF2 and many other modern sims are committed to a 'tasting menu' approach for many series where you get one or a few cars and one or a few tracks, all of which are reeeaaally detailed. I'd assume we need a full separate BTCC game to get all the tracks (even at a lower level of detail).

I'd honestly prefer a more completionist orientation for sim devs personally, but tasting menus seem to be the way things work in the current sim racing landscape -- and that's OK, since it lets us have super detailed versions of a greater diversity of content. It certainly has its merits :)
Click to expand...

The main reason why I still here in 2022 in general prefer rF1 to rF2
The rF1 base sim engine together with it's huge amount of high quality full season mods is far superior to rF2 in general. And more of the mods are bulls eye simwise, even though single point tyre modelling compared to rF2's 3-point modelling.
Though, I admit I still race rF2 on occations - but only for certain car + track combos of which speaking strictly simwise are up among the best sim immersions of todays standard, i.e. ACC and best combos of AMS2, at least with my personal sim hardware/rig.
 
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wolftree
MJQT said:
If we got ALL the cars and tracks, sure!

But it seems rF2 and many other modern sims are committed to a 'tasting menu' approach for many series where you get one or a few cars and one or a few tracks, all of which are reeeaaally detailed. I'd assume we need a full separate BTCC game to get all the tracks (even at a lower level of detail).

I'd honestly prefer a more completionist orientation for sim devs personally, but tasting menus seem to be the way things work in the current sim racing landscape -- and that's OK, since it lets us have super detailed versions of a greater diversity of content. It certainly has its merits :)
Click to expand...
I'm sure more sim devs would love to have complete series in their games. But I can imagine there are multiple difficulties involved:

- excessive licensing fees asked by the license holders
- licensing negotiations involving multiple manufacturers, some of whom have no interest in racing sims or providing any data
- lack of laser scan data for the more obscure tracks

Then when they release a game and it has five cars and seven tracks, people go "why should I play this AC has 1000 cars and tracks etc." :rolleyes:
 
smeisinger
davehenrie said:
I collected some cars & tracks in AC that were not available for rF2, tried to race them offline and a car beached at the same corner everytime. Another track had no cameras...(had to download those)
Another track, another car beached, everytime. I did like the variety, but never got one race completed. Haven't booted it up in probably a year.
Click to expand...
you should stay away from the russian bootleg sites and download proper mods here on racedepartment
 
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Gevatter
Premium
Durge Driven said:
If AC is your go to sim, numbers drop off became less popular would it matter to you ?
So why do you think rF2 users are any different ?
Click to expand...
I personally as an offline only player don't care for player numbers for my enjoyment, but think it's the same argument that has plagued AMS2 since release.

Low player numbers mean low online population, therefore less incentive for people to switch from another sim -> user base doesn't grow or only grows very slowly. Low player numbers also means less sales -> less money to invest -> slower development and/or less possibilities to expand.
 
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B
Great, fun track and the added detail via LS is welcome.
What cars will accompany the new Q drop.
I always buy the new contend as a way to support the developers like with reiza dlc. And also enjoy new cars and tracks.
Just hoping for a lot more of rfactor to come, more contend, more physics models, more engine updates... Heck, even rfactor3 eventually.
 
T
R.Man said:
100% agree. May be this is why AC is still the most popular/used sim. It's not the best in term of physic but it has almost cars and tracks for many real life series. You can simulate a full 2022 BTCC season with all the tracks and some of the cars via mods. Another examples are F1,Indycar,WTCR,GT2,etc. Sim devs should aknowledge that the pleasure of testing a race week end on a sim before watching it on TV is priceless. And despite what people think AC modded content are poor content, they are improving every year. No studio can compete against a community of modders that improve specific tracks or cars with dedication day after day. And with the technology evolutions, soon most of modded local track will be photogrammetry or laserscanned.
Click to expand...
Fun fact is that rF2 had a full season BTCC mod for quite along time but it just doesn't have the exposure that other mods have. And when I take a look at the skin section here at RD it's astonishing how much of the content that fill's up some of those grids in AC are ripped content, crapping content basicly from everywhere like ACC, rF2 and the F1 games. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't claim that ripping isn't a thing on rF2 either, but the very good legit mods for those products are clearly not enough to fill up full grids or offer full seasons in any of the products. If we are completely honest, that's a pipedream.

For rF2 for example the biggest part of the car content for a series like IMSA comes from S397 themself, while most of the tracks are done by modders. rF2 has the most complete IMSA package available if you are looking for legal content. You have other modding teams like Enduracers who offer allmost full ELMS season packs for their mods or skin packs for the official Porsche Cup car, but that's more or less the exception than a rule. From my perspective there needs to be some kind of symbiosis between the devs and the modders and you will end up with a very healthy product. And offering a full season with all cars and tracks with the quality that we are seeing in racing sims right now is allmost impossible, unless you have a huge budget.
 
Just2Laps
I was a little bit worried when I was reading this news because I was pretty sure that Donington Park is already in my track list in rFactor2.

so, I was right, but it's not an offical track, it's a mod from the workshop.

Though it is a mod the quality is not too bad in my opinion and I was asking myself why to buy a DLC when we have it available as a pretty good mod ?

Anybody has a clue what (beside the better graphics myabe) could be the benfits of the DLC compared with the mod ???

I have placed a short video showing the mod in the media section if you like.
 
trichens
Premium
I'll make a few assumptions here...
If we assume that the projected BTCC sim/game is to be based on rf2, then for this to work the current UK tracks would have to be made available.

I think we'd also have to assume that the BTCC sim/game would be closed so third party mods - either tracks or cars - can't be added.
Otherwise that would make it impossible to sell new versions of the game each year.
There's not much point in shelling out tons of cash for licences only to have the modding community circumvent this by making mods free or cheaply.

If we also assume that online BTCC racing would use the rF2 CS system, then they will require tracks and cars that will be "recognised" as legitimate DLC content.

We'd also have to consider that the target market for the BTCC may not have any idea that sim racing communites like RD exist, have no idea on how to download and install mods - they just want a sim/game they turn on and race with all the cars and tracks available.

You can't really run a commercial business model based on individuals to generate, and update, the content needed for the business. If there is a bug in a track when you don't control the code then your product will suffer due to something beyond your control.

So I'd expect other UK tracks to make their appearance as official DLC over the coming months as well as BTCC cars - well I hope so :)
 
scales
Interesting to see at 1:17 in the video just where the grandstand is on the pitstraight you can see what looks like a player ID that could looks like a dev name that could reflect BTCC
 

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